Preface

When the steel song of clashing death roars, it is only a matter of time before fear finds the samurai.

You’re in the middle of a raging torrent of screaming devils, brought together by the opposing rivers of war. Teeth are ground to nubs, under the helmets of soldiers in the midst of chaos. Confusion of battle threatens to break every single man, one at a time.

The distant ring of blades is ever-present.
A thundering of feet on soil, which you feel more than you hear.
The whiff of the closest katanas are high and clear. They rip through the air with a sonic boom that only you can sense, and those are the ones that are coming for you.

Hundreds of arrows pock the sky, one sends mud splashing across your shins as it claims its stake; a spot of dirt turned wet with blood and sweat.
The thick haze hanging, in wait for the next rain of cowardly execution.

Sometimes death comes slow, with a splintery crack of your armor, as if it were in the jaws of a giant animal. Other times it comes quick, accompanied only by the high scream of an ineffective iron defense.
Most will die in agony, their limbs severed, their organs punctured, a stream of blood washing out of them into the mix.
The lucky ones are dropped, crippled and forgotten, left to finish themselves with their own wakizashi;

honor still in tact.