by Stan Brown
"Are you shopping for a third husband even before your second honeymoon?"
Kachiko's smile only deepened.
"I know that my husband is not well liked or respected," she said becoming deadly serious again. "Neither of these conditions is likely to change in the coming months. You are right in assuming that I want what is best for me, Kisada-sama. But you do me a grave disservice if you think that I am not also interested in the health of the empire.
"You have done me the 'honor' of being straight to the point. I will offer you the same 'courtesy.'" She clearly was unimpressed with the Great Bear's lack of subtlety. "It is only a matter of time until the new Hantei meets the same fate as his father. This time no one will have the 'unscrupulous Scorpion Clan' to blame it on. This time it will be a clan of honor, one that believes in upholding the code of bushido and strengthening the bonds of tradition—so long as it puts them in power. I say that the empire would be much better served by a man of power and military vision—an emperor who can repair the damage done by an Imperial Palace filled with bureaucrats, not warriors.
"You are such a man, if rumors are true. With the support of the empress, you could repair this divided throne."
Kisada looked away from the Lady Scorpion. He gazed again at the capital in flames. So much had gone wrong in the last week. So many twisted and weak people were vying for power. The Great Bear longed to be back at the Kaiu Wall.
Then he remembered the oni's words.
Two voices, neither trustworthy, urged him to seize power. Why would the Shadowlands and the last remaining Scorpion want him on the throne? Was it possible to turn the machinations of evil against itself? Was it possible that he indeed was the best choice to repair the recently rent Emerald Throne?
"I will think upon what you've said, Lady Kachiko. Please ask no more of me."
She honored his plea, but as the Lady Scorpion turned to walk to her young husband's side, she suppressed a triumphant grin.
AT WHAT PRICE, WAR?
1 his is like old times again, my friend!" Kisada barked in the midst of a fight atop the Wall.
Hearing a new foe, he turned and swung his tetsubo furiously at eye level. If his opponent had been human, the blow would have crushed his skull. Unfortunately, Kisada faced an ogre, head and shoulders taller than he. His blow slammed into the creature's ribs but had little effect.
"If you say so, my lord," said Hiruma Waka. "But in the old days these beasts fell much quicker!"
His no-dachi flashed through the swarm of goblins and other terrible creatures. The nearly seven feet of its blade decapitated one foe and injured four more. The no-dachi was usually a young man's weapon, requiring brawn more than brains. Waka's arms no longer had the strength they did in the days when he and Kisada raided into the Shadowlands for the sheer joy of battle, but Waka used the gigantic
sword with cunning. Whirling strokes staved off several attackers while cutting a single target into pieces.
"Time is our enemy, Waka," Kisada said.
He thrust the broad flat head of the club into the ogre's midsection, hoping to steal its breath. The ogre's stomach proved as resilient as its side. The tetsubo pushed the monster back a few steps but didn't knock the wind from its lungs.
Now, the ogre had room to swing its tree trunk-sized arms to swat the Crab daimyo off the Wall.
"That's funny," Waka muttered. He swung his no-dachi in a double circle, once over his head and once at knee level. "I thought the Shadowlands were our enemy." Three legless goblins fell screaming to the stone walkway atop the Carpenter's Wall. An ogre clutched its hands to its now-blind eyes.
"You know what I mean!" Kisada dived over the ogre's arm as it swung in a deadly arc toward his neck. He rolled up behind the ogre, leaving the creature with an almost comical look on its face as it tried to find the Great Bear. "Nothing ever changes! The Wall is the same. The battle is the same. Even the enemy is the same. For all we know, we will fight these very same creatures again after the Shadowlands sorcerers raise them into undeath.
"The only thing that changes is us! We age. Our vision fades. Our reflexes slow. Eventually we weaken to the point where we can no longer adequately defend ourselves, and we do not return from the next battle. A noble death to be sure, but then the whole work of our lives, everything we fought for, goes unfinished."
The ogre found its target and turned.
Kisada swung his tetsubo in an upward arc.
