L5r - scroll 06 - The Dragon

by Ree Soesbee

  "Needed?" She laughed scornfully. "The only reason he is needed is to bleed on my blade—to finally taste his death and see with tortured eyes my vengeance for Satsu. I can do it.

  Don't fear for my life, old man. I have been reborn, and Yakamo cannot defeat me this time; his death will be simple. With this," she crushed part of the wall in an easy grip, her Obsidian Hand pulverizing the solid stone into ash. "I can finally be free. Three months in the mountains, and my wounds will heal. The Kit-

  suki will take me in, their healers will protect me, hide me----

  In three months, I will be ready to fight again."

  If you destroy him, the empire will die.

  Her eyes widened in anger and hatred. "Why do you still stand in my way!" she shouted, and the echo was twisted by the storm. She turned to face the shadowy form, and saw the riddle in his eyes.

  Suddenly, she understood why Yokuni had always blocked her path, why he had forced her to put aside her vengeance, why he had insisted that Yakamo be allowed to win his duel with Satsu.

  Yakamo was a Thunder.

  Without thought, Hitomi's black hand found the hilt of her bloodstained katana as if to cleave apart the truth. In agonized fury, she howled, "You cannot rob me of this!"

  She peered up at the shadow on the stone wall, but it was gone.

  the fall of darkness

  chanting filled the twilight, echoing from the broken cliffs of Beiden Pass. The torii arch, scarred and bloodied by its burden, stood against the growing darkness like an oak in the storm, proud and defiant. Even the body that hung from its high crossbeams seemed to hold a silent strength, waiting for the next blow to fall. The first stars of twilight had appeared on the horizon, and it was time to count the day's dead. Even though the Battle of Beiden Pass was long finished, Shad-owlands beasts still holed up in mountain crevices. Every day, a few more Dragons died trying to roust them out. Each death was another lash.

  Mitsu's breath shuddered in his aching chest, a barely noticeable rise and fall that marked his continued struggle.

  Kitsuki Gofumin climbed the hillock with short steps, weary from the day's command. He left his small group of Dragon guards below.

  When the war had begun, he had been no more than a gunso. Now, he had become a taisa—captain of a minor unit, second among the Dragon Clan guard stationed in Beiden Pass. His guard was made mostly of Mirumoto soldiers; the two families had combined their armies in these troubled times. Still, the tests Gofumin had endured had not prepared him for this service. Each day, he climbed this brown, grassy hill, and each day, he had wondered whose name he would recognize among the rolls of the dead. There were so few Dragon left in the canyons—and sometimes, Kitsuki Gofumin pondered the riddle of why he and his troops had been left behind. Yukihera had said it was to "aid the Unicorn," but his words rang false against Gofumin's meditations.

  Perhaps, thought the captain, Yukihera had left them here to die one by one, to become nothing more than scars that crisscrossed the ise zumi's back. It was possible. The ways of the Dragon Clan were a riddle, and the commands of a daimyo such as Yukihera were the walls of a maze. Dragons were not meant to understand, Gofumin sighed as he reached the top of the windy hillock. They were meant to seek understanding, and nothing more. Anything else would be too much. If you understood the riddle, it was said you would go mad from too much truth.

  Five more ise zumi, tattooed men from the Togashi family, sat cross-legged around their brother. Their whispers thrummed in the quiet night, muffling the calls and clangs of the Unicorn encampment. As the darkness grew, the samurai picked his way around the other ise zumi, lumbering toward the arch.

  He did not know where the tattooed monks had come from, or how they had known of Mitsu's trials. They had not spoken to anyone in the Dragon armies, nor would they accept food or water when it was brought to them. They had simply appeared among the troops, walking into camp one by one as the days had passed. Each one continued doggedly to the hillock without a word of explanation and took his place in the semicircle that faced the tortured Togashi Mitsu.

  When the first chanting had begun, Gofumin came to them to determine its purpose. There was no response from the ise zumi, but Gofumin could tell what they meant to do simply by watching. Their murmurs gave strength to their brother, and their tattoos glowed faintly with a warm golden light as his wounds slowly healed and closed. Magic was at work, keeping Mitsu alive.

  I don't understand it, thought Gofumin, but it's better that way. Do your duty and nothing more.

  The eta torturer nodded to him as he unrolled the daimyo's scroll. He was prepared to begin the daily scourge.

