The Mighty Ronin, Fukitso,
returns
in...
An 11-chapter Sword and Sorcery Spectacular!
By
Jeffrey
Blair Latta
The Wrath of Vultan
INSTANTLY
FUKITSO WHIPPED HIS SWORD from its scabbard and wheeled at the top of
the steps, dropping into a crouch. He cursed under his breath.
"Baka!"
Like a fool, he had fallen into Vultan's trap.
In a heartbeat, the game changed. The crowd became a mob.
The people turned on him, shouting and screaming, believing him to be a
demon who had killed their beloved king. Like a living tide, they
surged up the stairs, overrunning the guardsmen, meaning to tear him
apart with their bare hands.
"He speaks the truth!" bellowed Fukitso, bringing
the crowd to a halt with a single, vast sweep of his blade. "I am
an imposter, hai. But I
did not kill your damn king. It was this dog here, Vultan, in
league with the king's brother, Drandal. The two of them banished
your king to another world."
"The demon speaks
lies!" Vultan shouted. "It
is he who killed King Shakara!"
Suddenly, the vizier, Karim, rushed from the palace
and to Fukitso's side. Believing Fukitso to be dead, and unable
to prevent Vultan's treachery, he had chosen to remain in his
chambers. "This man speaks the truth!" he cried. "They
banished King Shakara to another world. They are the ones to blame!"
But the crowd wouldn't listen. "Lies!" they
screamed hysterically. "Kill the demon! Avenge the king!"
Some of the peasants tore cobbles from the
pavement. One of these hurtled out of the crowd, striking Karim
on the head. He crumpled in a heap, blood spilling from his
brow. Fukitso snarled like a caged samadhi. He lashed out with
his katana, driving back the
crowd, but almost immediately they surged forward again, driven by
those behind. There were far too many of them for him to
fight. Cobbles began to rain on him, striking his body with
numbing blows.
BOOONG!
Suddenly, there was a tremendous sounding of a
gong. The crowd paused in surprise and turned as one to
look. In the middle of the courtyard stood a great brass gong
hung on a wooden arch. Standing beside this, still clutching the
hammer with which he had struck the gong, was the king's brother,
Drandal.
Even as they looked, the nobleman dropped the hammer
and collapsed to his knees. His robes were sopped with blood, his
features pale, like a corpse. After the attack on Vultan and the
death of the twelve men whom Drandal had hired to murder the sorcerer,
Drandal alone had managed to crawl away. His wounds, though, were
too severe and it was only a matter of time until he joined the others
in death.
But not until after he had had his revenge.
"They speak the truth!" he gasped, blood spilling
from his quivering lips. "Vultan and I were working together. We
used Vultan's magic to banish King Shakara to another world. We
are to blame, not him!" His eyes turned accusingly on the
sorcerer. "You are a demon, Vultan. You are a
monster! And now you will pay!" He looked at Fukitso.
"I know his secret," he cried triumphantly. "He told me the
source of his power! It is his scep--"
Vultan simply gestured -- and lightning crashed out
of the cloudless sky, blasting Drandal full in the chest and hurling
him twenty feet across the courtyard. But Fukitso had heard
enough. Even as Drandal died in a holocaust of smoke and sparks,
the Ronin struck out with his sword. Ginago cut cleanly through
the sorcerer's jewel-crusted sceptre -- with decidedly spectacular
results. With a shrill scream, partly of rage and partly of
pain, Vultan was engulfed by a curling pillar of flame. For just
a moment, the fire raged, its incredible heat so intense the crowd fell
back screaming and even Fukitso cringed, raising an arm to shield his
face. In the heart of the inferno, Vultan crumpled to his
knees. And then, the fire dwindled away leaving behind a
grotesque, blackened corpse from which smoke trailed in long, coiling
threads.
The crowd stared at the dead sorcerer in stunned
silence. Fukitso watched them warily, his sword still raised,
half expecting them to renew their attack. But Drandal's
confession had turned the tide. A nobleman stepped out of the
crowd. "Forgive us," he said, bowing his head contritely.
"We believed him when he said you were a demon."
Fukitso lowered his sword and grunted. "I
should kill you -- but you couldn't have known any better." He
gestured toward Karim lying on the ground. "But someone had
better look to your vizier's head. He took quite a--"
He stopped, frowning.
