Mononoke-hime Continuation Fic
By Mikazuki Yuriko
Chapter Twenty-four
From her vantage point on the edge of the woods, San could see the entire field—a crescent of yellowing grass rimming the shore, walled in by hills and mountains on three sides. Her army had broken cover on her command, leaving the shelter of the trees. On the other side of the river-wide column was a large white wolf, poised and ready for the call to charge. He surveyed the animals running down the steep slope with an expression of impatience bordering on envy. The citizens of the forest poured out of the trees in a teeming horde, rallied together by the wolf's call. Squeaking, growling, and grunting, they raced for the human camp as fast as they were able, despite San's cautioning them. The Mice were the most eager to fight the humans—gods and dumb creatures alike. They rushed out in such great numbers that they resembled a gray human rug floating over the land. Weasels and badgers fell into place next, and foxes and bobcats tailed them. Small hawks and falcons flew out over the rest, setting aside their differences with the smaller creatures in order to accomplish a greater goal. San was proud to see her people so unified to destroy the human infiltrators. A portion of her heart, though, was pained that not all of the animals of the forest had the will to fight. The Apes and the Deer were too afraid to risk involvement, though both tribes would have aided their cause greatly. The Eagles were indifferent. And the Boars would not arrive for days yet, though their warrior spirit was still strong. This was all she had. She hated trusting the humans as allies, but even more she hated admitting that she needed them.
"The gunwoman had better live up to her side of the agreement," said her brother in a deep, rumbling growl. "Or I will take her other arm, and legs as well."
"And not leave anything for me?" San asked jokingly. It was hard to tell if he had been serious. Her fingers toyed with the tip of her spear, testing its sharpness. She, too, was eager to rush out into the fray and thrust the point of her blade into the hearts of the humans. But they had to wait. This battle would take strategy, and with as few creatures as she had, every advantage had to be taken. Her brother seemed just as impatient, digging his nails into the dirt and shaking his shaggy head from time to time. San kept her eyes on the battlefield, waiting and wishing. And worrying. Would she ever see Ashitaka again? Would she live to see the rising of another sun? By habit now she quelled the wave of nausea that threatened to make her spew up her breakfast of raw fish and roots. These sick spells were not coming so frequently now, nor lasting as long. San had found an herb by the riverbank that helped with the nausea, and she kept a small supply to chew on her belt.
"Look, a bird is returning," her brother pointed out, panting. Indeed, swooping low over the battlefield towards the edge of the forest was a small black and white falcon. It flared its wings to kill its speed, landing on a tree bough just over San's head.
"My lady," she informed her, "The Mice and Rats have made contact with the humans."
"Already?" San said, astounded. They must have run very fast to have crossed the field and made it into the hills by now. She strained her weak human eyes to see the front lines, but it was futile. Her sight was not as keen as the Falcon's. She could just imagine the humans jumping and dancing trying to shake thousands of crawling, scratching, biting mice out of their armor. The mice had accompanied her on the attacks on the mills and the mine, but never this many at once. The humans might very well surrender after just the first wave.
"Good," San said. "Keep watching for me."
"I'll do my best."
"It's our turn," San said, patting her brother's milk-white neck. She pulled the demonic mask over her face and held up her spear high. Scare tactics were just as important in battle as the actual fighting. Today the humans would see the princess of beasts, ghouls, and ancient gods descend upon them like lightning out of the sky, coming to drag their souls down into Hell.
"Good luck, my lady," the Falcon god told her, dropping off the branch and flapping away briskly to circle the skies.
The wolf loped down the rocky hill at an easy pace. As soon as they started, her other brother left his position on the other side of the column, and he, too, glided gracefully down the hill. He kept his distance, however, as planned. San wanted the beasts with the most strength to fall upon the humans from as many directions as possible. In such a confined area, surrounded by steep hills or water on all sides, the battle would be close. And hot.
She turned her head and saw through her mask the tendrils of smoke rising from Iron Town. Several small ones. Likely Eboshi had her hands full with Asano within the city. San was glad to be fighting out in the open. With walls and so many buildings in the way, carrying on a battle inside Iron Town would be madness. Over the wolf's paws pounding the ground, the faint popping of guns and booms of cannons was audible. Wicked things those devices were. San much rather preferred the intimacy of her spear, or her knife. She wanted her enemy to look her in the eye as he breathed his last breath, not die at a distance.
The humans were more than just insect-sized dots in the distance now. As her brother picked up speed, passing by some of the smaller, less agile creatures, they became more discernible. San's breath caught in her throat as she took in how many were. They covered the slopes of the hills like teeming maggots on a carcass, wielding swords and spears and bows. As she expected, many were running around as if insane, screaming and batting at their armored arms and legs. Others stomped on the ground furiously. The mice had done their work well, and they still darted all over the field looking for new victims to attack. Every so often a hawk or a falcon would dive from the sky, talons latching onto faces of human warriors, their cruel beaks ruining their eyes. Bobcats and the few bears that had joined her ranks were using jaws and claws to disfigure and maim. Everyone was doing what they could. However, San was disheartened to see that their tactics were not having as much effect as she had hoped. Some humans had fallen to the earth, but their seemed far many more animals beside them, bleeding or still. San gripped her spear tighter, raising it high for all to see. She would fight to avenge the fallen and to avenge her forest. She would die for the glory of her mother and the Great Forest Spirit!
