Takeo's Chronicles, page 171
One could only hope.
At the bottom of the hill, Takeo didn’t have to wait for attendants; they found him. Soldiers of rank spotted their lord general and knelt to him, asking for orders, only to receive a sharp demand in reply.
“Nicholas, the viking,” Takeo bellowed. “I need him and a mount. Where is he?”
“My lord?” the soldier said, stuttering. “A mount? But we’ve nearly finished your last order.”
“My last,” Takeo started, then stopped.
They disguised themselves as me.
“What was my last order?” Takeo shouted.
“My lord?”
“Answer me!”
“You were worried about Xianliang getting free,” the soldier answered, hastily. “You took a mount for yourself and then ordered all other komainu be slaughtered.”
Takeo screamed. The soldier quaked with fear.
“My lord?” the soldier stuttered.
“That wasn’t me! That was a rakshasa. Damn it! Nicholas, where is Nicholas? Send runners out immediately. Everyone go, now, spread the word. Cancel my last order. Save the komainu. Save at least one, damn it!”
Soldiers came to life and sprinted in all directions, heading for the camp. Takeo dashed off, too, headed for the daimyo tents and hoping Nicholas was still there.
She had his sword, which meant she had command. No one would question the image of Takeo armed with that sword, even if he appeared in the camp when he was supposed to be up in the mountain. Everyone knew about Emy, and some might suspect that she would disguise herself as him, but none would question the sword.
“How did she get it?” Takeo asked himself between breaths as he ran at full pace. “It’s not possible. I saw it get swallowed. The oni even said the deal was done. Something’s not right.”
Takeo reached his quarters and demanded Nicholas. No one had seen him, not since Takeo had left, and it took longer than Takeo would have liked to find out who had seen Nicholas last. It was the komainu master, and Takeo dashed off to find the woman. He not only found her but also a pile of komainu corpses and an empty stable.
Takeo’s blood hit a boiling point.
“Ah, my lord,” came the standard greeting, the old woman taking a break from washing the blood from her hands to bow properly. “Your order has been carried out. The komainu are dead, as much as it pained me. But it is not my place to question you.”
“Nevermind that,” Takeo said through clenched teeth. “Nicholas. I heard you saw him last. Where is he? I need him.”
“What? My lord? I don’t understand. You were the one who sent him away,” the woman replied, frowning.
Takeo blinked, then he snarled.
“Answer me!” he bellowed, bile rising in his throat. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
The woman let out a muffled yelp and went to the ground, forehead to the dirt, terrified at Takeo’s tone. The story tumbled out of her.
“I did not mean to anger you, my lord. You came on a mount, alone,” she said, voice shaking. “You issued an order that all komainu be slaughtered except for yours and two for Nicholas and Emy, that rakshasa. Then you left, and Nicholas and Emy came. Nicholas also had the Yilmaz boy with him. I gave them mounts, as you instructed, my lord, and watched them charge off west. Then you came back to make sure they were gone.”
“And then what did I do? What did I look like? Did you see my hands? My feet?”
“My lord?”
He sucked in a breath, and she gave an answer before he could threaten her.
“You didn’t look any different!” she cried. “Your feet, I, I don’t know. I only saw you on one side.”
“Which side?”
“Uh, umm, the, uh, left side, my lord. Yes, yes it was the left because you had your sword there. And your hands, well, one was fine. You kept them together, one hand over the other. The left hand, I believe. Now that I think of it, I never saw your right side clearly.”
“That’s because I cut off his right foot and the fingers on his right hand,” Takeo muttered. “He must have been moving fast through the camp, trying to hide the disfigurement. It wouldn’t work for long.”
“My lord?”
“Nevermind. That wasn’t me, but that doesn’t concern you right now. Where did I go? He couldn’t have stayed behind. A missing limb can’t be hidden for long. Did I say anything to you?”
“Yes, you did,” she said, eager to have a clear answer. “You looked directly at me and asked my name, like you wanted me to remember that moment. Then you said not to tell anyone else, but you were going to visit an old friend.”
Takeo went still.
“Say that again,” he asked. “Exactly as it was said.”
