Sunset Warrior - Shallows Of Night Part 23

Still holding onto the chain, Ronin brought his left hand up and, bailing 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 his weapon, bringing his s.h.i.+eld 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 a.s.sault 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, slas.h.i.+ng 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 s.h.i.+ny 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, slas.h.i.+ng 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, smas.h.i.+ng 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 skeletal 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, tw.a.n.ging 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 pa.s.sed a stand of tall firs and the illumination of the flames reached them again. And Ronin was swinging 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, slas.h.i.+ng within the guard of a warrior, her blade sinking into its narrow chest. Its head weaved on its long neck and it threw its s.h.i.+eld 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, las.h.i.+ng out at the twoglobes 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 flas.h.i.+ng the blade in the night. It clove into the warrior's skull, down from the cranium into the blackness of its eye, cras.h.i.+ng at length into the roof of its mouth. The skull flew apart like a sh.e.l.l, the bone fragments whirring and pattering around her. The body folded and went down heavily.

She turned then, eyes flas.h.i.+ng, 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 gnas.h.i.+ng mouth reached for her. Startled, she stepped back and almost fell off the slickened verge of the bridge. The teeth dashed 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 s.h.i.+eld 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.

Ronin leapt at the thing, grasping its wide shoulders, attempting to wrest it away from Tuolin. The head swiveled and the jaws gaped, snapping at him. He raised his sword but he lacked the room to use it and he could not step away and attack the warrior for fear of cutting the big man.

The creature's head snaked forward while he was thus debating and caught the blade in its mouth, the teeth gripping it so that Ronin could not pull it away. Still the warrior heaved on the chain and Tuolin sagged, choking on his own exhalations as his lungs vainly strove for air. His knees buckled and the deathhead warrior pulled mightily on the chain, the grinding sound of the links tightening unnaturally loud in the night.

Only Ronin's left hand was free, his right was trapped on the hilt of his blade and he dared not let go. He brought the hand up, using the thumb at his opponent's neck,pressing in through the small s.p.a.ce under his horizontal sword. Just above the base of the neck, he located the triangular soft spot and lunged inward, puncturing the throat. Fetid gas swirled at him and he gasped, turning his head away, ripping upward along the stalklike neck with his thumb. The long teeth rattled against the smooth metal of his blade and the grip of the powerful jaws loosened as the thing tried to regain its breath. He drove inward then, using the full weight of his body through his right hand, and the keen edge of his blade swept before him, unstoppable, shearing through the warrior's skull.

Ronin slammed the corpse aside, working frantically on the chain still tightly bound around Tuolin's throat. The bony hands refused to relinquish their hold on the links, though the body was half slumped over the side of the bridge. And Ronin pried at the fingers, staring into the rikkagin's pinched face. His skin had a blue tinge around the eyes.

Kiri was there, then, using a small curved knife to slash at the clenched bones, shearing through the knuckles until one by one they came apart. With a harsh grate, the links slid back slowly as Ronin forced the chain from around the big man's neck.

He caught him as he fell.

It had begun to snow, the large white flakes sheeting down obliquely, dusting the corpses on the bridge, their faces white masks already, sparkling in the flickering glow from the encampment They hissed in the flames and Kiri shuddered, thinking of the spinning fanged globes.

She turned, holding her left arm to her side, tucked in, using her hipbone as support for the weight to ease the pain in her shoulder.

Ronin sheathed his sword and scooped Tuolin into his arms.

"Now, Kiri," he called, pus.h.i.+ng her before him. They sprinted across the remaining expanse of the bridge and onto the high road stretching uphill to Kamado.

They were met by soldiers who escorted them to the towering walls, calling to the guards at the postern. The metal-bound gates creaked open just enough for them to slip through. Then they swung shut with an echoing clang.

There was an immediate tumult around them. Ronin delivered up the rikkagin into the hands of his men, his neck torn and black with terrible marks, his s.h.i.+rt and leggings dripping blood; they bore him away to his barracks. Ronin followed, his arm around Kiri as she struggled against unconsciousness. He declined the soldiers'

aid but when he stumbled they took her from him and two of them lifted her up the barracks steps and through the entrance. Ronin sank down on the steep steps, too weary to go any farther.

After a time a man came out of the barracks and sat down beside him.

"He almost died."He was tall and wide-shouldered, with graying hair and a full but close-cut beard.

His nose was long and curving; his eyes were black.

"T'ien's own physician is inside if you need attention."

"I am tired," said Ronin. "That is all."

"Perhaps he had better see you anyway."

He called for the physician, who came out and grunted when he saw Ronin. He was the one from aboard Tuolin's s.h.i.+p. While he worked, the other said, "Good for us that he did not die, eh?" Then, more softly, "What is your name?"

"Ronin."

"I am Rikkagin Aerant."

