Burden of the Emerald Empire (A Legend of the Five Rings Tale)

---Hisao

You sit in your office, looking across your desk towards your treasurer. Yoritomo Hiroko usually vivacious and filled with life is neither, instead sullen and angry.

"So Yoritomo Okimoto has asked you to resign." you say quietly.

"Hai" she says simply.

"You have no wish to?"

"My Emperor, you have not listened to my ideas, but you have never dismissed them out of hand either. A month, a year ago, I might well have. But to have a further disruption of the council now, while your uncle fights in the West...."

She trails off. You don't need her to tell you that it makes you look weak, that it will disrupt the immense logistical effort that she and the Imperial Bureaucracy have put into maintaining that. While reports officially have the Imperial Legions smashing the Shadow Dragon at the Battles of the Shining Sand, the Crimson Ride and Empty River. The truth is that those battles have cost your armies terribly. The Unicorn had been all but spent in the triumphant climax of the Crimson Ride, and the Empty River had ground on for weeks before your uncle pulled out a victory. As it stood, they besieged Medinaat al Salaam, and of Paneki? There was no word. It was a victory, but not the triumphant easy victory you had hoped for, but one paid in blood, sweat and the tears of those left behind. A distinctly morbid part of you remarks that the Lion Unicorn relations are the best they've ever been though.

It is unfortunate that even in victory there were those who sensed weakness, but you supposed you had no one to blame but yourself, after all you had installed Okimoto in the first place.

"And what is your lord's reason for this?" You ask.

"Officially he feels my work is of better use elsewhere... Otomo-san however is sure that its because he wants to bring me to heel as a vassal. After all, my ascendency was not done by his word, but by his predecessor." Hiroko says .

And there is the reason for her anger. This isn't because she failed, or anything like that, but because her loyalty to her clan has been questioned. No doubt because of the lingering resentments of the Mantis Civil War.

But you have no real intention of giving Okimoto what he wants.

"At present, I am not particularly inclined to lose you Yoritomo-san. You are after all among the reasons that we can even fight our enemy at all. Surely an Imperial request for your presence would be enough to keep you on?" you ask.

Hiroko looks away.
"There is more to it my Emperor. My son was given a position in the Storm Legion"

A raised eyebrow from you. The Storm Legion, the elite warriors of the Yoritomo charged with defending the Champion himself and serving as his or her right hand. Ordinarily it would be a coup to have your son or daughter appointed to such a position in the Clan. However, if you were feuding with your lord, or in disagreement, such a thing turned into a hostage situation relatively quickly.

Understanding reached, you say.
"You must be very proud of your son."

"Hai, I am. It is too great an honour to refuse, and yet..." Hiroko says.

Officially there was little you could do, while you could offer an Imperial Legion position to almost anyone provided they were a Samurai. The samurai's lord had to approve it. Most did as it put the burden of providing for them on you, but they didn't have to. Once again you mentally curse the Steel Chrysanthemum for creating that little precedent by dint of attempting to hold most of the Clans hostage back in the day. When you wrote the new laws, there hadn't been a need in anyone's mind to try and get rid of it. After all the Legion and Magistrates remained posts of prestige, power, and influence in the long term, who could say no? In retrospect that had been naive.

The the other option, offering him a marriage into the Imperial families might have been possible. Marriage remained the sole province of ones parents, mostly. However, you had spent the last few years marrying off Seppun, Otomo and Miya to shore up various political needs. It wasn't that they had no one, but one of sufficient status for the Imperial Treasurer's son? That you didn't have off hand.

"Is your son married?" You ask.

"No, he's still young, there are a few talks..." Hiroko shrugs.

But nothing definite because the Mantis firmly believed that talking about it, convinced Benten-no-kami to make your life difficult. Given the seeming innumerable affairs that the Crane, Lion, Scorpion and Phoenix engaged in, they might have a point.

That leaves options for you, no matter what you do, you're going to have to call in some favours. That is if you want to. Hiroko has been loyal, and while her ideas are...radical (Seriously going off the Rice Standard?) She had borne the cost of waging your war without complaint or even attempting to give your legions anything less than the best.

[] The Crane owe you so many favours, ask Domotai to arrange a match for you
[] The Phoenix love you, surely they can find someone to marry a strapping Mantis boy
[] The Crab and Mantis get along, surely your mother knows someone?
[] Screw it, you'll appoint her son to some bureaucratic position, it'll be blatant and he'll hate it but it'll work.


AN: Even when the War is on politics don't stop.

He ducks under the golem's outstretched arm, and swings his tetsubo up, in a brutal arc that shatters its arm and most of its torso. That doesn't mean the golem stops, swinging its arm down on to his arm. Kisada grunts as he feels his shoulder bleed, before grabbing the arm and pulling back. The sound of cracking as the glass arm comes off. Kisada slams the arm back into the golem's torso sending it into the dirt where it kicks futilely for a bit before the light goes out of its eyes.

Hefting his weapon back on to his shoulder Kisada looks at the small squad of samurai he had just saved. They're children really, no older than maybe seventeen summers. They were terrified, they didn't know how the battle was going, this wasn't what they had signed on for.

