~
Night had come, but the endless rock of Shiroi's legs carried on as San tried her best to stay awake. Her brothers had been running since the sun had hovered above the horizon like a golden eye, bearing judgment on the city of Kaigan, but now the moon was high overhead and Moro's sons showed little sign of slowing their pace. Shiroi had set the cadence, one he was sure he could maintain, and Kuroi, with a rare display of patience that he normally reserved for the hunt, was immediately matching him. San had taken a second to look at Kinjiru every now and then- the cat had been sitting with his arms half crossed, holding onto a double handful of fur. San turned her eyes back ahead and listened to the rhythm of Shiroi's feet over the ever-uneven ground.
"San." Shiroi grunted back through breaths of air. "We should reach home by morning."
San was silent for a moment. She had been alone with her thoughts for hours, and found her voice was slow in coming. "Can you keep this pace?" She asked.
"For you...of course," Shiroi said, nodding to his brother as the two of them turned and adjusted their direction.
Kinjiru stirred from Kuroi's back. The cat-boy stretched out each of his arms, one at a time, and then pulled back his mask and wiped his brow. He turned to look at San, his eyes glittering silver in the pale moonlight.
"How are you doing?" He asked, turning back to check his grip.
"Fine," San said, staring straight ahead, not feeling much like talking to him. She was terse, sparing with her words. Kinjiru settled back to the way he sat before and said nothing. San was left to her own thoughts as the tall grasses nicked by on either side, rolling out for as far as the moonlight shone. On the horizon was a thick dark line: trees. Beyond that would be a river, and then it would be only a few hours of riding until they were back home.
Beyond the upcoming morning, San could see nothing in her future. Ashitaka, Kinjiru, Eboshi, Asano...the conflicts raging around her were insignificant. Ashitaka had ridden Yakkul to Irontown with a poison wound crippling his arm not a month ago, and now the circumstances were strangely reversed. Ashitaka had sought redemption, now San was seeking revenge. But even revenge is pacified by the cooling touch of death, the same cold mark that ran across the Emishi boy's arm and the wolf princess's leg.
~
Hours away, waves sloshed without cease against the bows of Chokan's ships as they gently rode the coastline swells. Crammed amidst the cargo hold were scribes, court members, advisors, and the rest of Asano's personal staff. They were the favored few. The rest had died deaths at the hands of claws and fangs, trampling hooves and ivory tusks. For now, they huddled together, fearful of their fate and listening to the shifting seas surrounding them.
Asano was too restless to rest. He had much on his mind. While his court was crowded below decks, the minute fraction of his army that had come this far stood or crouched on deck, and he leaned at the bow of the ship. Seijin stood next to him, clutching his arms to his chest, shivering in the wind. The advisor's decades of soft life did little for him outside of a court.
Chokan made his rounds, making sure that everything was in order. His crew was as resentful as he was of these passengers, but would cooperate. The admiral stepped up to the front of the boat and stood by Asano.
"I estimate several days sailing until we arrive. You are fortunate- we have sufficient provisions on board to get us through this little fiasco. I had never bargained on taking your entire palace on board." Chokan's voice was laden with contempt. He had been reduced from an admiral, the king of his emperor's seas, to a ferryman.
"It was no doing of mine. You know as well as I do that I couldn't just leave them to die." Asano snapped.
'No,' thought Seijin, 'but you were perfectly content to leave the rest of your city to be slaughtered.'
"We have some ships trailing us. Small fishing vessels. I assume they are from your city, or should I say 'former city'."
"Let them trail if they wish. I trust in their resourcefulness."
"Very well." Chokan turned and walked away, his steps ringing out on the well-treaded wood.
"Seijin," Asano snapped, his eyes never wavering from the sea ahead. "What about the boy? Where is he?"
Seijin shivered and answered with his chin still tucked into his chest. "Below decks in a walled off room. He is alone."
"Very well. Get yourself out of this weather- you need to be in fine form for when we arrive and meet the emperor."
"Yes, my lord." Seijin said as he walked away, glad to have respite from the stinging winds.
'This is all but a detour. My stopover to see the emperor will only be a brief sojourn to pick up more troops. From there, I'll be able to head and crush Eboshi. After all, I still hold the key to her city." Asano smiled. He would talk to the boy later. Until then, he would sit, and wait. He was patient.
~
Shiroi and Kuroi slowed to a stop in the middle of a forest; at the same pace still several hours from home. A river ran lazily through the trees, shimmering in the moonlight. Shiroi growled out loud enough for both San and Kinjiru to hear, "We need to find where we crossed this river before. You two can rest for a short while."
San carefully lowered herself off Shiroi's back, conscious of the numbness in her foot, not trusting it to support her weight. On the ground, she limped, testing the limb for how it would hold. The numbness had spread up through her shin, nearly through her knee, but for the most part, the rest of her leg was responsive. Kinjiru walked over, removing his mask and hooking it onto his belt.
"How is it?" he asked.
"Getting worse like the monk said."
Kinjiru nodded. "If we were to tie your leg, we might be able to slow the spread of the poison."
San looked at him, then moved over to a rock and took a seat. Kinjiru began unwinding one of him arm wrappings, taking the blade and jamming it into his belt. The skin on his forearm was a striking pale compared to the rest of his tanned complexion. He started wrapping San's leg just below the knee, tightly binding her leg down to the ankle. San gritted her teeth- he was making the bind as tight as he could. He knotted the wrapping and stood back, offering San a hand to help get up. She was pulled to her feet, testing the leg again and finding no real loss of mobility. She nodded a quiet thanks. Kinjiru smiled at her, letting go of her hand. He walked over to the edge of the river, stooped, and drank.
San stood behind him, watching her brothers scout the shore, finding the best possible place to cross. Kinjiru stood, picking up a rock as he stood, and flung it sidearm across the river. It bounced a few times before sinking with a pop. The silence then proceeded to close again around that one noise.
Kinjiru shifted uneasily, then said, "I'm sorry to impose, but I must know: who is this Lady Eboshi?"
San grimaced. "A true devil of a human woman, if there ever was one. She lives for no reason other than to kill and destroy to make the world subjective to her whims. She takes huge tracks of forest, kills the creatures there or drives them out, and then destroys all the trees. The noise of it- have you ever heard the sound of a thousand trees being killed? Mother taught me at a young age the horror of it.
