Dark Fate by Kitsuki Ikeda
"No wall stands forever. Only duty stands forever."--Kaiu Hosaru, A Perfect Cut
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Dark Fate
by Kitsuki Ikeda
While guarding a caravan for his lord, a samurai is faced with an unexpected form of danger.
[Thanks to Ikeda-san for helping set the story in HTML.--Moto Maratai]
Shiba Kazuo awoke to a world of pain.
The first thing he noticed was that the sky was tinted red--unnatural, considering that he felt the blistering heat of the midday sun on his face. Then he slowly raised one hand to his left eye and wiped away the blood that covered it.
In the distance, he could hear voices...strange voices. Kazuo struggled to remember why he was here, and not in Seiki's company back in the halls of Shiro Shiba.
He stirred, trying to sit up, and felt sharp pain lance through his right leg. Kazuo gritted his teeth as the sudden agony filled his mind, and then he remembered.
The caravan, he thought. Seiki?
The images came as a torrent. Shichiyo-sama's orders. The box inlaid with the finest black lacquer. Tetsu showing him the sliver of partially-blackened jade that he had acquired in the Yasuki markets.
Tetsu.
Kazuo could see Tetsu. The Kuni was lying in a muddy ditch, face turned towards the heavens, eyes open in dumbfounded expression. Even in death, Tetsu still clutched at an unread scroll in his right hand.
Fortunes and kami. The caravan.
There was a soft rustle of grass nearby.
"So," a rough voice said, "You're awake."
Someone kicked Kazuo in the side, and the pain was suddenly so intense that Kazuo almost blacked out again. The samurai held up both hands to protect his face, but when no other blows came, he cautiously lowered them to gaze into the face of his captor.
The bandit was stout, tanned and unshaven--almost certainly of peasant stock. He wore a katana at his belt, and Kazuo grimly noted that it was once his own.
"You're in a lot of trouble, Shiba," the bandit said. "We should just have killed you and gotten it over with."
"You...killed Seiki," Kazuo said, haltingly.
"Was that the pretty young girl riding next to you?" the bandit asked. "Well, tough." The bandit raised his right fist, and Kazuo saw that the flesh was pitted and burned there.
"I don't like shugenja much, Shiba," the bandit said. "They burned me once. Now I make sure that they get the arrows first."
"You...killed...Seiki," Kazuo said.
"You killed Godai," the bandit said, "and he was the best swordsman I had ever seen. You killed Godai and three of my best men, and still had enough fight left to make sure that Mio would never walk again. You say you lost your pretty little shugenja? I say that we're not quite even yet."
"You...you...you...kept me...alive," Kazuo said.
"Just until we open the treasure box," the bandit said. "Then you're going to wish we had killed you."
Kazuo started. "Treasure...box?"
The bandit's lips cracked open in a sardonic smile. "Still out of sorts, aren't we, Shiba? A force of samurai and shugenja like that doesn't guard a single package unless it contains something truly valuable."
Fortunes, Kazuo thought, he doesn't know.
"You...haven't opened it yet," Kazuo said with confused certainty.
The bandit gave him a half-amused, half-perplexed expression. "Indeed," he said, "we've almost broken the enchantments that secure it, but not quite yet. I bet you didn't expect a gang of bandits to have a couple of shugenja working for them, did you not?"
Oh, Fortunes.
The bandit looked at him expectantly.
"Call..." Kazuo winced at the pain of his injured leg, "Call...your men...back. Don't...don't..."
"Don't what?" the bandit asked him, fully amused now. "I don't suppose you're going to ask me not to open it."
"Must..." Kazuo struggled, "I beg...call your men back and get them...away."
"You're in no position to order me around, Shiba."
"You don't...know what you're dealing with," Kazuo said.
"And I suppose you do?" the bandit asked.
He must know, Kazuo thought. He has to know.
And Kazuo told him.
...
The bandit laughed. It was a deep, disbelieving laugh, one that emerged from the darkest pits of the belly and reflected itself in the man's eyes.
"You're more desperate than I thought, Shiba," the man said, wiping his eyes. "No, more pathetic than I would ever expect a samurai to act."
Kazuo stared at him. What now, he thought, what now?
The bandit leered at him. "Surely you don't expect me to believe that there's an..."
A sudden, piercing sound cut the bandit short. Both of them turned, startled. As they stared, they heard a second sound, close in pitch to the first.
The sounds were unmistakable, even at this distance.
Human screams.
Kazuo lunged for the sword tucked in the bandit's belt. The man moved but a moment too late.
The bandit stared at the blade buried in his chest. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but let out a confused babble of words instead. A thin sliver of blood streamed from the corner of his lips.
Kazuo pulled his sword out of the man's body, watching as the bandit fell face down into the dirt.
The box, Kazuo thought. They couldn't...
He moved quickly, stumbling in his walk, ignoring the searing pain in his leg.
It's just me, Kazuo thought. No one else left. It must be contained.
Bodies littered the area around the wagons. Kazuo did not stop to inspect the dead, but he knew that all of them were peasants. All of them were bandits.
The fools. Such a wrong time.
Such a wrong time.
The box sat by itself in the middle of the wagon. The cloth that once covered it was gone; Kazuo wondered what had happened to it.
Cautiously, he leaned himself against the wagon and inspected it closely. Seiki had told him once, an eternity ago when she was still alive, that it was protected with Asako wards. Some of them could even kill a man.
And yet when Kazuo reached for the box and felt its smooth surface with his calloused hand, unmindful of the consequences, nothing happened.
No, Kazuo thought, and then checked the seals. Someone had shattered them with a massive sharp instrument. Ono? he thought distractedly. Kama?
His heart beating fast, he clasped the lid of the box with both hands and opened it.
A dry wind blew as Kazuo stared at the empty interior.
What, Kazuo began, Where...alive?
The memory of Seiki's face disappeared into the folds of his memory.
"No," Kazuo said.
Behind him, something roared.
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