Guardian, Saviors of Kamigawa

CHAPTER 18

Konda’s moth-riders soared over the wilds of Jukai in perfect formation. The Daimyo himself rode at the front of the wedge suspended between two beams of magical force. He had left his horse on the ground long ago, unwilling to abandon the noble beast in the thickest and most dangerous part of the forest.

The daimyo’s vision had led him unerringly east, though sometimes it seemed as if his prize had simply ceased to exist. His eyes would shudder and spin, unable to fix on a single position. When this happened he would call for a halt, land the moth-riders, and wait. It was agonizing, but even with the extra days it took to regain the trail he was heartened by their progress. When his army did move, it moved quickly.

The landscape below fascinated Konda. Neither he nor his armies had ever pressed this far east before. After he reclaimed the Taken One and restored the tower at Eiganjo, he would consider sending a proper expedition to finally map eastern Jukai and beyond. If there were nations at the far side of the woods, they must also come under Konda’s protection. Someday, he expected, even the orochi will be brought under his banner.

The rolling sea of green stretched on as he flew, the hours blending into each other. Lost in memories of his prize, Konda didn’t notice the changes in Jukai until he crossed over a great smoking hole in the canopy. The daimyo waved his hand, and the moth formation slowed, gently beating their wings just enough to keep themselves stationary over the rising warm air from the fire.

Though his pupils remained fixed on a location even farther east, Konda looked down at the obscene bloodbath directly below. The vivid greens and rich browns of the forest were charred black by fire and splattered with gore. Hundreds of dead orochi had been heaped in the center of the killing ground, and more were pinned to their beloved trees.

The Daimyo felt a monarch’s rage swell up in his breast. The orochi were prone to intertribal conflict, but they would never desecrate enemy dead in such a barbaric fashion. Neither would they use fire as a weapon-Jukai was damp all year round, but its trees still burned.

Konda signaled the moths to descend. No, the orochi fought wars in small groups, sometimes even settling disputes by single combat between champions. Some other tribe must have done this. Some foreign power must be conducting large-scale military actions on Konda’s own doorstep.

His moths circled the site, and Konda grimly impressed the details on his mind. This must not stand, would not stand. As soon as he recovered the Taken One, he would turn his ghost army east and root out the invaders. He would slaughter them to a man for their brinkmanship, and in the process he would build a bridge between Eiganjo and the orochi for the first time ever. He had often admired their fighting skill and wondered about the wild mysteries they were said to explore in their isolated green home. Uniting against a common foe could not help but foster closer ties.

Konda waved again and his moths rose back into the sky. He reoriented on the Taken One and pressed on, but as he went Konda kept a close watch on the landscape below. If he saw any armed conflict of any size, he intended to investigate and identify the aggressors.

First he would reclaim his prize. Then he would punish these bold invaders. These were the first steps he would take to rebuild his kingdom.

Toshi was relieved but not surprised to find both the moth and the Taken One exactly as he had left them. The great insect was the most docile and accommodating creature he’d ever encountered, and he expected even a mortal wound wouldn’t interrupt its happy burbling. As for the stone disk, it seemed quite capable of protecting itself.

Two more piles of salty dust greeted him from beside the Taken One. Toshi wondered if they were more orochi or simply wild beasts that had wandered too close, but he decided not to ask. He was tired of talking to the stone disk and feeling the fool for it.

Toshi paused as something like a good idea crossed his mind. He stepped back from the Taken One and sat with his legs folded. He cleared his mind and then called out to his myojin. She had far more knowledge than Toshi did. Perhaps she could tell him if the prize was alive and, if so, what to do about it.

He sat waiting patiently until his legs began to stiffen. Shortly after that, he opened his eyes and swore.

Inscrutable as always, Night was either unwilling or unavailable to talk to him. He shouldn’t complain-she had just personally saved him from the soratami’s mind tricks, and she must have millions of other acolytes to look after. Still, she had saved him to do what he was now doing, so she should at least acknowledge his request for an audience.

release me

Toshi started and jerked his head toward the Taken One. The etched dragon was moving again, readjusting its position with the rough sound of stone on stone.

“Absolutely,” Toshi said. “That’s where we’re going next, I promise.”

now

“I can’t now,” he said. “Not by myself. We have to go get some expert advice.” Toshi hoped the people he had in mind counted as experts, and that they would have advice. He didn’t know where else to go.

