Emily's Saga

by Travis Bughi

  “Karaoshi!” the samurai called out through gasps for air. “By all the world, you are still alive!”

  “Who is that?” Emily whispered.

  “Renshu Miyazi,” Takeo replied. “He’s the one who sold me into slavery.”

  “Oh? And what is this? Are you that amazon?” Renshu continued, urging his komainu forward until it reached the line of men surrounding Fudo’s small group. “Pretty girl, aren’t you? I had pictured someone a bit larger, somewhat haggard, to hear Lady Heliena speak of you. The ninjas did not mention your appearance.”

  Takeo and Emily eyed Renshu coldly. The man took in their silence and laughed again.

  “And Lord Fudo!” he called out. “I trust you remember me?”

  “I do,” Fudo replied. “I recognize a Miyazi when I see one.”

  “Then you know I speak for my lord. The message I’ve heard is that you’ve sought someone of authority. Tell me, do you yield?”

  “Only if my men are allowed to live. That is my condition.”

  “Done.” Renshu gave a curt nod. “Now lay down your arms.”

  Fudo gave a show of reluctance, but dropped his katana. The others followed suit, even Takeo, and Emily dropped her knife and katana.

  “You, amazon.” Renshu pointed at her. “The bow and quiver, too.”

  Emily unslung the bow and empty quiver and dropped them at her feet. Katsu’s men came forward and took Fudo and his men one at a time, peeling them out from the group and forcing them all to their knees in a line. The young boy—his nose was red and his eyes rubbed raw—was taken from his komainu, and brought to Renshu. He was still whimpering, but his tears had stopped.

  “I take it this is Lord Jiro’s son?” Renshu asked.

  “No,” Fudo replied, voice confident. “He’s just an imposter.”

  “Hm, that’s a pity.” Renshu sighed. “Whose son is he?”

  “Just some orphan.”

  Renshu looked down at the imposter while the boy looked intensely at his own feet. The samurai frowned, sighed, then drew his katana and cut the child down with a single stroke. The boy was slain so quickly that he didn’t even cry out. He landed with a soft thud that could be heard just over Emily’s gasp.

  “No!” Fudo yelled and then glared at Renshu. “Didn’t you hear me? I said he was just an orphan, damn it!”

  “I don’t know if you’re lying.” The samurai shrugged, wiping the blood from his katana across his komainu’s back. “He’ll be just as easy to identify dead, and if he is truly an orphan, then no harm has been done.”

  “No harm done?” Fudo was stammering. “He was just a boy! Why would I lie?”

  “Because I lied.” Renshu smiled cruelly. “Kill all except Fudo, Takeo, and the amazon!”

  Fudo cried out as the katanas fell; a cascade of heads and bodies tumbled to the ground around them. Fresh blood poured out, drenching the already saturated grass. Emily stared down in horror as blood pooled around her knees, and her breaths became short and ragged.

  No, please no. Her body started to shake. Stop it. Make it stop.

  But no one heard her thoughts. A few of Fudo’s men cried out for a brief moment, though most stayed remarkably stoic, and then silence returned. A head rolled into Emily vision, and her stomach churned. The shaking continued, and her lips trembled.

  They spared me, she wondered. Why? What horrible cruelty was reserved for them? A faint memory returned to her, one of Heliena promising to carve her own sister’s eyes out, and weakness invaded her joints.

  “So much death,” she whispered breathlessly.

  “Takeo? Why does he get to live?” Fudo asked before turning on Takeo. “You traitorous bastard! You should have died! You should have died!”

  Fudo’s voice faded, but Emily did not look up to see them drag Fudo and the boy away. She couldn’t take her eyes off the blood and the head. It was staring at her, judging her, blaming her. This was her fault, and she knew it. She couldn’t explain why or how, but all of this fell on her shoulders. It had to; there was no other way. If it wasn’t her fault, then it was beyond her control. If it was beyond her control, then she was finished. If she was finished, then she would die.

  She didn’t want to die. She couldn’t die. Her task was not complete. Quartus couldn’t be wrong.

