Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy) by Heermann Travis

Author:Heermann, Travis [Heermann, Travis]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi, epub
Tags: historical fantasy
Publisher: Red Bear Publishing
Published: 2013-07-05T16:00:00+00:00

To depart while seated or standing is all one.

All I shall leave behind me

Is a heap of bones.

In empty space I twist and soar

And come down with the roar of thunder

To the sea.

— Koho Kennichi, Death Poem

The dank air smelled of seawater, sodden earth, rotting fish, and human excrement. Ken’ishi’s arms ended in tingling stumps of agony at his shoulders. His hands and forearms, cinched in the coarse ropes, had taken on a dark purple hue. The weight of the timber still gouged into his back, and his head and neck were a constant, pounding ache.

A bone-thin man, taller than any he had ever seen, towered over him. Long strands of greasy hair hung to his chest, shadowing the deep brow ridge and nose that looked as if it had been mashed into his face. The man’s words came thick through flabby lips. “It’s all right to scream here. No one will hear you.”

Ken’ishi smelled something else—blood. Gore so thick and deep that it seemed to rise from the rough-hewn stone floor.

“The Master has given you to me to play with. But don’t worry, I won’t kill you. You might wish me to, though. And when you reach that point, do ask. I like when my toys ask me to kill them.”

Ken’ishi thought he should struggle, but his arms and shoulders were a massive insensate lump, crowned by a throbbing head. His vision swam. He kicked feebly at the man.

The man stepped forward and looped a rope around Ken’ishi’s neck, slung it over a hook embedded in the small room’s central wooden pillar, and hauled on the rope. It cinched tight, cutting off his breath, redoubling the pounding agony inside his head, and dragged him back up against the pillar. His legs flailed, but his feeble struggles accomplished nothing but to tighten the noose.

The man produced a dagger and sliced through the web of ropes binding him to the timber, which fell to the floor with a heavy thud. The sudden release of weight made Ken’ishi’s body feel as light as a feather, but his upper arms were still bound back like the pinched wings of a butterfly. They were too dead to even reach for the noose choking his life away. He felt his face swelling, blotches of red and white shooting through his vision, then gathering at the edges and collapsing toward the center until he could see nothing except a spot of lamplit stone wall near the ceiling. His body fought to breathe, and no air would come.

The noose slackened, and he could breathe again. Great racking, coughing gasps sucked air back into his chest.

“A time to let your arms wake up. Oh, that should be some beautiful pain. It’s been several hours, so I’ll wager you’ve not felt anything in them for some time. That will return in fire.”

The man worked at something out of sight while Ken’ishi recovered consciousness. He tried to flex his hands and fingers, but they were as dead stumps of useless, purple meat.

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