Kate looked up at the forested slopes on either side of the road. The horses would never make it through the dense foliage. If they abandoned the animals, they could make their way into the hills and avoid the checkpoint, but that would mean breaking her promise to the horses.
Her mind was made up for her when she heard galloping hooves behind them. Goda’s men were charging toward them on horseback. They were trapped!
Kate quickly relayed instructions to the horses. Areno snorted, and both animals took off toward the checkpoint, away from one enemy and toward another.
As she got closer to the checkpoint, Kate saw that the gates were now open and a farmer was passing through, pushing a cart of vegetables. A guard stepped onto the road and held up his hand. When he realized they weren’t slowing, he gave orders for the gates to be closed, but the cart was in the way. Areno and Sora picked up speed, and Kate knew they were pushing themselves to their limits.
Two samurai shoved the farmer and his cart out of the way. The gates began to close. The horses pressed forward at breakneck speed. They couldn’t have stopped now even if they’d wanted to. The gap between the gates narrowed. They were either going to make this or die trying. Just before the two wooden gates met, Areno and Kate burst through, with Sora, Cormac, and Ghost on their tail.
The crossed swords on the checkpoint’s banners fluttered as the two horses thundered past. Looking behind her, Kate saw the gates finally close, blocking Goda’s soldiers. That might just give them the time they needed to get away. They urged their horses on. It was clear now that Goda’s men knew they had the sword and were after them.
Kate studied the passing scenery for a landmark, something that would lead her to the mountain trail. As she rounded a bend, she recognized the paddy fields they’d come through the previous day, so she guided Areno off the road. She dismounted and led him up the steep hill. Cormac and Ghost followed suit, and together they ran up the terraced slopes, constantly checking the road behind them for Goda’s samurai.
When they reached a small row of trees, they led the horses into shelter. Kate instructed the animals to lie down. She lay across Areno, the thunderous drumbeat of his pounding heart echoing in her ears. The horses’ muscular bodies were slippery with sweat. Whispering praise, she patted their necks, knowing they wouldn’t have made it much farther.
Using Cormac’s binocs, she looked out through the branches at the road below. A boy had appeared out of nowhere and was strolling along the road. Kate zoomed in and realized it was Yoshiro. Seconds later, Goda’s samurai galloped around the bend, scanning the hills for their prey.
Yoshiro immediately prostrated himself at the side of the road. The samurai stopped, and the lead rider addressed him. The boy pointed down the road, and the horses raced off in that direction. Kate watched them disappear and then returned her focus to Yoshiro. He waved, looking at her through an identical pair of binocs. She waved back before getting the horses to their feet again and continuing up the mountain.
Cormac led the way upward, out of the paddy fields, picking up their trail from the previous day. He couldn’t believe that had been only yesterday. It felt like a lifetime ago. He massaged his injured wrist as his horse walked past the shrine and into the forest.
In her saddle, Kate was undoing her samurai armor and discarding it along the way. She also pulled off the samurai clothes underneath and hurled them into the bushes. “They stink!”
Ghost did the same.
“I’m guessing the plan is to use the sword to reopen that hole thingy to get back to our own time?” said Cormac.
Kate nodded.
Miraculously they’d made it this far, but it would all have been for nothing if the next step didn’t work. Everything rested on the logic that the sword that had gotten them into this mess would also get them out of it.
They eventually arrived at the piece of muddy ground where Kiko’s horse had been tethered, and continued on to a familiar-looking clearing.
Cormac took the black scabbard and drew out the glinting blade. He felt a strange power thrumming from the katana, the moon emblem glowing softly. He took a deep breath, but Ghost raised his hand.
“I need to do this,” he said, taking the blade from Cormac.
Kate and Cormac watched intently as he raised the katana above his head. Dispelling the air from his lungs in one sharp burst, Ghost sliced downward with the sword. It made a whistling noise but did nothing else. Cormac swallowed, his worst fear now becoming a reality.
Ghost tried again and again, but nothing happened.
