Uncommon Ground—Jason J. McCuiston

Out of the hazy, painful darkness, Touma whispered. “This is an evil place.”

“Spare me your superstitious nonsense! It is shelter, and the first we’ve seen all day.” Kaito replied.

“Which we would not need if you had chosen the path of honor,” Touma snapped. “And it is an evil place, a haunt of demons and ghosts! You saw that cursed statue outside!”

Kusai Reo opened his eyes at the sound of the bitter argument. Throbbing pain consumed his side, a cold agony coursing through his entire body. He heard a loud pattering on an unseen roof, could smell rain. Flickering flames licked at the small, gloomy space, producing more smoke than heat or light. Reo’s teeth chattered, filling his ears with the sound of rattling bones. His stiffening body convulsed with chills.

The other two samurai stopped cursing each other at his moan.

“Easy, my friend,” Onashi Kaito whispered, gently pressing a cool cloth to Reo’s head, trying to soothe his terrible pain. Kaito was the youngest and highest-ranking of the three warriors. “You are badly hurt. Don’t try to move.”

“Where are we?” Reo could barely hear himself above the constant drumming on the shingled roof, the rhythmic beating on the bamboo outside their darkened shelter.

A crippling chill raked his body, his muscles warping against his aching bones.

“An abandoned, and probably haunted Shinto shrine,” Nomi Touma growled from somewhere in the shadows. Two years older than Reo, the mustachioed Touma considered himself the stoic epitome of bushido tradition. “In the mountains somewhere several miles south of Sekigahara.”

“The battle…?” Reo winced, touched his side, and felt the wet warmth. He remembered the bullet driving him to the ground and into breathless darkness.

“We don’t know…” Kaito cut his dark eyes at Touma. “We … left before it was done.”

“Ran away, you mean,” Touma growled. “Thanks to you, Kaito, we are forever dishonored.”

“You didn’t argue the order.” Kaito glared as if he would strike Touma. “Besides, did you want Reo to die?”

Touma leapt from the shadows, his filthy armor shedding raindrops like tiny falling stars. “At least he would have died with honor. He will die regardless, as will we. Seppuku is the only honorable path left to us now. If our lord will permit it. If not, we will be cast out to become ronin, criminals and sell-swords, mercenaries despised by all.”

Reo raised his bloody, shaking hand. “Please. Don’t argue. If I am the reason you left the battle, don’t let me be the reason you quarrel.”

Kaito looked at him, sad anger in his solemn eyes. “We left the battle because our master broke his alliance with Ishida and the Army of the West. He dishonored the entire Kobayakawa clan and all its branches in favor of the usurper Tokugawa.”

Reo nodded, remembering. He had stood in the front ranks of the Kobayakawa host on the foothills edged by a rain-swollen stream, south of the town of Sekigahara. The clan anchored the right wing of the Western Army’s line. It was a strong position, especially considering that the enemy, Tokugawa’s Army of the East, was so much smaller. It looked as the Kobayakawa would easily hold that position the entire day.

As the morning fog had cleared and the renegade general made his first moves, Reo and his friends had watched the Eastern Army’s initial cavalry charge be repulsed by the troops of Otani Yoshitsugu. The daimyo’s force occupied the next place in Ishida’s line, on the other side of the stream. This initial success indicated that the day would indeed be a victory for the Army of the West. Tokugawa, the man who would be shogun, would be defeated and the Toyotomi regency would remain intact.

But the Kobayakawa master had changed sides and ordered an attack on Otani’s exposed flank. Reo, Kaito, and Touma, along with some sixteen thousand others, had charged across the rushing stream. Somehow, in spite of the previous night’s torrential rain, Otani’s gunners still had dry powder. Reo remembered the blinding smoke and the deafening thunder of the volley. The horrific screams and the sudden, breathtaking pain spinning him, knocking him face-down into the mud…

“Our daimyo did not dishonor the clan,” Touma said through clenched teeth. “I only wish he had openly declared for Tokugawa before the battle. He is a great man, far greater than Ishida, and as shogun he will make Japan great again.”

Kaito blinked in disbelief at Touma’s words. “How can you say that? Tokugawa wants to expel the Spanish and Portuguese, ending trade with and sealing us off from the rest of the world. In spite of his vows to Toyotomi, he wants to be shogun, a dictator so strong that even the emperor cannot rebuke him. He will lead us into a new dark age of tyranny!”

Touma sneered. “The European gaijin! Filthy, money-grubbing, arrogant barbarians, demanding we allow their black robes to preach blasphemies in exchange for access to Chinese silk and their guns. They are ruining our nation! They are making us weak! Tokugawa will make us strong again!”

