Hunting Eagle Spring

The crow came on the third day after the night of the desk lamp, not on Wednesday.

It landed atop the stone lantern and waited until Kiyoshi approached before taking flight and heading downstream.

The old ferry landing, a half-rotted bridge piling, the sound of water drowning out voices.

Shisui arrived first and crouched in his usual spot.

"You've got all the defenses down. Time to settle this job," Shisui said. "I'll take care of the things you recorded."

"Mm." Kiyoshi nodded.

"Three days from now. No moon," Shisui said. "In through the gap in the west wall, out through the door on the west side of the storehouse. Fresh oil on the hinges, used often, no noise. Our window is the time it takes an incense stick to burn during the changing of the guard. Right? That's how you worked it out too."

How to get in, how to get out-Shisui laid it all out on the bridge piling, point by point.

Kiyoshi ran through it in his head. Their calculations matched exactly.

On the way back, he planned out the days before and after: no visits to the main house, no returning books, no passing through that street.

He would go about his days as usual. The fewer traces this night left, the better.

School as usual tomorrow, and the day after too.

He had mastered the art of acting like nothing was wrong in his previous life.

He kept it all inside.

Things involving a place like that could not be left on paper.

The price of this night was eleven lives.

He had not checked that figure with Shisui, nor did he need to.

Three days later, no moon.

Kiyoshi led the way again, keeping close to the sheltered slope, which swallowed most of their silhouettes.

Eleven people had to get beyond that wall. That meant eleven sets of footsteps. They could neither rush nor fall into disarray.

This night was harder than the last, and all the difficulty came down to one word: more.

Outside the perimeter wall, Shisui stopped and tipped his chin toward a half-collapsed pile of stones on the western slope. The lookout position.

Kiyoshi crouched among them, making himself part of the pile.

From here, he could see the collapsed roof, the gap in the west wall, and the crack in the door on the west side of the storehouse.

All four entries were before his eyes. Tonight was all that remained.

The first entry: two guards, one inside the door, one on the collapsed roof.

The silhouette on the collapsed roof was making its way back, section by section.

The second entry: the changing of the guard took one incense stick. After the old guard descended from the collapsed roof and before the new one climbed up to the gap, there was a half-breath opening. Last time, they had used it to get in and out. This time, eleven people had to pass through it.

Shisui pressed his hand down twice toward him: stay low, hold position.

He slipped down close to the foot of the slope.

The third entry proved itself on the spot: the gap was three bricks wide, an opening half a person's height. In the time it took one person to enter, the shadow on the collapsed roof moved only a section and a half.

The fourth entry remained on hold for now: the second door on the west side of the storehouse, its hinges freshly oiled, frequently used. That was the escape route.

Kiyoshi watched the collapsed roof and counted breaths.

The new guard patrolled to the eastern end, turned back, then went to the eastern end again.

A little past two hundred, a thread of lamplight leaked through the crack in the storehouse door.

Someone had entered through that frequently used door.

The one who knew that doorway so well was its owner.

The lamp moved within the walls.

Kiyoshi could not see inside the storehouse, only that thin line of light leaking through the door into the shadow of the slope.

He slowed his breathing as far as he could.

The light paused in the crack, turned toward the north wall, then slowly turned back.

He was inspecting everything, one thing at a time, taking his time.

The lamp went out.

The darkness held still for a breath.

Then someone pushed that frequently used door open a crack from inside.

Eagle Spring was the first to emerge.

His back was to the outside, one hand still resting on the door, as though he was about to leave-or had been called back by something behind him.

It was dark behind him. Nothing could be seen.

Shisui emerged from that darkness.

The instant Eagle Spring's hand left the door, Shisui caught his wrist and lifted it, twisting his forearm behind his back.

A sliver of something bright slid from his cuff and struck the threshold with a single clink.

Eagle Spring reached behind his waist with his left hand, found something, and stabbed backward.

The blade struck empty air.

He lurched sideways with it, his shoulder hitting the doorframe.

Shisui had already circled behind his flank. One hand caught his chin and pulled it up, while the other pressed down along the side of his neck.

His body sank against the doorframe and went still.

From Shisui's appearance to Eagle Spring going still, fewer than five breaths passed.

Through the crack in the door, Shisui turned and glanced toward the darkness on the slope.

As though looking for light, or as though he knew someone was watching.

Gripping Eagle Spring by both shoulders, he dragged him back inside, inch by inch.

The door closed again without a sound.

Kiyoshi counted breaths. At a hundred, everything was still quiet.

At two hundred, the insects at the foot of the slope began chirping first.

