A Legend Falls Page 7

  His guards shouted and surrounded him, putting their bodies between him and certain death. Takeo’s sword flew up with renewed strength. The handsome man only laughed again.

  “Seiji?” Takeo called out.

  “At your service,” the man replied, bowing.

  Even from this distance, his stupid grin with white teeth were easy to see. Takeo snarled. One of Takeo’s guards whispered something, but he silenced the woman with a hand.

  “Did you seal up that tower on Qadir’s orders?” the ronin called out. “No matter his plan, you can’t possibly hope to last in there. Surely you must see that he intends to sacrifice you for his own gain.”

  “Let me stop you there,” Seiji replied. “Let me guess, you were about to offer terms of surrender. In exchange for my life, you’ll spare my family, am I right? Oh wait, even better. You’ll offer me to take my brother’s place at your side.”

  “And if I’m not mistaken, you’re mocking what sounds to me like fair terms. If you do not surrender now, I will kill everyone in that tower. You know my reputation, Seiji. I make a habit of fulfilling my promises.”

  Seiji laughed, and Takeo’s fingers strained about the handle of his sword.

  “My lord,” the same guard whispered.

  “What?” Takeo snarled.

  “My lord, I hate to interrupt, but you should know we found no one in the city,” she said.

  “Yes, I know that. Thank you for that insight.”

  “My lord, the gate was sealed shut.”

  “The what?” Takeo paused. “The gate?”

  “The city gate, my lord. You instructed us to open it for Sir Gavin, but it was sealed shut. It’s been barricaded on the other side.”

  Takeo finally graced the guard with a glance. The orange light from the strung arrow produced ghostly rays on her face, and there Takeo saw black smudges. For first time, there was just enough light for Takeo to see his own clothes, and what he had dashed through across the city. He saw his and those of his guards were stained black. The stuff, whatever it was, was on Takeo’s hands. He raised one hand to inspect the stuff. He rubbed it in his fingers, finding it sticky and thick, and realization dawned on him.

  It was lamp oil.

  Cold sweat flashed across Takeo’s body, and he raised his head slowly to the soldier beside Seiji, leaning on the window with one fiery arrow aimed at Takeo. Seiji was still laughing.

  “Seiji,” he said. “Don’t do this.”

  “How much of your army has filled this city by now?” the lord called down. “It’s been a while. Listen. You can hear their armored corpses filling the streets with echoes. I’ll bet at least half are within range, wouldn’t you say?”

  “You are making a grave mistake,” Takeo shouted. “Even if you kill me, the survivors will be so enraged that they’ll rip your family to shreds.”

  Seiji winked and tapped the hard stone supporting him.

  “I think not,” the lord replied. “And besides, I wouldn’t dare dream of shooting at you. With that sword in hand, you might very well catch the arrow, or even outrun the flames. We Nguyen are smarter than that.”

  Seiji turned to his archer and nodded. The soldier raised his bow and aimed for the sky. He released a heartbeat later, and the lone flame took off, shunting them all into darkness again, if only for a moment. The orange light arced up, out, and then down, disappearing among the blackened buildings of the Phan city.

  And from that point, a firestorm erupted in all directions.

  Chapter 8

  The flames spread out like a tidal wave, engulfing streets, houses, and soldiers alike. A subtle woosh was immediately overtaken by screams as Takeo’s army lit up like candles in the night. The only thing to break the sound was the mad laughter of Seiji Nguyen watching from above.

  Takeo broke from the cover of his guards and sprinted with all haste back towards the outer walls. The guards tried to follow but were too slow. None of them had the inhuman speed needed to escape, and Takeo forgot them just as quickly as he calculated the slim chances of his own survival, for as fast as he was, the fire was faster.

  The flames swept through the streets in every direction, rapidly enveloping the city block by block, and Takeo dashed like a thing possessed, his lungs crying for relief and his legs alight with his efforts. The city was a beacon of unholy light now and growing brighter by the second, and Takeo could see every nook and cranny, as well as every soldier running about the massive furnace wreathed in flames. The screams were sickening, and their echoes across the stone buildings and rocky outer walls seem to come from all directions at once.

