Outlaw: Champions of Kamigawa

CHAPTER 24

Three full companies of the Daimyo's finest mounted archers thundered south on the main route to the mountains. They moved as a single, massive entity rather than a thousand different individuals, and the merchants and farmers and villagers along the way all stared in awe as the great force of men and beasts rode by.

They were half a day's ride out of the tower, which was still visible behind them as they powered their way through the countryside. None of the men looked back, but many thought of their lord and master Daimyo Konda watching them from the highest levels of his mighty castle. He would watch them until they disappeared from view, and he would wait until they came triumphantly back with Princess Michiko leading them home.

The trees along the road began to shudder and shake. Some of the riders laughed and pointed. Look, they cried, even the soil trembles to see us pass!

The rumbling continued, growing longer and stronger until it had become a full-fledged tremor. The leader of the yabusame column reined in his horse, gradually slowing. Behind him, the rest of the great mounted entity kept pace, easing their horses from a full gallop to a moderate trot. They were still under orders to travel with all due speed, but it was foolish to risk men and horses when the ground kicked back.

But the tremor continued, soon becoming a quake that forced the Daimyo's horsemen to stop completely. Century cedars tore themselves from the ground and hurled themselves across the roadway. A great sinkhole opened a hundred feet east of the road, swallowing a rice paddy and a farmer's hut. The nearby hillside split down the middle, releasing massive rolling clods of soil and rough-hewn chunks of granite.

The horses began to scream and rear, lashing out with their hooves. Dozens fell over on one side and were quickly trampled by their skittish peers. The company captains shouted and cursed at their units, struggling to be heard over the din of shattering earth and dying horses.

Above the remains of the sundered hill, a huge yellow sphere ignited. The heat and the light were so intense that it boiled the closest retainers' eyes in their sockets and burned their hard, lacquered armor to fine ash on their bodies.

Another fireball ignited across the road from the first. Trapped between two suns, the outermost columns of soldiers and their horses withered into charred, smoking skeletons of black ash and carbonized bone. Those that survived the inferno screamed with one agonized voice.

A stentorian roar split the air, drawing blood from every human ear on the road. The two blazing orbs spun in place, and the outer layer of flames peeled back like the skin from an orange, revealing two sharp, black irises that widened vertically as they gazed down at the soldiers.

The armed men of Towabara fell quiet under the terrible gaze of those two great eyes. Their breath ceased in mid-prayer, mid-curse, or mid-dying moan. Every living thing below those eyes looked up into them in pure, devastating awe.

The titanic spirit beast roared again. A great shadow rose up past the eyes, casting the area below into almost total darkness. Reptilian fangs as big as grain silos materialized as the shadow descended, simultaneously stretching down from above and erupting up from the soil below.

The great jaws slammed shut, consuming the road and the entire valley at once. The soldiers' screams were silenced in the cacophonous blast of sundered earth and mangled stone. The entire kingdom of Towabara felt the shock, as did every kitsune village and akki warren in the wilds.

The monstrous head, never fully formed, began to fade as the last of the bordering pave-stones along the road tumbled into the gaping wound it had torn in the world. In its wake, a huge jagged canyon lay where there had once been a road. The edges of the canyon smoked and collapsed down into the pit, the land itself partially liquefied by intense heat and unimaginable force.

The ground continue to rumble menacingly for a full day and night, waves of force radiating outward from the titanic bite the spirit beast had ripped from the world.

Dust shook from the stone ceiling of Toshi's cave, and he waved his arms to maintain his balance. "What was that?"

Mochi looked pale. "That was the worst news I've had all day. Luckily, it doesn't seem more pressing than what we already have on our plate."

"Fair enough."

Michiko sat cross-legged on the floor, busily folding stalks of hay into the same kanji shape. Toshi nodded, glad she had at least agreed to that much. The pile on the floor of the cave was almost big enough.

"So, we've got the princess squared away."

"You mean you tricked her into thinking she's squared away." He called out to Michiko, "When this ruffian here fails, Princess, I want you to know you can still count on me."

"Yeah, yeah. So, enough about her. Back to me," Toshi said.

Mochi sighed. "I like you, Toshi. But you're just not the most important person in the cave right now."

"I am to me." He bent, picked up a handful of straw, and started forming kanji.

Mochi watched him. "What are those?"

