L5r - scroll 03 - The Crane (24 page)

Three men camped near the roadside. Their fire burned quickly through small twigs. The glow faded, fell, and then rose again as one of the men knelt by the circle of stones and puffed.

"Ten men on that last caravan, and all they gave us was three lousy koku," one of the men snarled, tossing more wood toward his companion on the ground.

"Wasn't their fault. Refugees from the Crab lands. What you think they got in their pouch?" The dialect was poor, obviously from far southern lands. "Shouldn't have come this far north. Not much up here but Ikoma, and through them, Dragon and Unicorn. Nothing to farm, nothing to field.

"Barely got the koku to be traveling. They din't have much for us to take."

"Hai," the third man snarled, running a rough hand over his unshaven face. Thickly muscled, he stood a head taller than his companions. The worn cloak bundled about his shoulders bore a thick crust of mud over its faded mon. He was dark-haired, his thick cotton gi tucked tightly into padding around his ankles. The hakima pants clung snugly to his bandy legs, and his hair had not been washed for days.

His companions were little better. A few teeth missing, with clothes as much patched as worn, they hurried to build the small fire against the evening's chill.

A rustle in the bushes caught the leader's attention. He reached for his sword, tucked in its battered saya.

A weary pony strode down the road, seeking shelter in the thick trees. On its back rode an old man in a green cloak, his head lowered as if asleep. The pony whickered in appreciation, seeing the firelight ahead.

"Hey, old one," the unshaven man shouted gruffly, standing and reaching for the pony's reins. "This here's a toll road. Emperor's orders. You got toll?" He eyed the thick cloak that covered the rider's gray hair.

"Toll road?" The voice was surprisingly strong, despite the wrinkled flesh. "Who says?"

"Emerald Magistrates." The burly man smiled, showing brown teeth. He spat on the ground in front of the pony's hooves. "You know? We're law here, now that the Lion left these lands to go cut up the Crane. We say there's a toll, there's a toll."

Winking conspiratorially, one of his companions chirped, " Toll road, yeah. Keeps the bandits out of Ikoma lands."

"Well, let me off my horse, then, and I'll find your toll." Shifting brusquely, the rider swung down onto the hard-packed trail and reached into his cloak. "How many koku you want? Two, or three?"

Pleased at the old samurai's willingness to offer money, the three men clustered closer.

"Yeah, three. Each." The laughing voice was the leader's. I le pushed back the filthy cotton cloak around his neck. "And your cloak. That'll look mighty pretty on me, 'stead of you, gray-hair. A waste, a good cloak warming your old bones."

"I'm afraid I can't give you my cloak, boys." Blue eyes flashed beneath the hood, and a swift hand slid the ancient Kakita blade free of his obi, but left it in its sheath. "But here's your three each."

Toshimoko jabbed with his blunt saya, pounding one man. This was not a battle to the death, but a sensei's first lesson to his students. The blow knocked the wind from the man. Toshimoko turned in a fluid motion to strike him behind the head as well. A third blow caught him beneath his chin, knocking him unconscious.

As the first magistrate fell, the old man spun. His green cloak whirled in a wide circle around him. The second barely had time to draw his sword. The saya caught his knee and sent him sprawling.

The third, leader of the scruffy bunch, had his weapon out and struck the old man's midsection. His katana tore through the swirling cloak. The magistrate staggered forward, but caught only cotton and silk beneath his blade.

Toshimoko parried the leader's blade on his saya and stared at the gaping hole in the new fabric. "You tore my cloak!" He punched him squarely in the sternum.

Flustered, the ronin staggered back. He clutched his chest and gasped for air. The second man struggled to rise.

The sensei shoved his saya lengthwise beneath the man's armpits, hauling him up and hurling him toward his leader. "The emperor himself gave me this cloak, and you have the audacity to tear it!"

The men fell backward, sprawling on the road with an audible thud. Shoving the hood back from his head, the Crane sensei held out his cloak to reveal the long tear.

"Who in the name of Jigoku are you?" The ronin panted, shoving his half-conscious companion from his lap.

