Dai-San - 03 Read Online Free

violent surf were striking a knife-toothed shore, and the three obsidian effigies loomed over them, momentarily blotting out the fading light. In that instant the penumbra of the alien masts crisscrossed the Kioku in a bloody foreshadowing.
    And now the air was filled with the whirring of the grappling hooks as they arced in the air like a rain of black lava, thick ropes snaking behind their flights. The Kioku shuddered, its prow lifting momentarily out of the water like a trapped animal, then crashed into an oncoming wave, the decks awash now with sea water as well as clambering creatures.
    Drawing his sword, Ronin leapt from the high poop, hurtling himself into the oncoming wave of warriors. They shouted, high, piercing sounds, and parted like grain at his intrusion. They reared back, their short, heavy blades clashing into his longer one.
    Within their midst, he swung two-handed at their bodies, but finding them too well protected by their ebon armour, he shifted his aim higher. In a blur, he sheared off a head in a welter of yellow bone, pink and gray matter. Feathers fluttered and blood fountained up, pumping from a dying heart, staining the air, filling it with an awful stench.
    Again and again he swung, his long, double-edged blade a platinum swath amidst dark masses of scrambling warriors. His arteries swelled as he increased the depth of his breathing, compensating for the adrenalin’s oxygen drain to his system. An exquisite sensation gripped him, his blade running with beaded blood and bits of brain, as if he were looking within an infinitude of mirrors and the strength of all his replicated selves layered him in an invulnerable mantle of strength and endurance.
    Now the strange warriors attempted to scatter before his berserk attack, but using the Kioku ’s rigging, he cut them off. Some continued to flee only to meet the ready edges of his sailors’ blades.
    At length, he turned to see Moichi still on the poop, defending his territory with his curving broadsword. A clutter of warriors blotted out his view, then, moments later, he spied Moeru beside the navigator, cutting her way through the enemy with a preciseness and efficiency that surprised him.
    There was little time to marvel, for a trio of blades came whistling at him in great rapidity. He slew these three warriors and hacked through another group, finding himself in a small clearing. He glanced around. The sailors appeared to be holding their own, but now the second and third ships were closing, their grappling hooks already spinning through the air. Soon their warriors would join the battle.
    He began to fight his way starboard, hoping to sever the new lines and thus delay the arrival of the reinforcements. But the warriors divined his intent and converged to block his way. Still he fought on, soaked now in blood and marrow.
    ‘Moichi!’ he called over the din. ‘The lines to starboard!’
    The navigator left the few remaining enemy in his area to Moeru and leaped to the main deck, his massive frame a battering ram of muscle and force of will.
    Sheathing his sword, he kicked out at an advancing warrior and went into the ratlines and, above the battle, worked his way to midships where, drawing a copper-handled dirk, he went to work with tight arcs, snapping the lines. They whipped into the sea, but the ships came on and new lines snaked aboard.
    Ronin dodged a blow meant to disembowel him and, ducking, ripped his sodden sea cloak from him; its weight had begun to hinder his movements. He smashed a two-handed blow into the seam along one side of the attacker’s body armour. The warrior screamed and clutched at his side. Blood spurted. He went to his knees. Ronin swiveled as he swung, shearing off another warrior’s snout. A flurry like heated snow.
    Ronin made his laborious way towards Moichi, through forests of warriors. He thrust straight ahead and his blade shattered the breastplate of a warrior. He jerked it free and, in the same movement, arced