Her wolf brother slammed into a group of humans who had formed a circle around a fox, prodding and tormenting the snarling beast with the points of their swords. They went down hard, yelling and groaning as the weight of the huge wolf crushed them. The fox darted away with a limp in one of his back legs. San jumped off her brother's back, swinging her spear wide to catch a human in the throat. Blood sprayed from the wound, and he collapsed to his knees, grasping his neck in vain. The spear tip hardly wasted a moment, flowing gracefully to catch another mercenary in the side, knocking him over. Her wolf brother wasted no time sinking his jaws into the enemy. Men screamed in pain and terror when the big white wolf sought them out as the next target, breaking or biting off limbs and faces and ripping out throats. His furry body received nicks and scratches from the mercenaries' weapons, but they may as well have been tickling him with a feather. With all the power of a boulder tumbling down the mountainside, the wolf ran across the field, dodging the pitiful arrows being shot at him and leaving dead and dying men in his wake. San, too, had to dodge the arrows being loosed in her direction. She wasn't a true god, so it would only take one to snuff out her life. While she had been beating back the blows of one samurai's sword, a bolt grazed the hard clay of her mask, imbedding itself in the man she'd been struggling with. He fell backwards with a short yell. Not lingering for an instant, she moved on, wielding the long-bladed spear like a sword, beating back the blades of her foes. With a deft twist, she thrust the butt of it into the ribs of a mercenary coming in from the side.
A sudden blow to her face almost knocked her to her knees. Through the gap in her mask, she saw a man raising his sword to strike again. Like a viper coiled and ready to strike, San plunged her own blade into the man's stomach, piercing his heavy leather armor. Before she could yank it out, two more mercenaries rushed at her, angry-faced and shouting, sword tips pointed at her. San whipped out her long knife and beat off the attacks of the first man, using the haft of her spear to defend herself against the other. When the spear was finally worked free of the corpse, San swung both in her hands, advancing towards her opponents like a whirlwind. One of them fell back into the other, and they tumbled the ground in a heap of clanking armor and weapons. Before she could deliver the killing blows, however, a horde of mice and rats appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, swarming all over them, biting and squeaking. San left the two to them and sought more battles elsewhere.
All over the field animals were squealing and roaring. Men, too, shrieked and screamed as they attacked and were attacked. Bodies of beasts and mercenaries littered the ground. Directly in front of her, a man with a sword chopped a falcon swooping towards his face clean in two. San leapt over human corpses on the way to find her next target. She caught sight of her two wolf brothers wreaking havoc among a bunch of warriors who were scattering in all directions in confusion. San grinned, spotting a lone man retreating over the field. She raced to catch up with him as he scrambled up a low mound. Her spear sliced the back of his legs, and he yowled in pain as he collapsed, hamstrung. San panted heavily from exertion and the weight of her armor and leaned against her spear to catch her breath. As she turned her eyes to see beyond the hillock, she felt the air escape her lungs in a rush. Marching in even rows down the slopes were horse-mounted reinforcements. Hundreds of them. They were coming to join in the fray and would arrive quickly. A burning curse left her tongue as San tore her eyes away from them, retreating back down the hill. She was met by a stout mercenary who was racing for her, spear in hand. San crouched low, holding her own weapon at the ready. When he was in range, she thrust the point at his face, but he deflected it. San snarled and exchanged more blows with him. Even though she held the higher ground, the mercenary was succeeding in forcing her retreat. Ducking low to avoid the sharp blade of her spear, he swept her feet out from under her with the haft of his. San had to roll away quickly to keep from being impaled. Once she righted herself, the mercenary continued his onslaught of attacks. Before long she was standing atop the hillock, locked in deadly combat with this rather persistent human. She tried to exploit every opening in his defenses, but he was too fast, knocking away her spear as if it was a stick.
Suddenly, the ground opened up beneath her with a chain of thunderous noise, and she fell, tumbling down the mound. Her spear had been yanked from her hand, flying end over end until it came to rest point first in the earth nearby. Shocked, San stared at it, then at the bloody mess that had landed at her feet. What remained of the mercenary. Eyeing the broken hillock stupefied, San climbed to her feet and staggered over to her spear, disoriented. She pulled it out of the dirt and wiped the blade on the hem of her skirt. She noticed a round iron ball caked in dirt rolling down the hillock. So the cavalry had guns in their possession. Looking from the dead mercenary to the battle, San saw a large white wolf—looking a bit discolored now from blood and dirt—running towards her.
"San, are you alright?" he asked in a deep growl.
