Spirit's Chosen (21 page)

The valley where the wolves dwelled was steep-sided and wide. The hillsides bore the scars of many rockfalls, making it look as if some titanic beast had raked its claws through the groves of oak, cedar, pine, and camphor trees. We had to make camp several times as we skirted the settled land. We were seeking a vantage point from which we could observe the Ookami without being detected and make our plans accordingly. How high was their palisade? How well maintained? How heavily warded? Had Ryu’s ongoing series of triumphs made him and his people so overconfident about their own security that they no longer
kept gate guards? Did the man assigned to the village watchtower take his duty seriously, or was it just a fine opportunity to nap away the day?
Why should I strain my eyes when all I’ll ever see approaching us is a stray boar or a curious fox? Who would be foolhardy enough to attack the Ookami? We have conquered them all!

As we continued to look for the ideal spot for seeing without being seen, we often went so deep into the woods that we could not get so much as a fleeting glimpse of the valley. Many tiny brooks crossed our path, their banks dappled with the hooves of kamoshika and deer, as well as the prints of smaller animals. There were even more signs of game marking our narrow, winding route, a trail so heavily used by the forest creatures that even Kaya’s trained eye was not able to tell the difference between them.

“No really
big
beasts, anyhow,” she said. “Nothing too dangerous, like a herd of wild boar or the
other
kind of wolves. And no
oni
, either.”

“How would you know what sort of footprints an
oni
would make?”

“Hey, I can imagine what they’d be like. I’ve heard the stories. A monster with taloned feet who’s bigger than five men is going to leave a mark even
you
could identify.”

“I heard the stories too, and an
oni
is only as big as
two
men,” I shot back. “Besides, since we turned off the main path, we’re avoiding the mountain ogre’s territory.”

“I hope someone told all that to the ogre.”

At one point, we encountered a stream broad and deep enough for fish to flicker through the water. We crouched on the rocks and tried our luck snaring them with our bare
hands. To my own amazement, I caught two young trout, one after the other. Kaya was annoyed to see her hunter’s status threatened, plunged wildly after the next set of glittering scales to swim past her, and made such a splash that she wound up empty-handed and soaking wet from neck to waist.

She sat back on her haunches and scowled at me. “Don’t you
dare
say one word.”

I pretended innocence. “What would I say?”

“That the rabbits aren’t the only ones laughing at me now.” She sat cross-legged on the rock, chin in hand. “Are you still willing to let me have some of your hair? I want to try making that bowstring after all.”

Kaya began her task that evening while I broiled the trout. I watched, fascinated, as she began working with the long, thin strand she’d cut from the back of my head.

“Have you ever done that before?” I asked.

“No, but Mother taught me how to make thread. It’s pretty much the same thing, except this is something I
want
to do.” She paused and flexed her fingers. “I also hope I’m better at it. Mother said my threads were such a lumpy tangle that you could use them for bird snares.”

She did not finish making her bowstring that night and was annoyed with herself all the next day. It didn’t help that we stumbled across a full-grown mountain hare that sprang back and forth across our path as if he knew we had no way to bring him down.

“Rabbits laugh, but hares are
sarcastic
,” Kaya complained, throwing a rock that the creature dodged with contempt. “I had to stow the bowstring in my bag, wrapped
in some oak leaves. It had better not get loose or it’ll be tangled and I’ll have to start over.”

“If that’s what you have to do, I still have lots more hair,” I said.

“It would be better if I could find something stronger to twist into it. Hmm. Kamoshika hair might work.”

We had seen the prints of those short-horned, long-faced, shaggy mountain dwellers, and even caught sight of one as it fled before us, heading for the upper slopes of the valley, and yet …

“How will you get kamoshika hair for your bowstring if you can’t catch a kamoshika without your bow?” I asked.

“I might find some tufts snagged in a bush. It’s spring; the beasts will be shedding.” She sounded self-assured. “I’m going to keep my eyes open for that, add it to the bowstring, and the next sassy hare I meet had better watch out!”

Kaya became obsessed with searching the undergrowth for bits of kamoshika hair, looking left and right more than straight ahead. I warned her that if she didn’t pay attention, she’d trip over a root or walk into a tree, but she ignored me. That was why, when I stopped at the edge of a clearing, she walked right into me and sent us both sprawling.

