L5r - scroll 05 - The Crab (30 page)

"I am
not
your father!" snapped the Great Bear.

The monstrous creature looked more and more like Yakamo every day. The ropy sinews of its body formed an exact replica of his son's posture, musculature, and even his armor. Sometimes Kisada half expected the creature to lift off the skin that formed its "helmet" and reveal a hideous version of Yakamo's face.

"We all are your sons, Tono," said Kuni Yori. "As daimyo of our clan, you are father to us all—at least figuratively." The shugenja was still Kisada's closest adviser though his experimentation had mutilated him terribly and left him with an oozing bloody wreck for a face. The Great Bear was not squeamish, but the fact that Yori continued to spew his overly polite nonsense through that ruined mouth was almost more than he could stand.

"And didn't you teach me that every Crab is my brother?" asked Yakamo. "We live and die as one family. My namesake has joined us in every way he can—I am proud to call him brother."

"It is not a member of our clan. It is
not
a Crab!
None
of those creatures are Crab!"

Yakamo and Yori exchanged worried looks.

"Would you like us to go, Kisada-sama?" Yakamo no Oni asked with painful politeness. "If we are not welcome in your family, we will leave. There is nothing more important than family, Kisada. The more I learn from my connection with your son, the more I understand that truth."

Hai! The word was on Kisada's lips. One simple word, and every last goblin, skeleton, ogre, and zombie would leave with their unholy master. More than anything, Kisada wanted to be rid of the oni—the creature who took the name of one of his sons and the life of the other. Worse, the creature had not taken anything it was not freely offered by Kisada himself.

Hai! One word and all the nagging doubts would go away— the constant reminder of Sukune's death and display on that foul standard.

Hai! The word that would heal the Crab Clan of all the perversions heaped on it in the past three years.

Then the Great Bear looked behind him. His army stretched away as far as the eye could see. Fully half of that army owed their allegiance to Fu Leng. Kisada knew that with only half an army, he might be able to take Otosan Uchi, but he would never hold it.

"lie," Kisada said quietly. "No, I do not wish you to leave." The Great Bear's shoulders slumped as he spoke.

"You wish us to join your family, then?" Yakamo no Oni asked.

"Hai," said Kisada even more quietiy.

The oni smiled. "Good. You have made the right decision, Kisada-sama. Kicking and screaming in protest, yes, but you
have
made the right decision. And I think you will see that before too very long."

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"Now
this
feels right!" The Great Bear was so eager for battle he could scarcely stand still while his attendants double-checked the straps on his armor. After months of leading his army like a "proper general" (or, as Kisada liked to call such samurai, a "frightened old man"), he was returning to the only place in the world he felt truly at home—-in battle. He had been on the road and in the command tent for so long that he had ceased to keep his armor in combat-ready condition. Now, the leather straps biting into the muscled flesh of his arms and legs made his heart beat faster.

"Tono!" Kuni Yori entered the tent without being invited. The man grew bolder every day. Perhaps the fact that no one wanted to look at the shugenja long enough to question him made Yori think he could come and go as he pleased.

Once Kisada sat on the Emerald Throne, he would disabuse his adviser of that notion. "What is it?"

"The Lion forces stand ready to meet ours on the field of battle."

"Idiot!" spat the Great Bear. It was never too early to begin putting Yori back in his place. "I know that."

"Hai, Tono!" Yori said, though it seemed he wanted to say something more acerbic. "But a rider bearing the imperial mon just came out of Otosan Uchi and is even now visiting the Lion command tent."

"What?" thundered the Great Bear, shoving past to stride from the tent flap. "Let me see!"

Kisada's eyes were still as sharp as ever, and they immediately picked out the opposing command tent. Just to the right of it, a page tended a steed bearing a standard with the emblem of the Hantei. It was true.

"What does the emperor have to say at a time like this?" wondered Yakamo, who stood on the ridge nearby.

