Ranger's Apprentice 10: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja (Kindle)

by John Flanagan

  ‘I believe there is some terrible predator at large in the forest,’ he said. ‘A demon? No. I don’t think so. But that’s not important. The Hasanu believe in demons and they believe there is one in the forest. They will not pass through it. And I will not order them to. There is no point giving an order that I know will be refused. That refusal would shame me and the Hasanu equally.’

  ‘Is there nothing we can do?’ Evanlyn asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I can’t think of anything you could do to persuade them.’

  Alyss took a deep breath, then set her shoulders. ‘What if we kill the demon?’

  General Todoki watched, first in disbelief, then in mounting fury, as his men began streaming back in retreat. Initially, there were only a few, but as they broke and ran, more of their comrades followed them, trying to place as much distance as possible between themselves and the terrible, impersonal wall of shields and darting blades.

  Todoki, surrounded by half a dozen of his senior staff, ran to intercept them. He drew his sword as he ran, screaming orders at the retreating Senshi.

  ‘Cowards! Cowards! Turn and face the enemy! They are peasants! Turn and face them!’

  The men nearest him stopped their headlong retreat. But they made no move to turn back towards the two gojus, which were now silent. His officers moved among the shamefaced warriors, shoving them back around to face the enemy, shouting insults and threats, striking them with their fists or the flat of their swords. One man resolutely stood with his back to the enemy. Todoki stood before him, their faces barely centimetres apart, and screamed at him, his spittle landing on the other man’s cheek.

  ‘Coward! Deserter! They are peasants! You are Senshi! Turn and fight!’

  The man raised his eyes to meet the general’s. There was shame there, Todoki saw, but also confusion and fear.

  ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘they killed Ito and Yoki beside me.’

  ‘Then go back and avenge your comrades!’ Overcome by rage, Todoki slapped the man hard across the face. A trickle of blood ran down from the corner of the warrior’s mouth but he made no move to turn back.

  ‘Kill them!’ Todoki screamed. ‘Kill five of them for each of your dead comrades! Go back and fight, you coward! Teach them they cannot stand against the Senshi!’

  Which was all very well in principle. But these men had just seen at first hand that the Kikori, the despised peasant class, could indeed stand against the Senshi – and kill them. Thirty-five of their comrades lay dead on the battlefield to prove it.

  ‘Lord,’ said the warrior, ‘how can I kill what I can’t see?’

  Aware that the eyes of the other Senshi were upon them, Todoki felt an overpowering rage building inside him. These men had shamed him by their craven behaviour. Now this insolent coward was daring to bandy words with him! Rebellion like this could be infectious, he realised. Let one man refuse an order and others would follow.

  His sword flashed in a blur of reflected light, striking the man in the gap between helmet and breastplate. With a startled, choking cry, the Senshi staggered and fell. Todoki stepped over his body to face the other Senshi, who backed away before him. He gestured with his reddened sword blade towards the silent lines of the Kikori.

  ‘There is the enemy! Attack! Fight them. Kill them!’

  The immediate fear of his sword, and the ingrained discipline in which they had been raised, proved stronger than their fear of the Kikori gojus. Shoved and harried by Todoki’s staff, the men turned back to face the enemy. They did it reluctantly, but they did it.

  Will, watching from his vantage point, saw the Nihon-Jan general rallying his troops. He was tempted to try a shot at the general but Todoki was surrounded by dozens of milling figures and hitting him would be a matter of luck. Better not to waste the element of surprise with a stray shot, he thought. The time would come.

  He had suspected that something like this might happen, and now was the time to put the second part of his plan into effect – to catch the Senshi with another unexpected tactic.

  Now he put his fingers in his mouth and emitted two short, piercing whistles.

  Selethen and Horace heard the signal. Horace gave the order for both gojus.

  ‘About face. Double time forward!’

  The Kikori pivoted in place, then began to jog back to their opening position, their feet hitting the ground in perfect unison.

  ‘Halt!’ shouted Horace and the four lines of men crashed to a stop. ‘About face!’

