Blood Ninja (40 page)

One of the older
eta
grinned, revealing a handful of black teeth. “For this gold, we’d forget our names,” he said. He gestured to the boy whose clothes Taro wore. “Come, Junichiro. Let’s go.”

The boy smiled nervously at Taro, then turned and began to walk away. “Good-bye,” he called behind him.

The idea of bowing to an
eta
was unthinkable, but then so was the idea of outfitting oneself in their clothes. Taro bowed slightly, and was rewarded by a surprised grin from the boy, who also bobbed his head in a bow as he ran to join the other
eta
. Taro felt something like a tugging as the boy departed, almost as if the two of them were joined by some invisible filament, and he pursed his lips. The boy was
eta
, and unknown to him, and thus by rights should mean nothing.

But Taro had the inexplicable sense that their fates were in some way intertwined.

Shusaku called for him to hurry, and he shook his head. He must have been imagining things.

As Taro had expected, the disguise worked perfectly. So blasphemous and repugnant to the ideals of the samurai was the race of the
eta
, let alone the notion that anyone might seek to be seen as one, that the guards gave no more than a cursory glance at the four companions crossing the bridge, bags of leather slung on their backs, before they returned to searching the rice sacks of emaciated peasants, as if assassins might be found contorted within them.

Shusaku had rubbed dark river mud all over his face, and though in fact the
eta
from whom they had bought the clothes had been clean-skinned, the dirt that obscured his tattoos accorded so well with the samurai’s opinion of what an
eta should
look like, that it drew no attention or remark.

Taro was learning something new about ninja. He had thought of them as peerless men of action, achieving their ends through skill and grace of movement, roaming the land in their distinctive black clothes. Now he realized that the true effectiveness of a ninja lay often in not appearing to be one.

That, and they weren’t all men.

Yes. Openly walking across a heavily guarded bridge at night, their weapons slung casually over their backs in bags that, had they been searched, would have immediately betrayed their bearers—
that
was what it meant to be a ninja.

Taro’s heart was pounding in his chest as they stepped off the bridge and onto the road that led between Nagoya’s houses, and he knew that his pulse sped not only in fear of being caught, but also in excitement. He saw Hiro’s glittering eyes and knew that his friend was feeling a similar mixture of emotions.

That night they followed directions given by the town’s lowlifes—it was impossible, dressed as an
eta
, to engage with anyone of any stature—to a squalid inn in the poor part of town, and there they formulated a plan of action. The next morning, Shusaku would lie low inside—the sun would kill him if he ventured out. Taro and Yukiko would make their move at dawn, when enough of the gray of night remained to conceal them from casual view but the sun’s light was bright enough to deter any other ninja from action.

They would head for the back wall of the castle, which, according to the map Shusaku drew in the dust of the room’s grimy floor, led to a courtyard and from there to the tower where their target was to be found.

But it wasn’t going to be easy.

From a quick reconnaissance it had become clear that there were guards posted all around the castle walls in such a way as to cover, among them, the entire approach to the castle. Behind them, forming a second cordon, was a moat that reached right up to the castle walls.

This was where Hiro came in. Working with Taro, he would create a diversion that would draw one of these guards away from
his position—hopefully permanently, but at the least for long enough to allow Taro and Yukiko to swim the moat and scale the wall to drop down into the courtyard. From there they could easily cross to the fourth tower and ascend to the room at the top.

Shusaku guessed that Oda feared a ninja attack most of all. As a result, he would be relying on the services of Namae to keep him safe. The tower itself would not be heavily guarded by day—in theory, anyway. Taro and Yukiko would climb up the wall to the top room. There, Taro would kill Lord Oda before fighting his way down to the courtyard with Yukiko’s help, using the advantage of height over their opponents. Anyone coming up the spiral staircase would be hampered by its clockwise twist, unable to properly wield their weapon in their right hand.

And if they encountered Kenji Kira, Yukiko would take his life, in exchange for Heiko’s.

Parts of the plan even worked.

Taro, Yukiko, and Hiro were glad when they were able to leave the filthy inn as the first gray light of dawn showed on the horizon—though looking at his companions’ faces, Taro guessed that they were as nervous as he was.

Taro was dressed in black
hakama
trousers. He wore hard shoes with sharp spikes at their tips—perfect for finding purchase between the bricks of a tower wall. In a soft linen bag on his back were another pair of hard shoes, these ones equipped with a stamp on the bottom that would turn Taro’s shoe prints—as he left the area after swimming back across the moat—into the webbed footprints of geese.

Also in his bag: a short
wakizashi
sword, a dagger, and a blowpipe, along with the black mask scarves that he would don as soon as he and Yukiko began their assault on the wall. The masks were not just for disguise. In the half-light, they would conceal their wearer against the darkness of the castle wall.

Walking quickly, they drew closer to the castle. They did not
speak unless they had to. Yukiko remained cold and distant, hiding within the cool ivory carapace of her grief. Hiro was uncharacteristically silent, whirling suspiciously at every little noise.

Finally they reached the circular street that abutted practically onto the castle walls, running around the edge of the moat. Thatched-roof houses clustered here by the dark, cold moat, many of them using it as both a water source and a latrine—two somewhat incompatible uses that explained the poor health of many of the town’s inhabitants.

The early morning was cold, and Taro’s breath misted before him as he skirted the backs of the houses, following the moat. A couple of times he heard noises behind them—soft noises that could have been made by shoes on mud. Hiro and Yukiko too occasionally glanced behind suddenly.

“What was that?” Hiro whispered, as a splash caught their attention.

They stopped dead.

Then a duck appeared, floating serenely on the moat. Taro let out a breath. “Let’s go.”

