Toshi frowned. “Don’t dodder, Constable.” He gestured at the symbol again. “This is the kanji for yuki-onna. I bear her power as well as her symbol.”
Aoyama simply stared, his jitte trembling in his hand. Isamaru advanced a pace and began growling again.
Toshi sighed. “What does it take to frighten you and that damned dog away for ten seconds?”
“More than you possess, false acolyte. You’re no seeker, you’re just a lowlife.”
Toshi shrugged. “I mean well.”
Aoyama steadied his lantern. “Go on now, Toshi. You’ve had your jest.”
“I’m afraid I can’t, Constable. I really am an acolyte, even if you can’t believe it. My myojin has given me a very clear mission in life, and I can’t accomplish it without one of Konda’s moths.”
“You’re lucky your patron spirit just gives orders instead of tearing you to pieces. It’s not even safe to worship most spirits anymore.”
“My point exactly. We don’t want to make the spirits any angrier than they already are, right? Give me what my myojin demands and you’ll never see me again.”
“Never. Leave this place, now. I won’t give you another chance.”
“You don’t have any chances to give, my friend. It’s not up to you.”
The old man trembled. “I have but to raise my voice-”
“-to cause a great echo. Come on, Constable. Now who’s blowing smoke?” Toshi smiled and then puffed another cloud of snow through pursed lips. “There’s no one here to answer your call. And even if there were, Isamaru here is the only real fighter left in the fortress.”
“That may be true,” Aoyama said. “But at least he is already here.”
“Not for long.”
“Longer than you. Isamaru! Attack!”
The big dog was well trained. He snarled as he leaped for Toshi’s arm, his powerful jaws capable of crushing bone to powder in a single bite.
As he stepped back, Toshi wondered why he seemed to be having so much trouble with dogs lately. Isamaru did not allow him time to find the answer, so the ochimusha waved his arm in a circle as Isamaru hit him, tangling the dog’s teeth in the folds of his sleeve. He wrapped the loose-fitting fabric around the top of Isamaru’s nose as he caught the heavy dog against his chest and shoulder. Quick as a mousetrap, Toshi slammed the dog’s jaws shut and kept them closed by pulling the fabric tight around Isamaru’s face like a muzzle.
Toshi’s foot plunged into a shadow cast by Aoyama’s lantern, and the foot plunged into it. Isamaru’s weight seemed to bear Toshi down into the shadow more quickly than normal, and in less than a second they were both gone.
Aoyama stood blinking in the lantern light. He moved the paper globe closer to the spot where Toshi and Isamaru had vanished, but the pale light revealed only cold, hard ground. The old man hesitated.
“Isamaru?” he said.
“Safe and happy,” Toshi’s voice replied. Aoyama spun in place, swinging the lantern as he went, but there was no sign of the intruder. In the cold glow of the paper globe there were no shadows to conceal him, either.
“He’s probably confused right now,” Toshi continued, still unseen. “But once he stops to sniff around, he’ll find a friendly scent or two. He’ll be fine. Is there anywhere you’d like to go, Constable? I can freeze you like an icicle and leave you here, but I’d be willing to deposit you somewhere comfortable and warm to sit out the rest of the war. It’s up to you.”
“You have taken Eiganjo’s hope,” Aoyama said miserably. “Yosei is like a god, but Isamaru was our own defender, born and bred in the fortress. Return him at once!”
“Trust me,” Toshi’s voice said. “He’s much happier where he is now.”
Aoyama dropped his lantern and drew a short sword. The lantern light flickered, then expired, leaving only the moon’s silver-blue tint. With his jitte in one hand and a blade in the other, the old man said, “I will not abandon my duty to the daimyo.”
Toshi’s voice was unperturbed. “Fair enough.” He materialized like a ghost one step behind Aoyama, strode forward, and then tapped the handle of his jitte behind the constable’s left ear. The old man groaned softly, and as he crumpled to the ground his eyes rolled back in his head.
Toshi stood silently for a moment, listening for any other sentries and spinning his jitte. Finally, he turned to face the constable.
“You’re a brave man,” he said to Aoyama’s supine form, “but a dismal constable.”
Then Toshi turned and went quickly into the building. The first floor was some kind of warehouse. It was built for storage, but these days there was barely a cartload of grain in heavy sacks and a small supply of fresh water in clay jars. Toshi searched until he found a stack of small wooden boxes piled neatly at the foot of the stairway. Each box was filled with what appeared to be soft grayish bricks. He pulled one of the bricks out, inspected it, and nodded. With a grunt, Toshi hauled a box onto his shoulder and climbed the staircase in the center of the room.
The strange musical sound was louder and clearer on the second floor. Toshi put the wooden box down as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the moonlight streaming in between the ceiling slats overhead.
Roughly a dozen gigantic moths were here, housed in individual stalls twenty feet wide. Their broad, flat wings sparkled eerily in the gloom, leaving faint trails of iridescent powder in the air. Each was large enough to carry three grown men and strong enough to bear a month’s worth of rations for each. As they raised and lowered their wings, a glittering breeze swirled around the stable and the air echoed with their burbling song.
Toshi walked along the row of stables, appraising each moth in turn. He had ridden such great beasts before and knew how to spot the strong ones. In the second to last stall, he found one to his liking.
It was one of the largest, and its wings were covered in a colorful collage of pale yellow, brilliant orange, and gleaming white. Its body was thick and sturdy, its movements solid and strong. Here was a steed that could carry the burden Toshi had in mind.
He went back to the wooden box and brought it into the moth’s stall. Toshi tore off a piece from one of the gray bricks, thinking once again of how the soft and spongy material reminded him of moist bread. The moths were intelligent creatures, as much as dogs and horses, but they still responded best to food.
Toshi held the gray mass in front of the moth’s head. It inspected the stuff for a moment before plunging its sharp proboscis in. Within a few seconds, it had sucked all the moisture out of the material, leaving only a thin membrane in Toshi’s hand.
Toshi patted the great moth and it trilled happily. He unlatched the stall door and opened it, revealing the clear, calm courtyard below. Then he retrieved a bridle and reins from a hook on the wall and slipped them over the moth’s head. He lashed a saddle to the moth’s back and tied the wooden box full of moth food into a leather harness that fit behind the saddle.
“Steady, now,” Toshi said. He climbed onto the moth and eased into the saddle. Without being prodded, the moth rose on its legs and began to beat its wings more forcefully. It skittered forward and hopped out of its stall. Toshi’s stomach dropped.
Before they could fall, the moth’s great wings caught the air, and it swooped, skimming the ground. Toshi pulled up on the reins, and the moth burbled again, picking up speed and height as it soared silently through the huge hole in Eiganjo’s stone walls.
For a moment, Toshi watched the moth’s shadow on the ground far below. To someone down there, he and his steed would be silhouetted against the gleaming half-moon. He wondered if the daimyo’s people would be heartened by such a majestic sight or frightened by the strangeness of it.
Toshi glanced up at the great half-circle glowing so brightly in the skies over Eiganjo.
“Soon,” he whispered. “Your turn will come soon.”
CHAPTER 6
Toshi kneeled outside the mahotsukai stronghold in the early-morning sun. He was dressed once more in his standard outfit of nondescript black cloth and leather armor, and he meditated as he traced simple kanji characters in the sandy soil, sorting through the next stages of his plan. He had left the moth securely tethered with three days’ supply of the gray bricks. He would be back to collect the great beast long before it ran out of food or grew bored enough to wriggle free of its harness. Kiku was with him, so he just needed to collect Marrow-Gnawer to complete the current roster of hyozan reckoners and get this grand enterprise underway.