Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy)

by Travis Heermann

Indifference?

  Malice?

  I hate the sight of coming day

  Since that morning when

  Your insensitive gaze turned me to ice

  Like the pale moon in the dawn.

  — The Love Poems of Marichiko

  Perhaps two ri into the countryside, Ken’ishi and the stallion came upon a corpse in the road, a lightly armored samurai, a single arrow protruding from the back of his skull.

  The stallion snorted. “Another horse without a master.”

  “Another ronin steed, like you,” Ken’ishi said.

  He cautiously dismounted and approached. The man lay face down. Tied to his obi was a wooden message box bearing the seal of the Office of the Western Defense Commissioner, who had his office in Dazaifu, about ten ri to the south. This man was a messenger. Ken’ishi grabbed the box and jerked it free, snapping the cords. Inside was a letter, addressed with hasty scribbling to Hojo no Masahige.

  Ken’ishi’s predecessor had been dead some three years, slain by Chiba’s father. He considered opening the letter, but a nearby noise stopped him, more horsemen coming, this time from ahead. He threw away the box and stuffed the letter into his robe, then snatched the horse’s reins and tugged him toward the bushes.

  The horse resisted. “You run from a fight?”

  “I’ll choose my moments to fight, now come!”

  The horse followed him into the undergrowth, where he looped the reins over a branch, then readied his bow.

  The barbarians rode into view, looking even more fearsome up close. Their stench was even worse. Five of them passed within a few paces of his position, but riding too fast to spy him and paying no attention to the corpse in the road.

  When the barbarians had gone, he pulled out the letter and tried to read it. The hurried, scrawling brush strokes made understanding all but impossible. The only sentence he could understand fully was the last one, which was a request for all able-bodied men to assemble immediately at Dazaifu.

  Norikage would be able to read the rest of the letter. He only hoped that Norikage still lived. But why was the letter addressed to Hojo no Masahige? That thought troubled him as he continued toward the village.

  * * *

  Chiba waited for as long as he could after the last barbarian had left before squeezing himself out from under the floor of his family’s house. The dark hollow beneath the floor where he had often hid as a child to outwait his father’s drunken rages had served him well once again.

  Young Shota stood nailed to the wall with arrows. Ryuba lay in the street, arrow-riddled and trampled. Chiba tried not to look, but he could not take his eyes from the corpses for a long time. Cold, empty blackness settled into his belly.

  He knew he should be thinking about what to do, but his mind was too muddled. He should dart off into the forest like a rabbit and hide. He should take all the food and water he could carry. Such thoughts roiled forth, but then disappeared again with each new horror he saw. Houses roaring with flames. Corpses strewn like shredded straw dolls. Memories of the screaming. The stench of burning flesh, of blood, of smoke.

  He knew them all, this throng of the dead. He had liked very few of them, and even fewer had liked him, but he knew them. They were as much a part of his home as the houses and the docks and the shore. There was no one left to bury them. No one left to chant sutras or burn incense. Chiba certainly was not going to do any of that. As soon as he could think straight, he was going to gather some food and water and get out of here.

  Movement caught his eye from near the inn.

  He shambled toward the shape, a woman, dragging herself painfully toward the doorway of the inn, pulling something bloody behind her. Chiba’s eyes were not good enough anymore to distinguish details. Drawing closer, he saw the deep gash across her back. Through the crimson-soaked lips of her robe, a streak of white bone was visible. With one hand she was dragging the ravaged body of a small child.

  A quavering laugh came out of him.

  Kiosé gasped and looked back over her shoulder. Recognizing him, she rolled onto her back, eyes wide and hollow, her face and lips as pale as the belly of a fish. She dragged Little Frog’s remains close to her, hugged them against her side.

  For long heartbeats Chiba and Kiosé looked at each other.

  Her breath came in wet, ragged gasps.

  Then he stepped over her and went into the inn to search for food.

  The whore would soon join her whelp. Perhaps there was justice in this world after all.

