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to their saddles.
    Another volley of musket shot. Gonji pulled the ground to him and hugged as musket balls pattered around him like hailstones. Feeling no searing wound, he scrabbled to his feet and drove himself toward the low line of tree cover above. Somewhere nearby, Tora must be waiting. He still carried his swords in grimy fists.
    Out of the corner of his eye Gonji caught sight of a swash of filthy color groping over the treacherous shale. A mercenary. Hurt. With a quick backward glance he gauged his chances of aiding the man while yet escaping. Not good. Mounted knights with lances had begun their ponderous ascent, followed by footmen, pikes and swordpoints marking their long line. A field of bright escutcheons dotted the base of the hill.
    Oh, what the hell ....
    Growling with every stride, Gonji loped across the hillside. Arrows sprouted suddenly from ground and trees like a magically sown crop. Two mercenaries yelped and dropped from their saddles. A horse tumbled past toward the ravine, kicking and shrieking. The oppressive heat began to take effect, Gonji feeling as if he were in the body of a heavier man.
    He reached the crawling man, sheathed the seppuku sword, and clamped a hand on his shoulder. With a fierce outcry the mercenary lurched onto his back, and Gonji found himself triangulated by a pair of flinty-black eyes and the point of a dirk. He threw up a fending hand and cocked the katana in defiance.
    “Hey—alto! Alto! I’m here to help!” Gonji gambled on Spanish. His guess was correct.
    The Spaniard’s pearly teeth gritted against his pain, and rheumy eyes glowered at the samurai feverishly. The swarthy face was streaked with grime, a crimson trickle issuing from beneath a bandanna like tattered fabric. A thick red wetness drenched his upper leg from the furrow a musket ball had gouged through the thigh. He was trembling. His curled lips relaxed, and he drew a labored breath.
    “So then help —idiot!” he roared under flaring nostrils.
    Gonji put up his sword and stooped to raise Navárez. The muskets exploded again, a torrent of lead ripping into the hill as they hit the ground.
    Gonji swore through pursed lips. “That’s three, amigo. Too much luck for me. Now we climb or the next round drops us both, neh ?”
    The Spaniard groaned with the effort to rise. Gonji grabbed his arm and yanked him up, shouldering him as best he could and churning uphill.
    But they had lost far too much time. It was all over now but for the crash of a bullet or the arrival of the cavalry that could be heard chunkering to their rear, hurling challenges to halt.
    A horse whinnied just behind them. Gonji hurled Navárez forward with all his strength, sending him sprawling in a cursing heap. He pulled his blade, ready for desperate engagement.
    Gonji faced the vanguard of the cavalry advance. The knight at the point grimly bore down on him, leveling his lance at Gonji’s chest. The samurai pulled the dirk from his thigh strap, timed the awkward stride, hurled—
    The blade struck chain mail at a bad angle, snapping in half. But the force of the missile and the horseman’s flinch caused him to lose his seating. He rolled off his mount, jangling to earth and tumbling back under the hooves of his comrades.
    Then, a small burst of gunfire. Not the muskets; these shots had come from above. Navárez’ survivors were giving cover fire.
    The knights pulled up and scanned the forest. Another volley. A knight wrenched in the saddle, fell heavily from his mount. Two or three nearby steeds lurched back, throwing their riders. Cries of caution and metallic clangor—
    Gonji wasted no time. He scrambled up the hill to where Navárez had groped ahead and then half-pushed, half-pulled the man to where Tora snorted and pawed the mossy fieldstone at his hooves. He hoisted Navárez into the saddle and led Tora the rest of the way up the hill on foot, all the while scolding the animal for its having foolishly followed him down the