James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

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.