Guardian Saviors of Kamigawa: Kamigawa Cycle Book III Read online

  Toshi’s guess was vindicated when the first oni sprang onto the nearest wall. He had seen soratami float on magical clouds, mighty birds that soared under the power of their own wings, and spirits who sailed on the wind itself. Some, like Hidetsugu’s yamabushi, made prodigious, magically assisted leaps to take the high ground whenever they chose.

  Watching the first oni scale up the walls of Oboro like a suction-toed lizard, Toshi knew that it was not magic or air that kept the monster moving upward; it was sheer muscle power. The oni dug fingers and toes deeply into the stone wall, repositioning each individual bone to exert however much pressure was required. The oni would spring, dig into the wall, gather its strength, and then spring again. It all happened so quickly that it seemed like one continuous, fluid motion instead of a brutal tug-of-war between the oni’s muscles and the forces of gravity. In fact, if he didn’t concentrate so hard, the oni slithering up the quadrangle walls almost resembled misshapen drops of red rain flowing up the wall, back to the sky.

  “While the All-Consuming feasts on the academy,” Hidetsugu sneered, “these lesser oni prey upon Oboro. And in many ways,” the ogre paused to nod down at Toshi, “you made this possible. Watch now, and enjoy the view.”

  Toshi was about to speak when the first soratami rose up over the quadrangle. They were tall, lean, willowy creatures with silver-white skin and indistinct features. Their faces were all uniformly thin, pinched, and stoic, their long ears wrapped or pinned tight around their heads. There were almost a dozen in all, each bearing katanas, each borne up by a small white cloud that completely enveloped their feet. Among all the tribes of Kamigawa, the soratami were feared and respected as warriors and scholars, and some even considered them semi-divine beings. Before he had been thrown into conflict with them, Toshi himself had been awed by their reputation from afar and by their presence up close. He didn’t like the soratami, but he knew to take them seriously.

  Counting up the numbers as the oni and soratami converged on each other, Toshi noted, “Your demons are outnumbered two-to-one, Hidetsugu. Against the moonfolk, I wouldn’t choose those odds.”

  “That’s because you’re a soft little human who still bleats and moans to the kami for protection,” the ogre replied without taking his eyes off the impending battle. “Ogres and oni are made of sterner stuff. Be silent and watch.”

  Toshi swallowed his next thoughts and watched. From the sky, the largest and fiercest soratami warrior descended like a bird of prey. From below, the first oni clamored up the wall, its sharp-toothed jaw distended and dripping caustic foam.

  The soratami drew his sword. The oni widened its jaws. Above them both, Toshi winced, anticipating the terrible meeting of these two savage forces.

  One-Eye gave the signal. All around the entrance to Shinka, monsters prepared to pounce, mages prepared to cast, and hatchet-men drew their weapons. It was time to reckon with Hidetsugu.

  One-Eye gestured impatiently at Toshi, who nodded. The ochimusha turned to face the entrance to the ogre’s hut, the paralysis kanji clutched in his hand. The other character on his face still tingled, but it had not yet dried.

  “Hoy,” Toshi called. “You there, in the hut. O-bakemono! Boss Uramon demands satisfaction.”

  Though a dull buzzing roar continued unabated, no new sounds came from inside Shinka. Toshi waited, and before One-Eye could prod him with another gesture, he shouted again.

  “Ogre!” Toshi cupped his hands around his mouth. “You hung Uramon’s last party in your garden. Now she will use your hide for a rug in her dining hall. Her reckoners are here to burn Shinka down around your ears and defile the ashes.”

  The wind shifted. Toshi caught a foul, smoky smell wafting from inside the hut. He could not see through the darkness inside, but he felt something massive moving closer to him. And was that a low, sinister chuckle he heard? The ochimusha swallowed.

  “Last chance,” he shouted. “Face us and fall with as much honor as you have left. There will be none once you die. Face us, or cower there in the dark until we drag you out for Uramon’s justice.”

  The chuckle was unmistakable this time. Toshi wasn’t sure there was an ogre inside the hut, but whatever was in there was amused by what it heard. Toshi shrugged. He knew he was not doing his best work as a provocateur, and he was sure One-Eye would make him suffer for it. Until he had some sort of idea how formidable the o-bakemono was, however, Toshi had no intention of singling himself out for special attention any more than he had to.

