The last dragon king, p.23
The Last Dragon King, page 23
part #8 of The Year of the Dragon Series
“That’s right,” she said. “Not plain steel.”
A gust of wind blew past her: Chiyo moved forward, lightning fast even compared to Dōraku. For a moment, the Renegade lost his focus, unsure whom to follow. In the corner of her eye Azumi spotted an old man; his left hand reaching for a short sword; his right hand missing several fingers. She recognized him from the pre-mission briefing: Shimazu Nariakira, the secondary target. She lunged towards him, aiming for the throat. The Renegade’s blades whistled inches behind her back. She whirled around Nariakira, grabbed him by the shoulder, pressed the sickle blade to his neck — and felt a strong elbow blow to her plexus. In a blink of an eye Nariakira snaked out of her grasp with agility defying his old, bulky frame. She blinked, surprised.
Only now she noticed a glass vial and a needle sticking out of his arm. His skin was bluish red, with blood pulsing at an accelerated rate through his vein. Whatever substance was in the vial, it enabled him to move, at least, in the same plane of time as Azumi and Dōraku. The short blade in his hand vibrated and shimmered with the deep black of the Otherworld.
Bataavian Living Iron.
In the corner of her eye she saw Dōraku rush after Chiyo towards the veiled dais. It was just her and the daimyo now. She no longer cared for feints and distractions. Blocking his weapon with the shaft of the sickle, she thrust the kodachi into his chest. The blade slid on the armour he wore under his robes and pierced a deep gash in his stomach. Blood spurted in a violent fountain.
She drew back and raised the sword to finish him off with a blow to the neck when the world around them exploded.
They’re already here?
Bran sensed the two dragons clearly. Their Farlink signatures matched those of Edern’s mount, Nodwydd — which meant that Gwen had returned South — and Cenhinen, the green youngling ridden by Wulfhere. But they were much nearer than he’d expected. The last information he’d had from Gwen indicated the Imperial Army should have been fighting its way down the mountain valleys north of Kurume. Instead, the dragon signs flashed much further north, around Kokura and Chōfu.
Did Mori join the Rebels? Are they already on Hondo?
This was bad. They were moving too fast. He thought he’d have had more time to prepare them for the incoming onslaught. He didn’t know how far behind him the Blue Wings were — he no longer sensed Satō, or the tangled mass of the Shadows’ hive mind — but it couldn’t be more than a few days.
It reminded him of the math task he hated at the Academy. Two Atmospheric locomotives: one starts from Brigstow, the other from Lundenburgh … When they hit, how loud will the crash be? How many people would die? He could never get past the image of the disaster to focus on the calculations. It was the same now. He had never seen a real battle before, but he could imagine it: the clash of armies and fleets; the roaring dragons; swords hacking; shots firing; explosions throwing limbs and dirt in the air; the smell of burned flesh. And in the middle of all this, he and Satō. Dylan, Gwen, Edern — even Wulf …
At least Nagomi is safe, he thought.
He reached the mountainous cape which formed the eastern shore of the Dan-no-Ura Strait. Beyond it lay Kokura and Chōfu, twin castle towns, like rooks on the chessboard, eyeing each other across the straits. He focused on the Farlinks one last time to get a more precise location. He didn’t need the map anymore — he knew this part of the world all too well.
They can’t be … What are they doing there?
Emrys climbed over the ridge, giving him a full view of the straits spread out before him like a painting. The Kokura side arched to his left; to the east and south, the castle too far yet to be seen through the haze. Chōfu was nearer — no longer smouldering, but still a black ruin; its coast now hidden from sight by a forest of masts and sails of what he assumed was the Rebel fleet. And between the two shores, the elongated diamond, like an arrowhead aimed at Chinzei, still reeking of blood and evil: Ganryūjima.
There was something strange going on at the boat anchorage off to its western shore. He raised a spyglass to the eye and saw a group of warriors pushing their way further into the island; past a wall of desperate defenders; through exploding fireballs and gun blasts. In the middle of the defensive line roared a whirlwind of dust, black smoke, flame and lightning. He put the spyglass away and bade Emrys dive down towards the beach.
