Jim Baen's Universe

Fantasy Stories

A Thread of Silk

Written by Eugie Foster

Illustrated by Anthony Hochrein

Prologue

Sitting in the back on the Otemachi subway, away from the glitter of young people bedecked in late-night finery, the young woman gazed out the window as though fascinated by her reflection in the glass. She was indeed remarkably beautiful, but if anyone had looked beyond the flawless cream of her skin or the deep claret of her lips, they would have seen that her eyes were focused not on her image, but beyond it, as though they looked upon a time a thousand years away.

****

Mae peered through the thick shutter at the embattled men and wished she knew how her brother fared, whether Sadamori was safe. He was with Father, protected by many ranks of loyal Taira guards, defending the seimon, the main palace gate. But her brother was always one to take foolish risks, and this band of bushi was frighteningly well organized.

"Please, kindly kami spirits and benevolent ancestral ghosts," she whispered, "guard Sadamori."

A scuffle across the courtyard seized her attention. A Taira sentry fell, his blood a spray of black in the torchlit night.

In the breach his death created, one of the enemy bushi broke through the back gate.

Mae steadied her breathing as she nocked an arrow. She stepped into position and pulled the bowstring taut, sighting down the shaft's length. In her mind, a silk thread shimmered smooth and straight. The whimpers of the servants at her back faded to an insignificant buzz.

She released the arrow in a liquid motion, exactly as Sadamori had taught her. It pierced the man's throat at his armor's divide, and he half spun, dropping his tachi. The blood-streaked blade spun away on the cobblestones. He dropped beside it, kicking and writhing.

Behind her, Uma shrieked. "You killed him!"

"Quiet," Mae snapped. "Would you prefer it was your blood the God of War took instead of his?"

Uma sniveled, wringing her gnarled hands.

Outside, the arrow-downed bushi lay still. Mae shivered. Killing a man was nothing at all like hitting straw targets in the practice yard. She regretted scolding her old nurse. The poor thing was terrified; they all were.

"Mae-hime!" Seiichi, her father's head gardener, pointed at the wall. Another wave of intruders, weary of being curbed at the barricade's opening, were clambering over it.

Mae drew another arrow and swept all else from her thoughts until only the silk thread remained, bright and strong.

Her bolts picked two men from the wall. They fell, and she was glad for the earthen barrier that concealed their deaths. Then the invaders were over, and she dared not shoot for fear of hitting Taira men. They swarmed the defenders, a deadly infestation of steel stingers and armored carapaces. The line of battle grew closer, step by step, as the Taira gave ground, overwhelmed.

Mae shook so hard she fumbled the next arrow before she could nock it. It clattered to the floor, and she groped for another, rushing for fear of losing her shot. She knew as soon as the bolt leaped from the curve of her bow that it was bad, and sure enough, the point deflected harmlessly off overlapping tiles of armor.

Before she could bend, Seiichi was there, handing the dropped arrow to her. The gardener clutched his hoe, a resolute glint in his rheumy eyes. Mae smiled, both amused and touched.

"You think to hew down those bushi as though they were weeds, Seiichi-kun?" she murmured.

"Even the wishes of a small ant reach heaven," he retorted.

Mae set arrow to bowstring. "And surely, you are the loudest ant of all."

She chose a target, her hands steady once more. She did not flinch when the point found its mark, lodged in a bushi's eye socket, and she no longer resented that Sadamori had sent her to defend the servants instead of joining the archers at the seimon. It was not a dishonor, but her duty as Taira no Mae to protect her people.

Mae held the thread of silk in her mind, let it compose her movements and steady her aim as she sent one shaft after another into the fray outside. The thread eclipsed all else until there was no Mae, no shouting men, no fear. She reached for another arrow and was startled to discover only two left in her quiver.

No matter. There was her naginata when they were gone. The swordspear at her feet, with its shaft as tall as she and tipped with its fine steel blade, was as lethal as any tachi.