"I'm the new Emerald Champion, your lord." Jerking the cloak over his head, Toshimoko stared mournfully at the rift.

"Your first duty is to wake up those filthy friends of yours and remind them who they work for."

The ronin stared at the badge of office that hung, carved in jade, around the old man's neck. He nodded in shocked understanding.

"Your second duty," Toshimoko continued, throwing his tloak in the fallen man's face, "is to sew that up."

xxxxxxxx

Many of the towns between Otosan Uchi and the Shinjo lands were the same: poor and cold. What few magistrates Toshimoko found were scruffy, often drunk, and little better than ronin. Three years without an Emerald Champion had (Il iven those who wished to succeed into the ranks of the armies. In Rokugan, a man without a lord was a forgotten man.

The leader of the first three magistrates was named Wayu, born of the Badger Clan. His story was simple, repeated by many of the ruined magistrates. He had served the Emerald Champion when Doji Satsume had held the post. Magistrates had been stationed in the back forests and highlands of the empire, with little news of coup or war or plague. Though they knew the Scorpion Clan had been destroyed, several of the men Toshimoko found carried their masks packed deep in their bags. It did not matter, thought the wiry old Crane. Students are not judged by the lessons they have learned, but by the lessons they teach to others.

Slowly, Toshimoko's retinue grew. The forgotten magis-I rates flocked to his side. Few had horses—indeed, most did not even have sandals—but all remembered the reason they had joined the Emerald Champion so many years before. They remembered honor. It alone had given them hope through the empty years.

"Sensei," Wayu said several days later as the men marched toward the foothills of the Dragon Clan.

Toshimoko's sturdy pony whickered, pushing its head against the man that walked to one side. "Yes, Wayu-san?"

"One of the men," he indicated a wiry youth, no more than sixteen, who bore the emperor's mon as if it were a shield to guard his honor, "says he knows a shorter route through the mountains. If he is correct, it could save us three days."

Toshimoko raised an eyebrow. Fourteen men followed him now, from aging investigators to young toughs, all tested by time but forgotten beneath the empire's gaze. "What's his name?"

"He calls himself Toku, Sensei. Hometsai found him in the east village, just beneath the cliffs."

The name Toku meant honest. "Bring him to me. We'll discuss it."

Wayu bowed, pacing to the rear of the marching men. He stepped toward the boy and cuffed him on the back of his neck. Faintly, Toshimoko heard Wayu chastising the other samurai as he urged him forward. "If you lie to him, boy, I'll have your ears for the eta."

Toshimoko laughed. He called a halt. Breaking a soft branch from a nearby birch tree, he began to peel the bark from it with a small tanto.

Wayu strode toward him, pushing the boy to his knees as he reached Toshimoko's side.

"Toku, hmm?"

Dark brown eyes peered from beneath a shock of black hair. "Hai, Champion-sama, hai."

"Call him sensei," Wayu punched the boy again, lightly but with enough sting to make him tilt to one side.

"Champion is for formalities," Toshimoko agreed, chewing on the birch twig. "Sensei is for a teacher, which is what you men need now."

"Teacher? I do not need a tea ... ow!" The boy shouted as Wayu cuffed him again. "I'm a samurai. Samurai." He pointed to the jade token that hung around his neck.

"So?" The Crane looked at his Badger lieutenant. "Tell me about this pass through the hills."

Staring belligerently at Wayu, Toku began to scuff up dirt with his hands. Forming a crude pile, he reached for some of I he scraps of bark that lay at Toshimoko's feet and lay them in twisting lines through the heaped dust. "Iiere is the mountain. Here, the river. Here is a bridge. It is small, wooden," Toku squinted up past his uneven mop of hair. "But it can carry your men, one at time. Better than going around the river. That way takes four days, and then you have to go through Matsu lands."

"Matsu, hmm?" The old man looked at Wayu thoughtfully and continued, "What are the women like in Matsu lands, Wayu-san?"

"Cold as the Dragon mountains, and with fewer peaks."

