Chương 9: Book 1: Chapter 4 - Follow the Death [Part 3]

No one laughed. And, for several steps there was only the sound of sandals on the road. Shimon began to worry that he had ruined everything by telling a story too foreign, too grim, and too obviously about every man currently walking beside him. Then Kuroda Genzō grunted.

"Good." That single word landed with the weight of a formal award. Sōbei looked at the older samurai with an expression of amused surprise.

"You like that one, Master Kuroda?"

"It is clean," Genzō said.

"Men seek death with knives. Money causes death more often than not. More than sweet buns, at least." Tarō scratched his jaw.

"I would not drink after stabbing a man."

"You say that now," Jirō replied.

"But if you had been stabbing all afternoon?" Sakurai Iori looked at Shimon.

"A western tale? The Morokoshi""So I heard," Shimon answered lightly. Morokoshi, China his chip translated for him from the context. The veteran spat into the roadside ditch.

"I knew a man who found death under a tree." The group's attention shifted. Shimon just wished there was a dialogue skip button.

"It was in a town north of here. Years ago. Before this lord fought that lord and all the places on the maps changed names again." That sounded like history in its natural form.

"There was a soldier on night guard. Not a brave man, not a coward. Ordinary. He stood near the edge of town where there was an old cherry tree. The flowers were nearly gone. Windy night. Moon behind clouds. He saw a white kimono floating near the tree."

"Floating?" Jirō whispered.

"Empty," Genzō said.

"No woman inside. No feet beneath. Sleeves hanging. Moving like someone wore it, but no one did."

"There are fox tricks," Sōbei remarked lightly.

"There are," Genzō agreed.

"This was not one." The older samurai's hand touched a small charm tied near the inside of his armor. For the first time, Shimon noticed it: a little packet of cloth, paper, and cord darkened by sweat and age.

"The soldier shouted. The kimono did not answer. He fitted an arrow, drew, and shot. The arrow struck true. The kimono jerked and vanished. When he went to find the arrow, the shaft lay at the roots of the cherry tree. No cloth and no woman. Only the arrowhead wet with blood." Nobody interrupted.

"That night he slept in the barracks. In the morning he did not wake. No wound. No mark. Eyes open. Mouth full of cherry petals." Jirō made a small sound of horror. Tarō, to his credit, only looked a little pale. Shimon's mind immediately tried to defend reality. Poison, prank, coincidence, undiagnosed aneurysm, murder staged with flower petals by a very theatrical killer.

The options all lined themselves up in neat modern categories and then fell over because in this world, this reality, he had seen orange quest text and a man riding a dinosaur.

"Did you see this yourself?" Shimon asked before caution could stop him. Kuroda Genzō looked at him.

"No, but I saw the man before they burned him so that his curse would not spread." That ended the discussion for a while.

The second bit of civilization Shimon would encounter in this world appeared soon enough near midday. It sat in a shallow fold of land where the road narrowed between wet fields and a wooded rise. Compared to the market village they had left, it was smaller and poorer. Thatched roofs clustered together and smoke rose from their hearths. A narrow irrigation channel carried water past the road, and ducks moved through it with solemn authority. Bundles of reeds leaned against walls.

Firewood had been stacked with care beneath eaves. A rural scene, Shimon thought. That should have comforted him. Instead, the normalcy made him nervous. Monsters belonged in dark forests, corpse fields, caves, and stories told by grim men on roads and not in such a setting like this. And, the village was afraid. He could see it once he knew to look. Doors closed too quickly. Men watched clutched tools that could too easily turn into weapons. Dogs did not bark at the procession; they whined and stayed low.

Several houses had fresh charms tied above their entrances. Strips of paper fluttered from gateposts. A roadside Jizō statue had been given offerings of rice, cakes, and sake. The headman waited near the village entrance with two older men and a priest or shrine functionary in stained white and faded red. The headman was thin, balding, and deeply unhappy to see armed help arrive, which Shimon understood after half a second. Armed help meant trouble was real enough to pay for.

Master Hieda's bearers lowered the chair. Hieda did not climb out at once. He received the headman's bows with a small nod, then spoke softly. The words were too low for Shimon to catch completely, but his chip filtered out some of what his ears caught. Audio enhancement limited by environmental interference.

Partial capture: —three storehouses broken— —no tracks like men— —rice gone, millet gone— —widow's boy saw lights— —old charcoal path— —crows since dawn— Shimon looked toward the forest rising beyond the far end of the village. It was not large, but it was dense, dark with cedar, oak, and undergrowth. The trees climbed a low ridge and gathered into a thicker belt of woodland beyond. Even in daylight, it had depth. Places to hide. Places to be eaten. Places where monsters waited. Above it, black shapes circled.

