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Dust flew up beneath thundering hooves as he spurred his horse onward. Flecks of sweat dampened the beautiful black flanks, but the ebony stallion kept the pace with stout-hearted fortitude, as though understanding the urgency that drove him and his men to ride with reckless speed to Nobara. His men were silent except for cries to urge their mounts forward; they had ridden all night without stopping, and he was well aware that fatigue dogged their company all throughout the desperate journey. They kept to the road near the edge of the forest, heading toward the ominous column of black smoke that rose above the tree-line. The smell of charred wood stung their eyes, growing stronger as they closed the distance. The road widened abruptly as they reached the borders of the town. He drew his sword and called out a word, and the blade blazed with blue-white fire. Steel rang as his men followed his lead.
All at once, their destination unfolded itself before them. The once-lovely town of Nobara lay in ruins. Thick clouds of smoke and ash poured out from the smoldering remains of the ornate houses and the graceful domed buildings that had been the pride and joy of the town's inhabitants. The elaborate gardens were ripped apart, the wild rose bushes that gave the town its name trampled to shreds. Here and there, deep furrows were cut into walls and jagged canals were dug into the ground, as if something had slashed and clawed its way through the town. The cobbled streets were littered with broken bricks, splintered wood, shattered pottery, scraps of clothing, broken swords and arrows and a wild variety of gardening implements—and bodies. So many bodies—sprawled on the ground, flung against the walls, lying half-in and half-out of collapsed greenhouses and crushed carts—the streets were slick with blood, the walls spattered with crimson. Human bodies lay alongside the corpses of their demonic killers. Creatures with swollen, vaguely ram-like heads adorning thick, leathery bodies, with clawed fists still gripping massive, blood-stained axes; great, hulking things that seemed to consist mostly out of bony plates, teeth and slimy red flesh; the all-too-familiar towering forms of viper warriors. But there were too few monsters who lay dead in the streets, and too many humans…far too many.
The company halted and dismounted, gazing in horror and dismay at the carnage around them. Figures moved among the bodies as they made their way through the town. The giant rats, the fanged lizards and the ghostly corpse-wraiths seeking host-bodies—the usual scavengers after a demon attack. They chittered and hissed at the sight of the newcomers but otherwise did not move away, apparently judging them as being no threat to their gruesome feasting. He narrowed his eyes and with a quick swing of his sword split the giant rat closest to him in half. It would be a pleasure to prove these vile creatures wrong.
"My lord," Satoru said beside him, his face above his beard and below his helm as gray as the smoke surrounding them. "My lord, we're too late."
He responded to that astounding pronouncement of the obvious with an icy glare. The other knights fanned out around him and looked at him expectantly, and Hatori Sohma, His Grace the Duke of Ryuukama, gave his first command. "Get rid of these vermin."
It took a while to exterminate all the carrion beasts and to pile up the bodies in the middle of the town, say a quick prayer to Akkan for the souls of the dead, and set fire to the pile. They stood and watched the flames of the funeral pyre climb high into the sky, and Hatori could feel the skin on the back of his neck and shoulders tighten with every questioning glance and worried frown his knights cast upon him until he felt as if the tension was the only thing that was keeping him from folding up on the ground in a dusty heap. Akkan's blood, he was beyond exhausted. The surge of adrenaline was draining out of him, leaving him feeling as weak as a kitten, every muscle shivering with weariness, and it was taking a dangerous amount of his flagging control just to keep his face from betraying the full extent of his weakness. He gripped the hilt of his sword tightly and resisted the temptation to lean upon it like an old man on his cane; the blue-white astral fire he had imbued the blade with had already vanished, and he hoped to all the gods that none of the demons returned because he wasn't sure if he still had enough strength to recast the spell.
He didn't know how long he could keep this up. He was driving himself and his men to the point of collapse, and he knew it. Too many sleepless nights of thinking and planning strategies and formulating theory after theory that never seemed to withstand the harsh test of reality come morning. Too many days spent in the saddle or battling against the seemingly infinite hordes of demons or flying from village to village and town to town trying to stem the tide of fear and rouse the people to the defense of their homes. And far too many moments like this, when it seemed the entire world burned and bled from the enormity of his failure.
