A Warrior Made Of Dragon's Blood

Chapter 10

Nagaraja lands with a splash in the rice paddy field of my hometown. I land in the water, face down in the mud. I wipe the mud off my face, as Nagaraja looks on amused. We make our way into my village, Tsurui, for the first time in years. The buildings are in worse condition than I remember. Most of them are crumbling and have no roofs. Nagaraja comes up behind me and sniffs the ground.

"That won't work. This town has been abandoned for years. All traces of scent have been washed away," I say.

I walk around the village and to the outskirts feeling drawn to the forest. I feel a sense of wonder at the familiar sights and sounds of my forest, but also feel a sense of foreboding. A few paces further into the woods, I stop horrified—memories of bodies and bodies piled on top of each other and the reek of rotting flesh and death. I fall to my knees unwilling to continue knowing what I will find.

Nagaraja comes up behind me, nudging me, "What's wrong, Sora?"

"I've just remembered a living nightmare that I saw the night that the villagers disappeared. I can't go on. I don't want to see the bodies again."

"We have to figure out what happened. Where should I look?"

Looking down, I point farther down the path and Nagaraja sets out to investigate.

Moments later, Nagaraja returns looking disgusted.

More memories flood back to me, "They took the others away in carts. I think my parents were taken somewhere. We have to figure out where they went."

Nagaraja's eyes light up, "Were there other villages around here?"

"A few."

"Let's fly around the surrounding area and see if we can find any clues."

We fly high into the sky and spot a neighboring village, Sarufutsu. The village looks abandoned, but we land to investigate. Just as in our village, the houses have been robbed of everything. We're on the right track. We also find another pile of bones much like the one in my village. We are back in flight looking for more villages. We come to another village and suddenly we see movement on the ground. At first, I think it's an animal, but as Nagaraja swoops silently down to get a closer look we see that they are ronin. And, then we see prisoners locked in cages. The ronin are herding the people out to work in the fields. They are dirty and ragged. They look like they are being used as slaves. A few of them even look like they were once wealthy merchants.

"I shout through the wind to Nagaraja , "This is it! This is what we've been looking for. Careful we aren't spotted."

Nagaraja flies to a distant glade and says,

"We need to make a plan and proceed with caution."