The Weaver's Hand

The crack of wood on wood echoed across the packed earth of the training grounds. I parried Kenji’s wild swing, the impact vibrating up my arms, and used his momentum to spin him off-balance. He stumbled, his feet shuffling in the dust to regain his footing, his chest heaving. Sweat plastered his dark hair to his forehead, and a familiar frustration tightened his jaw.

“You are too eager,” I said, my voice even. I kept my bokken, the heavy oak practice sword, held in a ready stance, its tip aimed at his throat. “You attack with your anger, not your mind. Anger makes you predictable.”

“Anger makes me fast,” he countered, breathing hard. He was seventeen, all lean muscle and restless energy, and he saw honor as a prize to be won in a flurry of motion. He had not yet learned it was a weight to be carried in stillness.

“It makes you careless,” I corrected. I shifted my weight, a subtle movement of my hips, and lunged. My strike wasn't fast, but it was precise. The tip of my bokken connected squarely with his sternum, a solid thud that drove the air from his lungs. He grunted, staggering back. I did not press the advantage. This was a lesson, not a duel.

From the veranda of the main dojo, our lord, Kageyama, watched us. He sat hunched on a silk cushion, a blanket pooled around his thin legs despite the warmth of the afternoon. His face, once as sharp and severe as a winter hawk’s, had softened with age and worry, the skin hanging loosely from his bones. He was the guardian of our traditions, yet with every passing season, I saw the flame of his authority flicker and dim. The Shogun’s influence crept into our province like a slow poison, whispers of rifles, of foreign advisors, of a new order that had no place for men like us. An order that saw the sword as a relic.

Kenji, recovering his breath, saw where my gaze had drifted. “He worries,” my brother said, his tone softer now. “Jiro fills his head with talk of treaties and taxes. He says we should petition the Shogun for favor.”

“Jiro is a politician who happens to carry a sword,” I said, turning my attention back to Kenji. “We are samurai. Our favor is not begged for; it is earned. Here.” I gestured with my bokken to the training ground. “This is where our honor is forged. It is all we have left.”

I could feel the truth of those words in my own bones. The Kageyama clan was a shadow of its former self. Our lands were less fertile than they once were, our treasury thin. Other clans, like the Ito to the north, grew bold, currying favor with the Shogun’s emissaries and trading silk for firearms. They embraced the future, while we clung to the past, to the belief that a man’s worth was measured by his discipline and the keenness of his blade. It was my belief. My burden. If our clan was to survive, it would be through martial perfection. There could be no other way.

“Again,” I commanded.

Kenji nodded, his frustration replaced by a grim determination I recognized from our father. He raised his bokken, his stance lower this time, more balanced. He was a good student, and a better brother. He was the future of our line, and I would not allow him to face it unprepared.

He came at me again, not with a wild swing, but with a series of calculated feints, testing my defense. I met each one with a simple, efficient block. Wood met wood. The sounds were a rhythm, a prayer against the encroaching silence I feared was destined to swallow us whole. I saw the opening he was trying to create, the one I had taught him to look for. I let him see it, a deliberate gap in my guard. His eyes lit with triumph. It was the mistake I was waiting for. As he committed to the thrust, I pivoted, my own bokken sweeping under his in a fluid arc, twisting it from his grasp. The wooden sword flew through the air, landing with a soft thud in the dust several feet away.

Kenji stood frozen, his empty hands held before him, his eyes wide with surprise. I rested the tip of my blade lightly against his collarbone. The training was over.

“Honor,” I said quietly, looking him directly in the eye, “is found in the space between one breath and the next. Do not be so eager to waste it.”

I lowered my bokken and gave him a nod of acknowledgment. He bowed his head, a sign of respect that eased the sting of his defeat. Before I could speak again, a commotion from the village gate drew our attention. A lone rider was galloping toward us, his horse lathered and stumbling with exhaustion. He wasn't a samurai. He was one of the ashigaru, a foot soldier, assigned to the watchtower at the Dragon’s Maw Pass.

He slid from his horse before it had even come to a full stop, his legs giving way beneath him. He fell to his knees in the dust, his armor askew, his face pale beneath a layer of grime and sweat.

“Lord Kageyama!” he gasped, his voice choked with panic and exertion. He scrambled forward on his knees, ignoring Kenji and me, his eyes fixed on the old man on the veranda. “My lord!”

Lord Kageyama leaned forward, his frail body suddenly imbued with a rigid authority. “Report, soldier.”

The man drew a shuddering breath. “The pass, my lord. Dragon’s Maw. It’s been taken.”

A cold stillness fell over the training grounds. Even the breeze seemed to die. The pass was our lifeblood, the only reliable route through the northern mountains for the autumn grain and salt caravans. Without it, we would not survive the winter.

“Taken?” I demanded, my voice sharper than I intended. “By whom? Bandits?”

The soldier shook his head, not daring to look at me. His gaze remained locked on our lord. “The Ito, my lord. A full company. They came at dawn.” He paused, swallowing hard. “They… they have rifles. The foreign kind. We never stood a chance. They cut down Hideo’s patrol from halfway down the mountain. We couldn’t even get close.”

Rifles. The word hung in the air, heavy and vile. The weapon of cowards and merchants, a tool that rendered a lifetime of discipline meaningless. I felt a surge of cold fury rise in my chest. The Ito, a clan of upstart traders who had bought their name a generation ago, had dared to use such dishonorable weapons against us. Against samurai.

Kenji made a low, guttural sound of rage. “The dogs. We should ride now and—”

“Silence,” Lord Kageyama commanded. His voice was not loud, but it cut through the air with the finality of a blade. All eyes turned to him. He rose slowly, painfully, to his feet, refusing the aid of the attendant who rushed to his side. His gaze swept over the training ground, over the fallen soldier, over my brother, and finally, it settled on me. The weariness was still there, etched into the lines of his face, but beneath it, a hard glint had returned to his eyes. It was the look of a man who had led armies and bled for his name.

“This is a declaration of war,” he stated, his voice ringing with a strength that belied his frail frame. “The Ito have spat on our honor and seek to starve our people. This insult will not stand.”

He turned to his attendant. “Summon the council. All senior samurai. Immediately.” Then his eyes found me again, and the weight of his stare was a physical force. “Adonis. You will attend. Your training is over. The time for practice has passed.”

He turned without another word and disappeared into the shadows of the dojo, leaving behind a silence thick with the promise of violence. The soldier remained kneeling in the dust, his head bowed. Kenji looked at me, his youthful anger now mixed with a terrible, dawning understanding. This was not a story from our father’s time. This was real.

I placed my bokken on the weapons rack, the familiar weight of it feeling inadequate, almost childish. The image of Hideo’s men, skilled warriors all, being slaughtered from a distance by an enemy they could not reach, burned in my mind. It was a vile, dishonorable way to die. A vile, dishonorable way to fight. I looked at my hands, calloused and strong from thousands of hours of practice with a sword. Against a rifle, they were just flesh and bone.

The conflict was clear. It was our spirit against their steel. Our honor against their machines. And our lord had placed the beginning of our response in my hands. I gave Kenji a short, sharp nod, a silent order to see to the messenger and his horse, and then I turned and walked toward the council hall, each step heavier than the last.

The council hall was a long, narrow room, smelling of old wood and incense. Polished floorboards reflected the soft light from the paper shoji screens that lined the western wall. Ten of our clan’s most senior samurai were already kneeling in two rows facing the raised platform where Lord Kageyama sat. My uncle, Jiro, knelt at the head of the left row, his posture impeccable, his face a mask of calm deliberation. He was my father’s younger brother, a man who fought his battles in tea rooms and with carefully chosen words. He met my gaze as I entered, and his eyes, unlike the rest of his placid face, were sharp and assessing.