Failure. The word haunted him, condemned him, made him tremble from the cuts it inflicted upon his soul. The marks of his failure surrounded him in the dead bodies consumed by the flame, the ruined homes, the haggard faces of his men. Despair, fury and paralyzing helplessness rose up from the black depths, and Hatori bent his head, fighting off the part of him that wanted to fall to his knees and give in, to cease this endless struggling and let the darkness consume him. Akkan knew he wasn't doing much good. Perhaps it would be better if he simply gave up and let another take his place; perhaps someone else could do a better job of protecting his people. The last thing Ryuukama needed was a leader who brought destruction with his every move.
"Your Grace?"
He looked up into the concerned faces of his men. Matsuo, Satoru, Ryuichi, all the others—good men, all of them. A more faithful, stalwart band of soldiers he had yet to find. They followed him through the fires of hell again and again without complaint, never wavering in their loyalty to him despite the deadends and horrible miscalculations that seemed to dog his every decision. They had proven their worth a thousand times over; gods, how could someone as weak and foolish as he be their leader? They didn't deserve this. They had families waiting for them back home—mothers, wives, children. They didn't deserve to have their lives flung about so carelessly by one man's sheer incompetence.
The image of Kana's face flickered in his mind. She smiled at him, her brown eyes as warm as springtime, and he wished with his entire being that he was back with her again. She could hold back the freezing cold that closed around his heart with every setback he faced, and he ached to lay his head upon her lap and let her hands soothe away his pains, let her voice tell him that it was all right, everything was going to be all right.
The fever's getting worse, Hatori. We've tried everything. Oh gods, what are we going to do?
The memory of the last time he had seen Kana came back to him. Her brown eyes were shadowed and full of fear, her beautiful face looking strained and white against the flickering candlelight in the sickroom. She laid a hand upon his chest as if to implore him to help their daughter, and he clasped her hand in his own to hide her trembling and his own. They gazed down at the figure lying on the bed, looking small and altogether too fragile among the pillows surrounding her, her shoulder-length, honey-blond hair the only splash of color upon the pristine white sheets. But Kisa didn't open her eyes to smile at them. She didn't reach up to them to ask for a hug. Instead she lay twisting and moaning and weeping in her troubled sleep, her body drenched with sweat, her hand gripped tightly in Hiro's, who sat by her bedside day after day despite attempts to drive him out of the room. Like a skilled archer, Hiro had let loose a barrage of arguments, each one more pointed that the one before, until the doctors and attendants finally gave up and left him alone to continue his vigil, and Hatori couldn't find it in his heart to begrudge the boy his devotion to his daughter.
His daughter, Kisa. They called him powerful, the strongest mage in Ryuukama. They called him a miracle-worker, with healing abilities that was the envy of the gods. And here he was, unable to help one frail little girl, unable to do anything but watch in helpless frustration and deepening hopelessness as his daughter faded away before his eyes.
What worth all his power when he couldn't even save his daughter's life? What was the use of fighting when he couldn't even keep a single town from being destroyed?
May Akkan have mercy on his soul.
"Your Grace?"
Satoru's anxious voice called him back from the melancholy he had sunk into. He focused again on the faces of his men. Don't give in, a voice whispered inside him. You mustn't break, and you mustn't fall. He drew in a shuddering breath and gathered his wits about him. Look at them, the voice went on gently. Look into the faces of your men. They would gladly give their lives for you, and here they stand awaiting your next order. Your people still believe in you, Hatori. You are their lord, their Duke, and they need you now. You cannot fail them nor can you fall, because if you do, Ryuukama will fall with you.
Ryuukama will not fall.
The thought shot molten steel through him, driving away the weariness. He sheathed his sword and strode away from the blazing pyre. "The attack came just after dawn," he said briskly. "It happened quickly, before the people in town even knew what was happening. There's a mercy there, at least."
"How do you know, Your Grace?"
He gestured at the scattered garden implements in one of Nobara's innumerable rose gardens. "They were just beginning their morning routine. There was almost no time to run back into their houses to grab their weapons before the demons were upon them."
"Pah, and no wonder," Matsuo said disgustedly. "Nobara has no defenses at all. No walls or fortifications, and no protective magics except the ones to grow their damned roses with. It was nothing but a useless piece of frippery inhabited by a bunch of gardeners."
Hatori fought to keep the guilt and shame out of his expression. "No. Nobara had protection."
"What?"
He stopped at an empty patch of the courtyard and uttered the words of the shield spell, holding his hand out in front of him, palm downward. His hand glowed blue and at his feet the blue-white lines of a large pentagram flared in response. To the knights' surprise, the sky above the town began to turn a deeper shade of blue, starting from directly above Hatori's head and sinking to the ground beyond the town's outskirts, forming a dome of indigo light over the town. "I created the shield when we went through here several days ago," Hatori said impassively. "Humans can pass through it but demons can't, which is why none of you sensed anything when we passed through the shield."
