A Legend Falls

by Travis Bughi

  “Don’t move,” he said and stomped down on the wrist.

  Takeo screamed as the bones broke, and he crumbled to the ground, fresh pain flooding his eyes with tears, only marginally distracting from the necessity of the task ahead. Takeo curled into a ball on the ground, letting the initial waves of pain flow through him, fighting to regain control of his body, all the while feeling rage at the sound of Qadir howling in laughter.

  “Yes, yes! Go on, Takeo. Show us some of that infamous determination. Fight back the pain. Fight it so that you can kill that which you love most. Hahaha!”

  Takeo sucked in ragged breaths of air, steadying himself. He clenched his teeth until he could feel that pain, too, then stood up. He let his broken hand dangle to his side and balled his right into a fist. Gavin took two steps back and put up his own remaining fist.

  The knight closed his eyes and pushed down his fear, his apprehension, and his sickness. When he opened them, he let his gaze be consumed with all the feelings of hatred for Takeo that he’d suppressed for all these years.

  Takeo looked back, and in Gavin’s eyes, he fought to see purpose. He fought to remember what he was fighting for, his ultimate goal, and to remember that no single life was worth more than all the others. Not his, not Gavin’s, not anyone’s.

  Yet he wasn’t convinced.

  “Kill!” Qadir screamed and laughed.

  Gavin roared and charged, aiming to strike Takeo in the stomach with a heavy punch. The ronin dodged, but realized it was a feint a moment too late. Gavin pivoted and threw his shoulder into Takeo’s chest, sending him staggering back, almost falling over, before Gavin followed up with a jab. Takeo took the blow, using the moment to strike Gavin’s unprotected face at the same time, sending the knight reeling back. Takeo lashed out with a kick, striking Gavin solidly in the stomach before Gavin backed up and lashed out with a kick of his own. Takeo, off balance through a painfully broken wrist and a night’s worth of hard riding, didn’t get out of the way in time. The kick took him at the waist, and he hit the ground, landing on his broken wrist and screaming in pain.

  “That’s it. That’s it!” Qadir roared. “Aim for the wrist, Sir Gavin. That is his weakness. Make him scream!”

  Gavin shook his head, clearing his vision of tears while Takeo used pain-fueled adrenaline to get to his feet. Gavin came at him again, relentless, determined, and Takeo circled to take the wind out of the charge. They closed slowly, testing each other, watching each other’s feet, hands, eyes, shoulders, and so much more. They were keenly aware of the others’ habits and tricks, having fought against each other countless times, as enemies and as allies, training and sparring and learning. They’d seen each other in combat more times than that, watched how the other would work against a true enemy, searching for weaknesses, looking for the killing blow, and striking without hesitation.

  Takeo faltered as he twisted in a way that sent a flash of pain shooting up his broken wrist. Gavin lashed out, striking him at the knee and sending Takeo to the ground. He followed up with a jab to the head, but Takeo saw that coming and pulled away, the fist passing by so close that their skin touched. Takeo grabbed Gavin by the arm and yanked, sending the knight crashing to the ground with his forward momentum. But before Takeo could get atop him, Gavin rolled away and lashed out with another powerful kick, and Takeo had to scramble back to avoid getting hit.

  They stood back up and circled again.

  Takeo knew he had an opening. He saw it in the way Gavin favored his right side. So used to carrying a shield in combat, Gavin hadn’t adjusted his footwork for a bare-knuckle brawl just yet, so he leaned to one side more than one should.

  Gavin didn’t see that, but he did see the bloodthirsty look in Takeo’s eye. It was the look the ronin got when he knew he’d found his path to victory. Fear made Gavin’s legs shake, seeing his death reflecting in the eyes of another, like a vampire circling for the kill. It was terrifying, yet he swallowed that down and thought of Pleiades, and how she would live, if only he would die.

  The knight roared and charged. Takeo avoided the first feint and the second, then the actual attack and swept Gavin’s leg out from under him. They both went down, and Takeo hit the ground hard, too, because he couldn’t use his left hand to catch himself. Vision blurred by tears of pain, Takeo scrambled blindly over Gavin and pinned the knight’s good arm with one knee and grabbed the very same rock that had been used to break his wrist.