I knelt at the head of the right row, directly opposite him. The silence in the room was absolute, a heavy blanket that smothered all sound from the world outside. Each man here had bled for the Kageyama name. Each man had a different idea of what that name now required of us.

Lord Kageyama surveyed the room, his gaze lingering on each of us in turn. “The Ito have drawn their sword,” he began, his voice thin but clear. “They hold the Dragon’s Maw. They have foreign rifles. They believe our teeth have been pulled and our claws clipped. They believe us to be old, weak, and ready for the grave.” He paused, letting the bitter words settle. “They must be answered. Adonis, you were there when the news arrived. Speak. What is your counsel?”

I bowed my head, then rose to my feet. Every eye was on me. “My lord,” I said, my voice steady, “honor demands a swift and decisive reply. The Ito use the weapons of cowards because they are cowards. They hide behind distance and machinery. We should not give them the courtesy of a prolonged engagement or the insult of a diplomatic overture.”

I could feel Jiro’s disapproval like a cold draft against my back. I ignored it.

“I propose we send a small, elite force. Not to lay siege, but to strike like a viper. Under the cover of darkness, we can scale the eastern cliffs—the path is treacherous, but not impossible for men of our skill. We descend into their camp while they sleep. Up close, a rifle is a clumsy club. A sword is death itself. We will slaughter their sentries, seize their weapons, and drive them from the pass before the sun rises. We answer their challenge not with words, but with steel. We remind them what it means to face a samurai.”

I finished and knelt, my heart pounding with the conviction of my own words. I heard murmurs of agreement from the younger samurai in the room, men like Isao and Mori, who had trained alongside me. Their blood was hot. They saw the purity of the path I had laid out.

Lord Kageyama nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. He turned his gaze to my uncle. “Jiro. You have a different view.”

Jiro bowed, then rose. He did not look at me, but addressed the lord directly, his tone measured and reasonable. “My lord, my nephew’s passion is admirable. It is the fire of his youth, the legacy of his great father.” The compliment was a subtle barb, a reminder that I was not my father. “But it is a fire that could consume us all. The messenger’s report was clear. Hideo and his men were killed from a distance. They never even drew their swords. To send another force, no matter how skilled, into that same meat grinder is not honor. It is suicide.”

He let that word hang in the air. “Adonis speaks of a night attack, of scaling cliffs. These are risks piled upon risks. What if a single stone is dislodged? What if a sentry is wakeful? The plan relies on perfect execution against an enemy whose capabilities we do not fully understand. We would be betting the lives of our best warriors on a single roll of the dice.”

“So we do nothing?” I challenged, unable to keep the scorn from my voice. “We cower behind our walls and wait for them to starve us out?”

“I did not say do nothing,” Jiro countered, his calm finally cracking to reveal the steel beneath. He turned to face me. “I say we do the smart thing. We send an emissary. We protest this illegal seizure to the Shogun’s magistrate. We open a channel for negotiation.”

“Negotiation?” I spat the word. “They have taken our land and killed our men. What is there to negotiate? The terms of our surrender?”

“The terms of our survival!” Jiro’s voice rose, his composure gone. “You are so blinded by pride you cannot see the truth. The world is changing! A well-armed peasant with a rifle is the equal of the finest swordsman at two hundred paces. This is the reality. Your plan is a glorious death, Adonis. I am proposing a path to a difficult life. I choose life. For the clan. For the women and children you seem to have forgotten in your quest for glory.”

The room was fractured. I saw it in the faces around me. The older men, those who managed the granaries and trade, nodded at Jiro’s words. They understood logistics, the harsh math of survival. The younger warriors looked at me, their faces flushed with indignation at the thought of bowing to the Ito. They understood honor. We were two clans within one, and the rift between us was as wide and as deep as the pass the Ito now held.

All sound ceased. The heated words died in the space between me and my uncle, leaving a vacuum of tense, expectant silence. Every man in the room, regardless of which side he favored, looked to Lord Kageyama. His eyes were closed, and for a long moment, I thought he might have drifted into sleep, his frail body finally succumbing to the weight of the decision. But then his eyelids fluttered open, and the gaze he fixed upon the room was sharper than any blade I owned.

“Enough,” he said. The word was quiet, yet it carried the authority of a landslide. Jiro and I both bowed our heads and knelt, the reprimand felt by all.

Lord Kageyama took a long, shallow breath. “Jiro, your caution is born of wisdom. You see the world as it is, a place where new weapons can undo generations of tradition in a single, bloody afternoon. You speak of survival, and every man with a family to feed understands the truth in your words.”

He turned his head slowly, his neck stiff, until his tired eyes found mine. “And you, Adonis. You speak of honor. You see the world as it should be, a place where courage is the highest virtue and a man’s spirit is his strongest shield. You speak of glory, and every man who has ever worn these swords understands the fire in your heart.”

He paused, a dry, rasping sound in his throat. “Both of you are right. And both of you are wrong.”

He pushed himself forward, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge of the platform. “If we send an emissary, we signal that our will is broken. The Ito will not be the only wolves to smell our weakness. The Mori, the Takada, every minor lord who has ever coveted our rice fields will see us as prey. To negotiate from a position of weakness is to beg for a slow death. Jiro, your path saves us today only to have us devoured tomorrow.”

My uncle’s face remained a stone mask, but I saw the muscles in his jaw tighten.

Lord Kageyama’s gaze shifted back to me. “But to charge blindly into the mouths of their rifles would be madness. You are right, Adonis, that we must answer with steel. But it must be the steel of a surgeon, not a butcher. Your fire must be tempered with cunning.”

He leaned back, the brief surge of energy leaving him visibly drained. The decision had been made. I felt it before he spoke the words. I could feel the weight of it settling over me, a physical pressure on my shoulders.

“Adonis,” he commanded, his voice regaining a sliver of its former strength. “You will choose twenty of our best men. Men who are swift, silent, and unquestioningly loyal. You will lead them into the mountains tonight.”

He held up a hand to forestall any comment. “This is not the grand assault you envision. Your primary task is reconnaissance. I want to know the enemy’s numbers, their disposition, the watch schedule of their sentries. You will observe, and you will learn.”

He locked his eyes with mine, and I understood the unspoken part of the command. The true burden. “If, and only if, you see a clear opportunity—a moment of weakness, a path to surprise—then you have my authority to strike. But the lives of those men, and the consequences of your actions, will be yours alone to bear. You will either return with the knowledge we need to survive, or you will retake the pass. Failure in either task is not an option.”

The room was utterly still. Lord Kageyama had threaded the needle, choosing a path of aggressive caution, and he had placed the needle in my hand. It was a greater responsibility than I had ever known. The vindication I felt at his rejection of Jiro’s plan was instantly extinguished by the cold dread of the task ahead. The future of the Kageyama clan—the food in the villagers’ bowls, the lives of our warriors, the honor of our name—rested on my judgment.

“I accept, my lord,” I said, my voice sounding distant to my own ears. I bowed low, my forehead nearly touching the polished floorboards. “I will not fail you.”

“See that you do not,” he said, his tone devoid of warmth. It was not a blessing, but a charge. He looked at the rest of the council. “This council is dismissed. Pray for the spirits of our ancestors to guide his hand.”

The samurai rose as one, bowing to our lord before filing silently out of the hall. No one met my eye. Not the younger men who had supported me, nor the elders who had favored my uncle’s path. They left me kneeling alone, the weight of their unspoken hopes and fears pressing down on me. Jiro was the last to leave. He paused at the doorway, and for a moment, I thought he might speak. He looked at me, and in his eyes, I saw no anger, no political rivalry. I saw only a profound and terrible pity. Then he turned and was gone, leaving me alone in the silent hall with the ghosts of my ancestors and the crushing burden of the living.