“You said you were going to leave, but I didn’t ask where. I know better than to question you, my lord. You said, ‘I have somewhere rather important to go. Don’t tell anyone, even those three if they come back. I’m going to visit an old friend, someone I hold very dear.’ Then you smiled and left.”
The blood drained from Takeo’s face, and his limbs tingled as his body went numb. A sickening cold swept through his veins.
“Gavin,” he whispered.
“My lord?”
Takeo swallowed down a dry throat.
“Find me a mount,” he demanded, voice weak. “And find out where Nicholas went.”
He didn’t leave for some time. No order was carried out as thoroughly as one issued from Takeo’s lips, even if those lips weren’t really his. Every komainu in the Hanu camp had been put to the sword with brutal efficiency, so Takeo had to wait until one of his outlying komainu patrols returned from a scouting venture. Even then, the mounts were tired from their already long trek, so Takeo had set a less than rapid pace out of the Hanu camp heading south. In other parts of the world, mounts could be ridden into exhaustion or even death if need be, but not komainu. If driven to the end, they’d lose control and turn on their riders.
So Qadir had a head start, but not by too much, Takeo guessed. His fears eased as he remembered Gavin had left much earlier to head home, and hopefully the knight had reached that place in time, and perhaps even left again. Kuniko, in her infinite wisdom, had set up a chain of relay posts leading from the Hanu camp to the Hanu fortress, stocked with fresh mounts so that a message or person could be delivered as quickly and as safely as possible. Takeo intended to utilize that resource now, as Gavin had likely done before him, and as Qadir would do, too.
When Takeo arrived at the first relay for a fresh mount, the soldier in charge there was surprised to see him again.
With a series of questions, Takeo discovered that Qadir was still disguising himself as the ronin, and he had somehow made excellent time to this post. How?
Takeo thought on it.
My sword. That bastard is touching the sword to the komainu and giving it greater speed.
His fears for Gavin returned, and Takeo knew he’d get no rest. He switched mounts for a fresh one and took off as fast as he could.
And so, it went, Takeo racing from one post to the next, driving his komainu relentlessly, fighting fatigue and pain, as his body ached to be ridding for so long. Each mount raced like a fiend, as they were intended to, and the strain wore into Takeo’s bones and joints as he fought to hang on, push down the pain, and maybe, just maybe, beat Qadir to his destination.
At every post, he arrived only to find Qadir had gained on him, if only by a little. Night came on, exhaustion threatened him, and Takeo took to lashing himself to his mounts, not trusting his own hands to hang on. At this pace, one slip and he would go crashing down, breaking a limb or maybe even his neck. He couldn’t risk that. He’d be no help to anyone dead or paralyzed.
All the while, he could only think over and over and over that Qadir had the Karaoshi blade and he was heading for Gavin.
By the power of komainu speed and sheer willpower, a journey that would have taken weeks by foot was completed in a day. Takeo’s last mount stumbled weakly into the Zhao lands, Kuniko’s lands, where Gavin and his family were supposed to find safe refuge from all the harm this world could produce. The komainu arrived in better shape than Takeo, more alert and in less pain.
It was quiet, unnaturally so. No guards met him as he approached. No servants or children could be heard playing in the distance. Takeo forced his mount inwards, blinking away his exhaustion, aided by adrenaline and fear. Then he heard a distant cry, a child’s sobbing, and a grown man’s weeping. Takeo spurred his mount towards the noise.
The Zhao mansion came into view, utterly empty save for small scene right outside its front entrance, right where Kuniko had walked out with the severed heads of her parents.
A dead komainu lay off to the side, its neck cut open with burn marks along the wound. Sitting on the veranda was Qadir in his rakshasa form. He was tall and imposing, even with his legs dangling over the side, the right foot completely gone from the ankle down. His one good hand wrapped firmly around the bloodied Karaoshi sword, smoke rising from the blade where the blood hissed and burned. Sitting beside Qadir, held in place by his fingerless right hand, was little Pleiades Shaw, who wasn’t so little anymore. Four or five years old now—Takeo wasn’t sure—she had sharp, understanding eyes, a lanky appearance, and was beginning to show the seeds of beauty that she’d inherited from her parents. Her hazel eyes were marred by tears now, though, as the Karaoshi sword hovered a finger’s width from her neck.