“Let me try,” said Kate.
She sliced the air in every direction, but without success. She threw the sword down and collapsed to the ground. “We’re stuck here!”
“Maybe it needs to be done a special way,” said Ghost, panic in his eyes.
Kate’s voice cracked when she spoke—she sounded on the edge of tears. “Or maybe only special people like Kiko can use it.”
Anger swirled inside Cormac like a hurricane gaining momentum. Everything he’d been through over the last few months—his recruitment by the Black Lotus, the attack on the highway, his shinobi training, the theft of the Moon Sword—had led to this point. And now it seemed it had all been for nothing!
He grabbed the katana, ignoring his sore wrist, and held it overhead. Screaming with fury he brought the blade down.
The air ripped, and an explosion of brightness lit up the clearing. Cormac shielded his eyes. When he looked back, Ghost was grinning widely as he stood beside a shifting pool of light. When he stepped inside, the edges of the hole shimmered and Cormac knew they had to be quick. He grabbed Kate’s arm and hauled her to her feet.
“The horses!” she shouted, pulling away from him to get the animals that were standing nervously nearby. As she led them toward the portal, cajoling them with soft whispers, Ghost reemerged from it, a look of terror on his face.
“Get back!” he shouted.
Cormac pointed the sword toward the window of light.
A small reptilian creature about the size of a hen jumped out of the portal into the clearing. It stood on two hind legs and had a long tail covered in greenish scales. Its arms were tiny and its head moved from side to side in quick, jerky movements, sizing up the humans with large yellow eyes.
Cormac raised the sword, and the creature snarled at him, baring rows of sharp, pointy teeth. It retreated toward the shrinking hole of light and jumped back into it before the hole closed and disappeared.
“What the heck happened?” asked Cormac.
“I was in the jungle, and then around me came the little … ”
“Dinosaurs?”
“Yes, the wrong place, definitely.”
“Do you remember when Kiko opened the portal to this place?” said Kate. “She put a lot of care into standing in the correct spot. Perhaps you need to cut in exactly the same place that we entered this world.”
Cormac nodded and looked around him, trying to remember where that had been. It was only then that he spotted a large round shape at the edge of the clearing. He hadn’t seen it earlier because it was covered in ivy. He ran over to it and began pulling off the vines.
“Help me!” he called to the others.
They ripped off the ivy to reveal a large boulder with a crack down the center of it. Cormac remembered Kiko standing beside it, back in the twenty-first century, when she had swung her sword.
“Stand back,” he said, raising the katana again.
With a shriek, he slashed down with the blade, opening up another pool of light. Through it, they heard a girl scream and the clip-clop of horseshoes on hard ground.
This time, Ghost didn’t step into the light but stuck his head in. Cormac joined him. On the other side was a city with tall houses and cobbled streets. Horse-drawn carriages trundled by noisily. A man wearing a scruffy long-tailed coat and a tall hat stood on a pavement in front of them. He held a knife to the throat of a petrified girl in a hoop skirt. They stared wid
e-eyed at the two boys’ heads floating in the air before them.
“Unhand that girl or I will rain fire down upon you!” boomed Cormac in a deep voice.
The man dropped the knife, and the girl ran off down the street. Cormac smiled at the man before withdrawing.
Ghost winked at Cormac. “The ladies’ man.”
Cormac waited for the portal to close before taking a step sideways. He made two more cuts with the sword but didn’t step blindly into any of the portals, which was just as well because one opened out onto the ocean and the other looked down on a polar landscape two hundred feet below. After each incision he adjusted his position, and on his fifth cut, instead of opening up a fissure of light, he opened up one of darkness. How strange it looked in the soft morning light, an aperture of velvety blackness gently contracting and contorting.
Gingerly, Cormac put his head inside. In front of him was a moonlit clearing in a forest, very like the one they were standing in. It was only when Makoto stepped out of the shadows that Cormac was certain it was the right place.
He pulled back and called to Ghost and Kate. “This is it! Hurry up!”
