The Withering Flame (The Year of the Dragon, Book 6) Read online

  Dragon marks, Bran realised, looking at the deep claw scratches in the timber. Afreolus? But…

  “It doesn’t look like the kind of ship that would stand against a dragon.”

  “It seemed rather more impressive before the Shimazu stripped it of all the weaponry.”

  Bran turned to Li in surprise. “The Shimazu?”

  “Did Commodore Di Lán not tell you about the special cargo?” The interpreter feigned surprise.

  “We…haven’t had much time to talk, yet.”

  “Ah.”

  The interpreter produced a long bamboo pipe from a sack hanging over his shoulder, and attached a glass bowl underneath it. He filled the bowl with a murky liquid and turned a small gear. Bran sensed the buzzing of elementals within the device.

  “Qin magic?” he asked.

  “Yamato, actually,” Li replied. “But made for the Qin quarter merchants. It’s rather ingenious, and saves a lot of hassle.”

  As the liquid in the glass bowl heated up and bubbled, soft, silvery smoke wafted from the pipe. Li sucked it with vigour. Bran sniffed and frowned.

  “Cursed Weed.” He spat.

  “Prime quality,” said Li between breaths. “You can’t get that sort of produce in Qin anymore. There’s a pharmacist in this city selling all kinds of—”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “Ah, no, of course. You Westerners only sell the weed, you don’t actually smoke it yourselves.”

  “That’s my father’s business. I want nothing to do with it.”

  Li inhaled a mighty puff. His eyes lit up in guilty delight. The last of the liquid in the pipe evaporated with a gurgle.

  Bran realised he wanted neither this strange man, nor his father to remain in Yamato. He did not want the country to follow the path of Qin, to see the streets of Kiyo filled with the emaciated addicts. The stench of the Cursed Weed followed closely after Dylan’s Royal Marines. Nothing good will come from the presence here of these… foreigners.

  “You know,” Li started, after a long pause, “I believe we have a common acquaintance here in Yamato.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tall, balding, thin moustache, fierce face, garish clothes…” Bran froze. “Wields twin swords. Stinks of blood.”

  “How… how do you know him?”

  Li chuckled. “We Qin have been dealing with the Yamato for centuries before the Bataavians came here. You think anything can happen on Dejima without our knowledge?”

  Spies everywhere.

  Bran composed himself. “What if I do know him?”

  “There is certain knowledge he may possess,” Li’s answer was slow, careful, gauging Bran’s reaction, “that would come in very useful for the Qin Empire.”

  “What does the Empire need Necromancy for?” Bran asked bluntly.

  “Ah!” Li recoiled. “Such an ugly word, yes?” His accent was slipping. “Self-defence. Merely self-defence.”

  “You have Fanged of your own, then.”

  “The, ah, rebellion that your father so bravely struggled against, as you know.”

  The saboteur on the Ladon. The man’s golden-glinting eyes flashed in Bran’s mind. It was not just a trick of the light!

  “I know nothing about it. I don’t really care.”

  Li scowled and stood up, stowing the pipe away into the sack. “As you wish. I will be back once you’ve had the conversation with the Commodore.”

  “How will you know?” asked Bran, and knew the answer before Li spoke.

  “I will.”

  The interpreter mounted his long. Before launching into the air he turned back to Bran one last time. “You are shrewder than the other one. Or maybe just a little more experienced. But remember — your friends and allies are all over there, ” he pointed to the Yamato shoreline, “not here.”

  The other one…?

  CHAPTER V

  They climbed over a round, fir-covered hill overlooking the sea.

  “I know this place,” said Torishi, when they reached the top.

  Nagomi looked down and also recognised the view, though it seemed unfamiliar in daylight. It was from the beach below that their attack on Ganryūjima had been launched. The ship-shaped island itself peeked through the morning haze: green, calm, and harmless, beyond a forest of dozens of masts of the merchant ships and ferries hurrying through the busy strait.

  Will we ever all meet again?

  She turned to Koro. The little man stared at the island with narrowed lips and a tense frown.

  “Gone,” he said, pointing.

  “Yes,” she said. “The Crimson Robe is gone for good.”

