Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy)

by Travis Heermann

  The man made a small gesture to Masoku, who stepped forward and untied Ken’ishi’s gag.

  Ken’ishi spat out the wad of linen, and it splatted onto the floor, leaving trails of spittle back to his dry mouth.

  The ebon mask muffled the man’s voice. “Who are you?”

  “Are you Green Tiger?” Ken’ishi said.

  “I am Green Tiger, Lord of the Underworld.”

  “I have met two men tonight claiming to be named Masoku. How do I know you’re not simply another lackey?”

  “You don’t. And you won’t, unless I will it so. You’ve interrupted my night with your impertinence. Now tell me who you are, or I’ll simply slit your throat and throw you in the bay.”

  “I am … a ronin. I have no name.”

  “What does a ronin want with Green Tiger?”

  “I came here to ask you a question, but everything about the underworld and its lord is wrapped in mystery and deception.”

  Masoku said, “Don’t forget death. Lots of death.”

  Green Tiger said, “I have no reason to lie to you, nor do I have particular reason to tell the truth. I may not even answer your question. Displease me sufficiently, and you’ll watch bits and pieces of yourself go into a chum bucket. But you may ask.”

  “Did you send a man to Aoka village to steal a sword?”

  Silence fell over the room. The two lackeys glanced at their master. Moments passed like drops of dew from a hanging leaf.

  Green Tiger’s voice was as cool and neutral as a gray, fog-bound dusk. “And you have come from Aoka village seeking the thief?”

  “The sword belonged to my father, who handed it down to me before he was murdered.”

  “Give me your pedigree, samurai. Tell me your exploits. Show me you are worthy to live, or at least to die a warrior’s death.”

  “I am Ken’ishi the Oni Slayer. I slew the bandit king Hakamadare. I slew the demon-yoriki Taro and mounted his head on a spear. I slew Nishimuta no Takenaga in a duel of honor. And, several days ago, I single-handedly defeated three of your men in Oita town, wielding a wooden sword.” Ken’ishi took a slow, calm breath. “Did you send a man to Aoka village to steal my sword?”

  “I did.”

  A rush of tingling sensations shot through Ken’ishi’s body like a blast of typhoon wind. “Why?”

  “Silver Crane belongs to my family.”

  “So you know its name. And you knew that Silver Crane was there. How?”

  “I answered your question. It’s my turn now. How did you come to possess the sword?”

  “I told you. I had it from my father, and presumably, his father before him.”

  “Who was your father?”

  “He was murdered when I was a baby.”

  “Who raised you?”

  “My teacher.”

  “What do you know of the sword’s history?”

  “Nothing.” The dream came to mind where he had seen Silver Crane in the hand of some samurai lord during a great sea battle, but his thoughts were too clouded by pain to recall other details. Was it only a dream, or was there truth behind it?

  “You are a ronin. Have you never had a lord?”

  “A teacher, but not a lord.”

  “Who is your teacher?”

  “His name doesn’t matter, only that he taught me, and I fear no man in a duel.”

  Masoku sneered. “I took you down fairly handily.”

  Ken’ishi nodded. “It will not happen again.”

  Masoku started forward. “Damned right! You’ll be dead!”

  Green Tiger raised a hand. “Those are worthy exploits for one so young. Most men reach their deaths with much less distinction.”

  “Will you give me back my sword?”

  “It is not your sword, samurai. It is a far larger thing than one such as you can carry.”

  “And who can carry it? You? A criminal?”

  “I have the blood.”

  “But not the honor!”

  Green Tiger laughed. “Honor! Honor means as much as a pig’s fart in the belly of the underworld, where men’s base desires are indulged, their darkest longings pursued and experienced. Gold, secrets, flesh, and the power they grant. These things are real. But a bumpkin samurai with a wooden sword would know little of real power. As I said, secrets have power as well. I know you, little bumpkin samurai. I knew who you were before I stepped into this room, before you set foot in Hakata. I have known of you since you slew Hakamadare. Oh, don’t look so surprised. I looked for you, but I could not find you.”

