Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy)

by Travis Heermann

  What was he going to do when Fang Shi brought him before Green Tiger? Swear allegiance? Swear vengeance? So addled was his mind that the answer to that question changed with every bump and rattle of the barrel. He knew he should be steadfast, firm and committed to a decision even unto his final breath, but his mind felt as muddled and useless as the gruel he had been eating these many eternities of suffering.

  When Fang Shi had dragged him out of the cell, his first moments upright in untold weeks drove a nauseating swoon through him, and his legs could not support him. When he regained consciousness, Fang Shi was dragging him by the arm through a wooden trap door in the ceiling of the cavern. He vaguely remembered some cavernous black structure, the sound of the sea, and his first breath of fresh air in untold, tortured lifetimes. Then he had awakened with his body jammed into this barrel, barely able to breathe, his arms and legs with room enough to shift barely a finger’s breadth.

  Throughout his captivity, Ken’ishi had imagined summoning some heroic burst of strength, subduing the Chinaman, and escaping, but he knew now that he could not even stand, much less harm a brute of Fang Shi’s enormity. He could imagine now only having the strength to beg Green Tiger to kill him. Many of the wounds the torturer had given him weeks before were slow to heal and still pained him. His neck and shoulders felt like a knotted up fishing net, hopelessly tangled. His arms and legs had shrunk so that he must have looked like a sick, scrawny baby monkey, unable to even cling to its mother’s back.

  The barrel rocked and rattled in the rear of a clattering wagon, toward what destination he had no inkling. Fang Shi had been silent. Flickers of lamplight played across Ken’ishi’s nose through the narrow aperture. The faint whisper of night air soothed his nostrils like cool water in his throat on a humid day. If he craned his neck just right, he could even see a couple of faint stars above.

  A moment of delight coursed through him, and he laughed. How long since he had seen the stars? Or worse, how long since he had noticed them, paid attention? His thoughts went back to the birds and animals he could no longer speak with. The pang of that loss had dulled; soon he would be dead, and that loss would no longer matter. So much lost in a man’s life, a man whose absence from this world would matter to no one.

  The stars disappeared as if a blanket had been thrown over his barrel. Fang Shi’s voice rose in confusion, and the cart halted so suddenly the barrel tipped for a moment, then settled back onto its base.

  The wagon lurched as Fang Shi moved, lurched again. Bits of Fang Shi’s frustrated expostulations in Chinese reached Ken’ishi’s ears. Then Fang Shi roared a command in Chinese and jumped to the ground.

  A skittering, snuffling, chittering, Fang Shi’s feet shuffling, and whoosh of a club swinging, another confused outburst. A heavy blow thudded against the ground, then smashed into the side of the wagon, the force reverberating through the wood into Ken’ishi’s barrel.

  Not all the sounds belonged to Fang Shi, perhaps some kind of animal, little claws on the earth, scratching over the wooden wagon, a small voice that almost sounded like taunts, amused, playful. Fang Shi roared and swung, roared and swung. A momentary sniffing at the aperture of Ken’ishi’s barrel.

  A small voice whispered to him. “Rock the barrel! Do it now!”

  Ken’ishi threw his weight from side to side. It was difficult in his weakness with so little room, but in a few heartbeats he had managed to build a rocking motion. Back and forth. Farther and farther, until the barrel tipped onto its side, bounced and rolled off the side of the wagon, over the rear lip, and crashed onto the ground. The barrel cracked like an egg against the earth, driving out the little air in his chest. He gathered strength enough to kick the bottom free, and that allowed him to shrug away the rest of the barrel. He lay on his side, gasping, his arms feeling like overcooked noodles.

  But in it all, he could see nothing, as if the entire world was a pitch-black cave like the one he had occupied all these weeks. Yet he felt a gravel-strewn earthen path under him. Something small and furry brushed him.

  A wad of fur found its way over his palm. “Seize onto this!” said the voice.

  Fang Shi roared his frustration, his club whooshing through empty air.

  With both hands, Ken’ishi grabbed the wad of fur and skin, warm and alive like the soft, bristly scruff of a rusty-brown dog’s neck. The voice came like a child’s, “Hold tight!”