There was laughter.
Quiet laughter.
It began as a soft, barely audible sound, then
slowly, steadily rose, until it transformed into wild, manic
hysteria. Fukitso stumbled back, cursing, his eyes wide in
disbelief.
Vultan's blackened
corpse slowly climbed to its feet.
In the charred head, two eyes eerily glowed like two
scarlet coals.
"By Doji's Seven Geishas!"
He couldn't be alive. No man could be alive in
that condition.
But then, who said Vultan was a man?
"The fool,"
the blackened thing rasped in a voice like the grinding of a
pestle. "The ignorant
worm! Did he really think the sceptre was our only source of
power? Did he think we were so weak? We are Vultan!
We will destroy you all!"
The blackened creature gestured almost
contemptuously and again lightning ripped from the cloudless sky.
This time it crashed to earth in the very midst of the helpless crowd
-- and another man died in a firestorm of smoke and flame.
Instantly panic took hold. The people sought desperately to
escape, running here and there, but again and again the thunderbolts
found them, until the air was thick with smoke and the choking stench
of burning flesh.
At first, Fukitso was too stunned to react.
But then his brow furrowed and his teeth clenched. He raised his
sword two-handed before his face.
"Banzai!"
The Silver Jaw roared, sunlight bursting from the
blade as he swung at the blackened thing, its attention momentarily
distracted by the crowd. Without even looking, the creature
raised a grisly hand -- and the sword slammed to a halt, as if having
struck some invisible barrier surrounding the thing. Fukitso
cursed as the impact shuddered through the hilt, numbing his hands,
rattling his teeth.
The creature turned to face him. "Foolish worm. Now you will die!"
At another gesture, Fukitso was hurtled off his feet
and thrown twenty feet to land tumbling in the middle of the
courtyard. Another man would have perished after such a fall, but
the Ronin was built of muscle and steel. Even as he lurched
drunkenly to his feet, he saw the creature gesture again.
"Kuso!"
He threw himself to one side, just as a bolt of
lightning blasted the pavement where he had stood. Cobbles rained
down on his head. The creature gestured again. Again,
Fukitso sprang aside just in time to avoid a second stroke of
lightning. The creature cackled insanely. Fukitso saw the
thing was playing with him. It could keep this up indefinitely,
while his strength was nearly spent.
But then, it seemed the creature had grown tired of
the game.
"Enough of this,"
it rasped. "Let it end!"
Suddenly, the cobbles beneath Fukitso's feet seemed
to melt, turning to a thick, clinging quagmire. He sank up to his
ankles in the stuff, which immediately hardened, trapping him in solid
stone. Desperately, he hacked at the stone with his katana. But it was
useless. He was caught like a bug in amber.
He looked up from beneath lowering brows, panting
with exhaustion, his lips drawn back in a savage snarl of
defiance. The creature raised its charred arms, and gestured a
final time. He did not cringe. From the clear sky a
blinding bolt of lightning lanced earthward and then...
The lightning simply disappeared. Fukitso looked up, baffled by his unexpected
reprieve. The creature seemed just as nonplussed. But then
it looked at something in the far entrance to the courtyard.
Following its glowing gaze, Fukitso saw a figure dressed in black robes
leaning on a long wooden staff. The new-comer's face was hidden
in the shadow of a wide hood.
But the blackened creature evidently recognized the
new-comer. "Giana, this is none
of your concern!" it hissed, angrily. "Do not interfere. Go back where you
came from!"
Now Fukitso remembered. Giana. Vultan's
wizardly predecessor. Karim had sent a message to Giana asking
him to come because he was the only wizard besides Vultan himself
likely to be able to reopen the doorway between the worlds.
Well, Giana had come!
Giana replied in a deep, powerful voice. "You
were my pupil, Vultan. Everything you do is my concern. I
always knew you were touched by darkness, but I hoped in time you would
grow beyond this. I see I was wrong. That was my
mistake. You were my
mistake."
"Don't make me hurt
you, old man!"
Strangely, Fukitso noticed it was the first time
Vultan had referred to himself as "me". He seemed
suddenly...smaller.
