James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

“Stand behind me, friend. And when I nod my head you must use much strength and aim at”

Ryan interrupted him. “I know what to do. How to do it. Goodbye.”

“May all our gods watch over us, Cawdor-san.”

There was not a moment’s hesitation.

He thrust the needled point of the eighteen-inch blade in under the ribs on the left side and drew it up and across and down again, following the angle of his ribs. Blood poured over his lap from the wide mouth of the gaping wound.

Mashashige laid down the panga, contemplating the ruin of his own intestines that slurped from the gash.

“Now,” he said, nodding.

Ryan had moved to stand behind him, the sword hefted to his shoulders, ready to make the single scything cut, mouthing snatches of a remembered prayer that he should get it right first time and not screw up. Having to repeat the blow was unthinkable.

The sword was the sharpest thing that Ryan had ever seen.

There was a faint jar as it hacked through the vertebrae at the top of the spine, but its momentum was hardly checked by muscle and sinew.

The shogun’s head dropped off with a dull thump, rolling twice and settling in the bed of stones, the eyes open, staring toward Ryan. It might have been a trick of the light, but Ryan would always swear that he saw the lips moving, as if the shogun were trying to deliver a message from the other side of the dark river.

Blood jetted several feet in the air, and Ryan had to step back hastily to avoid being soaked by it.

The headless body knelt where it was for several long seconds, before the muscles relaxed their hold and it slumped gently sideways, the flow of blood slowing to a mere trickle as the corpse voided itself.

Ryan laid the elegant sword by the side of the dead man, overcoming a momentary temptation to take it with him. It was one of the finest weapons he’d ever seen, but he couldn’t imagine much use in Deathlands for it.

He picked up the panga and looked around for something to wipe off the shogun’s blood, eventually using the cotton under robe of Ryuku Mashashige.

He sheathed the blade, then turned and picked up the rifle, slinging it.

Ryan winced at a wave of heat that came from the burning building, seeing that his helping Mashashige had put his own life in jeopardy from the raging fire.

HE RAN AT TOP SPEED, bursting through the delicate, paper-thin walls, struggling to keep a sense of direction. He climbed stairs and sprinted along corridors, eventually finding himself by a third-floor window that opened onto the dark water of the moat.

Ryan could smell his clothes scorching and leapt into the blackness.

Chapter Thirty-Six

The moat, set defensively around the ville, was brightly lit by the volcano of fire that had once been the all-powerful ville of the shogun. Ryan glanced behind him as he kicked his way across the cold water, heading for the shore where he’d already spotted the others waiting for him, seeing that only one corner of the fortress remained inviolate, and the flames were already licking hungrily toward it. .

When he was within a few yards of safety, he had an odd experience.

The surface of the lake rippled suddenly, almost as though some powerful creature had passed close below him. For a moment Ryan had a heart-stopping vision of something like a great white, then the moment passed and he was helped out by Doc and Krysty.

“Did you just feel that strong tremor?” the old-timer asked. “Devilish powerful, was it not?”

“Is it all over, lover?” Krysty asked.

“Over,” he said. “Let’s move out of here.”

IT WAS ABOUT FOUR MILES to the building that they knew held the gateway in its basement.

The wind was blowing the smoke away from them, but they had gone only halfway when the immense glow from the fire began to fade, leaving them in near darkness.

There was no attempt to follow them.

Nor did they meet anyone on the trail.

Issie managed to stammer that the destruction of the ville would be so unbelievable to the local peasants that they would all have taken to their beds in terror that some new Hiroshima was happening.