The Shadow of Issu

Shibuta, The Demon Boar

The sun had not shown from the mountain peaks, and the cold blow of the forest winds had stung deep into his bones, yet his watchfulness had not adrift. The moon, the stars and the song of the dawn were his only companion. He whispers a chant of ancient tongue, one that Ushio sings at every dawn. Akha had always asked what the chant had meant, but his master refuses to tell him, and Akha knew better than to question his master. 

When faced with an obstacle you know not of, find higher ground and start from there.

Akha remained still atop the branches of a hundred-year old tree, with his master’s words branded in mind. The spear was held steadily in his hands. He was awaiting a Shibuta, a beast five times the size of a winter-oxen, with tusks as sharp as the weapon he held, and hide as thick as oak bark. Daybreak raced with him, and in the early coming of the dark sun, the Demon Boar will begin to wake.

The red-thickets are its preferred feeding ground, named after the lush abundance of currant and other brightly colored pulps. Travelers and nomadic pilgrims who knew Sureyu often avoid this stretch in the forest of the enswoods for fear of beasts that lurk here. Often no one passes near the red-thickets and even if some had, a new display of carcass is unmistakable, made by creatures that took a fondness to human flesh. This gave the red-thickets a ghastly meaning to its name.

But he waited there. Carefully. The traps have been set, provided the forest decides to help him. But this enemy was different. No mere trap could stop the onslaught of such a creature. Akha had to improvise.

Since midnight he had already managed to dig up for four pits, and three springers— an improvised pit of a contraption composed of two adjacent rows of stakes made from branches carved from dead trees, tied to a fibers laced on to each other, spread over a sunken furrow about two feet deep and hidden in foliage. Once the string is pressed, the two adjacent spikes, tied together, shuts close like a jaw, almost with the force of the weight of anything that is too unfortunate to fall into that hole.

The pits were somewhere by the end of the forest, opening to the meadows of the Sunken Coves, two by the narrow nooks at Willow’s Path by the east and one particularly large springer near the Teeth of Taru, where boulder was opulent.

He checked the blades underneath his cloak. They were different sizes and of different purpose. The first was a short and thick dagger, almost the length of the forearm, for severing ligaments. The second was a slender blade, for piercing and cutting. The last was a serrated dirk, fit for cutting joints and hide. These were Ushio’s blades—old, yet extraordinarily sharp, as if it had not known the wither of time. If he had remembered correctly, Ushio once used two swords to take down an Yasu, a corrupted spirit. Even with the demon’s thick hide and bony carapace, Ushio still managed to sever the creature in halves, all this without a single dent to his blade.

Right now, checking these daggers gave him a sense of hope, knowing that these would be used following a victory. while convincing himself that this was not suicide.

There came the first caw of the morning birds, his hands felt light on his spear. The sky turned a deep sapphire with streaks of fire in the east, but the forest remained dark. Akha heard one of his his traps trigger, herald by the birds that flew from the canopies.

Howls then echoed deep from the woods, and Shikomi, demon wolves, came rushing into the thickets. There were four of them, a rather small pack. The light color on their back showed that these were young of season and had not yet fully grown. Though even in their rudimentary stages, these creatures could still manage to tear a person limb from limb in a blink of an eye. One of the wolves must have gotten into the traps and attracted the pack. The sky bore no light and the dawn would have given him enough time to slay the beast, that is until the wolves have come to lengthen the task and aggravate the stakes.

He could not wait, sunrise had shown its presence to the east. He dashed through the branches, moving like the wind that rippled through them. He took slow and careful breaths scrutinizing his environs, perceiving isolated Shikomi, hatching up a plan with each step. The beasts have been circling around the thickets, it would not be amiss that they had already found Akha’s scent in his tracks.

One begun to stray afar from the others and was nearing him, unaware of the young Kinu’s presence. Akha strapped his spear to his back and unsheathed one of his blades. The boy leaped to the beast, arms swung to its neck as they tumbled on the grass and snow. Akha opened the animal’s throat and secured the jaws with his legs. It whimpered, and soon died to a gush of warm crimson upon the cold snow.

He had done the job with no complication, but even such a subtle sound was enough to throw the beasts to their attention. Akha picked himself from the ground quickly, the dark crimson soaked into his clothes. He kept the blade and brandished the spear, slowly stepping away from the kill.

One suddenly pounced from behind him, but the leap was too far high, and by luck and instinct, Akha had lunged the spear upwards where the tip caught its stomach. The boy lost his footing and fell back, and the beast bled where it laid.

Two turned to his direction. Snarling and with eyes glowing a menacing red. They growled, and the furs on their necks stood up like spikes. Mouths bared an array of fangs, salivating with a deadly hunger. As the demon wolves were preparing to pounce, a sudden deep rumble came from the west. Then it was followed by a growl, a noise so deep it shook the cages of his chest. Almost like the sound of rocks crashing against each other, though it roughly resembled a dying man’s scream.  The Shikomi's snarls turned to a wary grimace. Their snouts pointed to what hid deep in the forests, the yowl as unnerving as it was imposing. Akha felt it—the ground tremble— and the wolves felt it, too.

They ran east with tails tucked, but Akha shifted his attention to where the noise had come from. There was an extended silence, save for the cacophony of dread ringing in the side of his head. There, somewhere in the dark, he saw the bulk of a great beast that came charging like an unstoppable black cloud, and Akha knew better but to stay. 

 He sprinted through the shallow snow, through dense over-ground roots of hundred-year old trees and sharp turns of narrow footpaths while the beast tailed behind him. He was led to a clearing in the forests, where the sky, bearing no light from above, was seen above them and grey clusters withheld the sun. Akha turned to the creature and flourished his spear, panting and sweating in the cold.

The Shibuta had found him.

Its towering size and the ferocity of its nature, showing no relent, could kill him in a meager swipe of its head. Its tusks were as sharp as the edge of his spear, perhaps even sharper. Taking it down with force was near impossible.

Akha receded from the meadows and sprinted to one of the narrow ways to the Teeth of Taru, where he had devised one last attempt to slay the beast.

The boar followed, all more unwavering in kill than the Shikomi, splitting the trees as if they were made of earthen clay. His eyes caught the sight of the sarsens of Taru, where the stones emerged like fangs from the earth, crude and bone-white. He rushed to a path of riddled swards and bowing trees and the Shibuta followed with no hesitation. Its head was lowered to the ground that its tusks were running across the snowy dirt, ravaging the path, splitting stones and uprooting oaks when it finally tripped the wires.

The trap sprung fast, and sharpened stakes the size of his forearm arose from the sides as it unhinged and closed like maw upon prey.  The Shibuta stumbled downhill to the many Teeth of Taru. Akha straddled behind, following the wounded beast.

It shrilled a grunt of agony from the wound that had reached from its chest up to its hind legs. Flesh and muscle all bitten by the teeth of the trap as the jagged-springer held on to its prey. It gouged quite deep as dark hot blood began to dye the snow-veiled grass below it.

 The Shibuta groaned in pain while Akha was circling around it, crossing its dangerous hind to reach the neck with his spear ready for the kill. A long and disturbing silence clasped the woods just then, and with a swift breath, Akha buried his spear in the Demon Boar’s fourth rib, piercing its lungs.

Akha sat down near it and began to meditate. The cold air in his lungs hung heavy in his chest. Thunder crackled in a distance, and the sun, which had been in the horizon now, was shrouded by clusters of dark giants, flashing with searing white strikes that struck the grey sky.

“Earth and wind, bear witness.”