by Ree Soesbee
Slowly, Toshimoko's retinue grew. The forgotten magis-I rates flocked to his side. Few had horses—indeed, most did not even have sandals—but all remembered the reason they had joined the Emerald Champion so many years before. They remembered honor. It alone had given them hope through the empty years.
"Sensei," Wayu said several days later as the men marched toward the foothills of the Dragon Clan.
Toshimoko's sturdy pony whickered, pushing its head against the man that walked to one side. "Yes, Wayu-san?"
"One of the men," he indicated a wiry youth, no more than sixteen, who bore the emperor's mon as if it were a shield to guard his honor, "says he knows a shorter route through the mountains. If he is correct, it could save us three days."
Toshimoko raised an eyebrow. Fourteen men followed him now, from aging investigators to young toughs, all tested by time but forgotten beneath the empire's gaze. "What's his name?"
"He calls himself Toku, Sensei. Hometsai found him in the east village, just beneath the cliffs."
The name Toku meant honest. "Bring him to me. We'll discuss it."
Wayu bowed, pacing to the rear of the marching men. He stepped toward the boy and cuffed him on the back of his neck. Faintly, Toshimoko heard Wayu chastising the other samurai as he urged him forward. "If you lie to him, boy, I'll have your ears for the eta."
Toshimoko laughed. He called a halt. Breaking a soft branch from a nearby birch tree, he began to peel the bark from it with a small tanto.
Wayu strode toward him, pushing the boy to his knees as he reached Toshimoko's side.
"Toku, hmm?"
Dark brown eyes peered from beneath a shock of black hair. "Hai, Champion-sama, hai."
"Call him sensei," Wayu punched the boy again, lightly but with enough sting to make him tilt to one side.
"Champion is for formalities," Toshimoko agreed, chewing on the birch twig. "Sensei is for a teacher, which is what you men need now."
"Teacher? I do not need a tea ... ow!" The boy shouted as Wayu cuffed him again. "I'm a samurai. Samurai." He pointed to the jade token that hung around his neck.
"So?" The Crane looked at his Badger lieutenant. "Tell me about this pass through the hills."
Staring belligerently at Wayu, Toku began to scuff up dirt with his hands. Forming a crude pile, he reached for some of I he scraps of bark that lay at Toshimoko's feet and lay them in twisting lines through the heaped dust. "Iiere is the mountain. Here, the river. Here is a bridge. It is small, wooden," Toku squinted up past his uneven mop of hair. "But it can carry your men, one at time. Better than going around the river. That way takes four days, and then you have to go through Matsu lands."
"Matsu, hmm?" The old man looked at Wayu thoughtfully and continued, "What are the women like in Matsu lands, Wayu-san?"
"Cold as the Dragon mountains, and with fewer peaks."
The sensei's laughter echoed through the glen. Even Toku smiled. Toshimoko said, "Then we'd better trust the boy. Ibku-san, lead the way."
xxxxxxxx
In the foothills of the Dragon, snow twisted down the mountain in white spirals. Higher still, it made sweeping plains of ice. The weather slowed Toshimoko and his men to half their previous pace. Even the Crane lands must be covered in snow, he thought. With no news, he could only hope—and continue his march.
After three weeks, they neared a small village at the edge of the Shinjo lands, below the frozen mountains. Toshimoko sent Wayu ahead to find the village. The rest of the magis-I rates marched along the bitter, stone-covered Dragon roads, wrapping their thin cloaks tightly at their sides. Even Toshimoko's pony shivered in the bitter wind that ruffled its thick winter hair. The men groaned with the weight of the cold.
Wayu returned. His breath turned to white mist in the bitter chill. "The village is to the southwest. The road passes by a river where we can bathe. You can see the Shinjo plains from there. Not far now, Sensei." Wayu seemed pale, unsettled by his trip, but this was no time to discuss strategy or danger. Not in front of the gathered men.
It had been hard enough to kick them into the journey, and would be harder still to tell them that there was danger ahead. Toshimoko snorted, watching the mist from his nostrils trail away like the smoke of a dragon. Half the men would charge forward, their swords open and their heads empty. The other half would shiver in fear and wait for his command. A far cry, thought the sensei, from the bravery of Satsume's Emerald Guard.
