Six Days in Matsugi

The wars are all won and now a shogun sits in power. The demand for swordsmen of any stripe or skill has evaporated. Like orphaned children, masterless samurai roam the land, invariably falling to banditry when no other employment can be found. When one such wretched figure stumbles into the defenseless village of Matsugi, he's given the rare chance to both reclaim his honor and redeem his months of ceaseless wandering – all without a proper sword.

Six Days in Matsugi is a Japanese period drama about one ronin, one village and one week. Written as a sister story to "Six Days in Malt Springs", Matsugi is nonetheless a standalone work and counted as Volume Six in the Year of the Horse Anthology, a collection of monthly short stories by Timothy J. Meyer, released in 2014.