  "By command of Lord Yukihera, leader of the Mirumoto and master of the Iron Mountain, I am instructed to read the names of those Dragon samurai who have given their lives this day." The list was long, and with each name he read, another blow would fall from the eta's whip.

  Kitsuki Gofumin gulped, wishing he were not alone with these strangely silent monks and the dark-haired eta.

  "Mirumoto Shindo ..." he began, his eyes filling with tears at the name of his friend. "Dead beneath Tonshu Cliff."

  The eta's hand rose. The whip descended with a hissing, high-pitched snarl.

  A hand appeared in midair and caught the torturer's wrist. Around the hand formed a white glow—a strange pearl that swelled in the air above Gofumin. He staggered backward. The radiance touched ground and burst open in a bright ray. The hand lengthened into an arm, and the samurai that had reached from beyond the portal stepped fully through.

  "My lord Daini-sama," Gofumin gasped. He fell to his knees and shoved his ornate helm off his head. He pressed his face to the ground and hoped that his terror would not show.

  "Rise, samurai," Mirumoto Daini commanded, looking out over Beiden Pass.

  Below, in the twilight of the battlefield, more portals of light were opening. Strange hooded serpent-men slid through. Their arms rose, glittering with pearl rings and bracelets. They hissed and writhed on the ground as massive tails moved through the portals behind them. The creatures formed legions and rows.

  "Where are the Crab?" Daini demanded sharply.

  "They—they have been driven from the pass, Daini-sama!" Gofumin struggled to find his voice, not looking up at the monstrosities that had followed the Mirumoto through his strange portal. "The Unicorn . . . the Shinjo and Toturi have driven them back. We fight only the last Shadowlands beasts that linger, holed up in caves.... Goblins, undead, oni."

  "Oni," Daini said scornfully, his dark eyes hardening. "The oni are in for a terrible surprise. My allies are very good at cleaning out caves."

  Serpent men slid one by one through the shining light. Some were as large as four horses. Others were small, lithe and green. All hissed in an unfamiliar tongue; their tails snapped dexterously. They sniffed the air, seeming to sense their prey, and slithered rapidly up the pass, toward nearby caves.

  "Cut Mitsu down." Daini released the eta's hand, shoving him roughly toward the torii. "Your services won't be needed anymore. As Yukihera commanded, Mitsu-sama is to be set free when reinforcements arrive. These are the naga, our allies against the Foul, against Fu Leng."

  The eta stumbled to obey, dropping his whip and reaching for a small workman's knife. Severing the ropes, he lowered Mitsu's bloodied body to the ground.

  "Shinsei. . . told me . . . you would come." Mitsu smiled through parched, bloodied lips. The other ise zumi lowered their chant, their voices whispering into the wind caused by the strange pearl portals.

  "Ssh, my old friend." Mirumoto Daini looked down at him in alarm, his eyes filled with compassion and anger. "This ordeal nearly claimed you. Mara, can you help him?"

  Behind Daini, a golden-haired, green-skinned woman knelt beside the wounded ise zumi. A pearl glowed faintly in her hand. "I do not know if he will live, beloved," Mara murmured.

  "He must."

  Gofumin stared in awe at the strange man-beasts, watching as their pearl magic illuminat
ed the battlefield in opalescent streams of white light. He choked faintly, staring at Mara. His eyes took in her emerald skin and strange, scaled hands.

  Behind her, another naga slid through the portal, bow arched and arrow nocked.

  "I—I should go, my lord," the Kitsuki squeaked, shuffling backward on his knees as a massive green scaled tail flexed near his face. "And, and ... and tell the Unicorn...."

  Three more naga, including what appeared to be a serpent shugenja, eased their way out onto the hillside. They peered down to the caves below and watched with eagerness as Shadowlands creatures were flung, butchered, from the cave mouths. The naga shugenja raised clawed hands above his tremendous hood and chanted in a strange, sibilant tongue. The creature's tongue slid from between his gleaming fangs, his face unlike anything the terrified samurai had ever seen.

  Gofumin muttered beneath his breath something he had heard, long ago. "There is no dishonor in fear—only in acting from fear."

  "Of course, samurai," Daini said, half-listening. His head cocked, and he hissed something at the shugenja. The snake-man's cobra hood flexed open. Daini asked Gofumin, "Where have the rest of the Dragon units gone?"