"From there she takes the land and churns its soils, stripping it of the iron, what makes the soils around the forest so red. The iron is carried back to her city, a terrible place belching smoke into the sky and filling the air with smells that sting when you breathe in. There she melts the iron and uses it to make her iron bows and fire arrows, and uses them to take more forest from the mountains and turn it into scabland."
Kinjiru said nothing for a moment, absorbing the images San gave. San sighed, having rid herself of some venom on Lady Eboshi, but now feeling cold as the warmth of her hatred left her. Her brothers returned, and stood on either side of her. Kinjiru looked straight into her eyes, his hands clenched.
"And she is the woman that killed the spirit of your forest?" Kinjiru asked.
"Yes. And one day, I will kill her, to avenge my mother, and Okkotonushi, and the forest spirit."
"We relish the day she dies." Kuroi growled, startling Kinjiru.
"You are brave to fight such evil. I look forward to facing this devil woman face to face. Know that the enemy of the wolf tribe is my enemy."
"Thank you, Kinjiru." San replied, pulling her wolfskin cape around her as best she could as she could, climbing onto Shiroi's back as Kinjiru pulled himself onto Kuroi's. The silence filled the air again, but it was pointedly directed to a place in the east, on the edge of the forest, called Irontown. The woman all four held a vow to kill was the same they sought for help.
~
Jiko Bou leaned on a rail in the aft of the vessel he was on, preferring the high spot to keep an eye on everything, specifically, on Asano. The warlord had proved rather dull thus far. His advisor had gone in out of the cold some half hour ago, but both Jiko and Asano remained. Jiko was again flanked by a pair of hunter-killers, easily weathering the cold air.
The approaching creak of steps belonged to the first mate. The second in command was traveling on a different ship than he normally would have as per Chokan's orders. Jiko smiled. Chokan didn't know where his first mate's true alliances were. Had he such knowledge, things would have been different. The first mate was a less dashing figure than Chokan, but the cut of his armor and the gleam in his eye as he approached Jiko made him look like death itself. Jiko would have been unimpressed even if it were reality.
"Good evening, master Jiko. Are you well?"
"As well as I can be." Jiko grinned. "What's the situation with the captain and Asano?"
"A minor argument, from what I've heard. Unimportant. We'll sail steady until our arrival."
"Excellent. What about the boy?"
"As you instructed, he's in isolation. What is he, master Jiko? A spy?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Jiko asked. "He'll be important later. Make sure none of the crew goes near him. I know I can trust you."
"Of course, master Jiko." The first mate bowed and turned away.
"Keep an eye on him, boys." Jiko said to his hunter-killers. "That's the kind of disposable hireling I'm supposed to work with- nothing more than a leech in armor."
"What are you asking, master Jiko?" One of the hunter-killers asked. A blade appeared in his hand.
"Well...let's just say a man like that won't be around long. But don't you get any ideas, all right? We've got bigger fish to fry." Jiko snickered.
~
Dawn cracked cold and clear through the leaves of the forest of the gods, making intricate interweaving patterns on the backs of Kuroi and Shiroi. The brothers had slowed to a walk, worn out. San shook herself out of a cold chill, wiping the dew off her skin where it had settled. She must have fallen asleep for some time, but she was not rested in the slightest. She tapped Shiroi on the ear and he stopped, Kuroi turned and did the same. San lowered herself off Shiroi's back and settled herself lightly on the ground, supporting her weight on her good foot. It seemed like Kinjiru's wrapping had done the work- the numbness had slowed down to a crawl, not yet quite past her knee. San rubbed warmth back into her limbs as Kinjiru stirred and lowered himself to the ground. He was taking in the forest with wide, gray eyes, catlike in that they observed as much as they could before he looked elsewhere. All the while, he was rubbing the stiffness out of his arms.
"It's a beautiful place. Not like my forest. Much older, and more...regal." He said, admiring the high vaulting arches the trees made overhead.
"It was a fitting home for the forest spirit." San said. "But without him here physically, it's vulnerable. Mother is gone, Nago is gone...and I'm left."
Kinjiru stared at her with his gray gaze, and having detected something in her voice responded, "We'll make sure you are here to guard this forest, San."
San started walking, Kinjiru trailing only a few feet behind, her brothers splitting off to either side to walk at their own paces. San knew that she was in the far end of the forest, near the vast tracts of grass and mud between the forest and Irontown, and that only a few minutes walk would see the end of foliage and the opening into a much more barren world.
The end of the trees was abrupt, closer than San had thought. She stood, one palm resting against a nearby trunk as she stared upon Irontown again. Kinjiru joined her and gazed upon the site with an impassive silence. Irontown had returned to its previous state much faster than San would have thought. While the ruins of the great tatara-ba had been shredded by Irontown workers for wood, and the mining operations had seen severe setbacks, Irontown was regenerating daily. San noticed with pointed disgust it was much more brown in color than when she had last seen it, the plants being cleared away for human living space. Small fires burned here and there, and a party of workers was restructuring the water sluices carved into the mountainside.
"They have learned nothing." San spat. Kuroi and Shiroi growled from either side. San turned to Kinjiru. "Let's go. I don't want to be around those humans an instant longer than I have to." She gently set down Ashitaka's sword against a tree where she could find it, then stepped out of the tree cover.
San started off down the gently sloping grass towards the lake, Kinjiru following closely behind. The grass had seemingly retained the vigor instilled into it by the forest spirit, and now was easily waist high. Kinjiru alternated his eyes between watching his feet as best he could and looking at the massive, still mossy walls of Irontown. While Kinjiru didn't notice, San stumbled once or twice on her tightly bandaged leg, but immediately regained her composure. San walked in a long arc, and it took the two of them up along to where the grasses thinned out from constant wear by human feet. At the end of the tall grass, her brothers stopped. They would never be allowed in Irontown, and San nodded a quiet goodbye to them. They watched the pair for a moment before heading back at a lope to the woods, where they would watch and still be near enough to help.
The grass became more and more sparse, eventually giving way to dirt, and the ground here rose to form one side of the trench cut by Lady Eboshi to protect her city. The still-formidable wood spines that lined the Irontown side of the ravine were overwhelmed in wiry vines and curling creepers. Ahead of them, San picked up cries that were dispersed by the wind- "It's the wolf girl!" "Close the gates!"