Touma turned to Reo for support. “Isn’t that right? We were better before the gaijin came, weren’t we? We know how to make the muskets and powder, and we have always had our own beliefs and traditions. What need have we for their trade and their Nailed God?”

Reo lowered his eyes, too weak to argue. With a shaking hand, he reached up, pulled the leather thong around his neck to reveal the wooden cross hidden beneath his cuirass. Touma’s eyes widened and his mouth flattened into a hard line. Shaking his head in rage, he hurried from the shrine, mumbling something about more firewood.

The look of disappointment and betrayal on his friend’s face saddened Reo, and he slipped back into darkness.

***

Nomi Touma stormed from the small shelter into the rain-swept night. Clutching the hilt of his sheathed sword, he walked quickly, without direction. He had sacrificed his personal honor for the sake of following Kaito and saving Reo. He now realized that had been a fatal mistake. Kaito simply refused to see the wisdom in Tokugawa’s plans of making a stronger samurai class, a powerful military, unfettered by the influences of the outsiders and barbarians. Instead, Kaito had wholly given himself over to support the political corruption and wealth-hoarding ways of Ishida and the regents—as bad as the worst gaijin, the lot of them!

And Reo! Touma’s best friend was now a … Christian! Forsaking the beliefs of his ancestors in favor of some emaciated gaijin who had died as a dishonored criminal on the other side of the world! How could he?

“How, indeed?” a deep voice rumbled from the darkness.

Touma leapt back, his sword clearing its sheathe in a smooth arc of silvery steel. “Who are you?”

A fork of brilliant white lightning fell to earth, striking a cedar tree in a deafening explosion, setting it ablaze. When the glare faded, Touma beheld a towering man with bright red skin, short horns growing through the long white hair framing his hideous, fanged face. The oni wore beautiful red and black armor and carried a massive iron-studded club in his clawed hand.

“I am the harbinger of my people,” the demon said. “I have come to make certain that Tokugawa does not see the sun rise.”

“What do you mean?” Touma circled the monster in the flickering light of the burning tree, his sword at the ready.

The oni leaned upon his weapon and smiled. “Tokugawa is the only thing that stands against my kind returning to take over this realm. If he survives, he will drive out the gaijin priests. Their faith is weakening the ancient magic which has kept us at bay. And Tokugawa will build up a mighty army that will hinder us in our conquest. He will make Japan too strong for us, and that we cannot allow.”

“Then I shall stop you.” Touma gave a great battle-cry and charged the demon. He had little hope of winning, but at least it would be an honorable death. And if he could save Tokugawa, then Tokugawa could save Japan.

***

Kaito jumped to his feet at the sound of Touma’s distant shout. “Did you hear that?”

He looked at Reo, but his wounded friend had slipped back into unconsciousness. For a moment, he debated leaving him alone. Touma was probably right. Without a doctor, Reo would almost certainly die. But if Touma was in trouble, Kaito had an obligation to help him in spite of their recent quarrel. He picked up his spear and raced into the rain-filled darkness.

“Touma!” The thunder, rolling through the mountains like the cruel laughter of a malicious god, drowned out Kaito’s voice. He shouted again and again until his throat was raw. He turned back occasionally to make certain the dim glow of firelight in the tiny shrine could still be seen. It would not do to get lost in these thick woods and leave Reo to die alone.

Kaito slowed his pace as the day’s exhaustion took its toll. Every bone in his body ached and he was terribly cold and hungry. And just why was he in this downpour in the first place? Hadn’t Touma made his own decision to come out here alone? All because Kaito and Reo did not share his blind devotion to Tokugawa. Didn’t he understand that the regency under Ishida, for all its faults, was at least a step toward the future? A future where Japan would become part of a wider world, perhaps an important part. Meanwhile Tokugawa wanted to drag the nation back into the past of xenophobic isolation.

In fact, it was Touma’s own stubborn adherence to tradition that was responsible for whatever trouble he was in. And now, thanks to their friendship, Kaito had let it pull him into this dark, wet misery as well. “Touma!”

“Who’s there?” came a weak voice from up ahead.

“Touma? Is that you?” Kaito stepped past a thick cluster of glistening bamboo. Wiping rain from his eyes, he discovered a handsome young samurai lying beside a rock-lined pool of gurgling spring water. The man was sorely wounded, two bloody holes in his abdomen. His beautiful face was pale and smooth in the dim light of a lantern set upon the rocks. Kaito recognized the crest on the warrior’s tattered shoulder banner as that of the Otani clan. The very men he and his friends had betrayed and attacked earlier in the day. 

