Heretic, Betrayers of Kamigawa

CHAPTER 7

Lady Pearl-Ear’s captivity came to a sudden end. During breakfast she was still a prisoner, confined at the daimyo’s behest. After her morning meal, the soldiers came into her cell, removed her manacles, and told her she must go.

She asked about an audience with the daimyo and the chance to bid Princess Michiko farewell, but the soldiers’ orders were precise. Lady Pearl-Ear of the kitsune was to be released and escorted to the borders of the realm, forbidden to return. She was not to see or speak to anyone on the way.

It did not take Pearl-Ear long to prepare. She had no personal effects, and her cell was sparsely furnished. The guards offered her a small parcel tied up with string, but she did not open it to inspect the contents. They told her it was from her former classroom, where she had tutored Michiko in the history of Kamigawa and instructed her in the ways of diplomacy.

Bearing the small parcel under one arm, Pearl-Ear followed the sentries up to ground level and out through the tower gates. She saw bitter loss and confusion on the faces of humans she passed, but no one spoke or acknowledged her. Numb, weary, and concerned for the princess, Pearl-Ear walked in silence for the better part of a day until she and her escorts reached the border between the daimyo’s kingdom and the Jukai Forest. Farther north lay kitsune territory and Sugi Hayashi, her own home village.

Pearl-Ear bowed to the guards as they turned to go. Only one returned her gesture-the rest were too bent on being shut of their charge who had so enraged the daimyo. She stood quietly with her hands folded around the parcel until the last soldier vanished from sight.

Pearl-Ear’s reserve fell from her, and she darted into the cover of the nearby trees. With her fingers working the string around the parcel, she raised her head, oriented herself toward home, and began to run. It would take a human several days to reach her village, but a kitsune at full speed could do it in less than half that time. Her people were graceful and quick, and she knew this route well. She barely needed to watch where she was putting her feet as she navigated around exposed roots and low-hanging branches.

The last of the parcel’s covering fell away. Still moving forward at a ferocious rate, Pearl-Ear peered down at the bundle between her gray-furred paws.

Her white teacher’s robe had been freshly laundered, starched, and folded into a neat square with sharp corners. Pearl-Ear tossed it aside with barely a second glance.

Beneath the robe were two thick scrolls: a historical reference about the spiritual practices of her people, which Michiko-hime had requested and Pearl-Ear had sent up from her village. The second scroll was a collection of progress reports outlining Michiko’s course of study, written in Pearl-Ear’s own hand. She tucked these away inside her prisoner’s garb without breaking the rhythm of her run.

The final item was a small piece of jewelry-an elegant gold cameo on a silver chain. Pearl-Ear thumbed the catch and opened the cameo, revealing an ink drawing of Lady Yoshino, the daimyo’s favored concubine and mother of Michiko. The opposite face of the cameo carried a fine sketch of the princess herself.

Pearl-Ear clicked the cameo shut and looped the chain around her neck. She redoubled her efforts, running faster and faster until the trees themselves became a blur around her.

She could not leave Michiko under lock and key in the daimyo’s tower. She would return to her people and consult the elders. Pearl-Ear could not free Michiko by force of arms, and she would not free her through stealth or trickery. With the Sugi Hayashi elders behind her, she could raise a delegation of kitsune diplomats and send them to petition Konda on his daughter’s behalf. Pearl-Ear herself might be exiled, but she would drill the delegation in all the proper procedures and give them the arguments that would stir Konda to mercy. He must be made to see that Michiko was not only blameless but also in great danger without the full attention and support of her father.

The forest called out to her as she ran. The air was cleaner here, tinged with the scent of cedar, and it felt soothing on her face. The air in Eiganjo was stale and smelled of decay, even outside the walls of her cell. Sunlight streamed down through the cedar leaves and droplets of dew fell as birds lighted on branches.

Her people were a curious mix, wild and solitary on one hand, maintaining political and social intercourse with the humans of Towabara on the other. Though her thoughts were wholly given to Michiko’s well-being, Pearl-Ear’s heart sang at the opportunity to run free through the wild once more. Living in the tower had been bad enough; living under it in a windowless room had been even worse. Now that she was free, she could feel the life slowly flowing back into her. Until now, she had not realized how dead captivity had made her feel.

Exultant but ever-mindful of her duty, Pearl-Ear ran on.

Pearl-Ear reached Sugi Hayashi as the last rays of sun were withdrawing behind the horizon. Her legs had lost much of their muscle tone during her confinement, and though they pained her now she felt as if she could run for another day, another three days if she had to.

The sight of her village hit her like a blow in the stomach, however, crippling her forward momentum. She stumbled and staggered as she came to a halt, her eyes wide and her hands clenching.

