L5r - scroll 03 - The Crane (2 page)

Hoturi laughed aloud. Toshimoko's hair was as gray as his steel, but his wit was sharper than the blade he carried. Hoturi felt closer to Toshimoko than to any man—his teacher, his mentor, his friend ... his family.

Just after Hoturi's mother had died, his six-year-old brother Kuwanan had been sent to the Lion. Kuwanan had traveled often since then, from the Unicorn lands to the Mantis isles, and had finally settled among the Daidoji to the south. The two had rarely seen one another since childhood, but Hoturi knew his brother to be the serious, somber bushi their father would have wanted. Kuwanan had grown to become truly Satsume's son.

Far more than brother or father, Toshimoko had shaped Hoturi's life. The old man was more a grandfather than a sensei. As a boy, Hoturi had come home numerous times with scrapes and bruises from fights with other students, and he had expected his sensei to punish him. Toshimoko never had, only pointing out why he had lost the fight and what could have been done to prevent defeat.

Hoturi looked again at his mentor. There were more wrinkles and scars on Toshimoko's face, and there was a lot more gray in his long braid, but his eyes were still clear, and his broad shoulders were as well muscled as any bushi's in the Kakita Academy. The years had been kind.

"Do you think the Lion will attack before winter?" Toshimoko murmured thoughtfully, allowing his pony to choose its own path down the forest road.

Hoturi sighed, leaning forward to pluck a stem of grass from his beast's harness. "No. Tsuko is impatient, but our treaties and our command of the Imperial Court should keep the Lion from outright war."

"For now," Toshimoko amended.

Hoturi nodded. Soon, the snows would come, and after them, the warm spring rains, and Crane lands would be trampled beneath the thick sandals of the Matsu. It was inevitable that Tsuko should try to capture the Osari Plain, the richest farmlands of the empire, to feed her troops as they traveled more deeply into Crane territories. "But I suppose Uji-san will have thought of that," he mused aloud.

"Uji? That sour-faced rat. The Daidoji have inbred too much, my lord," Toshimoko chuckled deep in his throat. "They're turning into Scorpion."

Hoturi's swift anger flared. "Daidoji Uji and his men will turn the Lion if they should come, I assure you."

"Of course. The Daidoji are very resourceful with their traps and tricks." Unmoved, Toshimoko chewed thoughtfully on a twig. "The empire is grateful for their contribution to society. Without them to slaughter our enemies by the bushel, the ashes on Crane fields would not be nearly as thick, or the ground as fertile. A pity they don't duel."

"Irreverent wretch." Hoturi smiled.

"The empire has enough reverence. It needs a little sense."

"Hmmph. Tell that to Kakita Yoshi and his courtiers. I'm sure they'll appreciate your opinion after seventeen days of negotiations about the weight of a season of rice, or something equally ludicrous." Pausing, Doji Hoturi smiled. "No, my old friend. We need the courts of the empire. We need the duties, the coffers, and the politics. That is where our strength lies. Without the Crane, there would be no civilization. It was our kami's gift to the world and a power through which we shall rule the empire. Honor is our weapon, Sen-sei, as much as your Kakita blade."

"Well said," the old swordsman nodded.

Hoturi's pony suddenly shifted beneath him, its ears flickering to the front and rear. The other steed was restless too and bumped lightly against its neighbor.

Ahead, at the bend of the path, a man walked with a rag-wrapped crutch. His face was shrouded, his body thickly swathed in the robes of a heimin. A jingasa hat of straw shadowed his face. The brown robes had blended with the trunks of the damp trees until the man was quite close, and in the depth of their conversation, neither samurai had noticed him.

Hoturi was used to ignoring heimin. Peasants performed the day-to-day tasks and skilled labor that were the foundation of the empire. They flocked to the villages of the Crane in ever-increasing numbers, drawn by the wealth of the land and the dangerous times.

The horse began to fret, coughing in its stride and slowing its pace. Hoturi had to urge it forward with his heels. Irritated, he looked at his companion, but Toshimoko's beast acted no better.

"A ball of rice," the heimin hissed through broken teeth as he approached, "to ease a poor man's last days?"

