Outlanders 15 - Doom Dynasty

by James Axler

  Suddenly, there was a faint scuff of feet on sand, a clink of stone against stone. All of them turned to-ward the pass, and an apparition stepped from its mouth. His elaborate armor featured overlapping plates of silver and black, and his breastplate was en­graved with the sign of the mantis. Over this was a long surcoat of blue silk accented by white-and-red embroidery. His broad helmet bore long outcurving horns, and combined with the lowered face guard, which held the aspect of a demon. A flat, mirror-bright blade glinted in his right hand. The four sam­urai who followed him out of the cleft did not bear naked swords, but all of them cradled longblasters in their arms.

  Grant murmured uncertainly, "Arisaka Type 38 carbines. World War n vintage. I wonder where they found them?"

  Kane wasn't surprised by Grant's immediate iden­tification of the rifles. Not only was the man a superb marksman, but he was also something of a weapons historian. However, Kane was more concerned with the way the short barrels of the rifle swung toward him and his companions.

  The Tigers of Heaven not only looked as if they knew how to use the three-century-old blasters, but also like they wanted to use them—very badly.

  Chapter 9

  With a click of releasing solenoids and the faint whir of tiny electric motors, the Sin Eaters sprang into Grant's and Kane's hands. Although they didn't aim their blasters, the Tigers of Heaven swiftly spread out so as not to present easy targets.

  Shizuka strode to the man with the demonic face guard and spoke quietly to him, a deferential note in her tone. The man listened for a moment, then mo­tioned peremptorily to the samurai behind him. With­out hesitation, they lowered the Arisaka carbines.

  Backstepping carefully, Shizuka reached a point equidistant between the Tigers and the four outland-ers. She bowed toward the demon-faced samurai. "May I introduce Captain Kiyomasa."

  The man scabbarded his sword with the same sharp, quick movement they had seen Shizuka dis­play. He lifted his visor on tiny hinges and stared at them impassively. His features were full fleshed, with a sharp hooked nose set below heavy eyebrows. His eyes were very thin slits with no emotion in them. Only a penetrating intelligence gave them any spark. A thin mustache drooped at the corners of his un­smiling slash of a mouth. There were faint scars on his face, and Kane was sure there were more under his armor.

  As Shizuka introduced the four of them, Kiyomasa surveyed them one by one, as if silently gauging their capacity and skills for violence. Kane did his best to meet that judgmental stare without blinking. The ar­mored man did not speak, yet he felt the impact of his presence.

  Finally, when Kane's eyes were on the verge of watering, Kiyomasa stopped the visual examination and uttered a grunt, as if satisfied. He bowed his head toward them, the Tigers behind him almost immedi­ately assumed parade-rest positions, resting the stocks of their rifles on the ground, holding them by the bar­rels.

  Brigid returned the man's bow, and after a mo­ment's hesitation, Grant and Kane followed suit, hol-stering their blasters. Domi only stared with thinly veiled suspicion.

  In a flat, uninflected tone Kiyomasa declared, "My lieutenant has informed me we apparently share the same goal, to avenge the slaughter of Port Morning-light. That is good. There is nothing like spilling the blood of a mutual enemy to make new friends."

  Judging by the man's voice, he had few feelings but a lot of authority. Choosing her words with care, her tone courteous without being unctuous, Brigid said, "We are not so much interested in avenging the murders as discovering the reason behind them and why prisoners were taken."

  Kiyomasa grunted again, as if to indicate puzzle­ment. "Such actions are not common here?"

  "Not exactly," Kane put in. "There are gangs of marauders and bands of savages, but it's unusual for the type of men whom we follow to do something like this."

  The samurai nodded curtly. "Ah. Then you know who they are."

  "Yes." Kane said nothing more, meeting Kiyom­asa's expectant stare expressionlessly.

  Shizuka spoke quietly. "Perhaps we should agree to an exchange of information. A question for a ques­tion, an answer for an answer."

  Kiyomasa reexamined the four people standing be­fore him. He spoke briefly to Shizuka in a whisper, then said, "Inasmuch as my lieutenant saved you from the savages, you may discharge the debt by tell­ing me the identities of the raiders."

