Something white fluttered in the corner of his eye. Toshi rocked back onto his knees and shielded his eyes from the wind. At the center of the circle stood a tall, female figure in a flowing white robe. Her head was tilted forward so that her long black hair hung down and obscured her features. She stood motionless for a second as the wind whipped her garments, and then she took a single step forward.
Toshi recognized the yuki-onna but he was beyond fear. He didn’t feel anything save a wave of resignation, unable even to summon the energy for some clever last words.
The woman in white took another step toward Toshi. He simply sat and stared, his jitte held tight but almost forgotten in his hand. Then, the cold figure straightened and lifted her head, tossing back her silky black mane and revealing her elegant, sharp-boned face.
The yuki-onna’s skin was jet-black except for her lips, which were painted a vibrant purple. She scanned Toshi with her glittering black eyes and shook her head in disgust.
“What are you doing, oath-brother? What could you possibly be doing?”
Toshi blinked, sending flakes of ice fluttering down his cheeks. “Kiku?” It was definitely the mahotsukai’s face beneath that veil of hair. Confusion pricked the back of Toshi’s mind. The yuki-onna often took the form of someone familiar, someone beloved. Did Kiku qualify?
Had the snow-woman ever spoken before? And weren’t her eyes supposed to be bottomless black holes without pupils?
Kiku made a dismissive wave. “I am disappointed in you, ochimusha. With all the games you play, I expected you to recognize this for what it is.”
“A dream,” Toshi croaked. “This is all a dream brought on-”
This is no dream, my acolyte.
Toshi’s eyes opened wide. Kiku was gone, and in her place stood a thick black curtain with a bone-white mask at its center.
Look around you, Night’s Reach said. You are not sleeping in a rocky cubbyhole. You are here, on the Heart of Frost, in the very clearing you seek. You have been manipulated here by powerful magic.
The sight of his myojin and her voice helped Toshi concentrate. “Manipulated,” he muttered.
Since you arrived in the forest. Perhaps even before. You are no longer in control of your own mind.
Toshi shuddered. His voice became sharper. “Who is?”
You know, but have forgotten. Or rather, you know, but they will not let you remember.
He tried to stand, but his legs would not hold him. “Help me, then,” he said.
I could erase their influence with a thought. But I do not choose to reveal myself to them directly. Not yet.
Irritation seeped into Toshi’s tone. “What are you waiting for?”
The right time. Now be still. Gather your thoughts. When you call for my assistance again, I will give it gladly.
The myojin began to fade from view. Toshi raised his hand to stop her, but caught himself before he spoke. His eyes fixed on the jitte still clutched in his fist. Realization hit him and he said, “Those pale-skinned aristo bastards.”
Angrily, the ochimusha stood. His limbs were still leaden and unresponsive, but pure, clear hatred had punched through the fog in his mind. He steadied himself and looked down at the exposed kanji at his feet. Then Toshi snarled and fell to his knees once more, hacking at the carved character with his jitte.
Toshi. Night’s voice was still strong, though her physical body was gone. What are you doing now?
“What I came to do.” He barely interrupted his attack on the symbol. Chips of stone flew past his face.
That is what they want you to do, not what you came to do.
Toshi chipped away the last of the symbol so that there was nothing but a shallow indentation in the ground. “It is now.”
Back at the Sokenzan border, Godo faced alone the nightmare that was consuming his army one man at a time.
The bandit numbers had dwindled so much that Godo himself was reduced to standing watch on the border. He had been safe for two nights running, but this night his luck ran out. He had sensed this was his last night long before he saw the woman in flowing white robes and the long, concealing veil of hair.
When she came, she came slowly, walking up the ridge toward Godo on his yak like a long-lost friend. The bandit chief fought the urge to run-he was too weary and too stubborn to abandon his post. Visions of Konda’s army riding unchallenged across the border were even more hateful to him than his own meaningless death. When he died, they would say he died resisting Konda to the end.
The snow-woman crept closer, now mere yards from Godo. He flexed his cold muscles and took the heavy, spiked log from the yak’s back.
“Come on, then.” He tried to sound strong and sure, but he had used up the last of his reserves long ago. It was a challenge just to swing the heavy log, especially because he knew it would do no good. You couldn’t beat back the cold with weapons of wood and metal.
Just out of arm’s reach, the yuki-onna raised her head and tossed back her hair. Godo gasped when he saw the endless black pools of her eyes. He felt a flicker of disappointment in not recognizing the snow-woman’s features. Perhaps she was so gorged on his men that she didn’t feel the need to appear as someone he loved. Perhaps she had taken on the face of someone dear to him, someone from his distant past that his addled brain couldn’t consciously recall.
“Hail to you, curse of the mountain. I am Godo, chief of the Sanzoku bandits. Take me if you can, but promise me this: once I am gone, continue to haunt this place. Claim as many of Eiganjo’s men as you can. Make this border a bane to all so that none will try to cross through here ever again.”
His speech energized Godo, and he swung the spiked log with the last bit of strength in his powerful frame. The thick weapon plowed into the yuki-onna’s side, and for a moment it seemed as if she would be swept aside by it. But the log sailed past her and she still occupied the same space.
The snow-woman stepped within arm’s reach of Godo and extended her hand. Summoning all his courage, Godo stared directly into the face of the killing force and waited.
The yuki-onna seemed to wince as if stung. She withdrew her hand and slowly tilted her head back toward the Heart of Frost. Godo fought off a surge of relief as those terrible eyes turned from him.
The dread spirit folded her hands into her sleeves and tilted her head forward. Her face disappeared behind the veil of hair, and as Godo watched, the yuki-onna’s entire body slowly disintegrated into a stream of icy crystals borne up by the wind.
The cold, oppressive atmosphere on the ridge immediately warmed and lightened. Godo exhaled and sank to his knees. He giddily noticed that his breath no longer appeared as a thick cloud of white fog.
Exhausted but alive, Godo pulled himself back up by gripping the yak’s leather harness. For the first time in weeks he felt a faint stirring of hope. Many of his warriors had died or fled. Konda’s army was still waiting just beyond the border. The Kami War still raged across the nation. But the border was secure, and Konda would not come to enslave them this day. However it happened, the yuki-onna had gone just as mysteriously as she had come. And because of that, the Sanzoku bandits would live to fight another day.
Godo swung himself into the saddle and headed down to rally whomever he could find. As he rode off the ridge, the bandit chief leaned low and snared his spiked log, dragging it to him by its long metal chain.
Konda’s army could not possibly know how their situation had changed, and Godo was eager to exploit this to his advantage.
CHAPTER 17