"It is too late, Vultan," Giana said with a trace of
sorrow. "Look at yourself. Your corporeal form has already
burned away. All that remains is the darkness in your soul.
And that will not sustain you for long."
The creature laughed. "You can't kill me!"
"Still you don't understand. You are already
dead."
Like a raving child, the creature began to scream,
then, raising its arms, it yelled: "Die,
you old fool!"
Dazzling arcs of crackling blue energy rippled from
the creature's long fingers. The energy wound together, forming a
glowing, throbbing ball that hovered in the air, steadily growing
bigger and bigger, brighter and brighter. In seconds it had grown
so dazzling Fukitso could hardly look at it. It was like a
miniature sun. He could feel its terrible energy as a prickling
on his skin. He raised an arm to shield his eyes.
Giana barely gestured with one hand.
And the creature exploded, filling the air with a
grisly rain of charred pieces that scattered from one end of the
courtyard to the other.
What happened after that happened quite quickly.
No sooner had Giana freed Fukitso from the stones
around his feet than a stormy violet cloud suddenly materialized in the
middle of the courtyard. Out of that cloud stepped first King
Shakara, then -- to Fukitso's surprise and pleasure -- Migoti.
With the help of Vultan's double in the other world, they had reopened
the doorway.
Fukitso strode up to his double and regarded him
with a narrow gaze. After a moment, he grunted. "So, you
are King Shakara."
The king replied: "And you are this Fukitso I have
heard so much about." Then, he had a thought. "Do you know
a man named Jabal Shah?"
"Jabal Shah? How could I forget that son of a
whore? When last we met I laid the dog open with a cut of
Ginago! I thought I'd killed him."
Shakara nodded. "Well, you didn't. And
you might want to avoid him for the next little while. I think I
made things worse."
A wry smile touched the Ronin's lips. "I think
I could get to like you, Shakara. I really think I could."
Before they returned to their world, King Shakara
gave Migoti a golden bracelet -- the reward he had promised her.
Then Fukitso and Migoti assembled before the roiling cloud. The
Ronin glanced at his gold-limbed companion and grinned.
"I always knew you had a soft spot in your heart for
me," he rumbled.
"Don't flatter yourself, Ronin," Migoti snarled
back. "I came here for the bracelet, not for your sorry carcass."
Fukitso shrugged his broad shoulders. "If you
say so. Would it change your opinion of me if I told you I got
into this mess while bound for Adji Po to rescue a rajah's daughter?"
Migoti considered this for a moment. "No."
"I didn't think so. Well, I'm going to rescue
her now. You can join me if you want. It doesn't matter to
me. Step aside."
Pushing past his beautiful companion, the giant
Ronin sprang into the cloud and vanished. Migoti frowned and
slowly shook her head. What happened to 'ladies first'?
"Well," she muttered, with just the trace of a
smile, "at least I know you're the real
Fukitso!"
And, with that, she followed after.
Fadil Khan staggered into the dark alley, snarling
bitterly under his breath. Curse
that fool, Vultan! Why do I put my trust in such
incompetents? Why do I surround myself with hopeless imbeciles?
He had been so close, so very close. He had
almost been a king! Now
it had all turned to dust.
Still, at least that dog Fukitso had returned to his
world. Fadil Khan would make a new life here, in this
world. He still had his wits. He still had his
cunning. He still--
Suddenly a figure rose up from where he had been
hiding amongst a heap of rubbish. In the shadows he was only a
vague shape. A dagger gleamed in the darkness.
"Give me your money!"
Fadil Khan stopped. "Out of my way, fool!" he
growled, without thinking; "before I have you flogged!"
The dagger flashed, and Fadil Khan gasped as pain
blossomed in his chest. He slumped into the refuse, sprawling on
his back so that a beam of light played on his face. His eyes
slowly glazed in death.
His attacker felt quickly through his clothes,
cursing when he could discover little of value except a few jewelled
rings. Then his eyes fell on his victim's upturned face -- and he
hissed in surprise.
The man, he thought, could have been his twin.
Wasn't that a strange coincidence? Perhaps they were
related. Well, too late now for apologies.
And, with an indifferent shrug, he shambled away to
spend his ill gotten gains...
Back to Fukitso and the Lair of the Havok!: Table of Contents