Samurai and Other Stories (11 page)

As he cut
the chasers’ braids
he looked back down the corridor. There was another chaser just in sight, but he had enough time to collect his prizes. He tied the braids to his belt and took stock. He had a small wound on his shoulder, little more than a scratch, but the one at his side was more serious. It still bled, and when he prodded his finger at the hole it flared in white-hot pain.
 

I cannot run with the wound bleeding like this.

He walked over to the nearest firebrand and lifted it from its slot.
 

The crowd roared in approval as he rolled the brand in the sand then touched the still glowing tip to the wound, cauterising the site. He smelled burned hair and flesh. When he touched the area, there was no sign of blood. The pain was excruciating, but he knew how to handle that. He pushed it away until it was a ball in a far corner of his mind. It shouted for attention as he started to move and shouted louder as he broke into a run. But his instructor had taught him well.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

He was moving as well as ever as he passed the marker.

-The Seventh Mile -

He thought he was strong, in mind and body. But despite his wounds it was his thoughts that started to betray him now. His instructor would have him focus on nothing but the goal, all else subservient to that one thought. But despite himself, Garn could not escape the witch in his mind—her soft yet hard body, those green eyes in which it was possible to get lost for an age and forget the trials of the pit. The thought that he might never again share the royal bed brought regret.

And with that regret, his mind betrayed his body. Barely midway between the markers he felt the first sign of the draining tiredness of fatigue. He started to plod, as if treading through water, and each step became a greater burden. The crowd sensed him weakening and took to chanting his name with increased fervour. The sound rang in his ears, echoing the length of the corridor. Garn tried to take heart from it, in the same way as he had used the crowd to his advantage during his many fights in the pit, but it got harder with every step.

I cannot go on like this. I will be run down like a wounded deer.

Indeed, he was starting to feel like an old stag; his defiance was the only thing keeping him upright in the face of an implacable foe armed with more speed and superior weaponry. And with that came a memory of cornering a huge buck, of his brother Finn rushing forward—only to be impaled on the antlers of a resurgent beast.

I must use the cunning I learned that night.

He slowed, first to a walk, then stumbling, almost falling. He made a show of dropping to one knee. The crowd groaned, but Garn took the opportunity for a look behind him. The chaser was thirty paces behind, and showing no signs of hanging back.

This one wants the kill for herself. That shall be her undoing.
 

Garn made to stand, but fell into another stumble, leaving his back exposed and risking everything to his reflexes. The chaser leapt, the crowd roared, and Garn spun, the knife coming up to where the bitch’s rib cage should have been waiting. But this one had wiles of her own. His knife caught her arm and sliced a deep wound there, but in the same movement she had fallen to the ground, rolled, and cut a groove across the back of his left leg, a hair’s-breadth away from hamstringing him completely. His leg gave way beneath him and he fell heavily, trying to roll aside, but not fast enough. Her blade bit deep again, this time taking him through the muscle of his left bicep. Before she could withdraw the knife he rolled further away, attempting to drag the weapon from her grasp while it was still embedded in his arm. But she proved tenacious, rolling with his pull and punching him so hard on the side of his head that his vision started to go. Instead of going with the blow Garn grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him. He slammed his forehead into her face, cracking against her nose, and she fell to one side. Once more he rolled, this time
pressing
his weight on top of her, pinning her to the sand.

She spat a glob of blood in his face and tried to chew at his cheek. He head-butted her again, twice for good measure. She stayed down as he strangled her with her own braid.
 

He was gentle with her when he cut her pleat, and he said a prayer to the Gods as he attached it to his kilt.

She was brave. Give her a place at the table. I would see her again.

The roar of the crowd was the loudest yet as he stood and looked back down the corridor. Two of the last three chasers stood thirty paces away, watching him keenly. He tested his weight on his left leg. He could stand, maybe even walk, for a time, but there would be no more running. He flexed his injured bicep and got a flash of pain, but nothing that would stop him using the arm if he needed to.
 

I am alive, I have weapons, and three miles to go. I will have my freedom.

He turned his back on the chasers and started to walk, limping at first, then with more stability as he gained confidence that his leg would not fold beneath him. He passed the next marker with his name echoing along the length of the corridor.

-The Eighth Mile -

He walked the full mile, getting ever slower as his wounds started to tell and his fatigue grew ever deeper. The chasers, three of them together now, followed twenty paces behind.

Garn smiled.

Almost there.

-The Ninth Mile -

As he passed the second to last marker the chasers moved up to take closer order, keeping ten paces behind him. He paid them no mind. Either they attacked or they didn’t. Either way, he was prepared.

Now we draw near to it. I will bide my time, and let them decide.
 

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.
 

He had been staring at his feet for some time, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. His mind was far away, in the cold dockside bar in Aer in winter, with a snell wind whistling over the Sleeping God’s Pizzle, a tankard of warm mead in his right hand and a wench in his lap.
 

Even in that well played dream the girl had green eyes.

His various wounds burned fiercely. He had lost blood—not too much to disable him, not yet, but he was a far weaker man than he had been at the start of this journey. Looking up, he saw a brighter flame at the end of the corridor—the marker for the finish.
 

She will be there, waiting. Those green eyes will be watching for me to come to her. I will not disappoint the witch.

He summoned up the last of his energy and broke into a stumbling run.

The crowd roared his name.

The chasers followed.

-The Tenth Mile -

He was less than four hundred yards from the flame when he fell. He’d been right; the witch was there, waiting. He did not have to see those green eyes to feel their gaze on him, to lose himself in their depths.

Rest,
the eyes said.
Sleep, and I will take you into my arms forever.

