The Initiate Brother Duology (103 page)

Tadamoto nodded even though the Emperor looked out toward the capital.

“Have you heard from your brother, Colonel?”

“I have not, Emperor.”

The Emperor rubbed his hands slowly along the railing. “We might hope that he stayed in Seh to
defend Rhojo-ma.
All who accompany Shonto support a rebel.”

“He shames the Jaku House, Sire. We will turn our back to him.”

The Emperor nodded slowly. “I believe this matter should be discussed immediately in the Great Council. We will have the Empire know that Shonto has abandoned his duties in the north and comes south with an armed force. It is not this ragged Khan who has designs on the Throne. If we had only kept that Fanisan daughter in the capital!” It was the closest thing to an expression of anger the Emperor had made, but when he spoke again his voice was calm. “She will not sit upon my throne, Colonel, nor will Motoru stand behind it.” He turned now and looked directly at Tadamoto. “So we must raise a great army, Colonel. My father fought the Shonto and won—I intend to do the same. But I will not be so generous after my victory.”

S
HOKAN LAY STILL in the darkness wondering what one felt when overcome by the cold. Did a person simply sleep and not wake? Or was it painful or frightening? If one still felt the cold, was that a sign that one was closer to life than death? Cold was what the young lord felt: deep, pervasive cold. The bones of his legs ached with cold and in his feet there was no feeling at all.

With some effort the lord pulled his mind away from this avenue of thought and tried to consider the coming day. He had held a brief council with his staff that night, huddled in a circle in the dark, no fire to offer warmth or even cheer. Hard choices had been discussed and decisions made. Destroying the horses had weighed heavily on everyone; unfortunately, no one had offered an alternative that would allow the group to continue. It had been a fool’s hope that the snows would not be deep in the pass so early in the season, but then there had been few paths open to them. Bringing the horses was a risk perhaps not everyone had understood.

Shonto Shokan had made the decision to destroy his stallion himself, though certainly it was not a task a lord of a Great House should even consider. Still, he felt this situation was of his own making and could not ask another to perform the duties his poor decision had made necessary. This kind of thinking was a trait of the young lord’s that drove his father mad. The senior Shonto even went so far as to blame their former Spiritual Advisor, Brother Satake, for encouraging this trait, saying it was good education for children but the worst foolishness for the lord of a major House. Shokan
almost laughed aloud at the memory. It was his impression that Brother Satake had quietly defied everyone; may Botahara protect him.

There had been no wood for fires that night and the sky had remained perfectly clear, allowing the bitter cold of the mountains free rein. The eastern sky was barely gray behind the white peaks that loomed above, but that was enough to have men up and moving, trying to restore circulation, praying the sun would not tarry and the sea wind would bring them warmth. It was a great irony that by night they huddled together in teeth-chattering cold while by day the sun burned their faces and had them stripped down to their lightest robes.

Shokan pushed his cover aside and turned onto his back. He had been rolling over at regular intervals all night trying not to expose one side for too long to the bitter chill that seeped up from the snow—not a restful night. He was hungry and worried about their food supplies. Horse meat would take them some distance, no doubt, but they were still many days away from the western end of the pass. In a purely foolish act they had, to a man, fed some of their precious grain to the horses the night before—a last meal—but the lack of fires to melt snow had meant no water. There was no doubt that the horses would soon be dead without any assistance from their reluctant riders.

Forcing himself to sit up, Shokan felt the chill wind that still swept down from the peaks. He stayed sitting for a moment, beating his hands on his arms and shoulders. The snow would be frozen into a steel-hard crust now, a surface that would support a man’s weight with ease, but it was also steep, treacherous ice and had led to the loss of many of their party.

From up the gulley Shokan heard the measured rhythm of footsteps as the guides moved higher. The previous day they had made a stairway while the snow was soft and now they climbed up to its top where they would continue by cutting more steps in the hard snow. It was a slow, laborious process.

Shokan thought again of their limited food supplies, wondering if he led his retainers to a futile end in some frozen pass. My father needs every armed man he can find, he reminded himself. Every risk is acceptable.

Looking up at the mountains, Shokan thought of the vast valley that lay on their opposite side down which ran the delicate ribbon of the Grand Canal. It seemed very far away, almost unreachable.

A single peak above caught the light of the rising sun and the young lord
felt a great relief. Around him he could make out the shapes of men and horses. Shades of gray began to take on color and shapes definition.

“Sire?” a voice whispered.

Shokan turned to his guard who pointed up the slope. Not far away, half a dozen bearded men crouched down on their heels and watched, their faces impassive. Mountain people….

Shokan turned to his guard who stared openly, unaware that his lord regarded him. Moving with great care, Shokan found the small platform he had stamped out before the snow froze and got unsteadily to his unfeeling feet.

Though he half expected them to start like deer and bound off, the crouching men made no move. It was the worst manners, but Shokan found himself staring like his guard. Mountain people! He could not hide his surprise.

The men crouching before him were dressed so completely in furs and skins that nothing showed but weathered faces. At their belts they carried long knives, almost swords, and, on their backs, bows of an almost pure white wood. As he had read, these men had deep blue eyes, like one sometimes saw among the southern barbarians.

Slowly, Shokan extended his hands, palms out, all the while searching his memory for words he had heard Brother Satake speak in the mountain tongue—but none came. His father had said that Shuyun spoke their language, and Shokan wondered if this was not uncommon for a Botahist scholar.

Turning to his guard Shokan said, “The Botahist monks often know the mountain tongue—pass the word down the line to anyone educated by the Brothers.”

