Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages

by Неизвестный

  He barely flinched. “I will take it from you willingly, but I must beg a few moments first.”

  “Very well,” she said with effort. “You have . . . as much time as I can bear not to consume you or your companion. Do what you must do quickly. I cannot say how long that will be.”

  Sugitani ran over to me, collecting his dropped sword along the way. “I know how I can serve Lord Rokkaku, Takeda. But I’m going to need your help. I’m afraid you won’t be able to die tonight. Can you stand?” he asked.

  I tried it. “If I hold my wound closed. I’ll have to bandage it.” I untied my loincloth, and he helped me wrap the strip of cloth tight around my abdomen. I could walk, though blood was already starting to seep through.

  “Now get your armor on. No, wait—take mine. It won’t do me any good, and it’s better than yours.”

  It was. Where mine was little more than a cuirass made of curved iron strips, his covered his arms and body with small overlapping scales of leather, lacquered rock-hard and glossy and laced together with silk. My family could never have afforded anything like that, but Sugitani’s could, and he always knew how to make an impression. I donned it piece by piece as he stripped them off. It was light, tough and flexible.

  He picked up my old armor, and raced to strap it on. “Oh, and you should probably take these, too.” He presented me his two swords, long and short. “They draw faster than yours.”

  My big old tachi hung suspended from a belt, but his matched katana and wakizashi tucked into a sash, cutting edge up, in the rakish style that was just becoming popular. Dressed like him any other time, I would have felt like a daimyō’s son.

  Sugitani strapped my sword around his own waist. He started to pass me his iron battle-mask, then reconsidered. “I’d like to hold on to this, if you don’t mind.” It was shaped like the face of a grimacing demon, with staring eyes and deep creases wrinkling the forehead and nose. “I don’t know what I’ll look like after . . . you know. If it’s bad, you shouldn’t have to see that.”

  The lady moaned, “You will take the hunger from me now.” She had stepped very close to us silently, and put a slim white hand on Sugitani’s wrist.

  “Apologies, my lady,” he answered. “Just a few more moments.”

  “You will hurry.” He could not remove her hand until she withdrew it herself.

  “So, what exactly do you need me for?” I asked him. “You want me to help you find Nobunaga’s army?”

  “No, I have to find Nobunaga himself. I may not be able to get close to him on my own.”

  “You plan to kill Oda Nobunaga?”

  “No, Takeda. I plan to eat Oda Nobunaga.”

  “Lord Rokkaku—”

  “Lord Rokkaku will be grateful that I have eliminated his mortal enemy, and he will acknowledge my service. I want nothing more.”

  “But she said the hunger will overflow your body. What sort of creature would you be then?”

  “I will stand with one foot in the land of the living, and one in the land of the dead. I will have my warrior’s honor combined with her great hunger, as well as the endless strength that accompanies it. My duty will guide me the way a sure hand guides a sword. If a being like that fought for Lord Rokkaku, our army would be invincible. What better way to serve our master and add to his glory?”

  I had no answer to that.

  “With this sacrifice, I can do great good. Do not deny me this,” he said.

  He knew I could not. My giri was too heavy.

  “I am ready, my lady,” he announced. “The next time we speak, Takeda, I may not be a living man, but I will tell you what I can see of the afterlife.”

  He fastened his mask to his helmet, and it was the last I looked on his living face.

  The lady stood before him. She was trembling with the effort the restraint cost her.

  “You should know that this hunger you desire so greatly will start as a small and weak thing. It might take some little time before it fills and awakens you,” she told him.

  He nodded.

  She turned to me. “And you should know that I cannot say if you will recognize your comrade once that occurs.”

  “Enough of this,” Sugitani proclaimed. “I accept your curse unto my own being, so that you may be relieved of your hunger and find the rest you have sought for so long!”

  She raised a hand that nearly touched him.

  Sugitani sagged and collapsed. I stepped forward and caught his body in my arms.

  The lady disappeared, leaving a sigh of release as loud as a shout of laughter in the air around us.

