Guardian, Saviors of Kamigawa

CHAPTER 9

Marrow-Gnawer enjoyed ascending to the academy’s roof, but staying put once he got there was another matter.

The top of Minamo was like a small city of worthless buildings to the nezumi clan leader. There were patches of open space, like the one Toshi had tethered the moth to, but mostly there were peaked alcoves, scaffolding, and arcane equipment stations. It was cold and damp, and the roar from the falls made his ears throb. To further foul his mood, a thick mist filled the air from the nose up so he had to crouch if he wanted to see or smell clearly.

It didn’t help that the moth was completely docile and required almost no attention. Toshi had told him to keep the moth from being discovered or getting loose until he or Kiku returned, but Marrow could tell the moth wasn’t going anywhere, and no one would come up here exploring any time soon.

Worst of all, there was an entire building full of belongings left behind by important wizards and the scions of wealthy families. In his boredom, Marrow imagined an increasingly dazzling and powerful hoard of treasure that was just waiting for an enterprising nezumi to come along. As the hours wore on he convinced himself all he needed to fund his sudden early retirement was ten minutes alone in the teacher’s dormitory and a heavy sack. No more burglary for the bosses, no more backbiting clan politics, and no more reckoners. They couldn’t force him to avenge anything if they couldn’t find him.

Once he’d made up his mind, it didn’t take Marrow long to sniff out a way to the academy. A little muscle, a little tooth-work, and soon he had a hole big enough to squeeze through. He poked his face into the hole, saw that it led to some sort of attic storage space, and then pulled back onto the roof in a shower of masonry dust.

Something was happening. He couldn’t see anything above or beyond the academy roof, but the nezumi tilted his head and listened carefully. He could hear snarls, roars, and terrible cries, but they all sounded far away, fading as if they were falling from the sky to the lake below.

Marrow shrugged. It was probably just another kami manifestation. Certainly nothing that should distract him from his retirement fund.

As he pondered his wealthy future, Marrow’s hand exploded into a fiery ball of agony. It felt as if his bones were being crushed by a millstone and burned in a furnace. He hissed and cradled his hand against his chest. When he glanced down, the hyozan symbol scratched into his flesh was glowing white-hot.

The ratman struggled to his feet and skittered back to Toshi’s moth. He checked the tether and made sure the food bricks were in easy reach. He stood and watched the great insect gently move its wings while burbling happily. If they needed to flee in a hurry, the moth was ready and waiting. Meanwhile, the pain in Marrow’s hand was proving to be a summons he could not ignore. Hyozan business was happening somewhere nearby, and the oath was demanding he get involved.

Wincing from the pain, Marrow loped back to the hole he had made and disappeared inside.

Daimyo Konda was amazed by the resistance he encountered in the approach to Minamo but he did not let it sway his path. He did not understand how the fabled yamabushi kami-killers had come to fight alongside oni demons, but neither did he care. Whoever and whatever stood between him and his prize would be cut down like rice before the sickle.

Astride his perfect white steed, Konda galloped along the battlefront. He urged his ghost army forward where the oni were thickest and focused the moth riders on the high-leaping yamabushi as he himself led the charge for the academy. Konda had always been a fighting general, unwilling to send his soldiers into a battle without him, and he felt blessed to be fighting alongside his retainers once more.

The spirit army was the finest he had ever commanded, responding to his commands almost before he gave them. They were fearless, fast, and strong. They moved as a single coherent entity, overwhelming the enemy and always advancing like an irresistible tide.

Konda noted that the misshapen spectral warriors moved faster, struck harder, and glowed more brightly when he was beside them. To confirm that this was no trick of the brain or delusion of ego, the daimyo watched his warriors as he rode the ranks. The daimyo beamed as he galloped. It was true-with their leader to personally rally them, his ghost warriors were even more formidable.

Konda’s grin faded into a disgusted scowl. The demon filth opposing his army was unworthy of their swords. Oni were mere monsters, twisted and vile brutes who wallowed in bloodlust and gluttony. This was not a war fit for his army. This was but extermination of a dangerous pest.

The oni were savage and numerous, but they were unable to stop Konda’s advance. His army’s phantom swords cut more keenly than steel and their arms never tired. Though the demons’ claws could tear their bodies, the wounds never bled and healed almost as quickly as they were made. Against such invincible and well-disciplined troops, these mere oni were outnumbered and woefully overmatched.

The yamabushi were another matter. Trained to battle kami and other spirits, the mountain priests were striking down Konda’s ghost army with alarming efficiency. They moved almost unimpeded through the crush of battle, felling spectral horses and phantom infantry alike with sword and staff and magic bolt. Though Konda’s ranks never seemed to dwindle … those that fell to the kami-killers soon reappeared to continue the fight. He would have to intervene personally if the yamabushi could not be brought to heel.

Overhead, scores of gleaming battle-moths soared ever closer to the academy. Konda had kept them in reserve in case the yamabushi became a serious threat to his own progress, but so far the warrior priests had only been able to sting at his flanks with their powerful hit and run tactics.