“Who are you?” The wounded samurai tried to raise his sword with a feeble hand. Kaito could see his wounds were fatal. It was a miracle the man had made it this far into the wooded mountains and was somehow still alive.

“A friend,” Kaito answered. He set his weapon aside and knelt beside the samurai. “Here, let me get you some water.”

The handsome young man dropped his sword and sighed. “We should have won the battle… But Tokugawa stole it from us. When Kobayakawa betrayed us, another half dozen daimyos also turned. That lying, arrogant bastard had bought them off before the fight even started, but they were too cowardly to make the first move.”

Kaito filled his hands with the cool spring water and held them to the young man’s lips. “Here, drink.”

The Otani samurai acted as if he didn’t hear. “Tokugawa isn’t the problem,” he muttered. “It’s his followers. Without them, he is nothing. They are the ones who will ruin this nation. Self-righteous, zealous fools who think they are saving Japan are the ones who will ultimately destroy it.”

The dying man began to weep. And weep. And weep. Without stopping. The weeping grew louder and more intense until it was a sobbing, hollow wail. The wail frantically rose to a horrible, bloodcurdling scream without end.

Kaito stepped back, aghast. An icy fear ran down his spine to fill his belly with cold slush. His hair stood on end and his hands shook.

The wailing young samurai looked at him with glassy eyes. His mouth distended grotesquely in the horrid shriek, expelling the fetor of an opened grave. His lustrous black hair fell out in handfuls, then his pearly white teeth in bloody gobbets. His pale, smooth skin shriveled into the mottled greenish white of a rotting corpse. His blood-stained hands reached out to Kaito as twisted black talons. “You … betrayed … us! You … betrayed … Japan!”

***

Touma stepped back. The huge red corpse impaled on the sizzling cedar tree began to dissolve in the rain, melting away to nothing. Closing the blade of his sword in the crook of his elbow, he drew it across his sleeve to clean the oni’s blood from its keen edge. He took a deep breath and said a prayer of thanks to his ancestors and to Hachiman, the god of war for the unexpected victory over the monster.

The demon had died more easily than he had hoped, which could mean only one thing: Tokugawa had won the Battle of Sekigahara, and his karma had weakened the monstrous warrior. But Touma knew the oni threat was not yet over. He turned back to where the little fire still burned in the abandoned shrine, a tiny beacon in the rain-filled night.

“No,” he told himself. “Kaito will continue to oppose Tokugawa, even if he must become a ronin to do so. He is a charismatic leader and a formidable warrior. He will rally other malcontents to his banner, and he will continue to make war on Japan and its rightful ruler. He will weaken us, and the oni will come, and Japan will fall.

“Unless I stop him tonight.” Touma shook the rain and remaining blood from his sword and stalked back to the shrine, knowing what he must do.

***

Kaito grabbed up his spear and thrust it at the wailing ghost. The spirit evaporated in an icy cloud, but its horrid cry echoed in his ears and played along his spine. He felt cold breath on his neck and smelled the noisome stench of death on his skin. A dead weight settled heavily upon his shoulders as though he carried a fallen comrade. He knew with absolute certainty that the spirit of the betrayed samurai now clung to him—would ride him, and haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Unless I can avenge him,” Kaito said through chattering teeth. He clutched at his pounding heart, gripped his spear tight. Crushed by the supernatural burden as he was, Kaito ran back to the shrine as fast as he could. Somehow, he was certain that the man he had sought in the rain and darkness, his former friend and companion would be waiting for him.

“Yes! I will avenge this young man and all those murdered by our betrayal! I must kill Tokugawa’s zealous supporters, and I will begin with Touma!”

***

Reo woke to cursing again. This time, the ring of clashing steel punctuated each hate-filled shout. His friends slammed into the brittle walls of the tiny shrine, their weapons locked in lethal combat.

“No!” Reo tried to protest. But his voice was too weak to overcome the furious battle raging between Kaito and Touma.

Both samurai were soaking wet, bleeding from several minor wounds. Their long hair hung loose, their faces streaked with mud and blood. Their eyes burned with an insane hatred like nothing Reo had ever seen. An inhuman hatred for the man each had called friend and brother only a few short hours before.

“Please!” Reo begged, tears in his eyes. He dragged himself toward the melee, pain weakening him with every inch. But it was too late. Before his single word had left his lips, Kaito had impaled Touma on his spear. Touma, a demonic smile on his red-frothed lips, pulled himself down the weapon’s bloody shaft, and struck Kaito’s head from his shoulders with a single blow.

