Chương 18: Book 1: Chapter 7 - Satomi [Part 2]

As they turned onto a broader road leading upward, Shimon risked a quiet question.

"The two lines," he murmured. Tarō's eyes moved only a fraction.

"What?"

"Whose sign is that?" Tarō gave him a look that suggested Shimon had asked why the sky was above them. Then the older man seemed to remember that Ayanokouji Shimon was a strange man who knew too little.

"Satomi's Kamon," Tarō muttered.

"Futatsu-hikiryō. Two drawn lines. The lord's sign. Do not stare at it like a fool in the market."

"Right," Shimon whispered even as the other man's mouth tightened in disapproval. The name tugged at something in his memory. Memories from a strategy game that he had played long ago. Sengoku maps, clan names, Kantō campaigns, Hōjō pressure, and the Bōsō Peninsula. But the details were unclear, and this world did not mean knowing a familiar would lead to familiar events. Dinosaurs and no Portuguese made that abundantly clear. Assumption about anything could be a critical mistake.

They approached the castle through a road that did not run straight. It bent and narrowed, then widened again near a ditch and earthen bank. The slope forced men to approach under watch from above. Fences, gates, walls, and towers did not sit in one neat line but in layers, each one a layered defence that would force enemies into a kill zone. The castle itself was not the clean white tower of calendars and tourist brochures. It was earth, timber, plaster, and hard stone.

The main enclosure rose on a reinforced mound, its slopes faced in places with rocks and in others packed hard with earth. Wooden palisades crowned sections of wall. Watch platforms jutted from corners, their roofs curved under dark tiles. The two-line Satomi crest hung from poles and cloth near the gate. Now that Tarō had named it, Shimon saw it everywhere. On sleeves. On small banners. On boxes carried by servants. On a painted board near the gatehouse..

They stopped before the first gate, and the lead samurai stepped forward and announced them.

"Nagai Morichika-sama's summons. Kume Tarō and Ayanokouji Shimon, survivors of the Hieda commission, bearing report for presentation before Lord Satomi Yoshihiro." Men on the gate looked down. Other men below answered, and their names were repeated. A guard disappeared inside and returned. The process was formal, loud, and very obviously designed to remind everyone that permission was not the same thing as welcome. Shimon tried to study the gate while looking as if he belonged. It was strange.

Not strange like yōma. Not wrong. But not quite what he expected either. It looked broader and more swollen than the gates from reconstructed castles he had seen in photographs, the roof heavy and rounded, the side structures bulging outward in a way that gave the entrance a thick, muscled appearance. Bulbous was the word his brain supplied. The opening through it was deep enough that passing under felt like entering the maw and throat of a beast. And, that impression did not improve when they went through.

On the far side, the path did not open into a welcoming courtyard. It turned sharply into a confined space between walls and banks. A killing pocket, Shimon realized. A masugata, or something like it, though this world had decided the square gate-courtyard could be improved by this world adding its own unique twist. The niches were built into the inner side walls, and at first, he thought they were storage bays. However, they were low wooden pens with barred fronts.

Then one of the shadows moved, and a narrow head lifted into the light. The creature inside was about the size of a large dog. Feathering ran along its arms and tail in dark mottled purples and reds. Its snout was narrow, its eyes bright, its mouth equipped with sharp teeth. One sickle-clawed foot scratched lightly against the wooden floor of its pen. Another answered this from the opposite wall with a clicking hiss.

Shimon stopped looking at them because the lead samurai did not stop walking, and staring at military animals inside a lord's gate probably marked one as suspicious. Still, he imagined attackers forcing their way through the first gate, shouting victory, then being trapped in this cramped turn while archers shot down from above and handlers opened those pens. Dogs of war, except worse. The chip identified them as a variant of velociraptor.

[HOSTILE ANIMAL PRESENCE DETECTED] Species: Velociraptor [variant] Count: 4 visible Behavior: Restrained / Alert Threat Level: Moderate to Severe if released.

"Moderate," Shimon thought.

"Lovely. I assume severe begins when my face is in its mouth." One of the little raptor-things clicked again as he passed, head tilting with too much intelligence and Tarō's eyes flicked toward the pens. His mouth tightened. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. So this was not completely normal for him either, or at least not comfortable. That actually perversely helps. Common sense is not dead in this version of the universe.

They passed through another gate, then along a climbing path between earthen ramparts. Men watched from platforms above as more Satomi banners fluttered in the breeze. A horned beetle crawled over the packed wall near Shimon's shoulder, before flying off. Then came larger animals. One stood in a yard beside a stable-like structure, being fed from a pole by a man. It was taller than a horse at the hip, long-tailed, lightly built, and with a head with a sleek snout filled with serrated teeth.

Its arms were not as small as the tyrannosaurid mount Shimon had seen on the road. They were longer, strong, tipped with claws like curved knives. Feathers or protofeathers fringed its neck and forearms, more sparse than the little gate raptors. Fukuiraptor, his memory suggested, and his chip soon confirmed. Or, at least, a terrible variant of the animal that was supposed to be long dead The animal turned its head as they passed, and everyone near it respected the length of its tether.

