Risuko: A Kunoichi Tale (Seasons of the Sword #1)(45)

A flash of movement to my left drew my eye. The other horseman had rounded the rear of the compound and was charging at Masugu’s back.

“Masugu-san!” I screamed. “Behind you!”

I looked back to the lieutenant in time to see the opponent he was facing fall from his saddle, a shower of red rain falling with him. Masugu wheeled to meet the second horseman, raising his blood-slick sword defensively.

A long black bolt suddenly erupted from the charging rider’s throat, and he was thrown backward from his saddle, a look of shock on his face.

It was Shirogawa, the man who had trussed me and Toumi up from the tree like pigs to be butchered.

Masugu turned his stallion, looked at me, and then at the Full Moon’s wall.

We both saw a figure standing atop the storeroom holding a bow taller than she was, leaning forward as if still watching the arrow’s flight. It was Mieko, her face as calm as ever.

—

By the time I made my way down, the women had all climbed off the rooftops as well. I could see that they had used the timbers that decorated most of the buildings near the gate to climb, and it occurred to me that, unlike the great hall’s, those walls were meant to be easy to climb, so that Mochizuki’s inhabitants could defend its walls—though not from the rear of the compound. Not that any enemy would ever attack from the sheer granite slopes behind us, nor the dense woods to either side. And I couldn’t imagine that old Lord Mochizuki had intended the walls to be defended by a bunch of young women in shrine maidens’ garb.

Fuyudori stood alone beneath the tree, her face as pale as her hair. Toumi trailed two older women, gazing with undisguised hunger at the long glaives in the kunoichis’ hands.

Emi looked at the gate, biting her lower lip.

“I’m sure Aimaru and the Little Brothers are all right,” I whispered.

She shook her head, but before I could ask what she meant, Lady Chiyome burst out of the great hall. “Don’t just stand there! Open the gate!”

Mieko sprinted past her mistress, moving more quickly than I had ever seen her do, and the rest of us followed her. It took eight of us to do what the Little Brothers did with so little effort, but we managed to get the gate open just as Lieutenant Masugu led his horse through the tall red torī arch.

“Masugu-san!” I shouted, and found that Fuyudori had shouted with me.

The lieutenant removed his helmet, his expression grim.

“Who were they? How did you find them? Why were they here?” Fuyudori continued, her voice shrill. “Are you all right?”

“Enemy raiders,” said Lady Chiyome, sweeping Fuyudori aside.

Masugu shook his head and shrugged, his armored shoulders lifting like broken ice in a river. “No. The same feathers on their arrows, but no insignia on the armor or on the horses. And the enemy—cavalry, scouts, even raiders—they always use chestnut mounts, not greys. Though the greys are harder to see in the snow, it’s true.” He shrugged, then looked at the circle of women around him. He shook his head again. “Villagers said they’d seen strangers sneaking around. We spotted them as we reached the bottom of the hill. I couldn’t think of a good reason for them to be on the road up here, so I called. As soon as I did, well, they ran for it, and then I knew they were up to no good. I followed and...” He held up his hands as if to say, And here we are.

“You fought well, Masugu-san,” I said. I said it quietly—not meaning to say it out loud at all—but he heard it.

He smiled grimly. “Not much of a fight. Me on the bigger horse, more heavily armed. And you to watch my back. Thank you for the warning, Murasaki-san.”

Feeling the heat rise to my face, I mumbled, “You’re welcome.”

His grin warmed, and then he turned to Mieko, who was still holding her bow. “Nice shot, Mieko-san.”

“Yes,” she answered.

In the silence that followed her flat statement, Masugu turned and patted his horse. “Well, I need to get Inazuma here back into his stall and brushed down, don’t I, boy? It’s been a while since he had a chance to ride hard like that.”

The circle of women parted to let him lead his horse to the stable, looking for all the world as if he had just come back from a vigorous morning’s ride, and not from a fight to the death. Not as if he had just killed.

In my mind’s eye, I could see the spray of blood as he struck down the first rider. But they would have killed him, a voice said in my head—a voice that sounded very much like Lady Chiyome’s. And who warned him, after all?

“Enough gawking at the pretty soldier and his pretty horse,” Chiyome-sama’s actual voice barked. “Kee Sun and the Little Brothers will dispose of the ruffians later. For now, close the—”

“Chiyome-sama,” said Emi, pointing out through the open gate, “pardon your humble servant’s interruption, but the Little Brothers and Aimaru are coming.”

We all stared out into the bright, white landscape, where three more figures were in fact cresting the rise. Or rather, two figures, and another who looked like a walking wall.

“But what in the name of the gods are they carrying?” snorted Toumi.





25—To Roost


Even from a distance, I could see that they were all red-cheeked from the cold and from the climb up from the valley. None of them seemed to be injured, which made me release a breath I hadn’t realized that I was holding.