Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy)

by Travis Heermann

  Ishitaka piled into the second Mongol rider, his larger horse pummeling the pony into the dirt.

  Oncoming Mongols plowed into the fallen. Horses and men screamed.

  Another horse crashed into Ken’ishi’s stallion. The stallion screamed with rage, bowled sideways, and the collision flung Ken’ishi into the underbrush. The undergrowth snagged his clothing, preventing him from extricating himself. He struggled and hacked until he had freed himself, then charged back into the melee. The closest enemy’s armored leather coat blunted most of the force of his first blow, but Silver Crane came away stained with more blood. The wounded Mongol slashed, but he ducked away. A writhing, flailing chaos of horses and men screamed and thrashed on the road. He deflected the next blow, turning the parry into a lightning cut that sliced the pony’s throat wide. The animal gurgled a scream as it collapsed. The wounded rider fell with it, and Ken’ishi easily dispatched him.

  Ishitaka extricated himself from the mass of fallen horses and men, stood weaving, blood pouring down his face. He pointed at the nearest unengaged Mongol and roared, “I am Otomo no Ishitaka! I challenge you!”

  The Mongol sneered and brandished his sword as if to accept the challenge, but the savaged mass of groaning men and fallen horses kept the two of them apart. One of the tangled horses thrashed free, righted itself, and limped toward the samurai. Its front leg, splintered and bleeding, flopped horribly as it moved.

  Ishitaka charged, his blade raised to attack the Mongol who had accepted his challenge. The Mongol, astride a well-trained horse, had the advantage of height, but Ishitaka had the advantage of mobility. Ishitaka leaped in close and struck the pony squarely in the forehead. The pony dropped like a stone, spilling its rider. Ishitaka’s katana lodged in the pony’s skull, however, pulling him into range of its hooves’ death spasms. A rear hoof slammed into his belly, doubling him over. An adjacent Mongol hacked downward, and his blade clanged onto the crown of Ishitaka’s helmet. Ishitaka crumpled.

  Ken’ishi leaped to his defense, severing the Mongol’s sword arm near the elbow. The man screamed, and a gush of hot blood blinded Ken’ishi. A horse plowed into him, and the war cry of a samurai told him that one of his comrades had filled the gap. He wiped at his eyes and blinked the stinging blood away, hot copper on his lips, in his nostrils.

  More samurai horsemen surged forward, pushing the Mongol line back, leaving Ken’ishi among the dead and wounded. He could not see the stallion anywhere.

  The melee shifted forward and back, both sides bellowing war cries, grunting with exertion, blades clanging and ringing, bodies tumbling to be trampled into the blood-soaked earth. Ten of the original twenty-one samurai remained, fighting shoulder to shoulder, larger horses straining against the Mongol ponies.

  The Mongols in the rear let fly a few bowshots past their comrades. One of the samurai rolled backward and landed on his back with an arrow embedded in his eye socket.

  Ken’ishi cast about for some way to aid his comrades. He snatched up a bow and quiver from a fallen samurai, then shoved into the thick bushes beside the road. Circling the line of engagement to about twenty paces from the melee’s flank, slightly elevated by the rocks of the hillside, he found himself with clear shooting.

  He drew and fired. His first arrow dropped an enemy from the saddle, and so did the second. He killed or wounded three more before the rearward ranks saw him. They returned fire. Ken’ishi ducked behind a tree, arrows hissing around him and skittering between the branches and trees. The samurai pushed the Mongols further back, until Ken’ishi was forced to shift his location to regain a clear field of fire. More arrows blasted into the trees.

  The samurai gave one more powerful surge against the weakened line of Mongols, and the enemy broke and fled. The elated samurai charged after them, roaring like tigers. They chased their prey for about fifty paces, until they appeared to remember how quickly the hunters could become the hunted, and let their quarry go.

  Ken’ishi returned to the road, and seven remaining samurai joined him.

  One said, “Well done, Ken’ishi! It was your archery that turned the tide in our favor.”

  Several of the others grunted in assent and looked at him with respect. His chest swelled.

  “What now?” the samurai asked Ken’ishi.

