by Baen Books
Ran froze. He had felt a subtle calming effect coming over him. But Seiryu showed no signs of adverse effects. In fact, even as he watched Ran, Seiryu continued to drink the tea.
“The plant has no effect on those who regularly consume it. And as you might have gathered, I drink this every day. It gives me the ability to neutralize those who might not otherwise trust my hospitality.”
Ran felt his muscles stiffening. Seiryu leaned over, plucked the tea cup away from him and placed it down on the table. “Tell me something, did you really think it would be so easy to fool me? That you could simply walk into my domain and not expect me to know your plans?”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Ran’s tongue felt thicker now. He slowed his breathing to combat the effects of the drug—that was what his instructors had taught him back in Gakur. But he’d never had the chance to practice it.
Until now.
Seiryu waved his hand as if Ran were a pesky mosquito. “It matters not, we will soon have all of your secrets. Whether you wish to divulge them or not. None can resist the power that is at my disposal.”
Ran sensed movement around him and then his swords were taken out of his belt by unseen hands. Powerless to stop them, Ran felt himself lifted and carried down from the lounge.
Seiryu’s face swam in front of his. “And then after we find out who you truly are, your blood will feed my master.”
* * *
When Ran awoke, he wondered briefly if was already dead. He had no memory of losing consciousness, such was the power of the tea he’d drunk. He cursed himself for being too trusting of Seiryu’s hospitality. Black magic, he frowned. Would that all the sorcerers in this world could be expunged with a simple thought. The world might be better off.
But he couldn’t concentrate on his mistakes. The safety of his home in Gakur seemed so very far away; he was alone and only he could save himself. The Nine Daggers would not ride in to rescue him; that was not their way. Ran opened his eyes.
He recognized the room; it was the same one he’d stolen the sword of Daisuke from.
The candles had been replaced by thick black, waxy ones that oozed as they burned and smelled like pitch mixed with human feces. Ran’s eyes watered from the pungent stench, but he could do little to stem the flow of tears since his arms and legs were stretched out akimbo on the stone altar
He’d been stripped down to just his leggings; his bare chest rose and fell toward the ceiling and he saw at the top there was a circular window. A sliver of the full moon appeared at the edge of the glass. Once the moon filled the window, Ran had little doubt he would be sacrificed.
He tested the ropes that held his wrists, but the cordage seemed pliable and without compromise. He tried to relax his breathing, but his heart thundered in his chest. He forced himself to remain calm. Panic would kill him as surely as the evil sorcerer would.
A hand appeared above his face and then Seiryu placed it atop Ran’s heart. After a moment, a wicked smile slithered across his face. “Your heart trembles in fear of the future.”
Ran bit his tongue and the pain refocused his mind. “It pulses with my desire to cut your head from your shoulders. Do not mistake it for anything else.”
Seiryu laughed. “Predictably, my men were unable to locate your belongings in the location you suggested.”
“Perhaps they chose the wrong tree,” said Ran. More of the moon filled the window overhead now.
“Doubtful,” said Seiryu. “They know these woods quite well. Which leads me to believe that you are not what you say you are. Not that I believed that story in the first place.”
“No?”
“There are few of your young age who are as skilled as you. And any that are do not come from the traditional Murai warrior schools.”
Ran smiled. “Then that makes me rather unique. Perhaps I’m even more valuable to you.”
Seiryu shrugged. “Not necessarily. For there are those who have the same abilities you do. I have heard rumors and whispers of your kind. Legends, they say. Supernatural warriors able to do most anything. Even scale the walls of a castle as high as this.”
Ran said nothing.
Seiryu leaned closer and spat the word. “Shadow warrior.”
Ran tested the ropes again, but they held fast. Seiryu smiled. “But you are not supernatural, are you? You and others like you take advantage of those superstitious fools who are scared of their own shadows. You use their fears against them to accomplish whatever ends motivate your clan.”
The moon grew larger in the window and now Ran heard a low chanting he hadn’t noticed before.
“Unfortunately for you, shadow warrior, I am able to bend the darkness to my will. But it levies a heavy toll, which must be paid. Tonight, you will be my payment. And it is one that I think will ensure I have more power than I need for some time to come.”
Seiryu gestured above. “When the moon fills the portal above, your end will come. I shall spill your blood and cut out your beating heart and offer it as tribute to my master. He will consume it whole…while you watch. Such is the power of his dark magic.”
Ran’s mouth grew dry. The weapons he had concealed upon himself had all been taken. Seiryu moved around and then held aloft Ran’s long sword. “This is not nearly as beautiful a piece as what was stolen from me.” He rested the blade against Ran’s chest and Ran caught his breath as he felt the razor edge slice his skin. “Tell me where my sword is.”
Ran frowned. “I don’t know anything about your sword.”
Seiryu smiled again and pressed the edge further. Ran grimaced as the blade bit deeper into his chest.
“I know that you are trained to reveal nothing under duress. But you should know that I have spent a lifetime studying the weaknesses of man. And I know that there comes a point in every man where he will break and reveal even those things he wishes most to keep hidden.”
Ran licked his lips. “You’re wasting your time.”
