Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy)

by Travis Heermann

Ken’ishi’s touch bloodied the white headband as he tossed it onto Fang Shi’s face, then pried the curved Chinese broadsword from Fang Shi’s dead, meaty fingers and took it with him.

  “Come!”

  Hage fled back down the hallway, with Ken’ishi close upon his furry rump.

  If by setting one’s heart right morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling.

  — Hagakure

  Yasutoki made sure his basket hat was in place before he stepped out of the palanquin and surveyed the scene. The street was dark at this tender hour, but several firemen stood outside the door of the brothel, and Madam Kuro kept the women herded and huddled together nearby. Any former patrons had long since vacated the area. Smoke hung thick; a few wisps still trailed from the open doorway of Dream of the Pink Orchid.

  He strode toward the doorway. Firemen and others with their empty buckets made way.

  Masoku approached him and bowed. “Master.”

  At that word, a hush spread through the crowd, and others bowed around him. They all knew who owned his establishment, and he might have taken a moment to savor their fear if someone had not just tried to burn down one of his most profitable ventures.

  Yasutoki’s eyes scanned the crowd, remembering faces, demeanors, reactions. Would the culprit have remained nearby to watch his handiwork? “The fire has been contained?”

  “Yes, Master. But there is more. If you would come inside.” Masoku gestured toward the door.

  Inside, the walls of the entry room were blackened with soot, and the stench of smoke, ash, sodden tatami, and seared flesh sharpened the air. Runnels of soot-blackened water collected in puddles, and a great patch of tatami lay blackened and soaked. Amid the remnants of the fire lay Fang Shi’s charred body, the hilt of a knife protruding from his chest.

  Yasutoki had seen such a knife before.

  Masoku said, “I found this near the body.” He held out a headband, soot-blackened and blood-stained to be sure, but Yasutoki recognized its fashion, white with a single red stripe.

  There were too many ears about to discuss this openly. Yasutoki led Masoku into a room deeper within the brothel. The smoke had permeated even this deeply. Would the entire building have to be gutted and rebuilt? Such an expense would erase his profits from this place for the entire year.

  Yasutoki said, “Why would the White Lotus do this? We have done nothing to provoke them. The last war was too costly for them.”

  Masoku said, “Teng Zhou is ambitious. Perhaps they have found new allies, or new reasons to seek a greater share of territory. Perhaps they simply had a grudge against Fang Shi.”

  “He had many enemies. You have twenty-two sturdy fighters in your direct employ, yes?”

  Masoku nodded, “Thirteen ronin and the rest commoners good with spear and club, and all hungry for coin. They’ll fight.”

  “This insult cannot go unanswered. Take your men to—”

  A scream from outside cut him short.

  Yasutoki snatched his short sword from its concealment within his robes, drawing a handful of shuriken into his left hand.

  Masoku drew his sword, and the two of them hurried back toward the street, where a clamor spread. More screams from the women pierced the night. The firemen flung down their buckets and fled. Voices rose in terror, others in rage. Masoku peeked out the charred doorway, then dodged back as a torch flew through the doorway into the entry way. It landed on charred wood that was unlikely to catch fire quickly.

  A man in a white headband charged through the doorway with his long knife upraised. Masoku cut him down. “Master, run!”

  Grim-faced men in white headbands, clutching vicious-looking knives, filled the street. Women screamed and tried to scatter, only to have their hair snatched in mid-flight. Three more men charged through the doorway, driving Masoku back, swinging their blades in deadly arcs. Masoku blocked and counter-struck, teeth gritted.

  Yasutoki flung his shuriken, and one of Masoku’s assailants fell with a gurgling scream and blades in his cheek, throat, and chest.

  “Run, Master!” Masoku hissed, facing the White Lotus, bloody katana aloft, eyes wild.

  Yasutoki slipped deeper into the brothel. Through a narrow passage he would emerge into the gambling house and could flee from there, making his way through the shadowy night to where others in his employ would be roused to vengeance. He ran through the smoky darkness, rage starting to boil within him.

  Why would the White Lotus attack now? This put a severe crimp into his plans. Nevertheless, if the White Lotus wanted war, Green Tiger would give it to them.

