The Fields of Yomi


by
Nancy Sauer

 

The lotus floated on the surface of the pond, its creamy white petals unmarred by the muddy water below it. The sitting man had been looking at it for hours, enjoying the serenity it inspired. He had been listening to his companion for what seemed like hours, though he would not describe the experience as serene.

“The Crab have been pushed back to the far northern provinces. The northern provinces! The Horde never got that far in my day.” The speaker was a powerfully built man who circled around the pond, never looking at the lotus. There was a slight oddness in his walk, as if he wanted to limp but couldn’t remember why.

“In your day,” the sitting man said, “they got as far as Otosan Uchi.” He deliberately ignored the look that earned him. “I don’t know why you are so unsatisfied. The armies of the north and the south are fighting with skill and honor. What more do you expect of them?”

“I want them to fight with their hearts,” the other said. “I want them to dig deep and find the strength they didn’t know they had and fling it in the face of their enemies!”

“Then you should be rejoicing,” the sitting man said. He looked up from the lotus to gaze at something in the middle distance.

 

 

Shiba Jinzaburo wiped the blood out of his eyes and desperately cast around, looking for his Champion’s banner. He’d been running towards it, trying to support the rally she was creating, when almost out of nowhere one of the fire-cursed Yobanjin had attacked him. Jinzaburo had managed to kill him with a single cut of his naginata, but not until he had collected his own wound: a ragged gash over his left eye that poured out blood and hampered his vision. His kabuto, Jinzaburo wondered, what in Tsukune’s name had happened to his kabuto?

He headed off in what he thought was the right direction, looking for some cloth he could tear off and fashion into a bandage for his head. The clothing of the dead was off limits, but perhaps he could find a back-banner somewhere? The thought was cut off by the harsh wail of a Yobanjin battle cry. Jinzaburo spun around to find himself being charged by a warrior who was fully seven feet tall.

The Shiba immediately launched an attack with his naginata, but his one-eyed vision threw off his distance perception and the Yobanjin easily evaded it. They circled for a moment, each taking the other’s measure, and then Jinzaburo swept in for a cut aimed at the other man’s torso. The Yobanjin let it come, and then at the last possible moment he pivoted, bringing his heavy sword down on the shaft of the naginata. The blade ground harmlessly in the dirt and the shaft broke, sending Jinzaburo reeling back in surprise. Naginata often broke in combat, but this was the first time he had ever seen one snapped by a sword strike. On his second step backwards his foot turned on a rock and his had ankle sent him crashing down to one knee.

“Draw your sword, little man, and I’ll snap that too!” yelled the Yobanjin, brandishing his sword above his head. “And then I’ll end your life!”

“My life, my soul, for the Phoenix,” Jinzaburo said. Wrapping both hands around one end of the remaining shaft he leaped up, shoving the end of the pole into the other man’s larynx. “But your life first.” The Yobanjin fell to the ground, choking.

Jinzaburo drew his sword and continued across the battlefield. He could see Shiba Tsukimi’s banners now, and he hastened to her call.

 

 

The standing man looked away. “Good man,” he said. “You should be proud of him.”

“I am,” the sitting man said. “But you know that one can find men just as good among the Crab. In every clan.”

The standing man took a deep breath and released it. “I know. But I know what it means to fight in the thick of battle. It is hard sometimes to simply give counsel.”

The sitting man smiled. “Well do I know that, Yoshi. But that is our part of the battle now, and we cannot ignore it any more than our descendants can ignore the call to arms.”

“You fight this kind of battle well, Ujimitsu,” Yoshi said. “Perhaps I will do as well, in a century or so.”

Ujimitsu laughed. “Skills grow sharper with use, my friend. And you should not lack for practice.”