Shallows of Night - 02 (29 page)

Tuolin unsheathed his sword as did Ronin and Kiri. All about them were confusion and disarray as soldiers scrambled for their weapons. Fires guttered and flickered out as if by a strong wind, although the air was calm.

Mist rolled in, sweeping through the meadow and into the encampment, and there was a choking stench as the enemy advanced, the first wave already past the hapless outer patrols. The scimitars swung darkly in whooshing arcs, cleaving a hideous harvest in this sorcerous high summer.

Still within the long grass, the gaunt warriors whirled their chains, the deadly globes hissing in the night like locusts, crushing flesh and bone indiscriminately, and the groans of the dying mingled with the wet slap and crunch of the reaving.

Ronin leapt forward with a cry and his blade swept to and fro in mighty two-handed slashes, ripping into the torsos of those wide men closest to him. They squealed and backed into each other, bewildered, and he stepped into their midst, using oblique blows now, slicing into the juncture of neck and collarbone of one warrior, withdrawing his sword and, in the same motion, decapitating another.

Beside him came Tuolin and Kiri, hacking at the warriors as if they were wild foliage. He concentrated, moving slowly forward, his blade singing its fiery song of death, gleaming, running with blood. He hammered at them without letup, his heart thudding in his chest, his arms electric with the power of the destruction he was reaping, no longer conscious of the peripheral sights and sounds of the night; he was intent, content as he hammered at them, severing bodies which convulsed and spurted their liquids hotly about his swaying form. His muscles rippled and glistened with a fine film of sweat, beaded with sprays of his enemies’ blood and entrails, and he grinned in savage delight. He clove a warrior from shoulder to ribcage on a forward swing, slashed into the midsection of another on his backward arc.

Near him, Kiri was nearly disemboweled as she watched horrified and fascinated. She parried at the last instant and turned her face away from him, working at her own task.

At their backs, they heard Rikkagin Wo’s voice lifted in sharp command. Men ran everywhere, attempting to form themselves into defense lines, but it seemed useless; the warriors moved inexorably forward. The mist rolled past them and over the soldiers, burning their calves with cold. And more of the gaunt warriors appeared as their shorter compatriots fell beneath the swords of the soldiers. These were destroying the rikkagin’s men with terrifying expertise. They carried round iron shields, in addition to their weapons, which seemed much too heavy for any man to wield effectively; yet these warded off most of the soldiers’ blows while, with their other hands, the fanged spheres described their tight orbits, exploding with terrible impact.

Ronin felt himself engulfed in a dark tide, no longer an individual, another piece of floating flotsam carried along by the undertow. He fought and the warriors fell before his blurred blade like wheat before a scythe but always there were others to take the place of the fallen, as if in each individual’s death two more were created.

Onward he waded, the footing unsure and gluey with the innards of the fallen as he made his laborious way out into the meadow to meet the gaunt deathhead warriors. Tuolin and Kiri were just behind him. The rikkagin’s great blade lifted and fell and in his left hand was the emerald-hilted dirk with which he slashed and parried. For her part, the Empress was using her sword with consummate skill. Her breastplate was shiny, sodden with blood and splattered gore, her black hair had slipped its bonds and now whirled about her, a dark mantle.

With an enormous swipe that ripped apart a barrel chest, Ronin went through the outer fringes of the wide warriors and for the first time in many moments there was space around him. The still air was alive with the harsh whisper of the globes. The last of the soldiers went down, his head smashed open like a ripe fruit, and he peered into the roiling night at the grinning faces, as white now in the guttering firelight as the pallid poppies. Their sunken eyes were featureless holes with no discernible trace of iris or pupil; their heads turned on their spindly spines as they looked about them.

Ronin lifted his blade and went in quickly, driving it down in a blur, through the collarbone of one of the warriors. The neck was severed and the head flew from the bony shoulders. There was no blood but a shower of gray dust which plumed momentarily, spitting shards of vertebrae from its periphery. The decapitated torso came at him, its arm still lifted, the fanged globe whirring, and he was obliged to duck the blow that came. A hissing passed over him as he crouched and the creature, shuddering now, stumbled on its nerveless legs and collapsed.

