L5r - scroll 05 - The Crab

by Stan Brown

  The floor shook with the weight of Fu Leng's approach.

  "No!" cried Yakamo. "I will not give up! I will not surrender! I will fight to my last breath, and then fight on until my spirit no longer haunts this world."

  Yes, answered Sukune. That is the answer. That is the way of the Crab. Find a way to win, no matter what.

  "If we fail, the empire falls!"

  Look at what has happened here, he said somberly. We succeeded, and the empire is about to fall. It is not required that the Crab win, only that we fight indomitably for the right cause!

  Yakamo could see Fu Leng's foot. The Dark God was nearly on top of him.

  "The empire," said the older brother. "The empire is the unity of the clans. We can overcome anything as long as we face it together."

  Correct.

  Fu Leng stopped directly above Yakamo. He picked up Kisada's fallen tetsubo and raised it high over his head.

  "Hopefully, I will remember this lesson in my next life," said Yakamo.

  The light from burning Otosan Uchi shone on the spikes of the Dark God's weapon. It descended.

  With a brilliant flash of the purest white light, Sukune materialized kneeling above his brother. He had no weapon, but he reached up and grabbed Fu Leng's wrists and wrestled him to the far side of the room. Flames shot out wherever the two beings touched.

  Consider this my final act of obedience to the clan, Brother. After this, I have other battles to fight.

  Yakamo's limbs came free.

  Nothing has changed yet, said Sukune as he struggled with the Dark God. It is up to you to act. Do not shame the clan!

  A tremendous burst of flame leaped from the pair onto the wooden floor of the audience chamber. The Imperial Palace was burning.

  "I won't," Yakamo began to say, but both his brother and Fu Leng had disappeared.

  ONE WRONG STEP

  It's not over. It's not over."

  With his right arm wrapped around Kisada's chest, Yakamo dragged his unconscious father through a gauntlet of corpses. As near as he could tell, every Crab and every Seppun involved in their earlier battle had died in this hallway.

  Flames licked the walls, and smoke crawled along the ceiling. All sound from the outside world was drowned out by the conflagration in the audience chamber. Whatever the outcome of Sukune's battle with the Dark God, the Imperial Palace would not survive the conflict.

  Did they fight still?

  Can a ghost be killed? Yakamo wondered. What would happen to his brother? And what were these "other battles" he mentioned?

  Like so much about his younger sibling, these questions would remain mysteries. Yakamo had to concentrate on getting himself and his father out of the burning castle.

  Dragging Kisada was tougher work than Yakamo had expected— particularly because he refused to allow his defiled left arm to touch his injured father. Fu Leng had used the claw to control Yakamo, to wrack his body with pain and hold him immobile and practically insensate. There was no telling what the Dark God might be able to do if that same appendage even brushed the injured Kisada.

  Yakamo looked back down the hallway. They left a wide, wet trail of blood as they went. His father's injuries were grave. Yakamo had left the sword of the Hantei impaled in Kisada's gut, afraid that removing it would simply make his father bleed to death. If he were not tended to soon, the Great Bear would surely die.

  "I am not ready to lead the clan, Tono," Yakamo whispered to his unconscious father's ear. "I cannot do what you did-—I am too weak."

  Kisada stirred, his eyes clouded by pain.

  "No one is every ready ... my son," he croaked. "Look at me. I led the Crab for twenty years ... and still I was not prepared. All you can do is follow your heart.... That was my biggest mistake, doing what seemed right instead of what felt right...."

  Yakamo's head drooped.

  "Do not give up, Yakamo. It is never too late. You can undo the wrongs I have done ... if you root out the evil and remove it completely. . . ."

  Yakamo looked at his left arm and the abomination strapped there.

  "There is nothing you cannot live without . . ." whispered Kisada, "as long as you have your honor...."

  The Great Bear's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed again.

  The ceiling beams groaned loudly. They popped and shifted, showering father and son in embers and ash. It would not be long before the entire roof collapsed.