The middle of the island heaved and burst open with a roar of a hundred thunderbolts.
CHAPTER XX
As soon as they climbed to the top of the low-rising sand dune, Tokojiro realized they were against a formidable opponent. Smoke and dust concealed the full extent of the fighting on the beach but, even so, he saw at least half a dozen bloodied bodies strewn on the sand among the smouldering craters and shattered remains of the moored boats.
It wasn’t obvious at first how the assailants were able to prevail against the onslaught thrown at them by the island’s defences. Satsuma’s wizards and the Kiheitai soldiers raised a wall of magic barrage between themselves and the beach, casting missiles of fire, ice, and lightning over the heads of guardsmen fighting in the melee.
Compared to this small army, there seemed to be only a handful of the attackers: three boatloads of swordsmen, at most, and no mages, as far as Tokojiro could tell. They were all wearing long, flowing robes, some of green, some azure silk, cut in a way that somehow did not hinder their movements. They moved lightning fast, skipping from one side of the beach to another in a blink of an eye, their swords a whirlwind of steel. Their speed and agility accounted for some of their success, but there had to be something else … Before he guessed at what it was, another dark cloud of soot and burned sand covered the beach from his view.
A lone figure split from the melee and ran up to them: Koyata. He wiped his bloodied kodachi on the tall grass and crouched, panting, clutching a bruised side.
“You have to evacuate the nobles,” he said, between deep breaths. “We can’t hold them for long.”
“Who are they?” asked Tokojiro.
Koyata grinned. “Remember our friend with the broken nose? He’s wearing a new cloak now — a blue one — but I’d know him anywhere. It seems he and his men are harder to get rid of than we thought.”
“Eeeh, but they’re only a handful!” Tokojiro said, failing to hide his fear. “Why haven’t you dealt with them yet?”
“They can’t be killed,” replied Koyata.
Tokojiro glanced to the beach again; now, with clearer understanding of what he was looking at. He realized his eyes had been deceiving him. A blue-robed swordsman was felled by a red-glowing missile shot from a Kiheitai’s bamboo lance. Seconds later, he rose again; the smouldering hole in his chest sealing rapidly.
“Blood magic,” said Takasugi with a snarl.
“Yeah.” Koyata stood up, wincing, and glanced back to the beach. “I’d better go back. Kuso. We’re running short on manpower — if you have any idea how to stop them, it’d be much appreciated.”
“Necromancy?” Commodore Dylan spoke in Seaxe, having come to the similar conclusion on his own. Tokojiro nodded.
The foreigner tutted, rolled up his sleeves and weaved a pattern with his fingers. Both his hands caught ablaze. He started off down the dune slope, striding purposefully, like a fiery spirit of wrath. Tokojiro stared, transfixed, at the sheer power emanating from the man, before Captain Takasugi snapped him back to reality.
“You two: help hold the left flank.” Koyata and Tokojiro nodded. “I need to bring a semblance of order to this mess.”
With numb fingers Tokojiro drew his gun and followed after Koyata. The cold touch of the inlaid steel grip was reassuring in the heat of the magic battle. The weapon’s elemental chamber held enough energy to fire six precise bolts of lightning before having to recharge. Without it, he’d never charge into a fight with blood-enhanced swordsmen. With it, he felt almost equal to the magic users … He gripped it tighter.
Either way, it’s madness.
He only needed a few moments to realize Koyata was right — they needed to evacuate the Mikado and the daimyos before their ranks were overwhelmed. He recognized a few enemy faces from the fighting in Heian and Naniwa. Others, most of them wearing green robes, were unfamiliar. He guessed the colour of the robes signified allegiance to a particular Head of the Serpent — the green was the same as worn by the assassin girl who’d attacked them on the sea. That was all he had time to ponder. Two of the blue-clad warriors broke through the ranks of the Satsuma spearmen and, shrugging off a powerful fireball shot from somewhere at the rear, charged at the group of fighters which included Koyata and himself. Tokojiro raised the pistol and squeezed the trigger twice. He didn’t need to aim — the enemies were running straight at him. A double thunderclap announced the lightning bolts had found their targets. The swordsmen hit the ground — the weapon had an astonishing stopping power. The Satsuma spearmen recovered and rushed in to fill the gap.