  The house, the garden, the courtyard and the gate all wavered and dissolved like the illusions they were, leaving the two of us alone on a grassy hilltop in the moonlight.

  I waited with Sugitani until the moon had dropped low in the sky, but I saw no movement, no sign of life. I could not tell how much longer it would be before he returned to me. I fetched the cart and loaded him into the back. The effort opened my belly, and I was careful to bind it and hide it well; there is no way to explain a seppuku wound on a living man.

  Two and a half days later, the mare pulled the cart up the steep approach to Kannonji Castle. The horse had sweated and flicked her ears the whole way. There was something about Sugitani that she did not like to have so close behind her, but at least it kept her moving.

  Nobunaga held the castle now. The road was busy with soldiers bearing the Oda clan’s melon-flower crest.

  Kannonji-jō was a hundred years old, built when it was typical to situate castles on top of remote mountains. Now they were building them like palaces and putting them in the lowlands, where they could control lines of communication. Those were all imitations of Nobunaga’s own headquarters, of course. He would change the whole world to fit his tastes if we let him.

  I had gone through this gate a thousand times, but this was the first time it was not a return home. The Oda guards at the gate laughed and said, “Bringing supplies to the castle? That was a waste of effort. Didn’t anyone tell you Rokkaku and his boys left us all their best stuff when they ran off?”

  Sugitani’s still body was hidden under a pile of sacks and casks taken from a line of Oda porters I had killed along the way. I had fixed a rectangular melon-flower banner to the wagon; it galled me to have it standing at my shoulder.

  “They shot my horse and I had to commandeer the cart,” I answered. “Sorry I missed the fight here.”

  “It was no fight,” they sneered.

  My heart told me the right thing to do at that moment was to kill them, but my duty was inside the castle.

  They waved me through, and I entered Kannonji-jō along with a column of marching spearmen.

  The thick outer walls of the castle were gray mountain stone and pounded earth, capped at the turns with boxy wooden watchtowers. An observer walking along those ramparts would be able to see down the abrupt drop of the mountainside, and would have a long view across the valley in several directions. A square white-washed keep stood at the center of a courtyard broad enough for parade drills, and low buildings were scattered around the grounds. The Oda crest flew atop the tiled roof of the tower and on narrow banners along the walls.

  I brought the wagon into the sheltered space between the wall and the closest barracks, and kicked the cargo over the side, uncovering Sugitani. He remained still and lifeless.

  My heart sank. What if he never returned, and this were all for nothing? What could I do on my own, in the heart of an enemy stronghold? I could fight, of course, but it would be over quickly. At this moment Nobunaga was no doubt on a high floor of the keep, sitting on the dais of Lord Rokkaku’s audience chamber, planning the next leg of his march with his retainers. The false shōgun Yoshiaki was likely with them, drawing on his negligible military experience to contribute useless advice. I wondered how I could reach them.

  A messenger left the tower and sprinted across the courtyard. Almost immediately afterwards, deep drums sounded along the walls, and
I heard the noise of soldiers rushing to their posts. My heart rose and I thought for a moment that perhaps Lord Rokkaku’s army had been spotted, massing to re-take our castle. But the commands I heard carried a different sort of urgency, and soon I saw why.

  A group of high-ranking officers stepped out of the keep’s doorway and crossed the courtyard. Even at this distance I could tell they had the most elaborate and beautiful armor I had ever seen, the shimmering dark leather and steel scales laced with geometric patterns of red and gold silk. At their head was a warrior whose wide helmet was capped with a disk and tall antlers that shone with gold leaf. That helmet was meant to be recognized from far off, and it was famous. I was looking at Nobunaga.

  He ignored the soldiers that sprang into formation along his path and went to a set of stone steps that led to the top of the western wall. They were going up to examine the territory below and plan their army’s next move.

  That narrow, confined space would be perfect for an assault, if we had a squad, or a hero.

  I knelt over Sugitani. “Are you there, brother?” I shook him. “If you’re ever going to come back to me, now is the time. Nobunaga’s here, and we’ll never get a better chance.”