  Again, that machine-like precision showed itself, with every man moving in perfect unison.

  General Todoki watched the movement and shouted encouragement to his reluctant warriors.

  ‘See? They’re retreating! They will not stand against you a second time! Attack!’

  His men weren’t so sure. They had seen the precise, co-ordinated drill of the Kikori as they withdrew. There was no sign of panic or defeat there. The more astute among his warriors realised that the enemy had simply withdrawn to a better defensive position – and they had done it with great efficiency and speed.

  Todoki could see the doubt. He looked around wildly and, for the first time, noticed the group of three men on a small rise behind the Kikori lines. He stared for a moment, not believing what he saw. There were three men standing, observing. Two of them were vague and indistinct shapes, somehow confusing the eye as he tried to make them out more clearly. But the third figure, dressed in a Senshi’s full armour, was unmistakable. It was the Emperor. He shouted to his officers and they joined him. He pointed his sword at the distant figure.

  ‘It’s Shigeru,’ he said. ‘Get your bows. If we kill him, then attack, the Kikori will break before us.’

  The four officers ran back to the tent lines and returned a few minutes later, carrying their massive recurve bows. Senshi noblemen trained in archery as a matter of course. Now Todoki pointed to Shigeru once more and ordered them to shoot.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Halt said as they saw the small group detach and run back to the camp. It was difficult to make out what they were carrying as they returned but, as they prepared to shoot, the actions were unmistakable. He and Will unslung their own bows.

  Will saw the first Senshi officer release and instantly knew where the arrow was aimed. ‘They’ve spotted Shigeru!’ He was about to turn and shove Shigeru to the ground but as he did so, his eye caught a flicker of movement and he spun back.

  When asked later about what he did next, he could never explain how he managed it. Nor could he ever repeat the feat. He acted totally from instinct, in an unbelievable piece of co-ordination between hand and eye.

  As the Senshi arrow flashed downwards, heading directly for Shigeru, Will flicked his bow at it, caught it and deflected it from its course. The arrow head screeched on the hard rocky ground and the arrow skittered away. Even Halt took a second to be impressed.

  ‘My god!’ he said. ‘How did you do that?’

  Then, realising that there was no time for more talking, he shot the Senshi bowman.

  Todoki saw the first shot on its way. He was exultant. His four lieutenants were excellent shots. Shigeru had no chance of surviving a hail of arrows from them. Then he heard a thudding impact and the man who had shot the first arrow staggered, then collapsed. A black-shafted arrow had come from nowhere and punched through his leather breastplate.

  Even as Todoki bent towards him, two of his other officers cried out and fell. One never moved again, transfixed by a grey arrow. The other clutched feebly at a black shaft in his shoulder, groaning in pain. The fourth archer met Todoki’s eyes and the general saw the fear there. Three of his men struck down in seconds, and they had no idea where the arrows had come from. Even as the man opened his mouth to speak, another grey-shafted arrow came slicing down out of the sky. He staggered under the impact, clutching feebly at the shaft, then fell, mortally wounded.

  Todoki was momentarily stunned. He looked back to where Shigeru was standing and realised that the two vague
shapes either side of him, masked by dull grey and green cloaks, must have done the shooting. He glanced at a fallen bow on the ground beside him and instinctively knew that if he took it up, he would be dead within seconds. He crouched, gesturing to a group of nearby Senshi.

  ‘To me! Stand with me!’

  They were reluctant. They had seen the fate of the four senior officers. But years of discipline asserted themselves and the men grouped around their general. Todoki was shorter than the average Nihon-Jan, and the warriors formed an effective screen. But before he could feel any sense of relief, he heard a massive shout from the Kikori lines.

  ‘Okubyomono!’

  The word, emanating from nearly one hundred throats, carried clearly across the the ground to them. Then it came, again and again, as a swelling chant, shouted in derision by the Kikori.

  ‘Okubyomono! Okubyomono! Okubyomono!’ Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!

  The Senshi stirred uncomfortably as the rolling chant continued. Todoki saw his opportunity. The men might not respond to his threats, but the taunting from these inferior beings must goad them to attack. The enemy had made a mistake, he thought.