  Suddenly he was jerked out straight as his furry handhold launched away, dragging him over the earth with incredible speed.

  The furry handhold seemed to roll out underneath him, expanding like a warm, living blanket, protecting even his feet from the gravel and stones of the path. Suddenly he could see the stars again, as if he had just burst through a bubble of utter blackness, and he was holding onto a gray-brown pouch attached to some animal’s furry rump. Behind him lay a swirling mass of black shadow, like smoke, engulfing Fang Shi and the wagon. The clamor of Fang Shi’s outraged frenzy receded behind them. The stars disappeared behind a canopy of foliage, and small leaves and branches whipped over Ken’ishi as his living sled dragged him through the night. The furry sled extruded from between the hindquarters of some lumpy hulk of a creature, and Ken’ishi’s hands were clamped onto a fold of skin under the creature’s rump. Two globules within the folds of the blanket, the size of ripe persimmons, bumped into his fingers.

  A furry face, eyes wrapped in a black mask, glanced back at him as his furry sled sluiced between bamboo stalks and stones and tree trunks and undergrowth, bumping gulps of breath from his lungs. His hands and arms and shoulders ached from the strength of his grip. Had his grip been any weaker, the creature’s wild flight would have sent him tumbling free to be left behind. When they had gone an untold distance through the forest, the creature slowed its pace and finally paused.

  It looked back at him again, its shoulders and chest heaving with exertion.

  Ken’ishi lay gasping as well. When he caught his breath, he said, “Thank you, Master Tanuki. You have surely saved my life.”

  “Think nothing of it, old sot,” said the little voice. “I’ve been looking for you for weeks.” The tanuki’s chin was shot with gray hairs. “Whew, I’m getting old. Time was when I could have run you all the way to Kumamoto.”

  “Hage?”

  The tanuki grinned, and Ken’ishi’s furry blanket rippled. “Still as dense as overcooked mochi, aren’t you, old sot. Where in the world have you been?”

  Ken’ishi’s heart thundered louder and louder, each beat leaving a black afterimage in his vision. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a tanuki?”

  “It’s not exactly allowed. What happened to you?”

  Exhaustion, despair at what he had become, and elation pounded into him like a wave smashing him on a beach. “Green Tiger …” was all he could manage to say before the blackness became too much.

  * * *

  Ken’ishi recognized the sensation of more movement, being dragged through the forest, through the outskirts of the city, through neighborhoods, engulfed in a warm, furry pouch.

  He awoke to the sound of familiar voices and the feel of a futon under him. After so many weeks on his back in the cave, even a ratty old futon such as this one felt feather-soft, and he sighed at the luxury of it.

  “If Green Tiger discovers that he’s here, we’re all worse than dead!”

  “Oh, help someone else for once in your whole miserable life! How much more life do you really need?”

  “Shut up, the both of you. You bicker like a pair of old swine. He chose to go with you, some pull toward destiny. Your fates have been intertwined from the moment he stepped onto your wagon.”

  A sheepish silence, then, “Are you really a tanuki?”

  “Do you want me to show you again, you old fool?”

  “I … I suppose that’s not necessary.”

  “Now, unless you want the rest of your miserable lives to be plagued by misfortune, you’ll do what I say. That little rescue venture chafed h
alf the fur off my jewels. I daresay you don’t want to chap them any further.”

  A throat cleared. “Of course, Master Tanuki.”

  “My name is Hage. And don’t you forget it.” He shifted where he sat, adjusting himself.

  “There’s no need to be disagreeable, Master Tanuki. My brother and I hold the young man in great affection. Can I offer you some tea? I have some smoked fish saved back.”

  “That sounds delicious. I’m famished. And saké, too, if you have it.”

  “Oh, look! He’s already awake!”

  Ken’ishi licked his ever-parched lips and croaked, “Water.”

  Junko hurried to bring him water, and as he gulped at it, she said, “He looks so awful, like he’s risen from the grave.” She laid a warm hand on his face.