At that moment he felt a titanic wrench and his blade went spinning to the sodden ground. He lurched forward and almost fell on top of the gaunt corpse. He turned, saw another deathhead warrior whipping back the globe that had slammed into his sword. It advanced upon him, the deadly sphere a menacing blur.

The creature leaned back and the globe came at him with such speed that its fangs grazed his cheek even as he jerked away. He risked a glance downward, saw that he was too far from his sword to risk lunging for it and the gaunt warrior was circling so that he was now between Ronin and the weapon.

Ronin turned his body sideways, waited for the next swing, counting to himself so that the timing would be perfect. The globe glistened as it came at him and he was away, counting again to be certain of the rhythm. He timed his dive to coincide with the peak of its arc away from him to give himself the maximum amount of time.

He hit the ground and rolled onto the warrior he had just slain, his fingers scrabbling along the moist earth for the chain and globe. The long grass made it difficult to locate but his peripheral vision had picked up where it had fallen when the warrior fell and now he had it and he was rolling. He regained his feet and went down immediately to avoid the globe.

Whir. The other’s weapon was circling again and he swung his own globe, gaining momentum, but the fangs loomed at him without warning and he had time but to throw up his globe reflexively. The chains clashed, momentum taking the globes and whipping them around as the chain entwined.

The gaunt warrior pulled viciously and Ronin, caught off balance, was jerked forward, slamming into his adversary. The skeletal figure bent and the head darted toward him, the mouth opening impossibly wide. Filed yellow teeth, long and ragged, snapped hideously at his face and he writhed away just in time. The clashing jaws pursued him as he attempted to disengage himself. But to break free now was to lose his only weapon. Snap, snap. The neck, long and willowy, brought the fangs at him again and again.

Still holding onto the chain, Ronin brought his left hand up and, balling the Makkon gauntlet into a fist, he smashed upward into the working mouth. Shards of fractured teeth rained upon them both and Ronin punched once more and the thing let go of his weapon, bringing his shield up with both hands.

Ronin whirled the spiked globe and aimed it. The bony skull caved in, the entire left side crushed, and the thing went down on its bony knees. Ronin hit it again and the warrior keeled over as its knees splintered and the bones in its legs cracked.

Ronin ran for his sword then, dropping the chain and globe and, grasping it, turned back into the fray. The soldiers were dying under the assault of the deathhead warriors.

He heard Tuolin’s shout and, looking around, he located the tall rikkagin. He moved off in this direction, dodging hissing spheres. He saw Kiri fighting at Tuolin’s side.

“We cannot hold against them, Ronin,” he panted as he hacked at a skeletal figure. “The encampment is routed, I fear. We must find Wo and marshal the remaining men in a retreat to Kamado.”

Ronin looked about them. The gaunt warriors were advancing steadily and were now within the perimeter of the pavilions. The moans of the dying were in his ears as he retreated with Tuolin and Kiri back to the pavilions, slashing at their foes with each step. Firelight blazed up briefly and he saw a tent bursting into flames. There were screams from soldiers trapped inside.

The night was streaked with yellow and orange and heat danced in waves, alternating with the chill. The earth steamed whitely until they could no longer see their boots. Kiri slipped and fell over a body, her head cracked against a skull, and when she lifted her face, her forehead was black and shiny with blood. Ronin lifted her, her hand grasping his arm, and they went on, through the narrow dark lanes between the canvas walls, ducking flames, hacking at the wide warriors who blocked their way. The ground was muddy with viscous liquids and soft things squished under the soles of their boots. More pavilions began to smoke and crackle with flame.

Just ahead of them, the green canvas wall of a pavilion bulged and ripped open, three men tumbling through, slashing at each other. A wide warrior hit the ground at a bad angle and his neck snapped. At the same instant a deathhead warrior swung his globe, smashing the breastbone of the soldier, who moaned and folded in upon himself.

Ronin’s blade struck off the head of the gaunt warrior and the skeleton body crashed backward into the pavilion’s interior.

They went on, Tuolin leading them now, searching through the frenzy for the yellow and blue pavilion, picking their way through the grisly litter strewn across the earth like stinking loam.

