Battle of Great Climb: The pass of Heaven's Stair
 

Four days later

The pass of Heaven's Stair was only 700 years old. Built by a great effort by the Mirumoto and Agasha. The Stair was one of the three passes in the Heartland of the Dragon.

The Stair was built against a 500 foot cliff. 10 serpentining paths.

43 Dragons had made it to the Stair from the mountaineers.

"We need to try to hold the pass for two days," Raiden said.

The lion troops were becoming visible in the distance.

"Two days?"

Kenren templed his hands again and furrowed his eyebrows, the slight frustration within him rising into view on his face.

"Would that we had a Kaiu engineer, or even the ronin 'Siege'. We could use their expertise in fending off an attack like this."

"Two days is a long time Raiden-sama... and there are a lot of Lions coming to kill us, and to keep moving foward." Katsu looked at the oncoming force. "Do you have any plans on how to hold out for that long?"

"No clue."

Taken watched the enemy troops move into the horizon and sighed softly. Not out of fear or resignation for his own death, but rather because of the lion blood that would be shed here. He shook his head however, and stepped forward, looking closer at the troops.

"Archery. We may be a fourth their number, but we have the high ground and knowledge of the terrain. We can rain arrows upon their heads... their numbers will work against them. Even stray shots are likely to hit a man in that mass of flesh and armor..."

"Taken-san has a point. But how many arrows do we have?"

Taindew caught up to the group after a while and started to catch his breath and cath up on the conversation.
"That truley is large odds...should be fun, watch out for the man next to you and we'll make it through, tis my motto." He tossed a knife in the air and caught it then put it away and chatted with the soldiers.

A small figure in red and white with long black hair appeared over the top of the pass. It moved down toward the tents. On closer inspection, the figure appeared to be a young, small girl with big blue eyes, hugging her priestess robes tightly around her to keep out the cold. A pack was slung across her back, a bow and some arrows peeking out of it.

As she came nearer to the tents, her breath was visible in clouds before her mouth, the moisture and hair partially obscuring her abnormal eyes. She shivered and kept on towards the main tent, the command tent, her sandals clicking against the stone stairs.

"We have little over 10 Ya per man, and maybe 4 armor piercers per man."

Memories of Doji Mei flashed through Kenren's head as the priestess-seeming girl approached the tent. If a Pekkle no Oni had found its way into Otosan Uchi, how much easier would it have been to infiltrate the Dragon Heartlands?

No, he thought, blinking the doubt aside.That was five years ago, and in any case, we have greater things to worry about than just one Oni.

He removed the haori from his shoulders and draped it around ehrs, in an effort to keep her warm.

"Ohaiyo, little miss. Why have you come here, of all places?"