  “Half-pickled in brine, more like,” Hage said. “He reeks of the sea and his own shit. Practically starved to death. Green Tiger was keeping him somewhere even I couldn’t find him.”

  Ken’ishi opened his mouth to speak, but Junko cut him off, her voice full of pity. “The tale can wait until you’re stronger.”

  Hage continued, “Without a particular chain of unusual events, I would not have found him at all. I have been searching the docks and hidden places of the city for weeks. A bit ravenous myself at one point, I was looking for some food when a rather unpleasant dog decided he didn’t appreciate my presence in his alley. So I chose to change locale, and I happened down another alley, where I spotted a chicken running loose. I decided to avail myself of the chicken for dinner, and after I had caught it, the dog found me again. Since I was loath to share my dinner, I retreated with my chicken. To avoid a passing group of horsemen, I turned onto a path leading out to a shrine on the seashore northwest of the city. There, amid a pile of driftwood washed up the beach, almost at the tree line, I spotted a discarded bokken, or what was left of one. It had been cleft in two. I recognized the bokken as his. So I waited there until evening. I saw a very large, very rough-looking man come with a wagon and disappear into the shrine. When he appeared again, he had our friend here in a barrel. Never in ten thousand lifetimes would I have sought him there.”

  Junko said, “That is a long, twisting story. A stroke of pure fortune!”

  Shirohige breathed. “It is the will of the gods that you found him.”

  Hage grunted. “It seems we cannot discount the possibility. It was as if I was following a carefully laid thread of happenstance.”

  “Well, he’s safe now. I’ll go and make him some fish broth. Seeing his ribs like that makes me want to cry.”

  Ken’ishi opened his eyes and blinked to be sure of what he saw. For the merest instant, the room seemed filled with hundreds of intricate silver threads, crossing and interconnecting, stretching through the walls, through Shirohige and Junko, coalescing on Hage like a pocket of spider webs glistening with moonlit dew. Ken’ishi blinked again, and the webs were gone.

  Hage grinned at him. “Brace up, old sot. In a few weeks, you’ll be right as rain.” But the smile did not reach his eyes.

  When one punishes or strives with the heart of compassion, what he does will be limitless in strength and correctness. Doing something for one’s own sake is shallow and mean and turns into evil.

  — Hagakure

  “What do you mean, he’s dead?” Yasutoki said. Night wind whispered over the walls of his garden, rustling the bamboo leaves and meticulously manicured pine trees. Beyond the walls of this house, pine needles whispered across the hillside and down into Hakata.

  Fang Shi stood before him, head bowed. “He is dead. Bars broken. He not go outside. Maybe shark take him.”

  “Could he have swum out?”

  “He is too weak. Couldn’t walk now.”

  Yasutoki scrutinized him. Fang Shi’s accent was terrible, and he was a savage brute of a man, but he was not dimwitted. How far did his loyalty go? All men lied, but Green Tiger did not suffer habitual liars in his employ. Fang Shi’s only motivation for lying would be that the ronin had escaped somehow, and after so long in half-starved confinement, the ronin would not have the strength to make a real escape. The Chinaman’s story was not implausible. The cave was open to the sea, and sharks and other fish sometimes ventured inside to find themselves trapped when the tide withdrew. And yet … “Is it not possible that he broke the bars himself?”

  “He become too weak. He stronger before. Break bars then, not now. Very sorry, Master,” Fang Shi said, keeping his gaze nailed to the floor.

  Yasutoki eased back. The sound of agonized weeping from out in the garden distracted him for a moment, until he realized it was simply the man he had had staked out yesterday, a petty thief caught attempting to rob one of Green Tiger’s gambling houses; now he was joining Green Tiger’s garden. “Do you expect me to punish you?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Good. But this time, I will not. Fate delivered the ronin to us, and fate took him away again. His death is one less loose thread that I must tie up.” Besides, Silver Crane was still safely in his possession. Its loss would affect him much more than the death of some unknown ronin, even one renowned as an oni-killer. Regrettable that a man with such potential, however, should die such an ignominious death. But he had not broken; Yasutoki had expected him to.

