L5r - scroll 05 - The Crab

by Stan Brown

  Hitomi's blade flashed in the sun, slicing toward the Crab's unprotected neck.

  Yakamo stepped toward his foe and began his pivot.

  She, too, changed targets. Instead of following through on her attack at his neck, Hitomi leapt into the air, spun to face him dead-on, and struck at his left arm.

  Yakamo heard a faint, moist sound that thrilled and repulsed him.

  The audience took a single deep breath and groaned.

  Yakamo had no idea what happened until he tried to follow through with his pivoting blow. His right arm brought the tetsubo up toward Hitomi, but his left provided no support. The club slipped from his grip and fell to the ground. He reached down to regain his weapon but came up holding something warm and wet.

  Glancing down, he realized he held his own severed left hand.

  The world ceased to exist for Yakamo. He did not hear sen-sei yelling that the match was over. Nor did he see Hitomi spinning in preparation for another strike—this one to separate the Crab's head from his shoulders. Yakamo stared blankly at his lost hand as a group of ten strong samurai grabbed Hitomi and struggled to drag her away. He did not recognize his brother Sukune when he slid to a halt with Kuni Yori close behind, both trying to find a way to stanch the bleeding. He knew nothing until he threw his head back and howled. Then the world came back into focus.

  "I'm not done with you yet, Hida," snarled Hitomi as her own samurai pulled her away. "Your life is mine! I will be back to claim it!"

  Yakamo tried to go after the Dragon samurai-ko, but his legs would not support him. He tried to yell after her—-that even with one hand he was still three times the warrior she ever could be—but his voice only came out as a baleful growl.

  Kuni Yori placed three fingers on Yakamo's brow and whispered an arcane phrase. The injured Crab slipped into unconsciousness.

  "What will we do?" asked Sukune.

  "You must continue on to the Forbidden City," Yori told him. "Nothing that happened here today changes the fact that the emperor awaits the Crab envoy."

  "But Yakamo—" Sukune disagreed with his brother, even disliked him on many occasions, but he could not leave Yakamo in this condition.

  "Between my spells and the city's healers, we will make him well enough to ride back to the Crab lands," Yori assured Sukune. "Once there, I may be able to do something to alleviate the problem."

  Sukune nodded. "You must help him, Yori-san. You must!"

  "And you must go to the Forbidden City. Focus on the task before you. You know what your father would say."

  "Yes," Sukune agreed. "'No matter how many battles you have won or lost, the only one that matters is the one you are in!'"

  The dueling school's healers came running up to Yakamo's side.

  Elsewhere, the school's sensei argued with a representative of the Dragon Clan. Half the sensei were considering banning Miru-moto from setting foot in the academy ever again. The others demanded compensatory payment for the shame Hitomi brought by not following the agreed-upon rules and attempting to kill her opponent after the match was done. No talk was given at all to recompensing Yakamo for his loss.

  As he turned toward the Forbidden City, high and white above the clustered rooftops, Sukune could only think of what Kuni Yori's had said: "This day was unavoidable. What's more, this may not be the end of it."

  THE CALL OF KARMA

  I have bled all my blood ... I have no more. I must be dead."

  "You are not dead, Yakamo-san," said Kuni Yori. "But you are delirious." Between a substantial loss of blood, pain-killing herbs, and Yori's own spells, Yakamo felt no pain. Unfortunately, he was also quite insensible.

  "No blood, no blood, I'm an empty shell, a Crab without a claw." Yakamo said in a childish lilt. "I fought and fought, but I lost my hand to the tiny Dragon's maw."

  Traveling was difficult with Yakamo in such condition. The samurai could hardly stay balanced on his horse. He needed to stop to rest at least four times per day. It had been six days since they began their return journey to Crab lands. The stump of Yakamo's left wrist, which they'd cauterized with white-hot steel, was healing acceptably. It now only oozed, and Yori was certain it would not become infected as long as he changed the bandage every day.

  But no more of the herbs remained, and it would take at least a day to reach the Great Wall of Kaiu. Yori feared what would happen when the herbs ran out—not because of the pain. The shugenja worried how Yakamo would act when he finally regained his senses.

