Page 18 of Shadow of the Fox

“Where is it?”

She hesitated. Drawing my sword, I walked toward her. Her face paled and she backed away, but hit a tree after a few steps. “I don’t know,” she began, and froze as I placed the edge of Kamigoroshi against her neck. “Wait, please! You don’t understand.”

“Where is the scroll?” I asked again, stepping close. “Tell me or I’ll kill you.”

“It’s gone!” the girl burst out. “It’s not here anymore. Master Isao...he sensed the demons coming. He knew they wanted the scroll, so he sent it away. A...a few days ago.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

I tilted the blade up so it pressed lightly under her chin, and she gasped. “I don’t know!” she insisted, raising her head to escape the sword. “Master Isao didn’t tell me where it’s located. But...I know who does.”

“Who?”

She paused, her dark eyes flicking to mine over the blade. Again, I felt that odd flutter beneath my skin, reacting to her presence. “How do I know you won’t kill me if I tell you?”

“I give you my word,” I told her. “On my honor, if you tell me what I want, I won’t kill you.”

Carefully, she shook her head. “I need more than that, samurai,” she said, making me frown. A warrior’s vow was absolute, his honor preventing any hint of betrayal, and it was an insult to imply otherwise. To a samurai who broke his promise, the shame would be so great that seppuku—ritually killing himself—was the only answer.

Of course, I was shinobi, a shadow warrior, and followed a different code than the samurai. We operated in darkness, performing tasks that would make an honorable samurai cringe in horror and revulsion. But the girl didn’t know that.

She continued to watch me, her head and back pressed to the trunk, chin raised to escape the lethal blade against her throat. I kept a tight hold on the sword, both in my hand and in my mind, for Hakaimono was goading me to kill this insubordinate peasant nobody. “You can kill me now,” she said, “but then you’ll never find what you’re looking for.” I narrowed my eyes, and she shivered under my gaze, seeming to lose courage, before taking a deep breath and staring at me again. “I have...a proposal for you,” she announced. “So please listen before you decide to cut off my head. The demons will come after me. Once they figure out the scroll isn’t here, they’ll hunt me down. Right now, the scroll is on its way to another temple, a hidden temple, far away. I need to get to that temple, to warn the monks of the demon attack. I promised my mentor I would.”

“But you don’t know where it is,” I pointed out.

“N-no,” she admitted. “I don’t. But Master Isao told me the name of the person who does. A priest who lives in Kin Heigen Toshi. He knows the location of the hidden temple, and can tell me where to go. But I don’t think I can get there alone. I can’t fight a horde of demons by myself.” She appraised me, and I realized where this was going. “But...youkill demons, quite well, it seems. If you...come with me, protect me on the journey, then...” She trailed off, but the implication hung in the air between us, impossible to miss.

Then she’ll take me to the scroll.

I considered. The clan wouldn’t be pleased. As the Kage demonslayer and the bearer of Kamigoroshi, I wasn’t supposed to have prolonged contact with anyone outside of the Shadow Clan. The reasons for this were twofold. The Kage were a family of secrets. Our shinobi were the best in the land and possessed talents unknown to the rest of the world. We were close to the shadows, and the kami-touched among us reflected that, speaking the language of darkness and the unknown. The Shadow Clan held their secrets close and would happily kill any outsider who discovered too much. A peasant girl traveling with the Kage demonslayer would raise concerns.

But the other more pressing reason was me. I was highly discouraged from interacting with outsiders because of the danger I represented, the risk that I could lose myself to the demon in the sword. Emotion was especially dangerous, because Hakaimono used it as a gateway into the soul. Rage, fear, uncertainty; the stronger the feeling, the closer the demon came to overwhelming its host. I’d been warned, numerous times, that if Hakaimono fully took control, there was no going back. I would become a monster, and they would have no choice but to kill me.

But I was on a mission for the daimyo of the Shadow Clan, Lady Hanshou herself. I’d been sworn to retrieve the scroll and was expected to obey, even if it cost me my life and the lives of those around me. Failure was not an option.

“So,” the girl ventured. “Do we have an agreement?”

8

Two Souls for the Road

The stranger was silent, considering. We stood very close, and I could see every detail of his face—the high cheekbones, the full lips, the scar down his forehead and across the bridge of his nose. But his eyes... They were a luminous purple, the deep, brilliant shade of an iris flower, and yet, gazing into them caused a chill to spread across my neck and creep down my back. They were blank, revealing no emotion; showing no compassion, empathy or understanding. No hint of a soul beneath. I had never been truly afraid of another person until now; despite even Denga-san’s threats, rages and numerous punishments, I’d known in my heart that the monks of the Silent Winds temple would never hurt me. But this boy... He might be young, with the face of an angel, but there was no mistaking the truth in his eyes. He was a killer.

And yet, this soulless killer might be my best chance to reach the Steel Feather temple alive. The thought made my heart pound wildly, but after watching him slaughter the amanjaku, seeing how easily he cut them down, an idea had formed in my mind—a wild, risky, probably very dangerous idea. The demons would be hunting me once they figured out the scroll was gone. The oni could be hunting me, and much as I wanted to avenge Master Isao and the others, I was no match for that abomination.

I trembled, feeling a huge painful knot in the pit of my stomach. It didn’t seem real, that they were gone. That only this afternoon, I was lighting the candles of the main hall and wishing I was somewhere else. I had never been beyond the forest. I didn’t know where to go, or how to talk to people. My whole life, I’d spoken only to monks, kami and the odd yokai in the woods. I had to take the scroll to the Steel Feather temple; I’d promised Master Isao I would, but I wasn’t sure how to get there, or what I would do if I ran into demons.

But...thishuman could kill demons. Quite easily, in fact. He might be as dangerous as the monsters themselves. If he were protecting me, any demon, yokai, or murderous human who wanted the scroll would have to deal with him first.

There was just one small problem.

He, too, was after the Dragon’s prayer. Whether he had been sent to retrieve it like the demons, or had come of his own volition, the reason didn’t matter. I could feel the narrow, lacquered case hidden in the furoshiki tied around my shoulder, and my heart pounded. If he discovered I had the scroll, I would be just as dead as the monsters dissolving in the breeze. I was going to have to be very careful, and choose my actions wisely, or my would-be protector would turn on me.

Briefly, I had the sobering thought that Master Isao would not have approved of this sham, of me lying to this boy to get him to accompany me to the Steel Feather temple. Denga would have certainly seen it as more fox trickery and deception. But I wasn’t a warrior; I couldn’t chop things to pieces with a sword, and all I knew of the outside world was what the monks had taught me. My temple was gone, my family had been slaughtered by demons before my eyes and I had been given a near impossible task. Not to mention, there was the notion that I had been left at the Silent Winds temple for this very moment. To somehow protect the scroll from everything that wanted it. I wasn’t certain what to feel about the whole vision thing, but I knew that if I thought about it now, I would bury myself in a deep hole and never come out again. I couldn’t do this alone, and I had no one else to help me. As the old tanuki had said just this evening: I was kitsune, yokai. Not human. This was what I was good at.

I held the stranger’s gaze as he thought about my offer, sensing a desperate struggle within him. Finally, he nodded and stepped back from the tree, taking his terrible sword away from my neck. “All right,” he said. “If this is the only way to get to the scroll, then I will take you to the capital, and then to the Steel Feather temple. But...” His eyes narrowed, cold and icy, and he raised his sword so that the moonlight reflected down the length of steel. “If you deceive me, or try to run, I will kill you. Understand?”

---