  His lovely new servant—he called her Tiger Lily—shuffled up to the door to the veranda, silhouetted from within, so dainty, incredibly poised for only fourteen. She had always submitted to his will, meekly at first, like a terrified kitten, but now she embraced it, spending every night fulfilling his every desire. Her own carnal desires now seemed to have no limits, occasionally bordering on ferocity, something he had never seen in one so young. A most welcome change to the odious task of bedding Hatsumi.

  “Forgive me, Master,” she said quietly. “You have a messenger.”

  “At this hour?”

  “I am very sorry, Master. He was very serious about giving the message only to you.”

  “Then bring him in, my little swallow.”

  She withdrew from the door, and Yasutoki faced Fang Shi again. “You know full well, Fang Shi, that if you ever lie to me, if the ronin is still alive, if you let him escape, that our friend Goumonshi will be working his craft on you, like our historian from Dazaifu.”

  Fang Shi did not flinch. “Yes, Master.”

  Two silhouettes appeared on the wall, and the door slid open. Yasutoki stood to meet them, and Fang Shi moved forward to stand half-between the visitor and Yasutoki.

  A dull-eyed Koryo sailor stood there with the girl, his gaze flicking back and forth between the two men. He smelled of the sea, his hair wildly bound within a sweat-stained scarf. “Are you Lord Yasutoki?”

  “I am.” Why would a foreign sailor be bringing him a message?

  The sailor swallowed hard and held out a bamboo tube, stoppered with wax on one end. “My master say, give this to you. Only you.” His words were strangely stilted, as if he had been practicing them over and over.

  “Who is your master?”

  “You read message, you will know him.”

  Yasutoki took the tube, whipped out a hidden dagger and cut through the wax, prying loose the stopper. A scroll slid into his hand. He cut the leather thong that bound the scroll and unrolled it. It was written in Classical Chinese, in a precise, well-cultured hand. “The wise man will find business away from Hakata in the eleventh month.”

  A bolt of white heat shot through Yasutoki’s body, and his eyes narrowed as he scrutinized the Koryo. The man did not look particularly bright, with his little rat eyes; tenacious perhaps, but not bright, a mere toady sent to deliver a message. But he had been directed to deliver the message to Otomo no Yasutoki’s house, not through one of Green Tiger’s usual Hakata channels.

  The earth moved under Yasutoki’s feet at the implications of this.

  He gathered himself and said, “Thank you. You may tell your master that his message has been received and understood. Please wait while I prepare a reply.
My sweet, prepare our guest some tea.”

  He removed himself to his study, his mind reeling, his hands shaking as he pulled out a sheet of paper and prepared a well of ink for his brush. As he ground the sumi stick into the moistness of the inkwell, his fingers blackened along with the cloud of fear in his thoughts.

  Green Tiger’s identity had been compromised. The Khan knew. And he wanted Yasutoki to know that he knew. Where was the leak that must be stopped? Who had compromised him?

  He wrote, “Your humble servant will endeavor to be wise in the eleventh month. I will rejoice on the day when I may offer you the hospitality of my house. Our efforts have been arduous but the rewards will match the beauty of heaven.” As he set down the brush, he hesitated to place his seal on the letter. Should he call himself Green Tiger or Yasutoki to a man who somehow knew his greatest secret? In case the message was intercepted, he left the letter unsigned.

  He inserted it into the tube, resealed it, and returned it to the Koryo messenger, who sat nervously with a teacup that he seemed unsure how to use. Fang Shi sat near him, eyeing him in enormous silence.

  Yasutoki offered the sailor the tube. “You may return this to your Master.”

  The sailor stood to bow and accept the tube. Yasutoki delivered it into his hands.

  “Before you go, tell me,” Yasutoki said, “how did you find this house?”

  The sailor blinked. “My master say, ‘Give this to man named Otomo no Yasutoki in Hakata.’ Many people know this place.” He gestured about him to indicate the house. “Lord Yasutoki is easy to find man.”

  “Of course, I am a high-ranked retainer of the Otomo clan. Where are you from?”

  “Pusan, Lord.”

  “A worthy place, Pusan. I saw it myself twice, when I was a boy. Tell me of Pusan these days.”