I rose on stiff legs, my body feeling older than the twenty-eight years I had lived. The formal silence of the hall pressed in on me, and I walked out into the fading afternoon light, the cool air a shock against my flushed skin. There was no time for contemplation. Every moment wasted was another moment the Ito had to strengthen their position.

My path led me directly to the main training grounds where my brother, Kenji, was running drills with a dozen of the younger warriors. He saw me approaching and called a halt, his face eager and questioning.

“Brother,” he said, jogging over, his hand resting on the hilt of his katana. “What did the council decide? Do we march?”

“We do,” I said, my voice low and firm. “But not all of us. I need twenty men. The best. Men who can move like shadows and kill without a sound.”

Kenji’s eyes lit up. “I am the first you choose.” It was not a question.

I nodded. “You are. But listen well, this is no glorious charge. It is a mission of stealth and cunning. One mistake, one sound, and we all die. There is no room for your usual recklessness.”

A flicker of youthful pride crossed his face, but he suppressed it, bowing his head. “I understand. I will be as silent as the grave.”

“See that you are,” I replied, then turned to the others. I began to name them, my eyes scanning the faces of the men I had trained with for years. “Isao. Mori. Taka, your feet are sure on the rocks. Haruki, your eye is the sharpest. Kaito…”

I continued down the line, selecting each man based on a specific skill. They were young, strong, and loyal. They were also the future of our clan, and I was about to lead them into the most dangerous situation of their lives. When I had my twenty, I sent the others away.

“Gather your gear,” I told the chosen group. “Meet at the northern gate in one hour. We leave under the cover of dusk. Wear dark colors. Muffle your scabbards. Bring climbing ropes and three days’ rations. No fires will be permitted. We eat cold, we sleep cold, and we fight in the dark. Go.”

They dispersed without a word, the gravity of the mission finally settling upon them. The earlier excitement was gone, replaced by a grim, focused energy. Kenji lingered for a moment.

“Uncle Jiro argued against this, didn't he?” he asked quietly.

“He argued for negotiation,” I said, checking the bindings on my own swords.

“He argued for surrender,” Kenji scoffed. “He has no stomach for what must be done.”

“His caution has its place,” I said, surprising myself with the words. Lord Kageyama’s judgment had already begun to temper my own fire. “But tonight, there is no place for it. There is only the mission. Go. Prepare yourself.”

He gave a sharp nod and ran off toward the barracks. I stood alone in the center of the dusty training yard, the setting sun casting long shadows that stretched like accusing fingers from the edge of the village. My gaze drifted toward the cluster of commoners’ homes, their thatched roofs dark against the darkening sky.

And then I saw her.

She stood near the edge of the woods, just beyond the last of the huts, a basket of what looked like roots or herbs resting on her hip. Leda. The village healer. She was not like the other women, who would lower their eyes and bow as I passed. Leda watched. She always watched, her gaze unnervingly direct, as if she were assessing a wound. She was known for her sharp tongue and her belief that our samurai pride was a sickness that cost too many lives—a sentiment she had voiced loudly enough for me to overhear more than once after a skirmish left men in her care.

She was watching us now, her posture still, her face impassive. She was not watching with the fear or awe of the other villagers. It was something else. Analytical. Critical. As if she were watching a fool prepare to leap from a cliff.

Our eyes met across the hundred paces that separated us. The distance did nothing to soften the intensity of her gaze. I felt a sudden, sharp spike of irritation. What did she know of honor? Of duty? Her world was one of poultices and tinctures, of mending what was broken. My world was one of ensuring things were not broken in the first place, of protecting the very village that gave her shelter. In her eyes, I saw not respect for the men preparing to risk their lives for her safety, but a quiet, infuriating condemnation. It was a challenge, as clear as if she had shouted it across the yard. Another march of pride, her gaze seemed to say. How many will you bring back for me to fix this time?

I held her gaze for a moment longer, my jaw tight. I felt the need to defend myself, to shout that this was not for glory but for survival, for the rice in her own bowl. But I did not. To acknowledge her challenge would be to give it merit. She was a healer. A commoner. Her opinions were an irrelevance, a gnat buzzing at the ear of a tiger.

I turned away, deliberately breaking the connection, my back to her. I drew my katana, the familiar weight a comfort in my hand. I let the cold, hard reality of steel and duty wash over me, erasing the memory of her judging eyes. There was only the mission. There was only the pass. There was only the enemy. The woman on the edge of the forest was nothing.

The darkness of the mountains was a different entity from the familiar dark of the village. It was older, deeper, and absolute. It swallowed sound and light, leaving only the biting wind and the solid, unforgiving presence of rock beneath our feet. We moved in a single file, a twenty-one-man serpent of black-clad shadows winding its way up the goat paths that were the first arteries into the heart of the range. I led from the front, Kenji directly behind me, his youthful energy now honed to a sharp, silent focus.

Every step was a calculation. A foot placed carefully on a flat stone, a hand braced against a gnarled pine root to avoid sending a cascade of loose scree into the valley below. The men I had chosen were living up to their reputations. They moved with a fluid economy, their breathing controlled, their presence little more than a whisper of cloth and leather against the vast, sleeping mountain. Still, the pressure was a physical thing, a knot tightening in my gut. Lord Kageyama’s words echoed in my mind: The lives of those men, and the consequences of your actions, will be yours alone to bear. I glanced back, my eyes barely able to distinguish the forms of my men against the rock face, and the weight of that trust settled heavier on my soul.

An hour into the climb, we heard it.

It was a faint crack, sharp and unnatural, carried on an updraft of wind. It was gone as quickly as it came. Some of the men paused, their heads tilting. Kenji’s hand tightened on the hilt of his sword. I held up a closed fist, the signal to halt. We stood frozen, listening. For a long moment, there was only the moan of the wind through the pines. Then it came again, this time a pair of reports, closer than before.

Pop. Pop.

The sound was alien in this wilderness. It was not the clean crack of a branch breaking underfoot or the tumble of a dislodged rock. It was a dry, percussive sound, sharp and hollow. The sound of the foreign rifles. My uncle’s warning about their power felt suddenly less like political caution and more like a grim prophecy. A cold anger coiled inside me. The Ito were not just occupying our pass; they were scarring the sanctity of the mountains with that ugly noise, like a disease taking root.

I gave the signal to advance, my pace quickening. The path grew steeper, forcing us to use our hands as much as our feet. The rock was cold and sharp, biting into our palms through thin leather gloves. My muscles burned with a familiar ache, but my mind was consumed by the mission. Reconnaissance. That was the primary goal. I had to suppress the warrior’s instinct to charge toward the sound of battle, to meet the threat head-on. Lord Kageyama had tasked me with cunning, not just courage.

We climbed for another hour, the rifle shots becoming more frequent, a sporadic, ugly rhythm punctuating the silence of our ascent. The air thinned, and the wind grew more relentless, whipping at our clothes and searching for any gap to chill the skin beneath. Taka, the young samurai I’d chosen for his sure-footedness, was just ahead of Kenji. He moved with the grace of a mountain cat, his steps precise and silent. I watched him, and the others behind him, feeling a surge of pride in their discipline. They were Kageyama steel, sharp and resilient. They would not fail.

But failure was a specter that walked beside me. It was in the echo of the rifles, in the steep drop to our left, in the crushing weight of my clan’s future. To fail here was not just to die, but to condemn everyone I had left behind in the village. It would mean Jiro’s path of submission would be the only one left. The thought of bowing to the Ito, of seeing their banner fly over our lands, was a fire in my blood that burned away the cold of the mountain air.