Mae squinted into the darkness, searching for her next quarry. She gasped, and the bowstring went slack in her fingers. Seiichi was out there, scrambling and hunched in the courtyard. What was the old fool doing?

Heart filling her throat, she watched him retrieve an arrow, the first she had misfired, and then go after others, her misses and also ones lodged in still-warm flesh. He gathered them together like flower stems.

"Seiichi, you idiot," she moaned. "Get out of there!"

The gardener bobbed his head as though he could hear her over the tumult of combat, but he continued scuttling on ancient legs about his self-appointed task.

From the front of the palace, a twofold cry went up—a roar of victory mingled with anguish. A crash she could feel through her straw sandals proclaimed the news. The seimon had fallen.

The warriors in the courtyard, invaders and defenders alike, knew as well as she what those sounds portended. The insurgent bushi rallied as her father's men faltered—some even turning to flee, only to be struck down from behind.

In the chaos, one of the Taira guards, waving his tachi in wild arcs, blundered into Seiichi. Mae watched helplessly, an arrow ready to fly to the old man's aid. But she was unwilling to kill one of the palace defenders. The gardener, his arms filled with spent arrows, was swept off his feet. The bushi did not even pause, but lashed out with his sword.

A cluster of red feathers—noblewoman's fletching—sprang from his neck. Mae did not remember loosing the arrow, nor did she spare a thought for the Taira man she had killed. She had eyes only for the crumpled gardener.

The shadows themselves paused as Seiichi stirred, as astonished as Mae that the old man still lived. He dragged himself to his knees, and unbelievably, began collecting the arrows he had dropped.

Tears rained from her eyes as Mae pulled her final arrow.

"Help him in," she cried. "Help him!"

Behind her, two grooms, and even Uma, scrambled out. While she covered them, they hauled Seiichi through the window.

Blood poured from a cut in his side, turning the undyed hemp of his kimono black. Mae slammed the shutter and barred it, muffling the sounds of violence from without.

Uma appropriated the arrows Seiichi stubbornly clung to while the others laid him on the floor. Mae knelt. "You stupid old man," she murmured. "That was a very brave thing you did."

"Even an inchworm has five tenths of a soul." Seiichi coughed, and blood sprayed from his lips.

"Your soul is as big as a mountain."

Seiichi smiled. "I hope not. Then I might be the Emperor's son in my next life, instead of a humble gardener. I would miss my flowers."

"You will have many seasons to admire your flowers, Seiichi-kun, not in your next life, but in this one."

He coughed again, the sound like a choked fountain. "These eyes have seen their last bloom, but I am not afraid of Lord Death. Rather, I fear for you."

He pressed a crumpled scrap of cloth into her hand. It was a crest from the night-dark uniforms of the invading bushi. But instead of the broad leaves of the paulownia, emblem of the Minamota clan and sworn enemy to their house, it was the graceful butterfly of the Taira—the same insignia woven into Mae's kimono and stamped on her bow.

Mae inhaled. "How—?"

But Seiichi was gone, lured away by the blossoms in Lord Death's garden.

"Oh, Seiichi." Mae rocked the old man in her arms. Uma added her lamentation, keening like a mad seabird as she hugged the gore-drenched arrows.

Their grief was interrupted by the rattle of the interior bamboo screen thrust aside. Mae's head whipped up, and she pulled the glittering length of her kaiken from her sash.

Sadamori stood in the entrance, his armor giving his lean form the shoulders and girth of a giant, and his kabuto helm the silhouette of a demon.

Mae cried out in relief. Letting her kaiken fall, she flung herself into his arms.

"Mae-chan, thank all the gods in heaven you're unhurt." Sadamori enveloped her in a metal embrace. "The palace is breached and our troops in rout. We must ride from here."

"Where has Father decided we are to fall back to?"

Sadamori shook his head, grim-faced. She knew by the way he pressed his lips together, as though to keep back the terrible news, that the most awful of outcomes had transpired.

"How?" she asked. "How did Father die?"

