He had a long, drooping mustache and fleshy lips, visible under the ornate silver-and-bronze helmet he wore, its top crested with a bunch of heron feathers. He had a sword at his side, but was carrying a Remington 5-round, 12-gauge shotgun.
The gang of ronin with him mostly carried a mixed bag of scatterguns and hunting rifles, with a couple of semiautomatic weapons.
“Welcome to the warm fire of what remains of my humble dwelling, brother,” the shogun said, bowing slightly. “It has been a long time.”
Ryuku lacked the style and elegance of his older brother, hawking and spitting on the neat rows of small stones. “Fuck long time. Fuck dwelling. Fuck brother,” he said, but his eyes and those of his men were fixed on the half-dozen outlanders standing in a loose half circle at one side of the chair.
“Rather a limited vocabulary, would you not say?” Doc whispered loud enough for everyone to hear him.
The shogun spoke, his voice ringing out. “The gaijin are all my guests, brother. They will not fight against you and are all to go free.”
“And you, brother?”
“I shall take the way of honor. Toyotomi Hideyoshi here shall be my second in this.”
Ryuku threw back his head and laughed. “That running dog. I do not think so.”
He leveled the shotgun and pulled the trigger, blasting the samurai through the chest, sending him spinning across the room like a discarded marionette with all of the strings cut. Hideyoshi left a trail of blood across the lamp-lit gravel, collapsing in a heap in the corner.
“Gaia!” Krysty breathed.
Ryan’s finger whitened on the trigger of his SIG-Sauer, but he held his fire.
The shogun closed his eyes for a moment. “That was a sorry, barbarous, cowardly act, brother,” he said finally, his voice as cold as a blizzard’s heart.
“You and your honor!”
“It is all there is.”
“Fuck that!” Ryuku looked at Ryan. “You. The one-eyed mongrel! I will be generous. Take your scum and leave. I give you fifteen minutes to leave this ruin, and then I will have you butchered as you deserve.”
“What about Lord Mashashige?” Ryan asked, his voice calm and gentle, concealing his rage like the dark waters of a mirrored lake could hide a ravening monster.
“What happens to him will happen whether I have you slaughtered or not. His passing will be as slow and painful as I can make it.”
One of the ronin muttered something to Ryuku, and he looked past Jak at the cowering figure of Issie. He laughed again.
“The geisha slut stays, as well.”
Ryan held up his left hand, silencing the albino, nodding at the leader of the ronin. “Is there anything else you request from us before we leave?” he asked humbly.
“Yes. Your blasters. Leave all your weapons behind, gaijin .” He waved a hand. “And go.”
He turned to grin at his followers, preening himself at the ease of his victory over the feared outlanders.
“Of course, Lord,” Ryan said, bowing.
He whispered out of the corner of his mouth to the others. “On three. One and two and three !”
He had picked out Ryuku as his own special target, remembering Trader’s comment that not many animals would fight once their heart had been cut out.
The ronin had been grinning, relaxed and triumphant, seeing their arrogant leader in total and absolute command of the isolated, wounded shogun and his pathetically docile handful of Yankee guests.
It wasn’t a firefight.
It was a massacre.
Ryan put three of the P-226’s 9 mm rounds neatly into the chest of the gloating Ryuku Mashashige, all together in a spot smaller than a playing card. The full-metal jacket burst through the polished medieval armor like a jousting lance through a wet paper bag.
He didn’t bother to watch the fat man go down in the dirt. He was too busy blasting at Ryuku’s men.
All around him there was the racketing, deafening thunder of gunfire.
J.B. sprayed the ronin with the Uzi on full-auto; Jak used his massive Colt Python .357 Magnum, the rounds blowing chunks of flesh away at close range; Mildred aimed and fired repeatedly, killing a man with every shot, placing each bullet through the forehead; Krysty put her first couple of bullets into Ryuku, then altered her aim with the Smith amp; Wesson double-action 640, knocking two of the landless, lordless samurai over with the .38 rounds; Doc, his mouth open, screamed “Geronimo!” in hatred and anger as he squeezed the trigger on his beloved gold-engraved Le Mat, the scattergun obliterating three of the ronin from the left side of the helpless group.
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