A second kind of creature moved near a barracks courtyard, much smaller and stranger. They reached about to Shimon's waist, and were long-necked, bipedal, feathered along the tail, with long, grasping forelimbs. Several were being drilled by handlers with whistles and hand signals. They moved in quick starts and stops, heads bobbing, eyes fixed on bits of meat tied to cord. Fukuivenator variant, the knowledge of his old world informed. Or something descended from this world's impossible biology.

Less immediately terrifying than the Fukuiraptor, but still quite capable of removing a person's fingers with speed. He wondered why he had not seen so many creatures before. Then the answer arrived with embarrassing obviousness; resources and money. A castle could afford them, and its lord could feed them. A retainer might keep one prized beast if rich or important. A village could not stable a carnivorous dinosaur any more easily than a convenience store could keep a tiger.

Meat, handlers, space, training, injury, breeding, and medicine; all of it cost money. Power announced itself not merely by banners and walls but by the number of monsters it could afford to feed. They were led further inward, through more turns and guarded thresholds, until they reached a structure that was not quite a keep in the modern fantasy sense and not merely a hall either. It stood within the inner enclosure, raised on foundations, its roof broad and dark, its timber polished.

Guards waited at the entrance, servants moving quickly here and there. A pair of small feathered animals perched near the eaves under the eye of a handler, their heads tucked beneath their winged arms until one opened a black bead eye and watched Shimon pass. Microraptors, like Nagai's, but a little more feral. Security for the roofs and protection from infiltrators. They removed footwear and their swords were handled according to rules Shimon only half understood. He watched Tarō and did what Tarō did.

Then, they were led to a waiting room. It was not large, but it was finer than the inn room. The tatami smelled clean. The walls were plain, but the wood was polished to an almost mirror gleam, and a hanging scroll displayed a brush-written phrase that Shimon read as virtue-beneath-heaven-order. They sat, and the room fell into a fresh silence. And, this was not a companionable silence, but the silence of men waiting to learn whether breakfast had been their last meal.

Shimon sat on his heels because Tarō sat on his heels. This soon became annoyingly painful, but nothing when compared to his earlier trials. The samurai who had brought them waited by the door, and they did not make conversation, their stoicism adding to the heavy quiet. Bored but increasingly nervous, Shimon tried to recall every scene from every period drama he had ever watched.

What came back were only scattered fragments: people bowing deeply, doors sliding open, men in formal robes speaking with unbearable slowness. Someone shouting burei-mono just before the violence began. Teacups. Tatami lines. Never step on the threshold. Do not meet the lord's eyes for too long. Do not speak until spoken to. Do not laugh. Do not sit incorrectly. It all tumbled through his mind in one confused, useless bundle. Dogeza seemed safe. Forehead down, hands placed correctly, making oneself small.

It was difficult to accidentally insult someone while performing full physical submission. He would speak as little as possible. He would follow Tarō. He would answer only what was asked. He would become the furniture, because, unfortunately, disrespect in this world did not seem like the kind of thing that resulted in a review. A samurai could be killed for rudeness, or ordered to kill himself by cutting his own guts out. The story of the forty-seven rōnin came to mind with sudden, terrible clarity.

It had begun, at least in the popular telling, with an insult. This led to an assault, followed by the seppuku of a lord. The lord's lands were then confiscated, his retainers made masterless, and those men spent years preparing their revenge—only to be ordered to kill themselves afterward. He did not remember all the details, but he knew enough that the consequences of incorrect speech would be very real. It almost made him miss social media. Almost. No manners could get a man killed.

The unknown patron had promised to make him great. But, Shimon did not want to be great. He wanted obscurity with a steady income, and the protection that afforded while he figured things out. Period dramas were one thing, and even Shimon liked samurai aesthetics in the same abstract way that people liked swords, castles, without all of the other messy bits. The young man was most certainly not too enamoured of the samurai spirit to end up committing seppuku because he turned a tea cup two times instead of three.

Was that even a rule? He did not know. And, that was the entire crux of the problem. Suddenly, painfully, he wished he had paid attention during all those touristy cultural experiences his grandparents had taken him to when his family visited Japan from America. Now strange forces had placed him into history that never was in a waiting room to meet the lord of the local land.

"Do not look like you are thinking so loudly," Tarō muttered and complained. Shimon blinked.

"Sorry."

"Also," Tarō added, barely moving his mouth, "do not apologize unless needed." Silence settled over the room once more, gradually thickening until it became stifling. At last, the shoji slid open. A young attendant knelt at the threshold, both hands placed properly before him and his head bowed, while another waited on his knees beyond. The entire movement was performed with such effortless grace that Shimon once again felt boorish in comparison.

"Enter," said a voice. The samurai beside the door gestured. Tarō moved first, and Shimon soon followed him. The pair passed through a corridor and into the main hall. The long, formal chamber was arranged according to an unmistakable hierarchy. Men sat along either side, their rank measured by their proximity to the power at its head: advisers, senior retainers, priests, clerks, and armed men who needed no hand upon their swords to radiate menace. At the far end, seated upon a raised dais, was the lord.

The announcer spoke first, his voice carrying through the hall.

"Before Lord Satomi Yoshihiro, lord of this castle, are brought Kume Tarō and Ayanokouji Shimon, survivors of the Hieda commission and bearers of report concerning the yōma slain beyond the eastern village." Satomi Yoshihiro.