On her knees just below them was Yeira, head bowed, and eyes drenched in tears. She kept her hands held in the back where Qadir could see them. She looked up as Takeo entered the scene, and they shared a momentary gaze. Takeo expected to see hatred there, along with blame and anger, but all Yeira’s eyes held were regret.
The anger and hate instead came from Gavin, also on his knees, but several paces away from his wife and child and their captor. His sobbing stopped when he spied Takeo, and his eyes pierced into the ronin with so much agony that it twisted Takeo’s heart.
Qadir, however, just smiled.
“Ah, Takeo,” he said. “So good of you to join us. Now we can begin.”
He took the sword from Pleiades’ neck, reversed it, and decapitated Yeira.
Chapter 16
Yeira’s head went flying, shooting blood out of the neck in thick streams. Her beautiful black hair whirled about while her headless corpse teetered in place before crashing to the ground. Yeira’s head fell sometime after, rolling along the ground and coming to a stop where her nose hit the dirt and her large lips cushioned the momentum. None of this could be heard over Gavin’s screams.
He roared in agony and collapsed, fresh tears pouring from his eyes, and his hands clenched into fists that pushed into the ground. Deep sobs wracked his body, broken by loud cries, begging for this not to be true, shouting his wife’s name, and screaming with unbridled rage into the dirt.
Even still, he wasn’t alone. Pleiades screamed, too, in raw terror and at the top of her lungs. Her eyes fixated on her mother’s headless body while she tried frantically to run away, headless of the way Qadir struggled to keep her in place.
“Stop!” Qadir shouted at her. “Stupid, human child!”
Pleiades went on screaming, only pausing to gasp for air, the shrill sound so piercing that Takeo flinched. In absolute horror, she tried to get away, only for Qadir to place his forearm to her neck and push her into his body. He twisted until the angle cut off her windpipe, and then her screams and struggles were silent until she passed out from lack of air.
Then only Gavin’s sobs and cries were heard.
“Well now, if only I had known that was going to happen,” Qadir said, adjusting Pleiades’ unconscious body so he could rest the blade close to her neck again. “It’s a wonder humans value their children so much. Such pathetically stupid, weak creatures. Wouldn’t you agree, Takeo?”
Takeo debated his next move. The loss of Yeira was regrettable only so much as she mattered to Gavin, but Takeo would be lying if he said he’d felt anything beyond surprise when he watched her head go flying. All that mattered now was getting Gavin and Pleiades free, or just Gavin if need be. He could make more children, perhaps with women more pleasing to manage.
Takeo was still mounted. He could charge Qadir. That would get him close enough that even if the exhausted komainu didn’t kill the rakshasa, Takeo could at least get to the sword.
“Ah ah,” Qadir said, inching the blade towards Pleiades. “Off the mount.”
Before Takeo could defy the order, Gavin reacted.
“Do it!” he shouted. “Get off!”
The knight charged Takeo, blocking the way to Qadir. The komainu snarled, mistaking Gavin for an enemy, and Takeo had to jerk the creature’s reins to pacify it.
“Get off,” Gavin commanded, rushing to the komainu’s side and grabbing Takeo. “Get off! He said get off! Do what he says. Damn it, Takeo, by the angels just listen to him.”
Gavin hauled the ronin off, Takeo resisting yet feeling compelled. The look in Gavin’s eyes was haunting. Once Takeo was off, Gavin shoved him away, knocking him to the ground. Then the knight slapped the komainu’s rear. The beast snarled but cantered off.
“Gavin, what are you doing?” Takeo said, scrambling to a stand.
He went to chase after the creature, but Gavin blocked him, grabbed a rock, and hurled it at the komainu. The beast snarled as it was struck in the head. Then it scampered away, annoyed at the rude gesture.
“Gavin!”