With a thought and a wave, Konda directed most of the battle-moths to move on toward Minamo. The rest he called to him. When they were circling overhead, Konda scanned the battlefield to note the positions of each yamabushi. He raised his face and clapped his hands, and the moths split into pairs, one pair for each mountain priest.

Surprised, the first yamabushi cried out as the moth-riders attacked. They converged on his position, each rider clasping his hands overhead. Moth and rider alike were enveloped by a cold, yellow glow, and then two braided streams of glowing eyes spiraled from each attacking moth to the yamabushi below. His face was wide and vacant, and he howled incoherently as the beam attack crushed him to the ground like a gnat beneath a stone.

Konda roared his triumphant battle cry. This was how it was meant to end, on the field of battle where he could conquer his enemies and win back his prize in the same master stroke. The Taken One was ahead, his eyes still fixed on it within the academy building. He would clear the field and ascend to Minamo on the backs of his beloved battle-moths. And if they could not carry him, he would climb to the heights of Kamitaki Falls with his own hands.

The daimyo stood in his saddle, thrust his sword forward, and cried for his army to follow him. His army roared their loyalty. Konda looked upon Minamo, knowing that his treasure was within, and he roared again.

High overhead, an ominous stream of black emerged from the academy. At first Konda thought it was a thundercloud or magical storm conjured by the yamabushi. It swelled to enormous size in seconds, billowing larger than the building it came from. Then the black mass began to descend toward the battlefield.

Three eyes opened in the top of the buzzing black cloud, and two sweeping horns extended up through the clouds. Konda felt two rushes, one of disgust at the vile creature before him and one of anticipation, for today he would utterly destroy it.

“Men of Eiganjo,” he bellowed, “behold! The gluttonous Beast of Chaos! Once we have destroyed him, victory will be ours!”

The ghost army roared again. The moth-riders banked away from the school and streaked toward their new target, a cold, yellow sheen already glimmering on the moth’s powdered wings.

Konda paused once, for the briefest moment, to appreciate the noise, the splendor, and the sheer scale of what he was about to accomplish. Then the daimyo spurred his horse and charged forward to meet the enemy.

“Did you really think I didn’t know?”

Toshi noticed Hidetsugu’s joy was rapidly becoming more manic and dangerous. Kiku still regarded Toshi with eyes of hate, but she had also taken a few steps back and away from the ogre.

As he often did when speaking to Toshi, Hidetsugu had sat himself cross-legged so he and the ochimusha were at eye-level. The ogre rocked back and forth slightly as he spoke.

“I knew the very moment you slithered out from under your mark, kanji mage.” He yanked the metal plate off of his shoulder, revealing the hyozan triangle branded deep into his flesh. Hidetsugu then reached forward and hauled Toshi out of the yamabushi’s grip, holding the ochimusha by his left hand. Toshi’s sleeve immediately slid back, revealing the false hyozan mark. Hidetsugu spit on the forgery and smeared it with his thumb.

“Ours was a blood oath, Toshi. Do you remember? I told you vengeance is based on blood and demands blood as payment. The oath would not have worked without our blood to power the ritual. My blood became steam under the branding iron, but I gave it willingly according to our deal. I offered you the brand and a sharp knife, but you chose the tattoo.” The ogre snorted derisively. “You took the coward’s way out, Toshi, but you still bled. With every tap of the needle, with every new drop of ink, you gave a drop of blood in return.

“Blood bound us, Toshi: your blood, my blood. Our oath. We are the true pillars of the hyozan. These others,” he waved at Kiku, “they didn’t bleed for their oaths. You cut into their flesh and you recited your silly spells, but they are subordinate, mere reflections of the oath we two maintain.” Hidetsugu rocked forward so he was face-to-face with Toshi. “And now you have abandoned it. And you are mine.” He released Toshi’s arm and dropped him into the waiting clutches of the yamabushi.

Hidetsugu rocked back and leaned on his hands behind him. “Hurt him, my hunters. By now Toshi has regained enough of his faculties to become a nuisance. Shorten his breath.”

Toshi gasped as something hard thudded into his stomach. It felt like the end of a staff, but it could have just been the yamabushi’s fist.

From the other direction, the rock-hard edge of the other yamabushi’s hand slammed into Toshi’s windpipe. The ochimusha gagged and thrashed as the yamabushi kept his hands pinned behind him.

“Good. Now bring him here.”

They dragged him forward, dazed and choking, and then forced him to stand straight before the o-bakemono.

Hidetsugu leaned forward, lifting Toshi’s head up with a single thick finger. “I’m curious, Toshi. How long have you been working on a way to kill me in spite of our oath?”

Toshi’s eyes flickered. “Not long,” he grunted. “Since you sicced your oni dog on me over Oboro.”

The ogre’s face widened in honest surprise. “That is very disappointing,” he said. “I’ve known how to kill you without breaking the oath since before it was cast.”

