Raven’s Quest
K Hayes-Baker
Lord Oyama is dead. His heir, Hayato, and his beautiful daughter, Mizuki, are taken prisoner by the victor, Lord Kurohoshi and incarcerated in his castle at the foot of a brooding volcano. Only Karasu, their brother and ronin priest can save them from a terrible fate. Forging and unlikely alliance with Thom Devlin, an enigmatic pirate from the far side of the workd, Karasu sets out on a quest to free his siblings and restore his brother as the rightful ruler of Kyo-To-shi province. But all is not as it seems. Mizuki posesses the gift of second sight, a great power that dark forces seek and one that puts her in mortal danger.
Time beneath the shadow of the volcano is running out. The peril it holds is immense and the warlodr Kurohoshi seemingly invincible. The firendship between Karasu and Thom, at first wary, ultimately becomes resolute as they fight to save those they love. Yet it is tested to its very core as unforeseen events unfold.
Copyright © 2014 K Hayes-Baker
All rights reserved.
Karasu – Raven
The largest member of the crow family. Sociable, intelligent birds. Mythologically linked with the dead and lost souls, even as the animal mediator between life and death.
ONE
Oyama Naoki sat astride his black mare and stared with incredulity and horror at the vast army before him. He could almost feel and taste the fear that emanated from his men as they waited, steadfast and loyal behind him. That they would fight alongside him he had no doubt. They were brave and honourable men; good warriors all, but they were greatly outnumbered by the black and red clad hordes that covered the wide plain in front of them. He swallowed back the bitter metallic taste that filled his mouth and shifted uneasily in his saddle. Was he right to ask his men to die? For that would be their fate. Few would survive the fight should it ensue, but to surrender? Unthinkable!
The offer had been made three hours previous. A messenger had arrived with an ultimatum, a way to prevent the bloodshed. Hand over the city and the Province to Lord Kurohoshi, stand down as Presidor, gift his daughter to the Lord and Oyama’s people would be spared. Kurohoshi’s message had not said what would become of himself or his eldest son Hayato, but there was little doubt in Naoki’s mind that they would both be executed. Kurohoshi would not risk leaving a male member of their revered dynasty alive. He would not wish to give the people of Kiki Province that hope. The only way to secure total domination throughout Ashima was to destroy the families that opposed him.
Naoki shuddered. Not from the cold, for the summer’s day was hot and sultry, but from fear for his family. For his young daughter Mizuki, just nineteen and as beautiful and innocent as a lily. How could he hand her over to a power greedy Warlord more than twice her age? And what of Hayato? Naoki glanced at the young man by his side and smiled sadly yet with pride at what his heir had become. Hayato was strong and fit. He sat upon his horse ready for battle without a hint of fear or trace of apprehension. His face was set with fierce determination and he barely seemed to break sweat under his leather and steel armour, despite the blistering heat. Could Naoki watch Hayato die? To fight would surely mean death for them both. And what of his youngest son Karasu? Would he be safe in his Temple home? The Presidor of Kyo-To-Shi hoped so.
Naoki uttered a silent prayer to whatever Kami may be watching over him and he lifted his long curved sword high above his head. A strong wind blew at his army’s back from off the sea, but it did not cool or offer any respite from the stifling heat. It was an ill wind blowing in from the mouth of Hell, swelteringly humid and as rank as the breath of Akuma, the devil himself. The blast lifted the banners with a violent crack and they fluttered frenziedly upon their confining poles. The horses stamped their feet and snorted with anxious anticipation of the coming storm. For a tempest was coming. Great black clouds gathered out to sea and swirled menacingly towards the bay behind the city of Kyo-To-Shi and the plain upon which the two armies faced each other. Naoki turned to briefly stare at the looming storm, the first typhoon of the summer, and then with a mighty roar he swung his raised arm forwards, kicked his horse and charged towards the sea of black and red, his son at his side and his men behind him.