Ryuichi, the youngest member of the company, looked around doubtfully. "It didn't work, my lord."
"No, the shield worked, Ryuichi," Matsuo countered before Hatori could reply. "Open your eyes, boy. You didn't see any dead demons outside the perimeters of the town, did you? The shield worked, but it kept the demons inside the town instead of outside. Besides, a shield like this would guarantee a safe getaway for the town's inhabitants, provided they can bring themselves to abandon their precious greenhouses. His Grace knows what he's about."
"So where did those hell-spawned creatures come from?" Ryuichi demanded frustratedly. "Lord Hatori sealed off the sky and all possible entry points to Nobara. We've already ruled out water back in that village by the river. To break through the dimensional barriers between the netherworld and ours requires the power of at least one element, and the fires here started after the demons came. Where else could they have found enough rips in the dimensional barriers to invade a town as swiftly as this?"
Hatori mounted the ebony stallion as he waited for Ryuichi to arrive at the only logical conclusion. The moment came when Ryuichi suddenly blanched. "You can't mean they come out of the ground," he said, aghast.
Hatori gave them a level look. "We head for the forest," he said curtly. "The survivors will have gathered there." And with that, he turned his steed and galloped off.
"Well, what else is there, Ryuichi?" Matsuo said dryly as the knights rode behind him.
"Then the only way to keep these demons out of the villages is to float the damn things off the ground," Ryuichi snapped. "All of them and the city too, and all at the same time, because we can never be sure when and where those accursed beasts will strike next. Who in this mortal realm has the power to do even half of that? It's madness, I tell you."
"Like I said," Matsuo drawled, "what else is there?"
They plunged into the forest, and it took a few seconds for Hatori's eyes to adjust to the relative gloom. Sunlight slid through the canopy of leaves and speckled the undergrowth as the horses picked their way through the trees, following an invisible path. Soon, the sound of voices drifted toward them, followed by a shout as they came to a small clearing in the heart of the woods. The survivors of the stricken town of Nobara gathered here, a small crowd of dazed, frightened and wounded people huddling together for comfort. Several of them gave cries of joy at the sight of Hatori and the knights, and a stout, middle-aged man broke away and hurried over to him as he dismounted.
"Your Grace!" the man half-sobbed with relief. "Your Grace, you're here, Akkan be praised."
"How many escaped?" Hatori asked, wasting no words.
"Around sixty, Your Grace," the man answered as he tried to keep up with him. "It all happened so fast. One minute everything was quiet, and the next—the next was utter chaos. All those horrible creatures appearing out of nowhere!"
With the instincts of a true healer, Hatori headed straight toward the one with the worst injuries, a man who moaned continually through a broken jaw while his frantic wife pressed both hands to the gash on his abdomen to keep his intestines in. "Your Grace!" the woman gasped through her tears. "Your Grace, please help him! Please!"
Wordlessly, Hatori knelt beside the man and removed the woman's bloodstained hands, replacing them with his own. He closed his eyes and summoned his power. Warm white light flowed through his arms and out through his fingers as he willed the flesh to knit and the pain to recede. Moments later, he removed his hands and repeated the process with the man's shattered jaw. "Find something to bind him up with and keep his wounds clean," he instructed the woman when it was over.
"Will he live?" the woman asked him. "They said he was dying, Your Grace. He won't die, will he?"
"He'll live," he said shortly, trying his damnedest not to let the waves of weakness show. The woman sobbed her thanks, and the next minute the other injured townsfolk swarmed around him, begging him to heal them. Seeing the strain on his face, Satoru elbowed his way through the throng and drew Hatori aside. "You should stop, my lord," he urged in a low voice. "You're worn clear through."
Hatori shook his head. "I can do this." Satoru gazed at him somberly, then sighed and released him, and Hatori was ashamed to find that he was swaying without the knight's hand to support him. He waded among the injured survivors, summoning his power through sheer force of will alone. I can do this, he thought as the healing energy drained out of him again and again. I can heal them. I can save their lives.
Would that I could do the same for my daughter.
Tears of exhaustion and despair stung his eyes. The townsfolks' excited babbling pierced through the thickening fog—"His Grace saved our lives," "a miracle, it is," "the Duke is here, the young Duke is with us," "he'll save us all, you'll see"—and Hatori felt laughter bubble up from the twisted corners of his mind. Can't save his own daughter, other voices taunted him. Can't save his own city. Can't save his own people. His hands moved automatically, spreading healing and magic all around, while the rest of him spiraled downward into hell.