  * * *

  The unnatural silence hammered on Ken’ishi’s ears as he paused at the outskirts of the village, wary of danger. Flames engulfed several buildings, one of which was Norikage’s office, belching smoke into the gray sky. With the nearness of the surrounding structures, the fire was likely to consume most of the village, but he saw no villagers trying to quench the flames. He saw no one at all, except scattered, arrow-riddled corpses. For several long moments, he waited for any sign of the marauding horsemen. Only when he was certain none were coming did he urge the horse into the village.

  His lips tightened, his throat clenched as he passed the corpses lying in pools of muddy gore on the dirt street. All familiar faces, now frozen into grotesque masks of death and terror, smeared, spattered with blood, arrows sticking out of them like feathered spines. Men and women, young and old. He searched the faces for two he most did not want to find among the dead.

  His eyes and nose burned from smoke and grief. Outside Norikage’s office, he tried to shield his mouth and nose as he peered into the roaring flames. The stallion snorted and stamped at the inferno’s proximity. If Norikage was in there, he was long dead. This village no longer needed a constable or an administrator—only gravediggers.

  He called into every house, every shop. Not a single soul remained alive. Some faces he knew were not among the dead; perhaps they had fled into the woods or been taken prisoner. Most of the buildings had been sacked, including his house, with clothes and other belongings strewn into the street. The storehouse appeared to have been raided before it was set to burn, judging from the rice grains and bits of smoked fish strewn about the entrance.

  A figure in tattered, bloody clothing lay in the doorway of the inn. A deluge of sick dread flooded his guts. Flinging himself off the horse, Ken’ishi ran across the street. Not one bloody figure, but two. He recognized Kiosé’s robe. The child’s dirty hands and feet, the scrap of topknot, were unmistakable.

  A choked sound of rage and grief escaped Ken’ishi’s throat before he clamped it off.

  Blood stiffened the back of Kiosé’s robe around the long gash from her neck to her hip. The blood trail and marks in the dirt told of how she had dragged the remains of her son this far. But now her eyes were closed as if sleeping, and her open mouth sagged onto the floor, her stiff hand clawing at nothing.

  His torso became a cavern of ice, numbing the rest of him. A terrible trembling swept through him.

  The stallion said, “You were too late to save your mare or your son.”

  “My son?”

  “He has your scent, even in death.”

  Ken’ishi’s chin fell, and he struggled to control the grief that howled up within him like a typhoon wind. He knelt beside Kiosé and, with infinite gentleness, scooped up her body and carried it to his house, then returned for the remains of Little Frog. He tried to ignore her cold, gray flesh; the last time he had held it, it had been steeped in warmth and life. He placed them both on his futon, child on his mother’s breast, wrapped them in his best blanket, clapped twice and said a prayer to the kami to help them on their way.

  Then he scattered oil and tinder and set the house aflame.

  He knelt on the ground and watched the house burn, trying to convince himself that it was the smoke that made his eyes water so.

  The stallion said, “You did not know that he was your son.”

  Ken’ishi shook his head. “Kiosé knew. She tried to tell me, make me believe it. But for a lo
ng time, I didn’t want it to be true.”

  “A strange thing to deny one’s progeny the comfort of the herd. Of course, when they grow, they must be cast out to gather their own herd, but until then it is a joy to be surrounded by the cavorting of one’s colts. I have a great many strong sons and swift, beautiful daughters.”

  “I was a fool.”

  “But you are alive, and vengeance awaits.”

  Ken’ishi’s grip tightened on the reins as he prepared to mount. “Yes. But first I hope to find one last friend.”

  Deepen, drop, and die

  Many-hued chrysanthemums …

  One black earth for all

  — Ryusui

  Hatsumi sat in her chambers, dressed in her rich, feather-soft robes, wringing her hands, waiting for news. Lord Tsunetomo had departed with his troops. Soon, darkness would fall.

  Kazuko was off somewhere in the castle, pretending to be a man. The girl’s father had always suffered her to play with sharp things, and now her husband allowed the same. Kazuko was too fragile a flower to risk her beauty in manly ways. Now she seemed to fancy herself a true warrior, dressed up in all that armor and acting like a man.

