Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19
Ichiro, Gin thought when she heard the scream. She stepped off the slow-moving soil kami and ran as fast as three legs would take her towards Gogo. She cut through the copse of trees and saw a giant spider reaching its long limbs into the cart.
That can't happen. Spiders aren’t big. It's the laughter. She looked again but the spider was still there.
She realized it Gogo was screaming. Not in her musical voice, but a pained, discordant scream.
She heard a strike on the spider’s carapace followed by a high-pitched squeal. It reflexively withdrew one of its limbs back from Gogo. Arrows flew from Gogo, but they bounced off.
"Gogo, run!" She heard Lady Taira scream.
"No," came a voice that sounded like two boulders sliding together, "you stay right here." Gogo didn't move. She screamed again. Gin saw a strand of spider silk wrapped around the two horses necks. The horses kicked at it, which kept them from choking.
Gin had never seen anyone attack a kami like that before. Asking them, demanding of them, but never beating them into compliance.
Gin reached for a breeze kami again. Black as moonless night, blind that spider! This time she felt the tether at the back of her mind. The kami grew darker and more opaque as it rushed towards the spider.
The spider swiped one of it's back limbs towards the cloud and it immediately returned to it's clear, calm state. “Hahaha, as if such a simple trick would work on me. Mujina, is that you? I'll track you and kill you later,” said the thunderous voice. Gin's blood went cold.
The giant spider reached into the cart again and withdrew a bleeding limb. Another arrow bounced off. Ichiro and Suki are fighting him off!
"You inferior creatures are no match for me, one of the Kami Speakers," laughed the spider. Gin barked to get the spider's attention. Chase me! But the spider ignored her.
Gin realized in horror that the spider silk around Gogo's necks was a kami tether. A real, physical thing. Gogo tried to direct her tornado towards the spider, but the spider threw another silk tether and smacked it away. Her wind kami shrieked in pain.
That spider hurts kami and completely destroyed my illusion!
"Spit those creatures out. I am hungry," the spider commanded. Inside, one wall began bulging, pushing Ichiro, Suki, and the unconscious guard towards the door. Gogo kicked at the tether to no avail.
"No, don't listen to him!" Ichiro yelled. The bulging wall stopped. "Gogo, find Lord Taira and Taru and let's get out of here."
“No go go!” She screamed in pain.
Reizo and Taru arrived riding the dirt kami as the spider commanded, "You will listen to me, creation of inferiors. I, your new master, command you as one of the Kami Speakers to spit out my food!" The wall started bulging again.
If I don’t do something, my wife will get eaten by a giant spider and then kill us. Reizo thought. Instead of panic, the thought brought him clarity and a sense of purpose. He grabbed a hand full of dirt.
“Suki! Suki! Cover your eyes,” he yelled.
Taru fired three arrows at the spider. One of them stuck in the spider’s body. A scream of rage shook the ground. Gogo’s wall quit bulging.
The spider released it’s tether on the horse’s neck and swung it around to the new threat.
“Tanuki scum!” he roared as the lashed his tether towards Taru and Reizo.
“Find his eyes!” Reizo blew on the dirt and pushed both the dirt and breath kami hard. His vision narrowed and a sickening thud reverberated through his entire body. Talking to the kami too much!
A dust cloud arced around the spider and slammed into his eyes. Taru pulled Reizo out of the path of the spider's whipping tether.
“Dirt return to the one who threw it!” The spider thundered.
“No,” Reizo said weakly. He sent the request to a breeze kami that circled him. The breeze kami slammed against the oncoming dirt. He nearly passed out from the effort, but that saved his and Taru's eyes. Instead of cutting Reizo and Taru, the dirt dissipated in a cloud. More dirt got in Reizo's cuts and he coughed. The cough turned into vomiting.
Taru fired his bow again. This time, the arrow stuck in the spider’s head.
"Gogo, you like us. You're a wonderful cart, don't you want to go home again?" Ichiro kept talking, hoping to say the right thing.
Suki said, "Gogo, don't listen to that thing! It’s not safe here, Run away from here!"
"Stupid inferior creatures, you have given me ammunition to kill you with. I can't believe you're making it is easy. I almost feel sorry for you. If all of you are this pathetic, reclaiming the Yamato gate will be trivial. Perhaps I should keep you alive as entertaining slaves. Arrow, return to the Tanuki scum who dare fired on me." The arrow pulled itself out of the spider’s head and flew towards Taru.
“No!” Gogo’s beautiful harmonious voice rose in a crescendo. Her will overcame the Kami Speaker and she pushed her tornado out to save her first friend. The arrow crashed into a wall of wind. One of the wind kami broke it in half and delivered the pieces to Taru.