  A heavy thud sounded ahead of them followed by a slow set of footsteps that were masked by the sound of shuffling armor. Renshu’s feet appeared at the top of Emily’s vision, and she tried to lift her head, but could not find the energy. She’d just realized that the head she was looking at was Gan’s.

  He looks so different without his body. The morbid thought passed effortlessly through her mind, chased by another. I wonder what mine will look like.

  “Take them to our lord,” Renshu said. “He’ll want to speak with the amazon immediately.”

  Chapter 28

  Emily tried desperately to continue her watchful gaze of the ground beneath her, but it ended up being for naught. Even with her field of view limited, she lost count of the endless stream of bodies she was forced to walk over. Hundreds passed beneath her eyes, but she dared not look up to see the thousands that she knew were around her. There had been no horn or yelling of retreat. There had been no distant shouting or fighting. She knew that no portion of Lord Jiro’s army had escaped. This had been a massacre.

  She could not simply close her eyes either. She needed her sight to step over all the corpses. All around, Katsu’s men were pillaging the dead, tearing off armor, stealing swords, cutting pockets open for coins, and yet they could not clear the dead away fast enough for Emily to avoid passing them. She heard a woman screaming and then crying, begging someone to stop. It was followed by a group of men laughing. Emily’s throat swelled.

  The only time she looked away was to glance at Takeo, wondering what would become of the two of them, terrified that he would be taken from her, and yet knowing that it was inevitable. The tiniest glimmer of hope was all that held her together, thinking that if she was to die, they would have killed her already. Katsu wanted them alive. She did not know what for, but the knowledge was enough to keep her tears in check. She also knew that Katsu would not let them go, that they were not going to be allowed to go free, and that she and Takeo would never grow old together, but every time that thought surfaced, she swallowed it whole and buried it deep.

  They are not men. Takeo’s words came to her. They will not show you mercy.

  A vision of the young boy being cut down came to her mind, but in his place she saw Takeo, and a lone tear blurred her vision. She cursed herself and shook the tear free. Sorrow would not help her now. She had to stay strong. She had known this might happen. Damn the Old Woman of the Mountain.

  They reached the end of the battlefield, where finally the corpses stopped, and were led to a small camp at the mountain’s edge. There stood one lone tent, draped in bright blue flags and guarded by at least twenty komainu-mounted samurai. They bowed to Renshu and took charge of Emily and Takeo, who were bound in ropes. It turned out that Renshu was wrong about two things.

  First, Lord Ichiro Katsu did not want to speak them immediately. Emily and Takeo were forced to wait some distance from the tent, ever kneeling, as a steady stream of soldiers, samurai, and generals flowed in and out of the tent. They were too far away to hear any words, but close enough to hear some occasional shouting. More than one individual left backwards, bowing so low they could have touched their own feet.

  The second thing that Renshu was wrong about was whom Katsu wanted to speak with first. Emily was forced to wait as Takeo was marched into the tent without her. She bit her lip over and over, grinding her teeth and jumping at every gust of wind, fearing that it was the fall of a katana she heard. Her eyes never left the tent, constantly peeking inside at every flap of the tent’s folds. She was terrified that Takeo’s body would leave the tent without his head. A brief moment of relief washed over her when he was brought out alive, though bound by chains instead of rope.
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  “Bring the amazon!” Renshu called as he led Takeo away.

  A samurai brought her toward the tent, checked her once over for weapons, and then brought her inside. The tent flaps fell behind her, and she saw the man she had traveled the world over to kill.

  Ichiro Katsu was seated on his knees on a rug that had been laid out within the tent. He wore a royal blue kimono that hung heavily on his shoulders, but no jewelry of any kind. His thin nose stuck out from his gaunt cheeks, and he had become paler since the last time Emily had seen him. His beard and moustache were still delicately trimmed, though, tracing the lines of his mouth as if they’d been painted on. He watched Emily through narrowed eyes as if she were a thunderbird about to change direction.

  Around him, the interior of the tent was quite barren, lacking even a table. The only luxurious thing at all was the beautiful rug on which he was seated. It took Emily only a second to realize that it had an exquisite painting of Juatwa on it. Sitting in a corner with a withered cane in his hand was a single man, so old that the wrinkles around his eyes made it look like his lids were permanently shut. And standing nearby were four samurai guards dressed in full, laminar armor. All but one of the guards eyed Emily cautiously.