Finally, I saw the ridge I had been aiming for, a dark line against the star-dusted sky. From there, we would have a clear view down into the pass. I signaled a halt just below the crest, motioning for the men to take cover among a cluster of wind-blasted junipers. The noise was closer now, the reports echoing clearly off the rock walls. We could even smell it on the wind—the sharp, chemical scent of spent gunpowder.

“Kenji, Haruki,” I whispered, my voice a dry rasp. “With me. The rest of you, stay here. Maintain silence. No one moves until we return.”

The men nodded, their faces grim masks in the gloom. I shed my small pack, leaving it with them. I needed to be unencumbered, able to move or fight in an instant. Kenji and Haruki did the same. Crouching low, we began the final, careful crawl toward the ridgeline, the fate of our clan waiting for us just over the rise.

The cold stone scraped against my chest as I pulled myself the last few inches to the edge. The wind was stronger here, a physical force that tried to push us back down the mountain. It carried the scent of pine, damp earth, and the acrid bite of gunpowder. I flattened myself against the rock, Kenji and Haruki pressing down on either side of me, their breathing shallow in the thin air.

I peered over the lip of the ridge.

The sight below stole the breath from my lungs. My plan, the swift and honorable strike I had envisioned in the dojo, dissolved into a fool’s fantasy.

The pass was not merely occupied; it had been transformed into a fortress. Down below, where the path narrowed into a natural choke point, the Ito had constructed a series of three thick barricades. They were not hastily thrown together. Felled pine trees, their branches sharpened into wicked points, were stacked and interwoven with heavy stones, creating formidable walls that stretched from one side of the canyon to the other. The space between them was a killing ground, deliberately cleared of all cover.

Torches were mounted on poles along the barricades, casting a flickering, hellish orange light across the scene. The light danced and swayed in the wind, creating a disorienting pattern of light and deep, impenetrable shadow. And within that light, men moved. Dozens of them. I counted at least thirty sentries, and there were surely more resting in tents pitched behind the final wall. They were not the undisciplined rabble I had hoped for. They moved with purpose, patrolling the length of the walls, their vigilance absolute.

And every third man carried one of the foreign rifles.

They held them with a casual familiarity, resting the stocks on their shoulders as they walked their posts. As I watched, one of the sentries on the far side raised his weapon and fired into the darkness of the opposite cliff face, the pop of the rifle sharp and clear, followed by the whine of the projectile ricocheting off stone. It was not a warning shot; it was practice. Or boredom. It didn't matter. What mattered was the casual display of power, the confidence it gave them.

My blood ran cold. My plan had been to use the darkness as our shield, to close the distance quickly and let our blades decide the contest. But against this? We would be spotted the moment we left the cover of the trees. The first volley would cut down a third of my men. The second would claim another third as they tried to scale the first barricade. It would not be a battle. It would be a slaughter.

"By the gods," Kenji whispered beside me, his voice tight with disbelief. "Look at them."

Haruki, ever the pragmatist, made a soft noise of disapproval. "Their discipline is good. The fields of fire from those walls are interlocking. There is no safe approach."

He was right. Every angle was covered. They had turned our own terrain, our greatest advantage, into a weapon against us. I felt a wave of sickness wash over me, the bitter taste of pride turning to ash in my mouth. I had been so certain, so arrogant in my dismissal of Jiro’s concerns. I had seen his caution as weakness, as a prelude to surrender. But looking down at the fortress below, I saw it for what it was: wisdom. He had seen this possibility, and I, in my eagerness to prove the strength of the Kageyama clan, had been blind to it. Jiro was right. The words echoed in my mind, a silent, damning judgment. I had led twenty men up this mountain on the strength of a flawed assumption.

"A direct assault is impossible," I said, the words feeling like stones in my throat. My voice was low, but it held a finality that brooked no argument. The swift victory I had promised Lord Kageyama was a ghost. The honor of the clan would not be restored tonight.

Kenji looked at me, his young face a mixture of frustration and confusion in the faint starlight. "Then what do we do, brother? We cannot go back empty-handed."

"We are not empty-handed," I countered, forcing strength into my tone. My duty as a commander pushed past the shame of my misjudgment. "Our mission was to scout the pass. We have done so. This information is more valuable than a dozen dead Ito soldiers." I looked from the fortified pass back to my brother's face. "Our goal has changed. We observe. We learn everything we can about their numbers, their routines, their weapons. And then we get this information back to Lord Kageyama. We live to fight another day, on ground of our own choosing."

It was the only path left. A retreat. Not in fear, but in strategy. The warrior in me screamed in protest, but the leader knew there was no other choice.

"We pull back," I ordered quietly. "Carefully. We return to the others. Not a sound."

Haruki nodded once, his expression grim. Kenji hesitated for a second longer, his gaze fixed on the enemy camp, before he too gave a reluctant nod. Slowly, painstakingly, we began to inch backward from the ridge, leaving the flickering lights and the ugly crack of rifle fire behind us. The weight of my failure was a heavy cloak, but it was overshadowed by a new, colder resolve. I had underestimated our enemy. It was a mistake I would not make again.

We moved like ghosts, each footstep a calculated risk. The loose scree shifted under our feet with a soft grit, a sound that seemed deafening in the charged silence. Every rustle of cloth, every clink of a sword hilt against armor, was a potential death sentence. My earlier pride in my men’s discipline had been replaced by a desperate reliance on it. The journey down was infinitely more treacherous than the climb up. Gravity was no longer an obstacle to be overcome, but an enemy seeking a single moment of carelessness.

We regrouped with the others, my face a stone mask that betrayed none of the churning failure in my gut. I gave the orders in whispers, my words clipped and precise. We would descend by the western face, a slightly longer but more concealed route. We would move in two groups. I would lead the first. Kenji, the second.

The descent began. The darkness, once our ally, was now a treacherous veil, hiding loose rocks and sudden drops. We were halfway down the steepest section of the slope when it happened.

A sudden, sharp scrape of stone on stone, followed by a muffled cry of shock that was bitten off into a strangled gasp of pain.

I froze, my body instantly rigid. Every man in my group did the same. We melted into the shadows of the rocks, our hands flying to the hilts of our swords. My head whipped around, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. It had come from behind me, from Kenji’s group.

Then, a second sound tore through the night—a raw, guttural scream of agony that could not be contained. It echoed off the rock walls, a naked announcement of our presence.

From the pass below, a sharp cry went up. A challenge, in the Ito dialect.

“Taka,” Kenji’s voice came, a panicked whisper that carried too far in the still air. “Gods, his leg.”

I scrambled back up the path, my heart hammering against my ribs. I found them clustered around Taka, who was writhing on the ground, his face pale and slick with sweat in the moonlight. His right leg was bent at an angle that was sickeningly wrong, the lower half twisted outward. Even in the dim light, I could see the sharp, white point of bone tenting the fabric of his trousers just below the knee.

Another shout from the pass. A torch flared to life, its light beginning a slow, deliberate sweep of the lower slopes. They were searching for us. The report of a single rifle shot cracked through the air, the ball whining harmlessly into the rock far above our heads. It wasn't a shot meant to kill. It was a signal. A hunting call.

My mind raced, the options stark and brutal. We could leave him. It was the cold calculus of war. One man’s life for the safety of nineteen others and the crucial intelligence we carried. We could silence him and slip away into the darkness, and he would be just another casualty of this cursed campaign. My duty to the clan, to Lord Kageyama, demanded it.

But then I looked at Taka’s face. He was no more than a boy, barely twenty summers old. His eyes, wide with pain and terror, found mine. He wasn’t a statistic on a battlefield. He was one of my men. He had followed me up this mountain without question, his trust absolute. And I had led him into a disaster. My failure at the ridge, and now this. The shame was a physical thing, a hot coal in my stomach.