  Hatsumi wanted someone to bring her tea, but there was no one. All the servants were hard at work preparing for a possible siege, gathering wood and hauling vast quantities of food and supplies into the castle, intent on saving the fruits of the recent harvest from the enemy. So Hatsumi was forced to venture toward the kitchen to warm some water. Making tea was beneath her, except to make it for her mistress, and even then she had other servants bring her the water and the tea leaves.

  This waiting for news was the worst part. What would be her fate if Lord Tsunetomo was killed? She scowled. Tsunemori would probably claim his lands and castle. What would happen to Hatsumi and Kazuko in that event? Would Tsunemori allow his widowed sister-in-law to remain here? Tsunemori and his wife, Lady Yukino, that selfish old busybody, would take over the lord’s chambers, relegating Hatsumi and Kazuko to smaller, more modest rooms. The new lady of the house might even throw them out entirely. What would happen to them then? For that matter, what would happen if Tsunemori was killed, too? Perhaps then Kazuko could maintain her claim to the castle. Perhaps not. Some of Lord Tsunetomo’s relatives might try to assert their claim on his lands. Even the Shogun might step in and award the lands to someone else. So many possibilities for ill fortune.

  Hatsumi had grown accustomed to the opulence of life in the house of a great lord. To have it snatched away now …

  She did not reach the doors outside before she saw Kazuko and Captain Nobuhara approaching. Absorbed in their own conversation, they did not see her. Kazuko looked worried. No, she looked terrified. She concealed it well, but Hatsumi knew the signs, like the way she clenched her fists and tilted her head.

  Captain Nobuhara bowed. “This changes nothing, milady. Our preparations must continue for as long as possible, until the enemy is in sight.”

  Spotting Hatsumi coming down the hallway toward them, they both stopped. Kazuko turned to the armored samurai and said, “Please see to it, Captain.”

  Captain Nobuhara bowed again. “As you wish, milady. Do not worry. The enemy will never see the inside of these walls.” The captain went back outside.

  Kazuko turned toward Hatsumi, her mask beginning to crack.

  Hatsumi knew she must sequester her mistress before the mask shattered completely. It would not do for Kazuko to weep in front of everyone. She hurried forward and took the young woman by an armored elbow. “Come, dear. You can tell me all about it in your chambers.”

  Kazuko allowed herself to be led. Her gait was stiff with the effort of self-control.

  Hatsumi had held her arm many times before, but the difference in how Kazuko’s body felt after all the martial training and while wearing armor was startling. The womanly softness that made her so beautiful was now encased in layers of lacquered plates and silken cords. She almost felt like a man. They climbed all the way to the upper reaches of the castle keep.

  Behind closed doors, Kazuko sank down onto the tatami, and her shoulders sagged as if her armor weighed upon her like a cartload of iron ore. Her face was not powdered. Her hair was in disarray. She almost looked like a young man.

  “Now, what is it, dear?” Hatsumi said.

  Kazuko’s mask shattered like porcelain. She buried her face in her hands and wept.

  Hatsumi held back a stab of fear, but hugged Kazuko’s shoulders and waited patiently until the first gush of sobs subsided.

  Kazuko shuddered out the words, like the beat of a drum. “There was a messenger. He brought word from Tsunemori. We have been defeated. The enemy force numbers in the untold thousands. Our defenses were crushed and scattered. Our troops have fallen back to Dazaifu, where the other lords gather their forces. My husband was wounded by an arrow, and was unable to write the message himself. The enemy fights like demons, and ignores all honorable ways of battle. Our samurai could not stand against them.”

  Hatsumi’s fear deepened, but she would not show it. How long before her own mask of control would shatter? Did Yasutoki still live? Had he gotten away from Hakata in time? The thought of him coming to harm filled her with fear and regret. She regretted that she had never been able to enjoy him fully, too lost in her own suffering.

  Kazuko said, “This is not a pirate attack, or peasant rebellion, or a war between samurai lords. These are not just barbarians; they are oni.”

  Their eyes met, and a rush of revulsion and terror swept through Hatsumi’s body.

  Kazuko’s voice hardened, and her eyes sparkled with brittle ferocity. “They will not take us alive. Do you understand, Hatsumi?”