“Shut up, Takeo! Shut up. Look! Look, damn you. What do you want, huh? You want me to lose my daughter, too, huh? Is that what you want? Oh Yeira. She’s dead. She’s d—”
Gavin paused as overwhelming sobs took him. He struggled through them and the blinding tears, his shoulders quaking.
“I swear, Takeo, I swear on the lives of the angels, if she dies, I will kill myself. I will force you to watch as I stab myself like a stupid samurai in the stomach and spill my guts out. You will NOT save me, do you understand? Save her!”
Gavin flung a dirt encrusted finger at the veranda, to Qadir and helpless Pleiades. Takeo followed, looking at the rakshasa, then back to Gavin. The two stared at each other, gazes more intense than they’d ever been. Only the sound of Qadir clearing his throat broke the scene.
“You should listen to your friend here,” Qadir said. “He’s been so hard at work for the past few hours, clearing this place out, sending servants and soldiers alike far away. I didn’t want to be disturbed, you understand. I knew there would be precious little time before you arrived.”
“Fine,” Takeo whispered to Gavin, then turned to Qadir. “Fine, I’m here now. Let them go. It’s me you want. You have my sword. It’s not like I’m running away. You’re who I want, as well. I’ll stay. Just let them go.”
Gavin’s eyes flicked to Takeo. At once, Gavin understood the trap. If Qadir agreed, then that meant he knew nothing about the Takeo’s sword immunity.
“All in due time,” Qadir replied. “As much as I’d love to kill you and be done with it, you’ve caused me too much pain to end things that quickly. It will be fitting, though, won’t it? When I end your life with the very sword you used to disfigure me?”
A wave of relief, which he tried to cover with a dry swallow, rushed through Takeo. A tiny tremble of hope passed through Gavin, too.
“Well, let’s get on with it, then,” Takeo pressed. “Torture? That’s what you want? You want to mutilate me, as I did to you? Just let them go. Think about it. Keeping hostages and talking only buys time for me to get through this alive.”
Qadir, once so comfortable, went still. He narrowed one eye at Takeo, then drew Pleiades closer, keeping the blade ready.
Damn it, Takeo thought. I pushed too much. Now he suspects something.
Beside him, Gavin stifled another sob.
“Up to your old tricks again, eh ronin?” Qadir said. “You stay back. And you, knight, if he comes too close to me, you can bet I’ll lop her head off before I ever attack him.”
Takeo’s mind raced, trying to formulate another plan. He needed time. Time bought opportunity and gave birth to mistakes. He had to keep Qadir talking.
“What’s this about, huh?” Takeo demanded. “I found out how you managed to slip away. Why didn’t you run with the others? Being here, like this, gives you no chance to escape.”
“Escape,” Qadir replied in a mocking tone. “Escape to what? The life of a crippled fugitive? A royal cripple, I could manage. Being in charge of the Nguyen hierarchy, playing one brother against the other, plotting world domination—that wasn’t so bad. But to run into hiding and poverty? No. Where would I go? Back to Savara to be hunted again? To Lucifan and beg in the streets? Not a chance. Not for a rakshasa. I’d rather die, and I’d rather give my life to revenge. You don’t seem to see what’s happening here, Takeo. I set this up because I knew you’d come, alone. You’re not walking out of here, and neither am I. When they find us, they’ll know it was me who took you down.”
Takeo suppressed a shudder. This would be worse than he thought. He had to switch topics, as best he could, to try and put Qadir off balance. Something, anything, to tip the scales.
“How’d you get my sword?”
“Oh, finally you ask,” Qadir said. “You know, your good friend here had the same question. In fact, as I recently discovered, he’s got quite a story to tell. Would you guess that this man shares the blame in why I’m here?”
Takeo turned, slowly, to put his gaze on Gavin. The knight’s head fell, and he looked at his feet, tears falling from his eyes, lips trembling and a touch blue from his ragged breaths. In those glossy green eyes, Takeo spied guilt.
“Gavin,” Takeo whispered. “Before I left to come find you, I heard Nicholas had taken Emy and the Yilmaz boy and fled west. Did you have something to do with that?”
Gavin reached up and drug his handless arm across his face, smearing tears, snot, and dirt.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Gavin said.
“Gavin, what did you do?”
