Ishi was given a horse of his own, one from a fallen cavalryman. That horse would now be Ishi’s property. That wasn’t too bad, Ishi thought. Although the young military scout usually sought to keep his responsibilities in life to a minimum, a horse of his very own would only add to his mobility and independence. The animal was skittish and scared from whatever altercation it had been in recently that had taken the life of its previous master. As Ishi approached it, it was taking the full time attention of two soldiers to keep it under any semblance of control. Daichi knew of Ishi’s mystical connection to Nature and probably realized that if Ishi could get this animal handled, that would free up two of his men to return to the fight.

Ishi nodded to the horse’s two handlers. “You can let go, now. I’ve got this one.”

Ishi recognized one of the men holding the horse, and that man nodded, letting go of the animal and stepping away. The other man didn’t know Ishi’s reputation, and though he also obeyed and let go, he had a look of disbelief on his face.

Ishi walked forward with his hands out toward the spooked horse. He spoke kind, gentle, soothing words and reached out to its animal spirit with his ki just as he had reached out to the forest to start his limbwalking meditation.

To the amazement of the unbelieving soldier, the horse stepped forward to meet Ishi halfway and nuzzled him. Ishi whispered to the animal and then calmly mounted it. “Thank you for taking care of him until I got here,” he said to the soldiers.

“Not a problem, sir. We’ll return to the front now.” Ishi rankled a little bit at being called “sir”, although it was proper for Ishi’s official rank and station.

Ishi got his new horse up to the top of a small rise from which his brother Daichi was viewing the entire conflict just in time. The oni that Ishi had limbwalked back to the battle to warn the Mishimoto commander about were starting to emerge from the forest behind them, dropping their invisibility to engage in maximum terror from their demonic visages and their huge size. The smallest of the oni were head and shoulders taller than a human soldier.

Thanks to Ishi’s warning, Diachi had instructed the soldiers back there to fall back and feign being routed. The oni dashed forward, their claws and giant-sized weapons driving the Mishimoto warriors before them. For a few moments, it looked as if the oni from the rear would squeeze the forces of Clan Mishimoto against the bakemono forces in front of them in a pincher movement of death and slaughter.

Then, the oni, instead of roaring in demonic glee, began to roar in shock, pain, and surprise. Ishi, mounted on his new horse next to Daichi and his magnificent steed, could see that the trees themselves had begun to animate, to attack the oni and ignore the Mishimoto forces.

“That’s your surprise you said you had back there, brother. You got Sha’nom to join this battle. What did you offer him?”

“His usual fee.”

Sha’nom Sha’ori was a shugenja of considerable power. Most shugenja, by the time they reached his power level, cut their ties with society and relocated themselves deep into natural surroundings somewhere. The shugenja who were available to local villagers, while they were able to heal, to offer spiritual advice, to appease bothersome spirits, and so on, were not mighty figures on a battlefield, able to command the trees themselves as Sha’nom was doing from wherever he was. While it was true that more powerful shugenja existed deep within the forests and mountains, finding them to speak with them could require long, time-consuming quests. Sha’nom Sha’ori was easy to find. He enjoyed people and was often filling the role of prankster or jester in a village somewhere.

Oni were strong, but the trees were stronger. Also, the trees didn’t need sight, so those oni who tried to flee invisibly found that being unseen didn’t help them get away. Tree branches impaled the giant demons. Their weapons were snatched from their grasp by vines and tendrils. Similarly the bakemono, both small and great, in front of the Mishimoto lines found that their legs were entwined in the grass and weeds of the battlefield, suddenly grown to impossible lengths. The Mishimoto archers were able to pincushion the immobilized bakemono to death with ease. The oni that were not killed outright by the trees, fled, some of them sacrifing limbs that they would grow back later to escape the murderous trees.

As Ishi and his brothers watched the battle cleanup begin, a common housecat, black in color, wandered out of the woods and metamorphosed into a short human man, wearing simple robes with a belt from which hung a small collection of pouches and other accoutrements.

“Greetings Sha’nom Sha’ori of the Deep Forest. Clan Mishimoto thanks you for your assistance today. The Oni Overlord will be licking his wounds for a long time after this.”

“Yeah, I owed that prick some pain,” the shugenja replied.

“Will you join us as our guest for a time. My father is always pleased to host you at our estate. He enjoys your visits, as does our entire clan.”

Ishi thought perhaps saying the entire clain was a bit much. Although Ishi had nothing against the shugenja, there were those who lived at the clan compound who found his eccentricity and his penchant for practical jokes annoying.

“I’d be delighted. Does your father’s garden still grow catnip?”

“Expressly for your enjoyment when you visit.”

“Then how can I refuse such a gracious host?”

Sha’nom transformed back into a black housecat and leaped gracefully onto Ishi’s saddlebags, where he found a perch from which to enjoy his ride to Ishi’s father’s estate. Ishi knew this cat form was not any kind of sorcery on Sha’nom’s part. The shugenja was a cat yokai. His true form was the cat and it was his human form that was an enchanted form. Yokai, animals that could transform into humans, were not uncommon in the lands of the Shogun, though sometimes they found themselves the subject of superstition and fear.

“Before we go, brother, I need to retrieve my bow. I had to leave it behind to travel fast for my warning of the oni to be timely.”

“Of course, such a fine weapon should not be left behind.”

Once they were traveling alone on Ishi’s new horse to retrieve his bow, the two friends were able to converse freely. Sha’nom changed into his human form ot facilitate this.

“I see you’re still Daichi’s battlefield scout. Why did you leave your bow behind? That doesn’t sound like something you’d do.”

“It got in the way of limbwalking.”

“Limbwalking? You’ve grown in power, my friend.”

“Look who’s talking. You must have commanded dozens of trees back there. You do more than drink, smoke, and roll around in catnip. You’ve got real power.”

“Perhaps,” the young shugenja seemed thoughtful. “I sense something is about to change for us, both of us, and I don’t know what it is.”

“To our friendship?” Perhaps it was his mystical connection to Nature, but whether it was that or not, the cat yokai had formed a genuine friendship with Ishi. It’s not that Sha’nom disliked other humans, it was just that Sha’nom tended to treat other humans as a cat might treat them, being fickle and aloof toward them.

“No. Not that. It’s a new part of our lives starting.”

They retrieved Ishi’s bow and returned to the Clan Mishimoto forces.

Two days later, Daichi’s forces, including Ishi and Sha’nom, reached the Mishimoto Estate. Upon entering the compoud, servants sought out Ishi immediately, seeing to the needs of his horse and informing him that his father required his presence immediatey, before he even took off his armor or refreshed himself. Since Sha’nom was a favorite guest of Daimyo Mishimoto, he accompanied Ishi, in human form, to the office of the Lord of the Estate. Ishi wondered what could be so important that his father wanted to see him immediately. He hoped it wasn’t something that would tie him down or limit his freedom.