Fortress of Lost Worlds Read Online Free PDF

swiftly and bashed the cave ceiling, throwing itself off balance. The samurai charged it, stamping left and right, the Sagami gleaming as it whirled through a double feint. The beast swung its weapon awkwardly down on him in a black-taloned simian grip. He spun to avert its descent and slashed the monster halfway through the knee with a wicked rotating blow.
    Dark blood spouted from the wound as its terrible shriek blocked Gonji’s left ear. It fell toward him, grabbing at the ruined knee, and when its great form tumbled past, the samurai’s returning one-handed slash shattered its lower jaw, blood and bits of stained tooth peppering the snowy entrance hollow.
    Its screams were quickly forgotten in the rush of wind from the first monster’s sweeping bludgeon. Gonji ducked too late. One viciously honed glaive point shredded the fabric of his garb, gouging the flesh of a shoulder. The force of the blow twisted him off his feet. He rolled twice before the creature’s furious onslaught, then ran out of cave floor as he struck rock.
    He was trapped in a corner of the cave.
    The ogre snarled to intimidate him but eyed the Sagami with respect. It was unused to such speed and skill in the unwary travelers that were its kind’s usual prey.
    The monster growled and scraped its weapon menacingly on the ground before the samurai’s niche, like a man trying to dislodge some dangerous vermin.
    Suddenly it realized its advantage and sprang like a guard dog, leveling the cudgel for a battering-ram blow. In the same instant Gonji caught up a dirk from his boot, launching it with an overhand snap as he dodged the plunging metal blades.
    The monster howled in pain and rage amid splintering rock. It stepped on Gonji’s legs with a clawed foot as he scrabbled away. The cudgel was forgotten. The flesh-eating snow beast tore at the invading knife in its chest.
    Gonji cried out with the agonizing effort as he twisted under the monster’s huge padded foot. His scythelike rake of the Sagami hamstrung the flailing creature.
    Behind, the other downed monster continued to pule in agony, and other sounds approached from within the cavern system.
    Gonji heard none of it. He pushed to his feet, his left leg aching badly. His footwork was imprecise and ungainly but the katana struck repeatedly with awful accuracy as it sang in the icy cavern. He leapt in and out, relieving the creature of half a matted paw, opening deep wounds in both legs. He raised his blade for another strike, but a wild backhand blow batted him against the wall, his breath gushing out of him.
    His vision swam, and for a moment he was unsure of where his sword lay. He saw Tora in a blurry haze. And the body of a man—Spanish cavalry jack—caved-in face—
    The great hairy fist caught him up by the waist and pulled him close to those blazing eyes. He felt the creature’s hot, rank breath in his face. The crushing grip born of vengeful mortal agony. And he knew its intent. It would crush his head in its canine jaws.
    The ogre gurgled something at him in a moist, guttural voice, perhaps a final taunt in its own language. In that instant Gonji drew the seppuku sword in his left hand. His right palmed the short blade’s forte in a circular pushing motion, crisp and wetly arcing through both the monster’s eyes, the bridge of its nose. The foreshortened return plunged the ko-dachi’s fierce point into the screaming predator’s throat, choking off its cries.
    Gonji dropped to the ground with a groan. A momentary reflection passed: Again the seppuku blade, which might someday bring him ritual death, had spilled the blood of another.
    Then he was snatching up the Sagami and belting both blades as he led the snorting Tora from the cave, out into an angry silver morning. The packed snow of the mountain trail made a welcome crunch under Tora’s hooves as he mounted and kicked the animal past the cave, up the cleared trail that continued the climb through the Pyrenees’ passes. Ridged