It was already in flames when they reached it, sheets of orange sparks cracking open the night. They swept aside the burning walls and went in, finding Rikkagin Wo armless, his shoulder sockets crimson. White bones protruded pinkly. One side of his head was a pool of blood and pulpy matter. His face was untouched.

Tuolin took them out of the burning pavilion. A shower of bright sparks fell along their shoulders. Outside, the night had heated up. Flames crackled everywhere. They ran into a pack of the wide warriors and slew them. They backed away from Ronin and he went after them, back into the torched pavilions, and Tuolin was obliged to take him by the shoulder and turn him around. More of the deathhead warriors were arriving.

“We have lost the field this night, Ronin,” he said. “We must return to the fortress.”

They went out of the encampment, the earth once again firm beneath their feet, along the black and deserted road leading to the bridge. Blood rolled off them like black rain. They were numb and sick at heart. Onto the bridge, the screams and crunchings following them like living creatures. No other sound could be heard. No insect trilled; no bird called to its mate.

A wind had sprung up from the northwest, chilling, plucking at their sodden cloaks, twanging the ropes on the bridge. Below them, the water whooshed by, pale, ribboning in the gloom, swirling against the black rocks.

It was quieter now and the night lit up as they passed a stand of tall firs and the illumination of the flames reached them again. And Ronin was singing all at once at the shadows looming grayly between them and the sanctuary of Kamado. They had been waiting for retreating soldiers, standing in the shadows midway across the bridge. Only the flickering firelight had betrayed them and the night was abruptly filled again with the hiss and whir of the fanged globes. One gaunt warrior swung into Tuolin’s side before he had a chance to react. Ronin heard his sharp exhalation like a dull explosion as he swung in a short oblique arc, severing the chain. The rikkagin clutched at his bleeding side, leaning on the guide ropes along the bridge’s edge. His legs began to buckle and blood oozed through his fingers.

Kiri moved in front of the big man, slashing within the guard of a warrior, her blade sinking into its narrow chest. Its head weaved on its long neck and it threw its shield at her. It slammed into her shoulder as she attempted to twist away, caroming over the side of the bridge, its flight a dull booming in their ears. She staggered and her guard came down and the wounded warrior launched his globe.

Two of the warriors pressed Ronin back, attempting to split him off from the other two, but he counterattacked, his blade blurring whitely, lashing out at the two globes filling the air around him like flying creatures.

Tuolin was panting, his face a pale mask of pain. He tried to lift his blade. Sweat broke out on his face with the effort.

Near him, Kiri pressed her attack, rolling to avoid the warrior’s blow, leaping up and slamming her boots into its stomach. She swung at him, two-handed, her feet wide apart and planted firmly, swinging up, from the hip, the power traveling into her shoulders, along her arms, the momentum flashing the blade in the night. It clove into the warrior’s skull, down from the cranium into the blackness of its eye, crashing at length into the roof of its mouth. The skull flew apart like a shell, the bone fragments whirring and pattering around her. The body folded and went down heavily.

She turned then, eyes flashing, and in one long beautiful sweep of her sword cut through the torso of one of Ronin’s foes. The head swiveled even as she began to withdraw the blade and the gnashing mouth reached for her. Startled, she stepped back and almost fell off the slickened verge of the bridge. The teeth clashed together as the torso fell at her feet.

Ronin swept aside the whistling sphere, timing it perfectly so that he deflected its flight back into the warrior’s face. As it jerked desperately away from the oncoming globe, its head whipped directly into the path of Ronin’s extended blade, flying apart in a gray flurry of bone and dust.

Another deathhead came at Kiri and she calmly cut its legs under it. Ronin saw her wince with the blow. With a second swipe, she sent the collapsing body over the brink, a bony blur cartwheeling out of sight. But she was spent now, the blow from the heavy iron shield taking its toll, and she stood, gasping, leaning on her sword while her thighs trembled with fatigue.

Ronin heard a grunt and swung around. The last of the gaunt warriors had taken his severed chain and had wrapped it around Tuolin’s neck, the silvered links biting into his flesh. The inconstant light of the flames played over their struggling bodies, the one wiry and stooped now, yellow as old bone, the other twisting in pain, dark with running blood. The rikkagin’s eyes bulged and his empty hands scrabbled uselessly at the metal links tightening about his throat. Blood pooled at his feet.