  When Yakamo's mind was whole again, he might insist on turning his horse around and riding after Mirumoto Hitomi to seek revenge. Even in this weakened state, Yakamo could overcome any resistance Yori put up. But fighting the Dragon samurai-ko again in this condition would be suicide. Of course, seppuku was another possible reaction Yakamo might have.

  The problem with bushi, Yori thought, is that they are too willing to throw away their lives needlessly. The shugenja still had plans for the young Hida, and they would be dashed if Yakamo decided he had been so dishonored he could not go on living.

  The reaction Kuni Yori hoped for was that Yakamo would remain in a state of shock. Often a trauma such as this could induce a condition that resembled sleepwalking. This would have the advantage of permitting the young man to ride a little more strenuously without thinking clearly. With any luck, the shock would last until Yori got him safely back to Kisada's camp. The Great Bear would surely be able to talk sense into his wounded son.

  "You are not the man you seem, Yori-kun," Yakamo shouted, though he rode no more than ten feet away.

  "What do you mean, Yakamo-san?" Yori was intrigued.

  "You paint your face like a geisha—making a new one you think is more pleasing," bellowed Yakamo. "But underneath you are just the same as you always have been. Your mask does not scare me."

  "Why should it?" asked the shugenja nervously. Did Yakamo actually have a clue about his machinations and intrigues?

  "That is what you want. I can tell. You want to be feared," Yakamo now began to mumble. "You paint your face and hide it beneath a velvet hood. You peer out with narrowed eyes, as white as death. You want to be feared, Kuni-san, but the truth is that you are my best friend." Yakamo slid in his saddle and nearly fell off the horse.

  "I think it is time for you to rest again," Yori said, reaching over and reigning both horses to a stop.

  "No, it's true," Yakamo insisted. "I lost my hand, and my own brother abandoned me. My father will certainly disown me for being such a failure. I can't even ride a horse right, and you are the only one who will take care of me."

  Within the folds of his cloak, Kuni Yori smiled.

  "I am glad you recognize that, my lord," he said as he lay Yakamo down on the roadside grass to sleep.

  XXXXXXXX

  "We're nearly there, Yakamo-sama, but we must make a short stop at my tower before we complete our journey."

  Yakamo merely grumbled in response.

  It was nearly two days later, and he had been without the pain-killing herbs for most of that time. He had not fallen into shock, as Yori had hoped. Instead, Yakamo emerged fully cognizant of what had happened but completely withdrawn. He seemed to feel nothing about the matter. The sharp throbbing at the end of his left arm kept him focused on the task of riding. Unfortunately, it had also made it impossible for him to sleep for the past two nights.

  They'd reached the Wall an hour ago and were now riding north toward Hida Kisada's camp. The sky was a metallic gray. The ground was covered in a thin layer of mist that seemed to pass straight through the Wall.

  Yakamo felt as if he was riding through a nightmare. If only he could awake to find the sun shining and his missing hand restored. But he knew that this world, as bizarre as it seemed to his sleepy eyes, was the real one.

  The Wall looked exacdy the same as it did anywhere along its expanse—tall, crenellated lengths connecting blocky towers set exactly fifty yards apart. Regular. Predictable. Safe.

  Something irregular l
oomed out of the mists. About three hundred yards ahead there seemed to be a station where two towers were built, one behind the other. The second tower was only half as tall as all the others, plus it was not actually connected to the Wall but sat four or five hundred yards removed like a tiny reflection. At first the young samurai thought he might be hallucinating. Then he remembered that Kuni Yori had this tower constructed to house his personal residence and magical library.

  More than the tower's size distinguished it from the rest of the Kaiu construction. Rather than the gray, cold stones that made up the Wall, Yori's Tower was built of dark stones. Yakamo could not be sure whether they were black or an extraordinarily deep red. They seemed to breathe in and out in a ragged rhythm. The entire building appeared to be alive.

