This is the third and last part of Ree's story. The previous installments appeared in:
Imperial Herald Vol. 1 No. 3 (Part 1)
Imperial Herald Vol. 1 No. 4 (Part 2)

The night settled again over Matsu keep, the winds lashing against the walls with a sudden biting cold. Banners which had been hung the day before snapped violently and fought against the pull of the air. One ripped, fluttering wildly until it was engulfed by the darkness and could be seen no more. The Lion Clan keep stood bold and unassailable behind heavy granite walls and solid iron gates. But no walls, no gates, and no fortifications could keep the darkness out. It slid along the corridors, hid itself in unused rooms, and passed silently behind closed doors.

Doji Shizue lay on a hard cot in one of the spartan rooms of the keep. Her face, the delicate, pale features of her clan, turned toward the window's faint light and her gentle gray eyes opened. She had awakened suddenly, the dark stillness of the night surrounding her. For some reason the spirit of nightfall had changed, becoming more still and holding a strange tension that Shizue had not felt before. She arose, her pale hair swinging to her feet, and settled her ragged kimono about her body. Some subtle change in the air rustled about her like the misty breath of a kirin, and she shivered. Opening the thick metal shutters of her barred window, Shizue looked out and tried to find its source.

He crept along the high ledges, his feet touching the ground with the delicacy of a leopard on slick rock. Dressed in black, the features of his face swathed in cloth, he leapt unnoticed from the inner wall to the roof of the keep itself, landing noiselessly on the shingled tiles.

Practiced and efficient, he found a window that led to an empty chamber, and dropped to its sill. With only a minimum of effort, the lock was sprung,and the ninja vanished inside. The battle strategies of the next day in her hand, Matsu Tsuko walked with the st a captive lioness as she took refuge in the familiar hallways of Matsu Keep. It was her tradition to stride through them before she led her men to war. As commander of the legions of Lion forces, each battle brought new concerns, new strategies, and new dead. Knowing that her orders could sentence men to die, she paced these halls to seek the battle-wisdom of her ancestors. The sanctuary she sought was one of tradition, treading the paths her father, and his mother before him, had trod.

Silently, the ninja wound his way through the corridors. He too passed as though he had been among these halls a thousand times before, but he was not here to chase wisdom.

The guards outside the locked door fell swiftly before his kusangama, the chained weapon which had helped him scale the walls, and the door was easy to coerce open. With no more sound than the passing of a cloud in the night, he entered the locked room.

The ninja slid silently into the chamber, dosing the door with a soft click. Shizue spun, her hair swirling in a white blur across the pale light of the window. For a moment, they stared at each other, the ninja and the storyteller, caught between the darkness of the keep and the thin shred of moon which broke through the clouds. Then, with a gasp, she leaped at him and he caught the softly sobbing form of his beloved.

Shizue murmured, "They are going to kill me in the morning because I will not tell them of Toturi's army." Her once rigid composure had crumbled, and now she seemed frail, almost porcelain. "We must escape, I must go back to Kakita-san, he must know that the Naga are not of the Shadowlands." Her whispers were ragged, and he silenced her gently with his hand.

Swiftly, he led her to the door, her limping step more agile than it had seemed to her captors.

"There are guards," he murmured, "but we can pass them." Confidently he opened the door a finger's width and peered through. A second later, he led her out into the darkness of the keep.

Bypassing the many guards of Matsu palace was dangerous and difficult, often forcing Shizue and the ninja spy to hide in darkened alcoves as a sentry passed. The corridors were dark and twisted, leading them into a maze of rooms. But the ninja never faltered, always following the path that led them down, away from the sentries, and towards the great inner gates.

Tsuko slowed in her journey through the keep, listening intently to the cold, still air. A faint noise reached her ears and she came to a halt. Frowning as the noise repeated itself, she silently drew her katana from its sheath. Again she heard the dull sliding... reminiscent of a lame foot dragging across the stone corridor. Cursing to herself, Tsuko flattened against the corridor wall as the sound moved toward her.

