Tengu and the Monk trudged for miles. The road ahead stretched to vanishing point.

‘We’ve travelled too far,’ said Tengu. ‘We must have missed the junction.’

They saw a figure in the distance. As the figure drew close they saw it was an old woman carrying firewood in a basket roped to her back.

‘Pardon me, Mother. There’s a valley near here,’ said the Monk, ‘home to a village and a river shrine.’

‘There’s nothing for you in that ravine,’ she said. ‘Nothing for anyone.’

‘Nevertheless, that is where we wish to go.’

‘Head back the way you came. There’s a fork in the road near a crooked oak.’

The Monk clutched his injured back and fought a wave of despair as he turned and contemplated the long road behind them. Tengu waited until he reconciled himself to the return journey then helped him hobble back down the seemingly endless track and retrace their steps to the crooked oak.

‘Is this the village road?’ said Tengu as they stood at the head of a narrow dirt path that led into undergrowth. ‘Little wonder we missed it. It’s the kind of trail a fox might leave as it moves through the grass.’

They ducked beneath the branches and headed down the bramble-choked track into the valley.

‘What kind of miserable place is this?’ muttered the Monk as he hobbled along. He forced himself to look away from his own suffering and focus on the world around him, one of the many mental strategies he employed to help himself take another step. He drew his sword and used it to swat aside thorns and nettles.

‘Nobody has walked this track since winter,’ said Tengu, climbing over a trunk that blocked the path. ‘No merchants, no pilgrims. It’s almost as if the place is shunned.’

‘It seems fortune hasn’t smiled on the inhabitants of this valley,’ he agreed. Tengu looked up at the crags above them.

‘They should move to the plain, move someplace where the soil is rich. It would be a better life than trying to coax a crop from these rocks.’

‘This is their home. They can’t abandon their ancestors.’

They continued down the path and saw dirt hovels dug into the hillside.

‘There’s something bad about this place,’ said Tengu. ‘If I were born in a dump like this, I would have filled my pockets with rice and headed down the road to the city as soon as I was able to walk.’

‘Kyoto doesn’t exist for them. They’ve heard descriptions of the great temples and palaces, the teeming markets and fabulous gardens, but it seems impossibly remote. They don’t think of it as a place a person can visit, a place that lies over the hill. For them, it belongs to the realm of myth. It can only be visited in dreams.’

‘This isn’t some ordinary backwater. There’s evil here. Something old and festering.’

They walked through a graveyard and past a small shrine. Tengu adjusted her posture as they entered the village. She straightened her back and tried to walk with a manly swagger.

They reached the village itself. A cluster of houses surrounding a quarter-acre of dirt that served as a square. The place was as wretched as a leper colony. They glimpsed women picking up their children and running back to their huts. The villagers were lean and short, and bore the hallmark of lifelong malnutrition. Tengu and the Monk seemed muscular giants in comparison. She glimpsed bad teeth and bowed legs. The village was surrounded by woodland but the soil was thin and rocky, and evidently made it hard to cultivate crops. Evidently the community was perpetually on the brink of starvation, collectively too weak and hopeless to search out better land and resettle elsewhere. One hard winter, one major outbreak of disease, and the population would be wiped out. There would be nothing left of the village but silent huts gradually succumbing to the rains.

A sheet of leather hung stretched on a frame outside one of the huts.

‘Tanners,’ said the girl. ‘This is a community of outcasts.’

The Monk looked up at the tea fields which tiered the upper walls of the valley.

‘Most of the menfolk must be working the fields. The men that survived the wars, that is.’

They approached a shack which evidently served as a tea house and meeting room. Tengu helped the Monk climb the tea house steps and lie down on the veranda. She balled his cloak and used it to pillow his head. He lay with his eyes closed for a few minutes then his face slowly relaxed as the pain in his back diminished. She poured a sip of water into his mouth from a clay flask. She could see an old woman pulling weeds in the graveyard at the edge of the village.

‘Will you be all right here?’ Tengu asked. The Monk nodded. She crossed the dirt square and approached the old woman. She strode with a hand gripped on her sword hilt, spat and bowed low. The woman was clearly intimidated to find herself confronted by a strange boy with a blade at his hip.

‘Forgive me, Mother, I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ said Tengu, pitching her voice low and gruff. The woman grovelled. ‘Please, I mean you no harm. We are here for the tournament.’

The woman backed away and ran. Tengu returned to the tea house.

‘I don’t think this place gets many visitors.’

She knocked on the doorframe of the tea house.

‘Hello?’

The tea master emerged from the dark interior of the hut. He had a fresh scar on his cheek and a ladle gripped in his hand like he was expecting trouble. He looked at Tengu with distrust, observed the sword at her side, but relaxed when he saw the Monk’s yellow robes.

‘Forgive our intrusion,’ said Tengu. ‘We are travellers looking for a place to stay.’

‘Please come in. I’ll light the fire.’

He hurriedly swept the floor with a twig broom and helped Tengu bring the Monk inside, blessed to have a holy man under his roof.

‘May I ask how long you will be honouring us with your presence?’ he said, bowing to the prone Monk.

‘A few days. We are here for the tournament.’

The man glanced doubtfully at the stricken Monk, a man so obviously wracked with pain he could barely hold himself upright, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

‘The tournament takes place in a few days,’ said the tea master. ‘Some swordsmen have already arrived. I’m sure you will see them tomorrow.’

‘What’s this hamlet called?’ asked Tengu.

‘Did you see that outcrop protruding from the valley wall? People call this the Village by the Rock.’

Tengu’s eyes adjusted to the shadows and she saw the prisoner sitting in his cage flanked by two peasants armed with axes.

‘A bandit,’ said the tea master, following the direction of her gaze. ‘A murderer.’

‘What will happen to him?’

‘He will die at her ladyship’s pleasure. His accomplices remain at large. I feel obliged to warn you there is a chance they may use the cover of darkness to rescue their friend.’

The Monk laid a hand on the hilt of his sword.

‘They will be very welcome to try.’

‘Is there anything I can fetch for your comfort?’ asked the tea master.

‘We would like a little warmth from the fire. Nothing more.’

‘Shall I send word to the Shaman?’

‘The Shaman?’

‘The old Holy Man,’ said the tea master. ‘He arrived last week. He built himself a hut at the top of the graveyard, some kind of shack made out of branches. We offered him shelter, but he refused. Folk have been taking him offerings of food. I thought you might wish to seek his counsel.’

‘No. I’m here to fight.’

The Monk lay by the fire and Tengu sat by his side. The tea master brought bowls of rice.

‘Rest easy,’ said their host. ‘We will watch over the bandit until dawn.’ They nodded thanks. The prisoner watched from the shadows as they ate, flame light reflected in his eyes.