  "So this is the cursed tower of Kuni Yori,' " said Yakamo. "Some of the bravest warriors I've ever fought beside tell me they are afraid to step within a hundred yards of your home."

  Yori chuckled.

  "It is good, sometimes, to cultivate a bad reputation," he said over his shoulder. "It makes the neighbors less likely to bother you at inopportune times."

  Both riders dismounted and walked their steeds to the building's only entry—a large stone arch. The only other exit was a single window on what must have been the topmost floor.

  "I'll admit, your home has a certain . . . sinister feel to it," Yakamo said. "But it's hardly anything to shake the nerves of a battle-tested samurai."

  Just then, the air was split by an ear-piercing scream. It lasted about ten seconds, then faded into silence. It was not quite a human scream, but neither did it seem wholly bestial.

  "Wh-what was that?" asked Yakamo, clutching his injured arm tightly to his body.

  The shugenja laughed. "That was something to shake the nerves of battle-tested samurai."

  As they entered the tower, it was too dark for Yakamo to see farther than fifteen feet in any direction—strange for midday even with an overcast sky. He couldn't see the ceiling. In fact, when he looked up Yakamo couldn't see anything other than an impenetrable inky veil that might go on forever.

  Next to the door, wooden stairs were built into the wall. They led up into the darkness above. At a wave of Yori's hand, torches flared to life in sconces up and down the walls. The young Hida could now see that the structure was completely hollow. The stairs ran up to a platform about fifty feet above his head. Cages hung from hooks at various heights on the wall. Most of them were empty or held skeletons of misshapen creatures Yakamo could only guess had once been goblins. One cage very near the platform swayed back and forth slightly, and Yakamo thought he could see motion within. It seemed very likely the tortured creature had made the disturbing noises he had heard while approaching the tower.

  In the center of the floor Yori had built a house. In fact, if it had been surrounded by maple trees and a rock garden, the small building would have been cozy, even peaceful. But sitting here at the center of a dimly lit, dank tower on the edge of the Crab lands, the building looked wrong—perhaps even malevolent.

  Yori stepped up onto the raised wooden walkway that surrounded the house.

  "Please wait out here, Hida-sama," he said to Yakamo as he slid open the shoji. "I will be only a moment, and you will be quite pleased with what I bring out."

  Yori slipped off his sandals and backed into the house. The shugenja knelt, bowed, and slid the rice-paper door closed. The shoji was so thin that Yakamo could still make out Yori's shape as he rose and moved deeper into the home. He heard the shugenja open another set of shoji and begin rummaging around with heavy, wooden objects.

  A pitiful whimper drifted down from the cage near the ceiling. Yakamo wondered if the creature was part of an experiment, was being tortured for information, or simply served as entertainment for Yori—and a warning to others.

  The shoji behind him slid open again. Yakamo turned to see the shugenja sliding his feet back into his sandals. Yori was carrying a box about the correct length to hold a matching katana and wakizashi. However it was much too wide and heavy to be home to a simple dai-sho. The wood was so black that at first Yakamo thought it was ornamentally lacquered. As he looked closer, he could tell it was raw, unstained, gnarled wood with large ugly splinters sticking out on all sides.

  "What is in there?" asked the samurai.

  Yori just smiled.

  "Soon enough, you will see," he said. "But I must discuss the contents with your father before I reveal them to you."

  Yakamo was growing more and more frustrated with Yori's mysterious ways.

  "Very well, then. Let's ride. We can be at the daimyo's camp by nightfall."

  xxxxxxxx

  "Why? Why didn't they let her kill him? At least there would have been some honor in that!" Pacing the tatami floor of his courtyard dais, Kisada seemed very much like his namesake—a great bear trapped in a cage. Kuni Yori knelt on a mat directly before the daimyo. Yakamo knelt off to the side, his forehead bowed to the ground.

  "Tono."

  The word literally meant "lord," but it had a familiar feel to it. Yori called Kisada that only when he wanted to make a personal point, to show his daimyo that he was more than just an advisor— he was a friend.

  "Tono, your son was willing to give his life to defend not just his honor, but yours as well. He has not shamed himself or you in his loss—or his survival."