Sugi Hayashi was no longer a village but a scattered pile of debris. Farmer’s fences had been trampled, and the villagers’ homes burned. The great square, where elders like Lady Silk-Eyes once addressed the population, had been broken like a dry field under the plowshare. Where dozens of kitsune had once kneeled and prayed, now there were only great clods of earth and jagged rocks. All around, smoke rose from the debris, filling the site of the former village with a pale gray fog that reminded Pearl-Ear of Eiganjo. Had the Kami War come here with the same force it had attacked the tower? Or was this the punishment handed down by an angry daimyo for what he saw as the kitsune betrayal of his trust?

Pearl-Ear stifled a sob. She clutched the cameo around her neck and went into the village, shuffling like a sleepwalker. Ahead was the dwelling in which Elder Silk-Eyes lived, now an obscene tangle of broken wood and burned soil. Farther on were the barracks where Captain Silver-Foot and his retainers stayed between patrols through the woods. Over to her left was the home she and her family had lived in as kits, the same one she had visited briefly before Michiko left the tower.

The reason for the village’s destruction came to her, and she was ashamed not to have recalled it sooner. What drove her and Michiko from the village so many weeks before, one of the many reasons she could not have returned the princess to Konda before she did, was the same thing that had leveled Sugi Hayashi.

At the time, an unusual force of sanzoku bandits and mountain akki had been moving through the forest. Pearl-Ear’s village was in their path. After conferring with the political and military authorities responsible for the village, they all agreed to take Michiko-hime away to safety while Captain Silver-Foot and a contingent of the daimyo’s cavalry held the raiders off. Pearl-Ear and a hand-picked team of escorts had led the princess away from this battle but into a far more dangerous encounter.

Pearl-Ear tore her thoughts back to the present. She had escaped with Michiko before the marauding horde reached the village and had been pursued, pursuing, or imprisoned ever since. She had no idea what happened here.

Concentrating, opening her senses, Pearl-Ear tried to determine the course of events. There were no traces of the villagers, but that did not surprise her-kitsune were expert at not being discovered. There was precious little evidence that the enemy had been here, either, apart from the occasional flash of akki rage and sanzoku brutality. If the raiders had prevailed, why weren’t there more signs of them? If the villagers had won, who had destroyed the village?

“Dreadful, isn’t it?”

Pearl-Ear started, clutching at her cameo as she spun to face the source of the sound. There, on the edge of the tree line, leaned a small male kitsune. He was lithe and compact, with a mischievous gleam in his eye.

“Hello, sister,” the newcomer said. “I respected what I’m sure were your wishes and left you in the daimyo’s prison. As you have noticed-” he spread his arms wide-“there have been some changes while you were away.”

“Sharp-Ear, my brother,” she said. “You were right to wait. I am back now, and I am glad to see you.”

“And I you.” Sharp-Ear bowed gracefully, then slouched back against the tree. “Konda sent word that you were being released … or rather, one of his generals did.”

“That would have been General Takeno,” Pearl-Ear said. “He was always a man of honor.”

Sharp-Ear nodded. “He also said that Konda was through with our village and that he never wanted to see another kitsune in Eiganjo again.” The little fox-man waggled his eyebrows. “I take it the daimyo was not so overjoyed by the return of his daughter that he forgot who was minding her when she left?”

“That is an understatement. I was treated like a criminal, shackled, isolated, forbidden even to go outside. Michiko as well. I’m sure it’s much worse for her, poor girl.”

Sharp-Ear’s playful expression did not change, but Pearl-Ear heard anger under her brother’s playful façade. “And the ochimusha who compounded my error and abducted the princess? What of Toshi Umezawa?”

“Still at large, as far as I know, but I’m not in much of a position to comment on current events.”

“Indeed. Would you care for a quick lesson?”

“I would, brother. I am full of questions. How did the battle go? Where is Silk-Ear? Where is Silver-Foot? Where are the rest of the villagers?” She spread her arms out, mimicking Sharp-Ear’s earlier gesture. “Where is the village?”

Sharp-Ear cocked his head, amused. He beckoned Pearl-Ear toward him. “Walk with me,” he said, as he turned and strode into the forest. “By the time I answer the first question, you will see the answers to the rest.”

Sharp-Ear had always been a storyteller, and he warmed to his subject as he and Pearl-Ear made their way through the trees.

“As you recall,” he said, “the daimyo’s cavalry charged the akki before they ever reached the village. I was with them for that. If there had been but two hundred, or even three, we would have slaughtered the lot of them before they ever set foot in Sugi Hayashi. However, there were more than we expected, more than there could have been. We always knew akki bred quickly, but their patron kami must have blessed them. Their numbers seemed to double every few days.”

Pearl-Ear scowled at the thought of an extended siege. “How long did the final battle last?”

“Only a few hours. Silver-Foot and his retainers more than made up for the debacle in the forest. I’m told that less than a score of kitsune managed to hold off the entire horde for an hour without taking a single casualty of their own.” Sharp-Ear scowled but shook off his troubling thoughts. “It made all the difference to be defending instead of attacking. They forced the advancing akki into a single choke point, rendering their superior numbers meaningless. Blade-Tail told me the blood was so thick that akki corpses actually floated away.