Finally, the gate of Irontown stood before San and Kinjiru, blocking the way to Lady Eboshi. San thumbed at the message she had, folded twice and tucked under one of her armbands. A lone woman's head, smeared with the filth that was still all over Irontown, peered over from the crenellated wall.
"What do you want, wolf girl?" the woman called down, a second and third head peering over the embattlements.
"I have a message for the Eboshi woman. Let me in so I may speak with her." San shouted back, using her best intimidating voice. San couldn't see herself, but she looked the part of intimidation. Her facepaint was smeared only slightly, and from the vantage point on the wall San appeared to have less flesh than fur. The women on the walltop were unconvinced that "speaking" with Lady Eboshi was a priority with the wolf princess.
The faces disappeared over the wall, obviously debating what to do. San turned to look at Kinjiru, who was still keeping an eye on the walltop. "They'll stall just to irritate me," San said, not loudly enough to carry up to the women on the walltop.
~
Gonza strode through the city, rifleman and peasant woman alike scurrying out of his way. He walked at a pace that was leisurely for him, but still was an impressive stride. In a matter of minutes he crossed the city center, only several more and he had topped the hill to Eboshi's newly- restored living spaces. He passed from room to room until he arrived at the back door of the building, the door to the garden. This was the one place Gonza felt he had no reason- or want- to be. Still standing inside the safety of the door, he spoke to the lone leper tending the neat rows of medicinal plants and asked him- or her, beneath those bandages he could hardly tell- to fetch Eboshi.
Eboshi arrived not two minutes later, rubbing away some gunpowder between the fingers on her hand and shaking the soot from her coat. She brushed by Gonza and moved into the main entry hall that ran through most of the building. Leaning against the entryway, she finally spoke.
"What is it, Gonza? A matter between the people?"
"No, milady. You have visitors," Gonza said, bowing his head.
"Well? Where are they?"
"Erm...we're not certain we should let them in." Eboshi turned with a look of question towards her second-in-command. "It's the wolf girl...and someone else. Not Ashitaka. Says she has a message for you."
Eboshi turned back to look out on Irontown, her gaze far off onto the distant gate. When she heard "wolf girl" she thought Ashitaka might finally have bit the bullet and tried to civilize his bride. That, or she had come to try and kill her again. Apparently, neither of those situations was the case.
"Let her in, but make sure that she knows we're keeping a very close eye on her. I'll meet her and her friend here shortly."
~
Kinjiru gazed out of the corner of his eye at one of the dozen riflemen who were acting as an escort to San and he. These humans obviously enjoyed a good show of force, and they apparently brought some of the weapons San had mentioned. Still, they looked nervous, and Kinjiru was ready to bet that if San were in full form, without an impaired leg, they could easily take on two-dozen of the armed humans.
San wasn't doing much in the way of taking in her surroundings. She had been in Irontown before and had seen as much of it as she ever wanted too. The humans hadn't let the growth from the Shishi-gami stop them for long. It appeared what they hadn't hacked away or burned off was either trampled into the ground or slowly being poisoned in the filthy atmosphere. San kept her eyes on the road ahead and her ears intent on the footsteps of Gonza behind her. They had been permitted to enter armed, but the Irontown wall guard had taken the day off to make sure they didn't try anything.
Eboshi stood regally at her door, watching as Gonza and twelve of her personally trained guards escorted her "guests". The wolf girl was there, all right, and it seemed she brought along a friend of similar ilk. The lithe boy looked to be about the same age, and kept a wary eye on the guards around him. The girl, however, was meeting Eboshi eye-to-eye the entire walk up the hill.
"Welcome...welcome, San of the wolf tribe." Eboshi said it in her most frigid voice possible, but to her it was still like swallowing a fistful of bullets.
"I come on behalf of Ashitaka. Let me make it clear that there is nothing but hate in my soul for you, Eboshi." San said back, equally hating.
"I agree." Eboshi said. For a moment the two squared off with eyes and brains, each pondering slitting the throat of the other. San was measurably shorter than Eboshi, but she carried the exact same aura that commanded respect. For a moment, Kinjiru and Gonza stood in the background, totally forgotten. Gonza shifted uneasily, Kinjiru closely regarded the two while keeping an open ear to the movement around him.
"What brings you to me? Surely something dire." Eboshi said, going out of her way to add some extra venom.
"I told you. I'm here for Ashitaka. And I have a message for you."
"Well, let's not stand outside all day. Come on in, if you will. It's no dirt den, but you might find it suitable, little princess."
Careful, San thought. She's trying to bait me. San walked forward into the darkness.
Gonza made a deft movement with his hands and the riflemen walked away, uneasy. Kinjiru followed San, his senses stretched to the limit. Eboshi sat down on her personal chair, comparatively simple to the throne Asano owned.
"Well, let's see what you've got." San handed her the note. Eboshi glanced at the seal. "Why is Jiko Bou sending me a letter by you, of all people?" San remained silent as Eboshi broke the seal and scanned the message.
"Very interesting. I had my suspicions of whose side Jiko was on, but now I'm again not so sure." Eboshi muttered to herself softly and then looked up. "So why are you here, and why is Ashitaka not?"
San glared at her. "Ashitaka...is still with Asano. I was poisoned during the battle. The monk thought you might be able to...help."
Eboshi smiled. This was rich, she thought. The wolf girl crawling back to her for help. It was a miracle she had come down from her bestial snobbishness to actually accept her help. She must truly be desperate.
"And what will you do if I can heal you?" Eboshi asked of her.
"Rescue Ashitaka." San answered.
"...I owe Ashitaka," Eboshi said, rolling her debts around in her mind, "and I owe you. Very well. You and your mute friend can follow me." Eboshi stood and turned toward her back door. "Gonza, cover my duties for me until I return."
"But...milady..." Gonza stammered, unsure if it was anything less than foolish to leave his leader alone.
Eboshi turned a cold shoulder to Gonza and walked out into her garden. It was one of the first things she had rebuilt since the catastrophe, partly because its reconstruction had been facilitated by the rampant growth after the incident, and partly because of the food and medicinal supplies it procured. A single leper, wrapped in a long shawl, rested against the door. He bowed his head as Eboshi passed, and turned one good eye on the two strangers who followed.
Inside the leper quarters, a score and odd invalids worked quietly on various pet projects as Eboshi entered. Several heads turned that direction, the soft murmuring voices and tapping of metal on metal went uninterrupted.