  Blood dripped from my abdomen and spattered the rough boards of the wagon and the back of Sugitani’s hand.

  He twitched, and his head rolled. Behind his blackened battle mask, his eyes opened, pale and milky, shot with veins. He groaned. It was a loose, bestial sound, but I was overjoyed.

  “Were you in the underworld?” I asked him. “What did you see?”

  He reached for me. I lifted him upright and helped him to the edge of the wagon. His grip on me was strong, so he fell off into the dust, but I gave him space and he pulled himself to his feet.

  He tested his legs with a few staggering steps. He listened and sniffed the air, and led me around the side of the barracks. The door was open. The long building was filled with young bushi, shouting and roughhousing as they loaded the Rokkaku gear that was spread across the bare wood floor into their packs.

  Sugitani stood in the doorway, staring and swaying slightly. The closest men looked up and saw him, and the rest fell quiet. He took a step towards them.

  “Sorry, boys, our mistake,” I said, and touched Sugitani’s arm. “Not them.” He turned abruptly, and followed close as I headed out to the castle wall.

  “There’s not much time,” I whispered over my shoulder. “Nobunaga’s walking the wall. Are you strong now? Are you fit to do this?”

  He didn’t answer, but he stumbled after me. Perhaps a man who had returned from the land of the dead needed time to recall mortal speech.

  “I’ll guide you.” I made for a set of stone-block stairs. He was agile now, suddenly quite fast, and closer than he needed to be. It took all my strength to stay ahead of him in the race to the top. He was spoiling for a fight, and I was glad to see it.

  I turned right. The long straight stretch of the southern wall was ahead of us, and then the southwestern watchtower. “This way.” He ran behind me, wearing my armor and my tachi and his iron mask.

  Halfway across, three sentries stepped out from an alcove. They carried matchlocks, the cords smoldering.

  “Hey, you,” one of them muttered. “Get to your post! Don’t you know the generals are coming through?”

  “Orders!” I shouted, and ran past them.

  Sugitani did not pass them. He chose to fight. I turned in time to see one of the sentries slide sprawling across the stone walkway with Sugitani on top of him. He ignored my tachi hanging at his side. Instead, he battered at the man with his head and face, aiming for his neck, his armpit, his nose, any spot where armor did not cover flesh. I heard his teeth snapping, but his broad helmet and the narrow mouth-slit in the mask prevented him from making contact. The sentry howled with alarm.

  Sugitani reared back and pawed at his own head until the ribbons around his chin split and his helmet flew off.

  His true face was a twin of the wide-eyed, contorted demon portrayed by the iron mask.

  Free of the muzzle, Sugitani reached for the sentry again, and this time his teeth found his throat. With a heave of his body and a snap of his head, he tore it out. The man’s startled yells turned into a spastic gurgle, and after that the only sounds came from Sugitani, who leaned in to feed on the twitching body.

  The other two sentries struck him with their rifle-butts, then reversed them and speared his torso with the bayonets. He ignored it all, rending great pieces from his kill. They raised their matchlocks and shot into his body, point-blank, one after the other. He did not even look their way. In terror, they turned and ran.

  Before the gunshots were done echoing off the castle walls, Sugitani sprang up and brought the two men down with great sweeps of his claws and jaws. When the top of the wall was splashed with their gore, he fed from the two new corpses, ignoring the first.

  I had seen the ruin the lady had caused, so I was not surprised that this was how Sugitani fought now. But did he realize that this delay might lose us Nobunaga? How much of the bushi I knew was left in him?

  “Oi, Sugitani!” I prodded him with my foot. “We have to hurry. This way!”

  He jumped up from his meal, and I ran. I could not tell if he was following me or pursuing me.

  The square mass of the watchtower loomed up before us. Inside, on the broad lower level lit only by archer’s slots, an officer was shouting orders at a dozen soldiers as they frantically prepared for Nobunaga’s inspection.