  "Shame?" Kisada roared. "Of course he has brought us no shame!"

  He stepped off the dais and into the gravel without donning any sandals and walked over to where Yakamo bowed in supplication.

  "Yakamo—my firstborn, my chosen heir—Yori is correct. You have nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, you have had a grave wrong thrust upon you. It was your right to die in that contest, and they denied you the ending you deserved and were prepared for. If you died like the warrior you are, they gained nothing, but by leaving you this way the Dragon has cast doubt upon your spirit and your devotion. They insult the entire Crab Clan!"

  Yakamo looked up, his eyes as dry as bones but somehow filled with passion.

  "I will avenge myself upon them," he said so softly that Yori barely heard.

  "I believe," the shugenja said, "that I may be of some help in that regard."

  The two Hidas looked at him unconvinced.

  "This is matter for the sword and the heart, Yori," said the Great Bear, "not magic and the brain."

  "Yes," Yakamo agreed. "I must earn my revenge in glorious battle, not have it handed to me through a spell cast by my father's adviser."

  "I have no intention of robbing you of your rightful and personal revenge," Yori said smiling. He clapped his hands twice, and two servants carried in the black box he'd retrieved from his tower. "I simply want to help make you capable of achieving it sooner."

  The samurai stared at him in confusion.

  "Mirumoto Hitomi stole from you the dominance and power that are your birthright. She made it so that your body can no longer keep pace with your warrior's heart. Within this box I have something that can reverse this setback—something that can make you even more powerful than you were before."

  "What is it?" asked Yakamo. He had the look of a starving man staring at a pot of rice that was not quite at a boil.

  "And what is the price of this power?" asked Kisada.

  Yori answered neither question, but simply undid the latch on the black box and raised the lid. It was filled with straw, but the two samurai could see a large, black object below the topmost layer.

  Kisada brushed aside the straw, stood back, and gasped.

  "What is it?" Yakamo repeated.

  They were looking at an ungainly contraption made of hinged metal, lacquered leather, and thick strands of silk. It looked very much like a giant crab claw covered in deadly spikes. The metal and leather were stained flat black, except along the hinges and the interior of the claw itself, which were plated with brass—presumably to make them operate more smoothly. At the back of the claw, the leather strips bore a pa
ssing resemblance to arm guards from a suit of heavy armor—clearly this thing was meant to be strapped to one's arm.

  "If I am to wear a false arm, it will be that of a man—not an animal!" Yakamo said firmly and turned away.

  "You misunderstand, Yakamo-sama," said Yori. "This is more than a decoration. With a few simple incantations it will respond to your thoughts just the way your natural limbs do. It will become a part of you—and more, it will become the most powerful part of your arsenal. This claw can crush tempered steel as easily as you snap a pair of chopsticks. A man with strong enough determination could draw on the claw to fill his entire body with more raw power than he could ever summon before."

  Yakamo was transfixed.

  Kisada was leery.

  "Where did you get such a wondrous item?" he asked suspiciously.

  Yori shrugged. "I removed it from one of the prisoners I examined about a year ago," he said. "Since then I have been testing its properties."

  Yakamo's mind went back to the tower and the pitiful creature locked in the cage. He swallowed hard. Could this claw have been removed from that tortured beast? Or perhaps Yori "tested the properties" on that particular captive. None of these ideas bothered the young samurai in the abstract. After all, the Shadowlands were the enemy, and they would do worse things to any Crab they dragged back to their unholy dens. But the thought of actually wearing such a thing—taking it as a part of himself— gave him pause.

  "A product of the Shadowlands?" the Great Bear roared. "You suggest that my son, heir to the Crab daimyo, should strap to his arm a device that looks like it came off an oni? That he should walk around for the rest of his days wearing a machine forged by our hated enemy?"

  "I suggest," Yori said carefully, "that we use materials at hand to our best advantage. I suggest that it makes no difference who made the claw as long as your son uses it for the greater glory of the Crab Clan. I suggest that we have a way to take two terrible wrongs and turn them into a powerful weapon in our war to protect the empire."