  Two red eyes suddenly shined from the entrance to Shinka. Toshi stood rock-still as Hidetsugu squeezed out of the hut, hauling his burly body forward with his massive arms alone. Once his hips cleared the doorway, Hidetsugu drew his legs under him and rose to his full height.

  He wore a simple wrap around his waist and carried a thick, studded tetsubo club. His wild, red eyes were crinkled in something like mirth, and his long, pointed tongue flashed eagerly across his terrible teeth. Hidetsugu opened his arms wide, exposing his broad, muscular chest, and roared defiant laughter.

  The ogre’s size and confidence momentarily startled the assembled reckoners, including One-Eye. The assassin recovered quickly and shouted for the attack to begin.

  Toshi blinked as the reckoners began to chant and charge. When he opened his eyes, Hidetsugu was standing directly in front of him.

  The ogre’s violent joy swept over Toshi like a hot wind. Hidetsugu was smiling down at Toshi, his lips spread wide over interlocking teeth. He squinted slightly, scanning the mark on the ochimusha’s face.

  “Hah!” Hidetsugu laughed. He reached forward with a finger as thick as Toshi’s wrist and playfully nudged the kanji mage.

  Toshi blinked again, and when he opened his eyes the ogre was gone. The space between himself and the entrance to Shinka was completely empty. If he’d wanted to, he could have taken refuge inside the ogre’s own hut.

  Instead, Toshi stood completely still. He didn’t know if he was able to move and he didn’t want to be embarrassed by trying and failing. His heart pounded and cold sweat stuck his linen shirt to his back.

  Behind him, he heard screams intermingled with wet, ripping sounds. Though his life probably depended on doing so, Toshi could not bring himself to turn and see how the ambush was progressing.

  The soratami made only one mistake in engaging the lead oni: he delivered a mortal blow as his first attack.

  The moonfolk’s gleaming sword sliced down through the top of the oni’s head, bisecting its third eye and cleaving the demon’s skull from crown to nose. Driven by momentum and malice, the oni’s body pressed forward, bringing its shattered face into contact with the soratami’s chest and throat. Reflexively, the dead oni’s teeth clamped shut around the warrior’s windpipe. Its grasping claws ripped through the soratami’s torso and then punched through his back. For a moment, the combatants hung in midair with the oni’s body stuck clean through the soratami’s like a living spear. Then the entire grisly mess fell tumbling to the quadrangle below.

  It was a study in the contrasts of combat. The soratami were disciplined, graceful, even elegant with their gleaming blades and razor-sharp throwing spikes. The oni were no less fast or powerful, but they were wild, savage, and unrestrained in their bloodlust. For the first few moments of the brutal skirmish Toshi thought the sides seemed evenly matched, even with the soratami’s superior numbers.

  The tide quickly turned in favor of the oni, however. The demons could still fight after losing an arm, a leg, or as their leader had proved, their head. Maimed or mortally wounded, the oni continued to attack, to tear at the soratami with their teeth, claws, and horns.

  The soratami, on the other hand, felt the impact of their wounds far more keenly. When the moonfolk suffered a deep wound or a broken bone, they hesitated, even faltered. They seemed as pained by the fact that they had been wounded as they did by the wounds themselves. Toshi saw one warrior die with an oni’s horns punched clean through his back, and as the twin points of bone
erupted from his chest, the soratami looked down at them with distaste. Toshi looked twice to confirm what he saw, and yes, the moonfolk’s expression was not one of pain or shock, but of outrage. How dare such base creatures draw blood from one of the moon’s favored children?

  To a warrior, the soratami were more focused, more disciplined, and more efficient than the oni. But the oni were creatures born of chaos and they did not fight in single combat. Instead, they bounded, slithered, and leaped from enemy to enemy, ripping a throat here and plucking an eye there. They seemed completely unfocused on anything but spilling as much soratami blood as possible, but as the battle progressed their tactics proved superior. When the last soratami retreated into the sky on their cloud platforms, there were an identical number of oni in the quadrangle. Hidetsugu’s demons had lost over half their number since the battle started, but they had inflicted far worse on the soratami defenders.

