Doctor Who_ The Room With No Doors - Kate Orman [76]
who he was. ‘Tell me!’
‘The two armies aren’t moving,’ said the Kapteynian. ‘The monks are making ready for siege. There’s a small band of peasants entering the valley. Other than that, there’s nobody –’
‘Where are the peasants?’ said the Doctor. ‘We’ve got to warn them away.
Once the battle starts – if the battle starts – there won’t be anywhere near here that’s safe.’
The Kaptyenian shrugged and squawked. Talker and Te Yene Rana were still beating the stuffing out of each other.
‘Please,’ said the Doctor. ‘At least tell me where you saw them.’
The bird pointed a wing. ‘Coming up beside that river to the south-east.’
‘Should we try to stop the fight?’ one of the birds asked.
The Doctor said, ‘It’s too late for that. Hopefully the two daimyo will confine their attentions to one another.’
‘I meant Talker and –’
‘I know,’ said the Doctor. He grabbed Te Yene Rana’s horse and vaulted up on to it. ‘You’d better think of something, because there are four samurai riding down the hill towards you to see what’s going on.’
Talker and Te Yene Rana looked up, frozen in position. When they looked around, the Doctor was gone.
151
17
Time’s arrow
Joel knew he was safe while he was with Hanagami. The huge samurai was one of Gufuu-sama’s personal guard. The eight fighters stood around their lord, glaring out at the enemy, as though defying them to try to harm him.
Hanagami had been given specific instructions to look after Joel.
Joel peeked out from inside the fence of armoured men. Gufuu-sama was utterly unmoved by the raging battle below, watching with the same cool interest with which he had watched a Noh play the night before.
A really good Games Master could get you to imagine you were in the thick of battle. They remembered to go beyond hit points and metal figures, and remind you of the smell of blood and gunpowder, the shouts and screams and pounding hooves. Of course, in a role-playing game, you were usually (a) fighting imaginary monsters and (b) in your living room, with a pizza.
Joel suddenly knew that if he ever got back to Little Caldwell, the Thursday night AD&D campaign with the guys from Newbury was off.
There was a group of enemy samurai racing across the foot of the ridge. As one, the riders turned towards them. Arrows were suddenly raining down.
Joel screamed. Hanagami took a bullet, grunting.
Oh God, Joel prayed silently, stuffing his knuckles into his mouth, oh God, I don’t belong here, get me out of here.
Kame could smell the gunpowder for an hour before the villagers reached the valley. ‘I don’t like this,’ he told Mikeneko. ‘If the daimyo discovered Kuriisu-san’s mission, the monastery might not be the safest place at the moment.’
Mikeneko glanced back at the surviving villagers. They were footsore and miserable and had no food. ‘We must go on,’ she said. ‘There’s nowhere else we can go.’
‘At least allow me to scout ahead,’ said Kame.
‘But O-samurai,’ she said, ‘what if we’re set upon while you’re away?’
Kame considered. ‘The forest ought to be safe,’ he said.
∗ ∗ ∗
153
The armies had crashed together like a pair of waves. It had taken Chris’s breath away. One moment they were standing at opposite ends of the plain, perfectly still, and the next they were roaring towards each other.
He’d been kind of hoping that they’d do the traditional thing, some of the high-ranking samurai riding out to challenge their worthy opponents to single combat. Showing off, and gaining glory, and making sure their families got the reward if they were killed.
None of this was about honour, or any of that stuff. This was all about economics. About who owned the land and who got the rice, and whether the peasants had something they could use to stand up to you.
And besides, he thought, it was kind of childish to hope they would kill each other in a cool way.
The two armies didn’t muck around. They just smashed right into each other and started hacking and slashing. Arrows rained down. The harque-busiers