The Race to Volturnum
Scorpion
A thousand samurai defeated four times that many ogres today. No, not a thousand samurai--a thousand Scorpion. I will tell you how it was done.
Behind a cliff, down in the earth, the army waited. We had dug a pit behind our own lines and filled it with oil for fire and spikes as strong and sturdy as Hida's own tetsubo. Then we readied ourselves, preparing arrows and katanas. We would need both.
"Do you dig a trap to catch yourselves, Scorpion?"
the Lion laughed, but still we prepared.
"A useless effort. The beasts of the Shadowlands will never
rush into the pit. You would have to drive them, and to do that
you would have to place the pit behind them. Save your strength,
Scorpion, and do not waste your time."
At last, we were ready. Spiked helms rose above the ground, and arrows thrummed from within the hidden legion, wounding the horde so that it could not attack. Slowly, the ogres turned their attention from the wounded Crane reserves and drew their assault from within the Lion ranks. We fired around them, not at them, surrounding them with jade and cutting them off from their legions. Where our arrows, tipped with jade, could kill fifty, we would not be satisfied until one thousand were dead at our feet.
Howling, the ogres charged, seeing nothing before them but fleeing archers. Then we struck at them as they passed, stepping out of the spell that hid us.
We discovered how to hide during the Clan Wars, Lion. Did you think we had forgotten what we had been forced to learn? Lighting the fires with our arrows, we held great shields before us, ducking low behind the lip of the square Hida steel. Yet these were no ordinary shields. A thick crust of jade powder covered the face of each one, shining as if the shields themselves were made of jade.
We stood between the ogres and the massed armies of the horde, surrounding them on three sides, and the beasts had no choice but to fall back. Each shield covered in jade caused the ogres unbearable pain--they could not touch us, could not bear to touch the shields.
Step by step, we marched forward, the shields locked, forcing the ogres backwards. They did not want to step into the pit, but they could do nothing else.
They had no choice but to fall into the flames.
When the noble houses gathered to see our victory, both Crane and Lion bowed.
--Shosuro Yudoka