L5r - scroll 05 - The Crab (5 page)

"Yes, Sensei," Yakamo said proudly. "Yes, I believe I do."

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"How long ago was that?" asked Sukune.

"Nearly ten years ago," answered Yakamo. "She has not forgotten her brother's death. Mirumoto Hitomi has grown into a fine warrior!"

"Yes," agreed Sukune, "but she still wants your head!"

"She knows where to find me." Yakamo yawned. "I suppose it doesn't matter whether I die at the hands of a goblin or a Dragon— as long as I die on the Wall."

FORM AND FUNCTION

Pitch the daimyo's tent there!" It was an order that Kuni Yori needn't give. These servants followed Hida Kisada as he traveled up and down the length of the Carpenter's Wall. Everywhere he stopped, they turned a local grotto into the Crab Clan strategic headquarters. "Make sure the daimyo has access to both the courtyard
and
the command tent!" Kuni Yori was well aware the servants knew where everything went, but giving orders, particularly pointless ones, reinforced the distance between Kisada and his servants.

Workers pounded tall stakes into the hard earth. On them they hung a long single bolt of silk, emblazoned with the Crab Clan mon. An impromptu courtyard and reflecting garden took shape for the daimyo's use.

Hida Yakamo strode up to where Yori stood. "You waste your time and everyone else's with this cheap theater dress courtyard!" As always, he made no effort to hide his disdain for Yori's sense of decorum.

Kuni Yori was the Great Bear's closest adviser, but no man in the Crab army was more dissimilar to Hida Kisada. Yori was a slight man with a pallid complexion, which he accentuated by painting it spectral white. He was a shugenja, and certain eccentricities were to be expected of magic users, but Yori made himself a mask more complex than many Scorpions wore. He claimed it was a mystic symbol that gave him power over creatures of the Shadowlands. The unnerving symbol, along with Yori's naturally domineering personality, gave him power over nearly everyone.

"Yori, you are a skilled shugenja and a gifted tactician," said Yakamo. "You could talk a hawk out of the sky, but you are far too taken with polite culture. Why does my father need a courtyard when he spends most of his days actually on the Wall? The power of his office lies in his strong right arm, not in the bowing and scraping of supplicants. Does he look like that weakling who sits on the Emerald Throne?"

"The daimyo needs a courtyard because of what it represents to the soldiers and commoners around him," said Yori. "The courtyard is a place where life and death decisions are made, Yakamo-san. It is a place of mystery that most of them will never see, but if they do, it will change their lives completely. To generals it is a place where they can show deference in the way befitting their commander. To the other clans it is a place where the daimyo rules absolutely—even the emperor would not dare enter this courtyard and order your father about. It creates the image of a great man and a great leader."

"Bah!" spat a gruff voice from within the makeshift courtyard. "I do not want to 'create the image of a great man'—I
am
a great warrior. Let the world think what it will!" The Great Bear pushed his way through the silk barrier—he was still covered in blood and ichor from today's batde. Something about his posture didn't look right.

"Kisada-sama," Kuni Yori began, bowing deeply, "of what use is might or skill if no one respects them? Yes, the other clans are peacocks strutting gaudy feathers of'culture,' but we can use their fawning traditions against them."

Kisada's confidence in his own abilities allowed him to keep an advisor who saw things completely differently. Today, as always,

Kuni Yori showed Kisada opinions he would
never
come to on his own. But the Great Bear was barely listening.

"When did you arrive?" he asked his son.

"Just past midday," Yakamo replied.

"And Sukune?"

"My brother is in his tent recovering from his hard ride," Yakamo sneered.

Kisada sighed, his shoulders drooping slightly—a posture he often adopted when talking about his youngest son.

"Wake him," the Great Bear ordered. He shouldered his way into his command tent.

XXXXXXXX

"We need to reinforce the position," Sukune's sharp voice rang clearly, though he had not yet reached the command tent. "Transfer a second regiment to that tower, perhaps more. The enemy has sensed a weakness and will continue to strike there until we show them it is useless."