  Ken’ishi’s mind raced. They were looking to him for leadership! After a few heartbeats of internal frenzy, he pointed to two of them and said, “You two, ride back to Dazaifu and report.”

  “We obey!” They spurred their weary, blood-spattered steeds away.

  Ken’ishi said, “The rest of us will return to the crossroads where we first saw the enemy. There we will set up an ambush. If they wish to follow us, we will make them pay.”

  “Master Ken’ishi, where is your horse?”

  Ken’ishi said, “I lost him in the melee.” He cupped his hands and called, “Halloo, Sir Stallion!”

  Something stirred in the tangled mess of the dead. With a great heave, the horse rolled onto his side, snorted, and struggled to his feet. He approached Ken’ishi on wobbly legs, blood pouring down his face from a severed ear. “I am … here, Warrior.”

  “You are hurt,” Ken’ishi said. “You cannot fight.”

  “It is but a flesh wound,” the stallion said. “I still have one good ear.” He blinked and shook the blood from his eyes. His legs steadied with each step.

  Two of the samurai whispered to each other. “He talks to horses!”

  “Let’s check for wounded,” Ken’ishi said to the warriors. “You two, go about fifty paces up the road and watch for the enemy.”

  The two samurai obeyed.

  The others slid off their horses to examine the bodies. There were Mongols still alive among the fallen bodies, but not for long.

  Ken’ishi examined the stallion’s ear. Blood poured down the stallion’s face, but the cut had been clean. The ear was simply gone. “Perhaps I shall name you ‘One-Ear.’“

  The stallion snorted, “That sounds like a mongrel dog’s name. Besides, I already have a name. My former master called me Thunder.”

  Ken’ishi examined the horse for other injuries but saw nothing. “A fine name. Rest here.”

  Ken’ishi approached Ishitaka’s body. The Mongol’s sword stroke had opened a finger-long cleft in the crown of Ishitaka’s kabuto. Ken’ishi turned him over. His face was a mask of blood, but he still breathed. “He lives.” Ken’ishi scooped up Ishitaka’s limp form and dragged him free of the tangle.

  The other warriors finished their examination of the bodies. “The barbarians are all dead.”

  A groan came from the pile of dead.

  A Shimazu clan warrior, the man who had fallen with an arrow in his eye, groaned again and stirred. His face was a mask of blood, but his lips were moving, fighting to breathe.

  They ran to help him.

  The wound was hideous. The eye was nothing more than wet, bloody wreckage around a cruel wooden shaft. The arrow point had glanced off the brim of the helmet, leaving a deep dent. Perhaps that was why it had not penetrated deeply enough to kill him outright.

  Ken’ishi said, “We have to take the arrow out.”

  The others stared. “He is as good as dead.”

  “Not yet,” Ken’ishi said.

  “We have to get out of here!” another said.

  Ken’ishi looked at him. “If this was you, what would you have us do?”

  The man stiffened. “Leave me to die. A one-eyed warrior is useless.”

  Ken’ishi should have expected that response, but it was true. Nevertheless, the thought of leaving this man behind to die slowly, in agony, filled him with disgust. With the arrow removed, he might live.

  Ken’ishi fixed the man who had spoken with a hard stare. “Do you have any bandages?”

  The man shook his head.

  Ken’ishi tore a long strip from his own robe, then knelt down beside the wounded man, untied the chin strap of the man’s helmet and eased if off his head. “What is
his name?” he asked of the men standing around him.

  “Shimazu no Hironori,” said the man.

  Ken’ishi said to the wounded man, “Master Shimazu. Shimazu, can you hear me?”

  The wounded man whispered. “Yes. Am I dead?”

  “No, but you have an arrow in your eye. Do you understand?”

  “Then I will die.”

  “I think we can take it out. Do you want to live?”

  “Yes …”

  Ken’ishi realized that the wounded man was hardly a man at all. No older than sixteen summers, maybe even fifteen. “Very well, I will try to remove the arrow.” Then, to the men standing around him, “Someone hold his head.”