“Always recharge if you have time, even after a single shot.” Tokojiro remembered the advice of the Dracalish soldier who had gifted him with the pistol, and pulled on the lever which set the elementals churning within the crystal glass chamber.
Now he felt more confident. He scanned around, searching for another target. Somewhere in the centre of the battlefield rose a column of bright red flame and golden lightning, intertwined in a tornado of whirling magic. He’d never seen such magic. He guessed it marked the spot where Commodore Dylan was taking a stand against the undead. The foreigner’s energy must have been fuelled by the particular hatred which the Western wizards felt — or so he’d heard — towards Necromancy. He wondered how anyone, even the undying swordsmen, could survive this cloud of power.
We may yet win this.
The pistol let out an electric buzz, letting him know the chamber was full again. He raised it to his only eye, supporting the barrel on an extended forearm, and took a careful aim at the nearest enemy. A pull on the trigger — and half of the swordsman’s face got shorn off by a super-heated bolt. The enemy retreated behind his comrades to recover. Tokojiro nudged the recharging lever.
How are there even wars in the West if they have this kind of power at their disposal?
He had to agree with Lord Nariakira on one account. Giving these weapons to the commoners was a mistake, unless what Takasugi had in mind was a complete and utter downfall of Yamato’s system of power. The moment the civil war was over, the peasants would turn their guns on their masters and massacre them without hesitation.
A rumble of an explosion broke his musings. It came, not from the beach, but from the rear — the middle of the island. A cloud of black smoke in the shape of an upturned bowl rose above the dunes and dissipated quickly in the breeze.
The enclosure! Was the beach attack a ruse?
There was no time to contemplate this new development. A panicked shout rippled through the ranks.
“The centre fell! They’ve broken through!”
Tokojiro didn’t believe it at first, thinking it just another trick. The centre was where Dylan was fighting — and, true enough, the column of flame and lightning still stood fast in the same place as before. But the enemy decided to outflank the lone wizard rather than take him head-on.
Hemmed in between Takasugi’s Kiheitai on the right, and Satsuma’s wizards on the left, the blue- and green-robed swordsmen used the confusion caused by the explosion to charge through the middle, finally managing a solid breakthrough. Both wings of the defence line now found themselves in danger of an attack from the rear.
The Satsuma wizards threw a careless barrage of fireballs between them and the enemy. The effect was quite the opposite to what was intended — in the chaos, most of the missiles struck the ranks of their own infantry, casting the men aside like straw dolls.
The swordsmen turned left to exploit the new breach. Suddenly, Tokojiro was in the middle of a fierce melee. He shifted the pistol to his left hand and drew a sword. The wounds, still sore, rendered him unable to move with enough agility for hand-to-hand combat. He focused on seeking a way to the rear, from where he could again snipe at the enemy.
Soon Koyata appeared beside him, his face flushed red with excitement. He began to pick up the spearmen felled by the magic missiles.
“Stand up, you bastards!” he shouted. “Is this how Satsuma fights? You’re no better than Kiyō town guards!”
As it occurred, most of them were merely stunned. Embarrassed and encouraged by Koyata’s efforts, they formed the nucleus of a counter-attack around him, a wedge spiked with spears. Staring at the chaos around, Tokojiro decided the wedge was the safest place on the battlefield, and joined it at the rear. The spearmen stepped forward, their formation resembling an angry wild boar. Koyata moved to the front, his short sword now more a paddle of command than a weapon. A thunder gun in his other hand — an older, single-shot design — glinted golden with the sun reflecting in its brass trimmings.
It all happened in a blink of an eye, but Tokojiro saw it as if in crisp, slow motion. The enemy’s blade, leaping like a silver viper, kissed Koyata’s chest, then withdrew, seeking another target. A stain of red bloomed on the doshin’s jacket. He made one more step forward before his legs buckled and blood poured from the corner of his mouth.