  Takeo turned one corner just as the flames did and then veered hard to the left and bounded into the distance. His rapid steps sent splashes of lamp oil spilling to the sides, which caked walls and soldiers alike as he ran by until the flames caught up and burned all in one merciless sweep. New cries of horror broke out at every turn, chasing Takeo as fast as the fire, and he could feel the heat on his back, growing ever stronger. Before the flames took him, he saw his way out.

  Throwing caution to the wind, Takeo leapt onto the first cart he came upon, hoping that it would survive the impact of his speed. A single step and the cart did not break, and nothing else mattered because Takeo launched himself into the air. With a cry of pain, Takeo slammed against the edge of a tile roof but wasted no time in scrambling over and rolling away. No sooner had he done this than the wave of fire rushed by him, swallowing more oil, carts, and soldiers. The flames crawled up the edges of the home, lapping about the tile, stretching out for his oil-soaked body.

  Takeo rolled away, towards the center of the house. He stood up and surveyed the burning city like a shipwrecked sailor in a storm. The fire and screams were so intense that the city was deafening. Hundreds were dead, and hundreds more were burning alive. Yet Takeo could spare them no thoughts, for if he did not hurry, he would join them.

  Already the tile roof was growing warm to the touch. Every building—except the one Seiji occupied—was about to become an oven. Takeo pitied any soldier who’d escaped the flames only to barricade themselves indoors. Unless they covered themselves with dirt, or found a well, or a bath, they would die a slower death than those outside. Even if they did find such shelter, they could still die if the building burned and collapsed on them, or from the smoke. Takeo couldn’t join them. He had a promise to fulfill.

  Gripping his sword, Takeo knelt and put his back heel against the home’s chimney stack. With a shout, he put all his effort into a dead sprint and then leapt with all his might for the next closest house to the outer walls. He sailed over the burning street and crashed onto the next tiled roof, cracking the roof coverings and sending shards of tile into the fires inside the home. Smoke billowed up, filling Takeo’s lungs and choking the air, along with the putrid smell of burnt flesh.

  Coughing, struggling for air, Takeo rose and repeated his efforts, leaping to the next house and crashing onto the roof. The hungry flames followed, flowing around the edges of the buildings and begging for just one lick at Takeo’s heel, so that they might consume his entire body. Another house and another, and soon Takeo was in sight of the outer walls again, obscured as they were by smoke and embers.

  The walls were choked with soldiers trying to leave, either climbing the rope or in some cases just flinging themselves from the walls in terror. The flames stopped at the wall’s base; the heat from the flames was staggering.

  “Lord!” someone shouted, spotting Takeo among the rooftops. “Our lord! He’s alive. Lord Takeo’s alive!”

  The Hanu army, shocked as they were from the tragedy thus unfolding, cheered at this glimmer of hope that their leader had survived the carnage. They cheered again as Takeo leapt to the next rooftop, gathered his strength, and then made the final leap that put him safely on the walls. The soldiers caught him as he fell into their crowd.

  “My lord, you’re alive!”

  “Lord, is there anyone else out there?”

  �
��What happened? Did you see what happened?”

  “It was a trap, wasn’t it, my lord? The bastards!”

  “Off,” Takeo roared, pushing himself free of those who’d caught him.

  The crowd drew back, stunned by his tone.

  “Off, I said,” Takeo repeated and pointed away from the city. “Everyone off the walls, now!”

  He had to shout over the roar of the flames to be heard, and it spoke volumes that he was not instantly obeyed. The soldiers balked, but only so long as it took the sergeants and others with any sort of authority to remember their place. Takeo’s orders were repeated, and the throng of soldiers inched back to life. They began to descend the ropes again.

  “Faster,” an officer barked.

  “You heard the general. Get off the walls,” another said.

