Chapter 1: Thunder, Blood and Samurai

It was thundering, but there were no storm clouds in the sky. Na-Ri, who had just been lying relaxed by the stream watching the butterflies play, looked up in surprise. When there was another bang, this time a whole series in incredibly quick succession, she jumped up. That wasn’t thunder. She had never heard anything like it before.

Curious as she was, she set off to find out the origin of this unusual thunder. She walked light-footedly through the jungle, using paths that most people would not even have recognized as such. The fact that she didn’t have to rely solely on her eyes was of course an advantage. She could smell the tiger’s tracks even weeks later.

She didn’t need to be afraid in the jungle. Nothing that lived here could be dangerous to her, be it a tiger or the poisonous snake she was skilfully jumping over.

The noise was clearly coming from the direction of the fortress. Suddenly, unusual smells hit her nose. It was smoke, but not from normal fire. It had something of the smell that the fire-breathing mountains gave off.

Na-Ri’s thoughts briefly wandered to her sister Yun, who lived in the north, near the great mountain of fire. She hadn’t seen her for a while and she missed her. Na-Ri often felt lonely because she couldn’t talk to anyone.

A new smell made her stop abruptly. It was metallic. She could identify this smell even among a thousand other odors, and it made her tremble. It was the smell of blood, a lot of blood. Human blood.

She continued on her way much more cautiously. Her hunting instinct had awakened.

It was a battlefield. People had fought and died here. That was not unusual, nor did it upset Na-Ri. Humans did this all the time. It made it easy for her to satisfy her needs.

Hidden under the trees, she looked down at the rice field in the valley in front of the fortress, which was now littered with dead and dying people.

She realized with regret that she couldn’t go down there yet, because the victorious humans were still there. They walked across the battlefield and cut off the heads of the victims. That was stupid. She didn’t like eating corpse.

A crack to her left caught her attention again.

She cautiously backed away into the jungle, looking for a way to the sound she had heard. Here, too, she smelled blood. One of the soldiers had probably escaped the carnage. It was quite possible that she could show him mercy.

She had been mistaken. It wasn’t one person, it was two. And they were clearly enemy soldiers.

While the injured elder was clearly a local, the other came from a foreign country called Japan. Both wore armor and carried swords.

The Japanese was young, strong and confident of victory, while his opponent was injured and considerably older. Na-Ri estimated him to be just over 30 rainy seasons old.

Na-Ri didn’t particularly like the Japanese. However, she had never been this close to one before. What she did know about these strangers was that they lived on an island in the sea, that alone was a reason not to like them. No one who could walk on salty water could be good. Besides, they came here and stole the crops of the people here, her people.