sway, the one that said appetite and lust were nothing compared to the need of the mask. Satisfying that glorious need was better than the most soul-shuddering orgasm. What higher pleasure could there possibly be than wearing the mask while stripping the Bear Cub of his pelt? Even Nene’s death would pale in comparison.
The thought of Nene made him recall the image of fighting mantises locked in a cage. This teahouse was the most exquisite cage imaginable, but Shichio had no doubt that he was boxed in. Obyo Falls might just as well have been the end of the world. The cliff face was too brittle to climb. Recent rockfall was in evidence right in the middle of the pool, where sharp-edged slabs lurked like sharks just under the surface. The largest of them lay directly under the cascade, sending white spittle hissing in every direction. To the right of the falls, a line of thick, spray-spattered bushes seemed to cling to the cliff face with thick-fingered roots. Shichio knew this to be a trick of the eye. In fact, they grew on the lip of a rocky shelf, the only level surface between the base of the cliff and the crest. Behind the greenery, a host of Shichio’s archers lay in wait.
The walls of the valley were not quite as steep as Obyo’s cliff, but there were still places where even the most tenacious tree roots could not find purchase. Naked rock peered out here and there from the bamboo like slate gray islands in a sea of green. Shichio had contemplated deploying some of his bear hunters there, with orders so simple that even the most feckless of them could obey: remain hidden from any who enter the valley, and kill all who attempt to flee. Shichio’s own people would not run, and that left only Nene, her retinue, and the Bear Cub. But in the end he decided the bear hunters could only spoil the ambush at the falls. They’d failed him at every turn thus far; he would not rely on them now.
Shichio could not deny feeling vulnerable here. He’d intended to encamp with an entire platoon, but once he reached the waterfall he saw that would be impossible. The only place for them to stand was in the pool. That was part of the genius of the teahouse: it was tiny, just large enough to seat a tea master and three or four participants in the ceremony. It took up what little horizontal ground there was, yet it was not obtrusive; it seemed to have fallen there, just like the giant slabs that nature had strewn around the water.
So Shichio hid six of his samurai behind the shuttered fusuma of the teahouse, and had no other choice but to send the rest of his platoon in single file back up the trail. Their orders were to stand guard in the nameless hamlet at the valley’s mouth, to offer Nene an escort to the teahouse if she allowed it, and to kill the Bear Cub on sight if he happened to show his face.
Shichio knew he would not. The whelp had been careful so far. Shichio did not expect to see Nene either. Quite to the contrary: it was her man Nezumi who chose this place for their meeting, and he would have told her there was no escape. Nene would send a trusted envoy in her stead.
That was all right. The Bear Cub only needed to see someone waiting for him. Shichio hoped Nene sent a woman—one of her handmaids, perhaps, some delicate flower whom the Bear Cub could not possibly find threatening. And a bodyguard or two, maybe even that vile Nezumi. That would be delicious, to see him die in the ambush as well. Nene wouldn’t send many; she would not trust Shichio not to kill them.
Shichio intended to do just that. As soon as the Bear Cub showed his face, Shichio planned to fall back behind the six in the teahouse, with Oda Tomonosuke at his side. He did not count Oda as a bodyguard per se—he hadn’t known the man long enough to place that much trust in him—but the aging lord had already proved himself an able sensei and a deadly sword hand. He had provided helpful intelligence about Nene as well—quite accidentally, of course, but Shichio did not count that as a mark against him. As a sword master he did not approve of Shichio’s mask, but neither did