“Off,”
I snarled, trying to push myself up.

“All right, all right, stop acting like a tail-singed dog.” She rolled to one side, stood, and helped me stand. “It’s your own fault for pulling up short like that. What’s wrong? Did you see a spider?”

“I saw
that
.” I waved my hand, indicating what could only be called a gift from the gods. The clearing was
exactly what we needed. The side facing the valley was screened by a row of young trees, survivors of a small landslip that had taken down the rest of their grove. It was easy to look between them and get an unobstructed view of the Ookami settlement, but someone looking up from the valley would not be able to see anything on the mountainside but forest. There was also a rivulet running across the open ground, plentiful piles of fallen twigs and branches for campfires, and even a wild mulberry bush.

“Sickly thing,” Kaya said when I showed it to her. “I doubt it will bear much fruit.”

“If it grows so heavy with berries that all its twigs snap off, we’ll never know,” I said. “We’ll be long gone by that time.”

We began making ourselves at home in the clearing. Kaya unpacked her bag and was delighted to find that her half-made bowstring had not become a nest of knots. She sat beside the largest pile of deadwood and resumed working on it. I unpacked my sack as well, taking stock of our food before making a short, exploratory walk through the woods beyond our camp. I hoped to find as many edible plants as possible, for until Kaya was once more able to wield her bow, we would have to depend on our own dwindling supplies and whatever we could forage from the land.

I could always go back to that stream where I caught the fish
, I thought.
It wasn’t
too
far from here. And maybe I can also …

Mulling over the possibilities, I wandered back toward our campsite, unaware that I had become as distracted as Kaya when she’d bumped into me earlier. That was why I did not notice the mountain ogre lurking behind a tree
until I was close enough for one huge, hairy paw to dig into my arm and haul me off my feet.

“Who are you?”
he roared, stinking breath hot in my face. He raised his hand high, leaving me to dangle painfully while my shoulder felt ready to tear itself apart. Panicked, I groped for the strips of cloth barely covering his chest. When my fingers tightened on a handful of fabric, I pulled myself close, clinging to him like an infant to its mother. The ripe stench of sweat and rotten meat that radiated from his flesh made my head spin, but I had managed to take the strain off my shoulder, so I bore it.

“What are you doing to me?” the
oni
demanded, goggling at me with heavy-lidded eyes. “Who are you? Don’t touch me! Go away! Why do you take my things? Talk! Talk!” He gave me no chance to respond to his warring questions. He shook me so hard that I lost my hold, but he also released his grasp on my hand. I flew into the nearest tree, the breath knocked from my body. He stomped toward me while I struggled to regain my senses, and loomed above me. That was when I saw that his other fist held a club big enough to crush the skull of a wild boar with one blow, a deadly bludgeon now hovering just above my head as the monster repeated his command:
“Talk!”

“I—I am Himiko,” I croaked, my bruised bones aching. “Please don’t hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” He blinked, then frowned. “You want to hurt
me
. You always do. You lie to me. You promise me clothes and food. You give me
this
.” He patted his tattered garment. Was it the remains of a tunic or only a bunch of rags? His loincloth was not much better, as filthy, stinking,
and disheveled as everything else about him. “And you put bad things in my food! When I eat what you give me, I get sick. Why do you do this?”

“But I did nothing,” I protested, holding out my empty hands. “I never saw you before. I don’t want to hurt you. I—”

“Get away from her, monster!”
Kaya burst through the trees, waving a big stick of firewood. She swung it wildly at the
oni
, who wrenched it away from her as simply as breathing. Then he gave her a backhanded blow with his fist. She collapsed in a splay-limbed heap, unconscious.

“Kaya!” I rushed to my friend’s side and took her into my lap, cradling her head in my arms. My fingers glided delicately over the side of her face where the beast had struck her. The skin was already shading from red to purple, but I felt nothing to indicate that he had broken her bones. “Oh, Kaya, my sister, what did he do to you?”

“She tried to hurt me.”

