Merlin's Ring

by H. Warner Munn

  As a last gesture, the catapult still in the hands of the folk cast its final immense boulder. In preparation for this last, blow it had been aimed with the minutest care not at either of the bridges, but at the dam built across the pass.

  The rock lifted ponderously in the spoon that held it. It whirled out and down. It fell like a thunder-stone, smashed away the masonry facing, and plunged far into the earthen ramp.

  Cracks spidered out around the deep hole and water welled up to fill it, gushing out, crumbling the dam like wet sugar, widening the gap. The Itari sprang over its banks; it leapt and roared and rushed upon the missile throwers and hoardings.-

  The whole body of the lake flung itself upon the beach in one great tumbling wave, hurling men, materiel, and smashed artillery into the sea.

  As a last act, the rearguard on the upper cliff fired the second beacon before they followed the women into the tunnels. The smoke spiraled high, a final appeal for help, which was not yet in sight anywhere, either by land or sea.

  Then, as the Mongols followed down, oil-soaked fires were lit below, driving them out again with heat and fumes of sulphur and cannonade of cracked and crumbling stone. With that fury of flame, which stormed against the tunnel sides, the tortured stratas of rock collapsed and filled the upper shafts with red-hot fragments.

  By nightfall, although the slaughter had continued and the attacks gone on unabated until then, a temporary truce was mutually concluded.

  The Mongols now held the heights unopposed and the pass was open, but it could not be used without severe casualties while the castle still commanded its entrance; the beach was torn and guttered, though still occupied by the enemy, whose strength, constantly replenished from the ships, appeared undiminished and formidable.

  From the, defenders viewpoint, the situation appeared bleak but not hopeless. The first rampart had been once lost, but after the flood it was reoecupied and the damage repaired. The moat was gone, but the river had not been rebridged and its new channel formed another barrier to the encamped host.

  From time to time, the stone-throwers lobbed a missile among the tents on the beach, but there was no answering fire from the few catapults still standing there. It was more to prove that Castle Shori was still on guard and undaunted that this activity went on, than hi the hope of accidentally hitting something important in the dark.

  As the night wore on, the sounds of hammering rose to the listeners. By daylight, they faced again a battery of catapults and found that an additional menace was in sight. In the dark hours, a broad, tubby, strongly built -mortar boat had been towed hi as far as its draft permitted. The black muzzle of the mortar was trained upon the battlements and a smoking linstock betrayed that it was ready for firing.

  The engineers were standing at their triggers, the tumans were drawn up behind their officers hi precisely aligned ranks, rilling the beach with their thousands, and horses were splashing ashore from barges hi preparation for the cavalry to ride out into the ulterior when the way was made clear.

  Against this host the garrison of Shori Castle, counting men, women, children, and babes hi arms, numbered less than four hundred; the trained soldiers, both archers and samurai, only five score! But all posts were manned and ready, and above them the peony flag of the Hidayamas still proudly flew. Spirits had not yet quailed and the issue was still hi doubt

  It was at that moment, while everything seemed to be holding its breath, that a tall richly dressed man strolled out from the throng of Mongols and hailed the castle.

  “I speak for the puissant Huang Ti Kublai. Cease this futile resistance! Everywhere our victorious troops are marching upon the Wang of Nihon. Your situation is hopeless. You are surrounded. No help is coming to your aid. Only here do men fight and you will be dead within hours if you do not surrender. I am the Admiral of the Fleet and I can grant you safety. Submit to the Khan and save your lives. You may consider for a quarter of one hour—no more. The attack will be to the death!”

  He swung upon his heel, preparing to return, but Baron Kuroki’s response was instant.

  “I challenge you, Admiral, to personal combat. If I win, your army shall withdraw and your fleet seek another shore. If I lose, the castle will surrender under the condition that all lives will be spared except mine. Myself I place in your hands.”

  Gwalchmai was aghast. “Daimyo, this is a mad thought! No Mongol is to be trusted to that extent. If you step out from behind these walls you are a dead man!”

  Mitami, at his side, clasped her father in her arms. He gently thrust her aside, but stood with his arm around her waist.