  The one who didn’t was watching her with intense curiosity and a tinge of hunger in his eyes. It gave Emily pause, wondering if perhaps she knew this one, but she shook that off immediately. She’d never seen his face before.

  “Osamu,” Katsu muttered under his breath. “Manners, please.”

  The guard went rigid with attention, his eyes straying from Emily to look at the tent wall.

  “Good afternoon, Emily Stout,” Katsu said next. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “It is?” she said with a blink.

  “For me it is. I’ve had a long, aching curiosity about you since the moment I heard your name. However, that’s not why you’re here.”

  Emily looked about at the guards, at the old man, and then tilted her head back to try and peek out of the tent, but its flaps were closed. She turned her focus back to Katsu and gave him the hardest stare she could muster.

  “Where are you taking Takeo?” she demanded.

  The four samurai in the tent bristled at her harsh tone. Their eyes looked to their lord, but he seemed unaffected by Emily’s words. He only sighed and traced a finger along his moustache.

  “I’ll never understand how all amazons grow up to be so rude.” Katsu frowned. “Tell me, why would Takeo matter to you?”

  “Where?” she shouted. “I don’t know what you have planned for me, but I will give you nothing if he dies.”

  The shogun’s eyebrows lifted.

  “You care for him.” He sounded astonished. “That is most interesting indeed. Takeo had carefully hidden that. I wonder if it’s mutual. Still, though, it is no matter. He is going to die, you see. Miyazi is going to decapitate him to settle the petty rivalry between them, and then Takeo’s head will adorn a spike alongside Lord Jiro’s and Lord Fudo’s. That’s quite an honor, trust me. And you? You’ll still give me what I want because the only thing I want from you is information. It will likely come to torture now, but you’ll speak eventually. They all do. I’ve yet to meet a human with a pain threshold beyond their death.”

  Emily’s heart caught in her throat. The thought of Takeo’s death hurt her more than Katsu’s promise of torture. She couldn’t handle that. A vicious stabbing came to her chest—so violent and swift it choked her. She coughed her agony and bowed her head, shutting her eyes tight and trying to fight back her tears. Words of begging came to her tongue, but she did not release them. Katsu would not hear them; he would only see weakness. She didn’t want to live in this world without Takeo, and she would not give up so easily. She would rather die.

  “If you kill him,” she said, anger mixing with sorrow in her throat, “I’ll bite off my own tongue. I swear to you, I will. I’ll bleed to death, and you’ll get nothing from me. If you let him live, though, I’ll tell you everything you want to know, anything you want to hear. I promise.”

  Her life might be forfeit, but she would bargain anything she had to free at least one of them. There was nothing left to lose, and she would not cling to a shortened life of torture. She was braver than that.

  Katsu froze and looked back at the old man. Emily looked, too, but the old man did not move at all, not even to acknowledge them. Emily realized he was unnaturally still, as if he were either dead or carved from rock. Katsu drummed his fingers on his right knee for a moment and then lifted his chin toward the nearest guard.

  “Go and fetch Takeo,” the shogun commanded. “Hopefully Miyazi is still boasting and has not yet lopped off our ronin’s head.”

  The guard bowed low and then sprinted out of the tent. A trace of relief touched Emily’s mind, but she still held her breath as they waited.

  “Do you know what this is?” Katsu pointed a finger at the old man. “It’s a sennin. I know, it appears human, but it’s not. This particular one is said to be as old as Juatwa, but it will not tell me how old that is. There we go! There, that’s the curiosity I’ve heard about. Even facing death and torture, you want to know about this thing, don’t you? Yes, Emily, you are certainly fascinating. Very well, then, as you wish, I will tell you. Never let it be said that I showed the courtesy of an amazon. This sennin is one of the few in Juatwa. They are normally hermits, but I found this one and took it hostage only a short while ago. They are very wise, said to know more about the world than all the jinn combined. They would make the angels appear no more knowledgeable than children. I try to consult it as often as I can, even though it rarely answers in more than riddles. As powerful as their intellect is, they are quite frail, and I will not torture it for fear of killing it. However, despite this, this sennin is quite useful. You see, it has a unique ability—the key to my more diplomatic dealings. It can sense when someone is lying, without fail, and it is kind enough to inform me. It and I have a mutual understanding about this. It gives me the truth, and I give it life.”