  ‘Attack!’ he screamed, his voice cracking. ‘Attack them! Kill them!’

  His men streamed forward, heading for the nearer of the two groups of enemy.

  Horace watched them coming, then shouted an order.

  ‘Shields up!’

  The massive shields were too heavy to hold up constantly. As they had stopped, the Kikori had rested their weight on the ground beside them. Now they crashed up and round to the front, slamming together to form a solid wall. A few seconds later, Selethen’s goju did the same.

  ‘Rear ranks! Open order!’ Horace bellowed and the rear rank in each goju stepped back a pace.

  Each man still held two javelins.

  ‘Ready javelins!’ shouted Horace.

  As the order came, each of the men set one of the heavy projectiles down on the ground beside him, and prepared the other. Fifty right legs stepped back, fifty right arms extended behind, each holding a javelin at the point of balance, the wicked iron tips angled upwards.

  Horace waited until the approaching Senshi were barely thirty metres away. They had seen no sign of the second rank’s movement. They were concealed behind the shield walls.

  ‘Throw!’ shouted Horace and fifty javelins soared up and over, turned their points down, and crashed into the mass of advancing Senshi.

  The effect was devastating. Men went down all along the Senshi line as the heavy projectiles crashed into them. Then, as the line stalled and hesitated, horrified by the unexpected, deadly rain of wood and iron, a second volley slammed into them.

  Men staggered under the impact. At least thirty of the attackers had been hit and were killed or wounded. But now another command rang out and again the Senshi heard that dreaded war cry:

  ‘Issho ni! Issho ni!’

  The wall of shields tramped towards them and the deadly stabbing blades began again. Some of the Senshi tried to stab over the shields, knowing that a cutting blow would be useless. But Horace had foreseen that tactic and had one of his own.

  ‘Kamé!’ he shouted, and the second rank, who had closed up once more after releasing the second volley of javelins, raised their shields to create the tortoise formation, blocking the downward thrusts, enclosing the front rank in a near impenetrable carapace. And now the stabbing and shoving and killing began again as those murderous short blades jabbed out through the shield wall.

  Some of the Senshi, realising that they still outnumbered the men of Horace’s goju, began to flow around the right flank, looking to take them from the rear or the side. As Horace saw that happening, he called another order.

  ‘Kamé down! Gate!’

  And in a smoothly drilled evolution, the second rank lowered their raised shields and turned to face right, moving smoothly out to form another line at right angles to the front rank, facing the new direction of attack.

  It was the manoeuvre Will and Horace had discussed, shutting the gate. And viewed from above, that was precisely what it would have looked like.

  The Senshi who had tried to flank Horace’s men now found themselves facing another solid wall of wood and iron. They crashed against it ineffectually and realised, too late, they had left themselves open to another danger.

  Now it was Selethen’s turn. His goju, in two ranks, swung in a left wheel, then surged forward at a brisk jog to fall on the rear of the Senshi attacking Horace’s redeployed second rank.

  Caught between hammer and anvil, there was little hope for the Senshi. Confused, bewildered, facing a new enemy and a totally unfamiliar form of fighting, they turned and ran, for the second time that day. They ran past their own camp, heading in panic for the distant encampment where Arisaka’s main army were still unaware of what had just happened.

  Only now there were pitifully few of them running. The vast majority remained on the battlefield, unmoving.

  With one exception. A stocky figure remained, clad in ornate and expensive leather armour – armour that bore the symbol of a green ox.

  Maddened with rage and shame, Todoki had emerged from behind the screen of warriors who had surrounded him. Alone now, he advanced on the silent ranks of Kikori. He could see a tall figure among them and he remembered stories of the gaijin warrior who had befriended Shigeru. He stood now and screamed abuse and insults at the figure, who slowly stepped forward from the ranks of his goju.

  Horace’s grasp of Nihon-Jan wasn’t sufficiently advanced to understand the insults that Todoki’s tortured rage was conjuring up but the meaning was obvious.

