Spirit's Chosen (48 page)

No! Oh gods, no!
My mind screamed in protest. I tried to push my way past Daimu, wanting to catch up with the departing men, but he grabbed my hand and would not let go.

“Himiko, beloved, what are you doing? You can’t stop them.”

“I can try.” My voice broke with pain. “I
must
try. If your kin go through with this, no rite of purification will have
the power to remove the stain. They’ll sacrifice a dozen Ookami souls for every slave that dies to fill your uncle’s tomb!” I struggled to twist out of his grasp. “There may still be a chance to save—!”

And then my body turned to stone. I could not move, could not feel, could not speak or weep or even breathe. All I could do was
see
.

“The dragon!”
My voice surged back with the force of a raging storm. It resounded loudly over the land, blasting flocks of crows out of the treetops, sending them in a cawing spray of black wings across the sky. “The dragon comes! O my people, hear me, the moment is at hand! The dragon—
the dragon dances!
”

My eyes filled with visions beyond my ability to describe except as fragments of a nightmare. Images of shrieking faces whirled around me. Pale hands made of smoke and water and naked bone plucked at my clothes. I fought my way through a forest, clawed through a wave of earth that came crashing down over my head, staggered over a bridge of fire and into a pit house whose walls were shored up by lifeless bodies. Somewhere a wolf was howling and a child sobbed for his mother until both voices were swept away in a cold wind.

A rock caught my foot and I fell, face in the dirt, grazing my forehead. The pain was real, but not strong enough to break the spell upon me. I, who had traveled between the realms of men and spirits, now set my feet in both at once. The wild, disturbing apparitions ebbed, but would not vanish. I stood at the top of the hill hiding the burial
ground from the village, but could not account for how I had gotten there. I saw the ordinary world around me, but at the same time … something more.

Speak, Himiko!
The goddess’s voice filled my ears, my mind, my heart. Her face glided over the surface of everything I saw, a translucent flower petal floating across the surface of a pond.
Let them know what stirs from slumber under stone. Show them the path that may yet save them. Speak, dearest Daughter, speak!

From the hilltop I could see the men who had rushed off so willingly to bring back Matsu slaves as sacrifices. They were already at the village gates. I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted: “Yes, go faster, bring them! Bring them all! Man, woman, and child, slave and free,
everyone
! No one must be left behind! No one must be allowed to remain under a roof! Drag them if they will not come with you and carry them if they cannot walk, but bring them away,
away
!”

I turned and looked back at Mori’s tomb. Blood from my scraped brow blurred my sight. I wiped it aside, streaking my sleeve scarlet, and yelled fresh commands: “Let no one linger! Extinguish every fire! Empty your village! Take nothing with you! Send your strongest men to the rice paddies and have them stand ready to save your precious young crops when the dragon stone shatters! Why do you stare at me? If you will not hear my words, hear
hers
!” I held the clay image of my goddess high and felt her cradled dragon stone turn to fire in my clasp.

A backhanded blow knocked her from my hands. Ryu had climbed the hill to confront me. His sword was drawn.
“Get down from here,” he ordered. “This hill is sacred to us. I will not allow a madwoman to pollute it with her presence.”

“Ryu, you fool!” Daimu scrambled up the slope and stopped to retrieve my amulet. “Can’t you recognize that she speaks with the voice of the gods?”

“I recognize insanity. Or trickery.” He looked down the hill at his bewildered clanfolk. “Ignore her! She’s trying to deceive you by pretending to hear the spirits. Let her learn that the Ookami are too wise to be led like dogs!”

I hooked my fingers into the folds of Ryu’s tunic. My assault was so unexpected that he shrank back, but could not escape me. “Save them, Ryu!” I cried. “There is not much time. Go now, return to your own towering house, lord of the wolves, and when you save your most precious treasures—child, wife, mother—remember Noboru! Let there be no line between Matsu and Ookami when you rescue children! The gods will bless you if—”

“Get off me, demon!”
Ryu struck my upper arm with the pommel of his sword. Pain radiated through me from shoulder to wrist and I fell back into Daimu’s arms. “
No one
will heed your ranting! The sacrifice will go on, and I will rejoice to see it.”