"As usual you miss the point," barked Yakamo. He burst through the tent flap, not bothering to hold it open for his brother. "A single regiment of Crab warriors can defeat anything the Shadowlands throws at us. If we move forces to bolster certain areas, the enemy will attack places where our troops are thinnest."

"But we will suffer needless losses with your plan," Sukune muscled into the tent, though with considerably less ease and bluster than Yakamo. "Good soldiers will die because you wanted to prove a point."

Behind them both came the even smaller form of Kuni Yori. The hood of his shugenja robes was pulled tight around his head. He said nothing. It was quite possible neither Hida brother realized he was there.

"Every man or woman on the Wall is prepared to die for the sake of that point!" said the larger samurai. "If we stand firm and defeat them with an ordinary unit, they will fear every regiment! Every samurai who dies will do so that all other Crab strike fear into the heart of the Shadowlands. That is a death replete with honor."

Kisada glowered from a corner of the tent. He stood with his hands clasped behind his armored back and considered them ruefully. His attendants had cleaned the gore from his armor and skin. There was still something odd about his appearance. "Is this the same argument you were having when you rode out of camp nearly a month ago?"

"It is the same argument we've been having since the day Sukune joined our forces," said Yakamo.

"And it's the same one we'll have for as long as I serve here," replied Sukune.

Kisada laughed, though his heart did not seem in it. "Just the way I want it!" He laughed louder but no more convincingly. "So tell me, what news have you brought from Otosan Uchi?"

"The other clans continue to whine like spoiled children," said Yakamo. "They say you are too bold. That your efforts to defend the empire are not enough; you must also pay personal respect to the emperor every two months. They expect the Great Bear to act like a whipped cur!"

"Is that all?" asked Kisada. "With the urgency they attached to that summons I'd have thought they'd come up with some
new
complaints! I've been brushing those same ones off for over two decades! I daresay you, my son, will have to do the same when you lead the clan."

"We could make it easier on both ourselves and the other clans," Sukune pointed out. As usual his father and brother were in complete harmony, and his was the dissenting voice.

"How?" demanded Kisada. "By following their pointless dictates? You're beginning to sound just like Kuni Yori!"

Sukune took a sharp breath. He distrusted Yori and his hidden games. The shugenja's advice always felt tainted with some spiritual poison that someday would lay low the Great Bear, and perhaps the entire Crab Clan. Sukune was about to protest his father's insult but stopped, cocked his head, and examined the Great Bear from head to toe.

"Where is your tetsubo?" Sukune asked.

Kisada set his jaw and narrowed his eyes, but he did not answer.

"Your tetsubo!" gasped Yakamo.

"Of course!" muttered Yori.

That was what had been so different about the Great Bear's hearing—he hadn't been carrying the tremendous spiked club when he returned from the Wall.

"It was," Kisada paused, uncertain how to explain his loss, laken from me in battle."

A slew of questions burst from their hps. How did it happen? What did it mean? Was this a harbinger of the fall of the Crab Clan?

Kisada silenced them with one steely gaze. "Tomorrow we will get it back!"

XXXXXXXX

"Nothing ever changes in the land of Fu Leng!" Hida Kisada reached down from the saddle, grabbed the goblin that was chewing on his leg, and lifted it clear over his head. The creature wailed piti-I ully and squirmed in his hand, but the Crab daimyo held on with a death grip. "Kill one beast and another rises. Shatter one fortress and a new one takes form. Death and taint—nothing can change that."

It had been years since Kisada led troops into the Shadowlands, but it might as well have been yesterday. The very land itself was blighted with the taint of evil. No tree or blade of grass grew straight or had the proper color. Everything was crooked and gray. A bone-chilling mist clung to the ground even as the midday sun beat down on the Crab daimyo and the hundred samurai he'd brought into the heart of enemy territory. From cracks in the ground, things scuttled forth to assail them—things like this piteous goblin.