  Kane glanced questioningly at Brigid, then toward Grant. He was reticent by nature and had become more so since his exile. A casual word spoken to the wrong person in the wrong place could spell death for everyone in Cerberus and perhaps even the destruc­tion of the installation itself.

  Brigid surprised him slightly by saying, "There doesn't seem to be any reason to hold out on them. We're just as curious about them as they are about us. It's the diplomatic thing to do."

  Kiyomasa suddenly dropped to his knees and swiftly arranged his legs in a lotus position. Shizuka did so, as well. The samurai motioned with his hand. "Speak, Kane-san."

  Brigid, Kane and Grant lowered themselves to the ground. The two men failed miserably when they tried to smoothly cross legs as Kiyomasa and Shizuka had done. After a moment of grunting effort, they managed. Domi did not sit down. She remained lean­ing against the rock formation.

  Kane began speaking quickly, doing far more than simply identifying the raiders of Port Morninglight as Magistrates. Such a simple answer would not satisfy Kiyomasa and would only lead to a protracted ques-tion-and-answer session. The man obviously was not a fool, and Kane could not treat him like one.

  To save time he decided to provide an overview of the baronies. He described how the Magistrates were the organizational descendants of a proposed global police force of the late twentieth century, one that had judicial, as well as law-enforcement powers. He sup­plied only a few specifics, soft-pedaling the patrilineal traditions of the MagS;

  There seemed little reason to conceal his and Grant's own long associations with the Magistrates. He stressed the kind of firepower used by the armored enforcers, so Kiyomasa would not become overcon­fident in the swords, bows and ancient carbines car­ried by his Tigers. Although he mentioned Cerberus, he did so only in passing and glossed over its actual location.

  As he spoke, Kane surreptitiously watched Kiyom-asa's reaction to what he was told. His face remained as immobile as his helmet's face guard, although he nodded at times, as if he understood a fine point. When he was done, Kiyomasa lowered his eyelids and said nothing for a brief span of time.

  Then, inhaling sharply through his splayed nostrils, he said, "Our friends at Port Morninglight told us a few things about the barons and the Magistrates. Your knowledge is far more detailed than theirs, yet noth­ing you said is at variance with what we were already told."

  Irritated, Kane demanded, "Why didn't you tell me what you already knew to save us all some time?"

  "Forgive me, Kane-san," the Tiger captain replied politely. "Although I need information, I needed to know if you spoke falsehoods before I confided in you. I hope you understand."

  Kane nodded. "I suppose I do."

  Kiyomasa bowed formally. "Hai. Now it is my turn."

  The man began his tale in a precise monotone that was an unsettling counterpoint to the fanciful lan­guage he employed to relate a strange yet lyrical story. He took the four outlanders back through the long centuries past.

  Long, long before the skies darkened on the island empire that the West called Japan and the East called Nippon, millennia passed during which the common folk honored their emperor as the living descendant of the gods. And though the emperor was adored as divine, he had no true power. To deal in earthly, mor­tal matters was to degrade his lofty position.

  The society was strictly caste based, and everyone a grade higher had the power of death over those below him. One merely had to say the word and the person was immediately executed. If he was samurai or of a noble family, he was allowed to commit a ritual suicide, called seppuku.

  Noblemen called daimyos took over
the common chores of administering the empire. They held great prestige and when combined with the practice of the samurai code called Bushido, the way of the warrior, they were the powers to be reckoned with, not the emperor.

  Kane couldn't help but wonder if the daimyos held the same reverence for their god-king as the com­moner did. To them, he was only an instrument by which power could be obtained, the population con­trolled—much like the way the baronies operated.

  By the mid-twentieth century, Japan's martial phi­losophy had earned it the questionable distinction of being the first country to suffer from the effects of nuclear weapons. The nation put aside its blades, called katanas, its deification of samurai as folk he­roes and its exaltation of a noble death. Instead it focused on technology and ironically enough, har­nessing atomic power to make a safe and nearly eter­nal energy source. By the end of the twentieth cen­tury, the land of the rising sun was the premier economic power in the Cific Basin.

