07/07/01: Arashi-No Kenji (Chapter Two and Three)
by Eric The Bard

Chapter Two: The River King

We camped that night near a river, flowing clean and strong north to south. There was no real danger from a fire; no one really suspected we were out here, and no one should care. Tomorrow, we’d need caution, but for tonight, we should be safe.

By tomorrow, we’d reach the township of Sakaji, and we could stay at an inn. I bounced the soldier’s combined moneypouches in my palm. "Quite a bit for a soldier’s wage," I reflected quietly.

Ichijo, already rolled up in her blankets by the fire, blinked at me, propping her head up on her arm. "A smart lord would pay his soldiers well, would he not?"

I shook my head and tossed the bag to her. She caught it easily; a niggling suspicion in the back of my mind began to build that the occasional thieving wasn’t all she had done. She had been quite cool when she killed the soldier. "Not that well," I said slowly. "The man leading was an officer. Him having that amount, I can understand. But for each soldier to possess as much as they did bespeaks banditry, or a lord so profligate with his money that this war, if that is what it is, will not last long." I scraped the headband off and looked to the river. "I am going to bathe, I think."

Ichijo rolled out of her blankets. "Good idea," she concurred.

We bathed several yards from each other, for  her privacy. We also washed our clothing, and I, unconcerned about my nudity, hung them to dry. As I rolled into my blankets and closed my eyes, I heard Ichijo do the same. I turned to see her gazing at me with an unreadable expression.

"Were you mated, Kenji?" she asked softly.

I hoped she wasn’t thinking the things I expected from such a question. "No. I was not. I was a soldier, sent home after serving my four years in service. Were you promised to anyone?" Fourteen was old enough, in my village. She shook her head slowly.

"I was a street kid, Kenji. An orphan. No man wanted a woman who brought nothing but herself to the marriage." Bitterness tinged her voice. "And an impure one at that…"

"Impure?"

Her voice was very soft. "Those soldiers weren’t the first to force their attentions on me."

Oh. "I did not mean to remind you of such a painful subject."

"It isn’t important, Kenji."  She stared at me a bit longer. In a quiet voice, she said, "I don’t want to be alone tonight, Kenji."

I sighed. "Ichijo," I said softly, "You are scared, everyone in your home is dead, and you are feeling vulnerable. I will not take advantage of that." I rolled away from her, turning my back. "Go to sleep."

"But –"

"I said no." My voice was firm. So was the foot that planted itself on my shoulder, rolling me on my back and stepping on the joint. Ichijo stood over me, then dropped to her knees, the weight of which was on my chest. I suddenly found it difficult to breath.

"You listen to ME, Arashi-no Kenji," she hissed, her face in mine. We were nose to nose, and I was shocked at the anger I saw in her eyes. "You have no idea what I have been through. I am not some whiny girl seeking comfort in her hero’s arms." There was a sickening amount of disgust in her voice as she said that. "I am a full-grown woman, an adult by the laws of our village and the laws of the entire kingdom, and I will not be belittled by you or anyone."

I wheezed an apology, and she stood over me. "Next time," she said coldly, "consider your words a bit more carefully." With that, she heeled me in the ribs as she walked back to her blankets, and I doubled over.

As she rolled into her blankets, I winced and realized that this journey would be more dangerous than I had considered.

I was awoken by the poking of a staff in my ribs, the same place where Ichijo had kicked me the night before. Soul came to my hand, and I opened my eyes and swung, stopping short of decapitating an old man with a heavy staff. Ichijo, I saw, was tied to a ferry, gagged and furious. "Who are you?" I said evenly, sitting up.

"I am The River King," cackled the old man, "and I have taken my prize. You, I shall take as sacrifice."

I caught the spark of madness in the old ferryman’s eyes. "You may find that more difficult than you expected," I said quietly, and surged to my feet in a single move. Not a simple matter; he attacked me with the staff as I moved, and I coolly lopped the end off of it with my glowing sword. The old man danced back in dismay. I leveled Soul at him and said in as calm a tone as I could muster; "Let her go."

"You dare defy the River King!!" he shrieked. His hand dug into a pouch and tossed a powder at me; It burned in my eyes, causing me to cough and stagger back, brushing furiously at sudden tears to clear my vision. The next thing I felt was the staff coming down hard on my shoulder, numbing it to the wrist.

