Free Seger, Maura by Flame on the Sun Page A

likely to be severe.
    Certainly the other people in the market- place thought so. In the space of seconds, the packed street emptied. Shop owners rushed to yank merchandise from the outside display tables and slam down heavy shutters over doors and windows. Wagons and buggies vanished around corners at top speed, their drivers heedless of the bundles that went flying off them. Top-hatted shipowners, kimono-clad merchants, bewhiskered sailors, all fled. Only the samurai remained, now clearly divided into two sides, with each hurling taunts at the other.
    Erin instinctively pressed back against the nearest wall. She had no idea what was happening or how grave the danger might truly be. But she could not ignore the all-pervasive sense of fear that swept the street from one end to the other.
    Frozen by mingled terror and bewilderment, she stood without moving until the sudden clang of steel and the shouts of men intent on battle woke her to the full extent of her peril. By then it was too late. All the shop doors were securely bolted, the windows barred. There was no place to hide, nowhere to run. She could do nothing but shrink farther back against the wall, praying she would not be seen.
    At first, it seemed that her prayer would be answered. The warriors were too intent on each other to notice her. Hideous shouts reverberated off the walls of the surrounding buildings as razor-sharp weapons slashed through the air. The men moved in what almost appeared to be a choreographed dance of death. The steps were slower and more formalized than the way she imagined Westerners might fight, but the results were the same.
    If the wounded hoped for any mercy, they did not show it. A scream caught in Erin's throat as she saw a young samurai, bleeding heavily from the chest, laugh disdainfully at his opponent before hurling himself directly onto his blade. That the man appeared to die instantly was slight consolation. Her stomach whirled sickly as she turned away, pressing her face into the rough wooden wall.
    Even that small motion was a mistake. While she stood perfectly still, her brown linen skirt and jacket blended into her surroundings just enough to make her unnoticeable to the struggling warriors. But when she moved, sunlight caught the pearly opalescence of her skin and the rich ebony sheen of her hair.
    Without taking his attention from the man he was about to kill, a blood-spattered samurai noted the presence of one of the hated foreigners who had come to defile his nation. The fact that she was a woman daring to be in the streets alone only increased his rage. A savage smile twisted his lean mouth between the draped ends of his narrow mustache. Abruptly dispatching his opponent, he moved toward her.
    Erin saw him coming. She recognized the implacable intent stamped on his lean features. His dark, seething eyes held not even the faintest suggestion of humanity or compassion. Whatever tenderness he might be capable of in different circumstances was burned out of him by sheer blood lust. Not for an instant did she harbor the hope that he would spare her.
    Throughout the long, bitter years of the Civil War, she had faced death many times, but never directly. Always before, she had fought to keep others alive. Now, abruptly confronted by her own mortality, she had no idea of what to do.
    Only one thing seemed clear—the desperate need to escape. She turned to run, only to realize at once that there was no place to go. Both ends of the street were blocked off by fighting samurai. Already several shops were on fire, acrid smoke from the blazes spreading like a living stain against the cobalt sky. Bodies of both Japanese and Westerners unlucky enough to be caught by the murdering band littered the muddy road. A few were still moaning, but most did not move at all.
    Far off in the distance she could hear the trumpet blast of the British cavalry unit which formed the major part of the Western enclave's defense. But she nurtured no hope