Yabu halted suddenly. "What was that?"
The Brown samurai stopped, and listened, and died. Yabu cleaned his sword and pulled the crumpled body into a dark corner, then rushed for a hardly noticed, heavily barred, small iron door set into one of the walls that Ishido's intermediary had told him about. He fought back the rusted bolts. The last one clanged free. The door swung open. A draught of cool air from outside, then a spear stabbed for his throat and stopped just in time. Yabu didn't move, almost paralyzed. Ninja stared back at him from the inky darkness beyond the door, weapons poised.
Yabu held up a shaky hand and made a sign as he had been told to do. "I'm Kasigi Yabu," he said.
The black-garbed, hooded, almost invisible leader nodded but kept the spear ready for the lunge. He motioned to Yabu. Yabu obediently backed off a pace. Then, very warily, the leader walked into the center of the corridor. He was tall and heavyset, with wide flat eyes behind his mask. He saw the dead Brown and with a flick of his wrist he sent his spear flashing into the corpse, then retrieved it with the light chain attached to the end. Silently he re-coiled the chain, waiting, listening intently for any danger.
At length satisfied, he motioned at the darkness. Instantly twenty men poured out and rushed for the flight of steps, the long-forgotten back way to the floors above. These men carried assault tools. They were armed with chain knives, swords, and shuriken. And in the center of their black hoods was a red spot.
The leader did not watch them go, but kept his eyes on Yabu and began a slow finger count with his left hand. "One . . . two . . . three . . ." Yabu felt many men watching him from the passage beyond the door. He could see no one.
Now the red-spot attackers were going up the stairs two at a time, and at the top of this flight they stopped. A door barred their path. They waited a moment then cautiously tried to open it. It was stuck. A man with an assault tool, a short steel bar, hooked at one end and chiseled at the other, came forward and jinunied it open. Beyond was another mildewed passage and they hurried along it silently. At the next corner they stopped. The first man peered around, then beckoned the others into another corridor. At the far end a sliver of light shone through a spyhole in the heavy wooden paneling that covered this secret door. He put an eye to it. He could see the breadth of the audience chamber, two Browns and two Grays wearily on sentry duty, guarding the door to the complex of quarters. He looked around, nodded to the others. One of the men was still counting with his fingers, timed to the leader's count two floors below. All their eyes went to the count.
Below in the cellar, the leader's fingers still continued in tempo, ticking off the moments, his eyes never wavering from Yabu. Yabu was watching and waiting, the smell of his own fear-sweat dank in his nostrils. The fingers stopped and the leader's fist closed up sharply. He pointed down the corridor. Yabu nodded and turned and went back the way he had come, walking slowly. Behind him the inexorable count began again. "One . . . two . . . three . . ."
Yabu knew the terrible risk he was taking but he had had no alternative and he cursed Mariko once more for forcing him onto Ishido's side. Part of his bargain was that he had to open this secret door.
"What's behind the door?" he had asked supiciously.
"Friends. This is the sign and the password is to say your name."
"Then they kill me, neh?"
"No. You're too valuable, Yabu-san. You've got to make sure the infiltration is covered . . . ."
He had agreed but he had never bargained for ninja, the hated and feared semilegendary mercenaries who owed allegiance only to their secret, closely knit family units, who handed down their secrets only to blood kin-how to swim vast distances under water and scale almost smooth walls, how to make themselves invisible and stand for a day and a night without moving, and how to kill with their hands or feet or any and all weapons including poison, fire, and explosives. To ninja, violent death for pay was their only purpose in life.
Yabu managed to keep his pace measured as he walked away from the ninja leader along the corridor, his chest still hurting from the shock that the attack force was ninja and not ronin. Ishido must be mad, he told himself, all his senses teetering, expecting a spear or arrow or garrote any moment. Now he was almost at the corner. Then he turned it and, safe once more, he took to his heels and bounded up the stairs, three at a time. At the top, he raced down the arched corridor, then turned the corner heading toward the servants' quarters.
The leader's fingers still ticked off the moments, then the count stopped. He made a more urgent sign to the darkness, and rushed after Yabu. Twenty ninja followed him from the darkness and another fifteen took up defensive positions at both ends of the corridor to guard this escape route that led through a maze of forgotten cellars and passages honeycombing the castle to one of Ishido's secret bolt holes under the moat, thence to the city.
Yabu was running fast now and he stumbled in the passageway, just managing to keep his footing, and burst through the servants' quarters, scattering pots and pans and gourds and casks.