Kate quickly led the horses toward the black hole. Ghost stood aside to let the animals through. The horses tossed their heads and snorted nervously, but Kate comforted them with whispers. They sniffed the edges of the portal but wouldn’t enter. Kate whispered something into Areno’s ear and stepped into the pool of darkness. Areno followed, crossing over the threshold like a dressage competitor. Scared of being left behind, Sora leaped into the hole, which was already starting to contract.
Cormac grabbed the scabbard off the ground, sheathed the sword, and followed, his heart quickening at the sight of their welcoming party—the Jōnin and Makoto.
The Jōnin smiled at him, his face glowing gently in the darkness. Cormac nodded back, thinking what a sight they must look—him in his ninja’s black shōzoku, the Moon Sword in hand, and Kate dressed the same way and accompanied by two warhorses prancing nervously on either side of her.
He turned to watch Ghost’s dramatic entry.
The gash of sunlight wavered before beginning to close in upon itself.
“Where’s Ghost?” asked Makoto.
“He was right behind me,” said Cormac.
All eyes watched the wobbling pool of light as it continued to shrink.
Ghost … ?
The portal got smaller and smaller.
Kate grabbed Cormac’s arm.
“Ghost!” he shouted.
There was no reply.
The portal was shrinking fast. The forest darkened as the light disappeared.
Cormac knew he should do something, but he was frozen to the spot, his heart pounding in his chest. A figure in white raced past him toward the portal. The Jōnin thrust his arm into the pool of light to prevent it from closing. Only the stump of his other arm could be seen through his kimono. Cormac remembered the Jōnin’s attempt to retrieve the sword from Kiko. He remembered how his body’s glow had been quenched when he stumbled away from her. She had cut off his arm!
With his remaining arm, he wrestled the shimmering fissure of light. When he had stretched it wide enough, he placed his head, then his upper body inside. For a few seconds he remained there, half in and half out of their world. Then his body suddenly stiffened, and he fell backward into the twenty-first century. The hole of light snapped shut, swamping them in darkness.
Cormac dashed to the Jōnin’s side. He lay on his back, an arrow with a red feather fletching protruding from his chest. A black stain of blood spread across his kimono like the map of some malevolent empire. His glassy eyes stared straight ahead, the brightness fading.
Makoto felt for a pulse, then shook his head.
He was gone. And so was Ghost.
“Cormac, we have to get Ghost,” said Kate.
He didn’t answer, just stared at the lifeless body of the Jōnin.
“Cormac!” shouted Kate.
He snapped out of his daze and looked at her.
“We have to get Ghost. Open the portal.”
He nodded and lifted his sword.
But before he could strike, an explosion shook the forest. Kate’s ears rang and she felt a painful pressure inside them. As if in slow motion, Areno and Sora, the samurai warhorses, reared up on their hind legs before bolting from the clearing. Kate saw Makoto running toward her, shouting, but couldn’t hear what he was saying. Her legs wobbled. Bright flashes erupted in the darkness and all around her branches splintered, leaves fell, and the forest floor seemed alive, spitting pine needles into the air.
Makoto pulled her to the ground. He was still shouting at her, but she heard nothing. Makoto motioned for her to follow him. Copying the way he slid along on his belly, forearm over forearm, she followed him to the large cracked boulder at the edge of the clearing. As the ringing in her head faded, her hearing returned. The sounds were muted at first, but quickly increased in volume until her head was filled with a noise she recognized from the highway attack: gunshots.
Cormac joined them at the rock.
“Are you OK?” shouted Makoto, his voice barely audible above the gunfire.
Cormac nodded.
Makoto pressed his comm to his ear, his eyebrows bunching together with the strain of trying to hear whoever was communicating with him.
“Renkondo is under attack!” he shouted to Cormac. “Kyatapira. You have to escape with the sword.”
“Where to?” yelled Cormac.
