Chapter One

Once, or twice, or upon a thousand times the sun gently nudged its way above the mountain, spreading its roseate glow upon the mountain's snow, the enveloping woodlands, and a dew-laden meadow replete with wild flowers. Upon a camp stool sat a man of seemingly middling years, his long and silver hair unbound and cascading down his back. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be relishing simply the feel of the first rays of sunlight upon his face, like a flower reaching for the light. He exhaled slowly, not quite a sigh, and opened his eyes to look around him. He saw the brilliant jewels of light coruscating from the droplets of dew hanging like pendants from the long grass. He saw the wild flowers in their riot of colour strewn haphazardly across the meadow. He saw the first wisps of the fog in the valley rising into the rosy air.

He smelled the dampness of the grass, he heard the buzz of insects and the melodic territorial calls of the birds in the woods. He felt the linen of his shirt in the softest scratching against his shoulders as he breathed. He tasted that strange but familiar flavour that is the dawn air.

He turned his head in a slow arc, surveying the scene before him, breathing in its essence, filling himself with the moment. A decision made he stood quickly and took two strides towards a small easel resting there. Taking brush and ink he wrote in swift and sure strokes a poem:

My life came like dew,

disappears like dew.

All of everything

is dream after dream.

Once finished the man took the brush and cleaned it in a stream of water he poured from a flask on the easel, and carefully replaced the brush in its holder.

"Shadow, it is time. Help me with my armour." His words were sudden, deep and assured, startling in the peace of a meadow. A grey figure, unnoticed until this time, seemed to step out of the fog and obsequiously ushered the warrior into a tent in which stood on a mount a suit of black and gold lacquered leather armour, tied with scarlet ribbons, and crowned with a mustachioed helmet with the face of a demon.

The warrior in black and gold walked down through the dewy meadow, down towards the fog. He could hear rustling and rumbling from within the grey concealment of the mist as he approached. Ten paces from the fog's edge he stopped, drew his sword from his scabbard and threw the scabbard into the long grass to his left. With his sword point concealed amongst the pastels of meadow flowers he took a deep breath. As he released it the fog suddenly rose and dispersed, like a curtain to a stage.

Twenty paces away was a small river, shallow enough to ford, the water tinkling like bells among the stones. Behind, suddenly silent, motionless, stood a horde, a vast array of warriors and wizards, knights and bandits, demons and assassins. The warrior beckoned with his left hand, a flight of arrows leapt into the air, blackening the pale blue sky. A bellow of ten thousand voices, both human and not, howled its fury and the horde charged.

The battle raged throughout the day, the warrior dancing with effortless grace, the bloody, vomiting horror that were the consequences of his movements in macabre contrast to his dance. He passed through the horde removing limbs and heads, opening bodies, weaving destruction with an unearthly speed and power. He could not be touched by giant's club, or wizard's lightning, or assassins dagger. When the ranks broke and fled to regather themselves, the river ran thick and red, tumbling through the dam of piled corpses. When the horde tried wave upon wave of arrows through the raven haunted sky the warrior gestured, and the arrows were caught in a sudden wind and blown back towards the cowering masses. When the first blush of dusk lit the sky around the mountain peaks there was none left to face him, they had fled, or were dead.

The warrior turned with the effort of a thousand years of toil, and looked back up across the meadow from which he had come that morning. His armour was hacked, rent, smeared with gore, scarlet ribbons fluttering loosely in the evening breeze. With faltering movements he reached with his free hand and slowly, so slowly, removed his helmet. His silver hair was plastered with sweat to his brow, his eyes sunken and haunted. He held his demon-faced helmet in the crook of his arm, and trudged back up the hill, limping from the pain in every joint and every muscle.

At his camp he looked briefly at the poem from that morning, and slumped onto his camp stool, a picture of exhaustion. A greyness slipped from the tent, tentative and cautious, more abject than humble, everything in it attempting to escape notice. It sidled up towards the warrior who sat silent and motionless apart from the hoarse pants of his shallow breathing.

"Halt!" came the sudden cry, and the greyness stopped, the black sharpness within its hand held quivering in the evening air.
"Shadow, I know who you are and what you have done. I know that you gathered this horde to meet me today. I know that you have the powers of secrecy, and silence, and move in the background. I don't even know your name, but I know you, Shadow. I knew all of this and I permitted it."
"Shadow, I have lived a long time, a very long time. I have been a warrior, more than that I have been warrior for what seems like a thousand lifetimes. I have fought man, beast, noble, peasant, assassin, demon, wizard, witch across ages. I have fought fear, and love, compassion and falsehood, and stood true to honour throughout. I have always won, although never without hurt. But I am old, I am so very old."
"Today I decided I would have my last battle, to test myself as a warrior does against the greatest foes that could be assembled. I thank you for that Shadow, you did well. And now it is time for me to test myself against the one foe I have not met, the last test. You wish to kill me Shadow, I know that. You could not beat me in this game of ours, this last act is of my choosing, it is what I permit, not what you can do. "
"So do it."

And the Shadow did.




The poem above is a one word changed adaption of the death poem of the samurai Toyotomi Hideyoshi, 1536-1598