"Ninjaaaaaa!" he bellowed, which was not part of his agreement, but his own ruse to protect himself should he be betrayed. Hysterically the men and women scattered and took up the shout and tried to vanish under benches and tables as he raced across and out the other side, up more steps into one of the main corridors to meet the first of the Browns' guards, who already had out their swords.
"Sound the alarm!" Yabu shouted. "Ninja - there are ninja among the servants!"
One samurai fled for the main staircase, the second rushed forward bravely to stand alone at the top of the winding steps that led below, sword raised. Seeing him, the servants came to a halt, then, moaning with terror, blindly huddled into the stones, their arms over their heads. Yabu ran on toward the main doorway and through it to stand on the steps. "Sound the alarm! We're under attack!" he shouted as he had agreed to do, to signal the diversion outside which would cover the main attack through the secret door into the audience chamber, to kidnap Mariko and hurry her away before anyone was wiser.
Samurai on the gates and in the forecourt whirled around, not knowing where to guard, and at that moment the raiders in the garden swarmed out of their hiding places and engulfed the Browns outside. Yabu retreated into the foyer as other Browns came rushing down from the guardroom above to support the men outside.
A captain raced up to him. "What's going on?"
"Ninja - outside and among the servants. Where's Sumiyori?"
"I don't know - in his room."
Yabu leapt for the stairs as other men poured down. At that moment the first of the ninja from the cellars dashed past the servants to the attack. Barbed shuriken disposed of the lone defender, spears killed the servants. Then this force of raiders was in the main corridor, creating a violent shouting diversion, the milling frantic Browns not knowing where the next attack would spring from.
On the top floor the waiting ninja had ripped open their doors at the first alarm and rushed the last of the Browns who were hurrying below, killing them. With poison darts and shuriken, the ninja pressed their onslaught. The Browns were quickly overwhelmed, and the attackers jumped over the corpses to reach the main corridor on the floor below. A furious charge of Brown reinforcements was repulsed by the ninja, who whirled their weighted chains and cast them at the samurai, either strangling them or entangling their swords to make it easier to impale them with the double-edged knife. Shuriken flashed through the air and the Browns here were decimated. A few ninja were cut down but they crawled on like rabid animals and stopped attacking only when death took them completely.
In the garden the first rush of the defending reinforcements was easily thwarted as Browns poured from the main doorway. But another wave of Browns courageously mounted a second charge and swept the invaders back by sheer force of numbers. At a shouted order the raiders retreated, their jet-black clothes making them difficult targets. Exultantly the Browns rushed after them, into ambush, and were slaughtered.
The red-spot attackers were still lying in wait outside the audience room, their leader's eye to the spyhole. He could see the anxious Browns and Blackthorne's Grays, who were guarding the fortified door to the corridor, listening anxiously to the mounting holocaust below. The door opened and other guards, Browns and Grays, crowded the opening and then, no longer able to stand the waiting, officers of both groups ordered all their men out of the audience room to take up defensive positions at the far end of the corridor. Now the way was clear, the door of the inner corridor open, only the captain of Grays beside it, and he also was leaving. The red-spot leader saw a woman hurry up to the threshold, the tall barbarian with her, and he recognized his prey, other women collecting behind them.
Impatient to complete the mission and so relieve the pressure on his clansmen below, and whipped by his killing lust, the red-spot leader gave the signal and burst through his door an instant too soon.
Blackthorne saw him coming and automatically drew his pistol from under his kimono and fired. The back of the leader's head disappeared, momentarily stopping the charge. Simultaneously, the captain of Grays rushed back and attacked with a mindless ferocity and cut down one ninja. Then the pack fell on the Gray and he died but these few seconds gave Blackthorne enough time to pull Mariko to safety and slam the door. Frantically he grabbed the iron bar and slid it into place just as ninja hurled themselves against it and others fanned out to hold the main doorway.
"Christ Jesus! What's go-" "Ninjaaaaaa!" Mariko shouted as Kiri and Lady Sazuko and Lady Etsu and Chimmoko and Achiko and the other maids poured hysterically from their rooms, blows hammering on the door.
"Quick, this way!" Kiri screamed over the uproar and fled into the interior.
The women followed, helter-skelter, two of them helping old Lady Etsu. Blackthorne saw the door rocking under the furious blows of the assault jimmies. Now the wood was splintering. Blackthorne ran back into his room for his powder horn and swords.