"Later, Mae-chan. We must hurry."

Mae relieved Uma of her burden of arrows and restored her kaiken to its scabbard while one of the grooms brought her the naginata. Hand-in-hand, brother and sister fled through the back corridors of the palace they had grown up in. A huddle of servants, frightened and silent, followed in their wake.

Outside, a regiment of Taira guards clustered, bows out and tachi drawn. They were few, and the ones that were not wounded were elderly bushi on the cusp of retirement.

"This is it?" Mae gulped, "all that is left of our house?"

"Shigemori-kun took two garrisons with him. He rides for Kyoto to appeal to the Emperor." Sadamori boosted Mae into the saddle of a roan palfrey, her favorite.

"What does our brother hope to accomplish?" she asked.

"Nothing less than rinji, the Emperor's personal edict of condemnation on this brutal and unlawful attack."

Sadamori oversaw the servants—even Uma, too scared to complain—being hauled up behind other riders before he swung atop his warhorse. At his signal, they galloped for the forest.

The estate was a nightmare of burned gardens and death. Mae shuddered and averted her eyes from the arrow-riddled corpses of Taira bushi, some with their eyes open and their faces twisted into rictuses of terror. There would be many angry ghosts in Hitachi Province after this night.

When they were free of the palace grounds and into the forest wilds, Sadamori slowed them from a headlong gallop to a gentle canter. Mae understood the need to save the horses, especially the ones bearing double burdens, but she wished for greater speed to put the war-ravaged visions far away.

She nudged her mare into step beside her brother. "Sadamori-kun, they were wearing Taira crests."

Her brother's face was an impassive mask. "It was Taira no Masakado."

"Masakado?" Mae had never met her cousin, although she recalled a fragment of some scandal—something to do with the Emperor's birthday celebration in Kyoto. But she had never been one to follow the fickle peculiarities of courtly gossip.

"He has made a bargain with a demon." Sadamori's tone was as wooden as his face. "He brought a devil wind that always blew at his back, fouling our archers. I saw him fling aside strong, skilled bushi as though they were puppies, and he brought the seimon down with his bare hands. When Father saw this, he knew we were lost. He commanded Shigemori and me to retreat while he took a wedge of his best bushi to make a final stand, to keep their cavalry from overrunning the palace. His was an honorable death."

Mae reached for her brother's hand, and he clasped her fingers.

"I must avenge Father." Sadamori's voice quivered. "Little sister, I fear I will fail and bring dishonor upon our family."

"Sadamori-kun—"

"Arrows bounced off his flesh. He shrugged aside a cut from my own tachi that would have killed any other man. And, Mae, he wore no armor!"

"No armor?"

"Only a black hitatare. It was as though he were mocking us, wearing silk undergarments to battle."

Mae felt the tremor in her brother's hand. "You must not fixate upon such things. The wise bee does not sip from a flower that has fallen."

The barest hint of a smile lifted her brother's lips. "That's something old Seiichi might have said."

"He was always ready with a proverb, wasn't he? I think he came up with them by the pageful as he puttered around with his watering can." Her eyes burned. "Poor old Seiichi."

"I will avenge him too. All our people who died tonight must be avenged so their ghosts may find peace."

Mae jerked on her brother's hand, making him face her. "We will avenge them, Sadamori-kun. Together."

He nodded. "Together."

****

Their destination was an old Shinto shrine in the forest, longtime haven to wartime refugees. By unspoken law, the sanctity of its grounds was inviolate.

A white-robed priest met them beneath the vermilion arch of the torii, the sacred gateway that marked the border between the physical world and the realm of spirits. He carried a lantern and seemed to glow by its light.

Sadamori dismounted and removed his kabuto. Mae frowned as she saw the discolored lump that swelled his forehead.

"Honored kannushi," Sadamori said, "I regret that we must pollute these hallowed premises with sorrow and strife."