Then two very solid horses appeared. They were white but other colors danced just underneath their fur giving the impression that they glowed slightly, even in bright sunlight.
The spider said, "That creation is worthless to me now. The kami within it are fully awakened and will no longer bend to my will. Don't worry, I'll kill you all anyway!”
Gogo kicked one of the spider’s legs and broke it. He roared and hobbled off into the trees before vanishing from sight.
"Go go now!" Gogo’s musical voice cried. The tornado slowed and shrank back inside the cart.
Suki called, "Come on!”
Three paper hands picked up Taru, Reizo, and Gin and gently placed them on the benches. As before, the hands held them in place. Another hand held the unconscious guard safely on the floor.
Ichiro and Gin embraced. “Big brother, you’re bleeding!” He had a long scrape on his neck and shoulder and several cuts and bruises, but was alive! My brother is alive!
“Your hand is swollen, little sister.”
“It doesn’t matter, Ichiro. You’re safe!” Tears of joy rolled down her face as she sat beside her brother again.
Reizo had never been so happy to see anyone as he was to see Suki. Blood flowed like tears down his dusty face, the result of his tornado kami blasting dirt into him. “Suki,” he said, before the pain in his head, scalp, and ribs overwhelmed him. Merciful blackness claimed Reizo.
"Reizo, I love you."
Gogo hid herself and leapt into the air. She would be back in Yoshi’s wonderful garden very soon Her passengers were too preoccupied to notice they were flying.
“Gogo, I must help Reizo,” Suki said as Gogo’s acceleration pushed her back into her seat.
“Soon,” Gogo replied even as blood dripped on her paper hands. Everyone was bleeding from somewhere. Suki hadn’t realized the spider had torn her arm open yet.
“Where are we going?” Taru asked. He looked at their traveling supplies. Everything was still in its place. They had water to drink and clean their wounds with.
“Home.”
A short time later the hands released them. Reizo had skin missing in several places. Suki learned this as she cleaned and bandaged his face and hands with strips of her outer silk robe. My poor Reizo, she thought.
Taru ripped a strip off her robe and bandaged her arm. She needed stitches, but if he didn’t stop the bleeding, it would weaken her.
“Lord Taira will be fine if you keep his skin clean. None of his cuts are deep, there are just many. His ribs are injured, make sure he rests. His magic took a lot out of him.” Taru told her. Yoshi told me things like that happen, I hope I'm not lying to her.
"Your face," Suki said to Taru.
"A bad sunburn. It will heal." It was a bit worse than that, but he smiled slightly.
All of them tended each other’s wounds and before long, they were as patched up as they could be. Even the man on the floor was cleaned as best they could. He'd passed out before Ichiro reached Gogo and Ichiro had carried him the rest of the way.
Reizo’s skin was pale where it wasn’t bandaged. It's because his magic took a lot out of him, Suki told herself over and over again.
“Have you ever seen a spider that large, Taru?” Suki asked.
“I have not.” He leaned against the wall with a piece of wet silk over his face.
“He called himself a kami speaker,” Ichiro said.
“Is he dead?” Gin asked. She looked around at her friend’s faces and saw the same doubt in their eyes she felt. “I’m sorry we can’t visit your family, Lady Taira. I still remember all the right things to say,” she said. Suki smiled gratefully through tears.
Gin looked out the window, but decided to keep the fact that they flew high above the road to herself. She didn't want to see Lord Taira injured like that, he was so scary and powerful. Taru's burned face made her sad. He'd held her when she needed it.
“He’s not following us,” she reported, and put an arm around Ichiro. He squeezed her back.
The ride back was silent because everyone, even Gogo was lost in their own thoughts.
The Kami Speaker watched the fully awakened kami leap into the air from where he hid in the trees. That wretched cart was at the center of a wind ball. None of the arrows he had would get through.
He slowly walked back to the village to count his resources. He had a serious head injury and two broken limbs. His eyes were raw because the human had blasted dirt into them. He’d recover after a month or two rest. He hadn’t realized humans knew the art of kami speaking, but he’d account for that next time.
The Kami Speaker didn't find the bodies of his soldiers. Were they dead, or had the Tanuki scum and his group killed them? If so, they'd done him a favor. The red men didn’t follow orders well, and he would have had to kill them before the next phase of his plan anyway.
He was patient. The gateway to Yamato, the Kami Speakers ancestral homeland, was not going anywhere. This town was be full of dead humans to eat, he discovered. He ate two, then spun the rest into a web. He could eat them when he woke up instead of hunting for more.
The giant spider crawled onto the ceiling of the town hall and bullied the kami so much that they keep him and his food hidden while he hibernated and healed for the next two months.
Picture by Daphne Zaras - http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/headlines/dszpics.htmlOriginally uploaded at en.wikipedia; description page is/was here., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2130165