L5r - scroll 04 - The Phoenix (27 page)

The spell broke.

Kaede opened her eyes and discovered the emperor's black orbs gazing at her. A slight smile broke across his waxen face. "Thank you," he said quietly. "Domo arigato, Kaede-chan."

Kaede gasped, and her knees buckled. She fell to the floor, hitting her head against the hard wood. Dazed, she heard footsteps running toward her.

"Kaede!" Ishikawa cried. "What happened? Are you all right? Where's the emperor?" He helped her sit.

Kaede looked around. The boy emperor was nowhere to be seen. "I don't know. I don't know where he's gone."

"Did you ... Did you
cure
him?" Ishikawa asked.

Kaede shook her head, and her eyes moistened with tears. "I couldn't," she gasped. "I couldn't."

"I'm sure you did your best," Ishikawa said. He put his strong arms around her shaking body.

"It wasn't enough," she sobbed. "Not nearly enough. There's nothing more I can do. Get me out of here, Ishikawa. I need to go home. I need to see my brothers. Take me home to Kyuden Isawa."

Ishikawa nodded and said, "I'll see to it."

the way of the righteous

For a moment, Tadaka didn't believe his eyes.

The Kuni witch hunter looked like a pale ghost leaping down the defile. Her black hair streamed behind her. Her kimono billowed like a specter's robes. The demonic face of her mask leered at him. She aimed both tips of her double spear toward Tadaka's heart.

"Wait!" he called. "It's me, Isawa Tadaka!" If the witch hunter heard, she didn't reply. Instead, she thrust at the Master of Earth's chest.

Tadaka ducked aside. The points of her spear sliced the front of his tattered red kimono. She swung the spear sideways, like a staff, and caught him full in the chest.

The air whooshed out of Tadaka's lungs, and he fell heavily against a tall rock. Pain shot up his back, and his skull glanced off the stone. For a moment, spots danced before his eyes. The witch hunter jabbed her spear at his

chest again. Tadaka drew his katana only just in time to parry the thrust.

"Have you gone mad?" he asked, spinning to his left. His left foot sank into the stream, and he nearly stumbled. The witch hunter spun her spear, aiming the butt end at his head. Tadaka ducked out of the way and retreated.

The water at his ankles was cold, and the rocks underfoot were slippery. He splashed down the rivulet, trying to put some distance between himself and his foe.

The witch hunter leapt down the stream after him. She used a rock on the right to jump to a taller one on the left. The Kuni vaulted high into the air, arcing over Tadaka's head. She landed lightly on her sandals behind him and slashed at his midsection.

Tadaka wheeled. The cut missed him, but he stumbled back into the water. The witch hunter recovered and thrust at him again. Her aim was off, and the spear passed harmlessly between his right arm and his ribs.

Tadaka seized a handful of gravel from the riverbed and flung it at her. Mud splattered her face and stones clattered off her jade mask. She shook her head, trying to clear her eyes, and flourished her spear in a defensive swirl.

The Master of Earth staggered to his feet and grabbed the shaft of the weapon. He yanked hard, and the witch hunter lost her balance. She tumbled face first into the stream. Tadaka stepped past her as she wheeled, a jade knife suddenly in her hand.

"Curse you!" Tadaka said. "Why are we fighting? We were friends last time we met!"

The witch hunter didn't reply. Instead, she threw her tanto dagger at the Master of Earth.

He batted it aside with his sword as the witch hunter rose to her feet. From within her robes she produced a jade globe, about the size of a chestnut. She threw it at his heart.

Tadaka leapt back, slashing at the globe with his sword. Metal met jade, and the globe exploded into a ball of green flame. Tadaka fled backward as the ball expanded. Hot air singed his lungs. He prayed that he could keep his footing in the rough terrain.

The witch hunter meant to kill him. Whether she was

possessed, or undead, or crazy no longer mattered. He would have to use every means at his disposal to destroy her—or she would surely destroy him.

The green fireball disbursed, leaving a clinging powder that stung Tadaka's eyes. The witch hunter advanced, swinging her double-pronged spear in an intricate kata.