  The tent flap burst open as the guard returned and gave Katsu a swift bow.

  “My lord,” he said to the ground, “Takeo is alive, and Miyazi wishes to speak with you.”

  “Tell Miyazi he can wait,” Katsu replied. “Step out of the way and show Emily that Takeo still breathes with his head and body intact.”

  The guard did as instructed, and Emily saw through the tent flaps that Takeo was still alive. He was seated on his knees before Miyazi, who was fuming in anger with arms folded across his chest. The guard then let the tent flaps close and stepped back inside to take up his spot near Katsu.

  “There,” the shogun said. “See? I am a man of my word. He will live.”

  “What will you do with him?” Emily asked. “You won’t just let him go free. I know that.”

  “That’s true. I won’t.” Katsu sighed. “Surely we can come to some agreement, though. Would you accept if I sold him into slavery again? Not Savara, of course. I’ve already tried that. How about the orcs in the Khaz Mal Mountains? Would you accept if he was sold there?”

  Emily thought for a moment. Takeo had escaped slavery before. He was clever and strong, and he would be far away from Katsu. She didn’t know much about orcs, other than that they were violent, but they couldn’t be much worse than a rakshasa. Also, this was probably his best chance. No, it would be his only chance. She nodded meekly.

  “Well, that was relatively painless,” Katsu said, tracing his moustache again. “I’m glad we could reach an agreement so easily. Miyazi will be upset, but he’s rarely happy anyway. I like that, if you must know. He’s more ruthless when he’s angry, and I’ll have need of that soon. So, now, are you ready to answer my questions?”

  Emily nodded.

  “You know, my reputation sometimes precedes me, especially when speaking to my enemies, and I find it has a negative effect on their ability to communicate when I’m trying to be cordial with them. However, I’m rather pressed f
or time now, so if it’s alright with you, I’d like to exchange pleasantries later.”

  Katsu paused, and Emily realized he was waiting for a response. She searched his face, wondering what game he was playing at, but she saw no malice in his eyes. She parted her lips, but confusion clouded her mind, and she could not find any words.

  “Pleasantries? What pleasantries?” she finally said. “You just threatened to torture me.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Katsu winced and frowned. “My apologies, but I can be a bit direct sometimes. We’ll get some of my easier questions out of the way first. Takeo has already told me how you two met in Savara and escaped slavery, but he had no knowledge of Lady Xuan’s intentions to betray me and Lord Jiro. Did you, somehow, know she never meant to join the battle?”

  “What?” Emily balked. “She didn’t fight?”

  “No.” Katsu sighed, and his eyebrows narrowed for a moment. “It seems she told both Lord Jiro and me that she intended to betray the other, came close enough to the battlefield to give us each the confidence to engage, and then retreated. I had asked the sennin if I would win the battle to which it replied in the affirmative. I should have followed that up with, ‘Will Lady Xuan join my forces?’ My mistake.

  “Anyway, with my men already committed to the battle, I had to swing my forces around Lord Jiro’s rear to close off his escape. It was a fortunate thing I was able to annihilate his entire army without her assistance. I succeeded, but damn did it cost me. At least half my army is dead, and I won’t know how many wounded until the counts are finished some days from now. By then, I expect to be home in my fortress, plotting that old woman’s downfall. She meant to weaken me, but I’ll see each of her seven sons slaughtered before her eyes for that betrayal. The only good news is that Lord Jiro is out of the picture now. Juatwa is all but mine. The world will soon follow.”

  Emily’s head dropped heavily. She had known the truth of Katsu’s victory from the moment Takeo pulled her out from under that komainu, but to hear the shogun say it made the pain sharp and real. Her failure had been hinted, but now it was stated, and that made it all the more difficult to stomach. She had come so far, tried so hard, learned so much, all to fail in the end. Why had Quartus ever chosen her?