San entered and everything stopped. Something in the far corner of the workshop clattered to the floor, no longer tended by the numb hands that had been working with it. Several smaller hand pistols were uncovered from their resting places and there was the soft sound of a gun lock going to. Eboshi waved her hand. The lepers, still no less tense, began to resume their work with a measured caution, and no small number of sideways glances at San.
Kinjiru noted something particular on the air, a whirlwind of unfamiliar scents to his experienced nose. Gunpowder, iron shavings, freshly worked wood, and a few stray smells of rice wine were present. But under all this was a scent that thrilled and froze him where he stood. The faint and musty odor of something dead or rotting. A dry, sickly scent that was not death, but decay. He reflexively took a step back, and Eboshi's eyes fell upon him.
"You have realized what these people are? Lepers. The dregs of humanity, here turned into the most valuable craftsmen in all the world. They are my chosen people, and they have proved to be invaluable to me."
"Lepers?" San said. The word was new to her. She had detected the faint stench in the air but couldn't place what it was.
"You and your sheltered little forest life. Let me explain to you, in simple terms you can understand. These people are half dead. They have a disease that will slowly eat them away, flesh from bone and limb from body, until it kills them." Eboshi turned and looked at the corner, to an unoccupied cot. Up until only a few weeks ago, her oldest comrade had rested there. Eboshi resumed. "It is not unlike the curse Prince Ashitaka was under, but instead of coming in pain, this disease works with the numb hands of death."
"Why are we here?" San said. Had the woman brought her here to kill her? To give her this horrible...curse?
"I believe that one of these people may have the skill to cure you." Eboshi said. "Follow me."
Stepping on a narrow path winding between at least a dozen glaring lepers, San was led to the far wall of the room, where one leper tended between the matches she was assembling in front of her and the drying plants hanging down from the ceiling. All forms, many ones that did not grow in the great forest, creating around her a sort of dry and brown shrine. The leper finished the head of the last match and set it aside. A pair of large, somber eyes moved across Lady Eboshi, and then to San, and then to San's leg.
"This is Ishi, my chief physician. She cannot speak to you, as her voice has been taken, so explain well the poison and its effects."
San lowered herself into a sitting position and unwound the wrap around her leg. The first few inches were normal, but San noticed she couldn't feel anything, not even the loss of pressure as the wrap unwound. When San reached the middle of her shin, however, the skin turned a striking and sickly shady of gray. Ishi's eyes nearly disappeared behind the bandages wound around her head. The physician made a sharp sound as she drew in a quick breath through her nose, then learned forward to better inspect the wound. San noticed that she never touched it, although her bandaged hands, seemingly devoid of all digits except thumbs, hovered around the mark. The single point where the dart had stuck had almost turned night-sky gray, and stood out very slightly, not unlike an insect sting.
Ishi leaned back and raised her hands over her head, running her palms across a plant here, then there. Kinjiru observed the whole scene from the doorway, one foot in the building and his eyes splitting their time between San and the lepers. Finally, Ishi brought her hands back down, only one plant clutched firmly between her thumb and the side of her hand.
"It's a painkiller." Eboshi said, reading her subject's eyes. "Is that...all you can offer?" Eboshi asked the doctor. Ishi shook her head and closed her eyes.
"I have no need for your human medicine." San said, and she tried to stand. Her bad leg gave out from under her, and she caught herself from falling onto the floor mat. The leper and Eboshi both made a move forward as if to help, and San's knife was out in a flash. Kinjiru was similarly and suddenly armed, and several matchlock firearms bristled again among the lepers, aimed to kill.
San's head pounded under the stress and adrenaline of the situation. "I'm not here to kill the damn woman." San repeated to herself mentally. Her vision blurred, and for an instant she thought she was losing consciousness. She closed her eyes to try and shake off the dizziness and opened them to find the world painted in the colors a god would see it in. But something was wrong. Eboshi stood out in the room as being the same brilliant mortal red, but the men and women who were her own private people showed no such coloring. They were a dull, brown-colored red, the color of iron clay. San knew instinctively that what Eboshi had said was true: her people were dying.
San reluctantly lowered and sheathed the blade, and again stood, this time putting much more weight on her good leg. "You hold no cure for me. My death is coming not from pain, but from this cold unfeeling human curse." She spat.
Eboshi smiled grimly. "Then go, wolf girl. Crawl back to your cave and die there. There is no more help for you in Irontown."
San limped heavily over to the door, walking backwards despite the difficulties of her leg. She wouldn't be so foolish as to turn her back on a room full of gun-toting humans. She stopped when her back gently met Kinjiru's palm, then the same hand went to her shoulder. The god vision slowly bled away as San blinked several final times, then she turned to Kinjiru. He offered San his arm, and San leaned on him as they walked slowly out of the room and through the garden.
Eboshi frowned. Ashitaka and the wolf girl had become so intertwined that the death of one of them would certainly bode ill for the other. What was this remorse in her heart? Sadness for Ashitaka, or for not being able to help someone? Eboshi had done so much to help so many mortal afflictions in the past, but had finally come across one that medicine could not treat and kindness could not touch.
Kinjiru supported San's weight as they walked through the narrow garden path, into and through the main hall, and then down the front hill of Eboshi's headquarters. The long walk through the market was an eternity, with what seemed like every citizen in Irontown stopping their mid- afternoon work to come and watch the retreat of the wolf princess. Finally, beyond the gate of Irontown, the two stopped.
"San," came a voice from the battlements. Eboshi was there, looking down from the safety of her fortress wall.
"I'm sorry." Came the voice of the matriarch of Irontown.
Shiroi and Kuroi arrived at a full run from the edge of the forest, and San mounted herself on her brother's back, Kinjiru doing likewise. San gave one cold, piercing stare at the woman she still lived to hate, and longer to kill. Eboshi smiled such that the girl could not see. With that final eye contact, the wolf girl and her prince companion returned to the forest of the gods.
Eboshi descended the stairs from the walltop, surrounded by her jabbering townsfolk. Gonza made his way through the crowd, finally reunited with his superior.
"Milady!" He said, flabbergasted in his usual manner that he had left her side for not ten minutes yet she was still alive. "You're safe! Where did the wolf girl go?"
Eboshi glanced towards the gate, and the forest beyond. "To die." Eboshi said. "But it seems so unjust that she never did get a second chance to try and kill me. Fortune is an impartial thing." Eboshi rubbed the cloaks where her arm used to be and walked through the crowds, parting way before her.
