Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [527]
“Ya-a-h!”
One of the priests charged at Musashi with his lance. Musashi caught the lance and held it tightly with one hand.
Another death cry sounded, as if the man’s mouth were full of rocks. Wondering if his attackers could be fighting among themselves, Musashi strained his eyes to see. The other priest took careful aim with his lance and hurtled toward him. Musashi caught this lance too and held it securely under his right arm.
“Jump him now!” screamed one of the priests, realizing that Musashi had his hands full.
His voice stentorian, Musashi shouted, “Who are you? Identify yourselves, or I’ll assume you’re all enemies. It’s a shame to spill blood on this holy ground, but I may have no choice.”
Whirling the lances around and sending the two priests off on different tangents, Musashi whipped out his sword and finished off one of them before he had stopped tumbling. Spinning around, he found himself confronting three more blades, lined up across the narrow path. Without pausing, he moved toward them threateningly, one step at a time. Two more men came out and took their places shoulder to shoulder beside the first three.
As Musashi advanced and his opponents retreated, he caught a glimpse of the other lancer priest, who had recovered his weapon and was chasing Iori. “Stop, you cutthroat!” But the moment Musashi turned to go to Iori’s rescue, the five men let out a howl and charged. Musashi rushed head on to meet them. It was like the collision of two raging waves, but the spray was blood, not brine. Musashi kept whirling from opponent to opponent with the speed of a typhoon. Two bloodcurdling cries, then a third. They fell like dead trees, each sliced through the middle of the torso. In Musashi’s right hand was his long sword, in his left the short one.
With cries of terror, the last two turned and ran, Musashi close behind them.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he shouted, splitting one man’s head open with the short sword. The black spurt of blood caught Musashi in the eye. Reflexively, he raised his left hand to his face and, in that instant, heard a strange metallic sound behind him.
He swung his long sword to deflect the object, but the effect of the action was very different from the intention. Seeing the ball and chain wrapped around the blade near the sword guard, he was seized with alarm. Musashi had been taken off guard.
“Musashi!” shouted Baiken. He pulled the chain taut. “Have you forgotten me?”
Musashi stared for a moment before exclaiming, “Shishido Baiken, from Mount Suzuka!”
“That’s right. My brother Temma’s calling you from the valley of hell. I’ll see that you get there quick!”
Musashi could not free his sword. By slow degrees, Baiken was taking in the chain and moving closer, to make use of the razor-sharp sickle. As Musashi looked for an opening for his short sword, he realized with a start that if he had been fighting with only his long sword, he would be utterly defenseless now.
Baiken’s neck was so swollen it was nearly as thick as his head. With a strained cry, he jerked powerfully on the chain.
Musashi had blundered; he knew that. The ball-chain-sickle was an unusual weapon, but not unfamiliar to him. Years earlier, he had been struck by admiration when he had first seen the hellish device in the hands of Baiken’s wife. But it was one thing to have seen it, something else to know how to counter it.
Baiken gloated, a broad, evil grin spreading over his face. Musashi knew there was only one course open to him: he had to let go of his long sword. He looked for the right moment.
With a ferocious howl, Baiken leapt and swept the sickle toward Musashi’s head, missing by only a hair’s breadth. Musashi released the sword with a loud grunt. No sooner had the sickle been withdrawn than the ball came whirring through the air. Then the sickle, the ball, the sickle …
Dodging the sickle put Musashi right in the path of the ball. Unable to get close enough to strike, he wondered frantically how long he could keep