Hida Roku stares at the yellowish-brown dust at his feet and frowns. What had his instructors said? Did the tracks get deeper when the creature was running or when it was walking? How could he tell how many of them there were? Tension makes his stomach knot and his thoughts skitter through his head, chasing each other fruitlessly. He cannot remember, cannot remember. There might be a hundred of them right over the next hill.
Calm down, Roku thinks, breathing deeply, finding his centre in the strength of Earth. You know two things for certain, he tells himself. They are goblins, and you are going to kill them.
Some sort of winged creature flies high above, invisible in the dull stone-grey clouds, and lets out a piercing shriek that lasts almost a minute. Roku crouches beneath a small stone overhang, peering out now and then to make certain the creature hasn’t come closer. His brothers would probably have stepped out and shouted defiantly at the flying thing… and they would probably also have died, Roku thinks. He knows better.
The thing is at least a mile up, but he can make out a vague shape through the clouds, see how huge it is. Anything that size in the Shadowlands is not to be taunted by a child who hasn’t yet completed his gempukku. For that matter, anything that size would probably be more than a match for any Crab samurai.
Roku waits patiently. After a few minutes, the thing flies away to the south, out of sight. He waits another five minutes, counting his pulse before he ventures out from beneath the cramped stone outcropping. The young Crab stretches to get his blood flowing again, then turns his attention back to the yellowish dust in front of his sandals.
The tracks are getting deeper and more distinct. Roku nods to himself, fairly certain he is getting closer to his quarry, and slows his steps to reduce any noise. In the Shadowlands stealth is as vital to survival as jade, armour, or a good tetsubo.
A Crane or a Lion would probably call me dishonourable, he thinks, remembering the words of his senior sensei, old Hida Hiroku. “All those honourable samurai would wet themselves in terror if they ever saw an ogre, or even a goblin most likely! Not to mention what they might do at the sight of an actual oni. Aside from filling their loincloths. So pay them no mind. Let them talk about how we are dishonourable, let them whisper behind their fans about how crude and tasteless we are, let them
sleep safely behind the wall we Crab built with our blood.”
Roku frowns absently and moves forward, using the jagged stones that jut out of the ground as cover. He hears the goblins before he sees them—not a difficult task, for they are suddenly shrieking with fury and terror.
An ogre has come across the same small band of goblins. Roku grimaces as the massive creature snatches up a squalling, struggling goblin and rips it to pieces, stuffing each wriggling chunk into its tusked maw and chewing with monstrous relish. The other goblins hurl themselves at it, stabbing and clubbing, but their blows seem to do nothing to its hairy brown hide.
The young Crab leans back against the stone and takes a deep breath, then bites off a cough as the dusty yellow air tries to choke him. Hiroku-sensei’s words echo in his ears: “The Shadowlands is not just a landscape. It is your enemy, and it wants to kill you. Do not give it the chance.”
He sneaks another glance at the battle raging on the far side of the rock. The ogre’s back is turned. He knows he’ll never have a better chance to kill the thing. Roku lifts his tetsubo and starts forward quietly.
The last of the goblins lets out a piercing shriek as the ogre rips the little green creature’s leg off with
a guttural chuckle. Roku creeps forward. The other leg. Closer. The ogre tears the rest of the goblin’s body apart, stilling its shrieks; wet plops sound as pieces fall to the ground. Roku raises his tetsubo, closing to within a few paces. The ogre crunches down on one of the goblin’s arms, chortling to itself with imbecilic glee. Roku takes one step forward, then another… and a small piece of bone, buried beneath the dust, crunches under his sandal.
The ogre whips around faster than a creature of its size has any right to. Roku swings the tetsubo at the creature’s swollen, misshapen thigh. There is a sound like a cracking stone and the ogre drops to its knees. The Crab rears back for another blow, but he is too slow. The ogre stretches out its long arms and pulls the boy into a crushing hug. Roku feels his feet lift off the ground, his tetsubo clattering from his hand. By desperate effort, he manages to wedge his left arm into the creature’s throat, and its massive yellow teeth snap inches from his face.
Foul breath washes across him and he fights not to gag. The ogre is so strong, like nothing Roku has ever felt—Hiroku sensei spoke of it, but the experience is beyond anything words could teach. Not even Roku’s older brother, who could hold an ox cart up while someone changed the wheel, was so strong.
The ogre is crushing him, only his left arm and the strength of his armour resisting as it tries to squeeze the life and breath from his body. Roku stares into the yellow eyes of the creature that wants to eat him, to kill him and his family, his clan, everyone in the Empire. Fear claws at his heart. He will die here, in the Shadowlands, and if his corpse survives it will return to the Wall as one of the walking dead.
“If I die here,” he gasps, “I’ll take you with me, filth!”
Roku’s right hand closes on the tanto shoved under his belt; he drags the short blade free and plunges it into the side of the ogre’s chest. The sharp steel blade sinks less than an inch into the beast’s thick flesh. The ogre laughs, saliva and bits of goblin flesh spraying from its mouth to strike Roku in the face.
Screaming, Roku rears back his head and smashes it forward, slamming his iron kabuto into the ogre’s broad face. It is like slamming his head into a stone wall—a brief memory of a training accident flashes through his head—but the ogre lets out a grunt and its grip slackens for the briefest of moments. The young Crab squirms, pulling his left arm down and dragging the tanto up with his right… and then the ogre squeezes again, and Roku lets out a strangled cry as his left arm dislocates with a sickening pop.
His breath comes out of his lungs and his vision turns dark and blurry, the pain of his shoulder soaring into an unbearable fire that seems to be drowning him. The ogre grins, its huge yellow teeth glistening with goblin blood… and then its eyes widen and the pressure of its grip suddenly eases. The beast falls backwards, crushing the goblin corpses it left lying in the dust. The hilt of Roku’s knife stands out of its chest, driven through its thick hide by the strength of its own lethal embrace.
Roku stands up, slowly, wobbling on legs weak as a child’s first steps. Slowly the pain begins to recede slightly, allowing him to take account of specific injuries. His left arm is out of its socket and probably broken. A few of his ribs feel like they may be broken as well, his head aches harder than it did the night he first drank sake, and he belatedly realizes he has lost three teeth.
But he smiles as he draws his wakizashi and hacks off the ogre’s head. A menace to the Empire is dead… and tonight at the Wall, the clan will welcome him and celebrate.
Another Crab samurai has come of age.