"Enough! That's enough! Get away from him, you blithering idiots! Parasites, the lot of you!"
He blinked up at the leafy canopy, feeling the sunlight stab at his eyeballs like little darts, and wondered hazily what the hell he was doing lying prone on the ground. Silhouettes bordered his vision; his company of knights had formed a ring around him, protecting him from the cowed townsfolks. He pushed himself upright with effort, and the three knights closest to him immediately gathered around him. "Enough, Your Grace," Satoru said gently. "You're completely spent. You've pushed yourself harder than any of us, and you need to rest."
Hatori shook their hands off him and attempted to stand, and only Ryuichi's and Matsuo's quick reflexes kept him from toppling over when his legs folded up underneath him. "My lord, Satoru's right," Ryuichi said. "You've done enough today. Command us, and we'll do what needs doing."
He stared at the blurring faces of his men, and was finally forced to concede. "Camp at…Ganseki. Take the refugees there…en route to Ryuukama. Send them to…the city. Safe there still." He closed his eyes and swallowed against the dizziness. "Sleep," he mumbled. "Need…sleep."
"Then rest here, Your Grace," Matsuo exhorted him. "We'll watch over you."
"No." He opened his eyes and glowered at his knights, or at the furry shapes he assumed were his knights. "No, you must…take them there. Protect them. Demons still loose. Leave me here. I will…follow."
"But my lord—" Ryuichi began, but Hatori cut him off. "This is what…I command."
The three knights glanced at one another over his drooping head, then Satoru turned and barked an order at the other men. Someone produced a blanket and spread it out under a tree, and they guided Hatori toward it and laid him down upon it, with Satoru's own cape as a makeshift pillow. The ebony stallion ambled closer and nuzzled his head affectionately, fully intending to watch over his master. Hatori struggled against the pulling tide of darkness for as long as he could while the knights herded the refugees deeper into the forest. Finally, Satoru came and knelt beside him. "Sleep, my lord," he murmured as he laid Hatori's sword beside him, with his hand upon the hilt. "We will wait for you at Ganseki."
Hatori caught at his sleeve. "Send for me…if you receive word," he hissed.
If you receive word about my daughter.
Satoru nodded, understanding fully. "I will, my lord. Sleep well."
And Hatori closed his eyes and knew no more.
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Author's Notes:
Mwahahaha! maniacal laughter I did it! I've kicked my writer's block out the door. It's stewing outside my window right now, waiting for a chance to sidle back in, but for the moment…I'm free!
Ahem. Sorry about that, but I'm jumping for joy right now over finally having written something more complicated than a grocery list. It's been months! Geez!
For waiting for months and months and months and for still continuing to read and review, even that dumb author's note…thank you so much, everyone. You know who you are: purplemoon250, January Marlinquin (I had so much fun reading your reviews), Ina-chan (thanks for putting the story in the C2 community), monsnite (um, I probably can't afford your funeral bills, sorry ;), trillium , Rachael, poplollyblues, Raberba girl, Starpiper Clover, shardingtoby (whom I owe for more than just the Prince of Snows, thanks for reading my fic!), Alix, Chrysta Rose Meinke (Kagura-Kyo coming later, promise), and all you guys who read and reviewed (sorry if I didn't mention you, my boss passed by while I was listing down your names). And of course, to R Junkie: thank you forever for your help in kicking me into gear. I hope to return the favor some day.
And thanks too to all the well-wishers. It's been chaos, but hey.
I had a lot of trouble with the chapter with Momiji and Arisa. I don't have access to the manga (I've completely lost track of the FB storyline) and rely only on the anime, which doesn't show much interaction between Momiji and Arisa so I'd had to use my imagination. I tried my best to keep them in line; I hope it worked. Also, I gave Kana back to Hatori because I hate what Akito did to them and I wanted to see them together, even if it had to be in an AU. I hope I got Hatori down. And I hope you guys don't mind all those extra cast of characters popping up now and then.
Oh, and I'll be taking down the "Word from Our Sponsors" thing soon, just to maintain continuity, so don't be surprised if the story starts missing a chapter.
Coming up next: Kagura and Tohru, and Ayame to make an appearance at last. Book 3 is going to be as long as Book 2, probably. And yes, Yuki and Kyo and the cursed forest will be in it.
Thanks again everyone!