The priest stroked her mare's velvet nose as Mae slid off her back. "The world is one great family, Taira no Sadamori-dono. While we kannushi aspire to avoid looking upon that which is not pure, it would constitute a shameful taint upon our hearts if we did not welcome our family home." He winked. "Just be so kind as to wipe your feet."

Before following their guide up the tree-lined path, brother and sister clapped twice and bowed three times in salutation to the attendant kami. Four ravens took wing as Mae stepped through the torii, roused from their perch on the crossbeam. She watched their flight, discomfited. It was well known that spirits were fond of expressing themselves through signs and portents, and while birds, especially ones perching on a torii, were auspicious omens, four was an exceptionally ill-favored number, associated with death.

Two more priests, a pair of bright banners in their chalk-white robes, descended the front steps of the shrine. They took charge of the horses with gentle insistence, ushering the wounded bushi and servants to a grove of trees. Mae and Sadamori were left to ascend the shrine's steps alone.

Built to harmonize with nature, the shrine's vaulted roof spread protective wings inviting kami to visit and shelter within. Inside, it was lit by several lanterns resting on burnished pillars. The altar was a simple affair of tiered shelves flanked by a pair of evergreen saplings and a bronze bell to summon the attention of spirits. The lower shelves held a pitcher of water, a jar of sake, and pots of both salt and rice—bulk containers from which the priests procured their daily offerings. At the apex stood the kami house—an unadorned cabinet with two doors.

Mae kneeled and bowed her head. Sadamori did not join her.

"Isn't it wrong to pray to the kami with a heart full of grief and a mind that longs for vengeance?" he asked.

"Perhaps. But I am also praying for our brother's safety."

With a great rattle and clatter of armor, Sadamori sank beside her.

In the silence of prayer, Mae snuck a glance at him. His normally cheery face had acquired lines of sorrow and worry. And he was so pale, the bruise ugly and stark at his brow.

"How did you get that bump?"

Sadamori reached a hand to his head and winced. "When I struck Masakado with my tachi, he swatted me aside. I lay dazed—I'm not sure how long—until Shigemori-kun pulled me up."

"It looks tender."

"Masakado knocked me flying. If he'd used his fist, my skull would have caved in. As it is, I feel like there's an iron club at war with the inside of my head."

"Your skull's too thick to break." Mae stood. "Still, let me see."

She brought a lantern over, and Sadamori flinched at the tiny flame.

"Does this hurt your eyes? Are you dizzy?"

He scowled. "What do you expect with you waving that light in my face?"

Mae eyed the muted lamp, steady as a kaiken in her hand, and set it aside. "Does your stomach feel sick?"

"It always does after a battle."

She began unlacing the ties that held Sadamori's armor on.

"What are you doing?" he protested. "I can do this outside."

"It's a miracle you didn't fall off your horse after that knock to your brain. If you faint in your full armor, I won't even be able to drag you down the shrine steps."

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not going to faint." Sadamori stood, but before he could take a step, he reeled, holding a hand out for balance.

Mae rushed to his side, taking his arm over her shoulders. "You dumb ox. What did I tell you?"

"He's a demon, Mae-chan," Sadamori muttered. "I'll throw parched beans at him next time." He slumped against her.

"That's not funny. Stand up." She jostled his arm. "Come on, Sadamori-kun."

He went limp, and she sprawled beneath his full weight.

"Sadamori, wake up. Sadamori!" Her voice turned shrill. "Somebody, help!"

She heard the clatter of straw sandals on wooden floorboards. Several priests came running, their white robes flapping like great crane wings. With a few grunts and much awkwardness, they half-rolled, half-lifted Sadamori off.

One of them assisted her to her feet—the head priest who had greeted them at the torii. "What happened?" he asked.

"A blow to the head. I didn't know he was hurt. He showed no weakness at all during the ride." Mae enlisted their aid in removing Sadamori's armor, and they hauled him onto a straw mat. "My brother has always been like that, putting aside sickness and injury until either he conquers it, or it overcomes him." Her voice cracked, and she sucked in an unsteady breath. "Kannushi, why won't he wake up?"