The Great Bear tightened his fingers around the goblin's throat, and he could feel the warmth of the creature's blood trickling across his fist. He growled savagely as he crushed the life from the little monster.

With Yakamo at his side, Kisada had ridden across the desolate plain, following the instructions Kuni Yori provided. In the light of the rising sun, the shugenja had cast a spell that led them toward the missing tetsubo. The magic would bring them within a mile or so of the weapon but could not pinpoint its precise location. Kisada was not worried. The oni was sure to have the tetsubo—either in its possession or still impaled in its forehead. Finding a creature as horrendous as that would be easy, even in the midst of a Shadow-lands army. Defeating it was another story, but Yori assured Kisada that he had "something special" prepared for the occasion.

They topped a plateau and found it full of Shadowlands troops. The samurai dismounted. Crab samurai always preferred to fight on foot. From every direction monsters converged on the tight-packed Crab force.

Skeletons clawed at the Great Bear's torso, their bony hands chipping and bending the layers of his heavy armor. A zombie that might once have been a Crab samurai latched onto Kisada's right wrist. Its weight forced the daimyo to release his hold on the no-dachi he carried—secredy, he was glad. The tremendous blade was a fine weapon, but Kisada found it a barely acceptable replacement for his lost tetsubo. Kisada shifted his stance and began crushing skulls with his fist.

Yakamo fought nearby, using his tetsubo to shatter the skulls of three skeletons at a time. His form and savage fury gave Kisada a rush of pride. He was a fine warrior and would make a good daimyo after the Great Bear fought his final battle.

Kisada had left Sukune behind, entrusting him with the management of the forces on the Wall. It was not that Kisada did not trust Sukune in battle—he had proven himself time and again to be brave and resourceful—but the young man's frailty would be too great a hindrance. In the heart of the Shadowlands, the forces of darkness could
see
a warrior's weakness. If Sukune's fragile constitution finally snapped here, it would cost more lives than just his own.

The Great Bear shattered the last of the skeletons clinging to his lower half. That left only the zombie that had his right arm pinned to his side.

The undead thing didn't notice its comrades had been dispatched. Zombies were near brainless monsters. They could follow simple orders given by their masters, but they could not adjust their strategy when the tide of battle shifted. Rather than trying to bring Kisada down, the creature just clung to the Great Bear's arm like a geisha pleading with her lover.

Kisada laid the flat of his palm across the top of the zombie's head. It looked up. The Crab daimyo twisted his wrist violently and pulled the zombie's head and neck clean away from its shoulders. The body fell, and he threw the head the opposite way.

Kisada looked out at his contingent. His samurai were hip-deep in fallen enemies. Shattered skeletons, gutted goblins, and dismembered zombies littered the field as far as the eye could see. Nowhere did Kisada find even a hint of the red, ropy horror that had stolen his tetsubo—that had taken his soul.

"Just like old times, eh, my old friend?"

Kisada turned, shaken from his reverie. On the slope of the hill stood Hiruma Waka, one of the few samurai on the Wall who had more experience than the Great Bear himself. Waka swung a no-dachi nearly identical to the one Kisada had dropped earlier. He showed just how effective the blade could be. Each of his swings cut clean through an opponent
and
wounded the next one in line.

"No, Waka," answered Kisada. "Until I get my tetsubo back,
nothing
will be the same."

As if in response to Kisada's comment, a great commotion arose across the plateau. Goblins ran screaming away, and even skeletons and zombies shambled off faster than usual. The reason soon became clear.

A tremendous, crimson-sinewed creature rose out of the mist and stepped onto the plateau. It lumbered forward, swinging its ropy arms back and forth with each step. Wading into Kisada's troops, it flung samurai through the air like leaves on an autumn breeze. Each of the oni's movements came with a series of pops and crackles. A deep, grating sound, disturbingly like human laughter, escaped its clenched teeth.