Yet still that feeling remained.

Taro saw nothing, but he felt the urgent prickle on the back of his neck, the raising of the little hairs there, that warned of someone watching. But who could be following them? He forced his heart rate and breathing to slow. He was nervous, yes, but also excited. The time had finally come to wreak revenge on his adopted father’s killer, on the man who had tried to have him destroyed, purely in the name of power.

Eventually they came to the place where he could see a drawbridge raised against the castle wall. Shusaku had told him that this could be lowered when someone wanted to take one of the horses out from the stable, though no one had done so in some time, due to the heightened security in the castle. On the bank opposite the castle stood a guard—from here just a dark figure in the embracing darkness, though the reddening light of dawn
caught the metal of his sword, making it shine like a beacon, or a talisman against evil spirits.

But right now Taro was the spirit. And a sword wasn’t going to stop him.

This was the section of the wall they would climb. Looking up at its height now, Taro had to fight a wave of nauseous terror as his confidence of only a moment earlier dissipated. It was too high. There was no way they were going to get up there, and then to get past any guards and fight his way to Lord Oda, it was just—

But Hiro put a hand on his shoulder, and smiled at him, and Taro looked again at the wall and it seemed to have diminished in size. He was glad his friend was with him. Perhaps all of this was meant. Perhaps it had been not only coincidence that Taro had been on the beach when Hiro and his parents were attacked by the
mako
; perhaps all of this had been fated from the beginning, as the abbess had claimed, and now everything was coming together in the same way that the first few hesitant notes strummed on a
biwa
slowly rose to form chords, melody, and soaring structure.

I hope I
can
climb that thing
, thought Taro. The wall seemed once again impossibly tall, and slick from moat water, and lacking in such things as conveniently jutting bricks with which to hold on and pull oneself up.

But they were drawing near to the guard now, who stood in full samurai armor before the moat, and there was no more time for thinking. Hiro fell back, stepping into the overhang of a shop’s roof, and so as the guard turned to see Taro and Yukiko approach, he saw only a young couple out for an early morning stroll. Yukiko’s hair was pinned up in the manner of a wealthy geisha, and Shusaku had procured for Taro an embroidered jacket that made him appear a dissolute young dandy.

As expected, the guard barely acknowledged them. They were the kind of wastrels that flourished in a town overseen by an amoral lord, and they were of no consequence.

But then rapid movement from behind the couple caught the guard’s eyes, and he whipped his head round as Hiro came running
up to Taro. Hiro bashed Taro on the head with a stick, grabbed his bag, and continued running, turning onto one of the narrow side streets. “Thief!” screamed Yukiko.

“Hey! Stop!” shouted the guard, abandoning his post to chase after Hiro as he disappeared into the alley. Taro sat in what he hoped was an awkward-looking position on the ground, rubbing his head.

As soon as the guard entered the alleyway, there was a dull thud. Moments later Hiro emerged, wearing his helmet, armor, and sword. Swaggering a little, he walked over to where the guard had stood, and assumed a bored but arrogant stance, imitating perfectly the way the guard had cast his contemptuous gaze up and down the length of the moat.

“Quickly,” he said. “I hid the body as best as I could, but someone is bound to find it. And anyway, I only knocked him out. That drug of Shusaku’s doesn’t last for long.”

The moat was broad, and slit windows in the castle walls permitted those inside to watch over it carefully. Taro and Yukiko ducked down among the reeds on the bank. Taro took something from his bag—his blowpipe. Lowering himself into the cold, sucking mud, he squirmed forward on his belly until he flopped into the water of the moat. A moment later Yukiko lowered herself into the water beside him, slippery and as graceful as an otter.

They kept their heads underwater, breathing through the thin tubes of their blowpipes.

Ninja liked things that accomplished more than one purpose. It saved weight.

Tendrils of waterweed snagged on Taro’s ankles and pulled at his arms. They were slimy and cold, and Taro imagined that the water was full of nameless dread creatures. He swam quickly, scared by the dark, cold water. Soon his right hand struck the opposite bank and he hauled himself up out of the water. He moved quickly against the castle wall, keeping himself flat against the stone to avoid the view of any guards posted at windows. Yukiko pulled herself out of the water and joined him, her breathing rapid.
They were two shadows on a castle wall, about to break into the stronghold of Lord Oda.

Taro had never felt so vulnerable, so simple to break.

He turned to face the wall, then took special gloves from his bag. These had been customized by the ninjas of the mountain with sharp spikes that had been sewn into the ends of the fingers, allowing him to grip the wall more securely. He handed a pair to Yukiko, then began to pull on his own. But his cold hands were curled like fern sprouts, and he had to breathe on his fingers before they were pliable enough to insert into the gloves. Then he reached up and grabbed hold of a jutting brick.

The wall next to the drawbridge was not high, the height of two men standing one atop the other, perhaps. Within the space of half an incense stick, Taro and Yukiko were sitting on top, looking down on the courtyard below. Taro could smell horses, and the flagstones below were strewn with hay and manure.

He turned back to look out over the town. Hiro gave a little wave from below, where he still stood before the moat, keeping their return route safe. If anyone looked out from one of those arrow-slit windows, they would see the guard with his feathered helmet, bearing his sword and wearing his armor with the Oda
mon
upon it. As far as they would know, this section of the wall was unbreached.

But of course the deception would not last for long, and so the return journey would have to be made quickly.

And before that, Taro and Yukiko had to get to the top of the tower, kill Lord Oda, and then get out again alive.

Taro let his eyes linger on the mostly sleeping town, on its thatched roofs and storks’ nests, and then allowed himself one more look at his friend in his borrowed armor.