Crumbling Pillar
"I write without preamble or formality, and I hope you understand. I hope, too, that your eyes can pierce through the weakness of my calligraphy. I hold the brush in my shaking left hand, for my right has been mangled beyond the strength of Rabbit Wen's thaumaturgical poultices to heal. If this letter reaches you at all, it will be a miracle. I think the only thing now keeping me alive is my need to tell the fate of the Flying Spears Brotherhood.
"Takahara, in the 100 Kingdoms, had our contract. A river cult had been giving them trouble and we were to see them through the harvest. We fought hard to beat the cultists back once and hoped that was the end of it, but a week later we saw their sampans upon the river again. They drifted listlessly towards us, without any sail behind them, and we knew that something was wrong. Cho Hu was the first to spot it, though: every man aboard was dead, his body lashed to the oars and lines.
"I didn't know what to make of it, but I wasn't about to risk those boats landing. I had the men light their arrows and the ships went down in flames. Only flotsam reached the shore. Flotsam and him.
"He waded up out of the water with the insistent ferocity of a river dragon. His short hair bristled black upon his scalp and his skin was ashen gray. His muscles were cords, where I could see them beneath his scars, and though he wore no armor that I could see his flesh itself seemed as tough as yeddim hide. 'Witness the Crumbling Pillar of a Shattered Faith,' he said, but I don't know if he spoke of himself or the... thing... he carried over his shoulders.
"It was dull iron, as wide around as my waist, and it seemed to scream in tortuous silence. I swear I saw faces there, and I swear again that the thing was what he said - a pillar, stolen from the temple front of some blasphemous and ruined cult. Half of my men broke and ran as soon as he hefted it to the ground.
"They were the smart ones. He fell into us with the force of an earthquake and we became a smear upon his cudgel. Iron C'ha, Tang the Judge and Yun Ko the Fifth - my best men - fell within the first minute of his assault. I knew he was no river cultist, but I didn't know what he wanted. I called out to challenge him, trying to spare my men as is a commander's duty, but he only laughed and in a sing-song voice said 'blood and souls for my lord.'
"He, alone, slaughtered our full three talons that day, and then he left. Now just five of us remain, huddled here in Takahara with its benighted people. We have not seen him since, but sometimes in the night we hear those silent screams and, then, the pounding of iron on stone. When we wake in the morning there is a hole in the wall, mocking us. We would leave, but where could we go?
"I know your service to us is over. I know you hold up a new banner now; I have heard the monogatari they sing of you and the golden lord you call your own. But, please, if you remember us with any fondness at all, come to our rescue. Before it is too late."
-- Leopard Chao, in a letter to the Sweet Voice of Brass and Glory