  Yakamo tightened his grip around Kisada's chest and pulled harder. They were almost to the stairs that would take them down three more floors. At least then, the young Hida could catch his breath without fear of the ceiling falling on his head. The Dark God's influence had not only taken his will but also sapped his strength. In the back of his mind, the claw cried out to be used.

  I can lift your poor dead father, it seemed to say.

  "He's not dead!" Yakamo cried out and leaned his weight toward the stairs.

  Not yet, the claw seemed to answer. But you both will be soon unless you get out. I can get you out. I can help. Let me help you.

  The call of the claw was alluring, too alluring. Yakamo had become the living embodiment of all that was wrong with the clan.

  "No!" the young Crab growled. "We will make it, and we will do it without your help!"

  So it would be. He would get himself and his father safely out. He would purge the clan of the evil that infected it and make things right.

  Yakamo's foot caught on the outstretched arm of a fallen Seppun-—or had Fu Leng ordered the guard to grab his ankle in the first throes of her new unlife? The young Hida held tightly to his father as he fell toward the floor. Rather than sprawling across the bodies, he found himself tumbling end over end down the stairs, dragging his wounded father behind him.

  They bounced off several stairs, smacked into the wall, and finally fell off the unguarded side of the staircase. Father and son landed in a twisted heap on the hardwood floor ten feet below. Though he fell on his right side, Yakamo felt stabbing pain run up and down his left arm.

  "You seem to need some help."

  "No!" Yakamo barked. The voice had changed—become softer, more seductive.

  "You are in no shape to refuse. Besides, I am indebted to your father for not killing me when he had the chance—and I detest being obliged to anyone."

  It was Bayushi Kachiko, the Lady Scorpion. Without saying another word, she wrapped her lithe arms around Kisada's massive legs and lifted with a strength Yakamo would not have thought she had.

  "Neither of us can do this alone, Yakamo," she said sternly. "And at this point I don't think either of us will leave your father here to die. So I suggest you pick up your end and we begin working together"

  The young Hida considered whether this was another test of his character, but decided that such questions were best examined after they were safely out of the fire's reach.

  xxxxxxxx

  "The emperor is dead." Kachiko smiled as she said the words. "Kisada killed him, and now all of Rokugan will pay the price!"

  "No!" cried Yakamo. "Kisada did not kill the emperor."

  "Are you saying that my husband is alive?" She dropped the Great Bear's feet and crouched. She seemed to be contemplating running back up into the burning building.

  "No longer, not in any real sense," he answered, as he gathered Kisada in his arms. "The emperor is dead, but his body is not. Fu Leng has taken control of it, like some disgusting puppet."

  "Replaced by the Dark God?" the Lady Scorpion said. "When did this happen? How long ago?"

  "Who can say," Yakamo answered, clearly unimpressed with Kachiko. After all he'd heard about this woman, he'd have expected her not to fall apart at such a crucial moment.

  "This explains so much," she whispered. Losing all interest in Kisada, she rose and gazed up to the casde's peak, which was now completely engulfed in roaring flames. "Is he still up there?"

  Yakamo grunted.

  "Yes. May he burn here before he burns in Jigoku."

 
The Lady Scorpion was mesmerized.

  "The empire is dead," she whispered.

  "The imperial residence is aflame and beyond all hope of recovery," Yakamo said. "The capital itself is ruined, through actions I am shamed to have led. But the empire lives on. Rokugan will survive."

  The sounds of battle no longer rang in the streets surrounding the Forbidden City. Peace reigned within the capital.

  "Yakamo-sama! Yakamo-sama!" A Crab samurai came running through the smashed Fudotaki Gate.

  "Call the healers. Our daimyo has been hurt—he requires immediate attention!"

  "No one is left in the city. They have all fallen back to the Otosan Uchi plain," puffed the man, trying to catch his breath. "You had better come there, Yakamo-sama—there is something you must see."

  "Bring the Bayushi bitch with us," Yakamo muttered. "She has much to answer for."

  "There is no one here, Tono."

  "Do not call me that!" snapped the young Hida. "My father is still the daimyo!"