"More likely the empress," mumbled Kisada. Hantei the 39th did not have enough experience to offer any advice before a battle, let alone
good
advice. His wife, however, was one of the craftiest tacticians in the empire. Anyone who believed otherwise was doomed to be her pawn.

"But what message is she sending?"

"Wait! The messenger is leaving!" shouted Yori pointing excitedly. "And someone is leaving with him."

A stunned silence swept across the group. None of them knew what to make of the scene they witnessed.

"It is Matsu Tsuko," said Yakamo no Oni, who had not been there a moment earlier. "The emperor has ordered the Lion Champion to withdraw from the battle."

The others turned to the creature as one, but only Kisada responded. "What? Why would he do such a thing?"

"Who can say with you humans?" the oni said gazing down at the Lion army. The posture and attitude of all the troops sagged visibly as the news spread through the ranks. "You always seem to do the worst possible things and somehow convince yourself that it will all work out for the best."

Kisada stepped closer to Yakamo no Oni and, though the creature towered over him, looked him square in the eye. "How did you know what went on in that tent?"

The oni shrugged, an all-too-human gesture. "Though I have made a pact with you, I am not without my resources. You would be surprised what the forces of Fu Leng know about the inner workings of your clans. Yet you still manage to hold onto your precious little empire. Isn't that amazing?"

The creature was taunting him. Kisada stood on the verge of launching himself at the beast's head and throat.

"The time to attack is
now
—before the emperor can change his mind!" Yakamo was already swinging his tetsubo in a threatening manner and noisily clicking his claw.

The Great Bear snarled at Yakamo no Oni one last time and then whirled on his heel. "Give the word—the attack begins
mow!"

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"Such a slaughter. It is not even right to call it a battle—this is a massacre." Kuni Yori stood alone atop the ridge overlooking Otosan Uchi. The fields ran red, and the city itself seemed to quake. The Crab had not yet breached her walls, but that was only because they weren't quite through routing the opposing forces.

Matsu Tsuko's battle plans had been sound enough. At her order, the Lion forces met the Crab head-on, and then split to flank and surround them. Unfortunately for the Lion, Kisada recognized the tactic and ordered his samurai to breach the ring of soldiers and circle toward the point of the Crab attack, thereby making the Lion troops fight a two-front battle.

It was a fairly standard opening gambit. If Tsuko had been there, she would have recovered. But the Lion Champion was forced to watch from a ridge directly across from Yori as her second in command incorrectly guessed Kisada's response and led the Lion troops into the least advantageous position imaginable.

From that point forward the outcome of the battle was never in doubt. Even Kuni Yori could see that.

The shugenja gazed across the field. His eyes stopped on a familiar figure. Hida Yakamo fought in the unusual, brash style he'd adopted since he first donned his claw—whipping his tetsubo about one-handed, throwing his opponents off balance, then reaching in and crushing them with his powerful pincer. He seemed to be having some difficulty finding opponents to face. Many of them took one look at his size and the claw on his left arm and immediately backed away. Yakamo attacked anyway, so cowards died just as quickly as brave warriors—they just didn't see the deathblow coming.

A bit farther to his right, Yori saw Yakamo no Oni. The shugenja had trouble telling the two apart, despite the feet that one was nearly twenty feet tall and had no skin. For that matter, Yori had trouble telling living samurai from undead zombies. He no longer saw with his eyes. Ever since reading the Black Scroll, he saw people not as creatures of flesh and blood but as patterns of energy, glowing balls of spirit in weak fleshy containers. At one point the spirits of Yakamo and Yakamo no Oni were as different as their physical shells. Now they were nearly identical. Yori would have been hard pressed to say which one had changed the most.

Yakamo no Oni terrorized its opponents the way its human counterpart did. It was literally surrounded by Lion samurai hacking at its ropy flanks. Stroke after stroke from enemy katanas, no-dachi, and yari bit into the oni's flesh. Most of the blades left no mark whatever—they simply passed though the oni's hide. The few samurai wielding blades that actually hurt the creature died first, but none of the others escaped the oni's monstrous rage either.