"His soul is heavy, daughter. It bears a great burden of grief and pain. We must make him as comfortable as we can and wait for him to awaken when he is ready to."

The priests bustled out, leaving Mae to sit vigil. At first, Sadamori tossed and muttered to himself as though gripped by evil dreams. She hoped that whatever nightmares tormented him might also propel him out of the spirit realm, but as the lanterns burned low, his agitation stilled, and his breathing grew shallow.

The pallor of Sadamori's face terrified her; Mae couldn't bear to look at it. She stared instead with fixed obsession at the rise and fall of his chest. When he exhaled, her blood froze, fearful that that breath would be his last, and each time he inhaled, her soul warmed, and she thanked all the gods for the miracle.

As the night deepened, this circuit of despair, hope, and relief took its inexorable toll. Mae rose and stormed to the altar. She wrenched open the pot of rice and slung its contents at the kami house. Hurling the salt bin against the cabinet doors, she sent a shower of salt to mingle with the rice. She seized the pitcher of water, but blinded by either a mist of salt or the brine of her tears, her aim was off. It shattered above the shelf, spraying its contents over cabinet, rice, and salt. When she came to the jar of sake, she gulped several mouthfuls before pouring the rest onto the shrine's floor.

"There! You cannot say the offering is not enough," she shouted. "You have no excuse not to hear me, Bishamon. God of War, answer me!"

Her words echoed in the silence.

She picked up the bronze bell and struck it four times. "Bishamon! I'm calling you! Are you afraid of a woman's anger? Bisha—"

A wind howled through the shrine, extinguishing all the lanterns and hurling her to her knees. In the darkness, Mae pawed at her face, blinded by a faceful of sodden rice and salt.

When she could see once again, the shrine was no longer dark. A miniature cyclone whirled atop the altar, shedding a white-blue luminescence.

"I have come." The voice emanated from every corner— the exultant howl of the battlefield, the dangerous whisper of a new-drawn tachi, and the menacing thrum of a leaping arrow.

Mae fought her way to her feet, although the gale lashed her with a hail of rice and salt. "Take me instead," she called. "Let Sadamori live, and take me."

The wind lessened until Mae could stand without swaying like a drunken bushi.

"What makes you think I want you?" the voice boomed. "Or him for that matter?"

"Why else would you set Taira no Masakado upon us? We had no quarrel with him. Whatever our house has done to offend you, I offer myself to appease your wrath if you will let Sadamori and the rest of my family alone."

Laughter, like the clang of steel, ricocheted from wall to wall. "I have no grievance against you or your house. Taira no Masakado's sincerity impressed me; that is all. But now you have impressed me as well. I will give you a gift. Do you want what I gave him, invulnerability and the strength of seven men?"

"Yes!"

"Then you may have it. All you must do is take it from Masakado." The wind chuckled.

Mae stamped her foot. "You tricked me! I only wanted those so I could slay Masakado."

"Then you should have refused my offer and asked me to tell you how to defeat him." Still chuckling, the wind whirled away.

"Wait! You son of a worm! You—"

A clod of wind-strewn salt-rice flew into her throat and she doubled over, coughing. Between choked gasps, Mae used every bushi profanity she could remember overhearing.

"Tch. Such language." The voice was a woman's, melodious as a silk ribbon playing over the stings of a zither.

Mae spun around. The shrine, even though Bishamon was gone, was bright. But unlike his electric sheen, the air was tinged a festive red. The source of this new illumination came from the kami house. The cabinet was ajar, spilling radiance onto the strewn slop of offerings.

Mae swung open the doors. Red light splashed out, clinging like sticky bean paste to her hands and face.

"The God of War is not one for words, in any case," the voice continued. "Even angry ones. He prefers action. I, however, favor words. Although granted, it was your actions that attracted my attention—which is probably as well, considering."

"Benzaiten, Goddess of Love and Music," Mae breathed.

"I know who I am, child. Now, do you know what drew us here?"