“Adonis,” Haruki said, his voice low and urgent beside me. “The patrol. We have to move.”

He didn’t say the rest. He didn’t have to. Leave him.

I looked from Taka’s mangled leg to the sweeping torchlight below. I thought of the physician back in the village, of his saws and his grim pronouncements. I thought of Taka’s mother. And I thought of the hollow honor I would carry back to my clan if I sacrificed one of our own to save my failed mission.

There was no choice. Not for me.

“No,” I said, the word cutting through the panicked whispers. My voice was steady, imbued with a certainty that surprised even myself. “We don’t leave our men.”

I knelt beside Taka, ignoring the fresh wave of pain that contorted his features. “Kenji, Haruki, get on his other side. We’re going to lift him. Taka,” I said, my voice firm but gentle, “this will hurt. Do not scream.”

He nodded, biting his lip so hard it drew blood.

“Two men, clear the path ahead. The rest of you, form a screen behind us. If they come, you buy us time. Move. Now.”

The men snapped into action, their hesitation burned away by the conviction in my command. Kenji and Haruki took their positions. On my count, we lifted Taka. A strangled, wet sound escaped his throat, a noise of pure agony, but he did not scream. We half-carried, half-dragged him, his arms slung over my shoulders and Kenji’s, his uninjured leg scrambling for purchase.

Our retreat was no longer silent. It was a clumsy, desperate scramble against time. Every jostle sent a fresh wave of pain through Taka, and his ragged, pained gasps were a constant accompaniment to the sound of our own labored breathing. The torchlight below swept closer, and we heard the sounds of men climbing, their voices carrying on the wind. They were coming for us.

We pushed harder, fueled by adrenaline and fear. The darkness was a liability, but it was also our only hope. We plunged into a thicket of gnarled pines, the branches scratching at our faces and clothes, their resinous scent filling the air. We moved through it, the sounds of pursuit growing fainter behind us, swallowed by the mountain and the trees. We did not stop until we reached the river at the base of the foothills, the roar of the water finally masking the sounds of our flight. We were clear. For now. But as I looked at Taka’s ashen face, I knew the cost of my decision was yet to be paid.

The journey back to the village was a silent, grim procession. We moved under the cloak of pre-dawn grayness, the weight of Taka’s unconscious form a constant, accusing presence. His initial, pained gasps had subsided into shallow, feverish breaths. We had fashioned a crude stretcher from branches and cloaks, but every step was a jolt that seemed to echo in the stillness of the forest. The failure of the mission was a cold knot in my stomach, but it was the sight of Taka’s pale, sweat-sheened face that truly haunted me. This was my responsibility. My command. My failure.

We did not stop at the main gate but went straight to the modest wooden building that housed Doctor Ishikawa, the clan’s physician for forty years. The air inside was thick with the cloying sweetness of incense and the sharp, medicinal scent of dried herbs, a combination that did little to mask the underlying odor of sickness and antiseptic smoke.

Doctor Ishikawa was a small, wizened man with hands like bundles of dried twigs and eyes that had seen too much death to be easily moved. He examined Taka’s leg with a series of gentle, probing touches that still made the young samurai groan in his fevered sleep. I stood by, my armor feeling heavy and useless, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. Kenji stood near the door, his face etched with a guilt that mirrored my own.

The physician straightened up, wiping his hands on a clean cloth. He sighed, a soft, weary sound that grated on my raw nerves. “The bone is shattered. Not just broken, but splintered. It has pierced the skin, you see?” He gestured to the bloody tear in Taka’s trousers. “The wound is open to the air, to the filth of the mountain. The fever has already taken root.”

“What can you do?” I asked, my voice tight.

Doctor Ishikawa met my gaze, his own placid and resigned. “I can clean the wound. I can bind it. I can give him poppy milk for the pain and herbs for the fever. But the leg… the leg is lost.”

The words hung in the air, simple and devastating. “Lost? What do you mean, lost?”

“The bone cannot be set,” he explained, his tone maddeningly patient, as if speaking to a child. “The pieces are too many, too small. Even if it could be, the rot has begun. To leave it would mean the poison spreads. It will travel up his body, into his blood. He will be dead by the week’s end.”

My stomach turned. I looked at Taka, at his strong young body, now threatened by a creeping death that began in his own limb.

“There is only one way to save his life,” the physician concluded, turning to a long wooden chest against the wall. He opened it, and the metallic scrape of tools set my teeth on edge. He lifted a long, thin-bladed saw. “We must take the leg. Below the knee. It is the only way.”

Something inside me snapped. The carefully controlled discipline that had defined my life fractured under the weight of my compounded failures. This was the result of my pride, my arrogance. A failed mission, a crippled man. A boy who would never again stand on two feet, never hold a sword with proper balance, never be the warrior he was meant to be. All because I had been too proud to listen to my uncle.

“No,” I said, the word coming out as a low growl.

Doctor Ishikawa paused, the saw in his hand. “Lord Adonis, there is no other…”

“No!” I took a step forward, my voice rising with a fury I couldn't contain. “You will not take his leg. You will fix it.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed. He was not accustomed to being challenged in his own domain. “I am a physician, not a miracle worker. The leg cannot be fixed. To try is to condemn him to a more painful death.”

“Then your skills are lacking!” I spat the words, the accusation filling the small room. My anger was a wild thing, lashing out at the nearest target. “Is this the limit of Kageyama medicine? To cut and to saw? To leave our warriors maimed because you lack the knowledge or the courage to do more?”

“Courage?” Doctor Ishikawa’s voice became brittle. “I have served this clan since before you were born. I have saved more lives than you can count. This is not a matter of courage, but of fact. Of knowing what can and cannot be done. A wisdom you clearly lack.”

His words struck a nerve, a direct hit on my own fresh wound of failure. I felt a surge of hot rage. I wanted to smash something, to break the placid certainty on his face. He was accepting this, just as he accepted all the other limitations of our clan, the slow decay of our traditions. He was content to manage the decline, to saw off the rotting limbs rather than find a cure.

“Get out,” I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous quiet.

Kenji stepped forward, his hand on my arm. “Adonis, brother…”

I shook him off, my eyes locked on the physician. “Leave us. I will not have you touch him.”

Doctor Ishikawa placed the saw back in its chest with a deliberate, almost insulting slowness. He gave me a look of profound pity, which only fueled my anger. “As you wish, my lord. But do not wait too long. The fever will not.” He bowed stiffly and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with my brother and the broken body of my soldier.

The silence he left behind was heavy, suffocating. I stared at Taka, at the rhythmic, shallow rise and fall of his chest. I had saved his life on the mountain only to bring him back to this. A butcher’s choice. My failure was complete, absolute. I was a commander who could not protect his men, a leader who had brought nothing but ruin. The anger drained away, leaving only a hollow, aching guilt. I sank to my knees by Taka’s pallet, the weight of it all pressing down on me, my own name a curse in my ears.

The scrape of a sandal on the wooden floor pulled me from my stupor. A woman stood in the doorway, her small frame silhouetted against the gray morning light. It was Taka’s mother, Chiyo. She was a seamstress, a quiet woman I had seen a hundred times but never truly noticed. Now, her presence filled the room. She did not weep or cry out. Her face was a mask of placid terror, her hands clasped so tightly at her waist that her knuckles were white.

“Lord Adonis,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She took a tentative step inside, her eyes fixed on the still form of her son. “I heard… I heard the doctor.”

I could not meet her gaze. I remained on my knees, the shame a physical weight on my shoulders. “He is a fool,” I said, the words tasting like ash.

“He is a man who fears what he does not understand,” she corrected, her voice gaining a sliver of strength. She moved past me and knelt beside her son, placing a cool hand on his fevered brow. “He fears death, so he races to it with a saw.” She looked from Taka’s face to his mangled leg, and for the first time, a tear traced a path through the dust on her cheek. She wiped it away with an impatient hand.