  Now unchallenged, the remaining oni moved across the sapphire paving stones, out of the quadrangle and onto the streets of Oboro. Toshi had very limited experience with oni and hoped to keep it that way, but he knew that these feral brutes would continue to kill whatever they found until they themselves were dispatched.

  “You see, Toshi?” Hidetsugu’s face was alight with joyful malevolence. “There is no need to rush Kobo’s reckoning. While the All-Consuming feasts on Minamo’s secrets, we are teaching Oboro the true meaning of terror. They cannot stop us. They cannot resist us. They cannot retreat, and they cannot avoid us. Soon the entire city will be full of oni.”

  The ogre scooped up Toshi in one hand, bringing the ochimusha close to his broad, flat head. “Then and only then will our work here be done.”

  Toshi struggled in Hidetsugu’s grip. “You’ve made your point, oath-brother. But I am becoming very tired of being hoisted and toted like a jug of wine.”

  The ogre’s fingers relaxed, but he did not let Toshi down. “You raise an interesting point, my friend. After our long history together, you think I owe you more respect.”

  Toshi drew as deep a breath as he could; one could never be sure when Hidetsugu would decide to clench his fist again.

  “Yes, oath-brother,” he said. “I think you owe me a bit more consideration, at least.”

  The ogre’s lip twitched, showing Toshi a flash of gleaming sharp fang.

  “Do I, now?” Hidetsugu’s voice was barely above a growl. “Perhaps I do. Perhaps we should both remember what it is we owe each other.”

  Toshi fought to remain calm. Around them on platforms of amber light, the yamabushi waited for their master’s orders. Below, savage nightmares stalked the streets of the soratami capital.

  And in the center of it all, the founding members of the hyozan reckoners held each other’s eyes without blinking.

  Outside Shinka, Toshi still stood where he had started. He had not moved at all while the battle raged behind him, and he didn’t move now as Hidetsugu began to heap mangled and headless corpses in front of the ochimusha. He was barely willing to adjust his eyes, but Toshi did see the parchment with the paralysis kanji hanging from the back of Hidetsugu’s clothing. He had slipped it onto the ogre’s wrap just as Hidetsugu leaped away from him. Now the parchment fluttered as the ogre went about his grisly work, its symbol whole, complete, and utterly without effect.

  If he dared to move at all, Toshi would have shrugged. He had warned One-Eye it wouldn’t work.

  Judging from the remains, One-Eye and the rest of the magic-using reckoners had all been burned to death in the ambush’s opening seconds. The heavyset assassin’s eye patch was still in place, but the thick wooden square was smoking and seared into his blackened flesh, the cursed eye forever closed behind it.

  Much later, Hidetsugu ambled up to Toshi and sat facing the last of Uramon’s reckoners. He seemed calmer but still dangerous, like a bear after a huge meal. He inspected Toshi standing there with something quite like amusement, and then Hidetsugu gestured at the mark on Toshi’s face.

  “Little kanji mage,” he said, “why did you put that symbol on your face where I could see it? Did you think I wouldn’t recognize it and attack you anyway?”

  Toshi fought to keep his voice calm and his body from trembling. “It was a calculated risk. I don’t really feel the need to die for Uramon, but I wasn’t in a position to refuse her, either. I figured this was the safest way to make you understand: I can’t hurt you, I don’t even want to hurt you … but I will if you hurt me. I just hoped that you’d recognize the reflection kanji and leave me be. It’s not as if there weren’t plenty of other targets, plenty of other reckoners who were actually out to get you.”

  “And if I didn’t recognize it,” Hidetsugu said, “whatever I tried to do to you would come straight back to me. Either way, you win.” The ogre grinned, displaying bloodstained teeth. “In the short term.”

  “Uh, yes,” Toshi said uncomfortably. “I’d be lying if I said that hadn’t crossed my mind.”

  Hidetsugu reached around and plucked the parchment from his wrap. “And this?”

  “That … was his idea.” He gestured to One-Eye near the bottom of the corpse pile. “I advised against it.”

  “But you did it anyway.”

  “I did. You see, I’m nothing if not loyal.”