  Hatsumi gulped down her fear. “I understand.”

  A beautiful woman sobs

  in a shabby inn surrounded by bloodgrass —

  with a deer’s voice

  — Buson

  Ken’ishi searched for any signs of hoof prints on the forest path, but saw none. The quicker he traveled, the easier it was to drive out the memories of Kiosé’s dead face, the feel of her lifeless body, the savaged remains of Little Frog. Perhaps Norikage was dead, too. Everyone and everything he knew, dead and gone. He would never know Kiosé’s gentle touch again, nor the pleasure he felt when she gave him a rare smile.

  The forest held its breath, and the pond where he had once faced the deadly kappa lay just ahead. Suddenly, a blood-smeared apparition erupted from the bushes with its mouth agape. Pale, thin arms flailed at him. Silver Crane jumped free into his hand, rising to strike.

  Norikage’s voice stayed his blow. “By all the gods and Buddhas, Ken’ishi, it is good to see you! You’re alive!” The little man ignored all sense of propriety and decorum, throwing himself against Ken’ishi’s stirrup.

  Ken’ishi could not help feeling relieved as well. He slid his sword back into its scabbard. “And you as well!”

  “You have been gone so long! All this time! But I knew you would come back and—”

  Ken’ishi dismounted. “What happened to you? Are you wounded?”

  Norikage scrutinized the gash across the top of his shoulder. “I think an arrow nicked me. They rode into the village, killing everyone, looting houses, the inn.… Everyone just ran. Some of the villagers escaped, I think.”

  Ken’ishi said, “How did you escape?”

  “I ran like a tanuki.” Norikage’s haunted face filled with shame. “And poor Kiosé. And …”

  “They are dead.”

  “Yes, I saw. Oh, my friend—”

  Ken’ishi pulled the letter out of his robe. “I found this on the body of a dead messenger. I cannot read it all.”

  “Show me!” Norikage took the letter with two quivering hands, opened it, and read. His gaze flicked up and down the crumpled page. Norikage’s hand sank to his side as if the letter had suddenly become a tremendous weight. His face drained of color.

  “What does it say?” Ken’ishi asked.

  Norikage’s no
rmally rich and well-controlled voice was now tight and quiet. “The islands of Tsushima and Iki, between Hakata Bay and the Koryo peninsula, have already fallen to the enemy, their entire garrisons slaughtered. The town of Imazu on the western side of the Bay is under attack, likely to fall before night. Hakata and Hakozaki are lost. This letter is a message to summon all men to Dazaifu, where the government is gathering an army to defend Kyushu.”

  “Then we must reach Dazaifu. What do you know of these barbarians?”

  “When I lived in Kyoto, I heard quite a lot about them, none of it good. They are demons, said to drink blood! And they wear the skins of their victims.” His face twisted with revulsion. “They conquered all of China under the leadership of a great general known as Genghis, who became their Khan. Their dominion has spread to lands as far as the gods can reach. Now their emperor is Khubilai, grandson of Genghis. When I was still in Kyoto, there was a great panic when the Imperial Court received a letter from Khubilai Khan, demanding that the emperor submit to his rule and pay a huge tribute, or else face invasion. The court thought it best to suggest a compromise, but the shogunate refused to allow it. They sent the Khan’s emissaries away with no reply at all.”

  “Is China a big country?”

  Norikage’s voice grew more fevered. “Ah, Ken’ishi, China is larger than you have ever imagined, and the Mongols were able to conquer it with little struggle. They are barbarians of the steppes, practically born on horseback, with bows no one else can pull and armies so vast and potent that no one can stand against them. We are doomed!”

  “Tighten up your courage, Norikage.” Ken’ishi’s voice was cold and grim, thick with unspoken warning. “Or the enemy has already beaten you.”

  A rustling in the bushes tightened Ken’ishi’s awareness and he spun, hand on his sword.

  Norikage raised a hand. “Do not worry.” He glanced over his shoulder into the bushes. “You can come out.”

  “Who is with you?” Ken’ishi said.

  Wide-eyed and trembling, Kiosé emerged from the bushes, clothes torn and disheveled, her hair in wild strings.