The Wings of Dreams

if a koushu’s corpse is cast into a potter’s field, that red passport guarantees his return to the Yellow Sea and his burial in a koushu village.”
    “Stop it. Now’s not the time to go jinxing us. By the way, what kind of place is Ryuu?”
    “I remember it was cold.”
    “So is Kyou,” Shushou quipped. And he was cold now. Gankyuu’s arm on her shoulders was cool to the touch.
    It’d take several men linking arms to ring the trunks of the great trees around them. Despite their massive size, the treetops hung low to the ground. The big leaves formed a dense, green canopy that turned the ground into a shadowed twilight.
    Thick roots thrust out of the ground, as if pushing the trunks into the air. Slender hair-like roots hung down like bamboo screens. Thicker ones stretched across the pale brown ground and entwined with those of their scattered siblings. They welled up all around them, lifted and twisted skyward like threads plucked by the fingers of giants.
    Navigating this arboreal maze, the slightest stumble could break a man’s leg, all the more so when that man was nursing an injury like Gankyuu’s. The low canopy spread out horizontally over their heads. Where the branches of one tree touched another, noonday sky, narrow bands of sunlight slanted through the treetops.
    Shushou caught a glimpse of the blue, noonday sky. A shadow grazed her view.
    She immediately pushed Gankyuu to the ground between the tangle of roots. Clinging to the root above her head, Shushou looked up. It wasn’t a bird. It wasn’t a suugu. It didn’t appear to be any of the kijuu the goushi had brought with them.
    “That’s a san’yo, ” came Gankyuu’s hoarse whisper.
    A flying snake twice as long as a man was tall. Flapping its four wings slowly, slithering its torso back and forth, it swam through the air. The sight sent a chill down Shushou’s back.
    She stifled the urge to bolt and squatted down among the roots. The san’yo swam through the air and circled back. It passed right above her, close enough that she could make out the scales on its body and count its three legs. Right when she thought it was going to keep on going, it turned around.
    The thing was in no hurry to leave. Cruising lazily back and forth, its belly brushed the surrounding treetops, raising a sound like gravel scraping on glass.
    “It smells blood.” Gankyuu’s stifled voice was barely audible. “It smells me. Shushou, get out of here.”
    “No.”
    “This is the same thing as the haku. Don’t worry about it.”
    “It’s not at all the same thing. If I was a haku, I would have escaped with you and your haku. Unfortunately, I’m a human being.”
    “Aren’t you going to become a koushu?”
    “I am. But to do that I need a guild master to guide me.”
    “Koushu don’t throw away their lives for no good reason. They always chose the best means to ensure the longest life. A sacrifice made under those conditions is no sacrifice.”
    “Then too bad I’m not really a koushu.”
    No sooner had she spoken but a sound rang out very close by. Shushou felt the blood drain from her face.
    It came from the vicinity of a big mound, one of the tree trunks held aloft by the great tangle of roots. A face poked out from among the roots strung across the face of the mound. The head of a wolf covered with red hair but as big as a tiger. Shushou clearly sensed its black eyes locking on hers.
    Gankyuu grasped the scabbard bound to his right leg as a splint. “Crawl under the roots there.”
    “But—”
    Before she could finish that thought, Gankyuu grabbed her by the head and shoved her down. He drew the sword with great difficulty. This youma was probably a kasso. It stared back at Gankyuu, not budging an inch.
    Branches snapped over their head. The san’yo circled lower and lower.
    His hand around the hilt had hardly any strength left in it. He might have a fighting chance if he only had to worry about the san’yo. But there was the kasso barely a few arm lengths away.
    “Shushou, stay there and don’t move. Tuck yourself into a ball and don’t make a sound. If it gets quiet up here, run. Sorry about this, but give my red passport to Kinhaku.”
    “That’s not funny!”
    A wounded older man on the one hand, an otherwise healthy young girl on the other. Right now, the best odds lay with the girl. That was the way the koushu saw things. According to that logic, had fate dealt the cards the other way around, Gankyuu would be more likely