Whose voice was that, so timid, so subdued and remorseful? I jerked my head up and saw the
oni
standing as far away from us as he could be without disappearing into the forest. He looked ready to cry.

“She tried to hurt me,” he repeated, wringing the haft of his awful club between both hands. “You saw. Don’t lie. I had to stop her, didn’t I? Please?”

The mountain ogre’s bizarre behavior threw me off balance, making me feel as though I’d gulped a bellyful of rice wine. I wanted to scream at him, to berate him for what he’d done. I wanted to draw my wand and urge the gods to
make the earth open under his ponderous feet. I wanted to demand why a brutal, heartless monster who might have killed my friend if he’d landed a second blow was speaking to me like a penitent child.

A child …

“Yes,” I said, making a special effort to speak calmly and subdue any hint of anger. “She did try to hurt you, but she only did it because she saw you hurting me.”

“That isn’t fair.” The oni’s shoulders hunched. “I had to stop you too. You were in my place. No one comes here unless they want to hurt me, or do bad things. Once you left a rotting dog right where I sleep. Why don’t you stay down there, where you belong? You sent me away when my mama died.” His voice rose to a wail: “Why do you come after me? Why won’t you leave me alone?” He slammed his club into a tree trunk again and again, sobbing.

My son! My son! See what those cruel creatures have done to you, my sweet little one!

My skin prickled the way it did before a thunderstorm. A mother’s ghostly lament filled my head. My lips parted, and I heard myself begin to sing an unfamiliar lullaby. As I sang, I witnessed a shadow with a woman’s face take shape in the air beside the ogre who was no ogre at all. The phantom did not touch him, yet her presence calmed him, comforted him, stilled his sobs, made him drop his club and sink to the ground, hugging himself into a tight ball. It vanished with the final note I sang.

“Why do you know that song?” he asked, staring at me in awe.

“I am a shaman,” I said. “Sometimes the spirits speak through me. Your mama did not want to see you so unhappy and upset, so she let me help you. She loves you very much.”

“She’s ashamed of me too,” he said, wiping his nose roughly on the back of one hand. “When the other children made fun of me, I hit them, but I was much bigger than they were and it”—he gave Kaya a guilty look—“it was very bad. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I hit your friend.”

“I know,” I said. Kaya groaned and stirred, but her eyes remained shut. “You can make this better. I am a shaman and a healer. I can make my friend feel better. Will you help?”

“Yes! Oh yes!” He sprang up and scooped Kaya from my lap. Before I could catch my breath, he had her back in the clearing, lying on a pile of leaves and odd scraps of fabric that had been concealed among the trees. Under my direction and with his knowledge of our surroundings, we soon had a cloth soaked in fresh, cold water spread across her brow and another pressed tenderly to her bruised cheek.

The first thing Kaya saw when she opened her eyes was my smile. “Hi-Himiko? You’re all right?” She sounded muzzy. “Did I kill the ogre?”

“He is no ogre,” I told her. “Just a human being who had the bad luck to be born different.” I told her all about his unhappy history: born into the Ookami clan to a widowed mother who realized her son was unlike other children when his body grew so much larger than theirs but his mind lagged so far behind. People either shunned him
or tormented him, and when he couldn’t understand why they treated him so unjustly, he lashed out in frustration and grief. When his mother died, Ryu’s father had him driven out of the village.

“But that doesn’t stop some of his so-called kin from seeking him out up here and persecuting him,” I said bitterly. “They probably go home afterward and brag about it, claiming that they’re heroes who braved the ogre’s den.”

Kaya laid a hand to her cheek and winced. “Poor fellow. I hope he gave them twice what he gave me.
They
deserve it.” She propped herself up on her elbows and looked around the clearing. “So where is he now? Don’t tell me you scared him off.”

I shook my head. “I asked him to stay out of sight until I could let you know he’s a friend. When I call him back, please tell him he’s forgiven.”

I handed her a new cold cloth and she held it to her face, grateful for the way it eased her pain. “While I’m at it, I’ll ask him to pardon me for calling him a monster,” she said. “No tusks, no talons, no claws, and his skin’s not blue or red … I should have noticed all that before attacking an
oni
-that-wasn’t. All right, call him. What’s his name?”