James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

“Yeah,” Mildred said. “The black bitch done for you, you Nip bastard!”

The samurai lay down carefully, his armor rattling, a puddle of blood already spreading below him. He settled himself comfortably on his back and let his head tilt, looking up at the ceiling.

“Not what I wanted,” he mumbled crossly, then died.

“Thanks, Mildred,” Ryan said.

AS THEY MOVED ON again, they all felt a deep vibration run through the ground.

“Quake,” Jak called.

“Could just be the building settling as the fire consumes it,” J.B. replied.

“Felt like a quake to me.” Mildred paused, looking behind them. “Fire’s falling back again.”

Ryan nodded. “Do what we can and get out. Don’t like these tremors. Often a sign of something big coming along.”

“WHAT?”

“It’s Issie.”

Ryan bit his lip. “What’s wrong with her, Jak?”

“Says she can’t go on.”

“Fireblast! Told you that she wouldn’t keep up with us. Leave her.”

“Not her fault.”

Ryan pointed at the teenager, staring into his crimson eyes. “Doesn’t matter whether it’s her fault or not. You know that, Jak. We all keep up or we all go under.”

“I don’t think that’s fair, lover.”

He turned to face Krysty. “We aren’t talking about what’s fair and what’s not. That’s for storekeepers in a comfortable little rural ville.”

Krysty faced him. “The girl’s terrified. Her world’s fallen around her ears. She’s seeing death up close. Smelling blood. Tasting fear. Look at her. She’s trembling like a hunted deer. For Gaia’s sake, Ryan!”

He gazed at the young woman, her beautiful kimono smeared with blood and soot, torn at the hem, her painfully bound little feet and her pretty doll-like mask, the makeup smudged and running, with tears streaking her dimpled cheeks. Issie looked up at him and attempted a desperate smile, but it never got without a country mile of her eyes. Krysty was right; the little geisha was shaking like an aspen in a hurricane.

“All right,” he said. “Jak, you and J.B. have to help her. But if there’s trouble, then you drop her. I mean that. Drop her on the floor and get blasting.”

Jak nodded. “Sure. Understood.”

THE CENTRAL COURT was a calm place in the middle of swirling chaos. It seemed like two-thirds of the fortress was already burning fiercely, only a drop in the wind keeping the flames partly in check.

Mashashige was sitting on a straight-backed chair that had obviously been brought from another part of the ville. He was even more pale than usual and had a blood-soaked bandage wrapped around his left shoulder.

Hideyoshi was at his side, and two other samurai, as well as a scant half-dozen sec men, all of whom looked even more petrified than Issie.

As soon as Ryan led his little band into the smoky, graveled court, the shogun pulled himself upright and bowed to them, though his whole body language betrayed him, showing how much pain he was in.

“I am sorry not to be able to welcome you with proper ceremony,” he said. “But I fear that things have become difficult.”

“You have seen Yashimoto?” Hideyoshi asked. “He left and has not returned.”

Ryan shook his head. “No. Not seen him. We saw a few dead. Sent a few of the ronin to meet their ancestors. But it looks like they could be winning.”

Mashashige gestured to his seat. “Do you mind if I show disrespect and sit? This arm is more painful than I had thought. A bullet from a rifle.”

“Sure,” Ryan said, seeing out of the corner of his eye that Issie had collapsed on the small raked stones, huddling into the fetal position, weeping quietly to herself.

“My brother, Ryuku, will not win,” the shogun said. “We are all losers here.”

Ryan couldn’t find any argument against that. The losses on both sides were so crippling that whoever came out with the most alive wouldn’t be able to hold on to any power. And the whole ville would be destroyed and useless.

“Pyrrhic victory,” Doc said. “One in which the cost to the winners is so great that they might as well not have fought at all. The Romans again.”

“This is, I think, like the last standing of General Custer,” Mashashige said quietly. “Or the remembering of the days of glory at the Alamo.”