Free L5r - scroll 03 - The Crane by Ree Soesbee

approached.
    "My death ..." the assassin murmured. A trail of foaming blood trickled suddenly from his mouth. "My death has already been decided. You will make it no swifter." His voice failed. He writhed in agony, and he fell to his knees, choking.
    "Uji!" Kuwanan shouted.
    The assassin clutched at Kuwanan's feet. Kuwanan sidestepped the strike. With a gurgling laugh, the man lay still upon the ground. His last breath choked from his throat.
    "Uji," Kuwanan snarled, "Send for the Asahina. We must know who sent this man!"
    "I am sorry, my lord." The voice was cool, composed. Kneeling beside the assassin's shuddering form, Uji looked into the man's mouth. "He has swallowed a poison pellet. Nothing can be done." Turning away from the corpse, the Daidoji cleaned his bloody sword upon the damp grass.
    Kuwanan's roar of rage echoed across the lake, frightening the sleeping cranes that roosted by its shores. They took flight above Kyuden Kakita, calling softly against the stars.
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    Kneeling at the door to his brother's chambers, Doji Kuwanan waited for his formal request to be granted. At his side rested a bag containing three severed heads—a pitiful token of loyalty on such a dark night.
    "Your petition has been granted, Doji-sama," the guard said as the screens were opened. "The champion bids you enter."
    Kuwanan rose smoothly, grasping the bag by its silken neck, and stepped into the chambers. Maids scurried left and right, carrying away broken pottery and rice paper from shattered screens.
    Hoturi knelt on the dais, a cup of warm tea in his hand and a bandage about his shoulder. Again, Kuwanan knelt, placing the bag at the edge of the dais.
    Hoturi nodded to his brother, noting the tightness in his jaw, the tear through the chest of his kimono. Behind him, Ameiko motioned. An eta—the lowest class of peasant in the empire, trusted only to touch filth and the dead—stepped forward to open the bag.
    "My lord," Kuwanan's voice sounded too loud in the small chamber, "I have brought you the head of the assassin who struck down Ikoma Jushin. Further, I bring you the heads of those guardsmen who allowed the assassin to enter the palace, as proof of their honorable seppuku and their final loyalty to the clan."
    "Place them with the others on the spikes by the Western road, that all who travel toward Lion lands tomorrow may see our dedication to peace." Weary, Hoturi nodded. "It means only one of the men escaped us."
    Kuwanan's head snapped upward. "Escaped?"
    Nodding, Hoturi placed his cup on the low table beside him. An eta carried the heads away to be washed and prepared as he had commanded. "During the battle, one of the four assassins ... changed. It was shinobi,"
    "Shinobi? The dark magic of the Scorpion?" Kuwanan's throat tightened with anger. "The Scorpion are involved?"
    "Assuredly."
    "The man I fought in the gardens did not use the Bayushi style, my brother. He fought like an Akodo." Kuwanan paused, wondering if his brash words had angered the champion of the Crane.
    Doji Hoturi only nodded. He understood the implications of Kuwanan's discovery far more than did his forceful younger brother.
    "Deathseekers."
    Kuwanan's training at Toturi's side rose in him, and he remembered the proud march of the Akodo soldiers, the honor in their eyes. "An Akodo would never participate in such an attack. It would be an insult to their ancestors—they would rather die than play the thief in the night."
    "The Deathseekers are Lion who have no reason to live, who have been stripped of honor. They beg to throw away their lives in service to their clan. They will die rather than surrender. That is their only duty." Hoturi nodded. "When offered only one way to die with honor, my brother, some men will take it no matter what the cost."
    "Who has the authority to command such a thing? And to provide them with shinobi, to hasten their escape?"
    "No, Kuwanan." The champion of the Crane thoughtfully rested his chin on his fingers. "Only one