Lord Oda's Revenge (16 page)

‘I didn't do much,' said Taro. ‘I just saw her.'

Hayao sighed. ‘So did I, to my cost. She did not mean to hurt me,' he said. ‘I'm sure of that. Anyway, we will see each other again. In the next life.'

‘I hope so,' said Taro.

‘For now,' said the samurai, ‘if you ever need my help, you will have it. Ask for Hayao. I am known in these parts.'

‘Thank you,' said Taro. He paused. ‘Actually, there is something.' He turned to the abbot. ‘Could you give us a moment alone?' he asked.

The abbot bowed, then melted into the darkness.

‘There is a girl here,' said Taro. ‘I don't know if you remember her. She was with me when I first met you.'

‘Hana?' said Hayao. ‘It seems to me I saw her, but then again it feels as though it could have been a dream.' A faraway tone that Taro didn't at all like had crept into the man's voice.

‘Yes, Hana. She's here on the mountain. But listen – no one knows who she is, you understand? No one knows she's Lord
Oda's daughter, and we need it to stay that way. Please, don't tell anyone. And call her Hanako, if you can.'

‘Why?' said Hayao. ‘What is she doing here? Has something happened to Lord Oda?'

‘It's a long story,' said Taro. ‘I would rather not speak of it.'

Hayao bowed, a little stiffly. ‘Very well. I cannot hide that I know her – but I will not reveal who she is.'

‘Thank you,' said Taro.

‘He would have died,' said the abbot conversationally. When Hayao had left, to look at the night sky, he said, the abbot had reappeared at Taro's side, almost as if he had known when to come back, as if he had been listening. But that was paranoid, Taro knew.

‘You saw how the ghost was draining his flesh. How his skin was hanging from his cheek. Eventually he would have simply wasted away. Of course, the man is one of Lord Oda's samurai, which complicates matters. But I hope that our. . . intervention might reach the lord's ears. Soften his attitude towards us, perhaps. For the moment the lords besiege only the Ikko-ikki. Their opinions are more controversial than ours. But I expect they will attack our temple, one of these days. There are some who wish to rule Japan all on their own. We are too powerful to let such people sleep soundly.'

Taro licked his lips. ‘Hmmm,' he said. He was wondering if
anything
would reach Lord Oda's ears – as far as he knew, the man had died on the stairs of his own tower. But he said nothing.

‘Anyway,' said the abbot. ‘For now Hayao is simply a stranger who found comfort here, and healing. He will go out into the world thankful to the monks of Mount Hiei. I am grateful to you. And you should be proud of what you have done.'

Taro nodded. He
did
feel proud – for so long he had brought only death to those around him. Now he had saved a man, and it had been simple. He could do it again, he thought.

Something appeared in the abbot's hand, and he passed it to Taro. ‘I believe you mislaid this,' he said.

Taro looked down at the scroll in his hand. ‘I – yes. I must have left it somewhere.'

‘Indeed. Somewhere like the ground?'

‘Perhaps I dropped it.'

‘Indeed.'

Taro flushed. ‘I read it. I didn't understand. It was just a children's story.'

‘Children's stories are not just anything,' said the abbot. ‘Don't you know that?'

For a horrible moment, Taro wondered if the man was referring to the story of the Buddha ball, the story Shusaku had dismissed as a children's tale, and that had turned out to be utterly, terribly true. But the abbot just smiled. ‘Read it again,' he said.

Taro sighed. ‘Very well.'

The older man touched his arm. ‘There really is a secret,' he said. ‘I'm not lying to you. The problem is that I can't tell you what it is. You have to come to the understanding yourself. That's why I gave you the scroll. The story. . . helps.'

‘Right,' said Taro, unconvinced. ‘It seems like it would be a lot quicker if you just told me.'

The abbot grinned. He pointed to the scroll in Taro's hand. ‘This is the secret, then.' He waved his hand, and Taro was no longer holding the scroll. Taro stared down at his empty palm. He turned, searching the ground around him. ‘It's simple,' said the abbot. ‘
There is no sword.
'

‘I don't understand,' said Taro.

The abbot reached into his cloak and drew out a
katana
. He raised his hand; there was an impression of movement. The air fluttered in Taro's hair. The abbot gestured to the ground. Lying there were several tiny pink flowers, each of them cut neatly in half. They had been falling from the cherry tree, he realized. The abbot had cut the blossoms even as they fell.

‘That is what you will be able to do,' he said, ‘when you understand that there is no sword. Now, try it.' He handed the sword to Taro.

Taro settled into his stance, then struck – hard – at the falling blossoms. The sword slashed uselessly through the air. He cursed, tried again. Failed.

‘You were right!' said the abbot, a little more sarcastically than Taro would have liked, for one of his age and wisdom. ‘I told you the secret, and now here you are – a latter-day Musashi. Your speed defies belief.'

Taro grunted, irritated. He gave back the sword. The abbot replaced it in his hand with the scroll.

‘Read it again. You never know when enlightenment might strike.' With that, the abbot disappeared into the darkness, much as Hayao had done. Taro thought about looking for Hana, to tell her that he had helped Hayao – that the samurai was recovering. But he thought she probably knew already. No doubt they were somewhere in the temple complex, catching up on old times.

Cursing, he stalked off into the night.

He was a vampire, wasn't he? A vampire and a peasant. Well, he should stay outside then.

And hunt.

The deer passed below Taro's branch, nuzzling at the small yellow flowers that grew amid the mossy stones at the edge of the small clearing. Taro judged his moment, then dropped, aiming for the deer's back.

Something, some ancient survival instinct, made the deer look up, and then it was gone, a flash of springing legs.