  * * *

  “Are you sure this is his house?” Ken’ishi said.

  The house was well-appointed from the outside, with a stone and plaster wall surrounding the compound, the gate emblazoned with the dual ginger-blossom emblem of the Otomo clan. At this late hour, the lanterns of the gate glowed surprisingly bright.

  The surrounding wooded hillside filtered the lights of Hakata, which sprawled down the slope below toward the glimmering expanse of the bay perhaps four or five ri distant. The moon hung like a half-lidded cataract eye, misted by a film of silver-fringed clouds. Over the course of the night, a steady wind had risen, moist and strangely warm for this time of year.

  The tanuki hunched in the shadows at Ken’ishi’s knee. “Quite sure, old sot. That’s what a nose is for, after all. If only you humans could use yours. Then again, perhaps you should be telling me whether your toy is in there.”

  Ken’ishi had indeed caught glimmers of the silver thread in his mind, feeling for its gentle tug, but the sense had been too ephemeral to give him more than a vague direction. Nevertheless, something unseen filled the air as if with silent hornets. He could still smell Fang Shi’s blood and entrails on his face, in his hair. They had crossed through most of the city, clinging to alleys and shadows, lest his bloody appearance raise the alarm. His hand and arm were still sticky with it as he carried Fang Shi’s heavy blade. He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. From within the Void would come awareness of Silver Crane.

  His body startled to tingle with anticipation.

  Hage edged forward. “It seems we have missed some activity.”

  A dark shape stepped out of the gate, then another, guards with swords and light armor.

  “The hour is too late for lamps and such alert guards,” Hage said. “Perhaps your ruse is working, and the White Lotus have begun their reprisals.”

  “We had best find the sword before alerting the house,” Ken’ishi said. “Can you not spirit us inside?”

  “My powers have been taxed. I have little left tonight. Perhaps one last burst, and then we are left with just our wits and strength. There is a smaller rear gate for servants and deliveries, and a garden. We could sneak inside there.”

  Ken’ishi nodded approval.

  “And cover your face. You don’t want Green Tiger or anyone else to see your face.”

  “I’m not a thief!”

  Hage had urged him to bring a cloth to conceal his face, but he had been loath to wear it. Such things were not the behavior of a samurai.

  “Does stealing from a thief make you less of a thief? You mortals get so twisted up over labels and words, good and evil. If you don’t want to listen to me, don’t listen to me, but I’m telling you that if anyone, especially Green Tiger, sees your face, you’ll regret it. You’ve been in his clutches once. Care to find yourself there again?”

  Ken’ishi let out a long breath to release the bolt of fear that drilled up his spine. If by fortune or the favor of the kami and the gods and Buddhas he succeeded, he would live a life of renewed honor until the end of his days. He wrapped the cloth over the lower half of his face.

  Hage led him into the shadows under the trees. Ken’ishi stepped gingerly on fallen leaves and sticks, but the noise drew a hiss from the tanuki. “You sneak like
Pon-Pon!”

  Ken’ishi’s skills as a woodsman had gone rusty, like so many of his other abilities. On the faraway mountains in the north, he had developed great skills at forest stealth, even until he had successfully stolen upon Kaa, who had the senses of a cat. It seemed like such a long time ago. Nevertheless, as the memories came trickling back of all the times he had stolen through the forests of the northern mountains, he found the noise of his step diminishing. Sharp snaps and crackles became rustlings and brushings that could have been mistaken for the movements of small night creatures or the wind in the leaves. And the wind had become a stiff, steady breeze.

  Suddenly the kami all but screamed a warning through Ken’ishi’s flesh. At that moment, Hage hissed and froze in place, front leg poised, eyes fixed on something ahead.

  Ken’ishi could make out nothing, and it came home to him how blind he was in this darkness. The tanuki seemed to function perfectly well, when all Ken’ishi could see was the dark smudge of the tanuki’s body moving among other dark smudges of forest floor, undergrowth, and deeper shadow.

