Migong - Book 1

Chapter 22: Horned Child (T)

Shuto, Kingdom of Shobu

Winter, 1461

Seigen, King of Shobu, sat on his throne and regarded the small, bedraggled creature chained in the talisman sealed cage with a bored tilt to his head. There were only a few in the audience chamber and the unnatural cries of the creature echoed in the hall.

The creature hissed and bared its teeth at the guards who stood next to cage, banging and rattling enough that they had to ward it away from the door with spears. Covering its head with its small white arms, and long clawed fingers, it gave a few fearful whines. Except for the two horns thrusting up from its forehead, and it's unusual colouring, it looked nothing like a fearsome demon that could effortlessly rip men to shreds.

Hair matted with a thick dark substance, hanging down in clumps all over the rags that barely covered its body and caked in dried dirt, it looked more like a child that had fallen into a mud puddle, but its eyes...the slitted ruby red eyes that stared out from beneath the fringe of hair glowed like molten lava....and there was nothing human about the look in them. What they saw...no one could be sure.

The King seemed to look at the creature for a long time, and then said:

"This is the weapon I was promised?" he asked, with some dissatisfaction. "It looks...weak."

Furusawa stiffened slightly as the King seemed to think that the massacre in Moutan's Northern Forest was some sort of joke, but it was true that the creature in the cage looked quite pathetic at the moment.

When he had returned to the Northern Forest to see if the assassination of Prince Seiren had been carried out as Lady Sakurako had commanded, he had found that thing crouched over the Crown Prince's body covered in blood. The surrounding area of forest had been flattened and bodies and body parts littered the ground for as far as the eye could see.

Before he could even register what it was, the creature had leapt onto him and slashed open his face, blinding his left eye. It would have stabbed him through the heart with its sharp claws had he not jabbed at it with a dagger and then grabbed it by the throat. He could have choked it to death, but Lady Sakurako's handmaiden, Kana, had intervened.

Laughing in delight, she had picked up the child demon by the scruff, giggling as it squirmed and clawed at her, drawing thin bloody lines all along her alabaster arm as she held it high in the air, turning it this way and that.

"Ahhhhh!" she breathed in delight. "My Lord will be pleased! We shall see to it that you grow well, my little Master! Hush now...stop your kicking and screaming, child..."

The horned child only howled in response, still scrabbling.

Clutching at his bleeding face, it took inhuman effort for Furusawa to quell his rage.

"What is that?!" he demanded, his voice hoarse with anger and pain.

"You really don't know?" she asked, sounding disdainful.

He only glared at her out of his one good eye.

Lady Kana eyed him darkly for a moment, and then flung the still struggling creature away with a great crash, knocking it unconscious. Sighing, she crouched down next to Furusawa, and put a hand over his torn face, chanting something under her breath. The pain slowly melted away and was replaced by an itching burn where she touched, and when she finally drew her hand away, he realized that his wounds had been healed. However, he now only vision in the one eye.

"Thank you for your kindness," he grunted, unable to completely avoid the remaining resentment from colouring his tone.

"I am sorry that I won't be able to recover your sight. When you return, perhaps my Mistress, can return it to you. However, it should make it more convincing for you to report that you escaped Moutan's ambush of the Prince, should it not? It would have been hard to imagine that you escaped unscathed."