Night had come, but the endless rock of Shiroi's legs carried on as San tried her best to stay awake. Her brothers had been running since the sun had hovered above the horizon like a golden eye, bearing judgment on the city of Kaigan, but now the moon was high overhead and Moro's sons showed little sign of slowing their pace. Shiroi had set the cadence, one he was sure he could maintain, and Kuroi, with a rare display of patience that he normally reserved for the hunt, was immediately matching him. San had taken a second to look at Kinjiru every now and then- the cat had been sitting with his arms half crossed, holding onto a double handful of fur. San turned her eyes back ahead and listened to the rhythm of Shiroi's feet over the ever-uneven ground.
"San." Shiroi grunted back through breaths of air. "We should reach home by morning."
San was silent for a moment. She had been alone with her thoughts for hours, and found her voice was slow in coming. "Can you keep this pace?" She asked.
"For you...of course," Shiroi said, nodding to his brother as the two of them turned and adjusted their direction.
Kinjiru stirred from Kuroi's back. The cat-boy stretched out each of his arms, one at a time, and then pulled back his mask and wiped his brow. He turned to look at San, his eyes glittering silver in the pale moonlight.
"How are you doing?" He asked, turning back to check his grip.
"Fine," San said, staring straight ahead, not feeling much like talking to him. She was terse, sparing with her words. Kinjiru settled back to the way he sat before and said nothing. San was left to her own thoughts as the tall grasses nicked by on either side, rolling out for as far as the moonlight shone. On the horizon was a thick dark line: trees. Beyond that would be a river, and then it would be only a few hours of riding until they were back home.
Beyond the upcoming morning, San could see nothing in her future. Ashitaka, Kinjiru, Eboshi, Asano...the conflicts raging around her were insignificant. Ashitaka had ridden Yakkul to Irontown with a poison wound crippling his arm not a month ago, and now the circumstances were strangely reversed. Ashitaka had sought redemption, now San was seeking revenge. But even revenge is pacified by the cooling touch of death, the same cold mark that ran across the Emishi boy's arm and the wolf princess's leg.
~
Hours away, waves sloshed without cease against the bows of Chokan's ships as they gently rode the coastline swells. Crammed amidst the cargo hold were scribes, court members, advisors, and the rest of Asano's personal staff. They were the favored few. The rest had died deaths at the hands of claws and fangs, trampling hooves and ivory tusks. For now, they huddled together, fearful of their fate and listening to the shifting seas surrounding them.
Asano was too restless to rest. He had much on his mind. While his court was crowded below decks, the minute fraction of his army that had come this far stood or crouched on deck, and he leaned at the bow of the ship. Seijin stood next to him, clutching his arms to his chest, shivering in the wind. The advisor's decades of soft life did little for him outside of a court.
Chokan made his rounds, making sure that everything was in order. His crew was as resentful as he was of these passengers, but would cooperate. The admiral stepped up to the front of the boat and stood by Asano.
"I estimate several days sailing until we arrive. You are fortunate- we have sufficient provisions on board to get us through this little fiasco. I had never bargained on taking your entire palace on board." Chokan's voice was laden with contempt. He had been reduced from an admiral, the king of his emperor's seas, to a ferryman.
"It was no doing of mine. You know as well as I do that I couldn't just leave them to die." Asano snapped.
'No,' thought Seijin, 'but you were perfectly content to leave the rest of your city to be slaughtered.'
"We have some ships trailing us. Small fishing vessels. I assume they are from your city, or should I say 'former city'."
"Let them trail if they wish. I trust in their resourcefulness."
"Very well." Chokan turned and walked away, his steps ringing out on the well-treaded wood.
"Seijin," Asano snapped, his eyes never wavering from the sea ahead. "What about the boy? Where is he?"
Seijin shivered and answered with his chin still tucked into his chest. "Below decks in a walled off room. He is alone."
"Very well. Get yourself out of this weather- you need to be in fine form for when we arrive and meet the emperor."
"Yes, my lord." Seijin said as he walked away, glad to have respite from the stinging winds.
'This is all but a detour. My stopover to see the emperor will only be a brief sojourn to pick up more troops. From there, I'll be able to head and crush Eboshi. After all, I still hold the key to her city." Asano smiled. He would talk to the boy later. Until then, he would sit, and wait. He was patient.
~
Shiroi and Kuroi slowed to a stop in the middle of a forest; at the same pace still several hours from home. A river ran lazily through the trees, shimmering in the moonlight. Shiroi growled out loud enough for both San and Kinjiru to hear, "We need to find where we crossed this river before. You two can rest for a short while."
San carefully lowered herself off Shiroi's back, conscious of the numbness in her foot, not trusting it to support her weight. On the ground, she limped, testing the limb for how it would hold. The numbness had spread up through her shin, nearly through her knee, but for the most part, the rest of her leg was responsive. Kinjiru walked over, removing his mask and hooking it onto his belt.
"How is it?" he asked.
"Getting worse like the monk said."
Kinjiru nodded. "If we were to tie your leg, we might be able to slow the spread of the poison."
San looked at him, then moved over to a rock and took a seat. Kinjiru began unwinding one of him arm wrappings, taking the blade and jamming it into his belt. The skin on his forearm was a striking pale compared to the rest of his tanned complexion. He started wrapping San's leg just below the knee, tightly binding her leg down to the ankle. San gritted her teeth- he was making the bind as tight as he could. He knotted the wrapping and stood back, offering San a hand to help get up. She was pulled to her feet, testing the leg again and finding no real loss of mobility. She nodded a quiet thanks. Kinjiru smiled at her, letting go of her hand. He walked over to the edge of the river, stooped, and drank.
San stood behind him, watching her brothers scout the shore, finding the best possible place to cross. Kinjiru stood, picking up a rock as he stood, and flung it sidearm across the river. It bounced a few times before sinking with a pop. The silence then proceeded to close again around that one noise.
Kinjiru shifted uneasily, then said, "I'm sorry to impose, but I must know: who is this Lady Eboshi?"
San grimaced. "A true devil of a human woman, if there ever was one. She lives for no reason other than to kill and destroy to make the world subjective to her whims. She takes huge tracks of forest, kills the creatures there or drives them out, and then destroys all the trees. The noise of it- have you ever heard the sound of a thousand trees being killed? Mother taught me at a young age the horror of it.