  The Admiral considered briefly. “To save unnecessary bloodshed, I agree. Let us meet upon your side of the moat.”

  He turned to his nearest aide, said a few words, and took the man’s sword.

  In the center of a group of personal guards, he walked to the edge of the moat. A single plank for bridge was hastily thrust across. They stood outside the gate in the rampart and waited.

  The gate opened and Baron Kuroki came out, in a similar group of samurai. Admiral Chepe met him with a disarming smile. His sword was sheathed and he held a scroll in his hand.

  “It may be that there is no need to fight, brave Lord. The terms of Khan of Khans are most merciful to his allies. I beseech you to read them and risk the lives of your people no further. Your personal valor is not in question. Should one man’s pride bring woe to so many? Your honor has been well upheld in yesterday’s battle. Now is the time to take thought and profit by your own wisdom and the Khan’s charity.”

  As he spoke, in a mild musical voice that would have charmed a bird out of a tree, he held out the scroll. Baron Kuroki reached for it. His sword was also sheathed. As he extended his hand, the Admiral winced as though in pain and glanced down. He was wearing soft thin slippers.

  Apparently he was also standing upon sharp pebbles. He took a step back and then another, still looking down to place his feet upon a smoother spot.

  The Baron followed him those two steps, still holding out his hand for the scroll. Instantly, the group of Mongol guards, who had not moved, closed around him, snatching out their blades, thrusting aside the startled samurai. While some of them engaged the castle men, the others slashed the Baron to pieces.

  “O-a-oo-ong!”

  From a dying samurai’s throat rang out the bell-like cry of danger. “Treachery! Treachery! Strike, Brothers! Kill! Kill!”

  The Admiral flung himself headlong into the moat. A Mongul arrow flight sped across the space where he had stood. It feathered indiscriminately all who still stood and fought before the half-open gate, but without success. Before the charging company of waiting Mongols that followed it could plunge into the moat and scramble up that slippery moss-grown side, the gate was closed again. Into them then tore the answering volley.

  Down slammed the stones from the battlements; up rose the exploding bombs, tearing now into~ and through the red-tiled roofs, bringing flame, xlust, and coiling smoke.

  The serried companies advanced with their portable bridges and ladders; the arrows whistled and wailed and the battle was on.

  Look for the last time on Shori Castle! Its outlines remain as though etched against the cliff. The roofs are gone, the crenels and merlons of the battlements are blown away; the walls themselves are crumbled into shapeless heaps. Still the mortar boat, lying out of range in Haga Bay, continues its slow bombardment, pounding the stout masonry into ruin.

  There are no more missile throwers to answer it from those battlements, but now and again a helmeted head bobs up from the piles of rubble and an arrow arches down toward the beach.

  It is still unsafe to risk the pass, although three days have passed since the murder of Baron Kuroki.

  Inspect those ramparts held so well by men of honor! The double gates are gone- from the outer two—the first one in the third wall was torn away by a powder charge early upon this final day; the last one hangs by a single hinge at the end of its ten-foot tunnel,
yet beyond it the defenders are waiting.

  Here sit or stand the remaining war-brothers, oiling their hair, bathing, sharpening their five-foot swords. They are not now a hundred—they are not fifty. Eighteen in all—no samurai without his wound; behind them a few supporting fishermen with axes and the spears they will first throw before closing; and six archers, who have so far kept the gate and perhaps can do it once more.

  If, after that grim meeting, any survive, they will die in the winding corridors of the building’s interior, for above it the peony flag still flies and there is no one there but feels himself a Hidayama now.

  All wear the white fillet bound about their brows. Even the women and the children have sworn to wear it-to the death. When the last stairway falls and the ladders of the hated Mogu are raised to the last high chamber in the cliff, they will wait until those ladders are crowded. Then those women who still live will hurl the children to clear those rungs of warriors and leap upon the others, using their own bodies in death as one last weapon.

  Even now, there is little else. The arrows are almost gone, the pikes are broken, the swords are notched—yet, deep in the heart of Shori Castle there is one beautiful quiet room, untouched by fire or smoke, and here, as though all eternity stretched before them, an elegantly’dressed couple are being wed.