Toshimoko nodded, noting that Wayu still awaited his response. "River, hmm?"
"Hai."
"Good." Looking over his ramshackle group, Toshimoko smiled. "Plenty of time to bathe, then. Toku-san!"
Many of the men winced at the thought of bathing in an icy river, but the alternative was to enter Unicorn lands stinking like the worst heimin. Mismatched garments of gray and brown covered most of their bodies, patched together with bits of red, gold, and blue.
"Toku, I want you to find walnuts." Opening the water bag at his waist, Toshimoko drank a long swallow from its mouth.
"Walnuts? You hungry, Sensei?" The cheerful young man grinned up at him, one eye squinted shut against the brightness of the sun.
"Many walnuts, Toku. Ten helmets full, or more. Take the others with you."
Toku hopped from one foot to the other, his padded legs dancing in the snow. "There's a forest to the north. I know it. I'll find them, Sensei, if I have to steal them from the squirrels." Bowing awkwardly, he bounded among the other men and collected their battered helms.
Toshimoko took another swallow of water. He corked the bag and tied it to his wooden saddle once more. The shaggy pony snorted, eager to resume walking.
"Wayu and the sensei say follow me." Toku said proudly (o the other magistrates. "I'll show you the way." With curious glances, the men followed Toku into the woods.
Wayu watched his sensei's long fingers impatiently tap the wooden pommel of the saddle. When they were alone, Wayu bowed once more. "There's something else, Sensei."
"I know. What is it?"
"Two men, on stakes near the village's arch. Their heads .ire removed, placed on top, their bodies spread out on the stakes to feed the birds."
Grunting, the sensei said, "Heimin?"
"No, Sensei. Samurai, by their hair and garments." Wayu's voice dropped. His nut-brown eyes grew even more concerned. "One of the bodies bears the token of an Emerald Magistrate."
"Signs of plague?"
"Hai, Sensei, but no banner warding us away."
The men would be horrified by this treatment of their companions, but they were bushi, and they were samurai. It would not turn them back. Toshimoko caught the attention of three of the men as they headed toward the forest. "Keep your swords ready," he ordered.
"Hai, Sensei."
As soon as the men returned from gathering walnuts, Toshimoko started the march back down the road. Soon, he saw what Wayu had reported—a small village, no more [ban forty huts and barns. Steep hills clustered tightly around the town, and thick snow drifts piled beside narrow, twisting village roads. Any number of bandits could hide here, ready to destroy the unwary. At the entrance to the village stood a torii arch, between two large boulders. To either side of the road, a pike had been buried deeply in the ground.
The bodies they held were less than ten days old and seemed lashed against the torii arch. The cold had preserved them despite the animals that picked away flesh and sinew. The samurai had been hamstrung. Their feet dangled beneath the thick hemp that tied them to the stakes. Their chests had been torn by several sharp wounds, which sagged open beneath the stumps of rotting necks. Above, their heads leered down with lidless eyes.
The men marching on the road made no sound other than the hiss of breath, trying not to stare up at the bodies splayed before them.
Only Toku said anything at all. "Shinsei..." he whispered. "Poor bastards."
Around the necks of each of the two men hung the small jade tablets of the Emerald Magistrates. Even in troubled times, the peasa
nts feared to pillage the tablets, lest they draw the emperor's wrath.
Toshimoko rode his skittish pony near the bodies and used a tanto to cut the tablets free. They fell to the ground, sinking into the thin crust of snow.
Wayu lifted his arm to point at the village. "Master, there's someone coming."
Toshimoko looked up and saw four heimin standing in the door of one of the huts. In their hands, they held hoes and other farm implements—tools better saved for the spring thaw.
"Turn back." One of them shouted with a thick Unicorn drawl. "You aren't wanted here."
"There's plague," another added, thumping his scythe on the ground. He pointed at a small boil beginning on one of his hands, and then to the black ribbons that adorned one of the larger huts at the edge of the village.
Toshimoko glanced at his men.