  “Your creator is dead,” she remembered the dream she’d had the night before.

  She noticed Koro’s other hand held on tightly to the blue shard.

  “You said he wanted your stone. Why?” she asked.

  “The red one puts to sleep,” he replied, still staring at the sea. “The blue one wakes.”

  The scroll said the same.

  “Wakes? Wakes what?”

  He gazed at her with his unnervingly dark, round eyes.

  “Kamui,” he said. “The Gods.”

  They climbed higher and higher along the ridge of a chain of hills closing the Dan-no-Ura from the south. It was a long way round, through a stuffy and humid forest, in sweltering summer heat, but Torishi refused to come down to the coastal villages until they really had to, and from the hilltops, between the trunks of firs and camphor trees, they could glimpse at the situation below without being spotted.

  “Let’s stop here for a moment,” Nagomi said, when the banks of a small reed-covered pond, fuelled by a narrow, rippling waterfall, appeared before them. Another waterfall cascaded out the other side of the pool, down a cliff that ran, in a series of slopes and ridges, all the way — she guessed — to the sea.

  She scooped the cool water in her hands and washed her face, letting out a sigh of delight.

  “Here, eat this,” said Torishi, handing her a piece of grilled taro root. She shook her head.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You haven’t eaten anything since this morning.”

  “It’s too hot to eat. I need some rest.”

  She noticed Koro swaying, leaning against the tree.

  “Are you alright?” she asked. He nodded weakly, and waded up to the pond, sitting down in the water with a relaxed splash. He did not seem to mind his clothes — or rather, Torishi’s cloak — getting soaked.

  “I suppose you’re not used to this kind of weather,” she said.

  “In summer… we go north,” he replied, looking melancholy towards the sea. “Not — this year.”

  How sad, she thought, he must miss Shakushain-sama just as I miss my friends.

  “How come you two left the North?” she asked.

  He studied the ripples in the pond for a long while before answering.

  “Shakushain-sama was a chieftain of a tribe in the North,” Torishi translated. “The Yamato… came for the gold in our rivers… killed the fish and the birds. Shakushain rose against them — and failed. He was banished.”

  “And what about you?”

  As Torishi listened to Koro’s answer, his fists clenched of their own accord.

  “He was a slave in the daimyo’s castle,” he said. “Freed with other prisoners during the rebellion. He swore loyalty to Shakushain.”

  “I alone…” the little man interrupted, “went South. The rest — betrayed.”

  “Are there many Ancients still in the North?” asked Nagomi.

  Koro raised his hand from the pond and watched with sadness as water trickled past his fingers until none was left.

  “The last one,” he said. “All gone.”

  Torishi punched the earth. “It’s the same as in the South. Wherever Yamato appear, death follows,” he snarled, baring his teeth.

  She stroked his arm. “I am Yamato…” she said.

  He grunted, but calmed down. “You’re different.”
r />   “Not all Shamo bad,” said Koro, raising the blue shard to the light. “One gave this. Good Shamo.”

  Nagomi moved closer, wading into the pond next to the Ancient. “Wait. A Yamato… a Shamo gave you this shard? I thought all Ancients wore them.”

  Koro shook his head. “A long time ago, yes. Now all lost, forgotten. A Shamo…” He reverted to his own language, and Torishi had to translate again.

  “A Yamato man was helping them in the rebellion. When he heard the story of the Ancients and the Tide Stones, he gave Koro a shard he owned.”

  “What was his name?” Nagomi asked. “What did he look like?”

  “He had… two faces,” said Koro. “And two names. His Shamo name: Maki Tadaemon.”

  Two faces?

  “And his other name…?”

  Koro scratched his bald head, remembering. “Ihoru. His true name was Ihoru.”

  The piercing sound of a whistle interrupted their conversation, followed by a sudden roll of what sounded like several thunders at once.

  Nagomi jumped to her feet. “What was that?”

  “Trouble,” said Torishi.

  The whistle-and-thunder sound repeated once more some two minutes later, but by then, Torishi and Nagomi were already scrambling down the hillside towards the shore, from where it had come.

