Samurai; Lost in the Time Rift 1.4

1.4.

The predicament brought the two groups into consolidation in strength, and also conflict in their daily needs. The samurais have brought enough food to last them for three days with the slaves having to do the same, but the farmers are without any supplies. Water was also in short supply as there was never a need to carry large tankards then. They have stayed for four days now, managing on a ration arranged by Gunso but that supply had dwindled to a level where they feared starvation would prevailed soon.

"Yai! Who had taken my piece of the rick cakes?" The Hohei shouted out when he discovered his piece of the food was missing where he left it. He looked around at those who were near to him, and then noticed the farmer was chewing something in the mouth.

"Thief! How dare you take my rice cake?" The Hohei charged at the farmer who had stepped back in fright. It was Iza, the one with the Bo staff that stopped the charging Hohei.

"Fool! Check the ground before you accused." Iza barked back at the Hohei. "Useless son of a ama."

"Hei! Who are you to curse the one who birth me?" The young Hohei had drawn his katana in defense of his mother's honor. He approached the farmer with the bo.

"Your feeble tooth pick is no match for my katana. It was sharpen by the masters then, for my grandfather." The Hohei raised up the katana over his shoulders, but Iza was swift with his attack. He had thrust the bo at the young Hohei in the nose and then with a twist of his wrists, he had the bo coming down hard on the arms holding the katana, before an upward swing to hit the Hohei over the jaw.

The young Hohei fell back but Gunso Mita was not one to allowed his students to be humiliated in this manner. Gunso had his borrowed yari lashed out in a swing towards Iza. Both long weapons clashed in the midair, before their masters retrieved it back.

"The dog's master comes to defend his slave." Iza laughed at the intervention of the Gunso.

"I did not come to fight, but to restraint my young warrior. He may had hurt you with his weapon thus my intervention." Gunso Mita replied with the sarcasm that he was well known with.

"The master hides behind his dog, yet tries to barked like one." Iza remarked back which earned the wrath of the Gunso. The later charged out with his yari thrusting at the farmer who had to backed up with the bo deflecting the attacks. That attack caused Iza to missed on his balance and fell backwards. Gunso followed through with the yari sharp end on the blade at the chest of the fallen farmer.

"Yield and I may still spare your life." Gunso Mita spoke to the farmer but the later was not a coward.

"I may be a farmer,but I feared not for my life. I dare you to kill me now."

Gunso raised up the yari, and stepped away from the farmer. He kicked at the bo away from the farmer. He saw his Taisa looking at him.

"The farmer needed some training in the use of the bo." Gunso Mita walked past his Taisa to the other side of the cavern. Taisa Mori walked over to the seated farmer whose ego was bruised by the Gunso. He asked the farmer for the whereabouts of their leader, Edo.

"I am here to take any challenge any of your samurai would like to take on me." Edo stepped forth with his naginata. He stopped in front of the Taisa, and looked at the other Hohei standing near the Taisa.

"I need to speak to you alone." Taisa Mori spoke to him and then walked to the far corner of the cavern. Edo followed him close and then they are now alone; far from the others so they can discussed in secrecy.

"Edo-san, I am concerned on the well being of the group." Taisa Mori spoke out in a low tone. "We are short in supply and we need to get out of here."

"I have searched the cavern. We are trapped here in half a day's walk from both of this end." Edo point with his hand. "On this other end, we have hit a high drop not too far away; a crevasse that we cannot cross nor can we climbed down. This other end, I have walked to the end of a day's walk and find it still stretched further."

"That is the reason I am here to speak to you. I intend to find a way of here. That is one way we can try." Taisa Mori replied to the leader of the farmer. "I have no food to spared with your people if they stayed back; which I hoped they would not. They can followed us and try our luck. We may find the way out or die trying."

"Taisa Mori, you are aware that in our search, we came across the serpents and other creatures. They only feared the fire sticks we carried. Yet you are telling us to stay behind while you go off with your samurai's."

Taisa Mori looked at Edo and smiled.

"So I would take that, your men do not wished to be left alone." Taisa Mori then turned to walked back to where the men are all seated. He looked at the spot which they had claimed their own; with fire places surrounding it. They had not eaten the serpent they killed but found its meat was material to burn on as it contained fats on it. Back on the island, they had used the fats from the large sea fish to burned as materials and here it was not different. They did not find the smoke from the burning hurting their eyes but floated well up onto the darkened ceiling and there it dispersed.

The skin of the serpent was found to be good for foot covers as the farmers had no geta to wear. But it was the bones they found to be of good use as shown by Gunso. He had collected a number of the bones from the dead creature and had them sharpened to make crude daggers with the use of the grinding stone. Now they are to moved to search for the way out of this place and also for food.