Their eyes shifted nervously from the village to the staked bodies.
"No plague," Toshimoko shouted. "Only dead magistrates."
"No samurai in this village," a heimin yelled arrogantly. "No more. Go home."
"Who killed these men?" It was a command, barked loudly. The heimin instinctively ducked behind their crude weapons. When they gave no response, Toshimoko shouted again, tugging his horse's reins and riding beneath the high torii arch. "Who killed the servants of the emperor?" He signaled Wayu to prepare for a fight. Keeping one hand on his sword, Toshimoko urged his pony toward the heimin.
"I did." It was a quiet assertion, resigned and calm.
Toshimoko looked to his left, at one of the smaller huts. In the doorway stood a man in the tattered hakima of a samurai. His hair was shaved except for a small topknot perched easily on his head. His face was browned by weather and age, his swords hung loosely in their battered saya. On his left cheek, a boil had begun, leaking its pus down the man's jawbone.
Toshimoko cleared his throat. "These men were the emperor's hand in this region."
"They were murderers, rapists, and brigands. They brought the plague into this village, and they murdered the people who lived here." The man seemed well educated, his clear syllables rolling from a swollen tongue.
"Your name?"
"I am Daidoji Kensen. You are Sensei Toshimoko-sama. Yes, I know who you are. I was wondering how long it would take you to bring your brigand band to our village."
Surprised, Toshimoko swung down from his horse. "What testimony did you have against those men?"
"My own," he managed in a faintly strained voice. "And that of the heimin." Gesturing toward the clump of peasants holding their farm tools in white-knuckled hands, the samurai nodded. "You're the emperor's hand now."
"I am." Toshimoko walked toward the Daidoji, stepping over the drifts of snow that lay in the road. When he was three strides away, the sensei stopped. Caution flared in his old veins. His eyes narrowed.
"Then take this." Drawing a token of jade from his gi, he pulled the string over his neck and threw it at Toshimoko's feet. "Five years ago, I was posted here by Doji Satsume, with those men, to preserve the emperor's law upon this land." But I will no longer serve an emperor who will not heal his people."
Behind Toshimoko, several of the men growled, sensing the disrespect in Kensen's words.
The sensei lifted his hand, quieting his men. Glancing around at the village, he estimated that two hundred men and women could live here. If even a fourth of them were men in fighting condition, with scythes and pitchforks, Toshimoko's band could be overcome. Heimin, the sensei thought. It was ironic to come through all this only to be attacked by a plague-ridden Daidoji and rotten dogs. "Speak your mind, Kensen."
"I don't have to. This village and thousands like it speak for me. The empire is dying, and the emperor has no will— no strength—to heal its wounds. Look around you, Toshi-moko-sama. Tell me. What has the emperor, with all his politics and power struggles, done for us?"
"You have no right to question the emperor!" Though he remained at the arch, Wayu's hand instinctively reached for his sword.
The Daidoji did not flinch, nor even look at Wayu. He only stared into Toshimoko's blue eyes with solid brown ones. "Kill me, Emerald Champion. Kill us all, for what we have become. But do not kill us because you believe it to be your duty. Strike because it is time to be rid of the plague upon this land. The wound that Satsume was given at Otosan Uchi has spread, leaving boils in its path. He did not even die honorably, but wasted away in his tent like the pitiful champion he was. And when he died, the Emerald Magistrates died with him. We are the corruption from Satsume's wound, Toshimoko-sama. We are the foulness that has spilled from his failures."
Shuffling on one putrid foot, the Daidoji stepped closer.
He reeked of rotting flesh. "Kill me, Sensei of the Crane, because it is your duty. Follow the commands of an emperor who is dying of the same disease that slaughters his empire. There is no honor anymore."
"Kneel," Toshimoko said slowly, "and I will give you the death you deserve. Honorable seppuku, to pay the Fortunes for your dishonorable words." He stepped closer to the Daidoji, moving within a sword's length, unafraid.
The Daidoji shook his head. "I will die fighting, old man, not on my knees. I will die knowing that I have served my duty by killing those who believed the emperor was more important than the empire." Drawing his sword in one stroke, the samurai called, "How will you die, Champion?"