"I'm fine so far." She noted the arrow fletching sticking out of his hindquarter and immediately moved to pull it out. The wolf voiced its displeasure in a low rumble. He'd been injured, but he was far from finished. She scanned the battlefield for the other wolf and saw him in the distance contending with a group of human soldiers alongside a bear and a bobcat. "We need to regroup," San said. Would Eboshi's help ever come? If it did, it would be too late. "There are more humans on horses coming right for us. Some of the them have guns." And who knew what else? San was just lucky they missed.
"Get on," her brother told her. She hauled herself up onto his shaggy back, and he took off for the thick of the battle, a bit slower for the wound in his back leg. He zig-zagged through the melee, snarling and biting at anything on two legs while San hacked away at all opposition from his back. When they reached a patch clear of battle, they turned around and her brother threw his head back, howling in a high, loud pitch. Before the strain died on the air, arrows hissed through the air, many falling just short of the wolf's paws. San unsheathed her knife and in the same movement knocked one away that would have taken an eye. The battlefield teeming with humans and animals stirred like a pool disturbed by a rock as those armed with fur pulled away, abandoning their fights, rallying to the wolf princess. San's heart fell at seeing how many had fallen—mice and foxes and weasels and badgers—all who had given their life in defense of their home.
"San, look," said her brother, shifting his weight uneasily. San followed his gaze to the base of the hills. The mounted warriors were pouring over the crest of the low hills like a wave. Before them were the remaining warriors, enlivened by the animals' retreat. San's grip on her spear felt weak as she uttered,
"We can't win, can we? There are too many of them."
"Better to die now than live in whatever miserable world they wish to bring about," her brother said sagely. He lifted a paw as rodents began streaming around them. San raised her mask to take in the sight of the army coming for them. There was still no sign of aid from Iron Town. If Eboshi was still alive—if she survived this—San would spend the rest of eternity haunting her.
"Yes. Better to die." She pulled the mask back over her face and grasped the wolf's thick fur tightly. She squeezed his sides with her heels, and he took off at a run. The beasts of the forest followed in their wake, squeaking, chirping and growling their enthusiasm to defeat the humans. The wolf outpaced them all, darting like an arrow towards the human army.
"Straight through! Break their lines!" San shouted. If their forces were concentrated enough, they could at least do some heavy damage. Her minions in the rear were packed close together, some rubbing shoulder to shoulder as they followed the wolf and their princess.
The other white wolf fell in at her side, baring his teeth and snarling.
"San, we must attack them with everything we've got!"
"Save your strength!" San shouted to him over the pounding of so many animal paws on the hard ground. "It has to last!"
"I see their leader!" her brother objected, pulling ahead of them. "He's mine!" He picked up speed, breaking away from the main body of their force and running out towards the humans, straight for one on horseback who took up the lead.
"Wait!" San cried! "Fall back!" Her commands went unheeded, however. This brother had always been particularly hot-headed. He was as bad as the humans sometimes, she thought. The fury of battle seemed to make him lose his mind until all he could see was blood. Their two armies were quickly closing in the gap between them, with him in the middle. The grizzled wolf charged ahead, outpacing them all with long, ground-eating strides. San continued shouting at him, but it was useless. The human cavalry was outrunning the land-bound mercenaries, coming into the foreground. All of them wore thick painted armor. Their horses, too—tall, barrel-chested beasts—were armored. The horses' hooves beat the ground like gunfire, and they screamed and yelled along with their human riders. Fanning out into a line, the mercenaries readied their weapons—spears, bows, and rifles. Some of them bore long pikes with Asano's colors rippling violently in the wind. San looked towards the center of the line. A tall man in dark armor led the rest like a swallow at the head of a migration. Atop a black, muscular horse, he pointed his long, curved sword towards the sky, his face concealed behind a dual-horned helmet.
"San, we have to pull away. They'll trample us," her brother growled.
"No! We fight until the end!" she yelled back. Just as soon as the words were out of her mouth, a chain of explosions sounded from the enemy line, and puffs of black smoke burst out of the rifles. Her brother wolf who had so recklessly dashed forward tripped over his own paws and tumbled end over end on the short yellow grass. San's throat constricted, and she could scarcely get any sound out. The wolf she rode yelped as though he had been the one hit. They ran out at full speed to meet the enemy, and all San could do was watch as a group of the humans overtook her brother, filling his body with bullets and with arrows, stabbing at him with spears from their horses. The wolf was not down yet, however. He lashed out with his teeth, catching some of the mercenaries' horses in his bone-breaking jaws, pulling men down into reach. San lost sight of him as he was surrounded by the warriors, but his unseen yelps and growls as he was set upon by them made her freeze.
"We've got to help him!" she cried, kicking her brother's flanks urgently. He increased his speed a little, leaving the other forest animals behind. As they neared the approaching warriors, San readied her spear, letting it hang a little, poised to strike or defend in the blink of an eye.