“Perhaps,” said Seiryu, “the sword rests even now with others in your clan? I have heard talk of a school for those like you that lies deep in the mountains. Protected by snow and fog and dead-end valleys and rockslides. Few dare venture there.”
“Fewer still would make it back alive,” said Ran. “Given such precautions.”
“But for one such as myself,” said Seiryu, “I could easily make the journey and find what belongs to me. And I could do it without even leaving the comfort of my home here, such is my power.”
The candles overhead flickered and a breeze swept up through the room. Ran caught a strange new scent and the chanting seemed overpowered by a low growl emanating from all around them.
Seiryu pointed at the portal overhead. “The time grows near and my master hungers for the blood of one such as you. Strength and vitality flow within your veins. Shortly, they will slake his unnatural thirst.”
Ran bucked against the ropes but even with his strength, he could do little to free himself. Seiryu’s laughter filled the chamber and the wind in the room grew even more powerful. The tapestries flapped against the stone walls and the chanting increased.
“Look at me now,” said Seiryu. “And you will look upon the visage of one who controls the depths of night and shadow. Where your kind only play, I rule with the power of the mighty overlord of darkness.”
Ran gasped and saw Seiryu’s features changing. His skull seemed to lengthen and draw out to an absurdly narrow shape. His eyes vanished and became blackened pools of obsidian. Serrated teeth burst from a gaping maw dripping with a greenish bile.
Seiryu turned around and lifted his hands to the open portal high overhead. He started chanting in a dialect Ran had never heard before.
Ran yanked at the binds holding his wrists.
And then felt one of them give.
He jerked his head to one side and saw a figure cloaked in black clothes slicing through the cordage with a darkened blade. It cut his left hand first and then his right.
Ran turned to keep his eyes on
Seiryu, who still had his back to him.
The figure rushed to Ran’s front and cut away the binds holding his feet.
Ran rolled off the altar.
Seiryu turned and saw Ran free and roared. “No!”
Ran glanced at the figure that had cut him free and felt something thrust into his hands. His long sword!
Ran ripped it from its scabbard and held the blade in front of him.
Seiryu eyed him for a mere moment and then seemed to sigh as if Ran’s sudden freedom were nothing more than a slight delay in the inevitable procession.
“Kill him.”
From behind Seiryu six armed warriors rushed to either side. Ran recognized them as some of the guards he’d passed on his way into the castle earlier. They bore an assortment of short swords and other weapons.
Ran took a deep breath and moved to meet the first attacker. The guard swung a short sword down at his head and Ran stepped to the outside of the blade’s arc before cleaving up and through the man’s midsection with his long sword. He gurgled and dropped.
A second guard stabbed at Ran who barely managed to chop down and then backhand his blade up into the man’s throat, severing his neck almost entirely.
Ran spun and dropped, evading the third attack from his left side. He cut up and under the swordsman’s armpit, driving the blade deeply into it, hearing the man gasp and then slide off the blade.
More wind burst about the room and Seiryu continued chanting as if it would somehow aid his men.
But Ran was his own tempest now, sweeping left and right as his blade executed the finely honed movements that he had been burned into his muscle memory for many years.
He stepped under a fourth assault and drove his blade into the man’s heart, yanking it free and cutting horizontally as the fifth attacker attempted to cleave his skull with a war hammer. Ran sliced him open and then faced the sixth and final guard, who started to cut down at Ran’s head, only to suddenly freeze as the blade of a small knife suddenly exploded from his chest. He dropped and Ran saw the cloaked figure that had freed him standing there, still holding the blade.
Ran nodded curtly at the figure and then wheeled to face Seiryu.
The evil wizard now looked more like some bizarre creature than the man he had once been. But if Ran expected to see fear in its face, he was sorely mistaken. Seiryu seemed completely unfazed by Ran’s sudden quest for freedom and the death of six well-trained warriors in the space of mere moments.
The dark mage spoke now and the rasping gargle of words that spilled forth reminded Ran of a rabid animal, sick and evil as disease twisted its very soul. “You will never leave this room alive.”
Ran kept the altar between him and Seiryu, doing his best to use his environment to his advantage.
But then Seiryu—now more beast than man—bounded across the room and leaped over the altar, landing on Ran before the shadow warrior could even sense the motion. Seiryu’s fingers had become claws and they tore through the open wound on Ran’s chest, drawing deep crimson blood that stained the air and the ground alike.
A growling purr arose in Seiryu’s throat. Ran gritted his teeth and rolled, bucking the wizard from his chest. Seiryu wheeled and then sprang again, but Ran’s blade flashed in the air.
He felt the long sword bite deep into Seiryu’s side. He twisted his hips, driving the blade through bone and organ alike, spraying the room with the vile stench of innards and gristle.
Seiryu fell sprawling at the base of the altar, his blood spilling about him in an ever-widening pool.
Ran stepped forward to deal him a death blow, but the wizard lifted one quivering claw and a bolt of purple energy sizzled in the air, slamming into Ran’s stomach, knocking him back across the room. Ran slammed into the stone wall and felt his wind go rushing out of his lungs. He struggled to breathe, desperate to finish Seiryu off.