"Move on, man. We have no food to give." Annoyed, Toshimoko gripped his pony's reins tightly, barely looking at the heimin as he spoke.

"Step aside," Hoturi commanded, but the heimin continued to shuffle toward them.

At first, the smell was slight, no more than an irritating tickle at the base of the skull. But as the peasant stepped toward the horse, the wind carried a smell of thick waste and dirt. The peasant lifted a shaking hand, and Hoturi could see sores that laced the fingers with blood and pus.

"By the Fortunes ...!" The champion of the Crane tugged at his reins, but the horse needed no encouragement. Rearing to avoid the heimin's touch, the pony danced backward, its eyes white and rolling.

Whimpering meekly, the heimin remained still. The hat that had once covered his desiccated face rolled back as he looked up toward the riders. Yellow pus cracked at the corners of his mouth. "Pity, masters, have pity on a sick old man."

"By Doji herself!" The revulsion in Hoturi's voice caused his pony to rear, and the Crane Champion fought for control of the animal. "You are ill, man, and should go to a monastery. Let them heal you."

The heimin's face creased into a sickly scowl. "No monastery will take me. I am ronin, once samurai—and the plague spreads, even now, through your lands." Grasping the horse's reins, he continued. "The brotherhood at the monastery can do nothing for me. My lord died at Otosan Uchi, on the day his son betrayed him, and 1 travel the land of the Crane, bringing the same sickness and filth to the peasants that has come to the daimyo. I am Doji Asamu, son of Doji Hakara and lieutenant to the brave Satsume ... and now, murderer of his son."

Keenly honed, the poisoned tanto flashed beneath filth-encrusted robes, darting toward Hoturi's leg.

Toshimoko's sword leapt from its sheath before the assassin's blade could move three inches. The Kakita duelist dropped from his horse and struck. The katana sang through the air with the grace of a darting swallow.

A beat, and Toshimoko stood a half-pace down the road, shaking the blood from his blade while the two halves of the ronin's body struck the ground.

Hoturi's own sword, partially drawn, dropped back into the sheath of its saya with a quiet click. His face, as white as chalk, lost its charming smile and became the icy mask of the Crane Champion.

"An assassin." Toshimoko turned as he sheathed his katana. "And plague-ridden." The master of the Kakita spat down at the shivering corpse. Pus, as well as blood, stained the road beneath the fouled robes, and the ronin's chest bore sores covered in lice.

"He said that a plague infects our lands." Hoturi said coldly. "We must ask the Asahina shugenja to discover the truth of his words. We cannot afford to have samurai or heimin die from sickness, with the Lion prepared to march across our border. Perhaps this is Satsume's revenge for his ill-timed death...."

"Nonsense. And better a plague than the alternative," Toshimoko said grimly, throwing aside the twig that had still been in his mouth. Hoturi raised an eyebrow in question.

Toshimoko stared at the body of the dead assassin until the limbs ceased their spasmodic twitching. "Yes, better to have plague," he continued, stroking his chin in thought, "than the Taint of the Shadowlands. One can be healed, with time and prayers. The other rots at the land from the inside, cursing all who come near it with the infection of the Dark God of the South." Standing, Toshimoko moved toward his frightened pony.

"You suspect that the Shadowlands Taint spreads north through the Crab Wall?"

The old man's eyes were grim and unsmiling. "Suspect everything, Hoturi-sama. That is how to be sure you live another day." Toshimoko nodded once more, restoring his cheerful smile. "And you lived through today, eh, student?"

Hoturi nodded, looking back at the body by the side of the road. The knife had been meant to cause his death, destined to foul his body with the same plague that infested the ronin.

"Ride on, Hoturi," came the gruff voice of the sensei. "Pay no attention to the past. It is the future that should concern you, Crane Champion."

Hoturi paused, looking once more at what was left of the ronin, and then turned his horse to follow. Behind him, a brown and wilted leaf fell upon the ground, ignoring the single twitch of a ruined hand.

kyuden kakita

The higher peaks of the Doji Mountains carried snow all year round. Their white-crested tops shone in the sunlight on even balmy summer days, and their foreboding cliffs rose from the ocean shore like the cradling hands of Suit-engu, Fortune of the Sea. From the highest cliff, the plains spread for miles, filled with the wealth of rice and grain, the heart of the Crane. Also from those cliffs, one could see the city that surrounded Kyuden Kakita.

