Chapter Fifteen

 

 

It was one of the best-defended night camps that Ryan had ever known. Even Trader at his best, with the resources of both war wags to draw on, couldn't have done any better. Taker Yashimoto was in charge, and Ryan grudgingly admitted the second-in-command of the force had done a good job.

 

There were three layers of sentries, the first of them nearly a half mile off toward the north, in the direction of the ocean and the supposed camp of the ronin.

 

The second circle of guards was between two and three hundred yards off.

 

And a third ring of sec warriors was within one hundred paces of the heart of the camp. Some of the samurai had their own tents, but Mashashige himself slept on the floor along with his men, wrapped in a single simple blanket. There was a black banner of silk flying at the center of the camp, with a stark symbol embroidered in white, that Hideyoshi told Ryan was simply the name and rank of the shogun Mashashige.

 

"I've never known a baron who was humble as he is," Ryan said. "Nothing flash about him. No pearl-handled matching Colts. No tent bigger than the others. No silver-inlaid saddle. The only thing that makes him stand out from his followers is that nothing makes him stand out."

 

"This is a part of the code of Bushido. Some flaunt their wealth and power. But there are men like Mashashige who choose the opposite path."

 

Doc had been eating from a wooden bowl of shredded beef cooked with sliced chilis and he wandered by, hearing the tail end of the conversation.

 

"It puts me somewhat in mind of the two great war leaders who faced each other at the famous battle of the Little Bighorn," he stated.

 

"That was General Custer," Hideyoshi said, beaming broadly. "We learn of him in our schools. He was the most famous loser in American history."

 

Doc nodded. "Can't argue with you there. Unless we take Tricky Dicky into account But General George Armstrong Custer was the boy hero. Star-touched Autie. Tailored buckskins and fancy guns. Matched hunting dogs. Golden hair tumbling over his shoulders. Always out front, showing off his wealth and power. He was up against Crazy Horse. War leader of I think it was the Oglala. Similar age and reputation. But Crazy Horse owned only one horse. Gave the others away. Wore the simplest clothes. Carried plain weapons. Custer believed honor came from outside. Crazy Horse thought it came from within."

 

"And they both died," the samurai said. "But one is remembered as a victor and the other as a man who rode arrogant and grinning to his death, sucking down his whole command with him. There is no defeat like victory, and victory can be no defeat at all. That is what we say."

 

 

 

THE NIGHT PASSED pleasantly enough.

 

Krysty and Ryan huddled together under a large woolen blanket, warmed by the fires that were kept burning all through the hours of darkness.

 

They were awakened once, around midnight, by a minor quake that sent rocks clattering into the gorge ahead of them. But there were no aftershocks, and they were at little risk out there in the open.

 

In the fortress Ryan had come for the first time on the great preoccupations of the Japanese. A sort of vertical pinball game called pachinko involved dozens of tiny steel balls rolling around and around and bouncing into numbered and lettered slots. The combinations decided whether you won or lost. Most times it seemed that you lost.

 

It was such a craze that several of the samurai had brought along smaller, portable versions of the game, playing as the breakfast cooked, the morning air filling with the rattling and chinking of the pachinko balls.

 

Mashashige himself stopped by and sat with his foreign guests while they broke their fasts. The air was filled with the scent of fried bacon and fresh-baked bread, but the shogun simply had a bowl of hot water that contained some sliced chestnuts and shredded ginger.

 

He tapped J.B.'s Smith amp; Wesson M-4000 scattergun. "This fires the small knives. No, not knives. What is the word for the very small arrows?"

 

"Flechettes," the Armorer said.

 

Mashashige shook his head. "No. That is not the word that I mean."

 

"Darts?" J.B. offered.

 

Mashashige nodded, his face betraying no emotion. "That is it. Is this a good gun?"

 

"Does a special kind of job."

 

"But it has little honor to it, and it is useless at a range of a hundred paces or more. Our bows can slay at a quarter mile, Mr. Dix."

 

"Ryan's Steyr rifle here can chill at the best part of a mile," the Armorer countered. "And this blaster can wipe men away at short range. And the Uzi could stop a cavalry charge."

 

"So could my archers."

 

"Sure. Wouldn't argue. But it would take fifty or so bowmen to have the same kind of effect that one man with an Uzi and three spare mags could have."

 

"We must agree to be different," the shogun said thoughtfully. "If the need arises when we reach the home of our enemy, will you use your guns on our side?"

 

The question was aimed at Ryan.

 

He hadn't actually thought that one through. The warlord had such a large force that it hadn't occurred to Ryan that a situation might arise where their firepower could be of much use to Mashashige.

 

"I guess thatwe're your guests, so that puts us under an obligation to help you."

 

The shogun nodded and gave the one-eyed man a low bow. Then he stalked off toward the horses.

 

"Our baron, right or wrong," Krysty said quietly. "You sure about this, lover?"

 

"No. Mashashige might be a swift and evil bastard, and his enemies, these ronin, might be saints in human form. But we don't know."

 

"So you'll chill them if Mashashige asks you?"

 

Ryan nodded. "You got a better idea, Krysty? Fireblast! It's difficult enough to try and pick the difference between right and wrong back home in Deathlands. Never mind in this crazed land of slant-eyed crazies."

 

Mildred tapped him sharply on the arm. "Just keep a lock on your tongue, Ryan. Asked you before."

 

"Sure you did, and I'm sorry. But we have to watch every step in the way we deal with them here, never mind falling out among ourselves."