Taro rolled when he hit the ground, and in the same movement he was up on his feet, following the dappled fawn as it sprang into the shadows, flashing through the trees. A human wouldn't have had a chance at following it on foot, but Taro was quicker and more agile than any ordinary mortal. He barely glanced at the rocks and roots as he leaped over them, switching left and right, avoiding the trees. His arm hit a branch and he spun, winded, but a moment later he was running again, the scent of the deer – musk, scat, and mud – strong in his nostrils.

There was a cliff ahead and the deer paused, before ducking its head down and launching itself to the left – but that momentary halt was enough for Taro to leap, and trace an inexorable trajectory through the air.

He slammed into the deer with all his weight, his hands going to its short antlers. With a sharp twist, he broke its neck – he believed in being merciful.

The deer was dead before it hit the ground.

Taro knelt beside the body, his knee on the rock of the precipice. He bent his head and bit down on the creature's neck, drawing its still-hot blood into himself, feeling his strength growing. It was as if a fire were being lit in his stomach, purging him of his cares and his weakness. He felt invincible.

There was a
bang
and he barely paused, so used had he grown to the gunshots from the Ikko-ikki fortress. But then he
stopped feeding. He looked up. That shot had been
close
.

For the first time, he truly took in his surroundings. He was crouched at the top of a cliff – though its height, and the sharp stones at the bottom, did not worry him. What drew his attention was the valley that spread out below, a long inverted V, with its narrow end tapering to a gulley that led almost directly to the top of the mountain Taro was on.

Camped in this valley, crowding to its edges, was an army.

The valley was long – at least two
ri
to its other end, where the fat end of the V spilled out into gradually descending, rolling countryside, as if the valley were a kind of river of emptiness that had run out of violent energy as it broke down from the mountaintop, laying waste to the rock and earth in its path. Where the valley petered out, the facing mountain rose, lower than Mount Hiei but with a craggier top. Here, on the peak, Taro could just make out a castle, smoke rising from the dwellings inside its high, serious-looking walls.

The Hongan-ji; the lair of the Ikko-ikki. Yet the army in the valley below was not facing
that
mountain. Ranks of troops – thousands of them – were moving slowly up the hillside, in full armour, towards Taro's mountain. Towards the Tendai monastery. At the rear was a small cavalry section, but what drew Taro's horrified, fascinated stare was the front rank – a row of hundreds upon hundreds of men with rifles.

All marching towards
him
.

Above the heads of the troops fluttered flags, hoisted high on poles. On them, black against white, was the
mon
of Lord Oda.

Lord Oda's army was attacking. Taro thought of the pigeon, and the strange delay before it reached the ninja mountain. Kenji Kira. Somehow Taro knew what had happened.

He had been lured to this place to die.

 

T
ARO BURST INTO
the hall where the monks slept, banging his
katana
against the bell as he ran past it.

‘Up! Up!' he shouted. ‘The samurai are coming!'

He heard confused cries, men asking one another questions, their voices blurry with sleep.

‘The samurai!' he shouted. ‘Get ready to fight!'

The abbot had told him that every monk on the mountain was trained, and every one was armed with a sword. In emergencies, the monks could muster thousands of men in minutes, all deadly efficient fighters.

Taro hoped they had practised often.

Coming to the other end of the hall, he flew through the doors and into the courtyard. At the other end was the smaller room where his mother slept. He entered without knocking. His mother sat up on her bed, blinking at him.

‘Taro?' she said.

‘You must go,' he replied. ‘Get out of here. Lord Oda's samurai are coming.'

‘Why?' she said.

‘I killed Lord Oda.' As he said it, he felt sick, as if the deer's blood had gone bad inside him, or still retained some
essence of the deer's being, and was sloshing around in there to disorient him, and take its revenge. He had provided the pretext. Years, these monks had been here, perfecting their fighting skills, meditating, and assisting the haunted. Now men were coming. Men with guns.

And it was all Taro's fault.

He was looking down, and was surprised when he felt his mother's hand on his chin, lifting his face to look at him.

‘These monks have waited for this day for many years,' she said.

‘They don't have guns,' he replied.

His mother nodded. ‘That is true. Well, we will hope for rain.'

He stared. ‘Rain?'

‘Guns use fire. The rain puts them out.'

He still stared. ‘That's it? You're just going to hope for rain?'

His mother sighed. ‘Listen. I didn't tell you the truth before. If I die, I want you to—'

‘No! You're not going to die. You're going to leave.'

The door behind them opened, and the abbot entered. ‘It's too late for that,' he said. ‘They have surrounded us.'

Taro looked from his mother to the abbot, then back at her. She was more beautiful than ever. In the doorway, two more silhouettes appeared, then resolved themselves as Hiro and Hana. They both held their swords in their hands.

‘We fight?' he said to them, and to the abbot.

All three nodded.

‘Side by side,' said Hiro.

‘Always,' said Hana.

‘They have guns,' said Taro – he felt like he was the only one who understood this, understood what it meant. ‘Hundreds of
men with rifles. I saw them marching up the hill at the head of the army.'

‘Indeed,' said the abbot. ‘Like the Ikko-ikki, Lord Oda is obsessed with guns. The Portuguese have convinced him that the modern methods of warfare are more effective. That it is easier to kill people from a distance.'

Hiro frowned. ‘They're right, aren't they?'

‘They make it easier to kill, perhaps,' said the abbot. ‘But not easier to live with it afterwards. Better to look a man in the eyes as you kill him.'

‘Are you serious?' said Hiro. ‘This is going to be a slaughter. Do you have any guns at all up here?'

‘No,' said the abbot.

‘So basically we're going to hold off hundreds of gunmen with nothing more than our swords, and our sense of honour?' said Hiro.