Scott McGough: Heretic, Betrayers of Kamigawa

In a matter of moments he had them formed into ranks. “If you’re still ready to fight,” he said, “we’re not going to leave Yosei to do all the work.”

The men roared their assent.

Okazawa heard a strange sound like the barking of a dog. He turned back toward the fortress and saw a huge pale Akita bounding toward them.

“Here’s Isamaru!” one of the soldiers said. “The daimyo’s own dog. If you’ve come to fetch us home, boy, you’ll have to wait. We still have work to do!”

The other men laughed, but there was menace in the sound. There wasn’t one of them who hadn’t been wounded or lost a comrade to the akki. The goblins would be made to pay for this daring raid.

Okazawa extended his sword. “Forward!” he shouted.

All twenty men and Isamaru rushed past Okazawa, howling their war cries. As he limped on behind, the captain saw Yosei leveling the akki camp with his destructive stream of ghostly coins.

“Hurry,” he shouted after his men, “or there won’t be anything left to kill!” Likewise, he thought, they didn’t want to rely exclusively on the dragon, who looked as though he might expire at any second.

Okazawa redoubled his own efforts, moving as fast as his wound allowed. The sudden appearance of Yosei and the daimyo’s dog was doubly surprising and a double blessing. With Eiganjo’s most loyal and tenacious defenders still in action, how could the common soldier do any less?

Perhaps, he thought, there is hope for our kingdom after all.

Hidetsugu’s powerful fingers cracked the stone foundation upon which Minamo academy rested. The ogre dug in with his other hand and hauled himself up onto solid ground.

The school’s defenders were in dire need of training. Their aim was respectable, but their spines were lacking. He and his yamabushi hunters had killed a few and injured a few more, but that was all it took to send the entire platoon of student archers fleeing for the building’s interior.

For some reason, there were also kitsune warriors here, and soldiers from Eiganjo. They had fought bravely, but after disposing of Keiga, the ogre and his hunters were operating at the pinnacle of their abilities. The yamabushi fought a short and brutal battle that left half the visiting troops dead or wounded. Soon their captains had pulled back, guarding the student archers’ retreat as the Minamo wizards stayed and chanted.

All that stood between the invaders and the front door was this handful of children in academy robes. The young men and women stood firm, side by side at the top of the marble stairs, their hands linked. Every other face Hidetsugu saw was panicked, trembling, or on the verge of tears.

Hidetsugu smiled at them from the bottom of the staircase. He licked his lips and cracked his knuckles.

“Three on each end,” he said loudly. “Three in the middle. Now.”

The yamabushi struck with speed and precision. Three bolts of gleaming energy lanced into the wizards at the center of the line, blasting them backward and breaking the chain. Yamabushi swords found student throats on the far ends of the row, and the wizards fell in a spray of blood and tatters of blue cloth. By the time the first mage had fallen, the yamabushi had completed their task and bounded clear of the staircase.

The remaining student mages broke ranks as soon as Hidetsugu put his massive clawed foot on the bottom stair. He snorted, amused at their terror and disappointed in their cowardice. The least they could do was leave a live one behind for him to behead with a single bite. Humans were always impressed by that, and he longed to see that look of shock and horror on their faces.

Instead, Hidetsugu scaled the stairs four at a time, using his hands to help propel himself. At the top of the staircase he turned and surveyed the way they had come.

There was a trail of burning and broken vessels between the academy and the shore. All other boat traffic had sequestered itself on the far side of the lake, skirting as close as they dared to the waterfall. The crashing flow of water was perhaps as lethal as Hidetsugu’s attack, and it would please him immensely if any of the escaping sailors died by fleeing into greater danger.

There were also many bodies floating on the water, though Keiga was not one of them. The lake was certainly deep enough to conceal her body, but Hidetsugu wished that dead dragons floated like dead people. He’d like to stretch Keiga’s body out straight and nail it down, leading his hunters across it like a bridge on their way home.

He could not see the harbormaster’s station from where he stood, but he knew the structure was damaged and waterlogged. Anyone inside would be hard-pressed to survive without gills. In the night sky overhead, the crescent moon gleamed, drawing reflections from the soratami’s cloud city. Hidetsugu sneered up at Otawara, thinking, Your turn will come. Kobu’s oni dog was only a herald for the greater fiends yet to come.

The occasional arrow or spear dropped down from the academy buildings’ upper floors, but his hide was too thick and his hunters too agile. They replied in kind to each new bolt, and their aim was always perfect. Soon there were no more attacks, and the invaders had the entire exterior grounds to themselves.

Hidetsugu sat heavily with his legs crossed and rested his fists on his knees. He whispered the words of an o-bakemono spell as his hunters bounded up the stairs, landing in a semicircle behind him where he sat. A yellow-orange ball winked into existence in front of Hidetsugu’s closed eyes and quickly swelled until it was as large as the ogre’s ridged skull.

The ogre opened his eyes, drew a breath, and puffed gently on the glowing sphere. The energy ball drifted steadily forward, over the stairs and across the gap between the academy foundation and the docking platform at the top of the harbormaster’s geyser. The wooden planks charred black below the ball as it sailed over them.

When it reached the center of the platform, Hidetsugu’s sphere exploded. The blast did not release a shock wave or flaming cloud of smoke but a jet of magma fresh from the throat of an active volcano. The molten rock sprayed in a full circle until all but the outermost rim of the platform was covered in deadly liquid fire. Flames licked at the edges of the lava slick, and a terrible groan came from the dock below. Unable to withstand the heat and weight of the molten stone, the platform cracked along the center. One half of it dropped down several feet, and the entire thing tilted at a dangerous angle. Then the platform simply collapsed, breaking up and falling into the cold blue waters below.

“From now on” Hidetsugu said, “no one leaves.” His expressionless yamabushi nodded as one.

“Turn about,” the ogre said. He still had not unclenched his fists or moved them from his knees. “If anyone comes to trifle with me, see to them harshly. I am not to be disturbed.”

The slack faces all nodded again. The hunters turned their backs to Hidetsugu, watching the approach from every direction.

The ogre reached into the pack he wore on his belt and withdrew several small items: a mosaic tile with what could have been a miniature swarm of bees inscribed on it in painstaking detail; a small clay bottle with a crust of blackish-red around the stopper; and a clear gemstone cut into the shape of a heart. The o-bakemono laid the tile in front of him, smeared some of the thick red liquid in a circle around the tile, and squeezed the heart-shaped gem in his massive fist.

He should probably have sent the yamabushi to a safe distance, but their job was almost done and more of them had survived than he expected. Even if this ritual claimed half the remaining hunters, he would have enough to finish the job.