The creature set its shoulders and gritted its teeth, anticipating a strike to the chin.
Kisada st ruck between the ogre's legs.
The creature howled piteously and fell to its knees.
"What are you saying, Kisada-kun?" Waka was an old enough warrior and friend to speak to the daimyo in such a casual manner. "That you don't want to fight anymore? That you want to retire before you fall one step short? That does not sound like the Great Bear! Not at all!"
"Of course that's not what I mean!" Kisada twisted his waist all the way to the right and uncurled himself in a powerful but dangerously off-balance swing. He struck the ogre across the cheek. The mighty blow broke the creature's spine. When the ogre fell lifeless to the ground its head faced the wrong direction.
"I meant that, like you, I am beginning to think about fighting like an old man. I'm considering very carefully who the real enemy is. I could fight the creatures of the Shadowlands for the rest of my life and three lifetimes more, and I could not really protect the empire. For every monster I slay, two more will rise to take its place. This border will never be secure."
"So who would you fight? Even the Great Bear cannot have a battle without an enemy."
Kisada caught his balance and looked around. For the moment the only enemies were the goblins that ringed Waka. Kisada engaged three of them.
"My duty is to protect the empire, and Rokugan has more enemies now than ever, But the greatest threats come from within. It has been two years since our emperor took the Emerald Throne, and the empire is no more stable than it was the day he stripped Toturi of his name."
Two years? Had it really been two years? Kisada marveled again at how time worked against them all.
"So what?" Waka blurted. The constant barrage of foes was beginning to steal his breath. "Nothing is different—not for the Crab. Whether it is one Hantei or another, Scorpion or Lion sitting on the throne, we still must defend the border. What concern is it of yours how the emperor runs his court?"
Kisada pondered the question as he crushed the first goblin's skull. How could he tell his friend of the opportunity he'd passed up—twice? The Great Bear knew that if he had taken the Emerald Throne, the empire would not be in the weakened condition it was now.
Hantei the 39th had turned eighteen, but he had not become a man. Shortly after ascending the throne, he contracted a plague— the same plague that now ravaged the countryside, a plague for which no healer or shugenja could find a cure. Some said the illness 70 # Stan! IE
was caused by Shadowlands curses. Others said the kami punished the foolish child for marrying the Scorpion Lady. All Kisada knew was that the young Hantei was rarely well enough to tend to matters of state. Kachiko did most of the governing—Kachiko, who had urged the Great Bear to claim the throne. Whether by her own hand or not, she'd certainly gained the power she craved without Kisada's cooperation.
Now he wondered if he had refused out of honor or cowardice.
A new wave of goblins spilled over the ramparts. Like flood-waters they were suddenly everywhere, with barely a moment's warning. They chewed on Kisada's legs, hung off his arms, and tried to pry off his helmet.
Sometimes, he mused, the best thing about battle is that it keeps you from having to think about the tough questions.
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"The Great Bear is finally coming out of his cave!" Kuni Yori cackled to himself as he stared into the scrying pool.
Whenever Hida Kisada went off to fight on the Wall, the shugenja retired to his private sanctum and cast a
spying enchantment. In battle, Kisada felt comfortable. He let his guard down and allowed his true feelings to co'me out. From the things the daimyo said to Waka, Yori knew his scheming and nudging were having their intended effect.
The shugenja seemed tall and powerful in the dark, tiny room—at least he would have if anyone could see him. There were plenty of dead eyes in this place—the shiny eyes of stuffed creatures dangling on wires, the empty sockets of skulls that lined the shelves, even the eyes floating in jars of brine. To them, Yori seemed tall and powerful. The only light in the room came from the image in Yori's magical pool. It played across his painted face in odd flashes of color,
Yori was a patient man. He knew that the only way to accomplish great things was to take them one small step at a time. He had been waiting for two full years for this first sign that his work on Kisada was beginning to bear fruit.
