Laura Rowland - The Snow Empress

His troops chased Reiko. As she dodged them, Sano ran after them and hacked at them with his sword. Hirata and the detectives joined in with him. Lord Matsumae’s troops battled Gizaemon’s. Native men and women wielded spears, clubs, and knives against any and all Japanese troops. The bear marauded, growling and snapping at whoever crossed his path. Masahiro fired more arrows, as did native boys on other rooftops. The forest resounded with war-cries, colliding blades, and agonized screams.

As Sano fought to reach Reiko, she slipped on ice and fell. Gizaemon threw himself at her, and she rolled away just in time. She sped away, but a soldier grabbed her from behind. He lifted her off her feet and spun while she kicked and her arms beat the air. Sano lashed out his sword. It cut the soldier across the knees. He howled, dropped Reiko, and collapsed. She ran, but a pack of other troops headed her away from Sano, into the war raging amid the village. Lord Matsumae shouted incoherent orders in his own voice. He shrilled curses in Tekare’s and cut down his own troops with his sword. Gizaemon came barreling toward Sano.

Fury locked Gizaemon’s face into an ugly grimace. Eyes crazed with desperation, he looked madder than Lord Matsumae ever had. He swung his sword wildly at Sano. They slashed and parried so fast that their swords were a cyclone of blades through which they moved. Hirata and the native men joined forces and attacked Gizaemon’s army. Native women banded with Reiko and fought the soldiers pursuing her. Gizaemon’s men dropped dead from arrows fired by the boys. Sano barely noticed the chaos. In the space between cuts, there was no time to think. His body lunged, ducked, and pivoted, operating on sheer instinct. The din of metal clanging on metal deafened him. He never saw the critical misstep that decided the outcome.

One instant Gizaemon was savagely fighting Sano. The next, Sano felt his blade cleave flesh and bone. Gizaemon roared. He clutched his right wrist, which spurted blood; the hand was gone. Sano had sliced it clean off. It lay in the snow, fingers still gripping Gizaemon’s sword. Gizaemon stared at his amputated hand in horror.

The sudden victory shocked Sano. His heart was still thudding wildly, his lungs heaving, his muscles still tensed for combat. But all around him the combat fizzled as Matsumae troops noticed that Gizaemon was done for and couldn’t divide their loyalties any longer. Hi-rata and the Ainu men surrounded Gizaemon. He dropped to one knee in a circle of their swords and spears pointed at him. He gazed up at Sano, defeated yet too proud to beg for mercy.

Sano felt himself roughly elbowed aside by Lord Matsumae. Lord Matsumae brandished a sword already red with blood from Japanese men that Tekare had killed. Her aspect masked his face, clearer than ever. Sano could even see her tattoo around his mouth.

“He’s mine,” she said.

Gizaemon beheld his nephew with a tragic, despairing expression. He was already pale from blood loss, half dead. Lord Matsumae swung his sword and decapitated Gizaemon.

As blood spewed from Gizaemon’s neck and his head hit the ground, Lord Matsumae uttered a high-pitched, ululating cry. His back arched, and a horrible grimace of pain twisted his face. His muscles spasmed; his sword dropped. His toes pointed and sprang him up from the ground. A human shadow wrenched free from him. It had the shape of a naked woman. A cry went up among the spectators. Lord Matsumae fell limp, unconscious. The shadow gained substance and detail until Tekare appeared in the flesh.

Sano stared in amazement. She was glorious, brown-skinned, with full lips like an exotic flower in the intense blue tattoo, long, wavy black hair, and dark, deep, knowing eyes. Her nipples were erect, her muscles as strong as a man’s yet sleek, supple, and feminine. Tekare surveyed Gizaemon and smiled with private satisfaction: She’d had her revenge at last.

She swept a triumphant gaze across her audience that stood entranced, silent, and motionless. Then she turned and walked toward the forest. The trees ahead of her shimmered like a painting on a sheer silk curtain blown by the wind. A thunderous crack shook the earth as the portal opened to the spirit world. Tekare walked through the shimmering trees. She disintegrated as if composed of a million particles of light that winked out rapidly one by one. The shimmer abruptly ceased; the world was quiet. Everybody gazed at the forest, where Tekare had vanished.

Captain Okimoto cried, “Lord Matsumae!” He rushed to his fallen master, shook him, and patted his face. “He won’t wake up.”

Troops flocked around Lord Matsumae. Joined by their fear that he was dead and they were masterless samurai, they’d forgotten that they’d been fighting to kill one another. Sano knelt, put his ear by Lord Matsumae’s nose, and felt his neck. “He’s breathing, and his pulse is strong.”

Chieftain Awetok spoke, and the Rat translated: “‘When the spirit of Tekare left him, it was a shock to his system. He’ll sleep for a while. Then he’ll be fine. Take him home.”“

A few troops loaded Lord Matsumae onto a sled. Others gathered up their slain and wounded comrades, some twenty in all. Natives knelt beside and mourned their dead. Urahenka sat with Wente cradled in his lap. Sobs shuddered through him. The air filled with the sound of weeping.

Sano took charge. He said to Chieftain Awetok, “On behalf of the Matsumae clan, the Tokugawa regime, and myself, I apologize for what your people have suffered. I’ll see that you’re compensated. In the meantime, I’m calling off the war.”

Chieftain Awetok nodded in acceptance if not forgiveness. Sano looked anxiously about the village and heard his son’s voice call. He saw Masahiro and Reiko running toward him, hand in hand. Masahiro broke loose from Reiko. He launched himself at Sano. Sano picked him up in his arms. They both laughed with joy. Tears blurred Sano’s eyes. It didn’t seem fair that so many people had died and suffered today and he was so happy. But the balance of fate could tip tomorrow. For now he just celebrated his miracle.

“Papa, I knew you were in Ezogashima. I knew you would come,” Masahiro said.

Sano was touched because his son had such faith in him. “How did you know?”

“I saw you.”

“Oh, you did?” Sano smiled fondly, thinking what a good imagination Masahiro had, glad that it had comforted him. “Where?”

“I was out hunting in the woods with my new friends yesterday. And suddenly you were in front of me. You were with detectives Marume and Fukida and the Rat. Don’t you remember?”

An eerie sensation tingled inside Sano as he remembered the vision he’d had in Fukuyama City.

Masahiro playfully punched his chest. “I waved at you, Papa. You waved back. You saw me, too.”

In his chamber in Fukuyama Castle, Lord Matsumae lay in bed, his gaunt body swaddled in thick quilts, a nightcap on his head. He stirred and yawned. His eyes, gummy with sleep, blinked open at Sano, who knelt beside him.

“Welcome back to the world,” Sano said.

“Chamberlain Sano.” Lord Matsumae sounded confused but lucid. “Where am I?”

“At home.”

Lord Matsumae raised himself on his elbows and squinted at his surroundings. “The last thing I knew, I was in a native village. Let me look outside.”

Sano rose and opened the window. Another huge snowstorm had buried the garden up to the veranda railings. Masahiro was having a snowball fight with Reiko, the two guards who’d helped him escape, the detectives, the Rat, and the Ainu concubines. They laughed as they pelted one another. The precarious harmony between the natives and the Japanese had been restored-at least temporarily. The deaths on both sides were forgotten for now.