Crab Clan Letter #12
My lords,
I have a strange tale to tell you,
You have heard, I am sure, of the Ghost of the Twilight Mountains, the myth of the mountains to our north. It is a children's story of superstition and lies, a Scorpion's fable to frighten the courtiers in the winter night. My lord, it is a myth, as you have told me before. The bloodied footsteps I have seen at the passes to the north are no more than illusions. They are falsehoods - made by mountain lions, not angry spirits. Of course, you are right.
The children, their clothing and toys strewn in the shallow stream, are not missing. I am certain they have made it home to their families by now. There are no mothers weeping, no blood runs in the small pools by the riverside. The claw marks on the sides of the huts are caused by no more than the settling of the thatch - cracks in the mud are nothing more.
All is well in our northern villages, near the borders of the dead Clan of the Boar. All is well in the empty houses, in the unworked fields and the quiet fisheries. No peasant has asked for my aid. None of your guards, posted to the watchtowers that once overlooked Kyuden Heichi, has lit the watchfires to summon our troops.
It is silent, cold, and barren. There are no screams, my Lord. Whoever told you that must have been misinformed. Heichi Tekisetu's tales of the Saigoki Doku are, as you said, meaningless lies.
There are no dead bodies anymore, Hida-sama. I request to come home and be stationed on the Kaiu Wall. There is nothing left here to discover.
Hiruma Yugure