The keep itself was far from the mountains, but it stood like a white pebble amid yellow and green sand. Land on all sides of the Kyuden was rich, producing enough rice each year to feed the empire. From the banks of the southern mountains to the sparkling blue ocean to the east, the wealth of the Crane could be measured each year in thousands of bushels of rice—thousands of golden koku from the emperor's own hand.

Doji Hoturi had no interest in the fields, or in the peasants that fell to their knees in the thick water as he rode past. He approached the golden gates of the castle, his face seeming chiseled from the purest white marble. Before the gates bowed a retinue of Crane retainers and courtiers, sent to greet their champion with polite words and appropriate offerings. Hoturi had seen it all a hundred times, yet he sat aback his panting steed as if the Kakita men had his full attention.

Behind him, Toshimoko drew the hood of his cloak from his graying head and idly fingered his obi. This was not his place.

Before them stood Kyuden Kakita's golden gates, which never closed. Though this was the southernmost palace of the Kakita family, located far beneath the mountains that split the Emerald Empire, it was nonetheless one of the most beautiful palaces in Rokugan. The ancient oak gates were covered in thin golden filigree, silver kanji, jade threads, and delicately twisted vines of jewels. The legend of the keep was depicted there, of the Elemental Master who had arrived only to find the gates closed and barred against a storm. As the wind raged, the ancient sage had demanded entry. The marks he had struck on the door, marring the carvings and blunting the oak, still remained. His cries had gone unheard in the howling of the cold winter storm.

If Satsume had been champion then, the gates would have been manned with ten guards, no matter how cold the night. Hoturi's horse shifted under him as the Kakita by the gate began the elaborate bows that marked their lord's arrival. Satsume had never allowed anyone to remain idle—not even in the face of a winter typhoon.

It was said that the master's curse still remained on the keep. The curse dictated that if any child born within the encircling wall of Kyuden Kakita were to lift a sword, the Crane would fall. Thus, the gates stayed open, that no child could be born 'encircled' by the walls. It was a popular story among the bards and tale weavers of the empire and would certainly be told at this year's festival.

In all the land, only one child had ever been born encircled by the gates of Kyuden Kakita. Once, when the Lion troops had assaulted the keep and the Daidoji could not drive them back, a single woman had given birth to her second son. That child's name was Yoshi, daimyo of the Kakita.

"Your Honored Excellency." That very man stepped to the fore, bowing low. Yoshi was a delicate man with thin fingers and a sonorous voice. The Kakita's white hair flowed past his shoulders, held back in a thin cord positioned to accentuate his perfect features rather than to clear his face of hair. "Your lands and your people are given much prestige by your presence among us. We Kakita remember our blood ties to our brothers, the Doji, and we gladly open our lands, our mon, and our arms to you."

"Yoshi," the champion began once his retainer's voice had ceased. "Are the lands of the Kakita prepared for the festival?"

"Of course, my lord," Kakita Yoshi bowed again, his blue vest rippling perfectly with the motion.

"Have our guests begun to arrive?"

"Hai, my lord. They have."

Then it was time for the final question. "Have the gates of Kyuden Kakita been closed?' He had heard his father ask the question a thousand times, and only once had the answer not been the same.

"Never, my lord."

Within the keep, servants waited to lead the ponies away, and Hoturi dismounted with a casual air.

Behind him, Yoshi stepped to Toshimoko, their eyes meeting for a fraction of a second.

Before the courtier could speak, Toshimoko bov.-ed formally. "My daimyo," the Kakita swordsman said, "it is good to see that you are well."

"And you . . . Master Toshimoko," Yoshi said, returning the formality. "The students of the dueling school have missed your lessons."

Toshimoko barked a sudden laugh. "My students fear my return, more likely, Daimyo. They know that their shoulders will ache tomorrow as if the sky itself rested upon them."