  Hage backed up a few small steps. A wiggle began in his haunches, passed forward through his body, to his neck, his cheeks, until a puff of golden mist erupted from him like a combination of sneeze and cough. The mist hung in the air and spread out before him like smoke in a faint breeze. In the path of the mist, a pale line emerged drawing across their path toward the base of a tree, then surreptitiously up the trunk, higher into the branches, to a spiked log poised to sweep down from on high and simultaneously impale and flatten anything in its path. The racket of its rampage would bring guards to mop up what remained.

  A chill shot through Ken’ishi. The entire area could be a sea of traps like this one. Of course, Green Tiger’s house would be protected in unseen ways. Why had Ken’ishi not considered this? What other traps lurked in the night? The roar of the kami diminished to an incessant murmur.

  Hage changed course to circumvent the tripwire. A handful of steps later, the carpet of leaves collapsed under his feet, and he fell forward with a startled squeak. Ken’ishi snatched Hage by the tail, catching him before he plunged into the pit. A rug of burlap and leaves caught in the bottom on a snarl of shaved bamboo spikes, just visible as pale streaks in the earthy shadows below. Hage’s legs sprang out stiff in all directions as Ken’ishi lifted him by the tail and carefully set him back upon solid ground.

  For a long time, Hage simply stood and shivered. Finally, he looked over his shoulder at Ken’ishi with silent thanks.

  The golden glow of the tripwire was fading, so he wrapped an arm around Hage, slung him underneath, and stepped over the wire. If the kami wanted him to live and he was wise enough to heed their warnings, he would live. Nevertheless, the earth might fall away at any step and send him plunging down onto a bed of spikes like a sea urchin’s back. With each step, he wondered if it would be his last. He set his jaw and stalked through the forest. No more fear.

  And then the plaster wall emerged from the darkness, a sheet of ghostly white across the forest.

  “Put me down!” Hage whispered. “This is undignified!”

  Ken’ishi put him down. “Like putting me in a woman’s kimono perhaps? Seeing you hanging by your tail was enjoyable.”

  Hage paused, then sighed. “It’s only fun when it’s not me, fool. But your point is taken. Now follow me. There is a drain opening over there.”

  “Can’t we go over?”

  “The top is lined with iron spikes.”

  Ken’ishi followed Hage to a low opening that allowed a small stream bed to pass through the base of the wall. In rainy times, the stream would be alive and gurgling, a source of water and pleasure for the house and its garden. Iron bars filled the opening. Hage stuck his nose between them, held his breath, and started to wriggle through. The fit was tight, however, and he grunted and cursed with each finger’s breadth of progress. Finally, he popped clear on the opposite side.

  Ken’ishi dropped to all fours in the soft, cool streambed. The opening was so small that his human form could not have fit through even without the bars present. He reached his hand through, and Hage offered his bulging jewel sack for Ken’ishi to grab, which he did. A burst of hot-cold tingles and moments later, he had again taken the shape of a tanuki. He thrust himself through the bars after Hage. Perhaps he made a thinner tanuki, but he found himself passing through the bars with relative ease. Even as he did, he felt the tingle of the magic sputtering like a starving candle, until it faded completely and he found himself in human form again with one ankle still caught between the bars. Fortunately, he was able to extricate his foot with little difficulty.

  “That’s all of it, old sot.” Hage suppressed a worried frown.

  Lamps glowed on the house’s garden veranda, turning bushes into hunched, half-human shapes, bamboo stalks into black shafts spearing heavenward, swaying in the wind.

  Somewhere between himself and the glow of the veranda, Ken’ishi heard wet, labored breathing, accompanied by the stench of death.

  The crane and the tortoise

  on their playground —

  a burnt field

  — Issa

  Ken’ishi froze and listened, but the breathing did not change. The source was invisible in the lamplight and heavy shadows. The soft, moss-covered earth allowed him to slip closer to the sound. The stench of decay intensified, sickly sweet and ripe and wretched. A pair of bare feet, bound to fat stakes, twitched. The breathing was a wet rasp, labored, struggling.

