A Sword's Poem Read online

  A Sword’s Poem

  Leah Cutter

  Copyright © 2015 Leah Cutter

  All rights reserved

  Published 2015 by Knotted Road Press

  by arrangement with Book View Café

  www.KnottedRoadPress.com

  www.BookViewCafe.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-480-2

  Cover and interior design copyright © 2015 Knotted Road Press

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  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  The Making

  A Sword’s Poem

  Volume I

  One

  Oh That Horrible Day!

  Hikaru

  Oh that horrible day! I shall never forget it, not ever. Not even if I lived long enough for the rain to wear Mount Shirayama down to a mere pebble. Never have I been so frightened—nor, afterwards, so alone.

  The day started fair—pale blue skies washed by spring tears, with only a scattering of clouds left behind by the night. Fragrant winds tickled the pink and purple flowers dancing by the side of the road. The uguisu chirped and sang as we passed from the open fields to under the trees of the black pine forest.

  As was proper, we were on our way to the temple of Inari, the Rice Goddess, to pay our respects and ask her blessings on our union. It was the perfect weather for Norihiko’s and my first pilgrimage together. We’d been married such a short while, even as mortals would count it: barely a handful of days.

  It was rare for any of the kitsune to marry—most would say doomed—but we were young and foolish. We believed our love was stronger than the accumulated wisdom of our people.

  I rode in a wickerwork carriage painted gold and red, fully enclosed and with three servants, of course. Bursts of green bamboo emblems ran across the top of the carriage, while the wheels spun merrily with golden spokes. Our outriders had matching bamboo emblems on their harnesses and saddles. They were mostly human, well–trained guards who’d dedicated their lives to the protection of my family and our kind.

  Brilliant white oxen drew us along at an unfashionably slow pace, allowing us to enjoy the scenery and the weather. The road was clear through the trees, well–marked but not rutted. Only a few houses lay deep in the woods, the peasants stopping to gape at the richness of our troop. What a magnificent sight we must have been!

  I trailed only a smidgen of my sleeve outside the carriage, letting it float and waft in the air. I didn’t feel the need to show off my outfit, or to impress what few travelers we might encounter on this quiet road. I had all that I desired that day: a devoted husband; spring breezes sweet enough to be perfumed; and an immortal’s life ahead of me.

  As we rode along, Norihiko would range with his mighty steed, both before and after the main carriage, gathering beautiful mementoes of our trip to bring to me: a tiny pinecone hanging from a fragrant branch, still sparkling with dew; a sprig of brush clover, full of the tangy essence of spring; a partly–decayed leaf, half still in its yellow fall splendor, while the other half was just a spiderweb–thin splay of veins—a shadowy reminder of its former glory.

  I laughed and clapped my hands every time Norihiko presented me with one of these treats. I crafted poems of thanks in return, which made him go seek more splendid trinkets to share with me.

  If we hadn’t been traveling as we were, along a public road with outriders and servants, he probably would have tried gifting me with kisses as well—and I would have let him.

  His last visit, he brought me a shiny black raven’s feather, comparing its sleek richness to my own hair. Our families weren’t close to the bird clans—none of the kitsune were. To the outrage of my servants, I braided it into a strand of my hair.

  Norihiko had given it to me. There couldn’t be anything wrong with it.

  I was so foolish. So young. So in love.

  Ξ

  The attack came that afternoon without warning, during the Hour of the Lamb. We still rode slowly through the black pine forest, taking our time, enjoying the pleasantness of the day, the ease of the road.

  I had never envied my mother her gift of foresight, but that day, I wished I’d borne the burden of it for our family.

  Not that she necessarily would have seen this. If she had seen it, she would have warned me. But only some things are meant to changed. Many were meant to be, and nothing could change them, in the balance of things.

  Arrows zinged out of the trees from all sides, sliding easily through the lattice work of the carriage, one piercing my left shoulder while a second went through the ribs on my left side, both of them pinning me to the back of the seat.

  The shock and pain stole my breath and rendered me unable to scream. The carriage suddenly lurched to one side, as if a weight had been dropped on the right corner, while the oxen began to run, jerking and jolting the carriage behind them.

  More than enough screams came from the servants attending me. All three had been shot.

  Fuyoko died instantly, the arrow piercing her jugular. Ume wailed, her hands cupped over her stomach, as if trying to save the blood spilling from the wound there.

  Yukiko also cried out, her voice sharpened by pain, but she mainly shouted at the driver, trying to get him to stop. She had a single arrow sticking out of her left arm like an odd banner, and her flank bled easily.

  Was our off–balanced gait because the driver had been shot, and now hung off the edge of the carriage?

  The carriage tilted farther to the right. Yukiko clung to a handle near the ceiling of the carriage with her good arm. I was still pinned, unable to get away. I worked frantically to pull the arrows from my left side. The other two lolled like life–sized dolls, stripped of their magic and strings.

  Fuyoko fell over into my lap, an arrow sticking out from her neck like an obscene flag. I pushed her away like a cursed piece of wood.