Headlong they galloped into the maelstrom, swords flashing and hacking, rifles firing. Hundreds of faceless warriors fell to the ground before them, but the numbers of the enemy were immense and for every one that died three more took his place. The few thousand men of Kiki Province, the faithful Samurai of Oyama Naoki were overwhelmed and cut down by an army ten times their number. Man for man they fought and killed with the best, but they were too few and as the Warlord Kurohoshi Ryuudai watched the massacre unfold he smiled cruelly to himself and let his gaze drift to the white walls of Kyo-To-Shi and he thought of his prize within.
With Lord Oyama out of the way and his marriage to the Presidor’s daughter secured, Kurohoshi knew there would be no one left to oppose him. The other Provinces to the South would bow to his will, none having the wherewithal to fight.
Oyama was the last threat to his ambition and now he watched as the great dynasty met its end. His smile widened to a maniacal grin at the prospect of ruling the entire country. Ashima would soon be his. He thought of Oyama’s heir and his order not to kill the boy. It was not an order that could easily be followed in the heat of battle, for though the lad would be recognisable in his sovereign armour, soldiers rarely had chance to think. He could quite easily be killed or even take his own life to save his family’s honour. Kurohoshi hoped neither fate would be the final outcome. He had another destiny in mind for young Hayato. One that would ensure his unquestioned domination and total humiliation of the Oyama clan.
Hayato fell from his horse and landed heavily on the hard ground just as the rain began to fall. He struggled to his feet, a pain stabbing mercilessly through his right leg and he sucked in air as he looked down at the limb to see a long tattered gash through his armour and into the flesh beneath. Blood oozed though the soft cotton of his hakama pants beneath the leather apron aimed to protect his legs. He saw a blade on the ground, discarded and broken and thought it ironic that he should be wounded by an ownerless weapon. He ripped the scarf from around his neck and frantically tied it around his thigh to stem the flow of blood, and then he searched the scene of carnage around him, desperate to find his own swords or a rifle. The rain lashed into his face, through the grill of his elaborate, enamelled helmet and stung at his eyes sending the world into a blur of grey with the occasional flash of red or yellow. Angrily he tore the helmet from his head and threw it into the mud with a shout of rage, wiping his face and eyes with his hand and resuming his search. He did not think it imprudent to remove his protection; it was more of a hindrance now than anything else.
Hayato staggered, half blinded by the lashing rain and deafened by the screams and shouts of men and horses, by the crack of gunshot. He tripped over the body of a man. A Samurai wearing the yellow plumes of his father’s house and he cursed loudly at the storm. But the dead man had a sword still clutched in his hands and quickly Hayato relieved the cadaver of the weapon. He gazed about him alternately squinting into the downpour and wiping the water from his face. Then spying his enemy, with a cry, he raised the sword and lunged forward hardly feeling the pain that shot through his leg and not seeing the countless corpses he stumbled over. He was fuelled by the desire to kill, to rid his land of this usurping army. This malevolent force that had spread like a putrefying plague throughout Ashima destroying all that stood in its way. Kiki was the last Province of any stature to stand against the red tide. If Kiki fell then the southern provinces would follow, none having a strong army or a warrior leader. His father had stressed how much there was to lose. If Kurohoshi was victorious, the Provinces of the south wo
uld lose their right to free governance, their people little more than slaves serving a heartless ruler. Hayato drove forward into the mire of battle, infused with hate and lust for bloodshed.
Oyama Naoki knew it was over when the bullet blazed through his breast plate and burst like fire into his chest. The force of it almost knocked him directly from the black mare, but he managed to hold on just long enough to realise his life had ended. The fight was over and with it the crushing knowledge that his family was doomed. The bitter metallic taste of blood filled his mouth and his vision, already blurred by the incessant rain, began to cloud and darken. Slowly the world faded; a rushing wind blasted his eardrums and drowned out the sounds of battle. Then he was sliding and falling. Falling endlessly forwards into a black pit. Towards Hell.