  “Yellow Tiger,” Ken’ishi said.

  “Oho! So he did find you!”

  “I slew him.”

  “Well done, indeed. But Hakamadare, there was a feat worthy of legend. The oni was infamous, and stories are still being told about the mysterious ronin who slew him and then disappeared. What if I told you that I will return Silver Crane to you?”

  Hope flared in Ken’ishi’s heart.

  “But I have one condition.”

  “And that is?”

  “You will work for me. Swear your sword to me, and I will allow you to wield it again. There are dark times coming, and we will need a strong man to wield it, to be a light in the darkness.”

  “What dark times? How could a criminal like you offer a light while you stand in darkness?”

  “Men wear many masks, some of them more brightly painted than others. The fortunes of the world sometimes turn toward darkness.” He slid the sword case from his shoulder, pulled off the cap, reached inside, and withdrew the silver-chased hilt Ken’ishi knew so well, the battered scabbard with its mother-of-pearl cranes. “I see the desire in you. What would you be willing to do to get it back? Work for me, and it is yours. You could be greater than Hakamadare ever was, with more power and wealth than you can imagine.”

  Nearby, Masoku frowned and fidgeted.

  Green Tiger continued, “The oni was a vile creature, but powerful. He carved his power and infamy from the world through sheer brutality and ferocity. Nothing could long sate his lusts, and none could stand against him. And yet, with this weapon, you defeated him.” Green Tiger pulled the blade free, and it glimmered like a feathered mirror in the mix of moon and lamplight. “It can be yours again, and you can carve your own place in the world. All you must remember is that I am your master.”

  Something in Green Tiger’s words and tone resonated in Ken’ishi’s mind, something about Hakamadare. Images of that day over three years ago flooded through his mind, the melee with the bandit gang, the valiant stand by Kazuko’s samurai bodyguards, Hatsumi’s horrific rape, the oni’s monstrous form as it emerged from the bushes, the way it had feasted on human flesh and blood, its blood flowing as black and thick as molten pine resin, Silver Crane slashing again and again. Even Hakamadare’s severed head had remained alive until they seared it in a fire until nothing was left but blackened skull.

  And he remembered the way Kazuko’s beauty and grace had hammered him harder, and left a deeper mark on his soul than the demon’s iron club.

  Green Tiger broke the silence first. “I see your eyes upon it, and I see the desire in them, the greed. If you think you could steal this from me, remember that I found you once. There is nowhere distant enough to hide from me.”

  Amid tumbling thoughts, a realization struck Ken’ishi like a stone. He gazed up into Green Tiger’s eyes. “You knew Hakamadare. He was not your enemy.” He saw a single flash of truth in Green Tiger’s eyes before it disappeared like an ember in the sea.

  The possibilities of the path that Green Tiger’s proposal represented for Ken’ishi came like stepping stones, the tasks he would be expected to perform. Like Yuto and other thugs, pushing around helpless townspeople. Like Shirohige, preying upon the fear and need of the lotus-addled potter. Like Hakamadare, gouging a swath of rape and banditry across the countryside, striking fear into everyone. Could he do such things? Was it worth doing those things to have Silver Crane again?

  “No.”
>
  Silver fingers in his mind, brushing the corners, feather-light.

  If he accepted Green Tiger as his master, he would no longer be worthy of a sword like Silver Crane. He would not even be worthy to be called samurai. He would be nothing but a bandit, a “filthy ronin” like so many had believed of him for so long.

  Green Tiger’s voice became a low rumble. “So, you refuse.”

  “I refuse.”

  The silver fingers seized his mind, and outside thoughts rang within his. Destiny. Patience.

  Ken’ishi steadied himself and took a deep breath. The pain in his body was gone as if it had never been. He remembered well one other time when such a thing had happened, with a sword impaling his thigh, and Taro, the deputy-turned-demon, threatening to kill Naoko, Kiosé, and the newborn Little Frog. He took a deep breath and leveled his gaze at Green Tiger. “Release me, return the sword to me now, and I will let you all live.”

  All three men laughed.

