Raven's Sword Read online

  Raven's sword

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Japan, 1553

  Sengoku Jidai, Age of the Warring States

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Glossary

  Further Reading

  Copyright

  For Jim

  Japan

  1533

  Sengoku Jidai, Age of the Warring States

  Japan is riven by war.

  The Emperor, previously an all-powerful godhead venerated as the Son of Heaven, has been reduced to a ceremonial irrelevance. The young Emperor, Go-Nara, lives in genteel poverty, rarely venturing beyond the high walls of the Imperial precincts. He is nominal ruler of Japan but spends his days composing poems while his ornate Kyoto palace succumbs to neglect and dereliction. It is a place of cobwebs and shadow. The gardens are overgrown. The paper screens are mottled with mildew. The ceilings drip rain. Courtiers are forced to sell palace furniture and porcelain to buy food.

  Within the Imperial compound Go-Nara is treated as a deity. Servants prostrate themselves in his presence and are forbidden to meet his gaze. He issues orders to his ministers regarding the governance of the realm, unaware that these edicts go nowhere. Each decree is solemnly transcribed then filed in a vast library where countless scrolls crumble to dust.

  Supreme military power should lie with the Shōgun, commander of Japan’s warrior caste. Shōgun Ashikaga Yoshiharu and his counsellors are based in a fortified compound a few streets away from the Imperial palace. Each morning Yoshiharu wakes in his spartan, unadorned chamber, kneels before a chart and contemplates the nation’s disparate provinces while a maid combs and ties his hair. To his great shame, Yoshiharu has failed to win the loyalty of regional warlords. The country has fractured and innumerable clan wars have broken out in rural provinces far from the capital as local Daimyō battle for territory. He plans to negotiate a series of strategic alliances and reassert control of the nation’s rival clans. It will be his life’s work. Until then, despite his martial training, despite his fierce ambition, the Shōgun remains as impotent as the Emperor himself.

  Meanwhile, in the cities and provinces beyond Kyoto, the old aristocratic order has been overthrown. Ambitious generals depose regional nobility and seize control of their lands, a phenomenon known as Gekokujō: ‘low conquers high’. These new lords make their own treaties, set their own laws. Many soldiers have lost their master. Some become bandits. Some become monks. Some walk from town to town looking for a new sponsor willing to utilize their lethal skills. There will be no peace until an ascendant warlord subjugates his rivals and unifies the nation under his rule. Until then, anarchy reigns.

  It is a time of high culture, rigid honour codes and bloody civil strife.

  It is the age of the samurai.

  Tengu kept the soldier company while he died. The duel had lasted seven heartbeats and came to an end when she delivered a gut-thrust beneath his leather breastplate. The blade punched deep into viscera, grated against his spine and erupted from his back. The samura1i emitted a shriek which shocked birds from the forest canopy and sent them fluttering into the sky. He dropped his weapon and rolled, foetal, on the ground. She cleaned and sheathed her sword then made him as comfortable as she could. She balled his cloak and put it beneath his head as a pillow then searched the forest for firewood. When the piled branches were well alight she knelt and warmed her hands. The dying man stared into the flames.

  Tengu was an onna-bugeisha, a travelling sword master, a follower of the Way. She walked province to province, sought out fellow adepts and challenged them to fight to the death. The soldier was a member of General Motohide’s militia. Motohide had been lord of northern Etchū, and had commanded a formidable army. But the General was dead, his battalions had been disbanded and now starving ronin stalked the highways and menaced any traveller they met along the way. The grey-bearded samurai had clearly dedicated his life to military service and been left destitute. His attempt to surprise and overpower Tengu as she walked down the track had been half-hearted, as if he were overcome by shame and disgust by his own actions. She had struck a fatal blow from instinct rather than anger. If she had been given time to consider her response to his attack, she would have scarred his face and sent him on his way.

  The soldier looked around the clearing in wonder. His patched armour suggested he had seen battle many times. He had, no doubt, tried to imagine his own death, tried to imagine how it would feel to be finally, fatally outmatched, and now the moment had arrived. His last day, his last breaths. He drank in the scenery with the wide-eyed astonishment of a newborn child.

  ‘Are you in any discomfort?’ asked Tengu.

  All soldiers feared a gut wound. A blow to the head was a quick, clean death, whereas a stab to the abdomen could leave a man in agony for days before he expired. She was prepared to deliver a knife-thrust to the back of his neck if he wished, and dispatch him with a mercy stroke as if he were a wounded man lying on the battlefield. She hoped that, when the time came, someone would offer her the same service.

  ‘Strange. I don’t feel any pain. I just feel tired.’

  He showed no animosity towards the girl who had taken his life and showed no shame at being bested by a woman. A man in fine health might bridle at the thought of meeting his end at the hands of a female, but now the mortal blow had been delivered she supposed it didn’t matter to him any more.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  ‘A follower of the Way.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Tengu.’

  ‘Tengu? A daemon? A harbinger of war? What’s your real name?’

  ‘I left my given name behind a long time ago.’

  ‘But a girl. Fourteen, fifteen summers old, yet a truly formidable foe. I’ve never encountered such a thing.’