"You fought well and hard, my lord," he said to the warrior in his scrying pool. "And left to your own devices I think it would still be years until you came around to see the truth. The empire might not be dead, but with the weakling Hantei on the throne its heart has been removed. You know it. I know it. And the other clans certainly know it. Tensions rise between them, and open hostility is a near certainty. How can you protect an empire that is tearing itself apart? What Rokugan needs now is a strong emperor."
Yori's spell showed Kisada beating savagely at the goblins that engulfed him. Every shrug of his massive shoulders sent two or three of the creatures flying, but four more took their place.
"Yes, the Emerald Throne, Kisada," Yori continued. "That is your karma. You are destined to be emperor, whether you want to or not. I will not see you deny that destiny. I will not miss the chance to become the power behind the throne. All it takes is patience. The Bayushi woman knows that better than anyone, and look where it got her."
The shugenja leaned forward to decipher the chaos displayed in his pool. The tips of his dangling thin moustache nearly brushed the water. Still he could not make out Kisada's form under the mass of Shadowlands creatures.
"This will not do," he muttered. It would be unfortunate if the Great Bear actually fell in battle just when Yori started making real progress. Of course, not everything would be lost. The shugenja had already begun to work his influence over Kisada's heir, Yakamo. The boy had the Great Bear's powerful physique, and he owned the respect of the rank and file of the Crab army. He also had the emi-nendy exploitable weakness of high ambition. Yakamo thought the Crab was intrinsically better than the Lion, Crane, and other clans. He believed that it was his clan's destiny to rule all the others.
Yori sometimes considered the work he did softening Kisada's resolve as a means of gaining absolute control over Yakamo. The more the daimyo listened to Yori, the more his heir accepted the shugenja's word as holy truth. In the end, it might well be in Kuni Yori's best interest if Kisada fell before the swarm of goblins—for he surely would hold even tighter sway over a Crab Clan headed by young Yakamo.
The only Hida that Yori could not dupe was Sukune. The daimyo's second son seemed to see right through every ploy and misdirection the shugenja used. Thankfully, the Great Bear was blinded by the boy's frail body—he never paid Sukune the attention he deserved.
"No," muttered Yori as he pulled the hood of his black velvet robes lower across his brow. "I still have need of you, Great Bear. You have influence in quarters your son has not yet reached. Besides, I can see that I've already won this battle—I just have to wait for the cracks in your sanctimonious armor to spread. Then you'll be doing my bidding and believing it's all of your own accord."
In the scrying pool, a goblin wielding a nage-yari got free behind Kisada and was about to thrust the javelin between the Great Bear's ribs.
Kuni Yori reached deep into his robes and pulled out a strip of silk as black as midnight. He held it over the scrying pool and said, "No, minions of darkness! We need Kisada alive—for now!"
The shugenja squeezed the silk. An oily bead of liquid dribbled out between his fingers and dropped into the scrying pool.
The goblin stopped in midstab. A glazed look came over its eyes. Instead of skewering the unprotected Kisada, it turned the nage-yari around. Placing the blade against its ridged breastbone and wedging the bottom in a seam in the tower's floor, the creature threw itself down against the javelin. The first blow did not crack its thick ribcage, so it puEed itself off the nage-yari and thrust down again and again until at last the blade passed all the way through and came out the other side.
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I cannot move my arms, Kisada calmly thought to himself. I cannot feel my feet.
The goblins' chipped fingernails jabbed under the seams of his armor. Viciously pointed teeth broke the skin on his legs and shoulders. The weight of so many opponents kept his arms pinned to his body, preventing the Crab daimyo from using his tremendous tetsubo.
The thought of death held no terror for Kisada. Novice warriors lost nerve in battle for fear of life and limb. They came ready to kill, but never considered that they might die. Overcautious, they often lost their lives, dying because they were not willing to risk themselves completely.
All Crab samurai were trained to enter each battle with a "dead body"—the sense that they were already dead—and fight as though they were trying to steal enough life essence from each enemy to allow them to walk away from the battle. This made them more vicious and unpredictable than any other army in Rokugan. In battle, their minds were not focused on staying alive but solely on crushing as many enemies as possible.
