“Brother. Please! Stop this now before you destroy everything you hold dear.”
“The dearest thing I had was Father’s love, and you destroyed that the day you were born,” Sadaiyo replied, his voice dripping with bitterness. “Oh, how he mourned your death! His dear, beloved Ashi! It made me sick to my stomach to watch. I did think, though, that in time, he would get over losing you and turn to me, love me again. He was just beginning to, Little Brother, and you are mad if you think I’ll allow you to come back and ruin things now!” With those final words, he charged.
Ashinji had no time for thought, only reaction guided by years of training and the instinct for survival. As Sadaiyo slammed into him, Ashinji grappled his brother’s shoulders and went down on his back, thrusting his knees into the other’s stomach. The momentum of Sadaiyo’s charge carried him up and over Ashinji’s prone body. Ashinji heard, rather than saw, his brother skid to the edge of the outcrop.
“ Noooo!” he screamed, and tried to grab any part of Sadaiyo he could, but he failed.
Sadaiyo fell without a sound.
Ashinji crawled to the edge of the outcrop then peered down. The night concealed the final evidence of his brother’s fate, but he did not need the confirmation of his eyes to know. He felt the moment of Sadaiyo’s passing as his brother’s raging soul fled his broken body.
Ashinji collapsed to the cool stone and let grief take him.
The moon and stars had begun to fade by the time Ashinji finally summoned enough strength to climb down from the outcrop. When he reached the ground, he did not search for Sadaiyo’s body. That would be asking too much of himself. Instead, he turned then headed back toward the encampment. He stumbled as he walked, and once, he stopped then sank to his knees, overcome with dizziness. He knew he had suffered serious injury and would need a doctor.
He did not think about the events just past-he couldn’t. The terrible pain behind his eyes made clear thought all but impossible. It took every bit of strength he had left just to focus on getting his legs to move.
“Stop right there!”
For the second time that night, a familiar voice challenged him, this time at his back.
“Don’t…shoot,” he whispered. He heard a hiss of surprise.
“It can’t be… Lord Ashinji? ”
Ashinji turned around to find his old friend Aneko staring at him, her face a pale blot in the darkness.
“Ai, Goddess!” She approached to within touching distance, raised her hand as if to caress his face, then let it fall. “Lord Ashinji…it really is you,” she whispered, then gasped in dismay. “My lord, your clothes…you’ve been hurt! I’ll go fetch Lord Sen!”
Before she could go, Ashinji grabbed her forearm. “No, Aneko,” he said. A torn lower lip and aching jaw made speech slow and difficult. “I don’t want to cause a commotion. Better if you bring me a cloak or something I can cover myself with. I’d rather just slip into camp quietly.”
“Of course, my lord, but…” Ashinji sensed her confusion and fear for him, but Aneko had always been one of the steadiest of the Kerala guards. “You wait right here, my lord. I won’t be but a moment.”
True to her word, Aneko returned quickly, a voluminous length of cloth in her arms. “Couldn’t find a cloak, my lord,” she explained. “A horse blanket will have to do.”
Ashinji chuckled, despite the pain. “A beggar can’t be too picky, can he?” he replied. He tossed the blanket over his shoulders, pulled a fold over his head, then indicated with a nod that Aneko should lead on. Anonymous in his makeshift cloak, he followed the guardswoman through the camp.
A few early risers made note of his passing, but most of the camp still lay wrapped in sleep. Aneko’s powerful emotions trailed her like smoke on the dawn air-elation, concern, and curiosity in equal measure. He knew she wanted very much to question him, but her discipline and deference kept her curiosity at bay. They walked in silence until Aneko halted before a tent distinguished from the ones surrounding it only by its larger size. The flap had been pinned back to allow in any stray breezes. Muted conversation, mingled with the sound of a man’s laughter, soft and relaxed, drifted out, followed by a snippet of song. Ashinji’s breath caught in his throat.
Aneko stood aside, waiting for him to enter the tent ahead of her. Ashinji hesitated. “Aneko,” he murmured. “Go in to my father and tell him someone is here to see him.”
“Yes, my lord,” Aneko replied then ducked into the tent.
The voices stopped as soon as the guardswoman entered. She delivered her message and Ashinji listened for the reply.
“Who is it?”
“You need to see for yourself, my lord.”
Ashinji stepped through the entrance, letting the blanket slip from his shoulders as he did so, then moved forward into the light.
Sen lounged in a camp chair, a wooden tankard in his hand. Misune sat beside him on a stool, her brother Ibeji sprawled on a cushion at her feet. Sen looked up to greet his visitor and his words froze on his lips.
The tankard slipped from his fingers.
Misune leapt from her stool with a startled shriek. Ibeji bolted up, staring.
Like a man moving through a dream, Ashinji’s father drifted to his feet, his face white.
“Father,” Ashinji whispered.
Sen lurched forward then swept Ashinji into his arms.
“My son!” he sobbed. “My son is alive!”
A memory from childhood pushed its way to the fore of Ashinji’s consciousness just then. He had been very young, a baby really, playing by himself, when he had fallen into a deep hole. He found out much later that it was an old, forgotten well. He had crouched in the dark, bruised and crying, too young to fear death but old enough to fear he would never see his mother and father again.
After what seemed like forever to his child’s mind, Sen came to rescue him. Ashinji remembered how his father lifted him into his strong arms then held him close, how he had felt completely safe and how quickly his fear had evaporated in the heat of his father’s love.
It feels like that now.
“How is this possible?” Sen whispered. He held Ashinji at arm’s length, shaking his head. Tears spilled from his eyes and dripped off his chin. “ Ashi …Ashi, my child! Where have you been ?” Ashinji tried to speak but his own tears trapped the words in his throat.
“Never mind, Son.” Sen pulled him close again. “I can see you’ve been through a terrible ordeal. There’ll be time to hear all about it after you’ve gotten some rest.”
Ashinji nodded against his father’s shoulder. He could feel his body letting go and his mind slipping away. “I just need to sleep a little, that’s all,” he murmured.
“Here…come over here, Son. Lie down on my cot.”
Ashinji allowed his father to steer him to a folding bed behind a curtain. He sank down with a grateful sigh and closed his eyes. He heard his father ask Ibeji to go fetch the doctor.
Father, your Heir is dead. I killed him, but I had no choice. I’m so sorry.
“I can’t understand you, Son, you’re mumbling. Don’t try to talk. Just sleep, now.”
Please forgive me, Father!
“I love you, Son.”
The Unbreakable Bonds of Love
When Ashinji awoke, he turned his head to see his father slumped in a camp chair at his bedside, dozing. He pushed himself onto his elbows, then collapsed back, grinding his teeth against the pounding agony behind his eyes. That pain, along with an assortment of other aches, served as a potent reminder of the ordeal he had survived.