Ronin leaned his head against the wooden banister. The ancient G.o.ds of war, carved into the columns, looked blankly out at the darkness.

"You saved his life."

"What?" There was a stinging along his shoulders.

"Tuolin told me that you saved-"

"Do you always call him by his other name?"

"We are brothers."

Ronin turned his head. "You hardly look it." The physician finished tying the bandages. He went back inside.

"We had different fathers."

"I see." He thought of nothing.

"I can help you."

Ronin ran a hand over his face. "How?"

"Tell me what happened."

Rikkagin Aerant nodded his head as Ronin related the events in the encampment.

"Best that Wo is dead, truly. His mind was closed to this war; he was so used to fighting Reds and the northern tribes that he could not see that the war had changed."

"How could he explain the warriors who do not bleed?"

Rikkagin Aerant shrugged. "The military mind can rationalize any situation. He lacked imagination." He brushed at his leggings. "Pity. He was a fine leader."

"He was unprepared for that attack."

"Yes. I would dearly like to know how they got through the perimeter so easily."

"Tuolin told you-"

His face was bright in the torchlight "Yes. I have seen this thing which you havefought."

"You told Wo?"

Rikkagin Aerant laughed shortly. "I told no one but Tuolin and even he-" His eyes were like cool crystal, they were open and keenly intelligent "You know, even brothers do not love each other all the time."

"He wanted to go with me."

"He will not have that now." Several sentries ran by, their boots echoing against the wooden walls. The snow had ceased for the moment, but the sky was low and the air felt heavy and damp. "It is best that way."

"Do you wish to go?"

Rikkagin Aerant turned his head away. A dog barked along the next block of barracks. "I do not know. But it does not matter. I am needed here. I will send you two Reds. They were born in this region."

"All right."

He stood up, his eyes dark and unreadable as he stared down at Ronin.

"Perhaps you will return."

He went off down the muddy street.

Snow fell quietly along the ramparts, dampening the sc.r.a.pe of the guards' high boots against the stone. It pattered about him, obscuring the last dying embers sparking in the ashes of the encampment, a wan carpet humped along the earth, hiding the bodies of the fallen combatants.

It was still in Kamado save for the crunch of an occasional group of soldiers on patrol. Soft voices floated up to him for a moment and then were gone in the hissing of the snow. He pulled his cloak closer about his shoulders. The pain there was lessening. He willed his mind to be blank, not wanting to antic.i.p.ate.

He saw Kiri walking along the ramparts, searching for him. He called wordlessly to her.

"How is your shoulder?" he asked.

"Better." She sat beside him. "The bone was knocked out of the socket. He is very good." She meant the physician.

He nodded into the night.

She put a hand along his arm, ran it upward. "There is a room in the barracks."

"I do not think so."

"I will return to Sha'angh'sei at dawn. I must talk to Du-Sing. The Greens and Reds must unite now.""Yes."

"And you must go into the forest at first light." Her breath ran in warm white puffs against the side of his face. "Why not?"

He looked into her face. "You have changed."

He did not know what he expected to see there but he was surprised. She looked humiliated, her cheeks flus.h.i.+ng pink.

"Of course. Matsu is dead. I am half a person now, not fit to be with." She got up and went away from him, along the white escarpment of the high rampart, disappearing down the steep stairs.

Dawn was a blood-red smear, burning coldly through a long rent in the ma.s.sed gray clouds, pink-edged and pearled now in the east where the bloated oblate disk of the sun rose with agonizing deliberation.

He watched the light come into the world, atop the southern rampart where he had stayed all the long night. The snow had stopped falling just before first light and this day seemed somehow more natural than the last.

Ronin stood up, breathing deeply the chill air, and stretched his cramped muscles.

He peered southward along the barren trail, completely white now. Higher up the snow was pink. He could pick out no imprints and the spa.r.s.e foliage and his angle of elevation made it clear to him that the way was clear back to Sha'angh'sei.

He went down to the barracks. Two short men with long queues and black almond eyes waited patiently for him. A soldier came down the steps with a steaming cup of tea. He took it gratefully and sipped it, savoring its warmth and spice. He declined the bowl of rice.

Kiri was already at the stables. She saddled her luma silently, running her hand constantly down its flanks. His luma snorted and beat its hoofs against the earth as he came in. Straw floated through the air.

She mounted the animal and it pranced in its desire to be away. She pulled hard on the reins to keep it in check. It called to the roan, a plaintive farewell touched with the exultation of the wind and the road, and Kiri pulled again on the reins.

She took the luma out from the stable, Ronin at her side. They went along the quiet streets, the mount's clop-clop m.u.f.fled by the carpet of snow. The luma's head bobbed as it sniffed the cold air, plumes of smoke shooting from its wide nostrils.

Its ears twitched and Kiri spoke to it softly, a singsong litany.