  ‘Excavate the burial pits at the site of any great battle. You’ll find the bones of women still strapped in their armour.’

  ‘Women might join the ranks to defend their town or village, but you follow the Way. I’ve never seen a girl present herself as an adept. Don’t you have any parents?’

  ‘I had a father of sorts. A great warrior. He knew his life would be short so he taught me to fight to ensure I could defend myself after he was gone.’

  ‘A wise man.’

  ‘He still looks after me. I am protected by his spirit night and day.’

  ‘Then you are truly fortunate. Where will you go from here?’

  ‘Why do you ask? This is the end of your journey. For you, there will be no tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ve often pictured the man who would take my life. In my dreams he was a great warrior who dominated the field of battle and cut down anyone in his path. I never imagined death would come in the form of a girl-child.’

  ‘Do I remind you of someone? A daughter you left behind someplace?’

  ‘There’s only one reason a swordsman would walk this road. You are heading for the district of the Forty-Eight Waterfalls. You intend to visit the Temple of Shadows.’

  ‘You were walking the same road.’

  ‘I was too old to become one of their assassins. They want youngsters they can mould into agents of death. You are the right age, but they will never allow a girl to join their number. You are on a fool’s errand.’

  ‘I’ve killed
so many men I’ve lost count,’ said Tengu. ‘I was there when General Motohide’s castle burned to the ground. In fact, I helped set the fire. I saw flames light the night sky and I watched his men scatter in panic.’

  ‘The temple order will not admit a girl, even if you brought them Motohide’s head in a box.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Don’t throw your life away,’ said the samurai. ‘Be a wife, a mother.’

  Tengu laid a hand on the hilt of her sword.

  ‘This is who I am. I can’t be anyone else.’

  The dying soldier shook his head and smiled.

  ‘The old try to counsel the young, but no one ever listens. Each generation is determined to make the same mistakes as the last. Listen to me, girl: choose another life, before it’s too late.’

  ‘I was destined to walk this path.’

  The dying soldier lay back as his strength ebbed away and looked up at the branches above him. He watched the sky turn gold and enjoyed his last sunset.

  Tengu climbed the valley steps to the Temple of Shadows. She beat the great door with her fist, wrapped her cloak tightly against the wind and waited for the gatekeeper to open up. She huddled in the recessed doorway for shelter. She knocked again and a view hatch slid back.

  ‘I’m here to train,’ she said.

  The hatch slammed shut. She waited for bolts to be withdrawn and the door pulled back, but the oak gate remained closed. She waited a while longer then descended the steps and returned to the branch shelter she had built in the woods. She cooked a rabbit over the fire and waited for night to fall.

  Tengu had spent a year living as an itinerant swordswoman. She walked the country lanes and performed menial labour in exchange for food and shelter. Sometimes she washed pots in a kitchen and sometimes she planted rice stalks in a paddy. Each time she approached a new hamlet she left the road and buried her sword under rocks. When it was time to move on she retrieved the weapon and headed on her way. She searched out others of her kind and invited them to duel. But now she was ready for a greater challenge, so she had travelled to the mountainous region of Iga known as the Forty-Eight Waterfalls and sought out the school of assassins known as the Temple of Shadows. Each morning she climbed the valley steps to the bleak ramparts, knocked on the door and asked to be admitted as a novice. It was a ritual supplication. Anyone who wanted to join a school of martial skill was expected to beg admittance every day for a full cycle of the moon to demonstrate their determination to learn. But Tengu had knocked on the temple door each morning for more than a lunar month. The moon had waxed, waned, then waxed full again. Some mornings when the view hatch in the door pulled back she drew her sword and launched into an elaborate kata. She sent the blade singing back and forth through the air in the hope of impressing the gatekeeper, but on each occasion the hatch immediately slammed shut as if to signal complete indifference and she had to fight a wave of anger.

  Once, as she was walking through the woodland checking snares, she glimpsed a man climbing the steps to the temple. She moved to the edge of the trees to get a better view. The man looked like a seasoned fighter. He strode up the steep steps without flagging for breath. He wore a blue silk robe, evidently plunder from a previous feat of swordplay, and his face was criss-crossed with scars.

  Tengu ran to the foot of the steps.

  ‘Sir,’ she shouted. The man glanced down at her with blank disregard then resumed his climb. Tengu took the steps two at a time and tried to catch up.

  ‘Sir, wait.’

  The man reached the top of the steps and knocked on the gate. The great iron-studded door swung wide and let him inside. Tengu reached the gateway just as it closed. She threw herself against the oak door as heavy bolts sealed it shut.

  ‘Let me in,’ she shouted, pounding the door with her fist. There was no response. She stood on the edge of the plateau and looked hundreds of feet into the valley below, daring a gust of wind to push her into the abyss.

  The door swung open again two weeks later. Labourers carried a litter down the steps. The litter bore a body lashed in sacking. Tengu stalked the men as they walked into the woods, dug a shallow grave and tipped the body into the trench. She saw the hem of the blue silk robe protruding from the sacking shroud. The labourers filled the trench, working with the wordless indifference of men performing a chore they had done countless times before.