As they came around the corner of the hallway, the ninja hesitated. With a sharp cry, Tsuko leapt from the alcove, her blade plunging toward Shizue. The storyteller screamed, and the ninja shoved her out of the way, the blade slicing into the flesh of his arm. Shizue stumbled back away from the two combatants as the ninja crouched, pulling his kusarigama from his clothes.

"Well, Doji" hissed Tsuko, "Did your honorable clan send this ninja?" Her sword hung steady in the air between them as the ninja's chain began to whirl. She charged the ninja again, barely missing as he rolled beneath her swing. She snarled and spun to face him, but he danced sideways, his chain blurring toward her legs.

Leaping, Tsuko avoided the entangling chain, and landed with her katana ready to strike, only to find that the ninja had already moved again. He intercepted her as she leapt toward him and with a single movement hurried her to the ground in a sacrifice throw.

As Tsuko gasped for breath, rolling swiftly to the side, he lunged to his feet and faced her again.

Tsuko gripped her sword tightly, preparing for another exchange, when she noticed the blood drops on the floor beneath her. A savage grin erupted across her face, and she spat, "You're already wounded, ninja filth. You're slowing... soon you'll be no more than meat on the spit of my-,' she charged, screaming, "sword." Her sudden blow missed as the ninja swiveled to the side, but her shoulder landed a heavy strike and she heard the ninja gasp in pain.

The steady whirring of the chain slowed as the ninja staggered back, but rapidly increased again, keeping Tsuko at bay while he recovered. Shizue stood, frozen in fear by the side of the corridor, staring helplessly at the combat as Tsuko charged again.

Then, faster than a striking serpent, the ninja struck. Whipping the chain about his head, he spun the dangerous hook toward Tsuko's sword arm. Without giving Tsuko a chance to recover from her charge, he wrapped the chain about her katana and pulled. The sword flew uselessly from her hand, landing far out of reach.

Crouching, Tsuko shook her head in disbelief. "Only one man can disarm me like that," she thundered. Leaping at the ninja in fury, she ripped away his mask. Gasping as she recognized the face, she faltered in shock.

"No, my sister, I am not Kage. But he taught me well. As well as he taught you." Her pause gave Matsu Hiroru the second he needed to land a heavy blow to the side of the Lion Clan Champion's head, dropping her to the ground. "And you should know, sister," he said the unconscious form, "No one 'sends' me anywhere I do not wish to go."

Pulling his mask over his face again, Hiroru swung Shizue into his arms. "We must run now. Her shouts will have alerted the guard." Shizue nodded, swiftly tying a scrap of her kimono over his injury and wrapping her arms about his neck. He leapt into a run, headed for the inner gates of the keep.

The guards at the gate had indeed been alerted, and as the ninja approached, they drew their weapons and prepared to attack. "'You cannot defeat them!" murmured Shizue, her breath warm in his ear, "You must flee, and leave me!"

Hiroru made no reply, and as they approached the gate, he pulled a small porcelain ball from his belt. Flinging it at the guards, he ran forward with all his strength, holding Shizue tightly. As the ball struck, clouds of sulfurous gas billowed out, covering the gate and sending the guards into paroxysms of coughing. "Close your eyes," he advised, and hurled himself into the mass of clouds. Shizue buried her face in the ninja's shoulder as the gas bit at her eyes and lungs, the sulfur making tears well up and blur through her closed lids. All around her, she heard the guards gasping and wailing as their eyes were blinded by the bitter gases.

After a few moments, they burst out of the poison fog into the wide expanse of ground outside the keep. Hiroru fled into a grove of trees to the west, his chest heaving with the exertion of carrying Shizue. "Quickly," he gasped, "I have a horse in the grove"

From the top of the walls surrounding Matsu Keep, Akodo Kage watched the horse bearing the two figures vanish into the night as the guards floundered out of the slowly dispersing mists. The alarms inside the keep were sounding, but Kage knew they were too late. The arrival of his rebellious former student had been unforeseen, even by the sensei.

"Hiroru and the Doji girl?" he thought silently, "How unexpected." He paused, watching the lightning strike in the storm overhead. "And yet," he reflected, "how useful" An uncharacteristic smile crossed his face as he turned his back to the storm and faded into the darkness of the keep.

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