  Takeo turned away, satisfied there would be no further delays, and surveyed the scene he didn’t want his troops to take in.

  The Phan city burned now with extraordinary brilliance. Every building, every street, every inch of the place was a raging inferno, burning so brightly that it ripped tears from Takeo’s eyes just to look upon it. The heat rushed by, creating its own wind, and blew Takeo’s short hair back. He could feel his skin bake, and the immense roar of the flames was louder than anything Takeo could remember hearing. Not a scream issued out now. Everyone who had failed to make it out was dead, or otherwise so consumed in flames that they could no longer speak. Thick, black clouds of smoke rose up, visible only by the brightness of the flames that created them. Takeo knew that when this infernal storm finally died, nothing would be left behind but ash and soot. They would only know the death toll by counting the survivors and subtracting the difference.

  Yet, hard as it was, Takeo strained his eyes through the bright flames just enough to see the lone tower in the distance. Like the wall on which he stood, the fire stopped just before the tower, raging all around but leaving the structure otherwise intact. Likely now, those within would feel the heat, but they would live. Untouched, as it were, perhaps only slightly annoyed by the sound of the inferno, the bright light in the middle of the night, and the smell of the dead being turned to ash.

  Takeo clenched his fist and looked down at his sword.

  “Useless,” he muttered.

  “My lord.”

  Takeo jerked his head ever so slightly away from the flames, catching a glimpse of the last remaining soldier on the walls. He was kneeling over the side, one hand on the rope, shielding his face from the heat with the other.

  “My lord, are you coming?” he asked.

  Takeo sheathed his bloodless sword and nodded, walking over. He took the rope and paused a moment.

  “Dispatch a messenger back to Lady Kuniko,” Takeo commanded. “Tell her I require new guards.”

  * * *

  No one slept that night. Those who managed to do so the following day passed out from exhaustion. The fire raged strong all through the night and well into the next day. Considering an entire city needed to be consumed, the beast would be feasting for some time.

  Worse still, by Takeo’s estimation, the danger wouldn’t abate once the flames died down. The streets would radiate heat for weeks, covered in a thick layer of insulating ash that would keep hot embers burning and make the city unsafe to enter. The fire had raged with such intensity that it had partially melted the massive steal doors of the city, welding them shut. The entire entry would have to be dismantled and brought down so the Hanu army could bring in shovels and carts to haul out, load by load, the massive amounts of debris that would bar their path.

  “There’s more bad news though,” Gavin said over breakfast following the second night. “The first batch of scouts we sent out have returned, and things aren’t looking good. They’ve been preparing for you for a while. The few farms all around this fortress have been burned. The wells were poisoned. Even what few forests existed were set aflame. There’s nothing around us we can use that we didn’t bring ourselves. Nothing but rocks and dirt.”

  “And why are you telling me this?” Takeo asked. “Why not someone else?”

  Gavin shrugged.

  “The daimyo asked me to rely the information. I think they’re afraid of you right now.”

  “Of me? It’s not their fault the city burned. I walked blindly into that trap, and we still haven’t figured the total losses. I’m not going to punish them.”

  “I don’t think they’re afraid of receiving your wrath as much as they are terrified to witness it.”

  Takeo sipped his tea and coughed. The air in their small valley was atrocious to breathe and would be for some time. The mountain peaks created an almost hermetically sealed lid on their smoke-filled camp. It didn’t much matter what Takeo’s cook brought him. He couldn’t taste anything but char.

  “Have you figured out what you’re going to do?” Gavin asked.

  “The only thing I can do,” Takeo responded. “See the other fortress I must bring down.”

  “The Ngo fortress? Before you go, you know you have to say something to the troops, right? You can’t leave them like this, Takeo, with this loss. So many died, and for nothing. At least, that’s how they’ll see it if you leave. If you can’t think of their loss, at least think of the morale. Desertions are soon to follow.”