In the audience room the ninja had already disposed of the six Browns and Grays at the main outer door and had overwhelmed the rest in the corridor beyond. But they had lost two dead, and two were wounded before the fight was complete, the outer doors closed and barred, and this whole section secure.
"Hurry up," the new red-spot leader snarled. The men with the crowbars needed no urging as they ripped at the door. For a moment the leader stood over the corpse of his brother, then kicked it furiously, knowing his brother's impatience had destroyed their surprise attack. He rejoined his men, who circled the door.
In the corridor Blackthorne was reloading rapidly, the door shrieking under the blows. First the powder, tamp it carefully . . . one of the door panels cracked . . . next the paper plug to hold the charge tight and next the lead ball and another plug . . . one of the door hinges snapped and the tip of the jimmy came through . . . next, blow the dust carefully away from the flint . . . .
"Anjin-san!" Mariko cried out from somewhere in the inner rooms. "Hurry!, But Blackthorne paid no attention. He walked up to the door and put the nozzle to a splintered crack, stomach high, and pulled the trigger. From the other side of the door there was a scream and the assault on the door ceased. He retreated and began to reload. First powder, tamp it carefully . . . again the whole door shook as men tore at it with shoulders and raging fists and feet and weapons . . . next the holding paper and next the ball and next another paper . . . the door bellowed and shuddered and one of the bolts sprang away and clattered to the floor . . . .
Kiri was hurrying down an inner passageway, gasping for breath, the others half-dragging Lady Etsu with them, Sazuko crying, "What's the point there's nowhere to go . . . ." but Kiri ran on, stumbling into another room and across it and she pulled a section of the shoji wall aside. A hidden iron-fortified door was set into the stone wall beyond. She pulled it open. The hinges were well oiled.
"This . . . this is my Master's sec- secret haven," she panted and started to go inside but stopped. "Where's Mariko?"
Chimmoko turned and rushed back.
In the first corridor Blackthorne blew the dust carefully away from the flint and walked forward again. The door was near collapsing but still offered cover. Again he pulled the trigger. Again a scream and a moment's respite, then the blows commenced, another bolt flew off and the whole door teetered. He began to reload.
"Anjin-san!" Mariko was there at the far end beckoning him frantically so he snatched up his weapons and rushed toward her. She turned and fled, guiding him. The door shattered and the ninja tore after them.
Mariko was running fast, Blackthorne on her heels. She sped across a room, tripped over her skirts and fell. He grabbed her up and together they bolted across another room. Chimmoko ran up to them. "Hurry!" she shrieked, waiting for them to pass. She followed for a moment, then, unnoticed, she turned back and stood in the path, her knife out.
Ninja came rushing into the room. Chimmoko hurled herself, knife outstretched, at the first man. He parried the blow and flung her aside like a toy, charging after Blackthorne and Mariko. The last man broke Chimmoko's neck with his foot and rushed on.
Mariko was running fast but not fast enough, her skirts inhibiting her, Blackthorne trying to help. They crossed a room, then turned right, into another, and he saw the doorway, Kiri and Sazuko waiting there terrified, Achiko and maids succoring the old women in the room behind them. He shoved Mariko to safety. Then he turned at bay, his uncharged pistol in one hand, sword in the other, expecting Chimmoko. When she didn't appear at once, he began to go back but heard the approaching charge of the ninja. He stopped and leaped backward into the room as the first ninja appeared. He slammed the door, and spears and shuriken screeched off the iron. Again he barely had time to shove the bolts home before the attackers hurtled against it.
Numbly he thanked God for their escape and then, when he saw the strength of the door and knew that jimmies could not break it easily and that they were safe for the moment, he thanked God again. Trying to catch his breath, he looked around. Mariko was on her knees gulping for air. There were six maids, Achiko, Kiri and Sazuko, and the old lady, who lay gray-faced, almost unconscious. The room was small and stone-walled and another side door let out onto a small battlement veranda. He groped over to a window and looked out. This corner abutment overhung the avenue and forecourt, and he could hear sounds of the battle wafting up from below, screams and shouts and a few hysterical battle cries. Several Grays and unattached samurai were already beginning to collect in the avenue and on the opposite battlements. The gates below were locked against them and held by the ninja.
"What the hell's going on?" Blackthorne said, his chest aching.
No one answered him and he went back and knelt beside Mariko and shook her gently. "What's going on?" But she could not answer yet.
Yabu was running down a wide corridor in the west wing toward his sleeping quarters. He turned a corner and skidded to a stop. Ahead a large number of samurai were being pressed back by a ferocious counterattack of raiders who had rushed down from the top floor.