The enemy was only a river's width away, then a stream's, and then before San knew it, her brother and she smashed into a mounted warrior's horse, and there was a terrible clanging of steel on stone that made the spear in San's hands vibrate painfully. The horse was knocked down, though, all that armor and muscle little match for the intensity of the wolf god's attack. San's spear finished its rider quickly, and they were off again. The wolf cut through the line easily, avoiding arrows and gunshots as he nimbly danced through the pack of horses. Once clear, he wheeled around and sprang back into the melee. San beat back her opponents' blades, twirling the spear deftly to make use of both ends. The rest of the animals caught up and commenced biting and clawing their enemies with renewed zeal. San fought as hard as they, snarling all the time. An arrow meant for her missed her head by inches, taking out a weasel that had latched on to a human's throat, and killed it. Its wretched squeal lasted only a moment then was swallowed up in the clamor of the battle. San thanked her luck and the unfortunate weasel and wasted no time punishing the humans with the edge of her blade. Swinging with all her might, she knocked an armored warrior off his horse, and he was immediately attacked by a ferocious badger and a horde of rats traveling in a pack to do more damage. The horse, already panicked, galloped off at a dead run.
For the most part, San allowed her brother to choose their battles. As they made their way towards where she'd lost sight of the other wolf, she saw a streak of white appear and disappear again between the fighting humans. With a grin born of hope, San shouted her war cry and raised her spear high.
A sudden explosion made her ears pop, deafening her, and her vision turned red. Lancing pain like fire filled her with agony from her scalp to her toes, and she was barely aware that she was falling. She felt, more than heard, a wolf's enraged bark, and by the time she hit something solid—everything had turned black.
She raised her head weakly, and for a moment thought she was dead. The battle had ceased everywhere around her, and the world had gone silent. Her surroundings gradually lightened, until they were brighter than noonday. She was lying on her belly in the crescent-shaped field next to the lake. The searing pain had disappeared like vapor, and she felt as fresh and new as at early morning.
"What…..what happened?" she wondered, perplexed. She labored to get to her feet. Looking around, she realized that her spear was nowhere in sight. Her dagger was gone, too. She patted her side to check, and it was so.
"San," said a stern but gentle voice behind her. She spun around, startled, and found herself in the presence of an enormous white she-wolf, two or three times the size of her brothers, lying leisurely on the short yellow grass.
"Mother!" San cried with surprise and joy. It was indeed Moro, the wolf god who had raised her up from a cub. Unbidden, tears began filling her eyes and pouring down her face. She rushed forward to bury herself in her mother's thick white fur—it gleamed brightly in the sunlight—but the wolf god's warning growl made San halt in her tracks.
"You mustn't touch me," Moro told her in that familiar voice that pained San's heart to hear it. "I am not of your world any longer. I have passed on into the realm of spirits."
"But—!" San exclaimed. It didn't make any sense! What was her mother doing here? And what had happened to the battle?
"It is not yet time for you to join me," she told San in a firm but loving growl. Her amber eyes looked up, and San turned to see another white wolf, a smaller one, approaching them. His fur was like moonlight on a clear autumn night, clean and pure and white. San's legs gave out under her and she emitted a hoarse, cub-like cry before she collapsed. The small wolf joined their mother and fixed San with a piercing golden-eyed stare. "Go back now. Your battle is not yet won, my daughter."
The empty field and the wolves vanished in a heartbeat, and San opened her eyes. Her head throbbed intensely, though not as bad as the rest of her. She became aware of the battle still being waged around her. Moving was difficult and painful, she discovered. She felt at her breast to find that her shield of hard domen clay was no longer there; she cast her eyes aside and saw the shards of it littering the grass. She pushed back the heavy headdress, letting it fall carelessly to the ground. As her eyes focused, she saw her brother close by, lashing out at any human daring enough to get into range. His lips were pulled back, baring sharp white fangs that, together with his wrinkled muzzle, made him look very ferocious indeed. He snapped at spears and swords that attempted to stick him, sometimes finding an opening wide enough to bite a human's leg off, or a hand, armor or no armor. When some of the mercenaries tried to attack San, helpless where she lay, he would turn on them like lightning, driving them back. San managed to get onto all fours unsteadily, and felt for her spear, but it was nowhere to be seen.
"San, are you alright?" came her brother's gruff question. He was distracted, trying to hold off the humans long enough for her to regain her feet. She noticed that he had several bleeding gashes marring his beautiful figure, and he seemed to be tiring.
San felt at her side for her knife. It was still there. In a flash she whipped it out, slicing at a warrior who was foolish enough to come near. He was wearing little armor, and she buried the blade into his ribcage. Before he hit the ground she was on another, using her weapon to convey all the rage and hatred and sorrow she felt to her enemy. Three more men went down in like manner, and before San could seek out a fourth, her brother was at her side.