Yori scanned the crowd, looking for Hida Kisada. The Great Bear fought in the most crowded, hody contested, murderous part of the battie. No doubt, Kisada had purposely made his way there. His soul was at peace only when he faced down death. The Great Bear was not suicidal, but he needed to prove his right to live by overcoming bigger and bigger threats to life and limb. This time, he might have stepped too far.

Kisada was surrounded by four reasonably healthy Lion samurai who cared more about bringing down the enemy commander than about their own lives—or honor. In a very unLionlike display, the four attacked Kisada simultaneously.

It might have been fatigue, it might have been mental anguish, or it might simply have been age finally catching up with the Great Bear. Whatever the cause, Kisada was in trouble.

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Realizing his predicament, Kisada switched tactics. Rather than trying to kill one opponent at a time, he would simply keep them all at bay and maneuver the fight across the terrain. He hoped to run into reinforcements before his attackers broke through his defenses.

The Great Bear swung his tetsubo in a wide circle above his head, feinted at one samurai, then lunged toward another. The whole group moved another fifteen paces toward the city but no closer to Crab troops. The other two Lion samurai lashed out at Kisada. One bounced his katana off the Great Bear's heavy helmet. The other narrowly missed spearing him through the ribcage with a bladed polearm.

Kisada knew he had only one or two passes left before his opponents actually did him serious harm. Desperate times, and the Great Bear responded with a desperate measure. Completely ignoring the other three, he lifted his tetsubo high over his head and charged headlong at the shortest of his opponents. As he had hoped, the man froze in a defensive posture, waiting for a massive swing of the spiked club. Instead, Kisada lowered his shoulder and ran straight into and over the surprised Lion.

The other samurai sprinted after the Great Bear, but he had enough of a head start to reach the top of a ridge. Kisada ran straight into another Lion samurai, this one in a desperate fight for his own life. A trio of Shadowlands zombies shuffled after him, brandishing rusted and chipped katanas.

Kisada struck the man down with a single blow. He turned just in time to block a thrust from the yari-wielding Lion while the other three finished scaling the ridge.

The Crab daimyo was out of options and out of luck. There were no other Crab warriors around, and the zombies would not respond to his orders. He drew his shoulders up to face what would be his final battle.

The Great Bear blocked one katana blow with his tetsubo, neatly sidestepped a second, but was completely immobile when the yari blade stabbed at his throat. With a meaty sound the blade struck home, but Kisada felt no pain.

A zombie had thrown itself before the blade, which even now jutted from its neck.

Not wasting time wondering how or why this had happened, the Great Bear clubbed one Lion so hard his head bent all the way back to touch the middle of his spine. Another Lion stepped under the yari pole—the zombie had tightened its rotting neck muscles to trap the blade—only to be struck down by the zombie's no-dachi.

Kisada leapt at the immobilized owner of the yari. The Lion tried to draw his wakizashi, but the sight of Hida Kisada flying through the air, tetsubo raised for the kill, unnerved the man. The last thing he ever did in this life was fling the short sword away.

The final Lion attacked the zombie. He swung his dai-tsuchi into the undead thing's chest. The warhammer landed with a dry, hollow thud that sent the zombie flying.

Kisada watched uncaring as the Lion chased after his monstrous opponent. He was glad for the rest. Then the Great Bear looked to the ground where the zombie had dropped its no-dachi. The weapon, though badly corroded, seemed familiar. It had once belonged to a friend.

"Waka?" Kisada said aloud. Could that shambling mass of skin and bones be the remains of his old friend?

Another loud thump came as the Lion landed another solid blow on the zombie.

Kisada picked up the fallen yari and flung it, spearing the Lion through the head. The man stood there twitching through his death throes. The Great Bear climbed the hill once again and stood over the fallen zombie.