The mountain people looked on as Shokan extended his hands, but there was no reaction visible—it might have been his private morning ritual for all the response it received. He tried gesturing to the snow nearby and smiling in invitation, but the men crouching in the snow did not move. Both parties were soon reduced to staring at each other in silence.

After this had gone on for some time, Shokan noticed a movement higher up on the guides’ stairway. Another group made its way down toward the snowbound lowlanders.

As this second party arrived, the first group turned and bowed stiffly. The object of this show of respect seemed to be an old, leather-faced man in
a worn hooded robe gathered at the waist by a silk sash of faded purple. What animal had contributed its coat to this old man’s warmth Shokan could not say, for the fur was unknown to him— deep gray with tips of silver.

The old man continued right past the bowing mountain people and stopped about three paces beyond Lord Shonto’s guard who had been unable to move quickly enough on the treacherous footing to stop him. Shokan gave them a signal to stand ready but do nothing for now.

The old man stood, arms crossed, hands buried in the sleeves of his robe. His face was as impassive as his companions’ though his eyes were the color of a sky washed with a high mist. The mountain race seemed to be smaller than the people of Wa though Shokan suspected they were broad of shoulder under their layers of fur.

The old man pointed at the Shonto lord. “Name,” he said, not inflecting the word like a question, though Shokan assumed it was meant to be one.

“Lord Shonto Shokan. And you?”

The old man did not respond, but among his companions there was a whispering. Shokan was certain he heard the name of his father’s Spiritual Advisor spoken more than once, as impossible as it seemed.

“Brother Shuyun,” Shokan said. “Do you speak of Brother Shuyun?”

After a moment the old man nodded his ancient head once, his expression never altering. It was such an odd movement, Shokan was not sure the man’s head had not simply fallen forward and then been returned to its upright position. It hardly seemed an expression of agreement.

With a quick motion the old man pointed up the slope. “Fight,” he said with some animation.

Shokan was not sure what this meant but obviously some response was desired.

“Shu-yung fight!” the man said with more urgency.

“This is hopeless,” Shokan whispered to his guard. “What does he mean?”

“Tribes…fight, shu-yung,” the man said, and pointed up into the mountains again.

Tribes;
the word struck the lord like cold wind. He nodded slowly, still far from certain. He was not even sure that nodding meant agreement to these people. Shu-yung, the old man was saying, a word so close to Shuyun in their odd pronunciation that to Shokan’s ear it was barely different—a slight ring in the last syllable, that was all.

The old man’s face split in a smile then and he broke into his own tongue,
speaking so fast that the men listening could have easily been convinced it was all a single long word. He smiled again. “Fight tribes, shu-yung,” he said with some finality. Turning to his companions he spoke again, and Shokan was almost certain he heard the word
Yankura.

A man detached himself from the others and ran easily up the slope, causing the men of Wa much envy.

“Yankura?” Shokan said. “Yankura?”

“Yan-khuro,” the old man enunciated slowly, as though he corrected a child.

“Yan-khura. Yul-khuro, yan yul. Shu-yung,” he said, and then, as if for good measure, “fight.”

Shokan nodded and smiled. Am I agreeing? he wondered, and if so, to what?

Pointing at Shokan’s horse with that same quick motion, the old man spoke in his tongue again, then shook his head. Holding his hands together as though he held a bowl, he made a drinking motion and then pointed at the horse, his face suddenly sad.

“Sire,” Shokan’s guard said quietly, “above us.”

A small army of fur-clad mountain dwellers descended the slope, many down the stairway but as many walking directly down the steel hard snow without losing their footing. Shokan realized he stared openmouthed, but then it was a wonder indeed.

“What will happen now?” Shokan heard someone say. He gave a short laugh.

“I don’t know.” Despite a lifetime’s training in suspicion, the lord somehow knew these people meant them no harm. “I don’t know,” he said again.

The mountain people passed by Shokan with barely a nod and a half smile, but the horses were another matter. These were objects of great admiration. Shokan was afraid the numbers of people milling around would spook the animals, but it quickly became obvious that the mountain dwellers were well versed in the handling of animals and undoubtedly horses, too.

The old man came a few paces closer to be heard above the noise of his people. He spoke a few words in his own tongue and then pointed at Shokan’s horse. “No fight,” he said quietly. Then pointing at Shokan’s saddle bags and assorted gear. “Shuyunal.” He gestured to his people. “Shuyun.” Then he pointed up the pass and gave his odd single nod.

Shokan copied the gesture, then turned to his guard. “Find the boy. Have him tell everyone to offer no resistance to these people. We will leave them the horses and they will assist us over the pass…I think.”

Shokan turned back to the old man, but he had turned and was trudging slowly up the stairway.

“Shuyun,” a voice said beside him. Shokan turned to look at a beardless, smiling child. Tapping his chest, the child smiled again. “Shuyun,” he said.

“Ah,” the lord said. This is Shuyun? But then he realized the same word was being repeated up and down the line. Two others were fitting the pole to Shokan’s armor box and lifting it easily to their shoulders although the lord knew it contained suits of both heavy and light armor as well as other arms and assorted pieces of gear for repairs.

The smiling child beside him began to collect the lord’s belongings, and a guard quickly moved to intervene.

“No,” the young lord said. “I will allow it.” He began to roll his own bedding, though rather clumsily.

“Shuyun,” he heard someone say down the line, and then again and again as though it were a chant.

*   *   *

To Shokan’s surprise the mountain people led his party back down the gulley, making steps for the lowlanders as they went. He feared that there was a great misunderstanding and the mountain people were returning the lowlanders to the valley they had escaped, but he decided to wait a bit and see what would happen.