L5r - scroll 04 - The Phoenix by Stephen D. Sullivan Read Free Book Online Page A

untied the scroll, and set the bird down once more. He opened the scroll and read.
    The bird hopped about Tsuke's table, cocking its head and looking at the Master of Fire's tools and scrolls. It sang happily.
    Tsuke looked at it, his eyes glowing orange in the dim light. "Well?" he asked impatiently. "What are you waiting for? You've delivered your message, and I've read it."
    The bird chirped and bowed its small head. Then it stood proudly erect and burst into flames.
    When nothing remained of it but ashes, the Master of Fire smiled.
    BATTLEFRONTS
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    l , J hiba Tsukune struggled from the mud where her horse lay dying. She pushed the beast's carcass off her right leg and scrambled out from under it. The leg twinged with pain as she stood.
    The horseman she had been fighting wheeled and came at her again out of the smoke. Tsukune pushed the pain from her mind and raised her sword. She held it high and straight, parallel to her right ear. She felt blood trickling from that ear, staining her long black hair. Her mud-soaked shirt clung to her arms, its yellow fabric stiffening. A lock of sweaty hair fell over her thin, tanned face, tickling her eyelashes. She ignored it and concentrated on her charging foe.
    The man riding toward her was a ronin— alive and human, unlike many of his companions in Doji Hoturi's army. His face was brutish and unshaven; his smile showed missing teeth; his eyes held murder. He aimed his long spear at Tsukune's heart.
    At the last instant, Tsukune stepped aside, avoiding his blow. The ronin swept the long spear up to parry her counterattack, but Tsukune wasn't aiming at him. Instead, her katana cut deep into the right shoulder of the ronin's horse. The blade traced a long gash down the animal's ribs. She slashed up and freed the blade as it met the horse's haunches.
    Gore splashed into the air, and the horse went down. The ronin threw himself free as it fell, but he landed on his back. Before he could get up, Tsukune ran to his side and thrust her sword through his chest. The wound made a hissing sound, and greenish slime oozed out. Khaki blood leaked from the ronin's lips as he died. He muttered a curse.
    The Phoenix warrior maid suppressed a shudder. The ronin had not been human after all. Why had Hoturi given up his birthright to captain this army of the damned? Hadn't they long been friends and even occasional lovers? Hadn't she saved Hoturi's life once? Hadn't she fought beside him at Kyuden Kakita? How could the man she knew abandon his honor—his duty? War forced sad choices, like killing a noble horse to defeat its ronin master, but what could have caused Doji Hoturi to make this terrible pact?
    Tsukune's reverie lasted only a moment. Battle cries quickly snapped her back to reality. Her forces were in full retreat. Hoturi's undead army had chased her troops south toward the Kabe ue no ho ni sa Umi, the Mountains above the Ocean.
    Her people hadn't meant to bring the war into this small village, but Hoturi's creatures had dogged them mercilessly, forced them into the settlement, and set the town aflame. Mud from the previous night's rain slowed the Phoenix's retreat and turned the village into a slaughterhouse. The fighting had separated Tsukune from her elite shugenja unit.
    The wind shifted suddenly, and Tsukune found herself engulfed in white smoke. White, the color of death. She heard fighting all around but could no longer see anything. Tsukune coughed, and her eyes began to tear.
    Her people were moving away from her position. Perhaps they were even out of the village by now. Stumbling through the smoke, Tsukune tripped over a body: Shiba Miyaki, a young woman she had trained. Miyaki's face had been crushed into the ground by a horse's hoof. Tsukune caught herself before she fell and leaned heavily against a nearby hut.
    Her heart pounded in her ears. Her blood-caked hair matted against her face. Life ran slowly in front of her. She saw