Tadaka retreated downstream. The boulders around them grew tall and started to show faint traces of Shadowlands taint. Tadaka tried to call out to the stone, but pain and exhaustion made his brain numb; the earth didn't listen. He knew he would have to buy time until he could bring his full prowess to bear.

"Ob, blast it!" Tadaka called. "I could use some help here!" If the mujina heard, he didn't answer.

"Call your demon friends," the Kuni witch hunter said, her voice as cold as ice. "I'll slay them as well." She paced steadily downstream after Tadaka, her forked spear ready.

Tadaka kept retreating, biding his time, hoping to regain some of his lost strength. He placed his left hand against a boulder on the riverbank and felt a rumbling within. The sound of clattering rocks pricked his ears.

The witch hunter heard it too and looked up. Stones rained down on them: first pebbles, then rocks, and then boulders.

"Landslide!" Tadaka cried.

"Your tricks won't save you!" the witch hunter screamed. She stepped back as the stones fell. A fist-sized rock caught her in the temple, shattering the upper portion of her mask. She grunted loudly as she fell back into the stream.

"Hoo ha!" said Ob. "Was that a good trick, or what?" He appeared above the stream just in front of the fallen Kuni. "Pretty cool what a small rock in the right place can do, eh?"

"Ob, look out!" Tadaka cried.

The mujina vanished just as the witch hunter's spear cut the air where he had been hovering.

"Cursed goblins!" the witch hunter said, rising to her feet. Her white robes were stained with mud and soaked with water. The kimono clung to her iron-sinewed limbs and skeletal body. She pulled another green globe from a hidden pocket in her sleeve.

Tadaka turned and ran, putting as many large boulders between him and the Kuni as he could.

Green fire roared down the defile after him, charring the rocks and filling the chasm with clinging green dust. Tadaka pulled his black hood up tight across his nose and kept running. Ahead, of him, the defile opened out into the flats at the edge of the Shadowlands.

He emerged farther south than he had entered the hills, but the landscape before him looked just as forbidding—cracked earth, stunted plants, gray mist.

The green fireball hadn't seriously hurt him. Additionally, it had kept the Kuni from following too closely.

Reaching the end of the defile, Tadaka darted to the left, keeping close against the tall boulders. The tainted soil of the Shadowlands reached nearly to the hills, splashing up against the pure rock like an evil surf.

He raised his sword in a defensive posture and said a sutra to clear his mind. Forms of incantations danced in his brain. He felt the power of the earth seeping back into his soul.

The Kuni witch hunter sailed out of the defile, arcing high in the air like a pale, bony ghost. She landed solidly on her sandalled feet and turned to face her foe.

Tadaka held his katana ready. "Why do you fight me?" he asked.

"You will not pass," she said, cold venom in her voice.

"My mission is vital!" he said. "You know it. You know who I am."

"I know who you claim to be, but I also know what you are," she said. "You will not pass."

Tadaka heard her inhaling in long gasps. At least, she is as mortal as I am. "I
must
return to my homeland."

"The only way you will return to the land of the Phoenix," the Kuni said, "is as a ghost." Her eyes gleamed darkly behind her broken mask.

"So be it," Tadaka replied. The vigor of the earth filled his limbs once more. Dropping his sword into an attack position, he charged.

He cut high, but the Kuni parried. She swept low with the spear, but Tadaka leapt over it. He kicked her in the midsection, and she staggered back. He spun and sliced at her neck.

The witch hunter twirled her long forked spear and batted Tadaka's blade aside. She swept up and across his chest, cutting the billowing folds of his dirty red kimono.

The sky grew dark with clouds. Thunder echoed in the distance.

Tadaka danced back out of the way of her follow-up thrust. He spun to his right and sliced at her midsection. She turned, but not in time. Tadaka's blade traced a long line across her ribs, just above her left hip.

She gasped and swung hard at him. He parried her blade with his katana, but the force of the blow tore the sword from his hand. It flew through the air and clattered on the dry, tainted ground. Its blade sparked where it hit.