"From there she takes the land and churns its soils, stripping it of the iron, what makes the soils around the forest so red. The iron is carried back to her city, a terrible place belching smoke into the sky and filling the air with smells that sting when you breathe in. There she melts the iron and uses it to make her iron bows and fire arrows, and uses them to take more forest from the mountains and turn it into scabland."
Kinjiru said nothing for a moment, absorbing the images San gave. San sighed, having rid herself of some venom on Lady Eboshi, but now feeling cold as the warmth of her hatred left her. Her brothers returned, and stood on either side of her. Kinjiru looked straight into her eyes, his hands clenched.
"And she is the woman that killed the spirit of your forest?" Kinjiru asked.
"Yes. And one day, I will kill her, to avenge my mother, and Okkotonushi, and the forest spirit."
"We relish the day she dies." Kuroi growled, startling Kinjiru.
"You are brave to fight such evil. I look forward to facing this devil woman face to face. Know that the enemy of the wolf tribe is my enemy."
"Thank you, Kinjiru." San replied, pulling her wolfskin cape around her as best she could as she could, climbing onto Shiroi's back as Kinjiru pulled himself onto Kuroi's. The silence filled the air again, but it was pointedly directed to a place in the east, on the edge of the forest, called Irontown. The woman all four held a vow to kill was the same they sought for help.
~
Jiko Bou leaned on a rail in the aft of the vessel he was on, preferring the high spot to keep an eye on everything, specifically, on Asano. The warlord had proved rather dull thus far. His advisor had gone in out of the cold some half hour ago, but both Jiko and Asano remained. Jiko was again flanked by a pair of hunter-killers, easily weathering the cold air.
The approaching creak of steps belonged to the first mate. The second in command was traveling on a different ship than he normally would have as per Chokan's orders. Jiko smiled. Chokan didn't know where his first mate's true alliances were. Had he such knowledge, things would have been different. The first mate was a less dashing figure than Chokan, but the cut of his armor and the gleam in his eye as he approached Jiko made him look like death itself. Jiko would have been unimpressed even if it were reality.
"Good evening, master Jiko. Are you well?"
"As well as I can be." Jiko grinned. "What's the situation with the captain and Asano?"
"A minor argument, from what I've heard. Unimportant. We'll sail steady until our arrival."
"Excellent. What about the boy?"
"As you instructed, he's in isolation. What is he, master Jiko? A spy?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Jiko asked. "He'll be important later. Make sure none of the crew goes near him. I know I can trust you."
"Of course, master Jiko." The first mate bowed and turned away.
"Keep an eye on him, boys." Jiko said to his hunter-killers. "That's the kind of disposable hireling I'm supposed to work with- nothing more than a leech in armor."
"What are you asking, master Jiko?" One of the hunter-killers asked. A blade appeared in his hand.
"Well...let's just say a man like that won't be around long. But don't you get any ideas, all right? We've got bigger fish to fry." Jiko snickered.
~
Dawn cracked cold and clear through the leaves of the forest of the gods, making intricate interweaving patterns on the backs of Kuroi and Shiroi. The brothers had slowed to a walk, worn out. San shook herself out of a cold chill, wiping the dew off her skin where it had settled. She must have fallen asleep for some time, but she was not rested in the slightest. She tapped Shiroi on the ear and he stopped, Kuroi turned and did the same. San lowered herself off Shiroi's back and settled herself lightly on the ground, supporting her weight on her good foot. It seemed like Kinjiru's wrapping had done the work- the numbness had slowed down to a crawl, not yet quite past her knee. San rubbed warmth back into her limbs as Kinjiru stirred and lowered himself to the ground. He was taking in the forest with wide, gray eyes, catlike in that they observed as much as they could before he looked elsewhere. All the while, he was rubbing the stiffness out of his arms.
"It's a beautiful place. Not like my forest. Much older, and more...regal." He said, admiring the high vaulting arches the trees made overhead.
"It was a fitting home for the forest spirit." San said. "But without him here physically, it's vulnerable. Mother is gone, Nago is gone...and I'm left."
Kinjiru stared at her with his gray gaze, and having detected something in her voice responded, "We'll make sure you are here to guard this forest, San."
San started walking, Kinjiru trailing only a few feet behind, her brothers splitting off to either side to walk at their own paces. San knew that she was in the far end of the forest, near the vast tracts of grass and mud between the forest and Irontown, and that only a few minutes walk would see the end of foliage and the opening into a much more barren world.
The end of the trees was abrupt, closer than San had thought. She stood, one palm resting against a nearby trunk as she stared upon Irontown again. Kinjiru joined her and gazed upon the site with an impassive silence. Irontown had returned to its previous state much faster than San would have thought. While the ruins of the great tatara-ba had been shredded by Irontown workers for wood, and the mining operations had seen severe setbacks, Irontown was regenerating daily. San noticed with pointed disgust it was much more brown in color than when she had last seen it, the plants being cleared away for human living space. Small fires burned here and there, and a party of workers was restructuring the water sluices carved into the mountainside.
"They have learned nothing." San spat. Kuroi and Shiroi growled from either side. San turned to Kinjiru. "Let's go. I don't want to be around those humans an instant longer than I have to." She gently set down Ashitaka's sword against a tree where she could find it, then stepped out of the tree cover.
San started off down the gently sloping grass towards the lake, Kinjiru following closely behind. The grass had seemingly retained the vigor instilled into it by the forest spirit, and now was easily waist high. Kinjiru alternated his eyes between watching his feet as best he could and looking at the massive, still mossy walls of Irontown. While Kinjiru didn't notice, San stumbled once or twice on her tightly bandaged leg, but immediately regained her composure. San walked in a long arc, and it took the two of them up along to where the grasses thinned out from constant wear by human feet. At the end of the tall grass, her brothers stopped. They would never be allowed in Irontown, and San nodded a quiet goodbye to them. They watched the pair for a moment before heading back at a lope to the woods, where they would watch and still be near enough to help.
The grass became more and more sparse, eventually giving way to dirt, and the ground here rose to form one side of the trench cut by Lady Eboshi to protect her city. The still-formidable wood spines that lined the Irontown side of the ravine were overwhelmed in wiry vines and curling creepers. Ahead of them, San picked up cries that were dispersed by the wind- "It's the wolf girl!" "Close the gates!"