"Get on," he ordered her, and she did not argue. He took off at a run, dodging this way and that to try to find a clear path to escape the thick of the battle. San fought to stay on, all the while blocking mercenaries' blows with her knife. One managed to slice her arm with a short sword, but before she could return the gesture, the wolf broke free of the fighting. They were on the far side of the field now, where the land began to slope up into the foothills. The mercenary camps were not far off. There was still smoke rising from Iron Town, and gunfire echoed from both the town and the field. It was madness.
The wolf slowed to a trot, panting wearily as he climbed atop a large lichen-splotched boulder jutting up out of the ground.
"We can't stay here," San protested. "We have to go back and fight."
"I know," the wolf said in a deep rumble. "Brother is—"
"Dead," San said. She tried not to let her emotion show in her voice, but a tiny crack marred it despite her efforts. She told the white wolf about seeing Moro and their brother, in that strange, surreal place where there was no battle, only stillness. "I thought I saw him on the field," she said, "but it was Mother. She came to meet him."
"You were shot by a human gun," her brother informed her. "I thought you had passed on as well."
"No, the humans won't get rid of me that easily," she said, even managing a small smile. But now, without her armor, one more bullet would be the end of her. She looked out at the field where the battle was raging hotly on both sides. It seemed though that there were many more humans than animals standing. 'Ashitaka, where are you?' she wondered in her heart. "We have to go down now," she said to the wolf. "And this time, we won't retreat."
Her brother exchanged a long, meaningful glance with her and even wagged his tail once or twice.
"Agreed," he said gruffly. She climbed onto his back once more, and they were about to start off for the battle when a falcon gliding over the field swooped towards them. It blew past San's head like a bullet, shrieking before returning to the sky,
"My Lady! Look above!"
San and her brother threw back their heads, gazing into the glaring sun, and San wanted to laugh with delight. A cluster of silhouettes was flying in from the direction of the forest, too large to be falcons or jays.
"It's the Eagle Clan!" she shouted joyfully! "They've come to fight with us after all!" Heeling her brother, they leapt down from the boulder, tearing across the field to rejoin the fray. San looked to the brilliant blue sky as long as she could. The Eagles were flying in a close knot, but they broke apart at the moment they passed over the field. With wingspans easily two or three times San's own height, they folded their outstretched pinions, diving in on the scene below. Their leader, a yellowish brown bird, gave a shrill whistle as it dropped from the sky. Its companions, about a dozen or so, followed suit. They fanned out over the field, snagging hapless mercenaries like they were catching fish out of the river. Some snatched horse and rider in one claw hold, hauling them high into the air and then releasing them to fall to their deaths. Once the humans realized what was happening, they shouted in even louder, angrier voices. Several simply ran, abandoning weapons and loosening armor to flee faster. One whose legs moved too slowly found himself suddenly crushed under the weight of a gigantic black-and-white-feathered bird. Its sharp hooked beak plucked off his head in short order, and it beat its powerful wings to return to the sky in search of another victim. One Eagle god that had been passing low overhead suddenly convulsed as a rifle's thunder pierced the cacophony. Dark blood sprayed from the bullet wound in its breast like rain. It plummeted to the earth headfirst; San saw its neck snap from the impact and prayed the forest god had died quickly. The weight of its body cleared a wide swathe as it rolled over the humans, smothering them. Many of the mercenaries seemed enlivened by this victory and began aiming their bows and rifles towards the sky. San and her brother leapt on a pair of riflemen who were tracking the flight path of a gold-colored Eagle with the tips of their guns. San plunged her knife through her human's leather-covered chest, and her wolf brother's fangs caught the other's midsection.
Pulling her knife free, San slashed this way and that. Everywhere there was an enemy. They were hopelessly outnumbered. No matter how many humans went down, there were still so many hundreds more. None of the animals seemed to realize this; they fought just as viciously as ever, and San wished she could be as oblivious as they. Still, she was consigned to death. She just wished she could see him one last time…..
A samurai with a curved, blood-stained sword singled her out and began hacking away at her. Her stone knife was barely enough to keep him from adding her blood to his blade. He was much more powerful than she. Every blow that connected nearly knocked her to the ground. She waited for an opening—the samurai's cocky grin grew wider and wider as he saw just how puny she was—then as soon as his sword came down on her knife yet again, San yielded to him, quickly stepping aside and spinning around to stab him in the back of the neck where his helmet met his armor. He collapsed like a fallen tree, still with his sword in his grip.
San had long since lost sight of her brother. She was not tall, even though she was human, and many of the men surrounding her, attacking her, dying at her hand, were much taller than she. She stood on the corpse of one mercenary to try and see over the field—she felt hopelessly adrift in a sea of violence and death—but to no avail. Had her brother joined the rest of her tribe in the other world? She had to jump back to avoid a human swinging a spear at her. He put too much force into the motion—when his arms were carried too far into the movement, she buried her knife into his unarmored side. She pried the spear out of his hands, which were uncovered save a thick silver ring on his forefinger. Sheathing the knife for the time being, she flailed at every human within the spear's reach, shouting curses at them and yelling like a banshee.