  Ken’ishi stepped closer and stood over a man’s pale-skinned body. The man wore the well-proportioned, finely woven clothes of the well-to-do, but they were now stained and rumpled. He lay on his back with hands and feet splayed, staked to the earth. Each painful breath seeped in and out of a gaping mouth, in a face with eyes closed but features drawn taut by agony. From his right breast, a finger-length spear of bamboo shoot, as thick as a sword blade stabbing skyward, pierced the front of his robe, rooted in the midst of a dark, wet stain.

  The man’s eyes snapped open and fixed on Ken’ishi with the half-crazed glaze that meant he was not sure of his sight. His voice was a parched, ragged hiss. “Kill me!”

  Ken’ishi knelt beside the man’s head and raised a finger to his lips.

  The man seemed only to half-see Ken’ishi. “Kill me, please, Master.… Three days … three nights … the bamboo grows.” Sweat sheened the man’s pale face, his haunted features, and his eyes gleamed like red-rimmed eggshells. He stank of filth and fever and infection.

  Ken’ishi touched the point of the bamboo shoot. It was as sharp and hard as the point of a spear. He had long known that bamboo shoots could spring to great heights in a manner of days, but this … He did not need to ask why this man had been staked out to die this way. The very act of torture was reason enough for Green Tiger. And yet, this was the house of a well-to-do retainer of the Otomo clan.

  “Is he here?” Ken’ishi said. “Is Green Tiger here?”

  The agonized rasp came again. “Kill me, Master!”

  How many days to die, impaled with excruciating slowness by something simply looking for purchase in a harsh world? Might such cruelty corrupt the spirit of the bamboo?

  Finally he could stand the gurgling and wheezing no longer. He raised the broadsword and severed the man’s head with a single blow. The body spasmed once, then trembled for a few moments before subsiding.

  Ken’ishi stood, anger rising in him even as he tried to push it down.

  The smell of death made his eyes water, but the stench did not come from this man. Nearby, another bamboo stalk stood, more mature, with a half-rotted corpse impaled at its base. The bamboo now stood as thick as Ken’ishi’s forearm, prying apart first one set of ribs, savaging a lung, then another set of ribs to emerge into the sunlight, and there to grow taller and thicker, nourished by the death it had caused.

  A single thought crashed through his anger like the peal of a gong.

  DESTINY!

&nbs
p; The thought had been so powerful that he staggered for a moment. Silver Crane was here!

  But so might be more guards. Gripping his weapon, Ken’ishi crept up onto the veranda, bathed in the light of the lamps, stilling his mind in search of the invisible thread that might lead him to the object of his quest. His senses drew taut, acute. Then he slid open the veranda door and stole into the house.

  Tatami rooms decorated by painted scrolls, bits of lacquered furniture inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl, beautiful but not ostentatious. The air was redolent with incense and fresh tatami.

  Where would Green Tiger keep his prize? Hidden in the deepest, darkest corner of the house? Displayed for the world to see? Would Ken’ishi have to turn every room upside down?

  He could only trust that Silver Crane wanted to be found.

  Incense burned on a raised platform a hand’s breadth above the floor, the house’s shrine to the kami and family ancestors. An offering was there of a rice cake and a cup of saké. Near the incense, a wooden slat stood, painted with a magical charm, the nature of which he could not discern. The writing was too esoteric to be comprehensible.

  Green Tiger would not hide the sword away. He would pay homage. The sword was here.

  A piercing scream tore from the opposite side of the room.

  A girl, stunningly beautiful, perhaps no more than fifteen, her eyes wide with terror and warning, naked under a loose silk robe.

  Hage jumped up on his hind legs and charged her, waggling his jewel sack, leaving a trail of sparks in his wake.

  She fled.

  Hage chased her to the doorway then looked back. “Do you have it?”

  “Not yet.”

  A coarse voice from beyond another doorway. “Is that you, Master?” The door whished aside. Silhouetted by lamplight stood a wild-maned figure with a curved splinter of flame-lit steel in his hand. The man’s hair was matted with sweat and dust, his clothes and face shabby and spattered with dark stains. “It’s you!”

  Ken’ishi recognized the voice. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said. “You have spared me the trouble of hunting you down.”