Soul flared, and my arm was strong again, though I still could not see. I spun Soul in a burning arc, and closed my eyes, listening. His movements would ruffle the grasses; I heard, and responded, hearing a scream and the sound of a body falling. Through blurred vision, I saw the old man fall.

Cursing, I staggered to the river and washed out my eyes. Powdered chalk, likely; whatever it was, as soon as my eyes were clear, I leapt aboard the ferry and freed Ichijo.

"He came upon me as I slept," she said furiously. "It is good you killed him."

"It is never good to kill," I muttered angrily, putting Soul across my back. "Remember that well."

She didn’t look much chastened, and I didn’t press the matter.

We found our horses foraging not far off. We took to saddle again and found a ford, crossing the river. We turned south now, riding easily, not to strain the beasts. Keeping near the river, We rode until the sun was high in the sky; it was then that I pulled up, ears caught by the sound of hoofbeats. Many hoofbeats.

Straining my eyes, I saw a cloud of dust along the horizon; not far, and coming fast. They were close enough for me to see the flag streaming from their outriders. A roaring tiger. I swore. "Remember the army I told you about?" I said to Ichijo, bitterly.

"I do. That must be them."

"Indeed." I cast about me, then drew Soul. "Get in the river."

"What –"

"Into the river, if you wish to live!" I snapped. Her lips set in a thin line, she obeyed.

I prayed a brief prayer and sheathed Soul, reaching for my flint and tinder. The grass was high here, and dry; it would catch easily. I began to strike until I had a small blaze in my tinderbox. Then, I touched it to the grass that came up to my horse’s girth. It caught quickly, and I plunged my beast into the river. It was shallow here, as well; we crossed and rode to the southwest as if Hell chased us.

It did; the fire grew quickly. Grassfires were nothing to be taken lightly, and soon this was a true inferno. The heat roared at our backs, and Ichijo came even with me. "You fool! You may have just killed us!"

"I’ve certainly killed them," I replied grimly. I put heels to my horse and rode all the faster.

We had been on the edge of the plain, to be true; we soon reached higher, rocky ground and a trail into low hills. We climbed a trail and camped atop it, watching the fire burn. Silently, we watched the crimson glow, until Ichijo spoke.

"Only a soldier could be so cold, to use fire as a weapon," she said, and shivered.

"A soldier," I said carefully, watching her, "or an assassin."

She stiffened and refused to meet my eyes.

"So," I said quietly. "It is true, then."

"It is." She looked at her hands, rubbing them unconsciously. "I take no joy in it."

"Why did you lie?"

"Would you have taken a killer with you?" she asked simply. I was forced to concede that. "When you have no home, no family, no money, you’ll do much for a warm bed, even shared with someone who disgusts you. Food, clothing…" She trailed off.

"But why were you in our village?" I pressed. "Politics don’t extend to backwater farmsteads."

"I wanted out," she said quietly. "So I ran away. I reached your village and decided to hide…It seemed safe. Little did I know."

There wasn’t anything I could say to that. I lay back. "Good night, Ichijo."

She stayed, watching the grassfire, as night fell, but I could not sleep quickly. I wondered why, if she had been a killer, Soul had spared her my thrust. Far from innocent, she. My dreams were troubled.
 

CHAPTER 3: Clues

By morning, the fire had died, and we continued our ride south. The detour had taken us too far from Sakaji to turn back; instead, we headed for another town I knew of, founded by mercenaries. It took two days of thankfully uninterrupted travel to reach the place called Kuoji.  Kuoji was a city, by any standards.Wwe were challenged at the gates.

"Ho, travelers!" the guard called. "What seek ye?"

"Beds, and warm food," I called back. "We come from Nagou, tired, hungry, and sore. Will you allow us?"

"All with good coin to spend are allowed," the guard chuckled, and ordered the gates open.

Neither of us were strangers to the city. The bustle of the crowd was merely an obstacle to be overcome as we headed to the inn, a well-built little tavern called The Shield’s Rest. It was open, well-aired, and well-lit. All the same, it was full of mercenaries, and I kept Ichijo by my side. She did not appreciate this. I did not much care.