Instinctively, Toshimoko drew and struck. His blade passed effortlessly through the samurai's body. Toshimoko looked back over his shoulder as he completed the stroke. His cloak whirled slowly past the falling Daidoji.
The magistrate had not even bothered to swing his blade.
"Well done, Sensei!" His men cheered, raising their fists in salute.
From the doorway, a comely young peasant maiden rushed, kneeling beside the fallen Daidoji. Tears fell from her expressive eyes. Toshimoko took a step back as she clasped the man's tanto. She buried it to the hilt in her own throat. She fell beside him. Small plague boils on her hands wept angry fluid across her swollen belly. Blood gushed from the wound in her throat.
Had it been the Daidoji's child, ill-gotten on the woman? Toshimoko wondered. And how had the heimin girl learned to claim an honorable death—a samurai's death? A peasant willing to die like a samurai....
Toshimoko cleaned his blade on the Daidoji's weathered gi and sheathed it. There was more to this corruption than he could see with his eyes. "Take no food from this village," he ordered his men, commanding them to move on. "We want nothing of this to carry with us."
The men grumbled. It meant another three-day march with little provision. Still, none of the men wished to risk plague simply to ease their rumbling bellies. They would follow his command.
Toshimoko mounted his pony and rode away. He looked back at the heimin who clustered about the body of the fallen magistrate.
If only it were so easy to leave the Daidoji's words behind.
blood and shadow
chains.
Cold stone wall pressed angry wounds into his spine. Iron manacles tore the flesh of his wrists. Chains bound him, stretching from taut arms up toward a ceiling hidden by darkness. His silk gi and vest had been taken from him, leaving him half naked against the chill of mortar and rock.
Hoturi's eyes stung with salt. Blood trailed down his wrists. For how long had he been confined—two days? Ten? Somewhere above him, the Crane must believe he had taken another of his anonymous journeys. Somewhere, far above him in wooden hallways and gently arched rooms, Kachiko played her courtly games. The emperor labored, breath to breath, and the Crane battled with Lion and Crab.
Their champion was a fool, and he deserved to die in darkness and chains.
Stone grated on stone, and a faint light shone against the floor. Footsteps, soft and delicate, whispered behind flickers of torchlight. Two figures approached. Their forms were blackened by shadow, framed in halos of gold.
Aramoro. One was Bayushi Aramoro, with eyes like black chips of stone behind his veiled mask. It clung
to his lower jaw, shielding his nose and lips from sight while leaving his eyes free to shine with hatred. He lifted the torch above his head and lit another that hung from a nearby wall. As it burst into slow, sparking flame, the other figure moved closer.
Her body slid gently beneath the rich silk of her kimono, weaving like flame against the pale light. In her hands she bore a heavily ornamented golden box, which shone with an inner light. Even its brightness did not match the radiance of her smile.
"Good morning, Hoturi-sama," Kachiko whispered. Her musical voice echoed through the chambers and labyrinths of Otosan Uchi's deepest heart. "How well you look, my lord. How the night's rest has suited you."
Her hair, pinned up by ivory clips, coiled like ropes of silk. Setting the box on a low, spiderweb-covered table nearby, Kachiko stepped toward him and placed her hand on his cheek.
Hoturi shuddered from the unwanted touch. Her warm hand felt violating, and yet soothing. Reflexively, he tore his face away and tried not to hear her tickling laughter.
Behind her, Aramoro lit another torch. The room slowly took shape. Spiders had owned this space for years, covering its low ceiling and thick walls in their white canopies. Chains hung from thickly mortared stones nearby, and three low tables were the only other furnishings.
Aramoro lit a third torch and placed the one from his hand in an empty iron bracket on the wall.
"How the mighty have fallen," Kachiko murmured, using one delicate red fingernail to touch the chains that bound him. "How low have you become, Hoturi, and how it suits you. The higher you fly, my lord, the farther you have to fall...."
Hoturi struggled against his chains, trying to reach her pale shoulders. "I will kill you, woman. This treachery is beneath even you. What game are you playing with me, Kachiko? What will this do for you, when you have killed me?"