"Anger at my desecration of the shrine?"

"Why should I be angry? I'm not the one who will be cleaning this up. Although I suspect the priests are going to be put out."

"Then, no."

"Sincerity, Taira no Mae. That which binds the divine to the mortal. The pureness of your soul's fury attracted the God of War. But it is the intensity of your love for your brother and your selfless—albeit ridiculous—offer to trade your life for his that has earned my blessing."

"Can you give me the means to defeat Masakado?"

"I already have."

"I—I don't feel any stronger."

The goddess-light flickered. "It is not invulnerability or strength I have given you; those are not my virtues to bestow. But my gifts, in concert with Bishamon's, will surely conquer Masakado."

Mae scowled. "Bishamon didn't give me anything save his ridicule."

"Silly girl. He gave you the most important thing of all: knowledge. Think. 'You should have asked me how to defeat him,' he said."

Mae's eyes widened. "Which means Masakado can be defeated!"

"See? I knew you were clever. But are you certain this is the path you wish to tread? When War and Love come together, there is always suffering."

An image of Seiichi filled Mae's vision, his arms around a bouquet of bloody arrows. "I am sure."

"So be it. If you wish to defeat Taira no Masakado, you must set off for Sashima tonight."

"Tonight? Without Sadamori?"

"Indeed. Or else do not bother to set out at all."

"But why won't you heal him?"

"It is not up to me, or Bishamon for that matter, whether your brother lives or dies." The goddess's voice became a wisp of floating melody. "That is entirely up to him."

The red glow snuffed out. However, Love, being a more considerate god than War, relit a lantern as she departed, the one Mae had set by the altar. Its glimmer filled the kami house, flashing off the traditional mirror within. About to close the cabinet, Mae glanced in and was astounded to behold a stranger in the mirror gazing back.

She leaned close, dumbfounded.

Despite Sadamori's assurances to the contrary, Mae knew herself to be unremarkable. Her features were agreeable enough, but they were neither sophisticated nor striking. Yet her reflection was exquisite. Beneath lilting brows, eyes mysterious and charming as a cat's gaped back in disbelief, while velvety lips, red as plum wine, parted in astonishment. Mae pressed a hand to her cheek. In addition to being as white and lustrous as pearls, her skin was soft as orchid petals.

She peeked beneath her kimono. It was with a certain relief that she discovered the scar on her shin—from where Sadamori had accidentally clipped her, years ago as they practiced with naginatas—remained, as did the discolored patch on her forearm from when she had spilled a pot of scalding tea. Her spirit had not been deposited into a stranger's body, after all. Where her garments had stood between her skin and the goddess's light, she remained unaltered.

Sadamori stirred on his straw pallet, interrupting her astonished appraisal. Mae snatched the lantern and hurried to him.

She joggled him and called his name, but he still would not wake. It seemed the divine visitation had not roused him; at least he had come to no harm from all the flying rice.

"I must go now, Sadamori-kun," she whispered. "You better not die. If you do, I will kill Masakado all by myself, and you will be the laughingstock of everyone in heaven. 'Look at Taira no Sadamori,' they'll say, 'finished by a clonk to the head, and by a man his little sister dispatched, no less!'" Mae kissed his forehead. "So don't you dare die and leave me alone, you hear?"

She crept from the shrine. The moon had set, leaving the night sky wreathed in a star-spangled veil of wispy clouds. A suggestion of silver in the east hinted of dawn's unfurling banner.

"Taira no Mae-dono."

Mae gasped.

Behind her, silent and unseen, stood the head priest, his white kimono ghostly in the darkness. He held her mare's reins in one hand and Mae's bow, quiver, and naginata in the other.

"Please forgive me," he said. "It was not my intention to startle. I took the liberty of preparing your mount and weapons for your journey."

She swallowed back the thunder of her heart. "H–how did you know?"

The priest smiled. "Daughter, did you think we who serve the spirits and gods are deaf and blind not to notice Bishamon's ruckus?"