After breaking through a cluster of mercenaries and leaving them with severed limbs and heavily bleeding gashes, San glanced up at the sky to see three or four Eagles swooping down repeatedly to pick up rocks and small boulders in their talons. Flapping their great wings, they rose into the air again. Amidst the storm of flying arrows and bullets they dropped their artillery on the human targets below. The other Eagles stooped into dives from high in the sky, translating their motion into speed as they swept low over the ground, wings outstretched and talons bare, bowling over horses and mercenaries like the wind driving leaves over the field. But more than one faltered in mid-air, collapsing to the ground in a heap, smothering whatever humans and animals caught beneath. Their large size made them easy targets, and though they were gods and wouldn't die easily, die they did.
San slashed and hacked away at her enemies, blocking and ducking in equal turn. They were constantly before her eyes, teeming over the field like maggots on a carcass. Her throat was raw from screaming, her heart drumming painfully behind her ribs. Each burning breath was one more second she was alive, and her mind no longer focused on winning the battle. Now she fought merely to survive.
She paused for a moment after driving half the length of her borrowed spear through the abdomen of a lightly armed warrior in Asano's colors. The air was so thick with the musky odor of blood that she couldn't smell anything else. The hiss of a sword slicing the air was all the warning she had to leap away as a samurai's blade grazed the material of her short skirt, biting the earth instead of her flesh, and she was caught up into the dance once again. Her blade was practically useless, though, against the man's thick armor—red and blue scales like a dragon's. He protected his joints, neck, and head skillfully, depriving her of any opportunity to make a killing strike.
"Is this all you've got?" he called out mockingly. "I could take you apart with my bare hands!"
San parried a diagonal slash and stepped back, weighing the situation. This human had to be of high rank among his fellows. Those who stood out as leaders were all heavily armed, while the lowly mercenaries wore whatever they could scrounge, it seemed. Still, for all the leather and woven bamboo covering his hide, this human appeared overly confident. She had to find a weakness. She rushed at him again, beating at him furiously with her knife and hissing and yelling like a demon on a rampage. The samurai continued taunting her, grinning all the while, but he let out a noise of surprise when San dropped to the ground suddenly, sweeping out his legs from under him. He toppled backward and fell like an old tree being cut down. Before he even hit the dirt, though, San was on him, thrusting her knife into his unprotected armpit with all the force she could muster. The man screamed in agony and convulsed, and San rolled away with her weapon as he tried to lash out at her with his sword in his death throes. She did not even pause to watch him die, but moved on to try her luck again.
She had not even taken a single step when a lancing pain shot through her leg, and she collapsed as clumsily as the samurai she'd just killed. She crashed to the ground, grasping at her thigh. Through tearing eyes, she saw a long wooden shaft sticking through the flesh. It burned like fire. She looked beyond the dead samurai to see the bowman—a plain-faced, unarmored man in red and white—looking at her with astonishment. The expression turned to one of enthusiasm as he selected another barb from his quiver, reloading the bow. San tried to scoot away, but every movement was accompanied with fiery pain. She clenched her knife, wondering if she might throw it and kill him before he stuck her again like a fish on a sharpened stick.
He approached slowly, warily. He knocked the next arrow and took aim. It released with a hiss, and San only narrowly batted it away with her knife. The mercenary, disappointed, drew another shaft and pulled it back on the string to his ear.
"Wait," said a burly voice behind San. She craned her neck to see a tall man in armor standing just a few feet behind her. He was one of Asano's, without a doubt, wielding a long curved sword that was bloodied all the way to the hilt, "Leave this one to me."
"General Azuma!" the mercenary with the bow uttered with wide eyes. He immediately began backing away. "Yes, sir!"
"Well, well, if it isn't Princess Mononoke. A pleasure to finally meet you face to face, your Highness."
San twisted around to glare at him. He stepped forward and pointed the tip of his sword at her nose. "You've caused me quite a lot of grief these past few weeks."
San spat in his direction in response.
"I've got something that might interest you," he said slowly, reaching his hand behind his back. While San scrambled to get to her feet—she wasn't going to die sitting on her backside, that was for sure!—he pulled out a red and white strip of something and tossed it at her feet. San stared at it suspiciously, but her suspicion turned into horror as she realized that it wasn't cloth, but fur. A severed wolf's tail as long as her arm. "Oh, and this." The man called Azuma pulled out another similar object and dropped it expressionlessly onto the shriveled grass. Another wolf's tail, the blood on it a little fresher. "I thought it rude to come before the princess of the forest without bringing tribute." His face was like stone, but his voice was colder than ice.
Her mouth hung open in shock, and her voice cracked as she said hoarsely,
"You will pay for this! I'll make sure you die slowly, then scatter your innards from one end of this valley to the other!"
