L5r - scroll 05 - The Crab (10 page)

was caused by Shadowlands curses. Others said the kami punished the foolish child for marrying the Scorpion Lady. All Kisada knew was that the young Hantei was rarely well enough to tend to matters of state. Kachiko did most of the governing—Kachiko, who had urged the Great Bear to claim the throne. Whether by her own hand or not, she'd certainly gained the power she craved without Kisada's cooperation.

Now he wondered if he had refused out of honor or cowardice.

A new wave of goblins spilled over the ramparts. Like flood-waters they were suddenly everywhere, with barely a moment's warning. They chewed on Kisada's legs, hung off his arms, and tried to pry off his helmet.

Sometimes, he mused, the best thing about battle is that it keeps you from having to think about the tough questions.

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"The Great Bear is finally coming out of his cave!" Kuni Yori cackled to himself as he stared into the scrying pool.

Whenever Hida Kisada went off to fight on the Wall, the shugenja retired to his private sanctum and cast a spying enchantment. In battle, Kisada felt comfortable. He let his guard down and allowed his true feelings to co'me out. From the things the daimyo said to Waka, Yori knew his scheming and nudging were having their intended effect.

The shugenja seemed tall and powerful in the dark, tiny room—at least he would have if anyone could see him. There were plenty of dead eyes in this place—the shiny eyes of stuffed creatures dangling on wires, the empty sockets of skulls that lined the shelves, even the eyes floating in jars of brine. To them, Yori seemed tall and powerful. The only light in the room came from the image in Yori's magical pool. It played across his painted face in odd flashes of color,

Yori was a patient man. He knew that the only way to accomplish great things was to take them one small step at a time. He had been waiting for two full years for this first sign that his work on Kisada was beginning to bear fruit.

"You fought well and hard, my lord," he said to the warrior in his scrying pool. "And left to your own devices I think it would still be years until you came around to see the truth. The empire might not be dead, but with the weakling Hantei on the throne its heart has been removed. You know it. I know it. And the other clans certainly know it. Tensions rise between them, and open hostility is a near certainty. How can you protect an empire that is tearing itself apart? What Rokugan needs now is a strong emperor."

Yori's spell showed Kisada beating savagely at the goblins that engulfed him. Every shrug of his massive shoulders sent two or three of the creatures flying, but four more took their place.

"Yes, the Emerald Throne, Kisada," Yori continued. "That is your karma. You are destined to be emperor, whether you want to or not. I will not see you deny that destiny. I will not miss the chance to become the power behind the throne. All it takes is patience. The Bayushi woman knows that better than anyone, and look where it got her."

The shugenja leaned forward to decipher the chaos displayed in his pool. The tips of his dangling thin moustache nearly brushed the water. Still he could not make out Kisada's form under the mass of Shadowlands creatures.

"This will not do," he muttered. It would be unfortunate if the Great Bear actually fell in battle just when Yori started making real progress. Of course, not everything would be lost. The shugenja had already begun to work his influence over Kisada's heir, Yakamo. The boy had the Great Bear's powerful physique, and he owned the respect of the rank and file of the Crab army. He also had the emi-nendy exploitable weakness of high ambition. Yakamo thought the Crab was intrinsically better than the Lion, Crane, and other clans. He believed that it was his clan's destiny to rule all the others.

Yori sometimes considered the work he did softening Kisada's resolve as a means of gaining absolute control over Yakamo. The more the daimyo listened to Yori, the more his heir accepted the shugenja's word as holy truth. In the end, it might well be in Kuni Yori's best interest if Kisada fell before the swarm of goblins—for he surely would hold even tighter sway over a Crab Clan headed by young Yakamo.

The only Hida that Yori could not dupe was Sukune. The daimyo's second son seemed to see right through every ploy and misdirection the shugenja used. Thankfully, the Great Bear was blinded by the boy's frail body—he never paid Sukune the attention he deserved.

"No," muttered Yori as he pulled the hood of his black velvet robes lower across his brow. "I still have need of you, Great Bear. You have influence in quarters your son has not yet reached. Besides, I can see that I've already won this battle—I just have to wait for the cracks in your sanctimonious armor to spread. Then you'll be doing my bidding and believing it's all of your own accord."

In the scrying pool, a goblin wielding a nage-yari got free behind Kisada and was about to thrust the javelin between the Great Bear's ribs.

Kuni Yori reached deep into his robes and pulled out a strip of silk as black as midnight. He held it over the scrying pool and said, "No, minions of darkness! We need Kisada alive—for now!"

The shugenja squeezed the silk. An oily bead of liquid dribbled out between his fingers and dropped into the scrying pool.

The goblin stopped in midstab. A glazed look came over its eyes. Instead of skewering the unprotected Kisada, it turned the nage-yari around. Placing the blade against its ridged breastbone and wedging the bottom in a seam in the tower's floor, the creature threw itself down against the javelin. The first blow did not crack its thick ribcage, so it puEed itself off the nage-yari and thrust down again and again until at last the blade passed all the way through and came out the other side.

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I cannot move my arms, Kisada calmly thought to himself. I cannot feel my feet.

The goblins' chipped fingernails jabbed under the seams of his armor. Viciously pointed teeth broke the skin on his legs and shoulders. The weight of so many opponents kept his arms pinned to his body, preventing the Crab daimyo from using his tremendous tetsubo.

The thought of death held no terror for Kisada. Novice warriors lost nerve in battle for fear of life and limb. They came ready to kill, but never considered that they might die. Overcautious, they often lost their lives, dying because they were not willing to risk themselves completely.

All Crab samurai were trained to enter each battle with a "dead body"—the sense that they were already dead—and fight as though they were trying to steal enough life essence from each enemy to allow them to walk away from the battle. This made them more vicious and unpredictable than any other army in Rokugan. In battle, their minds were not focused on staying alive but solely on crushing as many enemies as possible.