  On January 20, 2001, the day of the dark sky, a chain reaction triggered not only meltdowns but ex­plosions in Japan's nuclear reactors. Those in turn sparked volcanic eruptions and earthquakes of such magnitude all of the smaller islands around Nippon sank without a trace. Northern Honshu, the largest province, was inundated by tsunamis, tidal waves a thousand feet high, according to legend.

  All that remained of the land of the rising sun was a mountainous island, barely 150 miles long, and no more than seventy miles wide at its broadest point By the time survivors crept out of shelters and climbed down from mountain peaks, almost none of the technology that had made the country a world economic power remained intact.

  But since the Japanese were an extraordinarily in­dustrious race, they rebuilt their nation with the little they could salvage from the ruins. The first post-skydark generation wrung its living from the sea, as had their ancestors centuries before.

  The old feudal system was revived as an extreme reaction to how westernized Nippon, had become be­fore the holocaust. The new society was a return to the old ways of shoguns, samurai and peasants.

  The peasants were put to work, utilizing what little resources remained on the island. Many of the old skills had been lost, and so the industries that sprang up on the coastal areas pumped pollutants and toxins into both the sea and the air.

  When a shogun by the name of Mashashige at-tempted to reverse this poisoning of Nippon, and end growing civil unrest by peaceful means, he was vio­lently opposed by his own brother. Open warfare broke out, and the slaughter decimated both factions. Although Lord Mashashige was gone, his memory and name lived on in his clan, in the House of Mas­hashige.

  In the century following this disastrous coup, a new house came to prominence. The House of Ashikaga had once been the power in the land until overthrown by Mashashige. This was a house comprised of her­etic lords who came to prominence during the anarchy following the war between brothers.

  They were an uncultured clan whose family before skydark were merchants, not nobles or warriors. By good fortune, cunning and brutality incredible even in a land of cruelty, they rose to wield unparalleled power. They swore to restore order and prosperity to Nippon as a basis to rally forces to them. Only the House of Mashashige refused their support.

  It did not take long before the Ashikaga clan proved it was less devoted to restoring order to Nip­pon than to destroying the House of Mashashige, wip­ing its seed from the face of the earth. To achieve such an end, the Ashikaga clan employed assassins, religious cults and even private armies ruled by self-appointed warlords who served equally self-appointed god-kings. These factions often fought among them­selves, and so the edge of the sword ruled the country, not the scepter. Death had no meaning, no honor.

  Due to these internecine conflicts, the country was in a state of civil war with the lords and landowners choosing sides or straddling the fence, while paying Up service until they saw which way the stick would float. Many of them were disillusioned by the rule of the House of Ashikaga.

  The daimyo of the House of Mashashige, Lord Takaun, made one last attempt to not only reclaim his clan's power but also to restore some semblance of order and dignity to his country. He failed and the House of Ashikaga would not give him a second chance. They vowed to exterminate the Mashashige clan to the last of the line.

  Lord Takaun had no choice but to flee, to go into exile. Taking with him as many family members, re­tainers, advisers and samurai as a small fleet of ships could hold, they set sail into the (Me. Their desti­nation was the island chain once known as the Ha-waüans.

  But the heavens broke open with the unchained fury of the tai-fun, the typhoon. The storm drove the little fleet far off course. The ships had no choice but to make landfall on the first halfway habitable piece of dry ground they came across.

  This turned out to be a richly forested isle, the tip of a larger land mass that had been submerged during the nukecaust. Evidently, it had slowly risen from the waters over the past two centuries, and supported a wide variety of animal and vegetable life. Lord Tak­aun decreed it would support theirs, as well. The ex-iles from Nippon claimed it as their own and named it New Edo, after the imperial city of feudal Japan.

  Of course there were many problems to overcome during the first few years of colonization. Demons and monsters haunted the craggy coves and inland forests. They had a malevolent intelligence and would creep into the camp at night to urinate in the well water or defecate in the gardens. More than one samurai was slain during that time, their heads taken.

  But the House of Mashashige not only persevered, it thrived, hacking out first a settlement, then an entire city from the wilderness. And now a new empire was rising, free of the corruption and cruelty of Nippon.

