The Shattering Waves (The Year of the Dragon, Book 7) by James Calbraith Page A

plans, Hirobumi- sama ?”
    “It’s nothing that would concern you,” the wizard replied. “The less people know about it, the better. I just want her to be safe.”
    How did Nagomi find out about the planned attack? Takasugi pinched the tip of his nose in thought. Did Bran tell her? But how — they shouldn’t have been able to meet these last couple of days ... There’s no way the foreigner could sneak into the Sumiyoshi Shrine — and she was not supposed to leave ...
    Koyata seemed sceptical. “I hope you know what you’re doing. You’re still a youth, Hirobumi- sama .”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “At your age you might let emotions cloud your reason.”
    “I am the chief strategist of the kiheitai, ” Takasugi replied. “And you’d do well to remember this, doshin. ”
    Koyata smirked. Outside, a couple of cicadas chirped aloud, the first before the dawn. The doshin stretched again. “Is it that time already? I better go.” He stood up. “I trust I can bring you some better news next time.”
    “It would be most welcome.”
    Takasugi helped the other man to the ladder and they exchanged farewells, but his mind was elsewhere.
    Come to think of it, his thoughts raced, Itō- sama never explained how she found Bran after Chōfu. Do they have some secret way of communicating?
    His fist clenched on his knee.
    Damn that barbarian. Was Takashima- sama not enough for him?
     
    Bran followed his bakuto guide away from the lanterns of Sakai. Across a dried-out riverbed and through the mud-caked rice paddies, they ventured further and further off into the empty, quiet countryside. Unlike the rest of the kiheitai, Bran had no need for a safe house — and there was no safe place in the town for a foreigner on the run.
    The mud at his feet shimmered and undulated as he walked, disturbed by the tarian shield. He was now in the habit of having it around him all the time, even in the presence of supposedly trusted men. They reached a raised embankment overlooking a narrow irrigation canal. Beyond it, bathed in the silvery haze of the August moonshine, stretched a featureless plain of rice fields, dotted with what Bran assumed were young bamboo and cedar groves.
    The guide dropped to the ground, pulling Bran with him. The boy looked carefully over the embankment. Some fifty yards away, along the top of a levee, a man walked, or rather swayed and staggered, putting a gourd to his lips from time to time.
    “It’s just some drunkard,” Bran whispered.
    The guide picked up a small stone and cast it over the embankment. It splashed into a puddle behind the man on the levee. In an instant, he froze rigid, watchful, hand on sword.
    “There ain’t no drunks ’ere at this hour,” the guide said in that singing-lilting dialect that the locals were so proud of, and slid down the embankment into the shadow. “We’ll have to wait ’ill ’e’s gone.”
    Bran lay flat in the warm mud, in the darkness filled with the croaking of a million frogs hungry for each other’s company. After several long minutes passed, he climbed over again. “The field’s empty,” he said.
    The guide nodded, and slowly, they picked themselves up from the ground. “Haa-ah!” he chuckled, as they climbed down the other side of the embankment.
    “What’s so funny?” Bran asked.
    “I jus’ never thought I’d ever meet somebody of a lower caste than me.”
    Bran didn’t understand at first. “Me? I’m not a low caste, I’m the son of an officer.”
    “That may be, but it ain’t counting for naught in Yamato, yah? ’Ere, even I, a lowly eta, could kill thee with impunity. Tha’re worse than a criminal.”
    “I never thought of it like that.”
    “Nah, tha wouldn’t.” He chuckled again, and stopped. “That’s fa’ ’nough.”
    They were standing on a low mound, by a moss-covered statue of Butsu , next to a rotten, ruined shrine box. About a mile off loomed a darker straight line of a forest.
    “Tha’ll know