The Wings of Dreams

out along a line exactly opposite, doing the same thing she had before. And with the same depressing results.
    The sun had set by the time she returned to the boulder. The gray veil of evening settled across the savanna. But she didn’t have a way of starting a fire and had nothing to eat or drink.
    “If I abandon hope now, I’m dead,” she said aloud, doing her best to convince herself as she sat on the boulder and rested. She waited for the crescent moon to rise and set off walking again.
    Searching for stones in the moonlight presented a vexing challenge, not to mention the difficultly in seeing the way ahead, which meant she had to build the mounds all the more frequently.
    It was nighttime now and her current direction was yielding her nothing. Neither did her next attempt. On her third try, having walked as far as she could from the fifth mound, she spotted the outlines of Kiwa’s wagon off in the distance.
    Shushou didn’t see any campfires and didn’t sense any people in the vicinity. “What a heartless crew,” she grumbled to herself.
    But her steps quickened. She darted across the savanna, ran until her breathing grew ragged and her sides hurt. She stopped.
    “Huh—?”
    The only thing in front of her was an ordinary outcropping of rock, not a wagon. From where she was standing, there was nothing resembling a wagon in view. She whirled around, but the last mound had vanished into the darkness behind her.
    “Oh, wonderful. Now I really am lost.”

Chapter 33
    [5-2]  G ankyuu looked at the silent, sullen men sitting on the ground. They were a crestfallen bunch, overcome by emotions that straddled the line between anger and despair.
    Among them was a middle-aged man by the name of Shoutan. A member of Kiwa’s retinue, he appeared to be the most profoundly discouraged.
    Kinhaku took in the group with a vexed expression of his own. “It’s been a whole day since the girl disappeared. We’ve spent all of today looking and haven’t seen hide nor hair of her.”
    They’d spent the day searching along a line from the wagon and the fire—used to lure the shuen into the trap—to the sloping side of the bluff the shuen had last been seen racing down.
    Before Gankyuu and the others arrived, the remnants of Kiwa’s company had gone over the same ground with a fine-toothed comb. One man even continued down the side of the bluff. He soon caught sight of a flat shelf of rock. It hadn’t occurred to him that the stumpy outcropping of stone might be hollowed out inside, or that a child could easily conceal herself behind one.
    So he didn’t walk around it but stood there and called out to her. Of course, she couldn’t have heard him if she was unconscious.
    So their focus turned back to the bluff. Supposing the shuen cast her off when it tumbled over the edge of the bluff, she would have fallen onto the hilly slope. It wasn’t steep and was thick with bushes and tall grasses. They clawed through the undergrowth and turned up nothing.
    “That means—” Kinhaku said, his voice trailing off.
    “Please, go on ahead,” Shoutan said. “I’ll stay behind and resume the search tomorrow. Just leave enough food and water for Shushou-sama and myself.”
    “But—”
    “When we were abandoned in this wilderness, Shushou-sama was the only one who came back for us. I cannot abandon her the same way we were. Heaven would never forgive me.”
    “He’s right,” several others quietly chimed in.
    Kinhaku sighed and turned to Gankyuu. “Well, what do you think?”
    Gankyuu jerked his chin at Rikou. “Ask him. He’s the one footing the bill.”
    Now the center of attention, Rikou grinned. “Let’s do this—we’ll stay. Gankyuu and I began this journey with Shushou, after all. It was the three of us from the start. We’ll find Shushou and bring her to Mt. Hou. That was the plan all along, so everything will be back to normal.”
    When Shoutan raised an objection, Rikou interrupted him. “See, we have a haku and a suugu. As soon as we find her, we’ll catch up with you soon enough. Go with Kinhaku and his men and drag your feet the best you can.”
    “Drag our feet?”
    “Chodai and the others are itching to put as much distance behind them as possible. Slow things down a bit and we shouldn’t get left too far behind.”
    “Yes, but—”
    “Shushou will be okay. That little kid not only led all these people without a goushi in sight but went on a youma hunt to boot.”
    “That’s right,”