“Then, a gift from the spirits: Captain Nagao, commander of the daimyo’s forces here, was brought in alive from the massacre in the woods.”

“You said he was dead.”

“I was sure of it. He took an arrow to the chest and a long fall from his horse. I dragged him as far as I could with my broken arm, but in the end I had to leave him to get back here and warn the village. Perhaps if I had been stronger, he could have saved even more of his riders from the akki.”

Pearl-Ear hiked on in silence for a few paces. “You are remarkably contrite, brother.” It was true-her brother usually never brooded about his follies. Most times, in fact, he seemed to take perverse pleasure in admitting his best intentions when his half-baked schemes had gone awry.

“I have grown in the past few months, sister. Not matured, mind you, for that is still beyond the scope of possibility, but even I cannot avoid the truth. I made a series of poor decisions, ones that have brought much grief to those I love and respect. Nagao could call me a coward, and I would not be able to rebut him.”

“I can, brother, and I will. You are no coward, Sharp-Ear.”

“Thank you. I will endeavor to deserve that high opinion. Now, back to my tale. While the kitsune samurai battled the akki to a standstill, our rangers worked their way around the horde on each side. We knew they were being led by twin sanzoku brothers … well, they were being led by one twin after I put an arrow through the other one’s neck in the woods … but the plan was to capture, kill, or incapacitate the humans. Akki are not known for their brilliant battle tactics, you see. They tend to throw themselves at the enemy until one side or the other runs out of army. In this case, Silver-Ear and his men could have defeated a thousand akki who were following that plan.

“Alas, rapid reproduction was not the only blessing the raiders’ myojin had bestowed. A minor kami was with them, a two-legged, goat-faced brute who belched out red-hot rocks like an erupting volcano. By the time our rangers realized that the humans had moved on, this kami had arrived on the front.”

“The sanzoku left the goblins alone?”

“Yes. Whatever they were doing here in Jukai, they were confident enough to leave three hundred members of their horde behind just to flatten our village. The volcano kami was like an entire battery of heavy cannon, only far more mobile. We weren’t prepared for that kind of fight.

“His first blast wiped out three akki for every one kitsune. Silver-Foot lost part of an ear and hasn’t heard out of it since. And do you know what the akki did, when their own ally fired on them? Do you know what they said when burned bits of their friends and relatives fell on them like snow? They cheered. They howled and capered like the battle was already won.

“Oh, yes, they ran for their lives and cleared the field so they themselves wouldn’t get blasted, but they celebrated their own destruction because it was a preview of ours.

“The volcano kami fired again, and again. Each time it launched a missile, kitsune fell, houses collapsed, fields went up in flames. We … they pierced him with a hundred arrows, but he still kept coming. He blew holes in our tight formations; he brought whole trees down in front of our advancing warriors. I believe he would have destroyed everything and everyone if given the chance. Fortunately, Lady Silk-Eyes had already led most of the villagers into the woods. She knew how to hide large groups. The akki could search for a year and they’d never find a single hair from her tail.”

“This is terrible, Sharp-Ear. How did any of the warriors survive?”

“By stopping the kami in his tracks.”

“But how?”

“It was Nagao’s idea. He sent a message to Silver-Foot: the best way to stop a cannon is to cap it. He also sent four of his best riders on four of his biggest mounts. They lashed ropes to a section of tree trunk and slung it between them, two to a side. Then, they galloped straight at the kami and slammed the tree into him like it was a battering ram and his chest was the door.”

Sharp-Ear turned and grinned. “Blade-Tail told me the kami fired right as the tree made contact. His shots were powerful, but the mass and momentum of the century cedar were more so. The explosion shattered half of the battering ram and killed two of the horses, but most of its fury was reflected back on the kami itself. When the smoke cleared, he was in three large pieces, still struggling. Silver-Foot himself put his sword through the kami’s brain.”

Pearl-Ear nodded. “What about the akki?”

“The rangers drove most of them back into the forest. The samurai mopped up those who remained. The villagers endured, but the village was lost. Elder Silk-Eyes says we will rebuild it, in time. For now, the kitsune of Sugi Hayashi are living as our ancestors did, wild and out of doors.”

“I must speak with Silk-Eyes,” Pearl-Ear said. “She and the other elders must authorize an official visit to Eiganjo on behalf-”

“Slow down, sister. We are almost there. Once we are, you can tell Silk-Eyes and the rest of us yourself.”

For a moment, Sharp-Ear was again like his old self, playfully harboring a secret just for the sake of revealing it later. As touched as she was by his words of regret earlier, Pearl-Ear was heartened by the return of the energetic and conniving Sharp-Ear who exasperated her so often.

Like the village itself, her people had been bested but not beaten. As long as there were kitsune elders to offer wise counsel, kitsune warriors to fight, and kitsune tricksters to stack the deck in their favor, her people would endure.

If there was hope for them, perhaps there was hope for all Kamigawa.