One Hundred Days
by Ree Soesbee
With a heave, the sweating eta shoved the dead Oni's body from the wall, watching it fall to a sickening thud on the rocks below. On the ground, others gathered to lift the corpse, carrying it away to be destroyed. Smiling in slow satisfaction, Benin knelt on the thick parapet again, pushing his brush back and forth over the blood-covered rocks. It had been a busy day. Goblin blood, Oni blood, samurai blood. The Wall was filled with it, and the samurai rested below, safe in their dinner halls.
His brush was heavy, with large bristles to grind the flesh out from the crevices. That was good, because the Wall had to be constantly cleaned. If the Crab samurai touched dead flesh, they were dishonored, and Benin knew that was a bad thing. With greasy fingers, he pulled at a stubborn lump of gristle wedged beneath a forsaken sword-blade that had been thrust into the rock. With a strong yank, it twisted and a piece came away as blood ran down Benin's hand. Lifting it idly, Benin looked at the clod of hair that hung from it, still attached.
"Goblin." He smiled, showing twisted teeth that any ogre would have been proud to claim. "All green." Benin raised the back of his hand to his forehead, wiping away the sweat and grit of the morning's labors. Peering about, he dragged the corpse of a minor Oni closer to the Wall, and used it as a makeshift chair so that he could reach the rest of the stubborn mass. The dead body beneath him sagged and bled from his weight, but Benin paid it no attention. He would clean it up, too.
The sword was a masterpiece, shining beneath the caked blood in the midmorning light, its blade half-buried in the rock wall. the laces of the handle were a rough gray, worn and stained from hours of use. Its samurai must have been a proud man. Benin looked around at the corpses nearby, but saw no samurai among them who seemed wealthy enough to have claimed the weapon. "Eaten," the eta thought aloud. "Too bad."
Around him, other eta scurried past, carrying buckets of clean water and more bristled brushes. Benin's fingers worked against the delicate steel of the katana, bleeding as he pulled away more flesh and shards of granite. Though trapped between two massive boulders, the blade seemed whole. Bits of bone and bloodily unidentifiable chunks of matter fell away from the cut in the wall as the eta worked to release the sword. Eager to see the katana freed in one piece, Benin worked painstakingly, sweat and blood mingling on his hands and running in rivulets down his fat, greasy face. He knew better than to draw the sword from the wall - that was samurai's work. Even to touch the blade meant dishonorable death for an eta.
"The main body of the attack was here, my Lady, on the South River Wall." without turning around, Benin fell to his face against the stone. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried not to notice the rotten eyeball rolling out of the dead Oni's skull onto his cheek. Booted feet stepped near him, their marching pace muffled by the floor's grimy coating.
Peering up through lowered lids, Benin saw two men dressed in Crab armor, their bright helmets shining in the sunlight. Their cleanly callused hands pointed out toward the Shadowlands with an air of arrogance. "The Oni came over that rise, and brought with them a thousand goblin marauders. We were lucky to hold the position." A pause, and the man's voice turned more gruff. "We lost many brave men."
"I understand your position, Tadashiro-san." The speaker was outside of Benin's view, but her voice sang like the Fortunes. "We need to reinforce this unit as soon as possible."
"Forgive me, Lady Champion," the other man spoke, stepping over the eta. Benin began to grovel, moving himself into a position where he could see all three. None of the samurai seemed to notice him amid the corpses on the floor, and he scuttled sideways with a well-practiced mutter. "But we don't have the men," the samurai continued, "and we can't afford to take troops away from the other parts of the Wall."
Now, Benin could see her. Leaning on the freshly-scrubbed parapet, her black hair waving like the movement of the clouds in the wind, she looked down at the Crab scouts patrolling the battlefield below. She was beautiful, pure and fine as nothing he had ever been allowed to touch, her skin untainted by blood or grease. Benin shuddered against the cold rock, feeling thick and gross.
"We have to find the men. The attacks are increasing each day. They are testing our strength..."
"...and finding it lacking, my Champion." A bass rumble from the silent warrior beside her. Interrupted, O-Ushi turned toward the second samurai. "You think so, Uncle?" her chin thrust out like a petulant child, and her hand reached for the handle of her hammer. "And do you think my brother could have done better? Are you questioning my judgment, Tsuru-san?" Benin winced, waiting for another body to scrub up from the rocks. "I'm questioning nothing. I'm telling the truth, as I told it to your father.