Crows, a lot of crows. Shimon's grip shifted on the spear.

"Men stealing food," Tarō said with a shake of his head, voice lower than usual.

"Men leave tracks," Kuroda Genzō replied. Jirō swallowed.

"Hungry men can be clever."

"Hungry men are desperate, and desperation can make one very smart, or, usually very stupid," Genzō stated, his face made out of stone.

"That is why they become hungry men. Stay poor, and stay hungry, and die." Mizuno Sōbei smiled gently.

"Let us not insult the poor before we know whether we must kill them."

"That is the most polite horrible thing I have heard today," Shimon muttered in English under his breath. Sakurai Iori looked at him again, but Shimon looked away and pretended to ignore him. Master Hieda finally rose from his chair and went with the headman toward the largest house. His guards followed. The hired men were left near a dry patch beside a storehouse, watched by villagers who clearly wished to look away but could not. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Waiting, Shimon discovered, was worse than walking. Walking gave the body a task. Waiting gave the mind room to think up horrors. His mind, being an unhelpful organ, immediately began filling that room with possibilities. If the problem was hungry soldiers, then this was dangerous but understandable. Deserters, rout survivors, starving men hiding in the woods. They would be desperate, armed, possibly wounded, probably more experienced than Shimon in combat. It would be bad, but Shimon was no longer alone.

If the problem was yōma, then he had no meaningful category, which was decidedly worse. Then, his imagination supplied, if the problem was hungry soldiers who had become yōma, then his problems were grave indeed. [QUEST STATUS] Hunt the Yōma Current Objective: Join hunting party and investigate reported activity. Party Members: 6 Client Retinue: 5 combatants, 2 bearers Threat level: Unknown. Warning: Spiritual Contamination remains undefined.

Mizuno Sōbei appeared beside him with the quiet smoothness of a man who liked appearing beside people.

"Ayanokouji-dono, you speak to yourself often." Shimon's soul attempted to leave his body.

"Habit," he replied.

"A useful habit, perhaps. A man who answers himself always has counsel."

"That depends on the quality of the counsel." The oily man laughed softly.

"Well said." He stood there smiling at the village, hands folded into his sleeves. To any observer, he looked like a pleasant and experienced man offering companionship to a younger traveler. However, Shimon could not shake the feeling of a knife being measured for the gap between armor plates.

"You held your spear well," Sōbei commented. Shimon replied with silence his old friend. The other man gave him a level look.

"You did not show fear."

"That is good. Controlling fear can make men respect the man who can do it. Eventually."

"Men like you?" the young man replied, the question slipping out of him. Sōbei turned his smile on him. It was still friendly. Perfectly friendly. Annoyingly friendly.

"Men like me respect usefulness." That was honest. Before Shimon could respond, Sakurai Iori approached.

"Mizuno-dono," Iori said, bowing slightly.

"The headman's men are looking at your purse with great spiritual intensity. I fear they may mistake it for an object of worship." The pleasant-looking man laughed, the moment broken without seeming to be broken and again Shimon felt only distrust of him. He was too smooth by far.

"Then I should save their souls by hiding it better." He drifted away. Shimon looked at Iori, not quite understanding what had transpired. Something lost in translation in this strange place.

"Thank you," Shimon admitted. Iori's expression remained mild.

"He is not a bad companion on the road." The man from the modern world met his eyes.

"That sounds carefully phrased."

"It was." Shimon decided he definitely liked Sakurai Iori more than was probably safe. Liking people in this world felt like choosing hostages for future grief. He had a feeling that life was brief, brittle, and cheap here.

"You are not from the east?" Iori said, more a statement than an actual question.

"Nor, I think, from the west." Shimon stiffened. Iori continued before Shimon had to invent anything.

"But your name is old, your bearing is half-taught, and your equipment has lived several lives before finding you. That is not so uncommon after a battle." Shimon said nothing. Iori looked toward the forest.

"I have no wish to know what brought you here. Men on roads are often made of things they do not explain." A bridge, Shimon thought again. Aloud, he said, "And you?"

"I am also made of things I do not explain," the other man answered with a shrug. That was fair. The Kume brothers returned from somewhere with stolen or purchased radishes. They offered one to Genzō, who refused, then to Shimon, who accepted because calories were very important now. The radish was raw, sharp, and covered in dirt. But it was also food, so he ate it. Hunger, as always, made for the best sauce, and he had a feeling that he best not eat his given rations for the time being.