  Kiyomasa finished his story and stared dispassion­ately at Kane. Dead silence reigned for what felt like an awkwardly long time. Then, apropos of nothing, Grant shifted position and muttered, "Well."

  "Well what?" Shizuka challenged, although a hint of laughter lurked at the back of her throat.

  "Well," Grant repeated tonelessly, trying to smile. "That's the damnedest story I've heard in a long time."

  Kiyomasa's eyes narrowed to barely perceptible slits. "No more than your own tale of god-king bar­ons and Magistrates who serve them like samurai. Your view of our history is colored by your gaijin perceptions."

  "What's gaijin mean?" Kane inquired, stumbling slightly over the pronunciation.

  "A foreigner," Shizuka replied.

  Grant clenched his jaw muscles tightly, his face returning to its semipermanent scowl. "I believe your captain has it backward. It's my country we're in."

  Sensing a brewing verbal battle that might become physical, Brigid asked hastily, "Captain, how long ago was this?"

  "Eight years," Kiyomasa answered promptly. "Last month."

  "And in those eight years you made exploratory voyages to other islands and to the mainland?"

  "Hal Scouting and spying expeditions to what you call the Western Islands." The man's grim mouth twitched in distaste. "They were overrun by mongrel pirates and Chinese. We did not care to treat with them. But at Port Morninglight we were welcomed. New Edo has traded regularly with them for the past three years. They always treated us fairly and respect­fully. They kept their word not to talk about us, to speak the location of New Edo. They were our friends."

  "So," Kane ventured, "you were making one of your trading visits to Port Morninglight when you found it razed and you decided to track the perps."

  "Perps?" Shizuka echoed quizzically.

  "Perpetrators."

  "Ah so deska. English is almost a second tongue among my people, the old language of business and politics. Still, there are some nuances of it which we have yet to master."

  "You could've fooled me," Grant commented.

  Shizuka threw a smile his way, and even Kane no­ticed how it was too wide to be simply an ac­knowledgment of Grant's compliment. He hoped Domi didn't notice it.

  "As we approached the p
ort," Kiyomasa contin­ued, "we saw one of our friends warning us away."

  "Warning you how?" Brigid asked.

  "With signal fans we supplied them with. We taught them basic code maneuvers, as well. I ordered our ship's smoke screen generator activated. It con­cealed us from the murderers but it concealed them from our eyes, as well."

  Kane frowned. "When you came ashore, you de­cided to avenge the deaths of the people?"

  "Hoi. And to recover the prisoners and take them back to New Edo if they wish it."

  "Why?"

  Kiyomasa eyed him speculatively. "I thought you would understand, Kane-san. Port Morninglight and its citizens are under the protection of Lord Takaun. It is a matter of honor."

  "I do understand," Kane stated. "I hope you un­derstand that while we don't want the Mags to escape unpunished, we need at least one of them alive as a source of information."

  Shizuka leaned toward Kiyomasa and whispered softly to him. The tone and timbre of her voice sounded very gentle. The man drew in a long breath through his nostrils as if steeling himself to perform an unpleasant task. "I shall reveal another reason why the murderers cannot be allowed to escape. I had a woman in Port Morninglight."

  Kane blinked in surprise.' 'A woman? Your wife?''

  "My woman," Kiyomasa replied flatly. "She car­ried my child. I found her violated and shot through the belly and the head."

  Brigid murmured in horror, in sympathy. Kane felt a jolt of compassion and realized the samurai's une­motional demeanor was a pose, a facade. And with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach, he also realized he couldn't hope to dissuade Kiyomasa from walking the vengeance trail.

  "I'm very sorry to hear this," said Kane in a sub­dued voice. "But it doesn't change things for me or my friends. The stakes are very high, and we need information from the men you stalk."

  Kiyomasa nodded. "So desu. I understand your wishes. Let us tarry no longer."

  He and Shizuka rose together, uncrossing their an­kles, rocking forward on their knees, then on their heels. They came to their feet in one smooth motion, apparently without effort regardless of their armor. Kane managed to do so, but Grant had to push him­self up with his hands. He seemed embarrassed, avert­ing his face from Shizuka.