Why am I still alive?
I must have moaned with the effort of keeping my eyes open, since one of the bandits glanced in my direction and grunted.
“He’s awake. Good. I thought you’d killed him. You know an ogre likes ’em fresh.”
There was my answer, though it went without saying that I didn’t care for it. Maybe I could get a better one. “You two gentlemen work for an ogre?”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Missing Ear. “The ogre is just a bonus. Our employer wants you dead, and, since you’re dead either way, we sell you to the ogre that lives in this forest. That’s good business.”
He clearly wasn’t the brightest blade in the rack, but I couldn’t fault his mercantile instincts. “So who are you working for?”
“You’re dead. What do you care?”
“If I’m going to die, I’d like to know why. Besides, if I’m good as dead it’s not like I’ll be telling anyone.”
“Well, if you must know—oww!” Missing Ear began, but then Split Nose leaned over and rapped him sharply on the back of his skull.
“You know what she said about talking too much,” he said. “What if she found out? Do you want her angry at you? I’d sooner take my chances with the ogre.”
Her. At this point there didn’t seem to be much question as to whom they meant.
Missing Ear rubbed his head. He had a sour look on his face, but what his companion had said to him apparently sank in. “No. That would be . . . bad.”
“So far we’ve done everything like she said. The ogre will see our fire soon and come for this fool, and that’s that. We can get out of this demon-blighted place.”
“You two are making a big mistake. I’m acting as proxy for Lord Abe. An insult to me is an insult to him.” It wasn’t much, but it was all I had. I was still surprised at the bandits’ reaction. They glanced at each other and burst out laughing.
“We know why you’re here, baka,” said Split Nose when he regained his composure. “Now, be a well-behaved meal and wait for the ogre.”
The bandits obviously knew more about this matter than I did. It was also obvious that they had searched me before they tied me up. I could see my pack near the campfire and my tachi leaning against a boulder only a few feet away. It was the only decent material object I owned, a gift from the grateful father of a particularly foolish young man whose good name I was able to salvage. It was a beautiful sword, with sharkskin-covered grip and scabbard both dyed black. The tsuba was of black iron and the blade, I had occasion to know, was sharp enough to shave with. If only I could reach it, I could demonstrate that virtue on my captors, but it was impossible. As close as the tachi was, it might as well have been in Mongolia for all the good of it. Try as I might, I could not get free of the ropes. I flashed back on something Lord Abe had said.
“Love and happiness are both illusions.”
To which I could add that life was fleeing and illusory itself. I might not have been much for the temple, but the priests had that much right. The best I could hope for now was that the ogre was more hungry than cruel; then at least he would be quick.
There was a very faint rustling in the undergrowth. At first I thought it was the ogre coming for his supper, but then I couldn’t quite imagine something that large moving so quietly. A light flared and I assumed someone had lit a torch, but the flame turned blue and then floated over the campsite and disappeared. Then, almost on cue, thirteen additional blue fires kindled in the darkness just beyond the campfire.
Yurrei . . . ? Oh, hell.
Ghosts were just like youkai in one important respect—there were ghosts, and then there were ghosts. Some, like the red lantern ghost Seita, were reasonable folk once you got to know them. Some, however, tended to be angry at everything living. Judging from the onibi and balefire I was seeing now, all three of us were pretty much stew for the same pot. Split Nose and Missing Ear knew it too. The pair of them had turned whiter than a funeral kimono, and for a moment they actually hugged each other, though Split Nose managed to compose himself enough to rap Missing Ear’s skull again.
“You idiot! You made camp in a graveyard!”
“Wasn’t no graveyard here!” Missing Ear protested, but Split Nose was already pointing back toward me.
“What’s that, then?”
I was having some trouble moving my head, but I managed to see what they were seeing, not ten feet away on the far side of me. It was a stone grave marker, half-covered in weeds and vines, but still visible enough even in the firelight.
When I looked back at the bandits the ghost was already there, hovering about two feet off the ground. It might have been female; it was wearing a funeral white kimono but the way its kimono was tied was about as feminine as the specter got. Its mouth was three feet wide and full of sharp teeth, its eyes were as big as soup bowls and just as bulging. One of its hands was tucked within the kimono, but the other, pointing directly at the cowering bandits, bore talons as long as knives.
YOU HAVE DISTURBED ME. PREPARE TO DIE. The ghost’s voice boomed like thunder, and the blue fires showed traces of red.
“Mercy!” cried Split Nose. “It was a mistake!”
YES. NOW PREPARE TO ATONE!
“Mercy!” they both cried again and bowed low.
The revenant seemed to consider. BOW LOWER, DOGS.
They did so. Then came two flashes of silver, and the bandits slumped over into a heap. In an instant the balefires went out, and the ghost floated down to earth, and then she wasn’t a ghost at all but a woman carrying a sword.
My sword.
I glanced at the boulder and saw that the tachi was missing, though its scabbard still leaned against the stone. The grave stone was gone, but by this time I expected that. Fox spirits were masters of illusion. The woman turned to face me.
I had never seen a more beautiful woman in my life. A master painter could not have rendered a face more perfect, or hair so long and glossy black that it shone like dark fire. She seemed little more than a delicate young woman, but the ease with which she handled my sword and the twitching bodies of the two bandits said otherwise. She walked over to me without a second glance at the carnage behind her.
“Lady Kuzunoha?” I made it sound like a question, but really it wasn’t.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“My name is Yamada no Goji. Lord Abe sent me.”
“I’ve heard of you, Yamada-san. Well, then. Let’s get this over with.”
She raised the sword again, and I closed my eyes. I would have said a prayer if I could have thought of one. All I could manage was the obvious.
This is my death . . .
I heard the angry whoosh of the blade as it cut through the air. It took me several long seconds to realize that it hadn’t cut through me. Not only was I still alive, but my hands were free. Another whoosh and my legs were free as well, though both arms and legs were too numb from the ropes to be of much use to me at first. While I struggled to get to my feet, Lady Kuzunoha calmly walked back to the bandits and took a wrapping-cloth from one of their pouches which she used to methodically clean the blade. I had just managed to sit up when she returned the long sword to its scabbard and tossed it at my feet.