"You can barely stand," he replied. "I can kill you in one stroke if I wish. Those are my orders. I was hoping to be the one to carry them out. It looks as though fate is siding with me today." He surprised her by sheathing his sword into the scabbard on his hip. "But now that I see how pitiful you are, the idea loses its appeal. What honor is there in killing a wounded little child with nothing more than a crude knife?"
"Face me in battle!" San challenged him angrily. "I'll show you just how pitiful I am!"
She braced her quivering legs and latched onto the arrow shaft piercing her thigh. She gritted her teeth and grunted as her hands snapped off the feathered end. Then she felt for the barbed tip on the other side, feeling how slick with blood her skin was, and pulled it the rest of the way through the flesh. She couldn't help crying out, it hurt so much. Her whole leg felt weak. She could barely stand on it. She wouldn't give up, though. If she died, she would become a demon, and rip this man standing before her limb from limb!
"You have a little spunk. I'll give you that much. This is hardly a decent fight, though." He whipped out a second blade, a replica of his long sword only much shorter, not much longer than her knife. "Are you prepared to die, Princess Mononoke?"
"Yes!" she snarled, charging at him.
She slashed at him furiously despite the limp in her left leg, teeth bared. Their blades clinked like chimes as they met. Azuma hardly appeared to be trying. His arm moved fluidly, countering her attacks as if swatting lazily at a fly. He was as strong as an ox, too. When he brushed off her blows, he nearly sent her tumbling backwards. The man was iron. San could not even get close enough to touch him, let alone exploit his weaknesses. Gods above, did the man have any weaknesses! She sliced at him futilely and was caught off guard when Azuma blocked her knife with his and with his other hand grabbed her around the neck. She felt her toes leave the ground as he lifted her into the air like a dead ferret. Her puny hands couldn't pry his vice-like fingers from around her neck. She beat at him with her knife, but the blows only rained on the armor covering his forearm. Why he wasn't gutting her then and there she could not understand.
"You really are nothing more than a wild animal," he said in a low, flat tone. "But there is more honor in taking down a stag or a woodpigeon than in snuffing out the life of a rabid little wolf girl."
San felt her face tingling. It felt thick and heavy, like it was caked with mud. She didn't know when she dropped her knife. Her fingernails dug into the man's gloves, scrabbling at them desperately. Then Azuma tossed her to the ground, and she fell painfully on her injured leg. San felt at her neck, raggedly gulping down breaths of air as her chest heaved to refill itself. Her vision was tilted and kept going double. She saw her knife, but before she could stretch out her hand for it, Azuma's heavy boot pinned it to the grass. San didn't think she would be able to sweep this man's legs out from under him. He was as solid as a pine.
"Believe me, I take no pleasure or honor from doing this," he remarked quietly, just loud enough to be heard over the fray. San was only vaguely aware of the battle raging around them on the field. She could see animals and humans grappling in combat in her peripheral vision, but before her was only the man Azuma. She was both lame and defenseless now. She couldn't prevent him from grabbing her by her hair, forcing her to prostrate herself on the ground before him. His other boot pressing down on her back felt like the weight of a boulder. Blood and saliva dripped from her mouth onto the grass as she winced at the sound of a blade being unsheathed.
"But orders are orders."
FWAPP!
San's head snapped violently, hitting the ground, and a crushing weight seemed to close in on her from all sides, but then she felt a cool rush of air pass over her body and the feeling of being weightless. She opened her eyes and saw the ground and the battle growing more distant. The man she'd been fighting was sprawled on his back, sword reflecting the sunlight as it flew through the air. San's whole body jerked when she realized that her body was in the talons of one of the Eagles. She twisted her neck and recognized the downy white underbelly and brown head of Roju, the Eagle she'd entreated for aid some time ago. He had her tightly in his grasp, but all the same, San flailed with shock at being carried high into the air.
"Child of Moro," Roju addressed her, "I see you are still alive."
"Barely!" San shouted to be heard over the rush of air. The Eagle was beating his powerful wings and rising higher and higher over the battlefield. San's heart leapt into her throat. What if he was shot down! They'd both fall to their deaths! Though she supposed it was only thanks to him that she was still alive at all. "You have to take me back down!" she implored. "I can still fight!"
Roju took them higher with every push of his wings. "The battle is not going well for us," he informed her. "The gods and beasts of the forest are losing ground against the humans. It is as I told you before. You cannot win!"
"I still want to fight!" San screamed at him. "I have to lead them!"
Roju was leveling out now and skimming over the lake. San could see smoke still rising over the human town. It looked as though some of the buildings within the high, sturdy walls had caught fire and were burning out of control. Thunderous gunshots were audible over the wind. It looked as though Roju was taking her in the direction of the town. But why?
"Take me back, Roju!" she begged him. "I am grateful to you for saving my life, but my place is with my kind!"