  The giant wiped at his eyes and clapped his hands. “You funny!”

  Masoku said, “For a dead man!”

  Green Tiger stopped laughing first. “Bold talk for a man standing at the precipice of hell. No one threatens me. You have no idea the suffering a man can endure. He can yearn for death for years. How long before you break? Every man does.” He snapped his fingers, and the enormous Chinaman stepped forward, grinning, club in hand.

  An explosion of pain and light in Ken’ishi’s skull, then silence.

  To depart while seated or standing is all one.

  All I shall leave behind me

  Is a heap of bones.

  In empty space I twist and soar

  And come down with the roar of thunder

  To the sea.

  — Koho Kennichi, Death Poem

  The dank air smelled of seawater, sodden earth, rotting fish, and human excrement. Ken’ishi’s arms ended in tingling stumps of agony at his shoulders. His hands and forearms, cinched in the coarse ropes, had taken on a dark purple hue. The weight of the timber still gouged into his back, and his head and neck were a constant, pounding ache.

  A bone-thin man, taller than any he had ever seen, towered over him. Long strands of greasy hair hung to his chest, shadowing the deep brow ridge and nose that looked as if it had been mashed into his face. The man’s words came thick through flabby lips. “It’s all right to scream here. No one will hear you.”

  Ken’ishi smelled something else—blood. Gore so thick and deep that it seemed to rise from the rough-hewn stone floor.

  “The Master has given you to me to play with. But don’t worry, I won’t kill you. You might wish me to, though. And when you reach that point, do ask. I like when my toys ask me to kill them.”

  Ken’ishi thought he should struggle, but his arms and shoulders were a massive insensate lump, crowned by a throbbing head. His vision swam. He kicked feebly at the man.

  The man stepped forward and looped a rope around Ken’ishi’s neck, slung it over a hook embedded in the small room’s central wooden pillar, and hauled on the rope. It cinched tight, cutting off his breath, redoubling the pounding agony inside his head, and dragged him back up against the pillar. His legs flailed, but his feeble struggles accomplished nothing but to tighten the noose.

  The man produced a dagger and sliced through the web of ropes binding him to the timber, which fell to the floor with a heavy thud. The sudden release of weight made Ken’ishi’s body feel as light as a feather, but his upper arms were still bound back like the pinched wings of a butterfly. They were too dead to even reach for the noose choking his life away. He felt his face swelling, blotches of red and white shooting through his vision, then gathering at the edges and collapsing toward the center until he could see nothing except a spot of lamplit stone wall near the ceiling. His body fought to breathe, and no air would come.

  The noose slackened, and he could breathe again. Great racking, coughing gasps sucked air back into his chest.

  “A time to let your arms wake up. Oh, that should be some beautiful pain. It’s been several hours, so I’ll wager you’ve not felt anything in them for some time. That will return in fire.”

  The man worked at something out of sight while Ken’ishi recovered consciousness. He tried to flex his hands and fingers, but they were as dead stumps of useless, purple meat.

  And then it happened. A small tingle became a rush, became a torrent of sensation. He gritted his teeth as swarms of voracious ants chewed through the flesh and bones of his arms. The purple in his arms turned to streaks of red and bands of white where the ropes had been tied. An agony of eternity later, he could move his fingers.

  A wooden frame crashed onto the floor before him, startling him with the noise. Three wooden timbers held in parallel, planed smooth on the sides of triangular cross-sections, with the edge of the timbers pointing up.

  The noose jerked upward again, but this time he had the strength to raise himself on his legs, sliding up the pillar to relieve the constriction.

  The man kicked the lattice under Ken’ishi’s shins and then released the noose again. Ken’ishi’s shins collapsed under him and fell upon the three upright edges of the hardwood timbers. Excruciating pain such as he had never imagined possible, white-hot, exploded into his legs as the hardwood edges pressed across his shins, driven deeper by his own weight.

  “This is my favorite,” the man said.