Finally, the gate of Irontown stood before San and Kinjiru, blocking the way to Lady Eboshi. San thumbed at the message she had, folded twice and tucked under one of her armbands. A lone woman's head, smeared with the filth that was still all over Irontown, peered over from the crenellated wall.
"What do you want, wolf girl?" the woman called down, a second and third head peering over the embattlements.
"I have a message for the Eboshi woman. Let me in so I may speak with her." San shouted back, using her best intimidating voice. San couldn't see herself, but she looked the part of intimidation. Her facepaint was smeared only slightly, and from the vantage point on the wall San appeared to have less flesh than fur. The women on the walltop were unconvinced that "speaking" with Lady Eboshi was a priority with the wolf princess.
The faces disappeared over the wall, obviously debating what to do. San turned to look at Kinjiru, who was still keeping an eye on the walltop. "They'll stall just to irritate me," San said, not loudly enough to carry up to the women on the walltop.
~
Gonza strode through the city, rifleman and peasant woman alike scurrying out of his way. He walked at a pace that was leisurely for him, but still was an impressive stride. In a matter of minutes he crossed the city center, only several more and he had topped the hill to Eboshi's newly- restored living spaces. He passed from room to room until he arrived at the back door of the building, the door to the garden. This was the one place Gonza felt he had no reason- or want- to be. Still standing inside the safety of the door, he spoke to the lone leper tending the neat rows of medicinal plants and asked him- or her, beneath those bandages he could hardly tell- to fetch Eboshi.
Eboshi arrived not two minutes later, rubbing away some gunpowder between the fingers on her hand and shaking the soot from her coat. She brushed by Gonza and moved into the main entry hall that ran through most of the building. Leaning against the entryway, she finally spoke.
"What is it, Gonza? A matter between the people?"
"No, milady. You have visitors," Gonza said, bowing his head.
"Well? Where are they?"
"Erm...we're not certain we should let them in." Eboshi turned with a look of question towards her second-in-command. "It's the wolf girl...and someone else. Not Ashitaka. Says she has a message for you."
Eboshi turned back to look out on Irontown, her gaze far off onto the distant gate. When she heard "wolf girl" she thought Ashitaka might finally have bit the bullet and tried to civilize his bride. That, or she had come to try and kill her again. Apparently, neither of those situations was the case.
"Let her in, but make sure that she knows we're keeping a very close eye on her. I'll meet her and her friend here shortly."
~
Kinjiru gazed out of the corner of his eye at one of the dozen riflemen who were acting as an escort to San and he. These humans obviously enjoyed a good show of force, and they apparently brought some of the weapons San had mentioned. Still, they looked nervous, and Kinjiru was ready to bet that if San were in full form, without an impaired leg, they could easily take on two-dozen of the armed humans.
San wasn't doing much in the way of taking in her surroundings. She had been in Irontown before and had seen as much of it as she ever wanted too. The humans hadn't let the growth from the Shishi-gami stop them for long. It appeared what they hadn't hacked away or burned off was either trampled into the ground or slowly being poisoned in the filthy atmosphere. San kept her eyes on the road ahead and her ears intent on the footsteps of Gonza behind her. They had been permitted to enter armed, but the Irontown wall guard had taken the day off to make sure they didn't try anything.
Eboshi stood regally at her door, watching as Gonza and twelve of her personally trained guards escorted her "guests". The wolf girl was there, all right, and it seemed she brought along a friend of similar ilk. The lithe boy looked to be about the same age, and kept a wary eye on the guards around him. The girl, however, was meeting Eboshi eye-to-eye the entire walk up the hill.
"Welcome...welcome, San of the wolf tribe." Eboshi said it in her most frigid voice possible, but to her it was still like swallowing a fistful of bullets.
"I come on behalf of Ashitaka. Let me make it clear that there is nothing but hate in my soul for you, Eboshi." San said back, equally hating.
"I agree." Eboshi said. For a moment the two squared off with eyes and brains, each pondering slitting the throat of the other. San was measurably shorter than Eboshi, but she carried the exact same aura that commanded respect. For a moment, Kinjiru and Gonza stood in the background, totally forgotten. Gonza shifted uneasily, Kinjiru closely regarded the two while keeping an open ear to the movement around him.
"What brings you to me? Surely something dire." Eboshi said, going out of her way to add some extra venom.
"I told you. I'm here for Ashitaka. And I have a message for you."
"Well, let's not stand outside all day. Come on in, if you will. It's no dirt den, but you might find it suitable, little princess."
Careful, San thought. She's trying to bait me. San walked forward into the darkness.
Gonza made a deft movement with his hands and the riflemen walked away, uneasy. Kinjiru followed San, his senses stretched to the limit. Eboshi sat down on her personal chair, comparatively simple to the throne Asano owned.
"Well, let's see what you've got." San handed her the note. Eboshi glanced at the seal. "Why is Jiko Bou sending me a letter by you, of all people?" San remained silent as Eboshi broke the seal and scanned the message.
"Very interesting. I had my suspicions of whose side Jiko was on, but now I'm again not so sure." Eboshi muttered to herself softly and then looked up. "So why are you here, and why is Ashitaka not?"
San glared at her. "Ashitaka...is still with Asano. I was poisoned during the battle. The monk thought you might be able to...help."
Eboshi smiled. This was rich, she thought. The wolf girl crawling back to her for help. It was a miracle she had come down from her bestial snobbishness to actually accept her help. She must truly be desperate.
"And what will you do if I can heal you?" Eboshi asked of her.
"Rescue Ashitaka." San answered.
"...I owe Ashitaka," Eboshi said, rolling her debts around in her mind, "and I owe you. Very well. You and your mute friend can follow me." Eboshi stood and turned toward her back door. "Gonza, cover my duties for me until I return."
"But...milady..." Gonza stammered, unsure if it was anything less than foolish to leave his leader alone.
Eboshi turned a cold shoulder to Gonza and walked out into her garden. It was one of the first things she had rebuilt since the catastrophe, partly because its reconstruction had been facilitated by the rampant growth after the incident, and partly because of the food and medicinal supplies it procured. A single leper, wrapped in a long shawl, rested against the door. He bowed his head as Eboshi passed, and turned one good eye on the two strangers who followed.
Inside the leper quarters, a score and odd invalids worked quietly on various pet projects as Eboshi entered. Several heads turned that direction, the soft murmuring voices and tapping of metal on metal went uninterrupted.