After some time, Master Hieda emerged from the headman's house. His face wore the same pleasant thin smile, but something in his eyes had sharpened. The headman followed, bowing repeatedly. The shrine functionary carried a small tray with folded paper, salt, and a little cup of sake.

"We will go to the forest edge," Master Hieda announced.

"Not into the village storehouse?" Sōbei asked.

"The storehouse has already been seen. Empty grain jars, broken latch, no blood. Whatever entered did not linger there."

"Tracks?" Kuroda Genzō asked. The headman flinched at the older samurai's voice.

"Some," Master Hieda said.

"Some like men. Some like dogs. Some like neither. Rain damaged them." Of course, it did, Shimon thought cynically, for he had no memory of it. They moved through the village. People watched them pass. An old woman pressed prayer beads between her hands. A little girl peered from behind a door. A boy of perhaps twelve stood too openly with a bamboo spear. At the far end of the village, the houses thinned. The last fence leaned toward a field gone fallow. Beyond it, a narrow path led to the woods.

The crows circled above. Not randomly, Shimon soon realized. They had a center, for black bodies wheeled against the pale sky, calling down in harsh voices. Some landed in the highest branches. Others lifted off again as if disturbed by something below. Their cries overlapped until the sound became almost like laughter. Master Hieda raised one hand and the procession stopped.

"This is the boundary," declared the shrine functionary. He sounded deeply unhappy about being the person who knew that. A weathered rope had been tied between two trees at the forest's edge. It sagged in the middle, hung with folded paper streamers that had gone limp. Old offerings sat at the roots: cracked bowls, rice gone hard, a little clay horse, wilted branches, a child's toy, and several things Shimon did not want to identify too closely. Master Hieda stepped down from his chair with a servant's help.

He took the tray from the shrine functionary, then turned toward the hired men.

"No one crosses before the words are finished." Kuroda Genzō's hand went to his charm. Mizuno Sōbei bowed politely. The Kume brothers stopped chewing. And Shimon just watched quietly. Master Hieda placed a square of white paper on a flat stone at the boundary. Upon it he set rice, salt, and a cup of sake. Then he drew from his sleeve a thin strip of paper marked with dark characters. Not black ink, Shimon thought. Brownish. Rust-dark. He hoped it was ink. The air changed. Not dramatically.

There was no thunderclap, no glowing circle, no orchestral declaration that a ritual had begun. The change was smaller and therefore worse. Animals and small things quieted at the forest edge. The crows stopped their cawing, and even the wind seemed to forget to rustle the leaves as the pressure in the air increased. The chip reacted to something, a connection of sorts. Unknown Carrier Signal Detected. Signal strength: Low. Pattern: Structured. Protocol Compatibility: None. Meaningless nonsense, Shimon thought.

Was the biochip trying to interface with the local whatever it was? Master Hieda began to chant. The language was not quite the local speech. Older, or formal, or simply bent in ways Shimon's chip struggled to parse. Names appeared within it, or things shaped like names. Road gods. Boundary spirits. Hungry dead. Mountain shadows. The honored unseen. The uninvited. The restless. Those without faces. The shrine functionary kept his head bowed low. Master Hieda poured the sake onto the stone.

He scattered salt, and placed the marked strip of paper against the rope. Then the forest exhaled, and a smell came out. Rot, damp leaves, animal musk, old smoke, and something sweet beneath it. Too sweet. Like fruit left too long in the heat. Like meat pretending to be flowers. The mercenaries drew a sharp intake of breath. The orange screen opened.

[ENVIRONMENTAL WARNING] Boundary Crossing Detected Area Status: Spiritually Disturbed Hostile Presence: Probable Recommended Action: Proceed with caution"No," Shimon corrected sarcastically.

"Recommended action: leave." But, unfortunately, the quest did not update to that. Master Hieda turned back toward them. His pleasant smile returned as if the ritual had been nothing more than a business greeting.

"The reports began near the charcoal path," he said with a weak smile.

"Food taken. Dogs missing. Then a man. Then perhaps men in the woods, if the widow's boy saw true. You are to enter, search, and return with word. If there are routed soldiers, bind or kill as judgment allows. If there are yōma, bring proof. If there is a nest, do not be foolish, you are not heroes from the songs. Mark it and return." That sounded almost reasonable. Above the forest, the crows continued their black turning. Kuroda Genzō looked at the circling crows.

"Where?" Master Hieda lifted his hand and pointed.

"Follow the death," he stated, and his smile widened when he said it. Not cruelly. Not warmly. Just as if the phrase was a practical instruction, like follow the road or follow the river. As if death had become a road sign. The veteran cursed under his breath.

"Yōma." He tugged at his charm again. This time, no one laughed.