"Yai! How dare you not carry me?" Teishin slapped the slave who had refused his order. The Teishin pallenquin had been use for firewoods and now the man wanted to back carried by the slave. Taisa Mori intervened before the Teishin killed the slave whom he was kicking with his feet.

"Stop that, Teishin Buke." Taisa Mori grabbed the man and pulled him off the slave. He bend down to pull the slave up.

"Taisa Mori, are you mad? He is a slave, No samurai would helped a slave." Teishin Buke started to drew on his katana. "Let me dispensed off this useless slave. I demand my right of Kiri-sute gomen ( the feudal era right to strike (right of samurai to kill commoners for perceived affronts. )

"No one draws a blade on me unless he wants to be met by mine. Or hand me your wakizashi." Taisa Mori cautioned the Teishin who had stopped the drawing at near the end. When the Taisa asked for the short blade from the Teishin, he was exercising what was the rule of anyone who was at the receiving end had the right to defend themselves by wakizashi (short sword). The Taisa wanted to offer that to the slave but Teishin had declined the move. The Teishin then sheathed back the katana and protested.

"The slave was mine. I would decide its fate." Teishin Buke retorted back in anger. "How can one like you, born and bred as a samurai assist that slave? You have no more honor."

Taisa Mori held back his anger on the other who had questioned his heritage; ever slowly he turned to faced the Teishin.

"We are stuck in this land, and maybe die here. I have predators which we have never encountered and hard to kill. Any living help would be an added advantage to protect all of us. Including yours, Teishin Buke." Taisa Mori glared at the man. "But I may not hesitate to removed you if its suits the well being of this group."

"How dare you?" Teishin shouted back. "The Shogun would here of this."

"We are not on the Shogun land. We are.....on a land that we do not know where. Here we lived and fight together; samurai, farmers and .....slaves. Or die trying." Taisa Mori looked to the Gunso.

"Armed this men with the serpent weapons. They would fight for their food now."

Gunso Mita nodded and handed out the sharpened bones to the slaves. Taisa Mori then stepped up to the center of the camp and announced his new plan. He wants them to move out in a short time, and be prepared for the worse. He called on the slave whom he had saved from the beating.,

"Your name,......slave. The one your father or mother had given you." Taisa Mori asked.

"Sori. It was the name my mother called me." The slave was a young man with a slim build at about Taisa Mori' height but his hands and feet were larger, or maybe because the man was dressed only in his loin cloth ( fundoshi ). He was holding a sharpened one feet length bone of the serpent with serrated edge in the front. 

"Thats a good weapon. Keep it well, Sori." Taisa Mori spoke to the newly elected warrior of the group. "You would be the leader of the new warriors.'

Taisa Mori looked to the other slaves; seven of them as they held in their hands the crude weapons made by Gunso Mita.

"Taisa, you make good enemies of your needed friends." Gunso cautioned the friend of his.

"Hai! And my head will roll first before yours." Taisa Mori laughed to his friend.

"Then I have a longer wait. Your neck is as hard as your head." They both laughed. They knew the fate if Teishin tells the Shogun of their insolence here but right now, they feared more of the unknown than the Shogun wrath.

The group of ten samurai including the cowardly Teishin, fifteen farmers and eight ex-slaves made their way in the dark to seek the way out of the cavern. They left behind them were seven fireplaces with smoldering ashes then, but it also attracted unseen before creatures that lowered themselves down by the long vines on the ceiling of the cavern.

These creatures are not man, although they have man's formed limbs, but their body are covered in hair with a larger head than that of man. They stand on at the height of one and a half of a normal man with their two lower limbs; bent at the knees, and their upper limbs are also as long as their lower limbs. Each creature have the facial expression of man but lacks the finer contour of it. Theirs were protruding out from the eyes level to the lower jaws. Their body frames were covered in some sort of leather wear that covered their upper body to the knees and in their hands are the curved blades or battle axe, or the twin pick with the wooden handle. They had just reached down from the ceiling by climbing down those vines.

"Senior Leader Tut, we cannot find the guardian. But we found what may had been its remains." The leather clad being strolled over to the leader who had just arrived. The leader pulled its frame upright and then raised up its nose to smell the air.

"They used fire here. That's forbidden by the Elders." The senior spoke up. "Who are these slaves to descent here and foul the sanctuary of the Gods? Even the Guardian was removed by them in such barbaric manner."

"We do not know. It was the Priest who saw them when he came to feed the Guardian. He claimed they killed the Guardian in the manner most foul." The one who replied had streaks of gray hairs on the head.

"Satui, form a column of ten warriors. I want you to track these slaves, and make them pay. Hunt well, my brother." The leader of the newly arrived creatures gave its order. Then it climbed back up the vine to the surface.