  The man who had spoken knelt down and held the boy’s head with both hands. The boy screamed the moment Ken’ishi’s fingers touched the arrow shaft. Ken’ishi took a deep breath, grasped the arrow and pulled. The boy screamed more, and the man holding his head gripped it tighter. But the arrow did not come out.

  Ken’ishi’s guts tightened. He pulled still harder, and the boy screamed louder. The wooden shaft creaked with the force of his pull, but the arrow held fast. The barbed point was firmly lodged in the boy’s skull. If he broke the arrow shaft, he would never get the arrow out.

  “Hold his head tighter,” Ken’ishi said. “Someone hold his arms.”

  Two more men came forward and knelt to grasp the boy’s arms. Ken’ishi marveled that the boy was still conscious. He looked at the three men holding the boy down, and they looked back up at him, signaling their readiness.

  Ken’ishi braced his foot against the boy’s cheek, grasped the arrow with both hands, and pulled. The boy screamed. The arrow came out with a wet squelch and a sound like it was pulled from the trunk of a stout oak tree. Ken’ishi sighed with relief and tossed the arrow away. The boy’s roar of agony turned to rage. The men released him, and he lurched to his feet.

  “Bastard!” he shouted. Blood still gushing from his ruined eye, he drew his short sword, his good eye aflame with rage. “I would rather have died than suffer the disgrace of having your foot in my face!”

  Ken’ishi could only stare. The boy stepped forward on wobbly legs, raising his sword to slash. Ken’ishi jumped back, and two men moved forward to restrain the boy.

  Then he collapsed again, sagging against the men holding him until they eased him back to the ground.

  Ken’ishi shook his head in puzzlement and wrapped the bandage around Shimazu no Hironori’s terrible wound. “Can you carry him?”

  The first man nodded.

  “Then take him. My horse is too weak to carry two. You, go and bring back our sentries. We’ve lingered here long enough. Back to the crossroads.”

  The mightiest gods

  Loom naked in a black wind

  Laughing at demons

  — Soseki

  From Ken’ishi’s vantage point in the rocks above the open crossroads, the road lay visible in every direction. Around him, the others lay hidden at other favorable locations. They had picketed their horses deep within the forest.

  A few of the men had been displeased by the idea of waiting in ambush; it was not honorable, they said. They should fight in the traditional way, by issuing challenges and fighting man to man.

  Ken’ishi had answered them, “Is the enemy honorable? No. They are demons who drink horse blood! They have no honor, so they fight with none. We must fight as they fight, or they will simply shoot us from afar. Dying needlessly, uselessly, is not the way.”

  His words were apparently sufficient to assuage their discomfort.

  The enemy did not come. An hour passed with no sign of them.

  A tremendous weariness emptied all the strength from his limbs. The battles with the White Lotus, with Fang Shi, with Masoku, seemed so long ago, almost as if they had been in another life, as if his life had resumed the moment he had recovered Silver Crane. He fought against sleep, but his exhaustion would not be denied. His vision became hazy and indistinct, as if he were in a lotus dream. The branches around him took on a strange, silvery cast, as if coated in iridescent dust.

  A strange bird sat on a branch above. It was larger than a hawk, with fine, silvery gray feathers, a bright crimson beak, and beady black eyes that seemed to glisten with mischievous intelligence and scrutiny.

  Ken’ishi felt a tingle of recognition that he could not name. “Good day, Mr. Bird.”

  The bird’s eyes closed in silent laughter. “Good day, Monkey-boy.”

  Ken’ishi’s voice caught.

  “Come now, nothing to say?” The bird preened its wing feathers.

  Finally Ken’ishi managed to speak. “Sensei!”

  “So you finally recognize me! How perceptive.”

  Ken’ishi bowed deeply. “I am sorry, Sensei. You do not look like yourself.”

  “I never did. How do you think I should look?”

  “Well, as I remember you.”

  The bird laughed silently again. “Sometimes you are such a fool.”

  “I am happy to see you again, Sensei. It has been a long time.”

  “Hardly an eye blink to me, but not so long as you might think. And it seems that a new band of monkeys wants your territory.”

  “You speak of the barbarians?”