  They are robed all in white, for this is a day of parting. It is a day of happiness also, for this pair are no more than renewing vows made long ago and neither of them believes in the permanence of death.

  Gwalchmai sipped the last of the nine cups of sake and passed it to the Lady Mitami Uyume. She touched it to her lips and set it down. Their eyes met. He smiled, seeing only Corenice as he had seen her first—seeing her now in her loveliest of guises.

  “Ahuni-i promised me that she would be here at the end, but she has not come.” There was a note of regret in her golden tones.

  He heard,- as so many times before, the reminiscent chiming of the tiny bells always most evident when she felt deep emotion.

  “Perhaps she feels that you no longer need her, now that I am your lord and master,” he whispered, so none of the few others present could hear.

  “Daimyo of Shod Castle, Hidayama by marriage, but always my lord—always my love.”

  Their lips met for the first time, in this so brief reunion, and only briefly for this moment.

  Chikara staggered in, his broken left arm bound tightly to his side, his bare sword held in his right hand.

  “Arm, my Lord Gorome! The last assault is upon us!” He whirled and went clattering down the stair to take his place at the gate.

  Under their streaming yak-tailed tougs, the Mongols no longer rushed headlong upon those long two-handed swords. They had learned a great deal in four days. They did not advance hi gaiety and disdain, for they had learned respect.

  Because of this, there was a little tune for Gwalchmai to don his armor. He was glad that the Baron had been a man of his own build, for it fitted him perfectly. He had not been told that only five important families in the land were permitted to wear such metal, but he did know that it suited him and he meant to do it honor and not disgrace the man who had formerly possessed it.

  He stood among the group at the gate and waited; sword in hand. The ring upon his finger was scorching with heat, tokening the desperation of the hour. Mitami had kissed him hi farewell, dry-eyed, and taken her place among the other women inside the ruins. The Mongols came on slowly.

  The archers drew back their bows. No arrow-point trembled. The eighteen samurai thrust back the sleeves of their sword arms.

  A sudden thought came to Gwalchmai and he thanked God he had not been able to send the Mongols against Alata. Was this why, he wondered, Merlin had specified a Christian ruler whom he might notify of that new world and none other?

  Around him, the men were praying, but not hi fear. He heard Chikara quote a little poem:

  Pray for Ise’s Wind Divine, Let it destroy the Mogu fleet Then the Rising Sun shall shine And Peonies laugh at their defeat.

  Gwalchmai struck his brow in despair at his thoughtlessness. Merlin! The Divine Wind! Merlin’s Ring! Perhaps all was not yet lost.

  He hastily removed the ring, read the spell, and pointed the long end of the constellation directly at the offshore fleet. A little breeze began to blow. A brassy tinge came over the sky. Clouds gathered. Then he had no time to see more—the Mongols were charging for the gate.

  Twice the archers shot into the thick of them as they came. After that, the besiegers and besieged were too closely intermingled, for the gate offered almost no resistance to the force that struck it. Down it went and the infuriated horde thrust into the courtyard and the weary defenders. The clashing of the fine steel was like the shrieking sleet that fills the icy wind that howls eternally across the razor bridge that leads to the Seven Hells.

  They were outflanked, but retired swiftly in good order. The ponderous castle door was still undamaged and open, for there women stood with drawn daggers to hold that opening until their men should come.

  They came, step by bloody step, knowing that it was open, never looking behind them, backing across the courtyard, contesting the way and leaving a carpet of Mongol dead to hide the gray flagstones and pollute the goldfish pool.

  With ax and sword play they hurled the enemy from them in one last savage forlorn attack. Then they ran in, those that were left, and the bronze barrier clanged shut.

  Counting all—archers, samurai, and ax-men—there were only ten beside Gwalchmai. One of them was Chikara, who had never left his side.

  Stately, dainty, and proud, the Lady Mitami came to greet her husband. She saw him spattered with blood, but with no grievous wound. Others were not so fortunate, and around them the other women gathered, tending them, binding then* gashes, giving them heart.