Her hand reached up to my shoulder and pinched, hard. She had very skilled hands. I almost fell to my knees, gasping as she hit the nerve. "You get information your way, Arashi-no Kenji, and I shall get it mine."

I grabbed her hand and twisted it on the wrist, pulling her around, bending the hand backward. Her face went pale, but she did not cry out. "Perhaps this trip would go more smoothly if we did not assault one another!" I hissed, jerking the hand to make my point. She did cry out then, a low gasp of pain. I released her hand and strode, smoldering, to the bar.

Tongues had been wagging about the "war to the north", and as I looked about, I noticed that no few of the mercenaries here wore the tiger badge. Still, none seemed to think much of two travelers. Soul was taking pains not to be noticeable.

I picked one who seemed more than half in his cups; I noted Ichijo being flirtatious with another. Our eyes met, and we nodded. To my man, I ordered another tankard and spoke. "So. Are they hiring for this war?"

The man snorted. "Ain’t they always? Lords don’t like to bleed and die. They leave that to us grunts."

I commiserated, then made a show of examining his badge. I controlled the rising tide of hate at that tiger symbol, and asked, "I don’t recognize the badge you wear, sir. What lord serve you?"

He grunted and looked at me suspiciously. I allayed his suspicions by buying him another beer. He loosened up considerably after that.

"Welp," he said, conspiratorially, "here’s how it is. This young lordling inherits from Lord Shikage, see? And he gets all het up because he don’t like how little territory he’s got. So he makes himself Lord Tora, see, and builds up this army. And he spreads northward like the plague. And we…" He shrugged, draining his mug. "We’s just soldiers."

I nodded carefully. "Is this Lord Tora worth serving?"

"He pays well. ‘Sabout all I can say for him. Never seen him, myself. He lives in another territory, about a week’s hard ride south."

"Surely the Emperor –"

"Ain’t got nothin’ to do with this, boy," he grunted. "He’ll step in only if full out civil war breaks out, an you should know it. Feuding between lordlings - not his problem." He cocked an eyebrow. "You look a fine lad – if you can swing a sword, we could use some men. Grassfire up north a couple days almost wiped out an entire company of mercs."

This was not good news. I thanked the man for his time, declining his offer politely, nodded to Ichijo, and paid for our rooms, asking that our meals be taken up there. As we ate, Ichijo eyed me carefully.

I put down my plate and looked her in the eyes. "Lord Tora is a week’s ride south. He’s grabbing up every bit of land he can before the Emperor calls a halt to it, before he starts a civil war. Apparently, he’s the son of Lord Shikage."

She nodded. Shikage had been famed in his own way; not a well-loved man, but one who was scrupulously even-handed, regardless of what it cost him or anyone else. His son had apparently chosen not to follow his example.

"I discovered much the same," she said. "I also discovered that Tora is not allowing whores in the supply train. However, an inordinate number of priests follow the army, according to one soldier."

I raised an eyebrow at that. "Interesting. No wonder he pays them so well. Conditions such as those aren’t going to be taken well. But priests following an army?"

"No ordinary priests. From what I’ve been able to gather, these priests are encouraging bloodshed. Something about it feeding the gods."

I went cold. "He’s starting a holy war," I said, through dry lips. "An army of fanatics, built up with mercenaries.  Fanatics make excellent warriors; they care nothing for their own lives, and are often eager to die, taking as many as they can with them." I shook my head. "Poor soldiers, however. They have difficulty sticking with strategy." I rubbed my face. "The emperor must be warned."

"What makes you think he does not know?"

I stared at her. Her face was carefully neutral. "How could he and allow this to go on? He is a man of the true Gods, Ichijo. He would put a stop to this."

"And have half the lords up in arms because he stepped in on a territorial dispute?" she said, voice heavy with sarcasm. "He is a man, Kenji. Vulnerable to assassins, no matter how well guarded. And one who does not want to start questions about his use of power. His Imperial Majesty is as constrained by politics as any man."

"For such a young woman, you know much of this."

She pursed her lips. "The young learn quickly, particularly when they are forced."

I didn’t press the matter. "So what do you propose? We take on Lord Tora alone?"

Ichijo sighed and shook her head. "I do not know."

Neither of us slept well that night.

In the next installment, we find out why...