  “And where will they go?” Takeo said. “As you said, there’s no food or drinkable water anywhere within walking distance. I don’t need to speak to my troops after a defeat. They should trust by now that I’ll see us through to victory, and if I don’t, well, no speech will change that. I only need to talk to one person right now. Bring Anagarika. I have orders to give.”

  Lady Anagarika came wearing a black veil, which Takeo assumed was her attempt to show subtle condolences to the soldiers that had died. He also assumed she’d done this on advice from one of her old counselors because the warriors who fought and died while she sat and watched would be little swayed by a simple, dark face covering. Takeo had to admit that although Lady Anagarika played a deft hand at entreating royalty, her ability to work with the common troops was sorely lacking. Of course, that had been Botan’s job before, as it was now Takeo’s, but she would need to step up her charismatic abilities in the coming days.

  “My lord,” Anagarika said, putting her knees to the ground and resting on the back of her heels. “You sent for me?”

  Takeo took a moment to inspect the daimyo. Truth be told, Takeo had a considerable amount of respect for this woman, which she’d earned over these past few months as they’d gotten to know one another. At first glance, the Lady Anagarika Katsu was equal parts plain and unassuming. She preferred dressing simply and applying just enough makeup to hide some of her less attractive features—or those she thought unattractive. Whether standing before a servant or kneeling before her superior, Anagarika kept up a meek guise with narrowed shoulders, a slight hunch, and elbows drawn inwards. When combined with a soft voice, to appear any more harmless would have aroused suspicion, and Takeo quickly deduced that this was all by design.

  The Lady Anagarika was clever.

  Takeo soon came to realize that although he’d been the one to offer Anagarika life, her current position had been entirely her doing. Anagarika displayed an artful tact upon the political landscape, cropping up at just the right time when a favor was needed or a task remained unfulfilled or a position lay open. In a world where knives could come from anywhere or anyone, people were reluctant to give power to that which could hurt them. Anagarika seemed harmless, and therefore trustworthy. In such a way, her path to power continued to rise while others fell.

  Takeo only needed to look as far as Lord Botan to see the truth in this. Despite Botan having been the face of the Katsu army, playing general and lord with equal enthusiasm, he’d still acknowledged Anagarika, his cousin, as an equal shogun. Even though he led the battles and constantly put himself in harm’s way while she sat on pillows in a tower, he had no issues sharing the proverbial throne with her. And then look what h
appened when he died. Somehow, while Botan’s head went rolling across the stone steps, Anagarika had raised herself up. Not only did she command the Katsu regions more thoroughly than ever, Takeo was now about to entrust her with leadership over a good number of his Hanu troops, as well.

  To Takeo, these were admirable qualities. Anagarika displayed not only prudence, but resourcefulness, and he felt confident that she would see her way out of any sticky situation, no matter the cost—just like him.

  As vain as that sounded.

  “I’ll be leaving soon,” Takeo said to her. “Seiji is just one of three brothers I need to slay, and I need to see how the last one is holding up. With any luck, Lord In-Su will be more reasonable, but I doubt things will go that easily. At this point, I’m just hoping Oiu obeyed my orders not to engage with his older brother. If Qadir was omniscient enough to foresee me coming here first, I fear what may be happening at the Ngo fortress in my absence.

  “As I said back at our main camp, I’m leaving you in charge here. There’s no need for us to play games; I know that I’m leaving you in a tough position, but I believe you’ll be able to hold things together until I return.”

  Anagarika bowed until her forehead touched the ground.

  “My lord is too kind,” she said. “I will strive to be worthy of your trust.”

  “I’ve already gone over how tricky the rakshasa race can be—and you’ve now witnessed that in grand display, unfortunately—but I’m going to give you some more advice. I’ve been in a number of sieges in my life, so I’m going to tell you what I would do in your situation.”

  “And I will listen,” she replied. “Your input will be taken to heart.”

  Takeo paused as he realized Anagarika had not balked at his decision to leave, as Gavin had. He had to appreciate that sort of obedience. No wonder the late Lord Ichiro had ruled with an iron fist. Having one’s words treated as indisputable law was highly addictive.