Though Kisada had admirably mastered the technique of entering batde with a dead body, he never truly entertained the possibility that he would
not
kill enough opponents to earn his way back to the land of the living. Now, for the first time, he faced that demon.

As soon as that possibility became real to him, the goblins atop him fell off. Most likely Waka had given the monsters reason to fear for their lives. Kisada's arms were free again, and he peeled the last of the goblins off his helmet.

Waka stood nearby, blinking. All the samurai were looking around in the same confusion. The goblins were in full retreat, though the Crab forces had done nothing to force such a withdrawal.

Kisada was certainly going to take advantage of it. "We have them on the run!" the Great Bear snarled. "Press the attack!"

He raced to the edge of the Wall, shouldering his tetsubo while drawing his yumi and nocking an arrow. He would not take aim. With the Shadowlands hordes barreling down the wall in such a rush, all he had to do was let a flesh-rending arrow fly—he was sure to hit something.

Kisada leaned over the wall and looked directly into a fist the size of a hog careening in his direction. It impacted with the sound of a giant oak being felled. Kisada's whole body snapped backward, and he flew through the air. He crashed onto the parapet with such force that he felt as if he'd been struck a second time. There was no air in his lungs, and the world tilted and rolled despite the fact that he lay on cold, solid stone.

The hand that struck the blow gripped the rampart as though it were a rail. Another hand, even bigger than the first, did the same. A creature that was all chest, arms, and shoulders raised itself up onto the Wall. Its spindly legs seemed incapable of actually moving the creature around, but they kept the torso steady as it raised its mighty hand to crush Kisada.

"No!" screamed Hiruma Waka.

He dropped his no-dachi and flung himself onto the arm, trying to pin it back through sheer force of will. Drawing his wak-izashi, he stabbed where the beast's head should have been. This only enraged the creature.

The beast reached its other arm around and closed its whole hand over the top of Waka's head and upper torso. With less effort than a man might use to flick an ant from his arm, the creature lifted Waka high in the air. One mighty twist of its wrist cracked the Crab's spine in three places.

Waka went immediately and completely limp.

The monster slung the lifeless body over its massive shoulder. It made a motion as though it might go back after Kisada but then flung itself over the wall to fall in with the retreating goblins.

"No!" screamed Kisada. He launched himself forward.

It took six samurai to restrain the daimyo, but eventually he collapsed against the Wall, his face drained of emotion. Death had come for him today, and he had not flinched. But the thought of one of his oldest friends dying in his place sapped the strength from the Great Bear's limbs.

Eventually, he rose and leaned on his tetsubo as he gazed out into the Shadowlands. The other samurai stood far enough away to give their leader a moment of privacy but near enough to grab him should his grief overwhelm him again.

"I am brave enough to face the endless hordes of the Shadowlands every day of my life," he said to the friend who was no longer there and never would be again. "I am willing-even glad—to give my life defending this wall. Dying is easy. You showed us that, old friend. But the empire does not need another dead samurai—-it needs a leader.

"The question remains—am I brave enough to seek peace by sitting on the Emerald Throne?"

IDLE HANDS

By all the minions of Fu Leng, what does she want
now?"
Kisada stood on the tatami dais at the rear of his makeshift courtyard.

At Kuni Yori's advice, he had decided to receive the imperial runner in this setting—a deliberate attempt to undercut whatever order the missive contained. Kisada knew it must be a dictate of some sort. All normal correspondence went to the command center at Shiro Kuni and was eventually funneled to the Great Bear's attention if warranted. This runner, however, came directly to Kisada's mobile headquarters, bearing a message that she was ordered to release
only
into the dai-myo's hand.

Yori had once again proven to be correct. By adopting this maddeningly formal posture Kisada made the runner feel uncomfortable. He had seen this particular runner before. Her name was Chiya, one of only three or four runners entrusted with hand-written messages

from the emperor. She carried herself with the pride of a Crane sword master. Chiya usually stood her ground and held the Great Bear's gaze, despite the fact that Kisada physically loomed above her like the Carpenter's Wall over the Shadowlands plains, Chiya usually stood her ground and held the Great Bear's gaze. Today, though, she knelt and bowed politely, never looking him straight in the eye.

"I do not know, Kisada-sama," Chiya said, using her most formal and deferential voice. "I only deliver my lady's word. It is not my place to question, only to serve."

Kisada knew, of course, that the runner would have no knowledge of the missive's contents, but he was enjoying this change in her attitude and wanted to take full advantage of it. The message read:

Kisada-san,

The emperor and I request your presence, or that of a duly designated representative, in the Imperial Palace to attend an imperial proclamation of momentous import. We have instructed the messenger not to return until you or your representative departs for Otosan Uchi. Until that time, please treat her with all the respect and courtesy you would extend the emperor himself.

Her Imperial Majesty Empress Kachiko

The words were pretty, but the message was clear: come to the capital—
now!

Kisada shook with fury. The nerve of the Lady Scorpion! Was the emperor so ill that he could no longer write his own correspondence, or was Kachiko beginning to craft imperial policy by herself? Either way, it didn't matter. The Crab Champion had no choice but to send someone to Otosan Uchi immediately. The line about treating Chiya the way he would the emperor saw to that. No one would deign lavish such luxury on a simple runner—to do so would make a mockery of the daimyo's hospitality. Not to do so, though, would be to invite imperial discipline for failing to follow direct orders.

"Should I prepare to leave immediately, Kisada-sama?" Chiya asked.

"No!" spat Kisada. "My representatives will not be ready until nightfall. Until that time, you are afforded the most luxurious accommodations I have to offer—this open-air reception hall. Make yourself comfortable."