Though Kisada had admirably mastered the technique of entering batde with a dead body, he never truly entertained the possibility that he would not kill enough opponents to earn his way back to the land of the living. Now, for the first time, he faced that demon.
As soon as that possibility became real to him, the goblins atop him fell off. Most likely Waka had given the monsters reason to fear for their lives. Kisada's arms were free again, and he peeled the last of the goblins off his helmet.
Waka stood nearby, blinking. All the samurai were looking around in the same confusion. The goblins were in full retreat, though the Crab forces had done nothing to force such a withdrawal.
Kisada was certainly going to take advantage of it. "We have them on the run!" the Great Bear snarled. "Press the attack!"
He raced to the edge of the Wall, shouldering his tetsubo while drawing his yumi and nocking an arrow. He would not take aim. With the Shadowlands hordes barreling down the wall in such a rush, all he had to do was let a flesh-rending arrow fly—he was sure to hit something.
Kisada leaned over the wall and looked directly into a fist the size of a hog careening in his direction. It impacted with the sound of a giant oak being felled. Kisada's whole body snapped backward, and he flew through the air. He crashed onto the parapet with such force that he felt as if he'd been struck a second time. There was no air in his lungs, and the world tilted and rolled despite the fact that he lay on cold, solid stone.
The hand that struck the blow gripped the rampart as though it were a rail. Another hand, even bigger than the first, did the same. A creature that was all chest, arms, and shoulders raised itself up onto the Wall. Its spindly legs seemed incapable of actually moving the creature around, but they kept the torso steady as it raised its mighty hand to crush Kisada.
"No!" screamed Hiruma Waka.
He dropped his no-dachi and flung himself onto the arm, trying to pin it back through sheer force of will. Drawing his wak-izashi, he stabbed where the beast's head should have been. This only enraged the creature.
The beast reached its other arm around and closed its whole hand over the top of Waka's head and upper torso. With less effort than a man might use to flick an ant from his arm, the creature lifted Waka high in the air. One mighty twist of its wrist cracked the Crab's spine in three places.
Waka went immediately and completely limp.
The monster slung the lifeless body over it
s massive shoulder. It made a motion as though it might go back after Kisada but then flung itself over the wall to fall in with the retreating goblins.
"No!" screamed Kisada. He launched himself forward.
It took six samurai to restrain the daimyo, but eventually he collapsed against the Wall, his face drained of emotion. Death had come for him today, and he had not flinched. But the thought of one of his oldest friends dying in his place sapped the strength from the Great Bear's limbs.
Eventually, he rose and leaned on his tetsubo as he gazed out into the Shadowlands. The other samurai stood far enough away to give their leader a moment of privacy but near enough to grab him should his grief overwhelm him again.
"I am brave enough to face the endless hordes of the Shadowlands every day of my life," he said to the friend who was no longer there and never would be again. "I am willing-even glad—to give my life defending this wall. Dying is easy. You showed us that, old friend. But the empire does not need another dead samurai—-it needs a leader.
"The question remains—am I brave enough to seek peace by sitting on the Emerald Throne?"
IDLE HANDS
By all the minions of Fu Leng, what does she want now?" Kisada stood on the tatami dais at the rear of his makeshift courtyard.
At Kuni Yori's advice, he had decided to receive the imperial runner in this setting—a deliberate attempt to undercut whatever order the missive contained. Kisada knew it must be a dictate of some sort. All normal correspondence went to the command center at Shiro Kuni and was eventually funneled to the Great Bear's attention if warranted. This runner, however, came directly to Kisada's mobile headquarters, bearing a message that she was ordered to release only into the dai-myo's hand.
Yori had once again proven to be correct. By adopting this maddeningly formal posture Kisada made the runner feel uncomfortable. He had seen this particular runner before. Her name was Chiya, one of only three or four runners entrusted with hand-written messages