“On what charge?”
“Despoiling the Kitsune shrine and binding the Kitsune spirit, and causing unnecessary damage to the woodland around the shrine, stirring up the local Tengu, and using black magic to steal the spirits of Yamato for your own evil purposes.”
“Anything else?” I asked him sarcastically.
“That’s enough to be going on with. You’ll come with me quietly, or you’ll come with me dead. Your choice.”
“You seem to feel the need for a lot of backup,” I commented, running my eye over the two hundred or so mounted mercenaries.
“We don’t take risks when dealing with unknown outsiders. Come on, you and your friends must be brought before the Shogun.”
“I don’t think so,” I said quietly. “My friends and I are staying right where we are. We have a job to do in this land. We’re here to cleanse the land of the taint you call the Kanosuru. The Kitsune spirit of the shrine was infested with the Kanosuru. I cleansed the taint from the shrine and...”
“He resists! Kill him!” screeched the priest.
“Last chance,” warned the samurai, but there was a look in his eyes, just a quiver of doubt.
I looked him in the eye and shook my head, slowly.
He shrugged. “A pity.” Two steps took him back to his horse, and he leaped up onto it and wheeled it around, riding hard up the hill away from us. The priest threw me a malevolent look over his shoulder and followed.
It was clear to everyone what would happen next. I reached for the Persona of Ironside, and as I did so, someone blew a horn high up on the hill. The monstrous tigers reared up, the terrible riders screamed their battlecries and shook their weapons in the air, and all two hundred of them charged down the hill toward me.
Heat ran through me like liquid fire in my veins as the white armor of the Ironside Persona snapped into place around me. My two-handed axe was in my hand. The Byakko had formed into a massive wedge, and I saw the lead rider, a giant of a man armed with a three yard lance bearing down upon me. Drawing on the troll strength, I leveled the pointed tip of the spear head straight at him and sprinted up the hill to meet his charge.
I ran fast, the huge weight of the Ironside armor feeling like nothing to my boosted strength. I saw fear blossom in the man’s eyes as he realized what was about to happen, but by then it was too late. I took the full force of his lance on my breastplate and it exploded into a million pieces. The impact rattled my teeth but did me no other damage. Not so for him. I braced, and his own unstoppable momentum drove his monstrous mount onto the cruel spike which graced the head of my axe. It slammed up through the creature’s mouth and into its brain.
The monster dissolved into a thick cloud of white smoke, and the rider crashed to the ground. I swung my axe but he dropped and rolled, springing to his feet and leaping away from me. He dropped the smashed shaft of his lance and swept out his sword, coming at me with a ferocious two-handed swing. Holding my axe with a hand at the base and one at the head, I caught his sword blow and turned it with the axe shaft, then shoulder-barged him with the massive shoulder plate of my armor.
With my axe in my right hand, I swung my gauntleted left forearm into his face as he tried to recover his balance. Blood exploded from his nose and his helmet flew off. At the back of his head, there was a sudden squirming of black. Was it the Festering, or was it just his hair? I didn’t have time to find out. I hefted my axe and brought it down on his head with a blow that almost cut him in half.
Around me, the Byakko mercenaries with their tiger spirit mounts swarmed like white sea foam. I felt a slamming of claws on my back as one of the tigers leaped at me, and I used my sheer weight and bulk in the Ironside suit to unbalance the monster, then I caught a handful of its harness and shoved it down the hill. Monster and rider separated, both crashing and tumbling down the slope toward the house.
Two riders charged me, lances leveled at my helmet. I swung my axe left and right, knocking the lances away, then hit the rider on the right in the belly with my axe blade, shearing through his armor and sending him tumbling over onto the ground clutching at his belly. The rider on the left wheeled his mount, trying to bring his great curve-bladed naginata spear to bear on me.
I leaped up onto the back of his tiger, head butted him and then punched him in the neck with a gauntleted fist. I felt the bones of his neck crunch, and he tumbled off the tiger’s back, blood spurting from his mouth.
The tiger was less than pleased with my presence on his back, but I threw my great axe onto my back and gathered up the creature’s reins. It responded reluctantly, and I wheeled it around, getting a look over the battlefield.
The fight had carried me up the hill away from the house. I kicked the tiger and moved back downhill just as another three mounted warriors charged me from the right, their lances lowered at my mount. I summoned my twin axes and let go of the reins, and the tiger charged into his fellows. He seemed to have decided that I was his rider now, and he lashed out at the other tigers with his massive claws, swiping to the left to kill a man and his mount while I took down the two men on my right with my twin axes.
The tiger he had killed vanished in thick