His legs gave way and he tumbled to the ground. His eyes started to droop closed.

The chasers moved in.

But a fighter’s instinct was not so easily quenched. They thought him down and came on in a line, the fastest first. That was their undoing. Still lying flat on the ground he swung out a foot and swept the legs from the first. She fell beside him and he planted the flensing knife in her throat before she knew what had happened. The second aimed a thrust at his eyes. He kicked her in the middle, the shock running through his whole body.

Before he could follow through, the third was on him. He rolled away just in time to avoid a thrust that would have skewered him. He took another risk, throwing the flensing knife—his main weapon—at the third attacker. He was already moving, not waiting to see the result. The one he’d kicked was trying to rise. He kicked her again and stepped on her throat, crushing her larynx and breaking her neck with one stomp.

One to go.

He turned towards where the third attacker should be.

She sat on her knees, the flensing knife protruding from her left eye, the other staring at the dead lands beyond.

I am free.

He had one more task before finishing. He took the braids of the downed women and, untying the others from his belt, he staggered across the last yards that separated him from his prize.

-The Toughest Mile -

She was waiting for him beside the flame that marked the end of the challenge, in front of a massive wooden gate. She looked him up and down. The crowd fell quiet. The only sound was the crackle of firebrands and the heavy rasp of Garn’s laboured breathing.

“Was it worth it?” she said softly.
 

He said nothing, merely dropped the ten bloody braids at her feet.

She lowered her voice to a whisper so that only he could hear. “
Sleep and I will take you into my arms forever.
”

His gaze never left her eyes as he spoke.

“There is a cold tavern on a far dock that has a flagon of warm mead and a warmer-still wench waiting for me. She has been waiting too long.”

He smiled coldly when he saw the anger flare in her eyes, all joy tempered by a sadness in his own heart at having done it. But his freedom was close now. He must not waver.

He looked her in the eye, daring her to refuse him.

She sighed, waved a hand, and the gate opened. The crowd chanted his name in time with his paces as Garn walked out of the corridor, a free man.
 

It was a mile to the edge of the city, and the whole way he thought of nothing but her deep green eyes.

THE HAVENHOME

Taken from the personal journal of Captain John Fraser, Captain of the Havenhome, a cargo vessel. Entry date 16th October 1605.
 

My dearest Lizzie.
 

Today has been the worst day of my life. As I sit here, warm in my cabin, whisky at hand, I can scarcely believe the deprivations suffered by the brave people of this far flung outpost. I should have stayed at home like you asked. You would have kept me warm. If only I’d done as you asked, then I might have been spared the terrible sights that met us at landfall.
 

We had no thought of winter when we left home port. Do you remember? It was a bright Scottish summer’s day. You cried as we parted, and the sun made rainbows of your tears. I can still see you now, standing on the dock, waving us off. How I wish I could look at you, just one more time, one more time to warm my heart against the cold that has gripped us all.

After the auspices of its beginning, our voyage soon reminded us that the sea is not always benign. After four months at sea my crew expected some ease from the biting winds and cold autumnal spray, some shelter from the elements that had assailed them so assiduously. And some were expecting something more, having heard tell of the harbour tavern of our destination, and the warm doxies who waited there.

Cold comfort was all they found.

We arrived under a slate grey sky, having to tack hard against a strong offshore wind that faded and died as soon as we entered the safe haven of the natural harbour. I thought it passing strange that there was no-one on the dockside to mark our arrival. We have been looked for these past two months, and the Havenhome is tall enough to be seen from many a mile. And yet no smoke rose from the colony, despite the chill in the air and the ever-present autumnal dampness. There was already a pall over my heart as we hove to.

“Mayhap there is a town meeting,” the pastor said as we stood at the prow.

“Aye, mayhap,” I said. But my heart did not believe it. I knew already there was some dark power at large. Perhaps I do have a touch of the Highlander sight after all.

Jim Crawford was ashore before anyone else, running down the dock.

The First Mate called after him.

“Do not tire the doxies out, Master Crawford.”

“I will have first choice,” the deck hand shouted, laughing. “I’ll leave you the ugly ones. But if you want any ale, you’d best be quick, for I have a terrible thirst.”

We found him again when we disembarked and headed into town. He was first at one thing... he’d been right at that... he was first, but by no means last, to fall in a dead faint.

At our last visit some three years ago this was a thriving town of a hundred souls, living off the land that God gave them, and maintaining peaceful trading relations with the natives. There had even been talk of expansion, with land to the south earmarked for a church.

Now it will only be used as a cemetery, for they are dead... every last soul of them.

The fortifications have not been breached and there is no evidence of a fight. There were just the bodies of the dead, as if the Lord decided in that instant to take them to their heavenly rest. They lay, scattered on the ground like fallen leaves, faces grey, ashen and almost blue. They are cold to the touch, their eyes solid and milky, like glass marbles sunk in a ball of snow.
 

It was all the First Mate and I could do to keep the men from fleeing. Some did indeed fall to their knees in prayer and supplication.

“What could have caused this, Cap’n?” the First Mate asked.

“Mayhap t’was a freak storm,” Coyle the cook said. “For surely we have seen the same thing happen to a man at the mast in the far north waters?”

“But these are not the north waters,” the pastor replied. “This land is most clement, even in comparison to our own home. Men do not freeze in October. This is the devil’s work, mark my words.”

As for myself, I kept my peace then, but as I saw more of what lay on the streets I came to think they might both have been right.

I was in the court house, standing over the still, dead bodies of Josiah MacLeod and his family and trying not to weep when the pastor made his final report.