The Master of Earth jumped aside as she slashed at him once more. He drew his wakizashi and angled toward his lost sword, trying to regain it. The Kuni bore in, jabbing at his middle. Tadaka batted the spear aside with his smaller sword.

Suddenly, the Kuni stopped. She held her spear in her left hand and reached into her sleeve with her right. Her hand came out holding a jade dart, shaped like a long, thin triangle.

Tadaka scuttled back, across the cracked earth, keeping his eye on the witch hunter. As she threw, he swatted the dart out of the air. He didn't see the second one concealed in her palm.

It followed close behind its brother. It caught Tadaka in the arm, just below his left elbow. Tadaka gasped; the wound burned with fire. The witch hunter charged forward, her spear ready for the kill.

Ignoring the pain, Tadaka transferred his wakizashi into his left hand and rolled to his right. He swept up the katana with his right hand as she came in on him. Gaining his feet, he caught the blades of her spear between his two swords.

The Kuni thrust at him, but he forced the spear up, over his head. Releasing it, he whirled his blades, batting the spear's shaft with his left and chopping with his right. Splinters flew where katana met shaft, but the spear did not sunder. Instead, the witch hunter pulled back, making short jabs to keep him on his guard.

Tadaka's left arm began to go numb from pain and the dart's arcane fire. The witch hunter pressed in; he batted her blades aside as she came, first with one sword, and then the other. She seemed tireless, determination incarnate, death made flesh. Though her breathing came heavily, the pale brow behind her broken mask showed only a faint sheen of sweat.

Despite the renewal the earth and fresh water gave him, Tadaka's strength waned once more. He'd been too long without sleep, too long without nourishment. He knew he wouldn't be able to sustain his two-sword attack for much longer. His left arm ached from its wound; the dart seemed to burrow ever deeper into his flesh.

In desperation, he flung his wakizashi at the Kuni. The move caught the witch hunter completely by surprise. The short blade spun through the air, and sliced into the hunter's left shoulder. The Kuni gasped and nearly dropped her long spear.

Tadaka scrambled back, shifting his katana to his left hand. He deftly plucked the fiery dart out of his arm and threw it to the blackened earth. As the Kuni brought her forked spear up once more, he resumed a two-handed defensive stance.

"Now, it ends," she said, her voice ragged with determination. She charged. The forked spear thrust; Tadaka's sword flashed. The weapons met—the katana's blade caught between the forks of the spear.

The two foes stared at each other across the weapons, each trying to force the other back. Tadaka's muscles knotted. Sweat finally poured down the Kuni's brow. Blood stained their kimonos. They circled, caught in a macabre dance.

Overhead, the storm broke. Lightning flashed and thunder shook the hills. Rain poured down around them in great cascades. Still the samurai held.

They shifted back and forth on the edge of the Shadowlands. Spongy earth replaced hard rock beneath their sandals. Fire spread down Tadaka's wounded arm and through his body. The Kuni gasped with exertion.

They struggled, pushing each other across the rocky hills. Tadaka glimpsed the pure stones of the foothills. Close enough, he hoped, to provide his salvation.

In the midst of pain and effort, clarity came. He let his body fight the battle while his mind wandered free. He felt the earth within his soul and called out to it. Beneath his feet, the land shuddered.

The Master of Earth sprang back as a huge circle of black boulders sprouted up in front of him. The witch hunter tried to jump away, but her spear shattered on a giant green-veined stone. The rocks hemmed her in, pressed around her, squeezed her breath out. They towered above her head as the Kuni clawed at the sky. The witch hunter screamed.

With horror, Tadaka realized what had happened.

He had called out to the earth, and it had responded. But it was not the pure stone of the hills that had answered his call—it was the tainted rock of the Shadowlands.

"No!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "lie!" The thunder echoed his words. Tadaka poured forth every remaining trace of his power, and the black stones crumbled. The Kuni witch hunter fell prostrate to the earth. Rain washed her blood away in small crimson rivulets.