Second: I tried to talk her out of it.
How easily she unravels me. In the fierce brilliance of her presence, even my finest poetry is the work of a lovesick novice. Worse! All these years I thought I wrote of brightly burning flame, when in truth I was writing only of the shadows cast by her absence, as yet unknown to me.
It is my great sorrow that I heard of Minami Shizuru for the first time during the Qorin war. Ah, but at what use my laments? The gods themselves cannot change the past to suit them; I am a fool for dwelling. There must be a reason I only heard of her then.
I can tell you exactly where I was the first time I heard her name—three hundred li from Fujino, nestled deep within the rolling hills of Hanjeon. My brother and I were on our way to Oshiro under order from my honored father. He, in all his Imperial pragmatism, knew the people would care for us more if they saw us at the front lines.
Iori could not contain his excitement. My brother, the Crown Prince, insisted on wearing his solid gold show armor and Dragon helm at all times. Briefings in the war tent were no exception.
There are lengths even I will not go to for aesthetic’s sake. That helmet blinded the wearer to anything except that which was directly ahead of him. Supposedly this was meant to be a metaphor—the Emperor looked only to the future.
And though there is a time and place for metaphor, war is not it. Of course, I should not have expected anything different from Iori, who spent the majority of his time sparring with anyone who would have him. He was so inflated with his own glory that he didn’t realize he won only because his opponents allowed him to.
I stood to the right of my brother whenever I could, so that I would not have to look on his excited face whenever the reports of battle came in.
On that day we were the highest ranking officers present, thanks to our prestigious birth and the fact that all real commanders had already been sent to Oshiro. General Kobayashi of the East had been among them, and so she’d sent us one of her captains—a man named Sato—to inform us of the situation and keep us from charging headlong into danger. He wore unadorned armor and the sword at his hip had come straight off the armory racks; the war mask hanging from its cord around his neck was a bog-standard wolf.
In short, Sato was the exact opposite of my brother, and I loved him for it.
A map lay spread out before us. A dozen or so figurines stood atop it, gathered in a half circle near Oshiro Castle, facing out toward the Wall of Stone. The invading Qorin forces were represented by little wooden cubes. There weren’t many of them, but they were positioned all over the province. Past the Wall of Stone there were far more cubes, clustered close together near the hole.
“Tell us the truth of it, old man! How will we turn the tide?” said Iori. He picked up the dragon figurine that represented us and used it to push the nearest cube—situated at the border with Hanjeon—off the table. “That is where their leader is, isn’t it? That is why we’re attacking from this angle?”
Captain Sato, to his credit, did not react to this foolish display. “Their leader is here,” he said, tapping a square much closer to the palace. “That was one of their smaller forces, your Imperial Highness.”
“How many months can we maintain the siege?” I asked. I knew Oshiro Genichi only in passing, but I knew his son Yuichi well. He’d come to Fujino to study law, at great cost to his father. He was no warrior. I wondered how he felt, surrounded on all sides by attackers who would not listen to any of his elegant arguments.
“Half a year, given current conditions, your Highness. Assuming General Watanabe’s emergency barricades hold and the bulk of their forces do not breach the Wall,” said Captain Sato. He did not address whether or not the Qorin had any more explosives. “However…”
He pushed one of the figurines north of the castle toward a cache of wooden cubes.
“Captain Araya is attempting to liberate the river and surrounding areas.”
“Then we must go north!” said Iori, banging on the table. “We will provide reinforcements to him, and break the siege of Oshiro!”
Captain Sato’s brow twitched. “Your Imperial Highness,” he said, “I’m certain you know far more people than I will meet in my entire life, among them Captain Araya’s father—but the Captain I speak of now is his daughter. Her unit is quite far removed from this one. To join with her we would have to march through much of Fuyutsuki; it is more efficient to flank the enemy from the south.”
Iori grimaced. Not yet on the battlefield and his pride was already wounded.
“Besides,” said Captain Sato, “the Minami family is with Captain Araya.”
The name instantly conjured clouds of legend in my mind. “The Minami family? Is there a fox woman among the Qorin?” Ikuhara Ryuji, one of my childhood mentors, wrote a fine poem about Minami Shiori’s famous rescue of First Emperor Yamai. Most people remembered it for its use of an all-new meter, but I remembered the confrontation at its climax. In all the Empire only Minami Shiori has ever resisted the charms of a fox woman.
“No one’s seen a fox woman in centuries,” sneered my brother.
It was a silly thing to say. Toy dragons should not question old soldiers. I regretted my words immediately.
But it was then that Captain Sato finally let out something like a laugh.
“Even if the enemy had a squad full of demons, I would not worry. Minami Shizuru would cut right through them.”
Yes—her. Captain Sato said her name as if he were a small boy bragging about the strength of his father. This hardened veteran spoke of her in such a way!
Hearing her name soon became a familiar song. Captain Araya broke the siege of Oshiro within the week, and all reports sang the praises of Minami Shizuru. A woman too poor to afford a proper horse—she rode a mule—had unseated expert Qorin riders. A woman who wore smelly armor at least two generations old continued to fight in spite of her injuries, fiercer than ever. A woman who had the unbelievable audacity to feed crows whenever she encountered them, thinking of it only as a good luck charm. Crows! Most refused to go near those ominous birds, and yet she often started her mornings seeking them out with her excess rations.
But my favorite thing about her was that she didn’t want to be there any more than I did. My father had forcibly enlisted her and all of her siblings. He’d called on their oath of fealty, knowing full well that they had nothing else to offer save their own service. A single soldier’s paltry salary would have been a blessing to them, let alone six.
How could they refuse?