  Tengu accosted the men as they emerged from the trees and began to climb the valley steps.

  ‘How do I get inside the temple, brother? I am an onna-bugeisha. I’ve travelled leagues to get here, fought and killed many men. How do I gain admittance?’

  The men ignored her.

  ‘I’m right here,’ she shouted. ‘Don’t treat me as if I’m invisible. I’m here, in front of you.’

  The labourers climbed the steps, entered the darkness of the temple doorway and were sealed inside.

  She lingered in the valley seven more days. She knocked on the great gate each morning but finally accepted she would never be allowed to join the ranks of the shinobi. She lay prostrate in her branch shelter a full day, robbed of all strength by the knowledge she would be forever excluded from any formal school of swordcraft simply because of her gender, then she marshalled her strength, broke camp and followed the dirt road out of the valley.

  * * *

  Tengu breasted a hill and contemplated a farmhouse in the grassland below. An old woman crouched outside the hut and pared vegetables with a knife. Her husband sat nearby and watched her work. Tengu needed a place to shelter a while and take stock of her rejection by the temple. She had spent the previous year honing her skills in the hope she could persuade the assassin-monks to let her join their order, but now that dream was dust and she had no direction, no purpose. Maybe the elderly farm folk could use a little help for a few days. She could work for her keep.

  She wrapped her sword in waxed canvas, hid it in the underbrush, drove a stick into the ground as a marker then made her way down the hill to the farmhouse.

  * * *

  Tengu offered to help with domestic chores. There wasn’t much to be done, but the couple were hospitable and seemed to enjoy having her around. She ate as little as she could, conscious the folk were splitting their food three ways instead of two.

  ‘It must be hard for a girl, walking the roads on your own,’ said the old woman.

  ‘I can look after myself.’

  ‘Don’t you have a mother? A father? A home of your own?’

  ‘My father died last year. I’m on my own now.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Perhaps you should stay with us a while. We have use for a maid.’

  ‘Thank you for your kind offer. Forgive my impertinence, but you have no children of your own?’

  ‘We had a son. He died in the wars. We have decided to join him when the snows come. It is our time.’

  Tengu nodded. Plenty of villages followed the tradition of exposure. Old folk would choose their moment, climb to a high hilltop and wait for the cold to take them.

  ‘This hut will be empty when we are gone. The wind and rain will slowly take it apart, unless someone else makes it their home.’

  ‘I wish I could settle for a simple life,’ said Tengu, suppressing a shudder at the thought of lifelong domesticity, ‘but I’m too restless.’

  The farmer entered the hut, knelt beside the fire pit and took a bowl of rice. The women grew quiet in deference to his presence.

  ‘I’ll walk to town tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I’ll take a couple of the chickens. Should be able to make a good trade.’

  ‘With your permission, I would like to travel with you,’ said Tengu.

  ‘No need,’ said the farmer. ‘I can manage. Managed well enough for years.’ He mashed rice with his fingers and ate.

  ‘There are bandits roaming the countryside. The roads aren’t safe.’

  ‘And what is a little girl going to do about that?’
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  Tengu realized she had become more strident than her role as a servant should allow. She bowed her head in submission.

  ‘Nevertheless, I would like to keep you company, if you will permit.’

  The farmer shrugged, finished his meal and wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  ‘Do as you please. We leave at first light.’

  * * *

  Three bandit-women hid in a ditch until the farmer drew level, then drew their knives, stood and charged. The farmer offered no resistance. He knelt as the women tore the basket from his back and dug in it for food.

  The women had been hostesses at the hot springs near Toyama. A regiment camped nearby so their master erected a tent and collected coins while troops queued to visit the girls. Ane, Iwa and Suzu grew tired of being treated as chattels so they made a pact to live free even if it meant a short life and a hard death. One night they stole knives from the camp cook, set light to nearby tents and fled during the chaos, determined to live by their wits for as long as they could.

  They had watched the farmer and the girl walk to town earlier that day with a couple of chickens in his wicker pack. Iwa and Suzu wanted to strike then and there, but Ane held them back.

  ‘Let them go to town and sell their chickens. They might bring back some fish, vegetables, maybe even some saké. We could have ourselves a full meal.’

  ‘What if he trades those chickens for tools?’ said Iwa. ‘Do we eat nails for dinner?’

  ‘They’ll barter those chickens for more varied food. That’s what these peasants do. They meet once a month in the village square and trade their harvest. Once they have what they need, once they’ve gossiped with their neighbours over tea, they’ll head back down this road. All we have to do is cultivate a little patience.’

  The three women sat behind some bushes and watched the road while the sun slowly crawled across the sky and morning slowly turned to afternoon. They each chewed a stalk of grass to quiet their hunger pangs. Iwa and Suzu fell asleep but Ane remained awake and watchful. She sat with her back to a tree and surveyed the dirt track until her eyes grew tired and her neck grew stiff. She began to doze by mid-afternoon but shook herself alert after a few minutes of sleep. She kicked her companions awake and pointed down the road.