“There is nothing more he can do,” I admitted, the confession tearing at my throat. “The fever is taking hold.”

Chiyo looked up at me then, her eyes dark and intense. There was no deference in her gaze now, only a mother’s fierce, desperate will. “Then we must seek another’s help.”

I frowned. “There is no other physician.”

“There is a healer,” she insisted. “The woman who lives by the stream at the edge of the forest. Leda.”

The name landed like a stone in the quiet room. Leda. The sharp-tongued commoner who watched our training with what looked like disdain. The woman whose unconventional methods were a subject of gossip and suspicion among the samurai families. The thought of seeking her out, of humbling myself before a woman like that, was repellent. It was an affront to everything I represented.

“She is a forager of herbs,” I said dismissively. “A village witch. She cannot set a shattered bone.”

“Can she not?” Chiyo’s voice was sharp, challenging. “She saved the blacksmith’s boy when the lung fever nearly took him. Doctor Ishikawa had already told them to prepare for his burial. She set young Hana’s arm last spring after she fell from the old cherry tree, and now the girl climbs as if she were born a monkey. They say her knowledge is not from books, but from the earth itself. That she listens to the body in a way Ishikawa has long forgotten.”

I stood up, turning away from her, from the hope in her voice that felt like an accusation. “These are children’s tales. Superstition.”

“Is it superstition that they live?” she fired back, rising to her feet as well. “Is it a child’s tale that my son lies here, and the only path our noble clan’s physician offers is to make him less than a whole man? If he even survives the ordeal?” She took a step closer, her voice dropping, raw and pleading. “My lord, you are his commander. You led him into that pass. His life is in your hands, just as it was on that mountain. I am only his mother. I can beg, but you can command. Please. Swallow your pride for him. For me. What is the honor of a limb lost, or a life thrown away, when there was a chance, however small, to save it?”

Her words cut through my anger and struck at the heart of my guilt. Swallow your pride. It was the same pride that had led me to ignore Jiro’s counsel. The same pride that had sent us into a fortified pass, unprepared for what we would find. And it was the same pride that now balked at seeking help from a commoner.

I looked at Kenji. My brother’s face was pale, his expression grim. He had remained silent throughout the exchange, but his eyes told me everything. He saw the truth in her words.

“She is right, Adonis,” he said quietly, breaking the tense silence. “What other choice do we have? To let him die? To let Ishikawa cripple him? At least with this woman… there is a chance. What do we have to lose that is not already lost?”

Everything. My authority. The respect of my men. The rigid order of our world, where a samurai does not beg for aid from a peasant. But as I looked back at Taka, his breathing growing more labored, I knew Kenji was right. We had already lost. This was no longer about honor. It was about salvage.

I drew a long, ragged breath. The decision settled in my gut, cold and heavy. It was not a choice made of hope, but of desperation.

“Watch over him,” I said to Kenji, my voice flat. I did not look at Taka’s mother. I could not bear to see the gratitude I did not deserve.

I turned and walked out of the physician’s hut, my footsteps heavy on the wooden planks. I strode through the samurai quarter, past the neat, orderly homes and the stone-walled dojo where I had spent my life perfecting a code that now felt hollow. I walked past the market, leaving the heart of the village behind, and took the dirt path that led toward the forest and the poorer dwellings on the outskirts. Toward a place I had always disdained. Toward the hut of the woman named Leda. Every step felt like a defeat.

The hut was smaller than I had imagined, nestled against the treeline where the village gave way to the deep shadows of the forest. It was a simple structure of wood and plaster, with a roof of thick thatch that seemed to be more moss than straw. A thin plume of smoke curled from a clay chimney, the only sign of life. Unlike the barren yards of the other homes on this fringe, the ground around Leda’s hut was a riot of green, a carefully tended garden of plants I did not recognize, their leaves fat and vibrant even in the fading light.

My hand hesitated before the simple wooden door. Coming here felt like a betrayal of my station, a concession of failure that was profoundly galling. I, Adonis Kageyama, heir to the clan, was about to beg a favor from a commoner. I clenched my jaw, straightened my shoulders to their full height, and rapped my knuckles sharply against the wood.

There was no immediate answer. I heard a soft, rhythmic grinding from within, a sound that continued for several moments before it stopped. Then, the latch clicked and the door swung inward.

She stood in the opening, wiping her hands on a dark blue apron tied at her waist. I had seen her before, of course, from a distance. Up close, she was… different. Not beautiful, not in the way of the court ladies with their powdered faces and silk kimonos. Her features were too strong for that, her jawline clear and defined, her mouth set in a line that suggested she did not smile easily. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face in a simple knot, but a few rebellious strands had escaped to cling to her temples. But it was her eyes that held me. They were dark, the color of wet earth after a storm, and they met mine without a flicker of fear or deference. They were simply… watching. Assessing.

The air that drifted from the hut was thick with the scent of the earth. It was a complex aroma of crushed leaves, damp soil, drying flowers, and something sharp and medicinal that pricked at the back of my throat. I looked past her into the single room. Bunches of herbs hung from every rafter, casting long, dancing shadows in the light of a single lantern. The walls were lined with shelves crowded with clay jars, glass bottles, and woven baskets, all meticulously labeled with characters I couldn't read. It was a space of organized chaos, a laboratory born of the forest itself.

“Lord Adonis,” she said. Her voice was low and even, without inflection. It was not a question, but a statement of fact. She made no move to bow, no gesture of welcome. She simply stood in the doorway, blocking my path, waiting.

The lack of ceremony was unnerving. I was accustomed to people who flinched from my gaze, who lowered their heads and spoke only when spoken to. Leda’s stillness was a challenge in itself.

“I have need of your services,” I said, my voice coming out harsher than I intended. I kept my tone formal, a shield against the indignity of my position.

She tilted her head slightly, a gesture that was almost dismissive. “My ‘services’?”

“One of my men was injured in the mountains. His name is Taka.” I forced the words out, each one a stone in my mouth. “His leg is… badly broken. A compound fracture of the tibia.” I used the physician’s term, as if the clinical language could create some distance from the brutal reality. “Doctor Ishikawa says it cannot be saved. That it must be amputated.”

Throughout my explanation, Leda’s expression did not change. Her dark eyes remained fixed on my face, and I had the unnerving sensation that she was looking straight through my words, into the guilt and desperation that drove me here. She was not listening to a samurai lord giving a command; she was observing a man at the end of his options. The silence stretched after I finished, thick and heavy. She did not speak, did not offer condolences or ask questions. She just watched me, her patience a weapon that slowly dismantled my composure. I felt my authority draining away, leaving me as nothing more than a petitioner at her door. A beggar.

“His mother believes you can help,” I finally added, the admission feeling like the final, complete surrender.

Her gaze flickered for a fraction of a second, a spark of something I couldn't decipher. Then it returned to me, steady and unnervingly direct. For the first time in my life, I felt truly seen by someone of a lower class, and the experience was deeply unsettling. I was the one with the power, the name, the swords at my side. Yet in the doorway of this small, cluttered hut, I was the one who was powerless.

Finally, she spoke, her voice as calm as the surface of a still pond. “And why should I help? Your clan has never shown me any kindness. Your samurai mock me when they pass. Your physician calls my remedies peasant superstition. Why should I help a man who serves a lord that scorns me?”

The accusation was plain, and it was true. I had no answer for it, no argument to offer. My clan, in its pride, had dismissed her and her kind as inconsequential. Now, I stood here, the embodiment of that pride, asking for the very thing we had scorned.