  I finally found the strength to pull the arrow from my side. The crimson waterfall that flowed from it made me wonder, for the first time in my life, if I might die. Weakness flooded over me.

  It wasn’t the sight of the blood.

  The arrow had been spelled. I couldn’t smell anything beyond the gore filling the carriage, but if I could, it would have been a foul odor.

  It takes a lot to kill one of the kitsune. This arrow, and the others, had been specially made with that task in mind.

  How was my poor Norihiko going to survive? What sort of attack was my love under? Had he and his mighty steed managed to break free?

  Looking back, now, I realize there wasn’t anything that I could have done to save him, even with my magic and my wiles. But at the time, it was all I could think of.

  I had to save my precious mate.

  With my blood–covered fingers, I couldn’t get a good grip on the arrow pinning my left shoulder to the seat of the carriage. I banged on the roof of the carriage, hoping to rouse the driver if he was there and merely wounded.

  There was no response.

  The carriage tilted suddenly to the other side. Above the chaos and shrieks I heard a loud tear. I still had the arrow stuck through my shoulder, but at least now I was free of the seat cushion.

  My stomach lurched when I realized what I had to do next.

  I didn’t
want to touch Ume. She flopped next to the door, blocking my exit. I had no choice. As I tugged her to one side, she looked at me with wide, blinking eyes, mouthing words with no sounds, like a beached trout.

  I looked away as quickly as I could, knowing I would have nightmares about her silent screams for many years.

  I pushed at the carriage door, trying to open it, my fingers still slippery from the blood.

  Yukiko came to help, adding her weight to the handle, so we could push open the left door.

  Trees rushed by the opening. The oxen raced along the dirt path, nothing impeding their stampede. The carriage rocked steadily from one side to the other, throwing Yukiko and me together, then apart, both of us crying out from our wounds.

  I think we would have jumped. We both considered it.

  However, before we did something as rash as that, risking additional injury, the carriage hit a hidden boulder on the left and we rose up onto two wheels.

  For a few breathless moments, we hung there, clinging to the open doorway as the carriage dropped to its side beneath us.

  Fortunately, this tangled the oxen’s harness enough to snap it, and the sound of the beasts’ hooves faded into the distance.

  The carriage slithered to a stop.

  The silence that immediately wrapped around us was a terrible thing. How could it be so peaceful, so tranquil, when we were so badly hurt? The uguisu resumed its song. Bamboo clanked hollowly in the wind nearby. A white and pink butterfly trilled across the path, as if nothing could disturb its day.

  The quiet oppressed us, made us hushed and still.

  It probably saved our lives.

  Without saying a word to each other, Yukiko and I freed ourselves from the carriage. She was shorter than me, but less injured: one arrow had grazed her flank, another her shoulder. She wedged one foot between the blood–stained cushions, hoisted herself up, then scrambled out the open door.

  I tried the same trick, and with her pulling on my unwounded arm, escaped the overturned carriage as well.

  We crouched beside the carriage, panting from our exertions. The pain from my injuries washed over me in constant waves. Silent tears streamed down my face. The arrow still in my shoulder stole my strength.

  I had to rid myself of the evil thing before I could continue.

  Just using gestures, I directed Yukiko to snap the end off, then push it through, out the other side. It burned like pure fire. I bit my own hand to keep myself from screaming.

  Once it was gone, though, I felt myself healing. Exhaustion slammed into me. I longed to lie down, to sleep, so that I could wake up and find that this was only a horrible dream.

  When a terrified shriek wrenched through the still air, my false hopes shattered.

  I stood, ready to run back up the road.

  Yukiko grabbed my uninjured arm.

  I shook it, trying to dislodge her, but she wouldn’t let go.

  “We must use stealth, my lady,” Yukiko whispered. “They cannot know we still live.”

  Oh, how I longed for her wise tongue not to have spoken! However, I knew she told the truth.

  Our silence had kept us alive so far.

  No one will ever know what it cost me to crawl back up the road, but I did what I must. I didn’t have the strength to keep us both hidden with my magic. I was too frightened to even consider leaving Yukiko behind.

  I don’t believe I was thinking in terms of revenge yet—truthfully, I wasn’t thinking much at all. However, now, looking back, I wonder if that seed had already been planted, burrowing deep inside me when the first arrow struck. If that long, slow crawl, being more quiet than mice, warmed those flames, helped bring them to life.

  The road slanted gently, something I hadn’t noticed earlier as we’d ridden so blithely along it. Just as Yukiko and I crested the slope, a bright flash of blue greeted us—a cold light, as if emanating from a frozen corpse.

  Then a swirling ball of red and gold, the same colors as Norihiko’s family crest, rose from the ground into the hands of a short, fat, tonsured man dressed in dark robes.

  He carefully placed the ball into a box held by a servant standing next to him, then he strode to his horse.

  In moments, they were gone. The road was empty. Sunlight filtered gentle and golden through the trees, dappling the bodies lying there.