  They all snapped to rigid attention as I ran in. I dashed past them and out the far doorway. No one followed. I turned and peered back inside the dim space.

  Sugitani launched himself onto the nearest soldier the moment he entered the chamber. His attack was so brutal, so sudden, that the man’s cries cut off before he struck the floor. Sugitani fed.

  The other soldiers did not understand what they were seeing, but they had sense enough to draw their swords against him. Sugitani stood in the center of a whirlwind of men and steel. Some blows struck the armor he wore. Some bit into his body. None of it mattered to him. He lashed out and snatched blades, armor, limbs, until he could bring them close enough to find flesh, and then he killed with his jaws. A dozen bloody bodies lay where they had been flung, and when they were all still, he bounded back and forth, visiting each for just as long as there was still some force of life lingering within it.

  A lifetime of warfare has taught me a thousand ways to wound and damage until my opponent is powerless to oppose my will. But never have I seen such savagery, such a frenzied urge to kill, as Sugitani showed me in that room.

  “We have no time,” I cried. “Come on!”

  He looked up at me, unblinking, and wet gobbets of whatever is found inside men’s chests dripped down his chin and his front. My stomach turned to ice. I searched for recognition, for signs of the brave and honorable warrior that I knew, and I found nothing. All that was left was that hunger for the spark of living things.

  I knew now that if he caught me, it would not matter that we had grown up together, or that we had shed blood for each other. He would know me only as one more creature to sacrifice to his emptiness.

  An aide-de-camp still in his early teens jogged up to the doorway and stepped inside with precocious hauteur. He had time to declare, “A breach of discipline has come to the attention of the generals. What’s the nature of the commotion in—?” and then Sugitani knocked him halfway across the room and pinned him against a square wooden pillar. The youth tried to push him off, but Sugitani regarded his bare hands as an offering, and tore them apart with his teeth, swallowing fingers and bones whole. The boy’s screams ended only after he slumped to the floor and Sugitani moved on to his head and neck.

  Outside in the sunlight, the generals were on the wall, approaching the watchtower.

  This thing that Sugitani had become was less than a beast. These were no bushi’s actions. There was no honor in this. Even if he destroyed Nobunaga, it w
ould mean no more to him than any of these other kills.

  If he could see himself, he would know there was no duty performed, no giri satisfied, nor any bravery for Lord Rokkaku to acknowledge.

  “This can’t go on, brother,” I said. “If the world learned of this, you could never wash the shame from your spirit.”

  I slid the heavy door shut. The beams of light slanting through the arrow slots became dense spears in the dimness.

  “Don’t go out there,” I implored. “Stay with me just a little while. Maybe they’ll take the west stairs down, and then I’ll find some way to get you out of here.”

  I stepped towards him, but he was feeding, eager to consume as much as he could before the vitality left the flesh, and he ignored me.

  The door slammed open.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” someone shouted.

  The doorway blazed with blue sky and sunlight, and the man was a dark shape against it. I saw only that his tall helmet flashed with gold as he quivered with rage, and heard in his voice a tone that took total command for granted. That could be no one but Oda Nobunaga.

  Sugitani charged at him.

  I could have chosen to simply do nothing, and in moments our lord’s greatest enemy would be torn to shreds. But because I loved Sugitani, I could not let him reach Nobunaga.

  I cast away my duty and shouted, “Oi, Sugitani!”

  He turned to me. When I drew his katana, it came out of the scabbard as quick as thought. His right hand darted for my throat. I did not try to kill him—I had seen that was impossible. I swung, and connected, and removed his arm cleanly above the elbow.

  I stepped back and raised the sword again. “Forgive me.”

  He lunged at me with his left. I brought the blade down on his thigh. Sugitani’s sword was sharp, and it was a great sweeping blow. His leg flopped open as if it were hinged.

  He fell to the floorboards, scrabbling for me, but he could not find the leverage to rise. I put a foot on the back of his neck and pinned him. He writhed and snapped, and he did not tire. I struggled to catch my breath.