Scott McGough - Outlaw:Champions of Kamigawa

Michiko became angry. "How do you know this?"

"Because some of them work for me. I admit that."

Toshi crossed his arms. "And your boys had nothing to do with focusing the other kami on me and the princess."

"Not a thing. Recently, there were conflicting opinions among soratami and the academy about what to do with you. The majority opinion was to get you to the school and learn what they could. I feared that they would then come to agree with the forest kami-that Michiko must die to restore what was lost. I reject that option. So I acted." He sighed. "Things rarely go according to plan, even for kami."

"What of Riko-ome? Does she work for you?"

"Riko-ome is your friend, Princess, and always has been."

Toshi folded another straw kanji. "And the boy?"

"Choryu is a better student than he is a friend. If he had listened to my party's counsel and left Michiko at home, perhaps none of this would have happened."

"And what about that thing in the kakuriyo?" Toshi asked. "What owns those eyes that burned up half the spirit world?"

"Don't take everything you saw literally," Mochi said. "The spirit world doesn't actually burn."

"Answer my question. What was that thing?"

Mochi's face grew dark and somber. "Something," he said, "that must never be allowed into your world." The little blue kami locked eyes with Toshi. "Such an event would put both our realms in danger."

Toshi held Mochi's gaze and nodded. "Including you."

"Including me." The feckless grin returned, but briefly. "That's the other reason I'm helping her and trying to undo what Konda has done."

Toshi turned. "Hey, Princess."

Michiko continued to stare for a moment, but then her eyes glanced up. "Yes?"

"If half of what this guy says is true, we're both in for a rough night. And I do think only half of what he says really applies to us."

Mochi raised an eyebrow. "I'm hurt."

"What makes you think I trust you any more than I trust him?" Michiko said to Toshi. "You have caused me and my friends nothing but hardship and grief since I met you."

Toshi pulled back his sleeve and showed Michiko the triangle tattoo. "Let me put it this way," he said. "I'm an ochimusha lowlife. I do dirty jobs for hire. Right now, holding you prisoner is my job. But I'm a freelancer, and I'll drop this in a heartbeat if something better comes along." He held out his hand. "Take me into your service," he said. "Make it worth my while and I'll not only let you go, I'll protect you from everyone that's coming for you. What do you say?"

"Of course not. Half the people coming here are doing so to rescue me. And I would be a fool to bargain for my safety with you. I am no fool, Toshi."

"Hear, hear."

"Quiet, chubby." Toshi looked Michiko up and down, shaking his head. "You're wrong, Princess. Time isn't on anyone's side. The first group to get here will claim you, but there's no guarantee they'll keep you. And when the fighting starts, how will you protect yourself? The snakes had you at their mercy despite your fox friends and your water wizard."

"You were there," Michiko said. "And you fell just as quickly." She drew herself up to her full height. "The only service you could offer that would sway me would be the one to join the Towabara infantry. Serve my people for two years as a soldier if you want to earn my trust. Unless you're read to take that oath, I will wait here with Mochi."

Toshi nodded. "Not exactly what I had in mind, but not too far afield. I wasn't thinking of an oath to your nation, Michiko, but to you. Personally."

"Toshi," Mochi said quietly. "This is a bad idea."

"And when I care what you think, I'll ask. Michiko," he stepped across the cave to the princess. "He's shown us things that you believe. Maybe I believe them, too."

Toshi watched her face. Those big eyes, those stern, set lips. She was so earnest, so innocent. Her entire world kept getting pulled out from under her. Surely all she wanted now was a rock to lean on. Toshi knew she was close to agreeing with him.

He drew his short blade, placed it blade-up between her wrists, and sliced through the vines binding her. He turned, stepped away from the mouth of the cave, sheathed his sword.

"You can go now," he said. "Take your chances on your own. Or, you can stay here with me and listen to what I have planned to keep us both alive."

Toshi drew his good jitte and twirled it around his finger before catching it in his hand. "So," he said. "Are you with me?"

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.