He had not lost his clenched grip; he smashed Kaneko’s hand against the ground, and the short blade sprang loose. Still half-entrapped, Laurence caught it and flung it away into the trees, and barely managed to deflect Kaneko’s elbow when it came with crushing force towards his throat.
They broke apart and rolled back to their feet. Laurence had diverted the blow from his throat to his jaw, instead, which ached badly; broken, perhaps. Kaneko did not pause but came at him swiftly, both hands now on the hilt of his blade, with a series of rapid slashing cuts. Laurence parried and retreated, his pains fading into the queer, brief distance which so often accompanied battle. No opening was offered, no chance to shift the direction; Kaneko drove him around the leaping fire until Laurence, in grim desperation, forced the issue: he met Kaneko’s sword with his own and stayed with it as he pushed it back, risking the chance of overbalancing, and threw his full weight against the blade.
For a moment both swords groaned, held; and then Kaneko’s snapped with a loud crack like musket-fire, and he and Laurence fell to the ground heavily together. Kaneko rolled away swiftly and leapt back to his feet, still holding the jagged remnant of the blade, broken some six inches above the hilt. Laurence staggered up himself. A fine tremor ran up his arms, and he raised his sword only with difficulty; but now he had the advantage. Kaneko could not come into range of a blow without running himself into Laurence’s blade.
They looked at each other, and Laurence knew Kaneko would in a moment do just as much: he would throw himself across the distance, and attempt another attack, though it meant his certain death. Laurence looked at Junichiro’s despairing face, the boy standing with his own sword drawn and useless: whichever side he might have assisted, he condemned the master he loved.
And then a sudden roaring above, and Laurence flung himself to one side as Lady Arikawa came down upon the hill, her green drapes flaring and belling about her grey wings, talons coming down to strike: he barely evaded the blow and fetched up against the trees. “Wretched barbarian!” she said, furiously. “Will you cause no end of sorrow and misery? Kaneko, you are not hurt?”
Kaneko had taken already the first steps in his rush, and himself been nearly knocked flat by the force of her descent; he regained his feet and bowed. “I am not, Lady Arikawa, and the Englishman has fought only honorably—”
“I do not care!” she said. “Oh! Why did you ever make that dreadful vow; I should tear him to pieces!” She shook out her wings and glared the brilliant green of her eyes at Laurence. “You could not even manage to escape properly,” she said bitterly, “and now what am I to do?”
“Lady Arikawa, we must deliver him to the governor,” Kaneko said quietly, “and accompany him to the court in Edo, for the judgment of the shogun. The safety of the nation demands it.” He hesitated and said, reluctantly, “It may be he will be exchanged back to his country-men, after all.”
He spoke as one who did not believe what he was himself saying, offering a mere sop to feeling; and Lady Arikawa only shook her head and looked away in despair. She was silent a moment, but then she straightened, neck arched proudly over them, and looking coldly down. “I will do my duty,” she said. “I will take you to Edo for judgment; and may the shogun sentence you to a traitor’s death for the evil you have brought on my house!”
Yelling voices were nearing, through the trees, many men coming into the courtyard; Laurence, rising to his feet, looked around himself bleakly. There was no chance of resistance against so many, and Lady Arikawa reached out a taloned claw towards him.
Then: a noise too large to call roaring, a great tumult of rage above their heads. The trees upon the hillside behind Laurence were shattering like matchsticks, earth flying up in clouds, and a dragon came down upon that horrifying wreckage: thrice Lady Arikawa’s size, pitch-black and with blue eyes. The noise stopped, and its absence left a dazed and muffling silence; in that hush the dragon bent over them with a savagery of bared teeth and said, in the clearest King’s English, “How dare you! How dare any of you! Oh! I will kill all of you if you have done anything to Laurence!”
Even Lady Arikawa had drawn back, protective talons curled about Kaneko; and though she might not understand what the dragon had said, his wrath was by no means subtle, nor the threat implicit in his mantling. But she was not lacking in spirit, and drawing herself up said in Chinese, “Those who come as thieves and invaders to our country, and make threats, deserve no considerations of honor.”