  Gavin made two unsuccessful attempts to throw Takeo free.

  Their visions cleared at the same time, and they froze. Gavin lay on the ground, pinned, face exposed, looking up at Takeo as he held a fist-sized rock in the air, poised. Neither breathed.

  “Do it,” Qadir roared. “Do it!”

  Tears poured fresh from Takeo’s eyes, and his head shook imperceptibly back and forth.

  “Do it,” Gavin pleaded.

  Takeo clenched his teeth, sobbing, blind from tears, voice choked, arm summoning strength.

  “DO IT!” Gavin shouted.

  Takeo screamed and smashed the rock down, bashing the hard stone into flesh and bone. Gavin’s face burst red, blood splattering on the ground, their clothes, and Takeo’s face. Takeo screamed and brought the rock down again, breaking through the protective bone plates and sending teeth and brain matter flying. A chunk of flesh and blood splashed up and stained Takeo’s eye, blinding him as he continued to bring the rock down again and again and again, now hoping to kill Gavin as swiftly as possible and end the misery of dying a slow, painful death.

  Takeo cried and sobbed and heaved, his strikes growing weaker and fainter with every blow. His right hand and arm were soaked in knightly blood, and Gavin’s once beautiful face was a bloody cavity of broken bones and gnarled flesh.

  When it was done, he dropped the rock and collapsed, pressing his forehead into what remained of Gavin’s face. His tears streamed down onto Gavin, his muffled pleas of ‘no, please, no’ dying into the corpse. Takeo’s ears were ringing, so consumed by his own self-loathing that he barely heard the fresh screams nearby. Pleiades had awoken just in time to watch her father be brutally murdered.

  Over his own sobs and cries, Takeo heard Qadir swear and choke the little girl into unconsciousness again.

  “No, no, no,” Takeo whispered. “Not like this. Oh please, no. Gavin . . . Gavin, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”

  Takeo moved his head to Gavin’s chest and lay there, sobbing. The body was beginning to lose heat, and no heartbeat echoed up from the chest to Takeo’s ear. He couldn’t feel the pain in his wrist anymore, or much of anything, and all Takeo could think of was how much he wanted to die.

  So much pain. So much suffering. Another person dead, another person Takeo couldn’t protect. So many. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. It was Takeo who was supposed to die. Gavin didn’t deserve this.

  He was supposed to be happy.

  Takeo let out another tormented scream. At the end, he found he couldn’t breathe. He struggled again and again, but his chest refused to rise for more than a quick gasp. Finally, he held his breath, then tried again, sucking in a lungful of air before letting it out in painful, ragged gasps. Then he sobbed again and cried tears into Gavin’s bloodied clothes.

  “Beautiful,” Qadir said, staring with wide eyes from the veranda. “I’ll admit, just this once, I’ve secretly always wondered what it would be like to be human and feel such pain over death. It must truly be unique. Tell me, Takeo, do you crave death now? Do you want to die?”

  “Yes,” Takeo eked out, truthfully.

  “Then come here, and I will give it to you. Fate no longer protects you.”

  Takeo let loose another sob into Gavin’s chest, whispering useless, feeble apologies, unable to process anything beyond basic commands. With some effort, he managed to rise to his feet, though he could hardly stand. His vision blurred and spotted, and he sat down lest he pass out. He swallowed down a sob and fought to stand again. Covered in blood and tears, he stumbled
towards Qadir.

  “Yes, right there,” the rakshasa said as Takeo came within sword striking distance. “Don’t move. You wouldn’t want me to miss.”

  Qadir took the blade from Pleiades’ throat and held it back for a strike. Takeo teetered in place but took as deep a breath as he could and pressed his eyes shut, clearing the tears from them. He even lifted his chin, giving Qadir a better target, and dared hoped that the curse was lifted.

  Perhaps this attack will actually kill me. Wouldn’t that be nice?

  Qadir swung, and the blade stopped dead in its tracks against Takeo’s neck, unwilling to budge.

  The rakshasa balked, and Takeo grabbed the sword and used the fiery power to rip the blade out of Qadir’s unprepared hand. Qadir let loose one final surprised cry before Takeo dashed the blade point first into the beast’s throat.