On the other side of the room, Seiryu clamped one of his claws across the wound Ran had given him and tried to rise. His features melted again, a swirling miasma of flesh and scale that defied anything natural. It was if his body was caught between two different beings.
Ran couldn’t afford to let either win.
He managed to rise, his breathing coming in short spurts. Seiryu caught the motion and sent another bolt of energy at him. But Ran ducked out of its path and moved across the room. The howl of wind attacked his ears, but Ran ignored it and reached Seiryu.
Seiryu’s voice croaked from his throat. “You will not kill my master tonight.”
“Perhaps not,” said Ran. He raised his sword and slashed down, cleaving Seiryu’s head cleanly from his shoulders. “But your death will do just fine.”
Seiryu’s head rolled to one side of the room and then stopped, his eyes open and opaque.
A sudden stillness dropped over the room.
Everything went silent.
* * *
Ran blinked. Sweat and blood ran down his torso; he let out a long shuddering breath.
He sensed movement behind him and whirled around, his sword at the ready.
The figure swathed in black approached. Ran frowned. Something about it seemed familiar.
“Ran.”
That voice.
And then the figure drew back the cloth wrapped about its head and Ran gazed upon the eyes of the woman he’d freed only a short time before. He smiled in spite of himself. “Cassandra.”
She glanced about the room. “It would appear as though the debt I owe you has been repaid.”
Ran frowned. “I rather thought that debt would be repaid by other…more pleasurable means.”
Cassandra laughed lightly. “No doubt. Who knows what your future may bring? You may yet live to see such bliss.”
Ran sheathed his sword. “But why did you come back here? He would have killed you if you’d been recaptured.”
“I never left,” said Cassandra. “Fleeing would have been futile; I made it as far as the western passes and found them closed. I would have never gotten past them alive. So I came back, biding my time until I could steal back into the castle and get close enough to kill him. Only then would I have been able to return to my home.”
“You meant to kill him?”
Cassandra eyed him. “Better I try and die in failure than live a coward’s life.”
“How did you get into the castle again?”
“You are not the only with certain skills, Ran. I’ve been watching the timings of the patrols that he sent out each day. This day, a squad of men headed to the place where we last parted ways. I heard them talking about someone who seemed to resemble your appearance. Getting back into the castle was far easier than escaping.”
Ran pointed. “I see you still have the knife I gave you.”
She smiled. “And a good thing you did give it to me. It saved your life tonight.”
Ran shook his head. “My life was spared not because of that tool, but because of the bravery of a woman to whom I am now indebted.”
“You owe me nothing. I would have languished in that cell until he saw fit to feed me to whatever creature he called forth from the depths of hell.”
Ran stepped over to the side of the room and slid his tunic back on, feeling the material quickly absorb the sweat and blood. Cassandra pointed at his chest. “You should get that treated. Seiryu’s claws might have had some poison under them.”
Ran frowned. “There will be time enough for that later. Right now, we need to get out of here.” He grabbed his long and short swords and thrust them into his belt. “Come on.”
They turned and froze. Seiryu’s body suddenly ignited with a bright green flame that devoured every inch of his flesh. It grew hotter in the room until they could stand it no longer. Flames leapt to the tapestries and then the scrolls blew into the rising inferno.
Ran grabbed Cassandra’s hand and they dashed from the room. More fire exploded in the hallway. Overhead, they heard a rumbling of bricks and stone. Bits of the ceiling crashed down around them.
Cassandra gripped his hand and they ran back toward the main entrance. Flames and explosions rocked the castle around them, but they ducked back out onto the ramparts, following the towers stairs back down toward the main gate. The guards and servants paid them little mind and only one stood to confront them, but Ran cut him down with little more effort than a blink.
They dashed through the main gate and did not stop until they reached the edge of the forest. Turning, they saw the castle shudder and then tumble in upon itself, its lofty towers plunging toward the ground, until only a massive pile of boulders stood in its wake. A cloud of dust rose over the entire scene and then settled back onto the huge pile of rubble.
“I have never seen such magic,” said Cassandra quietly.
“Nor I.”
She looked at Ran then and kissed him quietly on his lips. “Where will you go now?”
Ran looked north. “Back to my clan. I will tell them what happened here tonight. Seiryu’s evil is no more. He is dead.”
Cassandra eyed him. “And what then, shadow warrior?”
Ran smiled. “I don’t know…yet.”
“Stay with me, then. Journey to the west with me. Let me show you my kingdom and the beauty it encompasses.”
Her eyes twinkled under the starlight and Ran felt his heart thunder for a different reason. She pressed close to him and he felt her warmth.
But then he stepped back. “I have an obligation to fulfill first.”
Cassandra nodded. “The rumors about your kind are not true.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are those who claim that your kind are without honor; that you are not true warriors.”
Ran grinned. “There are those who say that. Yes.”
“But they don’t know you the way I do.”
Ran chuckled. “Do you know me, Princess Cassandra?”
“Perhaps not as well as I would like. But I think seeing any man risk his life to thwart evil gives one a certain insight.”
Ran touched her cheek. “What insight?”