  Beneath the hill, the currents of Dan-no-Ura had carved a crescent-shaped inlet with a narrow entrance, hidden from the outside world, with a wide, sandy beach. On that secluded beach stood a row of about a dozen samurai, aiming long weapons made of golden metal at a target — a great bale of straw — a hundred feet away. An officer in full armour — Nagomi momentarily felt sorry for the man having to suffer the sweltering heat — raised his sword, and put the whistle to his lips.

  He blew, and the dozen guns released their thunderous charge. A dozen lightning bolts scorched the sand and singed the edges of the target, but none hit even near the centre of the straw bale. The officer launched into a tirade of yells and curses at his hapless men, his face quickly turning dark red under the lacquer helmet.

  “These are Rangaku weapons,” Nagomi whispered.

  “And this is the same kind of ship we saw in Nagoya,” said Torishi, pointing at a flat-bottomed vessel bobbing on the waves at the entrance of the bay, bearing the red letter “Ai” on its sail.

  “Aizu,” said Nagomi. “Taikun’s army. They are here already. How come they have Western guns?”

  The samurai aimed and fired again, and this time the straw caught fire from several good hits. The men cheered.

  “Not our concern,” said Torishi, pulling quietly back into the bushes. “But if those ships are already here, we must hurry.”

  The inn was a lot more crowded than the evening before. Most of the men who had gathered in the common room bore crests of Mori and lesser, allied clans from Chōfu. Some other markings Satō could not recognise; but one crest — a crossed circle stitched in white thread on a black war-vest, thrown over a suit of armour — she had no problem with.

  “What is he doing here?” she asked, loudly.

  The room fell quiet. Everyone turned towards her, including the man in the Satsuma armour. It was Maki Izumi, the priest who’d helped them get the horses in Kurume.

  “Takashima-sama!” He raised his arms in welcome. “So glad to see you alive and well!”

  She stepped back. “Not thanks to your new master,” she said and spat.

  The priest expressed a complete lack of comprehension.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know—”

  “Give me a break.” Satō walked straight past him and slammed his hands on the table before Takasugi. “What is he doing here?” she repeated.

  “He — Izumi-sama is our… contact.”

  The uneasy smile on Takasugi’s face told Satō he, too, felt troubled about this sudden alliance.

  “He has Mori-dono’s seal,” he added in a whisper only she could hear. “Everything checks out.”

  “Takashima-sama,” Izumi pleaded, “whatever happened between you and Shimazu-dono, I have no part in this. I was here in Heian all the time!”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she replied. “You work for Satsuma, that’s reason enough not to trust you.”

  Shōin stood between the two. “Perhaps we should discuss our differences in private.” His eyes pointed to the ceiling. Satō grabbed his arm and stopped him halfway up the stairs.

  “Why would Mori-dono even want to ally with Satsuma? I thought they were sworn enemies!”

  “I don’t know.” Shōin shrugged and shook his head. “Maybe we should listen to what this man has to say. How do you know him?”

  “He and Nariakira used us for one of their plans, pretending to help when we were chasing after Ganryū. He’s just another Shimazu traitor!”

  “Mori-dono seems to trust him.”

  “That’s what worries me.”

  They entered the private room. Takasugi had already poured saké into everyone’s cups and was chatting casually with Izumi.

  “Takashima-sama,” the priest began, “I may be wearing a Satsuma crest now, but I am responsible for my own actions only. I am a friend of your lord, Takachika-dono, as much as I am of Nariakira-dono.”

  “So you’re not here as a representative of Shimazu?” she asked.

  “In a way,” Izumi bobbed his head from side to side. “The Shimazu forces in Heian respond to my command. But I am here foremost as the representative of His Divine Majesty.”

  “The Mikado knows we’re here?” Takasugi almost spilled his saké.

  Izumi grimaced. “His Divine Majesty knows about everything that goes on in his capital. But — ” he leaned forward, “his Majesty has fallen gravely ill recently. This is, as you can imagine, a state secret.”

  Takasugi and Shōin nodded eagerly. He’s playing them, Satō scoffed, but she couldn’t help leaning closer as well. The Mikado, ill? And right after the Taikun died? She sensed the Serpent’s hand in all of it.