Both men were dead in seconds.

Reo lay face-down on the wet and rotting floor, weeping and shivering as his friends’ lifeblood pooled around him. He cried until he blacked out. When he woke and saw the bodies of his two friends, locked in their deathblows, he wept again.

“Such a shame.”

Reo forced himself up from the bloody floor. A small Buddhist monk stepped into the shrine. The man’s proportions were all wrong. His bald head was lumpy and far too large for his childlike body. But for all that, he moved with unnatural grace and celerity.

“Who—?” Reo gasped.

“Yes, that is the question.” The ugly little man bent over to inspect the two dead samurai with apparent glee. He poked a crooked finger into Touma’s sightless eye. “Who, indeed.”

Dancing closer, the twisted monk looked at Reo with a devilish grin. “Who do you serve in this national drama, Kusai Reo? Ishida or Tokugawa?”

“I serve my master, Kobayakawa Hideaki.” Reo tried to push himself away from the intruder. His limbs were stiff and numb, weak and refusing to obey his commands. “The tenets of bushido decree that I follow my daimyo’s orders and his will.”

“Come now, that is no answer.” The warped little priest clucked his tongue at Reo as if he were a naughty child. “Your daimyo tried to play both sides against the middle. If you had been the liege lord, how would you have conducted your clan at the Battle of Sekigahara?”

“I would not have brought my clan to the battle,” Reo said. “Ishida and Tokugawa are two sides of the same coin… Two powerful men pitting brave and loyal Japanese warriors against one-another in battles to the death for the sake of their own pride, wealth, and glory.

“They have wounded and divided this nation… I do not know if it will ever heal from that divide.”

The misshapen priest sat down, cross-legged, in front of Reo and frowned. “Come now. You are a grown man, a samurai with your own free will. You must have a preference. Tell me who you support, and I will heal your wound. Is it the East or the West? Tokugawa or Ishida?”

Reo smiled sadly at the little man, realizing who and what he truly was. He raised the cross hanging around his neck. “I stand in the middle just like my Lord, with my left hand held out to the East and my right hand to the West. I stand for all Japan, and for loving my neighbor as I love myself.”

The little man gave a hateful laugh and stood. “You are a fool, Kusai Reo!” He growled as he twisted and grew, shedding his illusion and tripling in size. His nose and mouth split and melted into a sharp ebony beak. Jet black feathers erupted all over his body. A pair of great black wings spread wide from his back, blocking out the firelight.

Reo closed his eyes, holding the cross to his lips. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven…”

***

A patrol of Tokugawa’s men came upon the abandoned shrine just before noon the next day. The night’s rain had blown over, giving way to clear blue skies. It was hot and humid in the dense green forest. Nothing remained of the shrine but a few shattered stones, including the ancient and weathered statue of a tengu. Three dead samurai lay in the tall wet grass in the center of what once must have been a small structure. 

“They are Kobayakawa’s men,” a spearman told his sergeant. “Looks like one died from a bullet wound, and the other two killed each other.”

“Deserters.” The sergeant removed his helmet to wipe sweat from his brow. “Make a note of it and collect the heads. Lord Tokugawa will want to know what kind of men his new allies are bringing into his service.” He looked around and let his eyes linger on the baleful raven-face of the broken statue. Despite the heat of the day, he felt a chill run down his spine.

“Satobo,” the spearman said.

“What?”

“Satobo. He is the daitengu represented by that statue. I grew up not far from here and heard the stories about him. They say he was once a great priest long ago, but his greatness brought him terrible pride. He believed that his own wisdom was even greater than the Buddha’s, so that when he died, he transformed into a tengu, and then grew in evil and power until he became a great tengu.

“The stories tell how he still wanders the hills and forests of the land, always seeking to trick and seduce the devout into destroying themselves and each other. Those that do succumb to his wiles join him in his eternal walk on the Demon Road.”

The sergeant pulled on his helmet and scowled. He realized that he could hear no monkeys, birds, or even insects in the immediate vicinity of the shrine. The forest was completely silent.

“Prepare to move out. I don’t like the feel of this place.” He couldn’t shake the notion that the old and cracked statue of Satobo the daitengu was smiling at him.

 

Jason McCuiston’s debut novel, the sci-fi/noir thriller Project Notebook, was praised by Publishers Weekly. He has since published two illustrated collections of pulp-style action and adventure with Dark Owl Publishing, The Last Star Warden, Volumes I and II.