San entered and everything stopped. Something in the far corner of the workshop clattered to the floor, no longer tended by the numb hands that had been working with it. Several smaller hand pistols were uncovered from their resting places and there was the soft sound of a gun lock going to. Eboshi waved her hand. The lepers, still no less tense, began to resume their work with a measured caution, and no small number of sideways glances at San.
Kinjiru noted something particular on the air, a whirlwind of unfamiliar scents to his experienced nose. Gunpowder, iron shavings, freshly worked wood, and a few stray smells of rice wine were present. But under all this was a scent that thrilled and froze him where he stood. The faint and musty odor of something dead or rotting. A dry, sickly scent that was not death, but decay. He reflexively took a step back, and Eboshi's eyes fell upon him.
"You have realized what these people are? Lepers. The dregs of humanity, here turned into the most valuable craftsmen in all the world. They are my chosen people, and they have proved to be invaluable to me."
"Lepers?" San said. The word was new to her. She had detected the faint stench in the air but couldn't place what it was.
"You and your sheltered little forest life. Let me explain to you, in simple terms you can understand. These people are half dead. They have a disease that will slowly eat them away, flesh from bone and limb from body, until it kills them." Eboshi turned and looked at the corner, to an unoccupied cot. Up until only a few weeks ago, her oldest comrade had rested there. Eboshi resumed. "It is not unlike the curse Prince Ashitaka was under, but instead of coming in pain, this disease works with the numb hands of death."
"Why are we here?" San said. Had the woman brought her here to kill her? To give her this horrible...curse?
"I believe that one of these people may have the skill to cure you." Eboshi said. "Follow me."
Stepping on a narrow path winding between at least a dozen glaring lepers, San was led to the far wall of the room, where one leper tended between the matches she was assembling in front of her and the drying plants hanging down from the ceiling. All forms, many ones that did not grow in the great forest, creating around her a sort of dry and brown shrine. The leper finished the head of the last match and set it aside. A pair of large, somber eyes moved across Lady Eboshi, and then to San, and then to San's leg.
"This is Ishi, my chief physician. She cannot speak to you, as her voice has been taken, so explain well the poison and its effects."
San lowered herself into a sitting position and unwound the wrap around her leg. The first few inches were normal, but San noticed she couldn't feel anything, not even the loss of pressure as the wrap unwound. When San reached the middle of her shin, however, the skin turned a striking and sickly shady of gray. Ishi's eyes nearly disappeared behind the bandages wound around her head. The physician made a sharp sound as she drew in a quick breath through her nose, then learned forward to better inspect the wound. San noticed that she never touched it, although her bandaged hands, seemingly devoid of all digits except thumbs, hovered around the mark. The single point where the dart had stuck had almost turned night-sky gray, and stood out very slightly, not unlike an insect sting.
Ishi leaned back and raised her hands over her head, running her palms across a plant here, then there. Kinjiru observed the whole scene from the doorway, one foot in the building and his eyes splitting their time between San and the lepers. Finally, Ishi brought her hands back down, only one plant clutched firmly between her thumb and the side of her hand.
"It's a painkiller." Eboshi said, reading her subject's eyes. "Is that...all you can offer?" Eboshi asked the doctor. Ishi shook her head and closed her eyes.
"I have no need for your human medicine." San said, and she tried to stand. Her bad leg gave out from under her, and she caught herself from falling onto the floor mat. The leper and Eboshi both made a move forward as if to help, and San's knife was out in a flash. Kinjiru was similarly and suddenly armed, and several matchlock firearms bristled again among the lepers, aimed to kill.
San's head pounded under the stress and adrenaline of the situation. "I'm not here to kill the damn woman." San repeated to herself mentally. Her vision blurred, and for an instant she thought she was losing consciousness. She closed her eyes to try and shake off the dizziness and opened them to find the world painted in the colors a god would see it in. But something was wrong. Eboshi stood out in the room as being the same brilliant mortal red, but the men and women who were her own private people showed no such coloring. They were a dull, brown-colored red, the color of iron clay. San knew instinctively that what Eboshi had said was true: her people were dying.
San reluctantly lowered and sheathed the blade, and again stood, this time putting much more weight on her good leg. "You hold no cure for me. My death is coming not from pain, but from this cold unfeeling human curse." She spat.
Eboshi smiled grimly. "Then go, wolf girl. Crawl back to your cave and die there. There is no more help for you in Irontown."
San limped heavily over to the door, walking backwards despite the difficulties of her leg. She wouldn't be so foolish as to turn her back on a room full of gun-toting humans. She stopped when her back gently met Kinjiru's palm, then the same hand went to her shoulder. The god vision slowly bled away as San blinked several final times, then she turned to Kinjiru. He offered San his arm, and San leaned on him as they walked slowly out of the room and through the garden.
Eboshi frowned. Ashitaka and the wolf girl had become so intertwined that the death of one of them would certainly bode ill for the other. What was this remorse in her heart? Sadness for Ashitaka, or for not being able to help someone? Eboshi had done so much to help so many mortal afflictions in the past, but had finally come across one that medicine could not treat and kindness could not touch.
Kinjiru supported San's weight as they walked through the narrow garden path, into and through the main hall, and then down the front hill of Eboshi's headquarters. The long walk through the market was an eternity, with what seemed like every citizen in Irontown stopping their mid- afternoon work to come and watch the retreat of the wolf princess. Finally, beyond the gate of Irontown, the two stopped.
"San," came a voice from the battlements. Eboshi was there, looking down from the safety of her fortress wall.
"I'm sorry." Came the voice of the matriarch of Irontown.
Shiroi and Kuroi arrived at a full run from the edge of the forest, and San mounted herself on her brother's back, Kinjiru doing likewise. San gave one cold, piercing stare at the woman she still lived to hate, and longer to kill. Eboshi smiled such that the girl could not see. With that final eye contact, the wolf girl and her prince companion returned to the forest of the gods.
Eboshi descended the stairs from the walltop, surrounded by her jabbering townsfolk. Gonza made his way through the crowd, finally reunited with his superior.
"Milady!" He said, flabbergasted in his usual manner that he had left her side for not ten minutes yet she was still alive. "You're safe! Where did the wolf girl go?"
Eboshi glanced towards the gate, and the forest beyond. "To die." Eboshi said. "But it seems so unjust that she never did get a second chance to try and kill me. Fortune is an impartial thing." Eboshi rubbed the cloaks where her arm used to be and walked through the crowds, parting way before her.