  Qadir fell back onto the veranda, blood pouring from his neck and filling his windpipe with blood. Not even the infamous rakshasa healing powers could staunch a wound like that, but Takeo made sure by twisting the blade sideways and ripping it out of Qadir’s neck.

  Then Takeo stood there, hand wrapped around his sword, and let the burning power pour into his veins. All the pain he felt at Gavin’s death was consumed in enchanted fire, and the thick walls around Takeo’s heart began to seal up again and protected him from the pain he felt inside. He held the sword for several moments, letting the sword work its magic.

  Then Takeo dropped the sword and let the pain consume him.

  Chapter 17

  “Stop crying,” Takeo growled.

  Pleiades either tried and failed or never listened in the first place. Seated as she was, in the komainu saddle with Takeo at her back and Gavin’s corpse draped across her lap, it wasn’t difficult to see why she couldn’t stop crying. Everywhere she looked, the mangled, bloodied face of her father filled her vision, and even if she could stem her tears for a brief second, they would return twice as strong a second later.

  “I said stop crying.”

  She cried harder. Takeo sighed.

  This wasn’t how he had hoped things would go.

  The komainu had been easy to find, at least. Drawn by the smell of blood, it’d returned to the scene to feast. Takeo had let the creature eat Yeira’s corpse, but he’d preserved Gavin’s by strapping it onto the creature’s back. The komainu whined at this, and its nostrils flared, smelling the fresh meat. Takeo knew it desperately wanted to eat Gavin, too, and it would only be held back by a combination of training and its rider’s willpower.

  Perhaps this had been Takeo’s first mistake. When Pleiades had awoken, she’d screamed and run for it. Takeo had let her go while he continued to secure Gavin’s corpse to the mount. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with Gavin yet, but he couldn’t leave him here. Takeo was in no shape to dig a grave, and he didn’t want to burn the body, but he couldn’t leave him to be feasted on either. So, Gavin was coming along, dead and unresistant.

  After that was done, Takeo had mounted up and set the komainu to task following Pleiades’ scent. It had tracked her down with ease, finding her huddled in the shadow of a weeping willow, crying and shaking. At the sight of the komainu, she’d foolishly tried to run again, and the komainu had mistaken her for prey. It pounced on her and only a quick jerk of the reins by Takeo had prevented the beast from swallowing her in one bite.

  Through a combination of threats and brute force, he’d gotten her to ride in the saddle with him and her father’s corpse.

  Now if only she’d stop crying.

  “That was foolish, running from a komainu,” he said, trying to distract her. “You never run from one of these creatures if it’s after you and you have nowhere to hide. Did your parents teach you nothing?”

  At the sound of parents, Pleiades cried out and covered her face with her hands.

  “Okay, bad choice of words,” Takeo said. “I suppose it doesn’t help, but you should know I didn’t want this to happen either. It was your father’s decision. I wanted to kill you instead.”

  She kept crying. Apparently, that didn’t work either, and Takeo was beginning to think children were more complicated than he’d originally thought. Then he decided that perhaps it would be better if he said nothing at all.

  But that didn’t last long. Between the exhaustion of being awake almost two days straight coupled with the physical agony of a broken hand and the emotional torment of killing yet another friend, Takeo’s patience ran too thin to deal with the soft crying of a little child who thought that somehow she was the victim in all this madness. As if she’d done anything other than be a burden. As if she’d done anything other than drag her useful, deserving, self-sacrificing father to the brink of insanity.

  Every pitiful sob, muffled gasp of air, or fearful whimper set Takeo’s teeth on edge as he fought back his own pain. He tried to remember Gavin’s words, to see in her what he saw in the knight, but every time he looked down at the waterfall of blond hair, Yeira’s eyes and face peered back. Then he’d scowl and look away, and she’d cower in her seat and whimper again.

  They had a long way to go at such a slow pace. Gavin’s body reeked of dried blood and defecation, and the sun’s heat was only making things worse. He thought surely at some point the girl’s tear ducts would dry up, but either she pulled them from an infinite pool or his patience was nonexistent.

  “What am I even going to do with you, huh?” he asked.