  “Not only that, but the Taikun’s army is on his way here,” continued Izumi. “There is little time. You have mere days to present your petition to the court.”

  “Petition? What petition?” asked Satō.

  “This one,” the priest replied, producing a scroll from his sleeve. “I took the liberty of writing it down, following Mori-dono’s instructions. It requests that the Chōfu troops take over the security of the palace walls from Aizu. Of course, I made sure that it will be granted immediately.”

  “And what good will that do?”

  “Such a gesture will be a grave insult to the Aizu-Matsudairas and their cousins, the Tokugawas. It will show the contempt in which the Mikado holds the Edo court, and mobilise those of our allies who are still sitting on the fence.”

  “Why can’t you present it to the court yourself?” asked Shōin. “I thought Satsuma forces already took over some of the guard duties.”

  Izumi looked at Satō and chuckled. “I am a Satsuma retainer, as Takashima-sama keeps pointing out. Nariakira-dono is keen to respect the balance of power between Heian and Edo. His daughter is, after all, the new Taikun’s wife.”

  His daughter — that pretty girl from Kirishima? She’s the Taikun’s wife…?

  “You mean he wants to use Chōfu to take control of the palace, without looking bad in the process,” remarked Satō wryly. “I suppose your soldiers will just stand by as we get slaughtered by Aizu, trying to deliver your precious petition.”

  “On the contrary,” Izumi said, “we will hold the gate open for you, and keep the Aizu guards at bay. Unfortunately, we are not strong enough to hold the gates for long on our own. Timing is crucial — you must wait for my signal.”

  “Sounds like it’s all settled, then,” Satō said.

  “Of course. I have already discussed all this with Kunishi-dono, by the way. His men are ready and waiting. The question is, are yours?”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” she scoffed and slammed the cup a little louder t
han she wanted to. The saké had gone quickly to her head. She felt hot and confused. She looked from Shōin to Takasugi for help, but they stared into their cups. The situation was out of their control, they were merely retainers, not commanders; all they could do was follow their masters’ bidding.

  “If this is what Mori-dono orders,” Shōin said finally.

  “The Kiheitai are ready to do their duty,” added Takasugi.

  “Glad to hear it.” Izumi nodded, rubbing his knee. “Now if you’ll excuse — ”

  He slid open the padded double door. A storm of shouts and curses burst into the room, followed by the sound of clashing swords. Izumi glanced downstairs, then stepped back.

  “Aizu,” he said, turning pale. “But why — ? We did nothing…”

  “We must help them!” Satō jumped up, reaching for her sword.

  “No.” Izumi stopped her. “Leave through the back door, all of you. This may be just some misunderstanding. If you attack the Aizu soldiers now, all will be lost.”

  “What about you?” asked Shōin. The chaos below grew more intense. Satō heard the unmistakable gushing sound of a blade drawing blood. Somebody cried out, not in anger, but in agony.

  “Don’t worry about me. I am a palace courtier. They will not dare touch me as long as the Mikado lives.”

  He straightened his armour and tunic, and stood at the top of the stairs, his hand on the paddle marking his rank at the palace.

  “Lay low,” he said, “I will find you. Remember, wait for my signal.”

  A man in a light blue uniform with white chevrons ran up the stairs, a bloodied blade in his hand. Izumi raised his paddle before him. The assailant halted, confused.

  “Come on!” cried Takasugi, pulling Satō with him towards the secret exit.

  The streets outside Terada-ya were pitch-black, all the lanterns were out, and the windows of the houses were shut dark with thick bamboo covers. Noises of the clash inside the inn came muffled by distance and the dense night air.

  Shōin raised his hand before Satō’s face. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” she whispered.

  “Don’t summon any lights.”

  They sneaked down the narrow alleyway leading from the back door. At the end of it, on a crossroad with a wider street, stood three men, blocking the passage. Two of them bore spears, the third, smaller than the others, held a sword in one hand, and a metal lantern in the other. He was sweeping the street in front of him with its light reflected off a polished bronze mirror.