"Come on you lot, did you think this was going to be easy? The Shogun has commanded a rally at the moon gate, get your asses back there for the next push."

The samurai simply nod and hurry back as another set of golems arises out of the rubble. Kisada cracks his neck, looking at the Tower of the Sultan where the Shadow Dragon no doubt awaited.

"Alright, which one of you dumb bastards is first?" He asks.

One of the golems attacks him with a set of rapid slashes at his chest.

"Ah good a volunteer" Kisada laughs as he swings his tetsubo again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kaneka listens to the reports coming in. The Shadow Dragon had intended to turn the central causeway into a killing zone, but instinct had directed him to send a flaking attack, and shattered the trap before it came. Almost, the flanking attack had succeeded, but no one had expected for the Shadow Dragon to simple destroy the flanks with fire. Most of the samurai had gotten out, but too many now burned in either side of the causeway.

The eruption of molten glass under his position was something he hadn't planned for. Kaneka had known of course where the attack would happen next once it had happened. Sending his reserves forward blunting and then throwing back the Shadow Dragon's attack. It was a hard brutal fight, and he didn't have any reserves left.

"Shogun-dono, the enemy retreats."

"Retreats?" Kaneka asks.

"Hai."

Kaneka thinks for a moment, the spies that had allowed him to launch the assault had given him a map...he knows where they're retreating to, but he has no reserves...save his own personal guard.
So be it, Kaneka grabs the reigns of his horse.

"GUARD TO ME! WE RIDE!" He calls out.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ikoma Motoko swung her spear 'Isotakeru' forward, neatly skewering a golem through it's 'heart' and shattering it. The abomination of glass had once been a foe she had no idea how to beat, but now...now it was just one more enemy to take care of.

She looks around and sees that for once not everything is on fire, and or disappearing from reality. The battle for Medinat al Salaam, had devolved into brutal street fighting as the the Imperial Legion and Lion armies fought their way in.

The enemy had taken time to prepare, and had drawn the Lion into bloody killing ground with that damnable heretic's magics time and again revealing hidden detachment of golems to try and break through their lines from behind.

Motoko wipes the swear off her brow. At last though the golems seemed to have been pulled back. The Lion held the eastern side of the city, with the west cut off by the river, that meant the battle was nearly won right.

A call from behind her.
"Ikoma-taisa, Akodo-ue's compliments, but you are to take your unit and advance to the baths"

She's still not used to being called taisa, though Motoko admits she has earned it.
"Code"

"The Battle of Red Hills was fought by the Crimson Phoenix, Isawa Nohime."

"Against the Blue Lion, Akodo no Daidoji Hideyoshi." Motoko answers.

The messenger bows again, running off.
Motoko turns around to her squad, once a thousand strong, not maybe a little more than five hundred.

"Spears of the Lion, we've been ordered to take the baths. We move out in half an hour." She shouts.

A weary cry of 'yes Taisa-sama' echoes from them. Motoko tried not to think about how much smaller it sounded now than it had before the battle. No she had earned her position, but it didn't stop her from being so tired right now.

--------------------------------------------------------

Shinjo Rena caught the golem with her improvised club and then slammed home with her lance. The golem shatters as she throws away the now useless hunk of ash wood. Up ahead she can see the Khan engaged in one on one combat with some sort of...tiger man. The Khan was losing.

She sighed to herself. She had never wanted to be a leader, never wanted to be more than a horse woman who fought for those she loved. Yet, here she was leading part of the Unicorn armies in battle, not because she was any great shake, but because a lot of horses were coming back without riders.

As it was the Unicorn would have to withdraw soon, the Infantry just couldn't hold much longer against the golems, but not without their Khan.

Taking out her katana, Rena looks at the angle to the tiger man. She could make it if she hurried.
Rena had never wanted to be a hero, but Fate it seemed had a different plan in mind. A distant part of her mind laughs bitterly, maybe if she had been chose by the Emperor things would be different...but it is not to be. She can see the ferocity of the tiger man, and she knows that intervening means her death.

"FOR THE UNICORN! FOR THE KHAN!" She shouts, barrelling into the tiger man with her horse.

Dying for her Khan? Rena has thought of worse deaths.
---------------------------------------------


In the Fifth Year of Toturi IV's Reign. The armies of the Emperor, Lion and Unicorn attacked the city of Medinaat al Salaam. In the ensuing battle, the many traps of the Shadow Dragon and its lieutenants wreaked a terrible toll on the armies. However, while the Unicorn were forced off the field so were their opponents. This relieving of pressure allowed the other armies to encircle and overwhelm the Shadow Dragon's forces. The battle would come to an end when abruptly the glass golems collapsed, leading to the battle's name 'The Battle of Fallen Glass'. Most believe this was the result of Kisada-no-kami defeating the Shadow Dragon in single combat, but others argue that Bayushi Paneki was responsible as the golem production facility also was destroyed around the same time. Regardless, the Emerald Empire secured Medinaat al Salaam after this battle, and the leaders would end up fêted at the next winter court.

AN: Update will come tomorrow, realized it didn't feel right to not show the end of the war after a fashion.