  Ken’ishi remembered all the times as a boy when Kaa had beaten him with a bamboo switch or pelted him with stones, but all of that collected into a whole was as only a candle to the sun. More ropes slithered around him and lashed him upright to the pillar, bound kneeling in a torturous seiza posture, supporting all of his weight on his shins, pressing harder and deeper onto the wooden edges.

  A satisfied chuckle sounded from behind him as the man went about unseen business.

  Ken’ishi gasped for breath and fought the pain for a time, each heartbeat an infinity. He sought the Void as refuge, and found within it a place to let the pain pass him by.

  A sudden slap shattered the Void and brought him back to the world of pain. The man shoved a bony finger into Ken’ishi’s face. “You pay attention! That’s the best way. Love every second of the pain. It seems you’ve gotten used to it already. Fear not, we’re just getting started.”

  The man disappeared behind the pillar again. Ken’ishi heard a grunt of exertion, the grating of stone on stone, and then the man came back into view carrying a square-cut stone slab as long as his leg, half as wide, a hand’s breadth thick. The man maneuvered this stone over Ken’ishi’s thighs and settled it flat over them. The pain exploded into a thousand suns as the wooden edges dug deeper and deeper into his shins under the stone’s weight and his knees bloomed with the agony of tearing sinew. He bit back another cry.

  The man said, “It’s always surprising. One thinks that the pain cannot possibly get better, and yet, it always—”

  Ken’ishi regained awareness sometime later. The stone still rested on his thighs.

  The world faded again into blood and night.

  A dash of water in his face roused him. “No sleeping!” The man sat a few paces away and went back to sharpening slivers of bamboo. He sighed with contentment.

  Another voice intruded upon the silence, “I told you, no permanent damage. He cannot work for me if he is crippled.”

  The man jumped up and bowed. “Of course, Master! Of course!” He squatted before Ken’ishi and lifted off the stone, muscling it back out of view. The release of pressure exploded through Ken’ishi’s body like a climax of pleasure.

  Green Tiger stood over Ken’ishi, an oily shadow in the dimness of the cave. “Give him water.”

  The man brought a bamboo ladle to Ken’ishi’s swollen lips. Ken’ishi gulped at the water, tasting blood and bamboo.

  Green Tiger said, “This can all end right now. You can rejoin the world of the living. You can wield Silver Crane again. Join me, and carve out a place among legends.”


  Ken’ishi looked up into Green Tiger’s eyes, the cold, dead eyes of a serpent shrouded by the basket hat. “I will die first.”

  “Good.” Green Tiger nodded. “But you’ll change your mind. If you had broken so quickly, I wouldn’t want you.”

  He stepped around the pillar and disappeared from view, leaving not a sound behind him.

  The man gave him another ladle of water, chuckled. “You’ve some grit, I see. Ah, that’s good news. These next few days will be glorious indeed. You’ll come to see how merciful the Master is. You heard him. All you have to do to make it stop is to join him.”

  * * *

  He was a boy called Antoku again, so small compared to all the powerful samurai rushing about the deck of the ship, compared to even his grandmother and the pretty ladies who waited on him. The flaming arrows came down, and the air was filled with the smoke of burning sails and other things burning that he did not like to think about. But he could see things so much more clearly now. It was all familiar.

  The fluttering banners emblazoned with the butterfly mon of his grandfather’s family.

  Antoku wept with sadness for the ravaged corpses in the water, thrust aside by the passage of the ship’s hull. Staring eyes, armored bodies thick with arrow fletchings, bobbing, sinking beneath the waves. All of them because of him.

  The pursuing ships came after them with relentless fervor, their banners fluttering with the blue mon of bamboo leaves and gentian blossoms.

  * * *

  An eternity of pain stole his breath, his voice, his mind. In the interstices between tortures, Ken’ishi’s consciousness disappeared. He must have slept, but even his dreams were filled with excruciations. His world became a dank, wet cave where a pale, waspy man beat him, embedded bamboo slivers into his flesh, under his fingernails and toenails, through his tongue, where he lay bound, hanged, trussed, deprived of water and food. When he was fed, he received only water and runny millet gruel. Bereft of the sun, he lost all sense of time.