 

The trail ahead wound higher up before it leveled off, then began to drop quickly toward the distant sea. The warnings about the state of the track had been justified. It cut across the face of the mountain, where erosion and quake damage were all too obvious to them all.

 

The small quake of the previous night had done a great deal more damage than Ryan had believed, damage that was all too evident as he heeled his reluctant pony along, nearing the highest point of the climb.

 

The land dropped away almost sheer to his left, and the trail was so narrow that there was barely room for one pony at a time to pick its surefooted way along. Below Ryan was a singing chasm of sheer black stone that glistened in the early-morning mist. Spray rose out of the gorge several hundred feet below, where it was possible to glimpse a silvery ribbon of river.

 

"Good place for ambush," said Jak, who was riding directly behind Ryan.

 

"Yeah."

 

Mashashige had split his force, sending some of his own elite samurai ahead as scouts, following them with a third of his foot soldiers.

 

Krysty and Mildred had suffered the openly lustful stares of the Japanese as they rode their own ponies, perched on the saddles with the high pommels, kicking them on to keep close behind Ryan and the others.

 

Yashimoto and Hideyoshi were also riding just behind the outlanders, talking quietly and urgently in their own tongue. Their shogun had gone ahead with his samurai, taking up a position near the front of the long, snaking column.

 

"One resounding quake while we are on this section of the trail and goodbye will be all that she wrote," Doc commented. "I have seldom seen such a perilous place."

 

It was only with the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight that Ryan was able to piece together what happened in the next four or five seconds.

 

A long way off, there was a faint sound like a bow being loosed, which was followed by a hissing sound. Then something thwacked against the flank of his pony. It immediately whinnied in pain and shock, and bucked on its hind legs, almost throwing him clear out of the saddle into the deeps of the ravine at his left.

 

The loose pebbles on the narrow trail gave the pony no purchase as it reared, forelegs flailing at the misty air. Ryan sawed at the reins, fighting the animal, struggling to keep it under control. He gripped its body with his knees, leaning away from the drop.

 

But the pony was beyond any help.

 

Whatever had made it buck away in the first place had hurt it, and it was now terrified of losing its balance and falling away into nothing. Its eyes rolled, red rimmed in their sockets, and spittle frothed against the steel bit.

 

"Jump!" someone screamed from behind Ryan.

 

"It's going!" someone else yelled, the high-pitched cry sounding like Jak.

 

Whoever it was, he was right.

 

Ryan sensed the balance being lost and heard the doomed animal shriek like a human in helpless despair. He kicked his way out of the stirrups, throwing himself sideways to his right, banging his shoulder on the rock face as he fell.

 

He rolled over, the Steyr clattering among the loose stones. He saw out of the corner of his eye the pony vanishing, falling in surprising slow motion, past the brink of the drop.

 

He was quickly on his feet, walking the few shaky steps to the brink of the gorge, still in time to see the animal strike the giant boulders near the bottom. Its shattered body rolled and twisted as it entered the river with a barely visible splash. The still corpse emerged and was carried swiftly away out of sight.

 

Krysty, Doc and Jak were all off their animals, running to him, standing to watch the last scene of the drama being played out hundreds of feet below them.

 

"You all right, lover?" Krysty asked, touching him lightly on the arm. "Close one."

 

Ryan nodded, feeling his pulse and respiration easing back toward normal. He turned from the chasm and pushed past a gaggle of chattering foot soldiers, catching the eye of Takei Yashimoto, who was staring intently at him.

 

"What spooked it?" J.B. asked. "Loose stones?"

 

Ryan shook his head. "No. Someone fired something at it. I heard it hit on the flank, behind the saddle." He stooped to look at the ground, his eye caught by something glittering in the loose red dirt.

 

"What is it?" Doc asked.

 

Ryan held out the palm of his hand, showing half a dozen small steel balls. "From that pachinko game they play. Must've used a catapult. Something like that."

 

Suddenly Mashashige appeared at his elbow, holding out his hand to take the steel balls. "Many of my men use catapults for sport. There is no possibility of finding who was responsible for this attempt at murdering. I regret this."

 

Ryan thought that he didn't sound as though he really regretted it all that much.

 

 

 

THE TRAIL WIDENED once they reached the top of the pass, enabling them to ride in a group rather than in single file. Another pony had been found for Ryan, an iron-jawed brute with a suppurating growth over one of its eyes.

 

J.B. had walked his animal alongside Ryan. "Reckon it was Yashimoto?" he asked.

 

"Probably not. We were all so close together it would've been difficult to fire a catapult at me without the risk of one of us spotting him."

 

"But he was behind it?"

 

Ryan slapped the pony across the side of the head when it turned and tried to bite him on the thigh. "Probably. If there's a firefight at this ronin camp, then it might be a good idea for one of us to try and take him out."

 

Krysty was alongside him and she turned, eyes wide. "Gaia! You mean chill him?"

 

"Sure. Best enemy's a dead one."

 

"You don't know it was him who tried to kill you."

 

"He threatened me. That's enough. You don't have to see the eye behind the gunsight to know whose finger's on the trigger. But we'll only do that if we get a clear, safe chance."

 

"Looks like scouts seen something ahead," Jak said. "Back in hurry."

 

"Ronin camp?" Mildred asked, easing herself in the saddle. "God, but I'll be pleased to get off and walk a bit."

 

Far below them they could see a rocky headland groping its way into the leaden ocean.