To his horror, the disk began to tremble violently. It vibrated against the cedar sapling Toshi had propped it against, making an angry tapping sound. The image of the serpent was pressed up against the surface of the disk as if it were a window. Her tail thrashed angrily.

father

Toshi instinctively looked up, expecting to see multiple giant heads bearing down on him. The sky was empty but for a few trails of black smoke drifting in from the west.

father is coming

“I know,” Toshi said. “But we’ll be long gone. He’s a little slow to get going, as I see it.”

The Taken One rattled loud enough to crack the sapling and then shot into the air. The stone disk hovered and turned with its face to Toshi, but the image of the serpent stayed fixed at its center.

coming now

“He isn’t,” Toshi insisted. “There’s no sign of him.” He waved to the sky, wondering how much it could see beyond its stone prison. Then the disk began to glow and smoke as it had in Konda’s tower, only the smoke hissed angrily now and the glow withered the plants nearby.

“What can I do?” Toshi shouted in frustration. “What do you want?”

The disk snapped to a halt and let out a withering blast of smoke and ash. The glow scintillated across its surface, and tiny arcs of energy leaped to the nearby trees and scorched their bark.

freedom

In spite of himself, Toshi grinned crookedly. “Who doesn’t?” he said.

The stone disk did not respond, but slowly turned like the wheels on a cart. The etched serpent stared solemnly at Toshi, but all he could do was shrug.

Then the Taken One flashed like lightning, sending a brilliant column of white rocketing into the sky above her. Toshi was carried back by the force and he smelled his own hair burning.

Dazed, he rubbed his eyes with one hand while he patted out his hair with the other. When his eyes cleared, there was a gleaming column of white stretching from the Taken One all the way up to the clouds. Even in the bright afternoon sun, the gleaming tower burned brightly enough to make Toshi’s eyes water.

… father protect me from father protect me from father protect me from …

“Oh, good,” Toshi said, his ears ringing from the fury of the plea. “Just perfect.”

Konda had seen amazing things during his long, fabled life. He had seen the tower at Eiganjo rising from the Towabara plains long before the first shovel had broken dirt. He had seen the mysteries of the spirit world laid bare before him. He had gazed upon the splendor of his prize and seen the answers to eternity therein. These things all amazed or enlightened him, but the sight of the soratami armada razing Jukai outraged him like nothing he had seen before.

They came in huge numbers, a massive force of the noblest beings in Kamigawa. He had considered the soratami his closest allies. He had permitted them to keep their distance from the rest of the world and seclude themselves in their cloud city. He had done so out of respect and to allow them to explore their mystical and cultural pursuits … not to raise and train a standing army. Had he even dreamed the moonfolk had a military, he would have kept them under much tighter control. They were of course entitled to defend themselves, but this … this was an army of demigods large enough to meet him on the open field.

This day in Jukai, against the orochi, the soratami armada was an unstoppable force. They drove the snakes east from the ground and above, shattering the orochi’s beloved trees and burning their territorial homeland. Soratami warriors used blades and spells to maim and kill, their perfect rows hardly noticing the steady stream of reptilian bodies. From above, the soratami seemed like a silver-white plow blade, separating the soil as it ripped through the forest. Only this soil was made from living beings Konda hoped to have as allies, and the plow driven by intimates who had already betrayed him.

“Unacceptable,” he growled from his place at the head of the moth-riders. “Completely unacceptable.” Konda turned back to the east, where the bulk of his ghost army was charging to catch up to him with all possible speed. They would arrive here at this cursed site in a matter of minutes. Would it be soon enough to stop the slaughter?

A plaintive cry ripped through his ears and Konda grimaced. The sound was simultaneously foreign and familiar, like a stranger singing new words to a melody he knew by heart. Before the pain had faded, Konda recognized the Taken One.

His eyes had never wavered from the right spot, but now Konda turned his face, his body, and his entire being toward his goal. There, in the distance, where the column of light touched the sky. It was there, well within range of his moth-riders. It was so close he could feel it, so close he could leap to the ground and run to it.

The moth-riders responded to their lord’s unspoken command and soared up over the canopy, gathering speed as they bore down on the tower of light.

Faster, Konda thought. Faster.

The moths would carry him to his prize. His army would follow behind, engaging the renegade soratami on the way. Once Konda had recovered the Taken One, he would carry it triumphantly back and rejoin his ground forces. Together they would punish the presumptive soratami and decimate their army.

The closer he came to the brilliant white beam, the more anxious he became and the faster his moth-riders flew. Konda put his hand upon his sword, every muscle in his body tensed and ready. I’m coming, he thought. You will be mine once more.

Below him, Jukai became nothing more than a blur as he closed in on his goal.