Lord Oyama’s First Samurai watched with horror as the great man slid down the drenched neck of his horse and into the mud at her feet. The animal snorted and tossed her massive head agitatedly then moved away a few paces as if not wanting to be near her dead master. The Samurai looked around frantically squinting through the sheets of water, searching for the heir, for Hayato. He could not find him. It was impossible to see in the gloom and deluge. He shouted the order to retreat, hoping that enough men could hear him and that they could fall back to the city gates and hold the enemy off at least long enough for him to get to the Lady Mizuki and make fast her escape. A boat waited in the harbour, but to put to sea in a storm like this would be suicide. All he could ask is that they could hold off Kurohoshi’s army until the typhoon abated. An impossible hope, but one he held on to. He had made a promise to a man who now lay dead only a few strides away. The Samurai pulled his horse around and pushed towards the city, on his way gathering with him survivors still able to fight.
They almost made it. The gates were in sight and then the black and red hordes closed in around them, cutting them off from their escape and circling the few hundred that remained. As the First Samurai pulled his horse to a standstill the crowd of soldiers before him parted like a wave revealing, before the gates, a lone Oyama warrior, his head bare and bent with shame. Beside him were four of Kurohoshi’s Samurai, their swords sheathed and rifles pointing at the captive. With a groan the First Samurai realised the city and with it all Kiki’s fate was sealed. Kurohoshi’s men had captured Hayato. There was no one left to fight for. No way to get to the girl. They were beaten; defeated by a superior force that had been favoured by the spirits of the storm. He dropped his weapons and the men with him did the same. They had failed.
TWO
Mizuki knew that her father was dead long before Lord Kurohoshi burst through the castle doors and began his search for her. It was part of her unnaturalness, her ability to see and why she was not yet matched with another of sovereign blood. Mizuki was gifted with a level of precognition that would fill most of the population with superstitious dread and cause her to be branded Majo, a witch. She was Sennjo, a changeling, and as such she had no place in the mortal world, should have been killed at birth if it had been possible to tell, the faerie within exorcised and returned to its sisters in the spirit sphere. But Mizuki still lived.
She had been only nine when her father noticed telltale signs that caused him to fret and fear for his daughter. By rights he should have cast her out. Let her live or die alone, homeless and persecuted. But he did not and now Mizuki was three weeks from her twentieth birthday, because her father had been an enlightened man. A man who believed her ability a gift from the Kami of Light and not a possession by some faerie or mischievous sprite.
Over the years Mizuki had learned to hide her ability, to appear normal with no special attributes other than her fragile beauty and her artistic talent. Thus she had stayed alive, yet the price for that life was loneliness. No one outside of the family knew her secret and no one ever could. To have a husband would ultimately lead to discovery, banishment for herself into the wild mountainous interior and shame upon her father and brothers.
Mizuki did not bemoan her solitary life, neither did she rail at the imposed imprisonment too greatly. She had the love of her family and the loyalty of a few close servants. She had everything she could desire, except freedom to do as she wished and though she had often burned with the unfairness of her lot, she was a rational being and understood her life to be far better than most. Things would have been different if she had been born a boy. Then she may have followed the same path as Karasu, her twin brother. He was Sennjo also, but he had been placed with a holy order of Sento priests where he had the liberty to roam and speak to whomever he wished. Being male his ability was accepted, being a vessel through which the Kami spoke. His lot was to be a priest. Blessed and respected, and, to some extent, free. There were no such things as female priests. Being Sennjo made Mizuki an abomination, whereas her brother was divine.
But now Mizuki felt afraid. She grieved for her father as soon as she saw him fall from his beautiful mare and with that grief came an overpowering recognition that her protector had gone. She knew Hayato had been taken and was powerless to help. Her fate now lay in the hands of a man whose reputation was one of ruthlessness, and her own ability to live a lie.
