Free Fortress of Lost Worlds by T. C. Rypel Page B

the great longbow unaided—though it was tricky—their mild jeering at his claim aroused his competitive instinct. So Gonji instead proposed a display of his skill in exchange for their free assistance.
    As they scoffed and wagered among themselves the distance by which he’d miss the proposed target, the samurai nocked a thirteen-fist war arrow, rotated the bow over his head and through the half-arc of a kyu-jutsu draw, and skewered the trunk of a cork oak later estimated at two hundred and seventy-five yards away.
    The impressed hunters threw in a scrap of advice along with the free stringing:
    “Marksman or not, swing wide of the Valley of Barbaso, amigo. ”
    “Hai, arigato.”
    * * * *
    Gonji entered the valley that cradled the town of Barbaso a little after midday. Plenty of time, he assured himself, to reach the town before nightfall.
    But as he made the gradual descent into the valley, he soon became aware of the subtle change in atmosphere, some mystical sense stirring within him, warning him to remain on his guard. The terrain became more rugged, the snow mat broken in many places by protruding roots and overgrown with brush. There were virtually no forests south of the mountains, yet the evergreen oaks grew thickly enough here to qualify as such. The lush bower blotted the sun’s weak rays and absorbed the wind. It was cold and still, save for the distant chirruping of an occasional bird. The snow piled higher as Gonji progressed, though the valley floor should have been spared to a greater degree. The air seemed unaccountably thick and hazy, the trail ahead obscured. Now and again the samurai sensed movement on the periphery of his vision, but when he looked nothing came into view.
    Some things deceitfully operate on the edge of the senses, Gonji-san. That is the purpose of this phase of our training…
    The inscrutable ninja master had been right as always: Gonji was instinctively aware of the insidious power that took predatory note of his presence.
    The trail thinned, mounded up over a scrub-tangled knoll, then dropped steeply toward a gloomy hollow. Here the barren beech and poplar trees clustered densely under a dwarfing stand of ice-drooping green oaks. At the entrance of the hollow stood two enormous boulders, flanking the trail, looming before him like the lifeless eyes of some granite colossus. From what source they had tumbled, no man could say.
    When sorcery opens the way, worlds may tip and spill, one into another…
    Gonji halted a moment and scanned the trail ahead. Nodding and squaring himself in the saddle, he clucked Tora into an easy trot, wrestling with the reins against his steed’s skittishness. When they reached those massive guardian stones, Gonji yanked back on the reins and swept his halberd out of its moorings. Catching it up smartly under the crook of his right arm, he arced its deadly edge across the top of the stone where the evil eyes had peered at him hungrily seconds before.
    Tora whinnied and stamped as sparks showered over the boulder, and the huge form launched over their heads with a fearsome bellow. An incredibly round and fat demon bounded down behind them on the trail, swelled rapidly to an even greater girth, and bounced straight up into the shuddering lower boughs of an evergreen before landing again between the boulders, with a tremendous thud !
    Gonji fought to control his mount as he leveled the halberd threateningly and peered with narrow-eyed disbelief at the bizarre apparition. Settling Tora and stretching up boldly on his saddle, he studied the hissing creature, which sucked great howling breaths through a mouth that seemed capable of expanding without limit.
    Stubby arms and legs jutted comically from a body the size of a coach. Its head was as round as its body, jammed atop plump shoulders with economy—no space wasted on a neck. The head was hairless; the ears, beet red and pointed like the leaves of a lilac; and the face was dominated by that elastic