Session24

Snow and Hot Water pt 2

Following earlier events, the tea-house in Gomori-Jiku was in total disarray. The front wall of the building had been blown out by Miya Katsumi's spell, heimin and other visitors to the hot-springs cowered in the corners and behind furniture while the bandits that had occupied the village scoured the bitterly cold and snow covered night for Shosuro Korow, the Scorpion bushi who had turned a tense hostage situation into a blood-bath. Magistrate Bin and the majority of his party sat tied in one corner of the room, a couple of them badly injured.

Then, Shigarami, the powerfully built and obviously skilled yojimbo of the bandit leader dropped dead. Although no one saw the tiny dart buried in the soft flesh of his underarm, the cause of his demise was suspected by everyone: Korow

Unnerved by this turn of events, the Boss ordered the other bandits to take the hostages upstairs. There was some pushing and shoving and some reluctance but gradually all the samurai hostages where making their way up the stairs. Then, one of the bandits who was looking outside and under the house for Korow, also dropped dead.

Anger and perhaps panic led the Boss to run his sword through the body of the monk who was the nearest hostage to him at the time. As the monk's corpse slid to the floor, the Boss ordered one of his men to take the elderly Phoenix samurai to one end of the building and then grabbed Kitsuki Ukira, the young son of a Dragon Clan daimyo, by the hair and dragged him to another isolated room. He then told Magistrate Bin to bring "his dog" to heel within two minutes or both of the hostages would die; the steely glint in the Boss's eye showed that he meant business, this was no idle threat.

With the majority of the hostages held upstairs in a room guarded by one of the Boss' yojimbo but Ukira and the elderly Phoenix samurai held separately, Isawa Bin began to look for the rogue Scorpion bushi. With his charge, Ukira threatened, Kitsuki Akito said that he to would look for and attempt to bring Shosuro Korow in. Monnosuke, the yojimbo guarding the samurai agreed and allowed Akito to go back downstairs to look for the rogue samurai although Akito's request for his daisho was predictably refused.

With the Magistrate and the Dragon investigator searching under the tea-house, things remained tense; sobbing could be heard coming from several areas within the building where the heimin were being held and the bandits either kept the hostages on their knees with their katanas drawn or covered the building from the first floor of adjacent buildings with their bows drawn. Shosuro Korow however, with his affinity for the shadow, had slipped out from under the tea-house and scaled the building without being spotted by the bandits and was busy quietly removing roof tiles so that he could re-enter the building. Isawa Bin and Kitsuki Akito therefore found nothing and, when the Boss could be heard threatening to kill Kitsuki Ukira upstairs decided to return to the first floor of the tea-house empty handed.

The Boss was increasingly agitated by the state of affairs and it was clear that Ukira's life was in grave danger. Akito, fearful of what would happen if his daimyo's heir came to harm while in his care, petitioned the Boss on his honour, explaining who the boy was, that Korow had no care for him and and that to kill Ukira now would be to waste a great opportunity: he was more valuable to them alive than dead. Kitsuki Akito then knelt before the Boss and offered his life in place Ukira's. Seeing the sense of the offer and the honour of the man making it, the Boss released the boy and instead put his katana at Kitsuki Akito's neck, ready for one final challenge to Korow before ending the Dragon samurai's life.

By this point, Korow had slipped between the tiled roof and stood on the joists that held the ceiling panels in place. He prepared another one of his deadly darts and, after quietly lifting up one of the roof panels and dropping down onto the first floor of the tea-house, fired it into the neck of Monnosuke from a concealed position. The ronin bushi, span with incredible speed and hurled two throwing knives into the samurai, wounding him deeply, and raised the alarm.

With Korow back in hiding, the bandits began attacking the hostages. Akito was cut badly and left for dead by the Boss who then went out look for Korow, Monnosuke ran through the elderly Phoenix samurai and badly injured Akodo Haraku all of whom were unarmed; within moments, blood was everywhere.

From his hiding place downstairs in the debris from the destruction of the tea-house's shutters, Korow fired another dart, this time hitting the Boss in the arm; the bushi quickly ripped the dart out and sucked on the wound vigorously, spitting out the fluid. He gave the order to his men to finish off the hostages. All of them...

At that moment, Monnosuke, the Boss' only remaining yojimbo, succumbed to the poison he'd received and slumped to the ground but the remaining bandits began to slaughter the unarmed heimin and samurai. During the carnage, one bandit delivered a debilitating katana slice across Magistrate Bin's shoulders and was due to finish him off with another stroke when the Boss suddenly let out an anguished scream followed by a pitiful gurgle and dropped to the floor.

Everything stopped.

With the bandits obviously unnerved by the demise of not only the group's best swordsmen but also their leader, their momentum faltered. Seizing the initiative, the injured Isawa Bin addressed them. "Put down your weapons and leave, otherwise Korow-san will pick you off one by one..."

A few of the men glanced nervously at each other. For a moment no one moved but then one bandit laid down his katana and made his way into the night; at that, two more followed his lead and within a minute or two the whole group began leaving Gomori-Jiku. However, with the rope bridge cut, the only way out was to scale the steep cliffs at the northern edge of the village. While some did get away, the treacherous conditions led to the deaths of two more bandits.

The bushi from Magistrate Bin's retinue, those that could walk, retrieved their swords and began to secure the village while others had their wounds tended to. The heimin, terrified of the violence, mainly cowered in their meagre homes. Shosuro Korow emerged from his shadowy hiding place and received steely looks of fear and distrust from everyone present; while no-one could doubt the effectiveness of his attacks on the bandits, the cost had been truly terrible and his actions were not those of an honourable samurai and they reflected badly on everyone present.

Once Isawa Bin was sure the bandits had indeed gone, everyone found somewhere warm and dry to rest and to begin to recover from the ordeal. It took two days until the rope bridge was fully rebuilt and everyone was fit to travel but, with Shiro Gisu and the Shrine of the Ki-Rin being only a day's travel away, it looked as if Isawa Bin would make it to his own wedding? on time.

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Snow and Hot Water pt 1 << >> Session25?