"Razor birds." Toshi held up a straw kanji. "Or rather, the symbol for creating a razor bird. They're mostly mindless, but they know enough to keep from cutting the person who made them." He tossed the straw figure onto the pile. "Good for when you're woefully outnumbered. They'll come in handy quite soon." Toshi started on another piece of straw.

"Hey," Mochi said. "You still don't believe I'm who I say I am, do you?"

"I don't know what you are. You've got some power. But so do I. I prefer to rely on myself."

"Power," Mochi mused. "Where do you think that power comes from?"

"Hmm? Oh, I don't know. Kappa shells? Pixies?"

"When you make a symbol and it turns something invisible or sets it on fire, what do you think causes it?"

Toshi paused. "Never thought about it much. As long as it works, I don't need to know how."

"So you deny the power of the spirit world."

"I know there's power in the spirit world. I use it all the time. I just don't think I owe anyone because of it. I figured out how to make kanji work-me. Not some spirit guide. Anyone can do what I do if they're willing to learn the symbols."

Mochi hopped up on a stone so that he was level with Toshi. "So you don't pray."

"Who would listen?"

"And there's nothing larger than yourself nothing you value that you can't get on your own."

"You've got a great perspective from up there in the sky," Toshi said. He tossed another kanji onto the pile and stared at Mochi, their faces almost touching. "But I have to live here on the ground. When something larger and more valuable than me comes along, I'll pay it the proper respect. But it'll have to convince me first."

Mochi grinned, displaying his teeth. "Done."

"What?"

At the rear of the cave, a shadow separated from the rest of the gloom. It was darker, more solid, and it rolled forward like a dense, heavy mist.

Toshi stood and drew his blade. "What is that thing?" Michiko dropped her pile of straw and moved behind Toshi, ready to dash out of the cave if she had to.

"That," Mochi said, "is larger and more valuable than you. And it's going to convince you."

The black curtain of shadow crept forward until it was a few yards away from Toshi at the front of the cave. The center of the black sheet rose up, forming a hood around a pale, expressionless face. Her delicate bones and polished skin said "female" to Toshi, but she also looked human, and that couldn't possibly be true. The air had become so cold and alien since she arrived that he was starting to think her very presence was harmful.

Slender red horns grew from her porcelain forehead and curved down past her cheekbones on each side of her face. She continued to rise, filling out the black curtain with a humanoid upper body that trailed off into the darkness beneath the black material. She stood tall, her head brushing the cave ceiling, shrouded in the fabric of shadow. Pale, cadaverous hands appeared in the gloom around her, grasping from the tattered edges of her robes, and something huge but withered squatted behind her, a dried and emaciated giant holding aloft a banner made from the same fabric as her robes. The bearer's head, if it had one, was tucked down behind the central figure, so that only its arms and its wan, sinewy shoulders were visible.

"She has many names, many supplicants. The nezumi call to her for inspiration and for a bountiful year's looting. Boss Uramon keeps a shrine to her in the basement of her manor. The jushi make offerings to her twice a year, including a gold coin, a black ram, and the blood of a friend, freely given.

"You are a mercenary and a thief, Toshi Umezawa, a creature of the dark. So your whole life has been a celebration of her, despite the fact that you have never even acknowledged her existence. Behold, the Myojin of Night's Reach. This spirit is larger than you, Toshi, this kami holds you in her sway. Deny her if you can. But it will be better for all of us if you embrace her.

"Fall to your knees, ochimusha, and solemnly ask her for whatever you desire most. Share in her gifts. Thrive under her protection. There is no other way for you to survive the night."

The dire spirit made no sound, save for a distant, hollow moaning that seemed to come from behind her. Toshi was unable to tear his gaze away from that porcelain face, even as sweat beaded on his brow and ran into his open eyes.

"Ochimusha!" The voice from without was sharp and high-pitched, crackling with anger. "Send Michiko out now. We will not ask again."

"Lady Pearl-Ear?" Michiko turned, but Mochi caught her by the arm before she could step from the cave.

"It's about to become very dangerous out there, Princess, one way or the other. You should stay put for the time being."

Mochi turned to Toshi. "It has begun," he said. He extended one arm outside the cave and the other back in, toward the dark figure. "The foxes are here, and the snakes are coming. Can you defeat them all, or will you openly call on the power you've been assuming was your own?"

Toshi's paralysis finally broke. He jerked his head from Michiko to Mochi to the frightening figure at the rear of the cave.

The crescent moon kami planted his hands on his hips, smiling confidently. He tilted his head and stared hard at Toshi.