Blooded by Christopher Golden & Nancy Holder

Author:Christopher Golden & Nancy Holder [Golden, Christopher & Holder, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Vampires, fantasy, young adult, horror
ISBN: 9780671021344
Goodreads: 48542
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 1998-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

Ah, this undefended land! These foolish, weak people!

And, best of all, these demons!

They flocked to Chirayoju, desperate for a leader. Oni, who had traveled from China with the Buddhist faithful. The vampiric kappa, strange, scaled creatures whose bowl-like heads were filled with magic water. When the water spilled, the kappa lost their powers, but not their yen for blood.

Blood that Chirayoju found for them in plentiful supply.

Itself, it had not dined on anything as exquisite as the maiden Gemmyo—although it had sampled at least a hundred humans since it had left Mount Hiei, but its new army of followers had assured it that the Emperor, being holy, would taste the best of all.

And so, with its minions who now numbered in the thousands, Chirayoju descended like a night mare upon the capital of this Land of the Rising Sun, called by some Heijo and by others, Nara.

In the forest its army camped and measured the defenses of the Emperor’s palace. Fierce warriors guarded the walls, but within, the court of the Emperor Kammu languished like fat cattle. They were obsessed with the airy cultivation of art and culture and the monotonous veneration of the Lord Buddha. Nunneries and monasteries littered the wooded hills. A statue of Buddha as tall as eight men greeted the sun daily. Chirayoju was contemptuous, considering the Buddha himself a weak, unambitious being who preached the obliteration of ambition as the key to happiness.

While the nobles within the palace walls wrote poems and discussed philosophy, the people outside the walls starved. Taxes were high and crops failed despite the fertile land. They were ripe for unrest and rebellion.

Chirayoju saw much to please it.

So it left behind its fearful minions and walked the nights among the starving peasants, whispering to them of all the things it could give them—treasures, weapons, and warriors—if only they would call it master. They began to listen. They began to believe. Soon, they looked forward to its nightly visits and its tales of how their lives would be, if only they would deliver the Emperor to it.

It began to seem natural for them to hate their supreme lord, who was a god on Earth, and to practice the hacking and slashing of mortal combat with their fishing poles and pitchforks. They began to anticipate the battle with the heavily fortified palace, forgetting that they possessed neither armor nor weapons, and unaware that their general, Chirayoju the Liberator, had promised its second wave of attackers their own blood in exchange for their loyalty and aid.

This second wave were the oni and the kappa.

Who likewise did not know that it had promised its third wave of attackers the delicious and magical blood of the oni and the kappa in exchange for their loyalty and aid.

This third wave consisted of the vampires it made from the ranks of the eta. In the dark of night, alone and in secret, it would fly to the hovels in the filthy quarter of these, the Untouchables of

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