  "Hai!" the man said bowing deeply. He shook his head ruefully as he assessed Kisada's wounds.

  The man's other words finally sank in. Yakamo looked around—Kachiko was nowhere to be seen. The Lady Scorpion had escaped again. The only place for her to go was back into the burning Imperial Palace. The young Crab turned his back on her.

  "She will bother us no more," he said.

  THE PATH OF HONOR

  1 hank the kami my father cannot see this. If Fu Leng did not kill him, this sight surely would."

  Yakamo stood on the ramparts of Otosan Uchi's main wall. He looked out on the plain where earlier that very day the Crab army had routed their Lion opponents. The plain was a mass of chaos. Minor skirmishes flared here and there, and two conflicts nearly worthy of being called battles raged at the very edges of the field.

  Had the Lion army received reinforcements? No. While a few Lion warriors remained in the turmoil, most of the combatants were Crab samurai or Shadowlands monsters.

  Then it dawned on Yakamo. "A-are our samurai fighting other Crab samurai?"

  "Hai!" said the young man who had led him to the wall.

  "How?" demanded the enraged Hida. "How did this happen?"

  The soldier was too shaken to say anything. He simply pointed toward the plain, toward a tremendous figure that looked exactly like Yakamo himself, only larger and even more powerful.

  "Oni!" Yakamo shouted. His voice took on an unnatural quality—more resonant and powerful than it had ever been before. It echoed across the field, rolling over the noises of battle and leaving an unexpected hush in its wake.

  All the fighting stopped. All movement stopped. There was nothing—nothing but the two Yakamos staring at one another across a blood-soaked field.

  "What is the meaning of this?" Kisada's son demanded.

  With great, loping strides the oni approached the wall. It clambered up the berm and rose to its full height. The two Yakamos were nearly eye-to-eye. It smiled and cocked its head.

  "Word has spread that the last Hantei is dead," it said with no trace of remorse. "They say that Fu Leng inhabits his body and sits on the throne—a powerful man who will rule the empire with strength and dignity for a thousand years."

  "Who says these things?"

  The oni smiled again.

  "I do!" answered Kuni Yori, who had appeared on the rampart next to Yakamo. His voice also echoed across the field for all to hear. Clearly the shugenja had cast a spell so that the assembled armies could hear this conversation. "The weakling Hantei is dead, replaced by a strong presence—a presence with which we are already allied."

  The words hit the young Hida like a tetsubo. He took a step backward, nearly tumbling off the Wall.

  "What's more, the Great Bear is dead—or as good as dead," the shugenja looked to the street below, where healers tended Kisada. The old man was alarmingly pale. From this height it was difficult to tell if he were still breathing. "The Crab Clan requires guidance. The soldiers are uncertain what to do."

  "We must rally our forces," Yakamo said, keenly aware that every samurai in his army could hear his words. He was not ready to lead—not in his heart—but he had no choice. "The Dark God

  Fu Leng sits on the Emerald Throne. We must gather our strength to drive him out!"

  "And replace him with whom?" asked Yori. "Kisada is dead."

  "Stop saying that!"

  "We must face facts," the shugenja said not unkindly. To the others he must seem to be consoling Yakamo, but the young Hida saw the mocking twinkle in Yori's eye. "The Great Bear was a man the other clans could accept on the throne. You, though every inch his son, do not yet have Kisada's presence and authority. You would be just another usurper—and one they would overthrow. If your father's death, indeed his entire life, is not to have been in vain, we must continue down the path he chose."

  Yakamo growled at Yori. The shugenja's eyes widened, and he took a step back. Yakamo turned to face the oni and fixed it with a similar glare—one that vowed defiance no matter what the cost.

  Placing both hands on the Wall, he spoke.

  "We have gone the wrong way," he said, his voice reaching every ear on the field. "We came to a fork in the road, and we chose the wrong path."

  Kuni Yori waved his hands as if casting a spell—or perhaps breaking the one that allowed Yakamo's voice to be heard. The young Hida shot the shugenja another dangerous glare, and Yori ceased.