Tokojiro leapt forward to stop Koyata’s body from hitting the ground. The doshin gasped for air, blood bursting from the hole in his chest with each slowing heartbeat.
“He … got me … good …” he wheezed then chuckled. His eyes turned blank, staring into the cloudless sky. Though the heart still pumped blood out of the wound in frantic bursts, his mind was already gone. Tokojiro laid him carefully on the sand.
Something odd happened to his sight — it was focused on a central spot, with the edges blurred and tinged red, as if he was looking through a piece of stained glass. His mind, too, was focused to the point that he no longer even heard the noises of the battle around him. His muscles tensed to steel and the blood in his veins slowed down. He heard his own steady heartbeat.
All of that occurred in a second between his two breaths. In one breath, he was a grieving clerk, out of his depth, with a dead friend in his arms. In the next, he became an automaton, led by a single, clear purpose. All his thoughts vanished, replaced by a single desire to avenge Koyata’s death. He’d managed to catch a glimpse of the man who had slain the doshin, and recognized the hideous broken nose in an instant. There he was, a whirling dancer of death; his sword a hurricane; each thrust ending with a burst of red; each slash scarring the air with a line of deep crimson.
Tokojiro let out an animal roar, gathering strength and courage. Holding his gun in one hand, he grabbed Koyata’s gun in the other and leapt forward, the pain and wounds forgotten.
Pistols akimbo, he blazed his way past the spearmen and swordsmen, over the bodies and craters. One. An enemy swordsman fell back, throwing his arms apart. Two. Another bent in two, clutching a hole in his stomach. Three. A graze struck a warrior in the face. The fourth shot missed its target. Five, six — two more opponents enveloped in the web of lightning. He squeezed the trigger again, but the spent elementals crackled uselessly in the chamber. He knew it would be a miracle if he’d reached the Broken Nose at all but, somehow, the miracle happened. With his last leap, he raised Koyata’s gun to the surprised face. As he felt the cold blade penetrate his side, he pushed the barrel into the open mouth below the broken nose, and squeezed the trigger.
The charge blew the head open. It burst like a ripe watermelon. Tokojiro clubbed what remained of the enemy’s upper body with his guns, rendering it into a bloody pulp, until he felt light and dizzy. The world swirled around in white fog, and pistols dropped to the scorched ground. He fell onto the mangled corpse, gasping and choking.
As his world darkened, he thought he heard a whoosh of wings and a roar of streaming flame.
A dorako, he thought. We could have used a dorako …
All the guards had gathered in a tight crescent around the sliver of beach. Though still in their disguises, they’d dropped any pretence of looking and acting like commoners; their hands on the grips of their swords, and their limbs positioned in a watchful stance, ready to spring to the Mikado’s defence at any moment.
But Mutsuhito had ordered them to wait, and so they waited; watching, as he and Nagomi waded into the lapping waves of a rising tide.
“Nothing’s happening,” he said. The sea went back and forth at their feet, just as it always had. “What was it that you wanted to show me?”
She sensed them — the wights of Dan-no-Ura, waiting, bubbling, simmering under the surface. Angry. Seething. The straits had looked different when they’d crossed it that night when Ganryū fell, when the storm threw raging billows against their horses, and the wights rose from the sea to push them back on land or drown them in the foam.
The storm was not coming now — the sea was calm, even though on the horizon loomed the black ribbon of the Divine Winds, closer than ever. She recited all the prayers she knew. The holy glow illuminated her hands and body from within; an occurrence she no longer found startling. Still nothing happened. The Spirits waited, as if sleeping, on the bottom of the sea, reminiscing their past victories and mourning their past defeats.
“They don’t know you, heika” she said.
“Who doesn’t?”
She turned to him. “You must introduce yourself. Tell them you’re the heir of Antoku. Then they’ll know.”
“What does — ooh.” He put a hand to his mouth. “Dan-no-Ura.”
She nodded. “The wights of the Taira army.”
“Yes. I understand.”
He waded deeper into the waves. The tide reached almost to his waist. The samurai guards moved closer, tightening their ranks. He cleared his throat.