"Your kind is human kind, Child of Moro," Roju countered. "Human kind must help us. Alone we will all die." They approached the wall of the town, the side opposite of the slopes Asano's men had camped on. Roju flared his wings, coming to a rest atop the wall. His enormous talons dug into the sharpened logs, and he held San in his other leg, close to his downy feathers. San recognized this part of the town. Ashitaka's house was down below. She could see the bark-thatched roof and the paddock for Yakkuru. The noise of battle was coming from deeper within the town, as were the smoke and the flames. This quarter seemed quieter. As empty as the house below. The only movement came from goats that seemed to have escaped their pen and were now roaming about freely, eating whatever they could get their teeth into. San supposed the townspeople had more to worry about than loose goats.
"Find help, Child of Moro," Roju told her. "I must rejoin my brothers." He began opening his claws with her dangling over Ashitaka's house.
"No, wait!" she cried, but the words were swallowed up in a yell as she plummeted down towards the roof of Ashitaka's house. The pressed-bark roof broke her fall—if not very gently—and she tumbled the rest of the thirty or so foot drop to the ground. Her feet absorbed most of the shock, though the impact made left leg buckle, and she fell backwards.
"Unngh," she grumbled. She looked up to see the great brown-and-white Eagle god rise off the wall, flapping back in the direction of the battle. She didn't have time to thank him. Not that she would have. She deeply resented Roju dropping her, literally, inside the human's fortress of a town. How was she supposed to get back to the battle? With her leg as it was, it would be nearly impossible. And it seemed rather unlikely at this point that help was going to come to her people.
"When I find that viper of a woman," San swore, climbing laboriously onto her feet. "I'll cut her open like a fish." She'd been a fool to ally herself with Eboshi. No doubt that woman was only using her as gun fodder while she played her own little war game in the town. She managed to limp to Ashitaka's front door. Maybe she'd be able to find something to take care of her leg in here. She pushed it open finding the interior dark and abandoned. She wondered whether or not he would ever return to it. Would she ever see him again?
She moved about the house in search of something she could bandage her bleeding wounds with and some water. She was deathly thirsty. How much time had passed since she led the attack on the mercenaries outside Iron Town? She thought the sun was just a little past its zenith outside. She felt like she'd been fighting for a whole day, if not longer.
"Why ask for help here?" she asked the empty house as she rooting around for something she might use as a bandage. She found a closet containing a futon and blankets. She began tearing the blankets into strips and winding them tightly around her thigh, clenching her teeth as she did. "Eboshi has betrayed us." With a loud tearing noise, she tore another strip out of the blanket. The clean cloth was soaked in Ashitaka's scent. The overwhelming pain she felt in her chest from missing him seemed to diminish the throbbing in her leg for a moment.
When she'd taken care of her injuries in her leg and arm as best as she could, she snooped around until she found a large jug of water collected under the eaves of the house. She dipped her hands in and drank deeply, splashing some of the cool liquid on her face as well. A curious goat sidled up to her and mewled, and she angrily splashed a handful of water at it to scare it away. With a displeased frown, she reentered the house. Maybe while she was here she could find something to defend herself with. Her bare hands would be enough to deal with Eboshi once she found her, but who knew how many of Asano's followers she might run into before she could find that devil gunwoman?
She found nothing useful inside the house and returned back outside. Ashitaka had taken what weapons he possessed with him, it seemed. He knew the journey would be perilous, it seemed, which just made her worry about him all the more. The smoke from the fires carried on the breeze, but the fighting in the town seemed to have quieted a little. A temporary lull. And the perfect time to find Eboshi, or if she was really lucky, Asano, and make them both pay for what they'd done. She looked up the massive timber walls enclosing the island. Even had she wanted to, there was no way she could scale them, with her leg as it was. 'Please, hang in there, my friends,' she thought, wondering how the creatures of the forest were faring without her beyond the lake.
There was a small shed of sorts beside Ashitaka's house. She peeked in not expecting to find much, but to her great delight there were tools and knives of all sizes and wicked-looking hooks for carving up meat. Perfectly suited to what she would be doing. She selected a heavy bladed knife more than a foot long and used a spare makeshift bandage she'd brought along to tie it to her waist. As she tested her weight on her bad leg, she thought sourly, 'If only that elk were here, this would be a lot easier.' Her wolf brothers were no longer around to carry her into battle. She'd seen the proof of it.
"I swear I will avenge you," she said sharply, feeling the edge of the knife with her thumb. It was freshly sharpened, and sliced her skin. "But first I have to spill the blood of that damned woman, and then punish Asano for ever setting foot into my forest." Eboshi's sentence would be light compared to the fate that would befall Asano. She would skin him alive when she found him!
Taking a long pole with a curved, iron hook on the end of it, San used it to help support her weight. She squinted in the bright sunlight outside the shed but set her course determinedly for the main body of the town. She may be weak, but she was not beaten. And if anybody stood in her way, she would drag their souls straight down to hell with her.
Author's Notes:
Midterms are done now, thankfully, so I've got time to finish this and start the next chapter. Have to admit, it's getting hard to write now. This battle will be the longest I've ever written and will take a couple of chapters. But I'll do my best. Please be patient with me. Thanks for reading!