Soul of the Sword (Shadow of the Fox #2) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,125
quiet awe. “A daimyo of the Kaze family, and one of the most famed duelists of the Wind Clan. His swordsmanship was unique in that he fought with two blades, using the katana and the wakizashi at the same time. The Kaze family have always claimed their doublesword techniques are descended from Yoshitsune himself, and refuse to teach their swordsmanship to any other clan.”
“Why is there a statue of him here?” I asked, and Daisuke shook his head.
“I do not know. Perhaps the guardians of the Steel Feather temple are part of the Wind Clan. Although…” Daisuke tapped his chin thoughtfully, as Reika, Okame and Chu came around the pillar. “There is a legend of Kaze Yoshitsune, one that is told even today, especially among schools of the blade. Of how, when Yoshitsune was a young man, he disappeared from the empire for a time. And when he returned, it was as a skilled swordsman, unbeatable in duels, who possessed the hidden knowledge of the gods. While no one knows for certain, the legends claim Yoshitsune traveled to the home of the mountain kami and lived with them for several years, that the mountain king himself taught the Kaze prince swordsmanship and the path of the double blades.” A smile crossed the noble’s face. “The legend of Yoshitsune is one every swordsman knows,” he said in a quietly awed voice. “How many of us have hoped that the kami would find us worthy to gift us with their knowledge? Kaze Yoshitsune was one of the rare few that were.”
“Huh.” Okame stepped forward, arms folded as he gazed up at the statue, then at Daisuke. A sour expression crossed his features, and he curled a lip. “He doesn’t look like anything special to me.”
Reika gave a barely audible chuckle. “Jealousy is not an admirable virtue, Okame-san,” she told him. “Especially if it is of a stone statue.”
“Nani?” Okame exclaimed, an indignant look crossing his face. “What are you talking about?” But the miko only smiled and walked past him. “Oi, don’t pretend you didn’t hear me. What did you mean? Hey!”
The miko and the ronin vanished around a crumbled wall, and the rest of us hurried to catch up.
As we pressed farther into the chamber, more statues appeared in the flickering light of the kitsune-bi. There were armored samurai with stern, unsmiling faces, whose stony eyes seemed to follow us as we passed. But there were also several women, monks, ronin, peasants, even a few children. Sometimes they were missing limbs, or even heads. Sometimes they carried swords, raised above their heads or standing at the ready. One statue was of an enormous, bare-chested man wearing an amused smirk and a circle of huge prayer beads around his neck. Instead of a sword, he carried a spear with a massive, crescent-shaped blade on his shoulders, both thick arms draped over the shaft.
“These are all heroes of the empire,” Daisuke remarked quietly, after gazing at the statue of the large man for several heartbeats. “Some of them I don’t recognize, but many of them…I have seen their pictures in the history scrolls. I have heard their legends and read about their deeds. That is Tsuchi Benkei, who held a bridge against an army of three hundred warriors to protect his lord. And over there is Hino Misaka, who held up a wall of fire for seven straight days to protect a village from attacking yokai. Wherever we are,” he continued, gazing around, “this is a sacred place. A hall of remembering. I wonder who is here, who made these statues?”
“That’s a fascinating thought and all, Daisuke-san,” Okame said. “But, we’re not looking for a hall of heroes. Unless one of them is going to give us directions to the Steel Feather temple, I’d say we’ve got bigger problems to think about.”
As he was saying this, I rounded the statue of a young man wielding a staff, and stopped.
Across the cavern floor, seemingly carved out of the stone itself, a wide staircase ascended into the darkness. The path to it was flanked on either side by stone samurai, standing at rigid attention, and more statues stood on pedestals lining the stairs. At the top of the steps, beyond a landing circled by even more statues, I could just make out a small opening in the cave wall, a doorway into the unknown.
“Minna,” I called excitedly, hearing my voice echo into the vast emptiness around us. “I think I’ve found the way out.”