  Now began the booming of the great castle bell, but not to call to prayer. The children above, grasping long ropes, were swinging the suspended beam against it, neither as alrum or as dirge.

  Bar-room! Bar-room! Bar-room! The measured cadence went on, so that those who listened to the one hundred and eight strokes might be purged from the one hundred and eight sins.

  Bar-room! Bar-room! Mingled with the sound, and in itself shaking the weakened fabric of the remaining castle walls, there rumbled the clanging thunder of ^ log beating at the bronze portal, and over all a sound so distant yet that they were unaware of it—the mutterings of the gathering storm.

  He heard a child cry out from high above: ‘Tsunami! Tsunami!“ but he did not know what the word meant. The weakened door bulged in. The men gripped their slippery weapons, the women drew their jeweled daggers once more from their obis and made ready.

  Again came that high joyous cry, for that child had seen a great dome of water well up like a sleek green hill growing in the center of Haga Bay. It mounted toward the sky and with it went junks and little boats and streamers of weed and drowning men. It sank and raced out in a wide circle, high upon the shore, where within rolled helplessly, with flailing arms and legs, Chepe Ketoyan Be and all his arrogant entourage,

  It struck against the two headlands and upon those tearing fangs the ships anchored close went into sad wrack and were crumbled, with all their crews. The floating timbers were hurled on the outgoing waves into the far mass of the fleet, striking like lances into storerooms and holds, or battering broadside like jagged rafts, ripping tremendous rents into which rushed the sea.

  The sound of the cataclysm came distantly to those deep in the recesses of the castle. Only a little water came in, almost unnoticed.

  The defenders stood shoulder to shoulder, almost at the top of the first ramp, behind them the tunnels running deep into the cliff.

  When the Mongols poured in, only to find no one close, they paused briefly, then began to surge up the slope. Above them all, smoke that was thick, choking, and heavy seeped down from holes in the ceiling. When those who remained had retreated to the top, the ramp would become a river of fla
ming oil.

  Suddenly a terrible war-cry arose outside. The Mongols stopped and turned back, scattering wildly, only to meet an inrush of their fighting companions. Following these instantly, there waved the paper banners of the Akagawa, the Taira, and the Matsuyamas. The assembled clans had come!

  In retreat, the Mongols charged the ramp. Trapped between the forces, they struck out to these last few moments most savagely of all. Chikara was beaten to his knees.

  Gwalchmai bestrode him and struck out over his follower’s head in a mad whirl of steel.

  His sword broke. He whipped out his flint hatchet, split a skull and flung the weapon at another attacker who turned to run. It missed.

  The Mongol saw it clatter at his feet and Gwalchmai without a weapon. He swept up the hatchet and flung it clumsily back.

  Gwalchmai saw it coming directly at his head, but he was penned in by those about him and could not dodge. His senses seemed preternaturally sharpened. The tomahawk floated at him, spinning lazily through the air. It moved so slowly, yet his reflexes were not rapid taough to avoid it.

  Against his temple it struck like a heavy hammer, but not/ with its keen edge. He felt bone give under its blow, but it did not seem to him that he became unconscious. There were flashing lights, but no pain. There was a subtle change in all he saw as he walked unhindered, out of the building.

  The grass blades became edged in light. The cherry petals tinkled as they fell from the nimbus-crowned trees that had suddenly sprouted up from the courtyard, from which all signs of battle had vanished. The very pebbles on the shining paths were jewels.

  He did not see the hideous face of Oduarpa show briefly and disappear in the writhing clouds of the typhoon he himself had called up. He did not hear the shrieking winds that struck down on the western coast, driving the assembled armada of Kublai Khan, with all their drifting swarms of ferocious soldiery, into drifting, smashing flotsam upon those rocky shores.

  He did not know that even then, between the Islands of the Five Dragons, the bodies of the drowned were already washing ashore in such masses that they would form bridges for the clans to march over, seeking out the living. He could not realize that those who survived would henceforth be slaves and few would ever get back to carry the news of the fearful catastrophe to their humbled Master.