Makoto whipped his head around. A Kat had burst through the foliage into the clearing and was scanning the darkness down the barrel of his gun. Makoto leaped up and raced at the man, who swung around with his weapon in time to see the heel of Makoto’s hand drive into his throat. The blow lifted the Kat clean into the air, sending him crashing into the bushes.
“GO!” shouted Makoto, before turning back to deal with the Kat, who was already reaching for the gun he’d dropped.
Cormac pulled Kate to her feet. “Come on!”
She followed him out of the clearing and into the pitch-dark forest. Together, they ran through the trees, the steeply inclining ground propelling them dangerously downhill. Branches lashed her face as she ran blindly through a forest alive with bright flashes and the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic gunfire. When her foot caught on a fallen bough, she screamed and fell forward onto her shoulder. She tumbled head over heels, hitting something hard on the way down. She rolled downward and plowed into something soft, which ended her descent.
A low groaning noise told her it was Cormac she had collided with. Kate untangled her legs from his and groped about in the darkness until she found his chest. Her hands traveled up the beaded surface of his shōzoku to find his face. She leaned forward and whispered, “Cormac, are you OK?”
At first he didn’t move and Kate’s heart fluttered in fear. But then she heard a moan and felt him shift beneath her.
“Are you OK?” she repeated.
“Yes,” he croaked.
It was so dark she could barely see him. Leaves brushed her face as she looked around. They seemed to have fallen into a clump of bushes on the edge of a moonlit path. “What’ll we do?” she asked.
“Shh!”
Kate listened. Distant gunshots could be heard higher up in the forest, but the nearby firing had stopped.
Cormac grabbed her arm. She heard what he’d obviously heard too: the cracking of twigs as footsteps drew closer.
Kate’s blood froze when a red dot of light appeared on the path beside her. It danced across the leafy ground and was followed by a shiny gun barrel mounted with a laser sight. Then a pair of legs came into view. Kate recognized the wide black trousers. Kyatapira.
She heard the crackle of a walkie-talkie and then a coarse voice like pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. “Ta-tashikani yatsura wo mitazo.”
Kate did a quick translation. I think I saw them.
She held her breath and stayed absolutely still, her eyes fixed on the leg
s of the Kat. If she had reached out, she could have touched them.
A branch cracked, and the Kat reacted instantly. His body rotated as if he was scanning the forest for the source of the noise. But Kate knew the sound had come from high up in the canopy. Slowly she tilted her head back and peered up into the trees. All she could see were black branches and black leaves against a slightly less black sky. Then one of the branches seemed to grow legs and arms, mutating into human form and crawling across the boughs above their heads. Black as a shadow and silent as a breeze, it moved along the overhead tangle of branches until it was directly above the Kat. It sat crouched on the edge of a branch for a brief moment before dropping down.
The ninja fell to the ground like a stone, and a grunt from the Kat told Kate that the ninja had found his target. Kate peered out onto the path to see the Kat lying on the ground, having dropped his gun. It lay within arm’s reach of her. Nearby, a Black Lotus shinobi got to his feet, and so did the Kat.
The shinobi lunged at his opponent, sending him staggering backward, but he recovered quickly. Now that they were side by side, Kate could see that the police officer had the advantage of size. When the shinobi swung a roundhouse kick, he easily blocked it and counterattacked with a punch to the stomach. The shinobi doubled over and the Kat followed up with a two-handed hammer blow to the back of the neck. The shinobi collapsed, and the Kat pinned him to the ground by kneeling on his neck.
When the Kat pulled off the shinobi’s mask, Kate had to stifle a cry. It was Kristjan!
The Kat stood up and laughed. Kate heard the brush of steel as he drew his sword. Then she saw him raise it above his head. On the ground, Kristjan pulled himself up onto his knees.
Kate reacted without thinking. She reached forward and grabbed the gun, pointing it toward the Kat. When the red dot of the laser landed on his thigh, she squeezed the trigger. A burst of automatic fire exploded from the weapon, its recoil twisting her wrist painfully.
The Black Lotus Page 15