Leave your die-tsuchi. where it is, girl, and listen. In ten days, another strike will hit this wall, mark my words."
Benin shuddered again, thinking of the blood which slowly stained the samurai's boot. Perhaps he could just reach his brush, to clean it... Tsuru continued, "After that, in another ten, another strike. Our defenses have never been so low, even when the Horde passed us by, in your father's time."
Suddenly, Benin froze, his hand on the thick bristles of the wet brush. The Oni had moved. Peering intently, Benin reached forward and thrust his finger against the Oni's nose. Nothing. it rolled gently from Benin's shove, but otherwise lay silent.
"After that," the samurai argued, rocking back on his heels, his eyes locked with the girl's. "Another, and another. And then, the Lion will arrive." "We don't know that they are coming to attack..." she began. The Oni's eye winked, and Benin flinched back against the wall.
"It doesn't matter. By the time they arrive, we will be too weak to hold against the Shadowlands." Beside Tsuru, Tadashiro nodded gravely. "Even if they had come to help us, they will surely change their minds when they see the strength of our forces. We cannot hold."
"We must hold the Wall."
"Your father knew when to fight, and when to fall back..." Tadashiro began. "NO!" O-Ushi roared. "I will not allow this Wall to fall. No matter what the price."
The Oni moved, twitched, and bared its fangs. Benin whimpered, his hand clenched around the brush, fumbling desperately for some weapon against the beast. The brush would never hurt it, never be enough to turn its eyes away from the Crab Champion's throat. The beast slowly moved away from the eta, looking up toward the stalwart maiden with clenched fists who stood upon the Wall. The samurai, engrossed in their argument and used to ignoring the subtle motions of eta at their feet, ignored it.
"...in less than one hundred days, the Lion will be here. We cannot fight them. We will die trying." Tsuru's shout rose above O-Ushi's, and he stepped toward her. The Oni's muscles tensed, and a killing blade sprang from its small hand, covered in ichor and foulness. Benin whimpered, his hand moving, only to find the twisted laces of the handle of the katana imbedded in the stone.
"In one hundred days, we may all be dead anyway!" Her anger moved the world. The Oni leaped.
Benin tore the sword from the Wall and with a clumsy thrust, shoved it hilt- deep into the Oni's black heart. Two swords flashed, and a hammer fell seconds later, crushing the Oni into rubble. More blood on the Kaiu Wall. Kneeling over the dead creature, Benin felt a sudden surge of fear. The sword had broken as it came away from the rock, and a jutting spike of metal tore out the Oni's back. Frantic, the eta looked up into the eyes of the Crab samurai above him, falling into a cowering ball at their feet when he realized what he had done.
He had not only touched a samurai's sword, he had broken it.
Tsuru's sword moved into the sunlight to slice the eta trash's head from its body, but O-Ushi's arm slammed into his. "Uncle, put that away," She snarled, raising her hammer, "Or I'll forget we are kin."
"He is an eta!" Tsuru howled.
"Who saved my life." A pause. "Put your sword down." Their eyes locked, and Tsuru froze in a silent contest of wills. Groveling beneath them, Benin did not see the elder samurai flush and look away. The blood from the dead washed into Benin's face, and the rock beneath him scraped his torn hands. "He touched a samurai's sword! It is against all tradition. He must die." Tadashiro's voice was firm, but regretful.
"He will die." O-Ushi thundered at the Crab. "He will die, as the rest of his kinsmen die. On the Wall, in battle, against an opponent we cannot hope to defeat.
"He will die in one hundred days." With that, O-Ushi looked down at the eta, her face angry and bitter. "Clean up this mess."
"Hie!" As the three samurai walked away from the parapet, Benin gathered his brush and the spilled bucket of greasy water close to his chest. He did not understand what the samurai had meant, but he knew his life had been spared. wonderingly, he looked around at the sky, the retreating forms of the samurai, the other eta working to scrape the blood and bodies from the Wall. Looking down at the dead Oni near him, Benin saw that another gobbet of flesh lay wedged between the stones. Raising his thick bristled brush and whimpering softly, he began once more to scrub.