THE DAIMYŌ
Everything is ruined, Ujio Sakuraichi thought. This isn’t how it was supposed to be!
They sat in what was supposed to be the living quarters inside of an abandoned house atop a hill overlooking the palace. Half of the palace and the eastern city gate were in ruins. Flames licked about, devouring anything in its way. Fires dotted the city. The attack had been multipronged and well organized.
Whoever was behind this was a master tactician and a skilled strategist. On the night that Emperor Kurosawa was to be assassinated, bringing an end to the cultural pillage of the Mikuma Empire, an invader struck.
Sitting as stoically as the kami would allow, Ujio felt like he wanted to twist someone’s neck in his hands. He wanted to feel the delicate bones there break, the sound of them popping under his palms. There was no such person to strangle.
His captains sat in front of him in a semi-circle on the hardwood floor, as he did. “Someone,” he said through clenched teeth, “tell me what is happening!”
“I have ninja surrounding the palace as we speak, my lord daimyō!” It was Haku who spoke. She was sitting on the far left of his captains. She wasn’t a commander in Sakuraichi’s army, but rather a personal advisor, a guard, and his secret lover. Like her name, Haku had unusually pallid skin. She wore a white kimono that matched her stark snow-white hair that fell down to her jaw line.
The daimyō looked at her. “What do they know?”
“Some of them are returning now.”
He said nothing. It was the only thing he could do to keep himself from an outburst. As angry as he was, he wanted solutions, not cowed captains who could only lay their eyes at their own feet! In this case, the wooden floors.
“Where is Muji?”
“He hasn’t returned,” the captain on the right said.
Haku—the White Feather as her legendary title went—moved her hands off her thighs and pushed against the floors as she got up. She was a feminine woman, but that only belied her skill with the blade and her acrobatic grace. When she fought, it was as though she were floating on air, a feather with a blade. “I will speak with the returning ninja.”
“No!” Ujio said. “I want them brought here. They can tell me what they have to say themselves.” He was feeling too impatient to wait for information to be relayed to her and then from her to him, despite the fact that she was a filter to keep him from smaller distractions, even if they were ninja.
The ninja were brought in. There were two of them. Both had been samurai before their daimyō had died. Unwilling to follow him to the gods, they had become wanderers and mercenaries. Rōnin. Then eventually ninja, as they learned the black arts of stealth and assassination.
They bowed to the daimyō, their movements quick and succinct. “We have reports, my lord,” the smaller of the two said. He had a deep voice and his face was still covered, the visible skin inked to maintain a fully black figure for better stealth.
“What did you learn?” Ujio asked.
“We do not know who it was that attacked the royal palace”—a flare of Ujio’s frustration lashed within him—“but we do know what they are after.”
An enemy ambush against the palace at the time the Emperor was to die was a major inconvenience to the daimyō’s plans. The assassin had made his move, but he was unsuccessful and the Emperor had fled.
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“Go on…” he said in a tone that usually warranted an imminent death.
The ninja seemed neither afraid nor nervous, or even confident, but simply objective and cold as he delivered the words. “We captured some of their outliers and made them talk. From the mouths of their own samurai, they are here to kill the royal family and usurp the throne.” The daimyō was about to interject when the ninja continued. “The reason for their attack at this time is that if they fail, you, my lord daimyō, will take the blame so that a war could be averted.”
Ujio grit his teeth, his eyes narrowing. So they wish to be safe. To take Yukai City, and by extension, the Mikuma Empire by pure treachery. But how did they know my plans?
“Do you know what country?”
The once-samurai nodded, a sort of half bow. “We do not know for certain. They employ many foreigners into their ranks, but we have strong suspicions that they are from Daixen!”
He didn’t ask why they were able to get the other information, and not this simple piece of the puzzle. Their prisoners had probably died before they could wring out the lesser information.
The daimyō nodded, thinking as he tasted the word on his mouth. “Daixen…” Emperor Zulo had always been jealous of Mikuma and there had been many times the two countries were on the verge of war. But neither country wanted out-right conflict.
“Their numbers?” Ujio asked.
“It is hard to say,” the ninja said. “They have forces scattered through-out Yukai City.” He glanced toward the other ninja, giving him leave to speak now. “Reports are still coming in, but as it stands, we estimate that they have between four and seven thousand troops inside the city.”
“How many outside the palace?” Ujio only had a few hundred men currently within the walls. It was not yet known that the assassin had been paid by him. The daimyō had sent many of his forces to escort the Emperor only a few hours ago. It was his only course of action once it became clear the palace was no longer safe against this attack.
Had he been able to end Kurosawa’s reign and become the new ruler of Mikuma, this new enemy might well have ended him moments later. Fortunately right now, he had the Emperor in the palm of his hand. He had but to make a fist to expunge his life. But now he had another problem to deal with.
This invader, he thought. I will destroy him first before I finish what I set out to do this night.
“There are far more of them outside of the palace than we have within.” It was Haku who spoke. “They have breached the walls and can take our men easily.”
“Muji is in there…”
The White Feather stepped within his line of sight on the left side of the room, a long pause ensuing. She said, “We should withdraw.”
How could an enemy sneak such a large force into the city? How did they get past the gate, unless they were smuggling supplies and weapons into the city? It would have taken months of work and planning.
How dare they think they can Get away with this treachery!
Ujio suddenly felt dejected. “Mikuma is truly week if our enemies can slip past our notice so easily.”
“Don’t say that, my lord daimyō.”
“They have us by the throat!”
There was a long pause. But then Haku spoke up with a suggestion, as she so often did. “Then we take the fight to them. Rally our forces, strike when they least expect it—while they think us a wounded animal.”
Ujio met the woman’s eyes. So beautiful. And wise. His dejection lifted and he felt his spirits return. How she could do that to him so easily, so quickly, he didn’t known. All he did know is that half his actions he did for her.
“Yes!” he said, getting up from the wood floor. His captains followed. “We will not shrink like beaten dogs, like curs at the boots of these invaders.”
He exchanged glances with her, a subtle nod.
“Tell us what to do, lord daimyō!” one of his captains said.
“We need information,” Ujio said. They would beat back this enemy, show to the world that Mikuma was not yet dead. “Recall, Muji! I want him here at once. We must form a plan of battle. We will skirmish our enemy. Harry him until his losses are so great. Once our forces have been coalesced, we will pursue him and crush his spirit! He will have no choice but to leave our city, and our lands.”
His captains seemed shocked, but they did not quarrel with him, a good thing, as he might well have cut them down at that very moment, had they done so.
“We need more scout reports,” Haku commanded, clearly addressing the ninja. Despite the command, she was soft-spoken. The two stealthy warriors bowed and ran from the room, moving to their tasks with haste.
Ujio glanced out the window at the palace situated at the bottom of the mountain, its moats a silver gleam in the moonlight as the rest of the structures and the grounds were bathed in red shadow.
The Emperor would have to wait.