“It is not for the clan I am asking,” I said, the words tasting like ash. “It is for the man. Taka. He has a wife, and a child on the way. He is a good soldier.”

“A good soldier who followed a foolish order,” she countered, her gaze unwavering. She took a step back, opening the door wider. It was not an invitation, but a concession for me to see the space she commanded. “Very well. I will see him. But not for your sake, Lord Adonis. Not for your clan’s honor. I will do it because his mother asked, and because a man’s life is worth more than a samurai’s pride.”

Relief, sharp and unwelcome, warred with the sting of her words. Before I could offer a clipped, formal thanks, she raised a hand, her fingers stained with green from the herbs she had been grinding.

“There are conditions,” she stated, her tone leaving no room for negotiation. “When I am tending to him, my word is absolute. The physician’s hut, or wherever we must work, becomes my space. Your rank, your title, your swords—they mean nothing there. You will address me as Leda. I will address you as Adonis. In that room, we are not lord and commoner. We are two people trying to save a third. Do you understand?”

I stared at her, my jaw tightening. The sheer audacity of it was breathtaking. She was not just demanding respect; she was demanding equality, stripping me of the identity that had defined my entire existence. My instinct was to refuse, to turn my back on this insolent woman and accept the grim alternative. But the image of Taka’s pale, sweat-soaked face flashed in my mind. The sound of his mother’s pleading echoed in my ears.

“I understand,” I said through gritted teeth.

“That is not all,” she continued, pressing her advantage. “I will need help. The bone must be set. It will be… difficult. He will fight it. I will need someone strong enough to hold him still. Someone who will not faint at the sight of bone and blood. That person will be you.”

“You want me to act as your nursemaid?” The question was a low growl.

“I want you to hold your man down so I can save his leg,” she corrected, her voice cutting. “You led him to this injury. It is only right that you help unmake the damage. Unless you are too weak for it?”

The challenge was direct, a deliberate prod at my warrior’s pride. She knew exactly what she was doing, using my own code against me. To refuse would be to admit weakness, to admit that I could not face the consequences of my own commands. A cold fury settled in my chest, but it was directed as much at myself as it was at her. She was right.

“I will do it,” I said, my voice flat and cold.

“Good.” She gave a single, sharp nod, as if the matter was settled. She turned from the door, grabbing a large leather satchel from a hook and began filling it with small clay pots and bundled herbs from the shelves. She moved with an economy of motion, her focus absolute. There was no wasted energy, no hesitation.

I stood in the doorway, a silent, useless observer. I watched her hands—strong, capable, and steady—as they selected her tools. These were the hands that would hold my soldier’s future. The hands of a woman who had just dismantled my authority with a few quiet words. The balance of power had shifted completely. I had come here as a lord seeking a service, and I was leaving as an assistant bound to her command. It was a bitter bargain, but it was the only one I had.

We returned to the physician’s hut in silence. Doctor Ishikawa, a man whose age had far outstripped his competence, hovered near the door, wringing his hands. He opened his mouth to protest Leda’s presence, but one look at my face and the words died in his throat. I was in no mood for his dithering.

Taka lay on a sleeping mat, his face pale and slick with sweat. His wife knelt beside him, weeping silently. The air was heavy with the metallic scent of blood and the cloying sweetness of fear. Taka’s leg was a ruin. The thick cotton of his trousers was soaked through with blood, and the lower half of his leg was bent at an angle that defied nature. The sharp, white end of his tibia protruded from a tear in the fabric and his skin, a gruesome flag of his injury.

Leda paid no mind to Ishikawa or me. She went directly to Taka, her movements fluid and certain. “Get me boiled water, clean linen, and the sharpest knife you have,” she commanded, not looking at anyone in particular. It was Ishikawa’s wife who scurried to obey.

Leda knelt and, with a single, deft motion, sliced away the fabric around the wound. The sight was worse than I had imagined. The flesh was torn and mangled, packed with dirt and grit from the mountain trail. Taka let out a low groan, his eyes fluttering open. He focused on me, his expression a mixture of pain and shame.

“My lord… I am sorry,” he whispered.

“Save your strength, Taka,” I said, my voice rough.

“Adonis.” Leda’s voice cut through the room. She was looking at me, her dark eyes demanding. “Here. On his shoulders. You must hold him so he cannot move. No matter what he does, no matter what he says, you cannot let go. Do you understand?”

I moved without hesitation, kneeling behind Taka and placing my hands firmly on his shoulders. The muscles there were knotted with tension. I could feel the tremors of his pain through my palms.

“And you,” she said, turning her sharp gaze on Taka’s wife. “Hold his hand. Talk to him. Keep his spirit here.”

Leda worked with a focus that was absolute. She cleaned the wound with a meticulousness I had never witnessed, her fingers probing the torn muscle, removing pebbles and splinters of rock with a pair of fine metal tongs. Taka gasped and writhed under my hands, but I held him fast, my own muscles straining against his struggles. My jaw was clenched so tight it ached.

“This will be the worst part,” Leda said, her voice low and calm. She looked from the wound to Taka’s eyes. “Taka, listen to me. This will hurt more than anything you have ever felt. But if we do not do this, you will lose the leg. You must be strong.”

She took his lower leg in one hand and his ankle in the other. She glanced at me, a single, sharp nod. I braced myself, pressing Taka’s shoulders down against the mat with my entire body weight.

“I am sorry, my lord,” Taka sobbed, his face turning toward me. “Forgive me…”

Leda pulled.

A scream tore from Taka’s throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that seemed to shake the very walls of the hut. It was not the cry of a warrior, but the raw, animal sound of a body being broken. His back arched, fighting my grip with a desperate, shocking strength. I held on, my knuckles white, the sound of his screaming drilling into my skull. I felt a sickening, grinding vibration as Leda manipulated the bone. There was a wet, heavy crack that was louder than the scream.

And then, silence.

Taka went limp beneath me, his head falling to the side, unconscious. The only sound in the room was the ragged gasp of his wife and my own harsh breathing. I looked down. The leg was straight. The protruding bone was gone, returned to the flesh from which it had come.

My arms ached from the effort, trembling from the release of tension. I looked at Leda. She was breathing heavily, her brow damp with sweat, but her hands were already moving. She worked quickly, packing the wound with a dark, pungent herbal paste before binding it tightly with clean linen and two smooth, hard pieces of wood that served as a splint. Her work was neat, efficient, and final.

Doctor Ishikawa stood in the corner, his face the color of old parchment. He had done nothing but watch, his mouth slightly agape. He had been useless. Worse than useless—he had been a symbol of our clan’s stagnation, of a pride that preferred amputation to the humility of learning from a commoner.

I slowly released my grip on Taka’s shoulders. I stared at Leda’s hands as she tied the final knot on the splint. They were not the soft, delicate hands of a court lady. They were strong, stained, and capable. They were the hands that had just done what our clan’s finest physician had declared impossible. In that moment, watching her work over the body of my soldier, I was forced to confront a truth that settled deep in my bones: her knowledge was not superstition. It was power. And my own rigid world, with its codes and hierarchies, had nearly cost a good man his leg because we were too blind to see it.

Leda rose from her work, her back cracking softly as she straightened. She wiped her bloody hands on a piece of scrap linen, her movements weary but precise. She gave Taka’s sleeping form one last, assessing look before turning and walking out of the stifling heat of the hut. I followed her into the cool evening air, the sudden quiet of the village a stark contrast to the screaming that still echoed in my ears.

She stopped near a water barrel, plunging her hands and forearms into the cold water, scrubbing at the stains of her work. I stood a few feet away, the words of thanks I owed her feeling like ash in my mouth. They seemed small and insufficient for what she had just done.

When she finally looked up, her eyes were not weary. They were alight with a cold fire.