  “Yes, but you are all barbarians, aren’t you?”

  “We are not like them! They are vile, evil creatures. Demons!”

  “Demons lurk in every one of your race, Monkey-boy. They only require the necessary circumstances to be given reign. Do not be so quick to think your people are any better than these ‘barbarians.’ You have not seen the capacity for brutality your people conceal in their darkest corners. You slice off heads and disembowel yourselves and cut each other up into tiny pieces with your beautiful swords. Swords, I might add, that you stole from my people in the beginning.”

  “But I have seen it, Sensei.” The memory of a thousand agonies shot through every fiber of him.

  The bird studied him for a long moment. “Perhaps you have at that.”

  “These barbarians have no honor!”

  “Ah, but they do. They hold many things as dear as your people. Those things are merely different from yours.”

  Ken’ishi felt the anger starting a slow burn in his belly. “Creatures who drink blood and slay little children have no honor! They cannot!”

  “I have traveled the steppes of Mongolia, Monkey-boy. I saw how these men live, long before the man born as Temujin ever dreamed of uniting them, changing his name to Genghis and conquering an empire. They drink blood for food, Monkey-boy, because their homeland is a far harsher place than this one. They quench their thirst with mare’s milk because there is little water. Endless tracks of dry earth and open sky, with nothing between them and starvation. The land is a harsh teacher.”

  “You sound as if you admire them! They killed—” A sudden vision of Little Frog strangled off the rest of his words.

  “Of course, I admire them! And so should you! If you turn them into mindless monsters in your mind, you make them less than yourself! Down that path lies failure because, if they are less than you, there will come a time when you underestimate them. And that will be your death. You must respect your enemy while seeking his weaknesses.”

  “They have no weaknesses.”

  “It certainly appears so on the surface. Each of them is as tough as an oak tree. But what will fell an oak tree?”

  “Chopping it down.”

  “No, you fool!”

  Ken’ishi suddenly had the feeling that a pebble was hissing toward his head, and he ducked instinctively.

  The bird’s eyes closed again, and his feathers shook with mirth. “It is good to see you still have some awareness. You remember my lessons.” The bird sighed. “So when is it easiest to fell an oak tree?”

  “When it is rotten.”

  “Why does it rot?”

  “Because it is dead.”

  The bird shook its head in disgust. “Roots, Monkey-boy! Roots! Th
e tree draws its power and life from the roots. Starve the roots, and the tree will die!”

  “But, Sensei, I am sorry. I did not know that.”

  The bird blinked, then launched into a fresh tirade. “Then you must have been sleeping during that lesson! Nevertheless, it is true. The Mongol army is like a tree, incredibly tough and resilient, with leaves uncountable, but if it is attacked below ground, at the roots, the tree will starve and die and rot.”

  Ken’ishi pondered this.

  “Since you are so thick-skulled, I will explain it to you. The roots of the Mongol army stretch all the way back to China. They are like a tree growing on a rock escarpment. Their roots are exposed. Ah, I see that you finally understand! That is good!”

  “Sensei, is this why you have come? To tell me how to defeat the enemy?”

  “I don’t care who wins. I just became sidetracked by your chattering. Nevertheless, I would dislike seeing you die so soon.”

  “Then why have you sought me out now, after all this time, with the enemy bearing down upon us?”

  “Because I only just discovered the things I have to tell you. And they could not wait.”

  “What is it? What have you come to tell me?”

  “I have seen your future. There is a day coming when you will learn the history of your family. You will learn who your father was—”

  Ken’ishi leaned forward in excitement. “Tell me!”

  “—But that day is not today. And what’s more, that knowledge will cause you pain that you cannot imagine.”

  Ken’ishi looked away, trying to control his anger and growing frustration. But he could not rise up against his former master. “Why have you told me this? To taunt me?”

  “To warn you! But, my efforts will probably be fruitless.” The bird sighed. “Like all your kind, you will probably ignore my warning and charge forward like a bull into your destiny. Monkey-boy, you have triumphs and pain ahead of you like you cannot imagine now. I have looked in on you from time to time. You have done well, Little Acorn.”