Scott McGough - Guardian, Saviors of Kamigawa

“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.