Toshi’s retort died in his throat.

“Didn’t you know that? Didn’t it ever strike you that I might have outsmarted you from the very beginning?”

“Lying,” Toshi croaked. “No way out.”

Hidetsugu smiled wide, displaying his terrible teeth. “Here,” he said. “I’ll demonstrate.”

The ogre stopped his hand as it was about to close around Toshi’s head. “Hang on. You quit the gang, didn’t you? I could pop your head like a fat tick and the curse would never be invoked.”

Toshi guessed what was coming, but he couldn’t summon the breath fast enough to warn Kiku. In a blur of motion, Hidetsugu lashed out with his other hand and pinned Kiku within his massive fist. She struggled and squirmed, but he lifted her like a child’s toy without even glancing at her. Held as she was, she could neither reach her throwing axes nor raise her hands to create a flower.

“Ours is a blood oath,” Hidetsugu said again. “And so requires blood. You’ve always interpreted the spell as cursing us if we harmed or tried to harm one another. But I crafted it specifically to work only if one of us spilled the other’s blood. Cut my throat, crush me under tons of rock, or run me through and the curse will claim you. But if we managed to kill one another without actually shedding any blood …”

Toshi watched the muscles in Hidetsugu’s arm ripple as he slowly clenched his hand around Kiku. Incrementally, bit by tortuous bit, he was crushing the life from her.

“Her bones won’t break,” the ogre said. “Her heart won’t burst. But if I squeeze her just so.” He shut one eye and made a show of concentrating. “I can prevent her from breathing in. Once I get the grip just right, all I have to do is hold it until her face turns blue.”

Kiku moaned and her breathing became ever more shallow. Soon she was gasping soundlessly, her mouth wide open and her eyes bulging.

Hidetsugu cocked his head. “Surely you’ve noticed how often I’ve picked you up and squeezed you during our long partnership? That was me testing my theory … as well as my grip. I soon figured out exactly how hard I had to squeeze. After that … it was just fun.”

The ogre suddenly loosened his fist. Kiku sucked in huge gasps of air as Toshi forced himself to breathe.

A thunderous explosion shook the building. Toshi thought he could hear the sounds of battle, of men shouting as magical energy sizzled in the air.

Hidetsugu sighed. “Our time grows short. So sad.” The ogre lashed out, snatching Toshi from the yamabushi with his free hand. With Toshi in one fist and Kiku in the other, the o-bakemono rose smoothly to his feet and held them out to each side at arm’s length.

“Goodbye, Toshi Umezawa. You were an amusing oath-brother. I will send you to the spirit world with your paramour. Let us see which one of you departs first.”

Hidetsugu’s powerful hands constricted around Toshi’s chest, and Toshi’s breathing simply stopped. He heaved and strained as best he could, but his lungs could not expand past his ribs, and his ribs were compressed to the point of breaking. Toshi’s face began to tingle and his chest began to burn.

This is how Kobo died, he thought. If Hidetsugu allowed him any air, he might have pointed this irony out to the o-bakemono. Instead, Toshi sent his eyes darting around the room, searching for an out. All he saw was Kiku’s panicked face and the ogre’s dreadful leer.

Behind Hidetsugu, the door to the chamber cracked open. To Toshi it seemed like the door was very far away, at the end of a glittering tunnel. But glittering tunnels don’t have rats, do they?

Toshi’s mind came back to him and he recognized Marrow-Gnawer. What was the little vermin doing here? He was supposed to be on the roof. Not only had he abandoned his post, he was going to get himself killed.

Despite his lack of air and his impending death, Toshi tried to shout a warning. Hidetsugu was too enraptured with constricting the life out of his former oath-mates. The yamabushi were keeping a close eye on Toshi and Kiku. The nezumi had not been spotted, but if he struck Hidetsugu …

Oblivious to the danger, Marrow slid his black, rusty blade between his teeth. This can’t happen, Toshi thought. It won’t happen. Marrow was fraction of Hidetsugu’s size and the ogre’s skin was far too tough for a rusted nezumi blade, even if it was wielded by one of the most competent rats in all the world.

But Marrow was even more competent, brave, and resourceful than Toshi could credit. The nezumi carefully weighed the situation, plotted his attack by scanning the walls and ceiling, and then literally sprang into action.

The tough, powerful muscles in his legs carried him halfway up the chamber wall to the left of Hidetsugu. His claws dug into the fabric covering the stone wall, giving Marrow enough purchase to launch himself all the way up to the ceiling. Were he larger or less strong, he never could have climbed so high so fast. Rats were made for climbing and jumping, and Marrow was a most exceptional rat.

As he rebounded off the ceiling, Marrow was spotted by the yamabushi. The female shouted, and the male raised his staff, but neither of them were quicker than a striking nezumi.

Marrow screeched from a few feet over Hidetsugu’s head. The o-bakemono instinctively looked up at the sound just as Marrow struck with all his might, driving his dirty, jagged sword deep into the ogre’s eye.