  "To the north, my lord, to meet with Togashi Yokuni-sama. Yukihera . . . has formally petitioned to become the daimyo of the Mirumoto family after the passing of... your sister ... and ..." Gofumin's voice broke, but he conquered his terror "... your own death."

  "Yukihera's announcement of my death has little truth. His riddle has failed him." The Mirumoto considered for a moment. "You say they have gone north, back to the Iron Mountain?"

  "Hai, Lord. And then on to Otosan Uchi, if the rumors we have heard from Toturi's men are true."

  Daini looked once more at the Shadowlands creatures, butchered at the cave mouths.

  One of the naga raised a jade staff, screaming a battle cry as he flushed a demon-beast from one crevice of the Pass. A weary cavalry group of Unicorn pounded past the naga lines to help dispatch the oni.

  "Gofumin," Daini said, "let me introduce you to Shashakar, a jakla of the Cobra bloodline—a powerful shugenja among his people."

  Gofumin bowed deeply, in respect and not a little fear.

  The Cobra nodded his reply, but addressed Daini. He spoke in remarkably fluid Rokugani, perhaps due to a spell. "You would ask about the spell of transportation?" The Cobra's strange, multifaceted eyes whirled in a thousand shades. "I prepared it as you wished, to bring us here. Casting the spell has destroyed the pearls, as is the cost of such powerful magic. It cannot take us farther north. If I were to begin creation of other such travel-pearls, we should have to return to the Shinomen and begin again." The Cobra smiled regretfully, his fangs shining in the faint light of the setting sun. "I am sorry, pale brother. If the armies of the naga are to go north, we must march."

  Daini turned to the kneeling Kitsuki captain. "Go find the Shinjo commander. Tell him we are coming to speak with him."

  Gofumin bowed again, nearly cracking his head on the ground in his haste, and then scrambled to his feet. It was a ten-minute hike from the hillock to the command tent.

  This time, it took him only three.

  Mara looked carefully at Togashi Mitsu's deep wounds. They festered with sickness from his long ordeal. She reached to bind the worst laceration, placing forest herbs on the sweltering cuts. Mara pressed her lips together in worry. The dragons tattooed on the fallen man's chest and head seemed to writhe under her fingers, coiling about her touch as if gratefully welcoming a friend.

  Togashi Mitsu reached to clasp Daini's hand, dragging the samurai closer to his cracked and bloodied lips. "Yukihera..."

  "Don't worry, Mitsu. We'll go see Yukihera together and tell him that he has failed."

  "No." Mitsu shook his head, gritting his teeth in pain. "The river has gone to the ocean, Daini."

  Daini's glance took in the encampment below, scanning the tent banners swiftly. Toturi's wolf mon had been removed, and now a Unicorn banner flew high above the central command tent. A few of the lesser Dragon mon remained, marking the presence of captains and their units—but the flag of the master of the Iron Mountain was gone.

  "He's taken the Mirumoto to . . . Otosan Uchi. The emperor ..."

  "The emperor?" Daini felt a rush of heat in his cheeks.

  Mitsu smiled through cracked lips. "Shinsei has spoken to me. The city... the city is burning. No ... time." Mitsu's veins stood out in his throat as he struggled to say more. "Shinsei walks with us."

  "I know, Mitsu. He always has."

  "No ... he walks with us____Otosan Uchi... Fu Leng ..."

  Mitsu's voice grew weaker, drowned in agony as his body was rocked by a rigid spasm of pain.

  "This human is dying. We have no other choice." Mara's face grew pensive, worry furrowing her brow.

  The tattooed men gathered around her, clasping hands in a circle and chanting intently as she reached for a vial of water at her belt.

  "Drink this, friend." Lifting the vial to Mitsu's lips, Mara poured a few drops of the River of the Sky into the ise zumi's mouth.

  Mitsu's face grew ashen, as gray as a storm. His brown eyes stared at the windswept, twilight sky. He coughed, and bitter liquid flooded his veins. His body spasmed, recoiling in pain. His hands balled into fists at his sides. The chanting of his brother monks grew louder, drowning out Mitsu's sharp scream of agony. His body convulsed once more, steeling itself against death, and then fell limp upon the bloodstained dirt beneath the rough torii arch.