Mae's face burned. She accepted her weapons and secured them to her saddle. "Kannushi, I am shamed by how I have abused this holy place. I'm afraid I've made a terrible mess."

The priest chuckled. "It was not you alone responsible for the disorder within. Do not fret yourself. The kami are usually more subtle, as are we when we seek their attention, but perhaps when calamitous events are afoot, it requires a more candid approach. A day or two of sweeping and scrubbing will set things right."

Mae hoisted herself into the saddle. "Will you tell my brother I have gone to Sashima when he wakes?"

"Of course."

She bit her lip. "Do you think he will recognize me when he sees me?"

"Daughter, the mirror in the kami house is more than a symbol. Its purity and clarity teaches us to look within and beyond. His heart will know to look past the bafflement of his eyes."

"I hope so. Thank you."

The priest bowed.

Mae turned her mare and sent her trotting down the path. As they passed beneath the torii, she squinted at the crossbar, but if there were any birds perched on it, they were hidden by the early morning gloom.

They picked their way through the forest while dawn spread a fan of pale pink, gold, and white across the sky. A stream twisted like a shining snake across their path. In the distance, the highway was still a dusty ripple—always closer as it peeped in and out between tree trunks.

Mae alighted while her mare drank, and freed her hair from the band that secured it in an ankle-length train down her back. A shower of salt and rice pattered down, deposited from Bishamon's vehemence. Grains of rice were also trapped in the folds and layers of her kimono that no amount of shaking or brushing could dislodge.

As much as Mae desired to make all haste to Sashima, the gritty specks itched in a maddening fashion. And while she felt chagrined at postponing a blood vendetta to see to such luxuries as bathing, surely her cause would be better served if she came at Masakado with balanced focus, instead of distracted by her irritated skin.

Mae shed the outer layers of her kimono until she was clad only in the thin silk of her white hitoe. As her mare watched, brown eyes placid and amused, Mae brushed the folds of brocade until she was satisfied all the silty deposits had been displaced. Draping these robes over convenient boxwood bushes, she shrugged aside her hitoe and knelt by the stream. The chilly water raised prickles on her arms as she splashed away the residue Bishamon had flung over her.

A neigh brought Mae's head snapping up. Four rough-looking men abandoned their efforts at stealth and stepped from the foliage behind her.

Mae snatched her hitoe. Even as she clutched the silk to her breasts, she reproached herself for allowing modesty to usurp reason. Her kaiken hung on a branch two steps away. She ought to have scrambled for it, not the useless hitoe.

As though anticipating her intent, the first man drew his tachi and flipped her kaiken spinning away.

"Good morning, hime." He grinned, displaying a gap of missing front teeth. "Have we disrupted your morning ablutions?"

"I haven't any money," Mae declared. "And my brother is just over the hill."

"He is? He can't be too protective of you as we came from that way, and we didn't see anyone."

The other men chuckled. One, bearing a scar across his nose, fingered the front of his hakama pants.

Mae shrank back.

"And who said we wanted money? We're collecting donations of silk. That's a very nice piece you've got there. Kindly toss it over."

She swallowed. "W–wouldn't you rather come here and take it?"

Gap-tooth's grin widened. He shoved his tachi back into its sheath and advanced. When he was close enough, Mae flung the voluminous length of her hitoe over his head and bolted for her mare.

Before she could spring into the saddle, a great weight smashed into her. She screamed as she went down beneath a snarling man. She thrashed, catching flesh beneath her raking nails before coarse hands pinioned her arms to the ground.

Gap-tooth's friend, Scar-nose, touched his bleeding face and scowled. He slapped her, rocking her head back.

The next moment, a tuft of red feathers protruded from his mouth. Scar-nose wore an expression of confused indignity as he toppled, his skull pierced by an arrow.

Mae rolled away and sprang to her feet. Sprinting the few steps to her mare, she yanked her naginata free and pivoted, wheeling it in a wide arc.

A man clad in billowing black parried aside the concentrated efforts of