  The o-bakemono laughed loudly. “That’s the biggest lie you’ve told me yet,” he said. “And yet somehow, I believe it.” The light in Hidetsugu’s eyes darkened, becoming more ominous. “But what am I to do with you now, little reckoner?”

  “Well, I’ve given that some thought, too. I can’t go back home—Uramon will demand to know what happened, and why I was the only survivor. I’m still indentured to her, so technically she owns me.”

  The ogre nodded as he considered Toshi’s position. “Might as well let me devour you now,” he offered.

  “Or,” Toshi said smoothly, “we could come to an arrangement. I’m bound to Uramon, but I don’t want to be. You’re going to keep getting visits from the boss until she’s satisfied, and I bet you don’t want that. I don’t think you’re in any danger,” he nodded toward the corpse pile, “but it could become quite a nuisance.”

  Hidetsugu perched his chin on his clenched fist, hanging on Toshi’s every word. He seemed honestly and thoroughly amused.

  “I’ve been looking into forming my own gang of reckoners,” Toshi said. “The idea came to me when I realized that there’s no way to break a reckoner oath, but you can swear a new one. I figure, why should I put my life on the line for someone just because they own me? If I could get some … serious fellows like yourself to join me, we could get out from under the bosses altogether.”

  “A reckoner gang,” Hidetsugu mused. “Without a boss? That’s almost novel.”

  “Thank you. I figure we’d look out for each other rather than some crimelord’s reputation. And if we were demonstrably … serious, all of the bosses would soon see the value of leaving us alone. They’re all businessmen in the end, and they don’t do things without some form of profit. If it were ruinously expensive to cross us, eventually they wouldn’t bother.”

  “This is an admirable idea you’ve had. What is your name?”

  “Toshi Umezawa,” he said.

  “An admirable idea, Toshi Umezawa. But I see several flaws.”

  The ochimusha swallowed. “Fatal flaws?”

  “Perhaps. First, you are not … serious enough on your own to make the kind of impression a new reckoner gang needs. And more, I doubt someone so young has learned the fine art of a truly binding blood oath.”

  Toshi smiled his most winning smile. “That’s where you come in, noble o-bakemono.”

  Hidetsugu’s nostrils flared. “That’s another flaw. You interest me, ochimusha, but as soon as I no longer feel full, I’m going to bite off your head and swallow it whole.” The ogre’s eyes sparkled and cast out tiny sparks.

  “Oh.” Toshi sagged where he stood. “That’s not good for me.”

  “No. It is not.” Hidetsug
u rocked back and placed his hands palm-up on his knees. He closed his eyes and fell totally still as if meditating.

  Toshi decided to stake everything on one last throw of the dice. “All right,” he said. “What if you take me on as your pupil? I know the o-bakemono train apprentices to maintain their influence. Ogre magic is some of the strongest and most feared in all Kamigawa, but it’s worthless if no one practices it. Teach me, and your name will still be spoken in fearful whispers for generations after you’re dead.”

  Hidetsugu’s eyes remained closed, but he smiled. “You are not as well-informed as you think, my friend. That would also kill you, only it would be much more protracted and painful. None of my last four would-be apprentices survived more than a month.”

  Toshi decided to risk a bit of bravado, hoping it would impress the ogre. “Give me a try. You won’t be disappointed.”

  The o-bakemono’s lids snapped open and he fixed Toshi with a withering stare. “No, ochimusha,” he said. “You are too clever, too independent to be a proper student. And I already have my next two apprentices selected. No, I can save myself a lot of time by killing you now.”

  He extended his hand as if to grab Toshi, but the ochimusha yelled, “Wait! Make me an offer. There must be something that you need or want. Put me to work and we’ll both profit.”

  The ogre’s hand stopped just a few feet from Toshi. He could not see Hidetsugu behind the rough palm and thick, clawed fingers, but he heard the ogre’s voice clearly.

  “You seem remarkably dedicated to striking a bargain with me. Do you appreciate how dangerous that is?”

  “Maybe I don’t,” Toshi said. “But I don’t have many options, do I?”

  Hidetsugu lowered his hand. “All right, ochimusha. I will set a task for you, something to prove yourself useful. In ten days I go collect my next student. It will take me years to train him.”