My hand dived for the bronze handle sticking out of Daimu’s sash. My fingers whisked the shining mirror above my head, twisting it to catch the brilliance of heaven. Sunlight knifed from the polished surface directly into the wolf chieftain’s eyes. He cried out in fury, blinded, and dropped his sword.

“Run, Daimu!” I gasped, clinging for a moment to my heart’s chosen one. “If Ryu won’t listen to me, you must,
or there will be no way of numbering so many dead! Go, before—before—” I crumpled against him. A sigh escaped my lips, and the last remnant of the spirits’ presence within me took wing on that breath. My eyes refocused slowly; I saw only the mortal world now.

“Himiko, are you all right?” Daimu slipped one arm around my waist and gazed at me with concern and tenderness.

Why is he still here?
I wondered, groggily.
Didn’t I tell him—didn’t I tell
all
of them to run to the village and save … and save …?

I turned my head slowly back toward Mori’s tomb. Not one member of the wolf clan had stirred a single step. All of them stared at me in alarm and astonishment. So many gaping mouths, so many goggling eyes, so many faces that were now gray as ashes! My vision-born outburst had left them overcome with paralyzing awe. They stood frozen, transfixed …

 … useless.

“Why are you still here?” I pushed away from Daimu and shouted at them. My ordinary voice was back. It was nowhere near as compelling as what had leaped from my lips in the throes of vision. Still, I could make it loud and forceful enough for the people to hear. “What are you waiting for?”

Ryu blinked rapidly, recovering his sun-dazzled sight. “I told you, Himiko: my people know madness when they see it.”

“But not their own stupidity,” Daimu responded hotly. “You are all
fools
!” he thundered at the people. “The spirits
send us a warning and you stand there, heaps of dead wood?” He uttered a disgusted sound and headed down the hill.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ryu demanded, his sword once more in hand.

“To heed the gods,” Daimu replied, breaking into a run.

“Stay where you are!” Ryu went after him, murder in his eyes. He slashed at Daimu and a thin line of blood crept across my beloved’s sleeve, but did not slow him. The crowd near Mori’s tomb scattered as the two men rushed past. I pursued them as fast as I could, though the strain sent pain lancing through my bad leg.

“Stop, Ryu, stop!” I cried, and with a final effort leaped to close the gap between us. I landed on his back, clumsily scrabbling to hold on. He had no trouble shrugging me off onto an age-sunk grave mound.

“I have had enough of you,” he said, raising his sword. “I should have done this long ago.”

“My lord Ryu, you mustn’t hurt her!” Rinji rammed his scrawny body into the wolf chieftain’s ribs. The only effect this had was to send Ryu stumbling three steps sideways.

“Has this girl cast her enchantments over
everyone
?” Ryu bellowed at the sky. He turned his wrath on Rinji, who edged closer to me, shaking like dead reeds in a windstorm. “So you want to play the hero against
me
? You should have learned better from your teacher and stuck to jabbering curses.” He took a fistful of Rinji’s robe in hand and pressed his sword’s point to the base of the young shaman’s throat. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly as he took pleasure from the terror in Rinji’s eyes. “You see, Himiko?” he said smoothly. “You are not the only one to whom the gods
speak. I hear them now! They tell me they are as sick of treachery and ingratitude as I, and that once I’ve cleansed those offenses from the wolf clan’s heart, they’ll send me someone worthy to—”

The ground shifted and heaved. Ryu and Rinji toppled beside me across the grave mound. With a rumble of power from the depths of the earth, the dragon raised one paw and smashed it down on the land of the Ookami.