The sensei's laughter echoed through the glen. Even Toku smiled. Toshimoko said, "Then we'd better trust the boy. Ibku-san, lead the way."

xxxxxxxx

In the foothills of the Dragon, snow twisted down the mountain in white spirals. Higher still, it made sweeping plains of ice. The weather slowed Toshimoko and his men to half their previous pace. Even the Crane lands must be covered in snow, he thought. With no news, he could only hope—and continue his march.

After three weeks, they neared a small village at the edge of the Shinjo lands, below the frozen mountains. Toshimoko sent Wayu ahead to find the village. The rest of the magis-I rates marched along the bitter, stone-covered Dragon roads, wrapping their thin cloaks tightly at their sides. Even Toshimoko's pony shivered in the bitter wind that ruffled its thick winter hair. The men groaned with the weight of the cold.

Wayu returned. His breath turned to white mist in the bitter chill. "The village is to the southwest. The road passes by a river where we can bathe. You can see the Shinjo plains from there. Not far now, Sensei." Wayu seemed pale, unsettled by his trip, but this was no time to discuss strategy or danger. Not in front of the gathered men.

It had been hard enough to kick them into the journey, and would be harder still to tell them that there was danger ahead. Toshimoko snorted, watching the mist from his nostrils trail away like the smoke of a dragon. Half the men would charge forward, their swords open and their heads empty. The other half would shiver in fear and wait for his command. A far cry, thought the sensei, from the bravery of Satsume's Emerald Guard.

Toshimoko nodded, noting that Wayu still awaited his response. "River, hmm?"

"Hai."

"Good." Looking over his ramshackle group, Toshimoko smiled. "Plenty of time to bathe, then. Toku-san!"

Many of the men winced at the thought of bathing in an icy river, but the alternative was to enter Unicorn lands stinking like the worst heimin. Mismatched garments of gray and brown covered most of their bodies, patched together with bits of red, gold, and blue.

"Toku, I want you to find walnuts." Opening the water bag at his waist, Toshimoko drank a long swallow from its mouth.

"Walnuts? You hungry, Sensei?" The cheerful young man grinned up at him, one eye squinted shut against the brightness of the sun.

"Many walnuts, Toku. Ten helmets full, or more. Take the others with you."

Toku hopped from one foot to the other, his padded legs dancing in the snow. "There's a forest to the north. I know it. I'll find them, Sensei, if I have to steal them from the squirrels." Bowing awkwardly, he bounded among the other men and collected their battered helms.

Toshimoko took another swallow of water. He corked the bag and tied it to his wooden saddle once more. The shaggy pony snorted, eager to resume walking.

"Wayu and the sensei say follow me." Toku said proudly (o the other magistrates. "I'll show you the way." With curious glances, the men followed Toku into the woods.

Wayu watched his sensei's long fingers impatiently tap the wooden pommel of the saddle. When they were alone, Wayu bowed once more. "There's something else, Sensei."

"I know. What is it?"

"Two men, on stakes near the village's arch. Their heads .ire removed, placed on top, their bodies spread out on the stakes to feed the birds."

Grunting, the sensei said, "Heimin?"

"No, Sensei. Samurai, by their hair and garments." Wayu's voice dropped. His nut-brown eyes grew even more concerned. "One of the bodies bears the token of an Emerald Magistrate."

"Signs of plague?"

"Hai, Sensei, but no banner warding us away."

The men would be horrified by this treatment of their companions, but they were bushi, and they were samurai. It would not turn them back. Toshimoko caught the attention of three of the men as they headed toward the forest. "Keep your swords ready," he ordered.

"Hai, Sensei."

As soon as the men returned from gathering walnuts, Toshimoko started the march back down the road. Soon, he saw what Wayu had reported—a small village, no more [ban forty huts and barns. Steep hills clustered tightly around the town, and thick snow drifts piled beside narrow, twisting village roads. Any number of bandits could hide here, ready to destroy the unwary. At the entrance to the village stood a torii arch, between two large boulders. To either side of the road, a pike had been buried deeply in the ground.