  She didn’t say anything. She hadn’t said a word this entire time since he’d forced her into the saddle and smacked her to get her to stop fighting. On some level, he supposed that was understandable, and in truth, he didn’t mind that she didn’t answer.

  “Do you even know who I am?” he asked.

  It wasn’t a stupid question. Takeo had tried hard to keep himself removed from this girl’s life for a reason. He didn’t even repeat her name in his thoughts if he could avoid it: Pleiades. What a strange name. Obviously chosen by Gavin, but what was the significance, if any?

  It didn’t matter, though. What a sad life this girl had to start out. First her mother attempts to abort her in an abandoned fortress, then rejects her upon birth—a birth forced premature by jinn magic. Her father is mostly nonexistent, then tortured before her eyes while her family lay captured by the Katsus. She spends a brief period of her life in quiet isolation, only to be witness to her parents’ brutal murders.

  And now she was being drug away by Takeo, of all people. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that perhaps she was a victim, in some sense.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked again, this time making sure his tone was not rhetorical.

  Pleiades nodded first, then shook her head. Takeo sighed.

  “What’s my name?”

  “T—T,” Pleiades stuttered, “Tako.”

  “Takeo,” he corrected her. “It’s Takeo.”

  Exchanging names seemed to help somewhat, though she still trembled and fidgeted too much for Takeo’s thin patience. He growled at her to sit still, and that broke whatever goodwill he’d just established. Pleiades broke into tears again, and Takeo brought the mount to a halt.

  “That’s it,” he shouted. “Off! Get off.”

  She attempted to scramble from the mount, but she struggled and was too slow for Takeo. He dropped the reins, grabbed her by the arm with his good hand, and hauled her off. She fell on the ground, then scampered away to hide behind the nearest tree.

  Takeo hung his head and clenched his teeth. This wasn’t for him. He couldn’t—no, shouldn’t manage a child. He didn’t have the parental love needed to deal with them. It was probably better for both if he just took off, and he was moments away from doing just that when his eyes caught sight of Gavin’s corpse again. The stiff body didn’t peer back so much as it gaped, with a cavity for a face—a hollow shell where once there had been beauty, potential, and all the hope for humanity.

  “Damn it all,” Takeo said, voice shaking. “Gavin, you were supposed to
survive. It was supposed to be you.”

  Fresh tears came, this time to Takeo’s eyes, and he fought bitterly to hold them back, but nothing worked. He bowed his head and wept silently, taking quick breaths so as to prevent a ragged outbreak of sobs. When he could take no more, he relented and grabbed his sword, letting its fire rage within him and burn away all the pain.

  From a distance, Pleiades watched.

  Now reformed, Takeo took a deep breath and got off his mount. He made the beast sit, not trusting it to stay still with fresh meat strapped to its back. Then Takeo knelt and motioned for Pleiades to come forward.

  She did not.

  “Come here,” he warned. “Now.”

  Pleiades shook but slowly, reluctantly obeyed. She inched over to Takeo until she was within grabbing distance. Her eyes shined with tears and terror. He reached out, touched her gently by the shoulder and pulled her closer. Then he brushed the tears from her eyes with a thumb.

  “Shh, there, there,” Takeo said, making sounds he’d overheard mothers use. “Now listen to me. I want you to know that I am sorry about all of this. I never, not in my darkest nightmares, imagined that one day I’d have to care for you. I did everything I could—well, mostly—to ensure that you’d have two parents to care for you growing up, in a way so few children have in this world. I even spared your mother, despite all that bitch did to me, just for the sake of you and your father.”

  Takeo paused to stem a tide of emotion, then continued. Pleiades hadn’t moved except to flinch every so often with a fresh, short gasp for air. She watched Takeo intently, though, and he supposed that was good enough.

  “I’ll be honest,” he said. “Part of me wants to drop you off with another daimyo family and forget you exist. I think Lady Anagarika would take a liking to you. However, we’ve got a problem. You’re a foreigner, and a bit of a bastard orphan now, for better or worse. If I do that, you’ll grow up with nothing, no potential, no safety from the nightmares of this world. You see, one day, this place will be perfect, but not yet, and not soon. I have much work to do, terrible work. Originally, I’d tried to set up a safe haven for you, away from it all, but now I see that’s just not possible. What’s coming cannot be avoided.