  ‘That doesn’t sound good,’ he said quietly to himself as a stream of imprecations was hurled at him.

  ‘Horace!’ Will called from his vantage point, but Horace half turned and made a placating gesture in his direction.

  ‘It’s all right, Will. I’m tired of this person.’

  His sword hissed out of its scabbard and he turned back to face Todoki. With a scream of rage and hate, the enemy general charged towards him.

  Todoki had seen the long, straight gaijin sword. He knew something about those foreign weapons. They were made from inferior steel and he knew that his own katana, forged by one of the finest swordsmiths in Nihon-Ja, would slice through the foreign weapon if he struck hard enough.

  Disdaining the grace and balance that went into a normal cutting stroke, he opted for brute strength and put every ounce of his power and weight behind his blow. With a huge cry, he smashed his blade into the foreigner’s.

  There was a shrieking clang as the two blades met. Todoki’s eyes widened in horror as he realised that the gaijin’s sword was undamaged. It had withstood his stroke. Off balance from the excessive effort he had put into it, he staggered slightly and his guard dropped.

  Horace lunged, stamping his right foot forward then driving with his shoulder and suddenly straightened arm to give maximum impetus to the thrust. He aimed for the gap at the top of Todoki’s hardened breastplate, where only a screen of softer leather protected the warrior’s throat.

  He hit his mark, and the Nihon-Jan forged blade sliced easily through the thin barrier.

  Todoki’s eyes, startled, still unable to understand what had happened to him this day, stared at Horace for a second from above the half-buried sword blade.

  Then they clouded and all sign of life left them as the rebel general sagged to the rocky ground at his feet. Horace freed his sword and turned away, finding himself facing the men of the two gojus. The Kikori warriors – for now they truly were warriors – raised their short swords in the air to acclaim him. One voice began the chant, and within seconds, a hundred of them were echoing it.

  ‘Kurokuma! Kurokuma! Kurokuma!’

  Horace waved tiredly to acknowledge them. Selethen stepped forward to greet him, smiling broadly. They embraced, then, surrounded by their cheering, chanting Kikori troops, they walked together to where Will, Halt and Shigeru waited.

&
nbsp; ‘I’d still like to know how he got that name,’ Will said.

  Shigeru turned to him. For once, when he was discussing Horace’s nickname, his face bore no trace of amusement.

  ‘However he got it,’ he said, ‘it truly is a term of great respect.’

  Alyss finished lashing the last branch into position and inspected the rough platform she had constructed in the fork of the tree.

  ‘That should do it,’ she said. The platform of sturdy branches was approximately two metres by two metres, giving ample room for Alyss and Evanlyn to sit and await the mysterious predator that lurked in Uto Forest.

  They were deep in the forest, at a site where four of the Hasanu had been taken by the predator – known to the Hasanu people as Kyofu, or the Terror.

  Evanlyn, on the ground four metres below, looked around nervously. The sun was setting and it would soon be dark – and the Terror was known to hunt at night. It was one thing to sit in Nimatsu’s castle and be critical of the Hasanu’s superstitious fears, quite another to stand here in the snow, with the shadows lengthening and the gloomy forest surrounding them. While it had still been full daylight, Evanlyn had gone about the task of collecting branches for the platform without a qualm. But her last foray, which took her further from the site they had selected, had been in the lengthening shadows of early evening and she had found herself glancing fearfully over her shoulder as she worked, her nerves jumping at the slightest of forest sounds.

  ‘Drop me the rope,’ she called. ‘I’m coming up.’

  ‘Just a moment.’ Alyss stood slowly and moved to the centre of the platform. Stepping with extreme care, she tested its strength, making sure the lashed branches were strong enough to bear her weight. Eventually satisfied, she moved to the edge and kicked the coil of knotted rope off the platform, sending it down through the branches to the waiting princess. Evanlyn clambered up the rope hand over hand, moving with slightly undignified haste. Once she was settled high in the fork of the tree, she pulled the rope up and coiled it again, then found a spot to make herself comfortable – although ‘comfortable’, on this rough platform, was a relative term.