Mizuki stared at the painting she had laboured over for two days now. A wooden sailing ship on a tempestuous sea. Quite why she had painted such a scene she did not know; it was not one she had experience of. She knew nothing of the sea and even less of the vessels that so precariously sailed upon it. The few ships in her father’s harbour were unlike this one, with its square rigged fore and mainmasts and large, broad gaff-sail extending to the stern. It was a type of boat she had seen only occasionally, one which her father had explained had come from the far side of the world, from the Westlands. The image inferred had left her wide eyed with wonder at the thought of the men within the fragile wooden vessel plying a living across the vast emptiness of the oceans.
Gazing at her accurate reproduction of a twin masted Brig she had never seen, she frowned remembering the vision-like dream that had inspired her painting. Mizuki felt certain that the ship in the storm held some significance for her, but what and why were far beyond her comprehension. Whatever its meaning, at this moment, it was irrelevant for now she was alone and terribly afraid.
Below her rooms in the white stoned keep she heard shouts followed by gunshots, terrible screams and shouted orders to search the castle. Mizuki trembled with terror. Tears welled in her eyes and fell from her long dark lashes spilling onto the paint pallet upon her knee. She cried for her father, she cried for her elder brother for she saw the shame and humiliation that would be his burden and she cried for herself and what she feared would be her fate. Removing the smock she wore to protect the fine silk of her kimono she took a final glance at the sailing ship on its wild canvass sea and with all the will and concentration she could muster called out to Karasu for help in a way only she could.
THREE
Karasu wielded both katana blades skilfully through the air parrying first one attacker and then the next. He whirled around spinning his head much as a dancer does to maintain poise and balance and then whipped his right arm upwards to meet the sword that threatened to slash across his torso. Around the mountains dark, ominous clouds were gathering and the wind, that had started as a whispered breeze earlier that morning, had built into a frantic rush of hot humid air that buffeted the four men sparring within the quadrangle.
The young apprentice felt the gale pushing at his back and billow his wide, white hakama pants and haori coat. He enjoyed the force of it. He experienced pleasure at its wild, balmy strength lifting his long black hair from his face. It increased his adrenalin fuelled elation. He was empowered by the coming storm; part of nature not apart from it. It was as if the kaze infused his whole being with its immense energy.
He caught the flash of a blade to his left and in a deft spinning pirouette met it with his own, circling his steel around his opponent’s and ripping the weapon from the priest’s hand. It left only two to disarm and therefor
e, only two to watch. Karasu saw them circling now; trying to launch a simultaneous attack from opposing sides. He turned on the spot, his softly slippered feet moving nimbly without sound upon the sand of the sparring field. His heart beat furiously with exertion and from the excitement of the fight and he could feel sweat trickle down his back, but he felt alive. More alive than anyone could imagine. He crossed one foot in front of the other, each sword pointing at an opponent, his eyes flitting from one man to the other, oblivious to the others watching all around them.
The older priest to his right made a sudden lunge forwards and the young man to Karasu’s left echoed the movement. With lightening swiftness he met both katanas with his own and dropped forwards rolling away as the antagonists’ weight plunged them towards one another. He was on his feet again in an instant and facing both opponents who had scarcely managed to avoid each other and were recovering their position. Karasu smiled. He had them now. They had lost the advantage and it was hard for them to encircle him. He swung the blades expertly within each hand and dropping his weight onto bent legs pointed the elegantly curved swords towards the slowly advancing priests.
The shock of the vision was sudden, blinding and painful. The gathered priests of the Inari Shrine gazed in dumb amazement as they saw Oyama Karasu suddenly stagger forwards; inexplicably dropping both his weapons, and fall to the floor where he stayed his head bent to the ground. The two men who had being sparring with him simply stared at one another before dropping their swords also and rushing to the aid of their brother monk. It was evident that something was terribly wrong. Thirty seconds ago they were certain they had lost the match, had seen Karasu smile his confident, slightly lopsided grin; recognised the victorious glint in his dark, almond eyes and knew once more that he had out played them. Now he crouched on his hands and knees on the floor, his body shaking uncontrollably.
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