The earth lifted and fell beneath me, shuddering through my spine, casting me up and flinging me down. I rolled onto my stomach and tried to get onto hands and knees, but the ground buckled and sent me rolling. I heard a rumbling deeper and more terrible than any thunderstorm and the screech of rock scraping over rock. A frantic commotion of human voices filled the air like a flock of bats, swarming high, swooping low. Howls of wordless horror and helplessness fought to be heard over cries of pain, curses, desperately shouted names, and pleas to the gods for mercy. This was no mere tremor of the earth: it was the true dance of dragons at the heart of the world.

It ended.

The stillness following the quake was nearly as terrifying as the quake itself. I feared that if my heart would not stop beating so hectically, so fast, so uncontrollably, it would shake itself out of my body. My breath raced with the beating
of my blood. I had to force myself to hold it for a moment, then inhale slowly and let it go as calmly as I could.

Although I stood up slowly, I was immediately struck by a wave of dizziness. Swaying, I looked around and saw the burial ground transformed into a web of fissures in the earth. Some of the more modest grave mounds had become shallow pits. Most of the taller ones, dedicated to the highest-ranking Ookami nobles, had tumbled down. The heaps of earth covering them had slipped away, revealing the slabs of stone within. I felt a pang of regret for Daimu’s sake when I saw that Mori’s monument too had collapsed. There was no sight of the jar holding the giant’s bones.

We will find them again, Mori
, I vowed silently.
You will go to your rest the way you should, with reverence and without the sacrifice of innocent lives. I swear you will have the rites you deserve as soon as I have seen to the needs of the living. Wait patiently, gentle friend
.

I started for the Ookami village, never looking back. I refused to think about what I would see once the path brought me into view of the shaken settlement. My visions did not matter, Mori’s fallen tomb did not matter, the devastation I might see at any moment did not matter to me. As I drove myself forward, my mishealed leg aching in protest at the speed with which I moved, my thoughts filled with the one thing in the dragon-shattered world that was as vital as blood and breath:
Little Brother, I am coming. Don’t be afraid! Daimu is with you—he must be! He will protect you until I can hold you in my arms and bring you home. Oh, Noboru, be brave!

A press of Ookami surged around me on the path. Their faces were smeared with dirt, their clothes rank with sweat, their eyes streaming tears. I found myself being shoved and battered back and forth in their midst. If I fell, they would trample me in their haste to get back to their homes.

“Himiko?” Rinji’s haggard face appeared out of the crowd. “Himiko, you’re limping. Here.” He offered me his back and I clambered onto it. There would be time later for sorting out the troubles between us. For now, we had a single goal. His long legs carried us to the forefront of the mob, and my position high on his back let me be among the first to see the work of the dragon.

The palisade was down. Most of the massive log fence that had ringed the Ookami village had become a giant’s scattered woodpile. The watchtower leaned over the wreckage at a precarious angle, one leg snapped in two, one a creaking mass of splinters. As we entered the village, I saw that one of the great gates remained upright, but the other had fallen. Four men worked desperately to lift it. I wondered why, until we came closer and felt sick to my stomach at the sight of a pair of legs sticking out from beneath the massive door.

The air was thick with the smell of burning. Many small fires threw ropes of smoke into the sky, but the worst blaze came from the cookhouse, whose thatched roof had become a solid mat of flame. A group of Ookami formed a line between the village well and the conflagration, relaying water jars.

“It won’t be enough to put out that fire,” I muttered.

“They know,” he replied. “They’re trying to soak the roofs of the nearest houses, to keep the flames from spreading. Thank the gods that there’s no wind!”

No wind … and no nearby houses
, I thought. There was nothing but rubble surrounding the burning cookhouse. Not a single dwelling was left standing close enough to be threatened by the blaze.

“Shall I carry you to the shrine?” Rinji asked.

“No. I can walk now. Set me down.”

He did as I asked, but so slowly that I recognized his reluctance before I saw the doubtful look on his face. “Tell me where you want to go. I’ll see that you get there.”