Scott McGough: Outlaw:Champions of Kamigawa

There was not much to choose from. Eitoku was wearing a stiff, hardened fabric under his robe, but beyond his own daisho swords that marked him as a samurai, the soratami bushi was unadorned. His partner didn't even have any extra silver spikes to steal, but he was wearing some sort of silver emblem around his neck. As Toshi reached for it, the soratami under him murmured.

A breeze kicked up and Toshi's well-developed sense of self-preservation kicked in. He hopped back just as a blue glow enveloped both soratami. With a quiet susurrus of sound and light, the two pale figures disappeared.

"Not that I'm keeping score," he called after the vanished moonfolk, "but right now the ochimusha lowlife from the fen is up on the snooty, whitewashed aristos two-nil."

Perhaps, came a distorted, disembodied whisper. But the game is far from over.

Toshi swallowed hard. He dabbed the blood from his thigh and checked the marks he had scratched into his own flesh. The kanji that had reflected the soratami's attacks would last only as long as the blood flowed, and the minor wound was already starting to scab over. It occurred to him that he was alone in the ruins, having antagonized two demigods and the most capable nezumi he had ever met.

Carefully, he slid into the shadows and quickly headed back to the marsh. If there was ever a prudent time for him to disappear for a while, this was it.

His mind worked furiously as he plotted out the details. He needed a few things from his hovel. He needed to make some small arrangements before he went. But once those minor errands were run, it was well past time for a change of scenery.

Silent as a shadow, Toshi slipped out of the ruins and into the darkness.

Toshi climbed down the side of a rocky mud-hill that separated the Takenuma Swamp from the edge of the old city. The ruined buildings on the higher ground had been slowly leveled by twenty years of the Kami War, but his own home had been a wasteland for far longer. As his feet sank into the swamp, he looked out over acres of oily water and fetid marsh.

"Home sweet home," he muttered. He trudged through the watery mud, keeping a careful eye out for hostile spirit manifestations. They came most often to the ruins directly outside the Daimyo's stronghold, but lately the attacks had been spreading outward, increasing in frequency and scope.

Though now little more than a rotten bamboo forest struggling out of a thick, noisome ooze, the marsh had once been a thriving village. The story of its rapid slide into decrepitude varied depending on the teller. The nezumi said that the fen was a paradise for their kind until the Daimyo's human ancestors came and ruined it. The local cult ofjushi wizards told of a spell cast generations ago by a handful of ogre mages-the intent was to construct a breeding ground and hunting preserve for the terrible demonic oni they worshiped, but the end result was just another cursed cesspit.

Still, Toshi thought, the fen provided a haven for people like him: the fallen and the forgotten. Most of the marsh residents were barred from the Daimyo's society, unwelcome in the wilds, and unwilling to take up the hard, violent, and frequently short life of a bandit. The swamp had its own society with its own rules and castes, but unlike the rest of the world, they were self-enforced and easy to circumvent with impunity… provided you had the wit and the power.

The old city vanished into the yellow, sulfurous mist behind him as Toshi marched on. His own shack was in the southeast quarter, on the edge between Boss Uramon's turf and a large nezumi village. If Toshi kept west and circled around, he would minimize the chances of meeting one of Marrow-Gnawer's people. This would take him into jushi territory, but he was on excellent terms with several of the cult's more powerful wizards. It would be relatively easy to negotiate his way past if they stopped him.

Up ahead, the mist parted and Toshi caught sight of a pair of armed sentries standing under a tall torch. The male sentry bore a huge no-dachi battle sword strapped across his back and crude plate armor over his shoulders and chest. He also sported a metallic, wide-brimmed hat and a black scarf over his nose and mouth. The female wore a heavy wrap over a colorful kimono, and a cowl that covered her face and scalp. Her long hair streamed out from under the cowl, reaching down past her elbows. It was a strange purple-black color, and to Toshi, the hair made it seem she was also wearing a cape. The cowled woman had a simple fuetsu axe on her belt and an vivid purple flower embroidered on her shoulder.

"Hey," Toshi called. "I'm coming through the fog. Don't kill me by accident."

The male stiffened and put his hand on his no-dachi. The woman unfolded a black and purple fan and gently waved the fog away from her face. Toshi peered carefully through the yellow haze and spotted metal gleaming on each of the fan's spines. It was a tessen, a disguised weapon that could either block an incoming sword or crack the arm that wielded it.

Toshi stepped out of the fog with his hands held open at his sides. He stared at the woman and the purple flower on her shoulder. He smiled.

"Kiku," he said. "I recognized your camellia. Please don't tell me you've been demoted to border guard. Not even your jushi masters could be stupid enough to waste your talents this badly."

The man stepped forward as he drew his sword, but the woman stopped him with a gentle hand. Her wide, vibrant eyes scanned Toshi. She stepped forward and stared down at his swords.

"Hello, Toshi," Kiku said. Her voice was languid and bored. "It's a bad night to come looking for work."

"Not looking tonight. I just need to get back to my shack without stirring up the rats."

Kiku shrugged. "Go right ahead. But the nezumi-bito are the least of your worries if you cut through our property. The kami are out in force tonight and they're looking for blood."

"Is that why you're dressed like one of Uramon's hatchet men? Where are the purple silks and slit skirts? Where's the glamour and beauty that make Kiku such a famously beautiful nightmare?"

"That is none of your business." She smiled, but her eyes remained wide and fixed.

Toshi repressed a shudder. Kiku was stunning but terrifying. She could kill ten people with her magic in the blink of an eye, but her bored expression rarely changed. She had the distracted, unsettling intensity of a well-fed cat in search of prey to torment. She was not Toshi's enemy, but they regarded each other with caution.

"So," he said breezily. "You don't mind if I just press on?"

"Not as long as you go quickly," she said. "And quietly."

"Done and done. I just-"

The male sentry suddenly choked and began to tremble. The fog thickened and began to swirl around them, creating a tall cone of wind and sulfurous fumes.

Toshi hastily backed away from the sentry. The ochimusha recognized signs of a kami manifestation. Judging from the way Kiku also withdrew, she did as well. The swirling wall of fog expanded around them, giving them more room to put distance between the stricken sentry and themselves. Toshi tested it with his hand as he kept an eye on the emerging kami. The wall of vapor was dense and resisted his touch like a wool blanket. He did not relish the idea of getting mired in it with a hostile spirit nearby.

Kiku also tested the barrier, then snapped open her fan to cover her face from the bridge of her nose down. Toshi nodded to her and drew his blades to fight. The Kami War had come to the marsh once more.

There were several ways a kami could cross the barrier between their home in the kakuriyo spirit world to the utsushiyo material one. Toshi had seen them shimmer in and out of the air like heat mirages, or grow their misshapen bodies out of moss, wood, rock, and whatever else was nearby.