Choshu Ishi Versus The Zombies
They came a week after The Xuan Wu Academy arrived to repair Fenghuang Temple. The zombies. They shambled from the west, from distant Thorns, a horrid, unliving swarm. Their gray skin sagged, their jaws hung open, their hands stretched out in grasping, bony claws. They carpeted the earth with their foulness, leaving their flesh to rot behind them as they crept ever on.
When they got close, when the zombies started to crowd up the narrow mountain path leading to the temple, pushing each other off the cliff edge in their mindless drive to reach their targets, the architects and their workman caught their stench upon the wind. A charnel house could have smelled no worse, so thick was the scent of decay the zombies pushed with them; but far more terrible, far more nauseating, was the sweet, cloying smell of incense, the preservative rubbed into the zombies' flesh.
The mortal workmen wept, they vomited, they were wracked with fevered dreams for three long weeks as the zombies pressed their attack. But their leaders in the Xuan Wu Academy were quick to direct their mercury ants and built great walls around the build site to keep the zombies out, walls they kept guarded, day and night. Some of the workmen died, snatched when they got too close, or eaten by zombies that, piling on the fallen corpses of their allies, piled over the wall. But on the whole, over the next week, the work went on; the Mask of Winters' zombies could not stop the construction.
No, it took Choshu Ishi for that.
He came charging up the mountainside, a talon of Marukani Tiger Warriors struggling to keep pace behind him. His enameled suit of gunzosha armor gleamed white in the morning sun, the sashimono on his back proudly displayed his name and the ancient white marble colossus of his anima banner in full iconic glory towered around him at twice his height. Ishi pressed into the thick of the zombies, and every time his sword slashed it took three or more of their heads.
On the defensive walls, on the wood framework of the great temple, the mortal workmen stopped. They saw the strength of the Ivory Dragon and they began simply to cheer his name.
Hatsu Shi, Walker, paused in his work and looked down. "He's charged right into the middle of them. They've got him surrounded. And the tiger warriors are three hundred yards behind, easily."
"What's that?" Mite Xu, The Bear, didn't look up from his hammering.
Nama Bi, the Silver Monkey, said, "Choshu Ishi's gonna get himself killed."
"Huh." Now even Mite Xu sat down to watch.
Night of the Living Dead[edit]
The zombies rose up around Choshu Ishi on every side. They clawed at his armor, scratching the enamel, pulling adamant plates free from their fastenings. They tore off his helmet and, breathing their stench unfiltered, Ishi gagged. He struggled to swing his sword, but he had no room; the Flux of his Anima pounded at the zombies’ necrotic flesh, but they were unflinching. They tore through his Aura of Invulnerability. They dragged him to the ground through sheer weight of numbers. He thought he heard them speak; he thought they said, “Braaains!”
Ishi’s world went black with pain. Their claws were everywhere, tearing at him, and the only mercy was a nameless sleep. It would be so easy to just let go. To let them open him, to join them...
No! Storm of Amber had given him a duty, and he would see it fulfilled; Nameless Ravine had given him a charge, and he would not fail. He would not be weak!
The Ivory Dragon fought again, using his lords’ example to drive his courage on, but he rose up only to be dragged down again. The weight of undead flesh was too much for even his strength.
Then he heard a voice; “Stand together! Back to back!” He heard the clash of arms. He felt the zombies fall away. And he opened his eyes to see Soi Fang holding out her hand.
“Up you go, Ishi,” the relay said as she helped him to his feet. “There’s work yet to do.”
Ishi looked around. Hoto Xing and a double-fang had fought their way to form a circle around him and Soi Fang, and they were holding their ground steady against the zombies’ monstrous onslaught. Tama Gui had lead another three scales the hard way up the cliff-side, to bring the attack down from the high ground. Chiko Zhang and the last two scales waited below, for the moment to strike.
They were all waiting for Choshu Ishi.
Hidden Riches lay in the dust at Ishi’s feet. He picked up the sword and raised its white blade high above his head. “For the Marukan,” he called. “For the Solars! For the Mandate of Heaven!”
A cheer went up from his soldiers; a cheer echoed by the mortal laborers on the walls surrounding the Fenghuang Temple grounds. Then the army poured forth its wrath.
It was a day's gory work, and everywhere the mountain grew slick with the zombies' fetid remains. Though hard to put down, the undead were a disorganized mob, all claws and shambling, and not much threat to Ishi's disciplined tiger warriors. Where their numbers swelled thickest Ishi lost men to their horde, but discipline carried the day.
The night was something else.
Ishi's talon had thinned the zombie ranks to gauze and they huddled together in grounps, sword-arms trembling with the effort, but they shook more at the sight of the thing that crawled from the mist as the moon rose full. A great barrel chest, caparisoned in plates shaped of bone and steel as gray as death, stood supported atop the spine of a great serpent. Coiling up on those ribs, it stood half again as tall as Ishi, and in two of its four hands it held a scythe. It's head was but a human skull, though sharp-fanged and with a bloated, purple tongue, and in the hollows of its eyes burned green fire.
"Choshu Ishi," the thing said in a voice uncomfortably pleasant. "We meet again."
Ishi raised his weary head to meet the thing's gaze. "I have never seen your like before."
The green fires burned merrily. "I wore a different face, when we spoke in your father's court. I have met your allies since then, but the honor of first to fall will be yours."
The Ivory Dragon dragged Hidden Riches in front of him; he was so tired that moving the blade felt like moving a mountain. "Who am I falling to?"
"I am Tozo Han!"
"No..." Ishi shook his head. "I don't recall the name."
A pause.
"What?"
Ishi shrugged. "Should I remember you?"
"Tozo Han!" The thing's voice crawled up the scales until it was nothing more than a shriek. It slithered forward, scythe raised. "I am Tozo Han, and I will have my revenge!"
Ishi severed the creature's head with one Essence-fueled swipe of his blade.
The wind scattered up a blasphemous scream as Tozo Han's body fell. Ishi turned to watch the last of his men reach the safety of the fortified walls. With no zombies left to fight, Ishi followed after.
Soi Fang was waiting for him, just inside the gate. "What now, Ishi?"
"Now?" Ishi yawned. "Watches in each direction, a fang strong, with relief every two hours. For those who aren't watching, sleep. We'll have more zombies to face tomorrow."
"Yes, sir." Soi Fang smiled. "Taizei."
