Shogun

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 . . . .