James Axler – Keepers of the Sun

Ryan didn’t risk getting to his feet, surfing on his stomach on the waves oipachinko balls, followed by the others, until they were all safely out of the room.

A LITTLE FURTHER ON Ryan almost bumped into one of the few samurai who still lived in the ville, loyal to Lord Mashashige, one of the nameless warriors who had allied himself with the venomous Yashimoto and hadn’t even bothered to introduce himself to the outlanders.

Now he was dying.

One of the long war arrows had pierced his neck, from right to left, the shaft standing out by more than a foot on each side. Blood ran down over the collar of his armor, seeping from his mouth and nose.

Ryan came within a whisker of shooting him through the chest with the big 9 mm blaster, checking at the last moment as he recognized the man’s tortured face through the coils of choking smoke.

The Japanese knelt, slowly and carefully, as though he were about to dine, one hand touching the blood-slick arrow, his face puzzled. The leather bindings on the heavy armor creaked as he moved, and his helmet, with a heron’s beak in inlaid silver, tilted backward.

“What happen?” he mumbled.

“You got chilled,” Ryan said.

“You help ronin?”

“No. Where’s the shogun?”

The man gestured wearily with his thumb, pointing behind himself. “Some ronin there. Saw Ryuku. Think race is lost, outlander.”

“Never over until it’s over,” Ryan said.

“And the fat lady sings,” Mildred added.

“Shogun still alive?”

“Alive, Cawdor-san.”

“Sure?”

” Shinda tsumori . We all ready for that.” He coughed, his whole body jerking with the pain, a lump of blood the size of a fist filling his open mouth, flooding over his breastplate. “We anticipate death.”

“Could try getting arrow out,” Jak suggested.

But Mildred held up a hand. “No point. Might quicken his passing. That’s all.”

The samurai looked up at the strangely assorted group, his pain-filled eyes catching the terrified Issie. He pointed a blood-drenched finger at her.

“It is all bad joke,” he said very quietly, then slid forward on his face on the floor, the feathered flight of the arrow rasping on the planking.

“Best get on,” Ryan said.

A figure in dark blue erupted out of a door on his left, holding a Nambu blaster. For a moment the man hesitated, and Ryan shot him carefully through the center of the chest, sending him toppling backward out of sight.

THEY HAD OUTRUN the flames, but paused in a room where an exotic buffet had been laid out, the platters of food untouched.

“Funny,” Doc said, “but right now I think I could do me some eating after all.”

Ryan looked all around, head to one side, listening for sounds of danger.

There was shooting, accompanied by screams, but all of it seemed to be far off. As near as Ryan could work out, the corridor to the heart of the ville lay ahead of them, through the room with the food, maybe forty or fifty yards away.

“All right to snatch some food, lover?” Krysty asked, eyeing an oval blue-and-white dish bearing a wonderful array of fruit.

Doc was already halfway through a pastry shell filled with slices of thin meat, covered in a spicy red sauce. “Delicious, friends,” he grunted, spluttering crumbs on the floor. “Best I’ve eaten since Ma Thompson’s ice-cold frankfurter and hot parsnip mayonnaise!”

Mildred stopped halfway through a golden sliced pineapple. “God, Doc, you surely do come up with the most bizarre and disgusting thoughts.”

Doc looked thoughtful. “Now that you mention it, my dear, Dr. Wyeth, it was a somewhat revolting repast, though I had not eaten for several days at the time.”

Ryan drank deeply from one of the cut-crystal vases of fresh ice water, washing away some of the heat and dryness from his throat.

“Better.” As Ryan put down the empty jug, he noticed that the sound of the flames was getting closer and the smoke seemed to be thickening. “Time we got moving again,” he said.

Mildred wiped her mouth on her sleeve, patting J.B. on the arm. “I’m beginning to think that we might’ve missed the fat lady, John.”