James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

Ryan considered the shogun’s question. “I reckon either word’ll do.”

“It is not hard to get men to come and fight for me. But time is taken in training them how to become skilled at it. The outside world is overflowing with people. It is by far our greatest problem, Cawdor-san.”

“Sure. We’ve seen that. And the awful factories and processing plants that you need to provide food. Seems like every damn thing is polluted here.”

“In Deathlands is different?”

“Sure. There’s the blighted hearts of the ruined cities, where only ghoulies walk. And plenty of rad hot spots still left. But mostly it’s God’s good land.”

“Which god?”

Ryan grinned at the shogun. “Who knows? Years I’ve lived and I’ve never seen too much evidence of any particularly benevolent god.”

“Nor me. But I would not admit that to my people. It would not be proper.”

“You see any hope for the situation here?”

“For me against the ronin?”

Ryan shook his head. “Not just that. If you can get I more men and train them quick and right No, I mean I any hope for the terrible pollution you suffer from.”

The shogun looked away for a moment, and when he answered Ryan could almost see the impenetrable mask that had slipped into place over his features.

“I have thoughts on this matter, but it is difficult”

AS HE WALKED ALONE through a silent wing of the ville, Ryan found himself wondering more and more about what was going on here in the last quake-riven section of old Japan.

His throat was sore, and his good eye was prickling from the intolerable levels of filth in the atmosphere. And it was like this all the time, not just because of some freak of wind and weather. All the time.

The shogun had mentioned going for a hunt, as the sun had broken through and what wind there was blew the worst of the polluted smog away from the fortress. It had been more or less settled for the afternoon.

As he walked, he suddenly heard a voice, talking in what sounded like an artificially bright voice. Like an adult talking to a backward child.

“You have been naughty. Very, very naughty, and Uncle must make you stop.”

The voice sounded like the second-in-command of the ville, Takei Yashimoto, but Ryan knew that the samurai wasn’t married and had no children. In fact, during their stay at the palace of the shogun, he hadn’t once seen Yashimoto even speak to a female servant or geisha or any of the resident concubines.

He moved closer, his hand dropping to the cold butt of the SIG-Sauer.

“Now, that won’t do, Petal. And Daddy will have to take down your panties and give you a spanking.” The voice was still weirdly high and bright, and it sounded as if Yashimoto was breathing faster and faster as he spoke.

Ryan found himself deliberately walking catfooted and quiet, moving silently through the sun-splashed corridors like a hunting panther.

“Take off your panties and spank your ass with my bare hand. Make your bottom and your thighs get red and sore and tender, and then Uncle will have to stop his dear Petal crying. Stop her by kissing her better!”

The breathing had gathered momentum, finishing with an explosive sigh, followed by a deep stillness.

Ryan flattened himself against the wall and peeked through a narrow gap in the rice-paper sliding panel, into a small room that contained a black table that bore a maroon vase holding a single white carnation.

A long sofa was covered with a dazzling array of satin scatter cushions.

It was Yashimoto.

Ryan half drew his blaster, finger sliding onto the trigger. He was on the verge of bursting into the room and stopping the samurai at his vile game.

Yashimoto was holding a little girl, aged ten or eleven, across his lap. His left hand was holding a pair of pink lacy panties to his face, and his eyes were closed in ecstasy. His right hand still gripped himself through the folds of his disarrayed kimono. The child hung facedown, buttocks and sex exposed, motionless in the warrior’s grip.

He was still breathing very heavily, and there was the mute, visible evidence of how he’d pleasured himself, polluting the polished floor.