  The time for stealth was over. I dragged myself upright and staggered as quickly as I could back to our party.

  I didn’t spare a look for the corpses we passed. The outriders, as well as their horses, had all been slain. I would light incense for them later and say my prayers.

  My eyes were fixed on Norihiko.

  He lay just a little ways up, still, too still. My brightest star dimmed and shadowed.

  It was worse than I could have possibly imagined. Foul arrows pierced his arms and thighs, blood pooling on the road.

  But those hadn’t killed him.

  A huge hole lay in the center of his chest, burned and ragged along the edges.

  I screamed. I wailed. Poor Yukiko tried to console me, but I knew nothing outside my grief.

  It wasn’t fair that my beloved had been taken from me. What kind of awful fate cut down one so young and fair, full of the promise of immortality, before he’d even reached his third decade?

  The stench of the magic that had killed Norihiko finally made me retch and break away, bringing me back to the coolness of the afternoon under the black pine trees.

  Norihiko’s wound stank of the ashes of graveyards. That magical blue light that had marked the end of the ceremony—that had also been chilling.

  Fear filled me. What had that evil sorcerer done to Norihiko? The rank odor of his wound, the way it dripped pus, told my waking self things I didn’t want to know.

  I shied away and let myself wallow, unthinking, in my grief instead.

  Yukiko dragged me over to a horse that had come wandering back and made me climb up on it. I wasn’t dressed for walking down a rough road, with my layers of skirts and underskirts and robes, my delicate slippers that wouldn’t last walking down a rocky path.

  We needed to find people, humans, to bind our wounds, help us gather our dead, and loan us a sacred space for the funeral rites and fires.

  No matter how I might deny it, I had to burn Norihiko’s body quickly. It would not decay like a normal body. It would solidify, like jelly, full of pus and poison.

  It was all so unfair. Both his death, and the actions I would now have to take.

  Ξ

  Later that night, Yukiko finally agreed to leave me alone in the shelter of my room at the inn we’d found. She let me know that she was right outside the door, ready to burst in if I raised my voice beyond a whisper to call her.

  When she gathered together her blankets, I knew that she was literally sleeping on the other side of the door, on the floor.

  I’m not sure what she thought I’d do. I wasn’t about to hurt myself, no. Not yet. I had too many other things to do first.

  I blew out all the candles in the simple room—just mats on a raised platform in the corner for a bed, a plain wooden block for a pillow, windows overlooking the yard to the back, where the innkeeper kept a careful garden full of herbs.

  A sliver of moon kept me company. Its cold light gave me chills, but also, heated my blood.

  I let myself remember what I’d seen that afternoon. The moon helped me remember details I’d not noted at the time.

  The magical light. The coldness of it. It had been death magic.

  Which meant the sorcerer had to have been a Taoist, one of those obsessed with immortality.

  Not only had he taken Norihiko’s life, but his soul as well. That beautiful gold and red ball had been my love’s true spirit.

  In the quiet of the darkness, a weight settled around me. A new pilgrimage had been laid on my shoulders. Instead of traveling to Inari’s temple to ask for her blessing, I needed to find the soul of my mate and free it.

  Not so it could travel to t
he “Pure Land”—I didn’t believe the empty promises of the Buddhists, nor in their Hell.

  My Norihiko would go to Heaven, as foretold by the good deeds he’d done in his short years.

  I knew I would never join him, though, because of the deeds I was about to commit in his name.

  Two

  Cool Darkness Curled Around

  Norihiko

  Cool darkness curled around Norihiko, but he barely felt it.

  Nothing could soothe the kiln–like heat burning through his core. He glowed like a beacon in the night. He felt trapped in a land of extremes, the darkest blackness just beyond the brightest light, unimaginable heat surrounded by blessed coolness.

  He must still be sleeping, though. A nightmare brought on by too much sun and riding through the heat of the day.

  Norihiko woke himself, only to find he was surrounded by flames. Their brilliance dazzled him, made him dizzy, but he couldn’t reclose his eyes.

  Where was he? Were the Buddhists right after all? Was there a Hell for Norihiko and all the kitsune, as some of the fanatics proclaimed?

  Norihiko struggled to get away, to bow out from the dance the flames demanded.

  It was only then he discovered he no longer had limbs, or body, or even a head. He discerned the flames through some other sense, not sight but awareness, knowing the fire surrounded him, a living, cackling thing, scorching hot but not burning him.

  The flames grew brighter and the heat intensified. If Norihiko still had a body, his sweat would form a river.

  The attack suddenly came back to him, the arrows singing out of the woods, the screams of the horses and his men, how they’d tried to fight but were outnumbered, hemmed in.

  What had happened to his darling Hikaru? Had she been killed in the ambush? Was she also dancing in the flames? He struggled to see beyond the bright light, through to the darkness he could barely sense, but there was nothing else there.

  Norihiko found he couldn’t weep in this new form, though his very soul wanted to cry out at the harshness of his fate.

  Then the first blow came.