  Below the hillock, the naga armies launched a full-scale assault against the scattering Shadowlands forces.

  Togashi Mitsu began to laugh. His bellow, a thing of brightness and joy, echoed from the hilltops and danced over the setting sun.

  He would not die today.

  the forbidden city

  The plains of Otosan Uchi were covered in blood. High grasses had been trampled flat by the marching feet of a thousand samurai. Each step over the tortured plains pressed against mud too red to be purely clay.

  The traveler's sandals were stained with green and yellow.

  On the wide fields around the tortured city, armies camped. Banners of Unicorn purple mixed with the muted colors of the Phoenix, fluttering above sturdy tents in the grass. The Mirumoto standard snapped nearby, and the Hida and Hiruma—but there was no sign of the Crane. The armies of the clans, as proud as they were, were losing. Fu Leng's power was too great. Even the Lion Clan could not assail them. Though the Lion mon flew high above the gathered armies, many Lion had gone to fight for the emperor. They killed their own.

  The mon of the emperor flew above a palace whose white walls had been charred

  black by storm and taint. Here and there, the city burned. In their thousands, undead rose from the fields to march within the high stone walls.

  The traveler shouldered her light pack and stared for a moment at the ruined city and the fluttering banners.

  Hitomi had traveled for months into the Dragon Mountains and returned, bearing none of the answers she had sought. Still, it was time to strike—now, or not at all. The armies had gathered around the plains of Otosan Uchi, and Fu Leng's power grew. Her wounds had healed, and her arm was as sturdy as it had ever been. Yet while she meditated upon her place in the universe, her soul still cried out to her brother.

  Satsu....

  His soul had not come to her in the mountains; the riddle had not been answered. Despite her struggle, she could find no peace, no mystic secret, no sudden enlightenment. Something was still missing, and Hitomi had returned to Otosan Uchi to find it. She had come to collect what was rightfully hers, to end the anger that raged in her heart. Only one balm could ease that wound.

  Yakamo's death.

  Battles had ravaged the field, and Hitomi knelt beside a dying ronin. "Where are the Dragon troops?" she asked him, ignoring his blood, which slowly stained the ground.

  "To the north. By Shinsei, I beg you, end my life so I do not dishonor my family... my son ..."

/>   Standing, she loosened her sword in its scabbard. With one swift stroke, she took his head. A year ago she would not have cared. Two years, and she would not have even noticed his plea. Her life had changed.

  To the north, a horn sounded the retreat.

  The blackened gates of the city swung wide, and a thousand mounted horsemen charged from within the walls. Their steeds were as dark as pitch, their eyes rolling and wild, as red as falling stars. Skeletal samurai rode them, white bone shining in the sunlight. Eerie laughter mixed with the ring of blades.

  Hitomi slid her true hand over her smooth pate. She felt lighter now, free of troubles and weights. Empty. Pure. As the hair had come away, shaved from her scalp in the tradition of ise zumi monks, she had chanted. Satsu's name, the names of her ancestors, and the words above the Dragon Throne rang in her mind, purifying her soul. Clean-shaven, she was ready for war.

  Become the riddle.

  A group of Mirumoto samurai lay crouched in a low gully, shielding themselves from a rain of arrows launched from Otosan Uchi's wall. They needed help, and they huddled to shield their wounded from enemy fire.

  Racing toward them, Hitomi slid into the gully as another hail of steel fell down upon them. Barely missing, the arrows lay in the dirt, their steel tips slick with poison and foulness. Beside her, a Mirumoto chui—a lieutenant—bound his arm with silk, using his teeth to tying the bloodstained cloth.

  "What's your name, soldier?" she shouted to the wounded man. His troop had followed him into this sparse sanctuary— fifteen men out of the forty that had charged onto the field behind his banner.

  "Mirumoto Kuike, Taisa!" He yelled back over the ringing sounds of war. Seeing her golden-scale armor, he had mistaken her for a captain in the Dragon armies.

  "What are your orders?"

  "Flank the right, seize the hole between those two watch-towers," he pointed with his katana at a breach in Otosan Uchi's wall, "and hold clear entry to the city under my lord's command."

  The commands were reasonable, but over a hundred undead guardians, their putrid shrieks echoing from the city walls, held the entry. Kuike's legion had been so badly decimated that the few guards left would never be able to capture the perimeter, much less hold it against a force of that size.