Even the insects no longer feared this wall.

The guard on the collapsed roof was still the same guard, moving section by section, unaware of anything.

The night was darker than when they had arrived.

He went over everything they had laid out on the bridge piling three days ago once more in his head.

Tonight, each piece had fallen into place without a sound.

After he had lost count of the breaths, Shisui's shadow emerged through the gap. He pressed his palm down toward the west side of the storehouse: get to the pickup position; the people would leave that way.

Kiyoshi backed out of the stones, circled around along the foot of the slope, and stopped in the shadows twenty paces from the door.

The second door opened from within.

The hinges made no sound, just as expected.

The first to emerge was a child not yet grown. Shisui's hand hovered behind the child's back to guide him, while Shisui himself remained inside.

The others followed one by one.

Four young adults kept the children between them, every one of them tense, always keeping half their body between the children and the outside. Each stepped out a little, then glanced back into the storehouse, as though unable to believe no second person waited behind that door.

Shisui gave a quiet instruction: stay silent, follow one another.

At the doorway, the eldest child paused.

Twelve years old, the oldest of the seven children.

He lifted his face, made out the person leading them in the dark, and moved his lips.

"Lord Shisui."

Shisui crouched to meet his eyes.

"Mm," he said. "I told you I would come back."

The child said nothing more.

It was hard to see clearly in the dark. Only his eyes shone for an instant before he held it back.

He turned and took the hands of the two youngest behind him.

One of the four young adults bowed their head to Shisui without a word.

Their tension eased inch by inch, like the rope marks around their wrists.

Shisui came out last and pulled the door shut behind him.

Kiyoshi counted heads in the shadows.

One, two...

Seven plus four. Eleven people. Not one missing.

[Face Value +250, current 950]

The group passed in front of him.

The rope marks on their wrists were hidden by the darkness now, but he remembered every one, old marks beneath new.

A bulging cloth bag passed from one hand to another. No one set it down along the way.

Not one book from that stack of clan school textbooks had been left behind.

From tonight onward, the row of empty basins in the corner would no longer be needed.

Shisui gestured a direction to Kiyoshi: the old route, lead them out. Then he left him with three words: "I'll clean up."

As the group set off, Kiyoshi unfastened the water skin at his waist and tucked it into the crook of the arm of the girl carrying the youngest child.

The girl froze for a moment, then held the water skin tight.

He did not stop, circling back to the front to lead the way.

At the fork, Shisui caught up, his footsteps as light as ever.

"The storehouse is taken care of," he said evenly. "The two guards are asleep. I carried them to the sheltered slope and left them there. All the tracks going in and out have been erased. Starting tomorrow, the clan will have one fewer missing person. No one will search the barren slope."

He paused for half a breath, then added, "That man never shouted, even at the end. Never begged, either. His eyes stayed fixed on the north wall. He never looked away, not even at the very last moment."

With that, he fell back to the rear, keeping himself half a step apart from the group.

In the middle of the night, a line of people entered the abandoned old storehouse.

Kiyoshi had once paused before this door. This time, he did not.

The storehouse was empty. Wind came through the hole in the collapsed roof, lifting the dust and setting it down again.

The dust lay thick. Apart from the trail they had just made coming in, there were no other prints.

The girl lifted the water skin and first gave the child in her arms a drink.

The child drank without crying or fussing, very slowly, as though afraid the water would be taken away too.

The four young adults took separate corners, still seating themselves between the children and the door.

This time, they sat more at ease than they had in the other storehouse.

Shisui left them with a few words: "Sleep first. This place is only temporary. We'll talk about the days ahead when they come."

Home, door barred, the ledger form spread open to a blank page.

This time, he would put pen to paper.

He brought the four entries on the defenses out from inside him, one by one, and wrote them down: two guards, one inside the door, one on the collapsed roof.

Changing of the guard: one incense stick.

Gap in the west wall: three bricks wide.

Second door on the west side of the storehouse: freshly oiled hinges, frequently used.

Once written, crossed out.

Every entry was crossed out cleanly, ink lines covering ink lines. The paper was spotless, as though those four entries had never been recorded.

Before closing the book, he started a new line and left it blank.

What that blank line recorded was this: what route had the eyes Eagle Spring collected taken, and whose hands waited at the end?

The man dealt with tonight had merely handled the cleanup.

Shisui had yet to establish where it all came from.

Kiyoshi had given him a name. He had followed it back and forth himself, but the trail broke halfway.

The name remained there, still unmatched.

Kiyoshi put away the ledger form and blew out the lamp.

This page was settled.

The blank line remained blank.