  "No, that's not right," Yakamo continued, his voice still echoing. "You did nothing wrong. You followed your daimyo. You remained loyal to your clan. You acted in exactly the way samurai should. After all, my father is a great man—a great daimyo. He saw a chance to change the empire for the better, and he took it. And we took it with him. We used every tool possible to achieve his goal for the sake of the Crab Clan, for all of Rokugan. After all, if we fail, the empire falls."

  A murmur of agreement rolled across the field.

  "Well we have succeeded—and the empire is about to fall!"

  Silence.

  "Our daimyo ..." He paused. "My father stormed the Imperial Palace and discovered the last Hantei completely in the thrall of Fu Leng. He uncovered a plot that threatens the future of Rokugan. But he was wrong to do so!"

  The crowd grumbled in confusion.

  "How can that be?" called out a samurai at the bottom of the Wall.

  "Because he should never have been in Otosan Uchi to begin with," answered Yakamo. "The Dark God needed our help to shatter the empire. Fu Leng is not strong enough to break the bonds between the clans. Only our own greedy souls could do that.

  "The Crab have one duty—we have always had just one duty—to stand on a wall and protect the empire from the evil of Fu Leng. It is not our job to right the injustices or inequities within the empire itself. No, our job is to protect the land, the people, and the spirit that is Rokugan so that we all can find our way without being crushed by the evil outside.

  "My father failed to remember that duty, and so we have failed to carry it out."

  A faint, mournful wind blew across the plain.

  "Some say that the hardest part about living an honorable life is never giving in to temptation. They are wrong. The hardest part is picking yourself up after you've failed, standing up, and resuming your place on the Wall."

  The crowd murmured, but whether in agreement or dissent remained unclear.

  "I fell off the Wall just like the rest of the clan, but the proof of my fall is much more evident!" Yakamo raised his left arm in the air, showing the vile claw to the crowd. "I lost my hand in a fair duel. Instead of bearing my wound with pride and honor, I invited evil and dishonor into my very body."

  Some of the samurai raised their katanas and other weapons above their heads and shouted encouragement. Others scuffed their feet and spat on the ground. Yakamo could get no sense which group was in the majority.

  "My father's adviser," he said glaring menacingly at Yori, "would have you believe that we have no choice other th
an to continue down the path we're on, despite how wrong that path is.

  But we do have a choice. We can choose to do what is right and honorable, no matter how difficult it might be—no matter how far we've wandered, and no matter what the other clans think of us. There are many other choices we can make, but there is only one right choice."

  Yakamo now raised his right hand. In it he held the Ancestral Sword of the Crab Clan. With a mighty swing, he struck the bindings that held the claw to his left arm. Pain wracked his body, and the leather straps bled a thick, black ooze where the sword had struck. Still the claw remained attached.

  "Hida Kisada made a wrong choice—one single wrong choice—a small step off the path of honor. It led to other choices and on to others, each but a small step away, but it was that one first wrong step that led us to this day—led me to this state."

  Again Yakamo raised the blade, this time striking the straps where they connected to the claw. Sparks flew as he struck again and again until at last the straps fell from his arm to the ground below.

  Cheers rose from at least half of the assembled Crab, but they quickly transformed into gasps of horror. The Shadowlands forces, on the other hand, winced in pain as Yakamo struck the claw but cried in glee when they saw what had silenced the samurai.

  Though the straps were gone, the claw itself clung tenaciously to Yakamo's arm. The metal dug into the flesh where his wrist used to be and held tight, like a drowning man clinging to a log. And where it touched him, Yakamo's skin had turned black and putrid.

  "But it is not too late. We cannot undo all the harm done to the empire and to our own spirits in the past two years, but we can return to that right path. We can do what must be done."

  The Shadowlands creatures nervously huddled together. Trying not to attract attention, they shifted toward samurai who seemed unhappy with Yakamo's speech.

  "My father's mistake was in not listening to the opinion of his adviser, nor accepting this creature's aid." He pointed his weapon toward the oni. "No, the mistake he made was sitting eye to eye with this monster—to whom I later gave my name—and not immediately splitting its skull!"