“Was it worth it?” she asked, her voice low and sharp.

The question caught me off guard. “What are you talking about?”

“That,” she said, gesturing with her wet chin back toward the hut. “Your soldier. The mountain. Your glorious mission. Was his leg a fair price to pay for your clan’s honor?”

A surge of anger, hot and immediate, rose in my chest. “You know nothing of honor.”

“I know what a shattered bone looks like,” she shot back, pulling her hands from the water. She didn’t bother to dry them, letting the droplets run down her arms as she took a step closer. The scent of blood and medicinal herbs clung to her. “I know the sound a man makes when he believes his life is over. I also know the sound of Ito rifles echoing from the pass. I’ve heard them for weeks. Did you think they were shooting at birds?”

Her words were stones, each one striking a place in me that was already bruised. “It is our duty to secure that pass. Our clan’s survival depends on it.”

“Your clan’s survival?” She gave a short, bitter laugh. “You march men with swords into a valley of thunder sticks and call it duty? You stand there, in your fine silk and steel, and send them to be slaughtered for a scrap of land you were too proud to protect with anything but outdated notions. That isn’t duty, Adonis. It’s a death march. How many more will you bring me? How many more limbs will I have to set before you and your lord realize that pride doesn’t stop a rifle ball?”

“You will not speak of my lord that way,” I snarled, taking a step toward her, my hand instinctively going to the hilt of my katana. It was a reflex, a threat I had no intention of carrying out, but the motion was enough to make her pause.

She didn’t flinch. Her gaze dropped to my hand on my sword, then rose back to my face, her expression filled with a pity that was more insulting than any fear could have been.

“That is your only answer, isn’t it?” she whispered, her voice laced with disappointment. “A blade. When words fail, when reason fails, you reach for steel. The Ito have found a better answer. A more efficient one. And you are leading your men, your brother, everyone in this village, directly into its path.”

Every word was a betrayal. I had swallowed my pride. I had come to her, begged for her help, and held my own man down while she performed her brutal magic. I felt a swell of gratitude so immense it was nauseating, and she was repaying it with scorn, with an attack on the very core of my being.

And yet… she was right.

The truth of it settled in my gut like a cold stone. I saw again the crude barricades, the glint of rifle barrels in the sun. I heard the disciplined crackle of their fire, so different from the hiss of an arrow or the clang of swords. My plan for a swift, honorable assault had been a boy’s dream, a fantasy born of stories and tradition. My uncle Jiro’s cautious words returned to me, no longer sounding like weakness, but like wisdom.

This woman, this commoner with stained hands and a sharp tongue, saw the truth of our situation more clearly than I had. The realization did not bring clarity. It brought a roiling confusion, a bitter mix of resentment at her insolence and a grudging, infuriating respect for her insight. She had saved Taka’s leg, and in the next breath, she had stripped my honor bare and left it shivering in the cold light of reality. I felt indebted to her and hated her for it at the same time.

My anger deflated, leaving a hollow ache in its place. I had no response for her. My justifications, my talk of duty and honor, sounded thin and foolish even to my own ears.

She watched the conflict on my face, her expression softening almost imperceptibly. She had drawn her own blade of truth and made her point. She turned, her bare feet silent on the packed earth, and walked back toward the physician’s hut, back to her patient. She left me standing alone in the growing dark, the weight of her words far heavier than the armor I wore.

I stood there for a long time after she left, the silence of the village pressing in on me. The moon began to rise, casting long, skeletal shadows from the eaves of the huts. Her words echoed in my mind, a relentless assault on the foundations of my world. Pride doesn’t stop a rifle ball. It was a simple, brutal truth, and it shamed me more than any defeat on the battlefield could have.

A debt had been incurred. A great one. Taka’s leg, his future, his family’s well-being—she had saved it all. My honor, what was left of it, demanded that the debt be paid.

I straightened my shoulders and walked back to the physician’s hut. The door was slightly ajar, and a soft yellow light spilled out. I pushed it open and stepped inside.

The air was still thick with the smell of herbs and sweat, but the tension had broken. Taka’s wife was sitting by his side, bathing his forehead with a cool cloth. Taka himself was breathing deeply, lost in a sleep of exhaustion and whatever pain-dulling concoction Leda had given him. Doctor Ishikawa was gone.

Leda was at a small table, grinding something in a stone mortar. She didn't look up as I entered, though I knew she was aware of my presence. The rhythmic scrape of stone on stone was the only sound.

I waited until she paused her work.

“You have saved my man,” I said, my voice formal and stiff. “The Kageyama clan is in your debt. Name your price.”

She finally lifted her head, her eyes meeting mine across the small, cluttered room. There was no triumph in her expression, only a profound weariness. She looked at me as if I were a child who had just asked a foolish question.

“I have no need for your clan’s coin, my lord,” she said, the title sounding like a subtle mockery on her lips. “What would I buy with it? More silk to be stained with the blood of your soldiers? More rice to feed the widows you create?”

The insult was plain, but the anger I expected to feel did not come. There was only a hollow space where my pride used to be. “A debt must be paid,” I insisted. “It is the way. I must satisfy the debt.”

“Very well,” she said, setting the pestle down. She wiped her hands on her apron and walked over to a collection of scrolls and dried plants hanging from the rafters. “Since you insist on satisfying this debt, there is something I require.”

She untied a small, rolled-up drawing and spread it on the table. It was a simple sketch of a flower with long, pale petals and a cluster of bright red stamens at its center.

“This is Kawa-so,” she said. “The River Ghost flower. The paste I used on Taka’s wound will help, but it is not enough to prevent the fever that will surely come for a wound this deep. An infusion made from the root of this flower will stop the infection before it begins. It is the only thing that will.”

“Then I will have my men scour the forests for it,” I said immediately.

A faint, humorless smile touched her lips. “Your men will not find it. It does not grow in the forests.” She looked me directly in the eye, a challenge in her gaze. “It grows only in one place: on the eastern face of the Serpent’s Tooth, in the cracks of the cliffside that hang directly over the rapids. The spray from the river is what allows it to live. It can only be reached by climbing.”

The Serpent’s Tooth. I knew the place. It was a sheer granite spire that jutted out over the most violent section of the Aiko River, a place where the water churned white and angry over hidden rocks. It was a treacherous, deadly climb. A task not for a group of men, but for a single, skilled individual.

She was not asking me to send my men. She was asking for me.

She was testing me, pushing me. She had challenged my honor, my strategy, and my lord. Now she was challenging my strength and my courage, but on her terms. Not in a duel, but in service. The great Adonis Kageyama, son of a general and leader of the clan’s elite, sent to pluck a flower from a cliff face like a common gatherer. The humiliation of it was sharp.

And yet, the debt was real. The life of my soldier hung in the balance.

“Why?” I asked, my voice low. “Why this?”

“Because I need the flower,” she said simply, as if the answer were the most obvious thing in the world. “And because you are the one who owes the debt. You are strong. You are a warrior. You climb mountains to scout your enemies. Now, you will climb one to save your man. Is the task beneath you?”

I looked from the drawing of the delicate flower to her unyielding face. She had me trapped in a web of my own making, using my own code of honor against me. To refuse would be to admit that my pride was worth more than Taka’s life—the very thing she had accused me of. To accept was to place myself in her service, to humble myself in a way I never had before.

There was no choice. There had not been a choice since the moment I walked to her door.

I gave a single, sharp nod. “I will bring you the flower.”

I turned and left the hut without another word, the image of the flower burned into my mind. The debt would be paid. But as I walked through the sleeping village, I understood that this was more than a simple errand. It was a continuation of our conflict, a battle of wills fought not with steel, but with herbs and impossible demands. And for the second time that day, I had been outmaneuvered by the village healer.