Samurai Son (8 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Akira stared at the man as he approached.
 
The man’s hair hung loose in a wild mess, with pine needles and leaves clinging to it.
 
He wore a mismatched assortment of armor as though scavenged from the battlefield, and he carried the katana and wakizashi—the swords that denoted the samurai’s station.
 
But his face and eyes held Akira’s attention.
 
His dirty face was scarred deeply from left eyebrow to right cheekbone across the bridge of the nose as though he had barely escaped a katana swipe.
 
His dark and menacing eyes gazed at Akira with a feral hunger.

This was a ronin, a lordless samurai who chose dishonor before death.
 
Akira had heard stories about ronin, how mercilessly they treated those they came upon.
 
It was difficult for Akira to believe that such murderers and thieves could’ve been noble samurai like himself or his father.

“You have money?”
 
The ronin drew his katana and pointed it at Akira’s throat.
 
Akira gulped.
 
He had not thought to bring his own samurai swords with him, even though it was his right to wear them.
 
He had always felt safe in his father’s land…. until now.

All he had was the bo in his hands.
 
Against a well-made katana, it might be little use, but glancing at the sword, he could tell it was of lesser quality.
 
The blade had nicks in the edge, and he could see no pattern of proper fold marks.
 
He bit his lip and held the staff between him and the ronin.

“No, great samurai,” Akira said.
 
He scrambled for any lie that seemed plausible.
 
“I—I am but a poor peasant…”

“Liar!” the ronin spat.
 
“Your clothes give you away, merchant.
 
Where is your purse?”

Merchant?
 
Akira frowned.
 
He hadn’t thought about his clothing, but they would certainly be better than most farmers’.
 
Yet there were a few farmers in Tsuitori that did make a fair amount of money on their crops.
 
Akira didn’t want to argue the finer points of economics with a katana in his face, though.
 
Instead, it would be better that the ronin think he was a merchant and not learn he was the daimyo’s son.
 
That would get him ransomed.

“I don’t ha—have any,” Akira said.
 
“I went for a walk.
 
I didn’t bring money.”

“Bah!” the ronin shouted and raised the blade for an overhead strike.
 
Akira lunged with the bo.
 
The bo hit the renegade samurai in the chest, and as the ronin brought the blade down, Akira was moving to his right and smacking him in the back with the bo’s other end.
 
The man screamed and dropped his sword.
 
Akira smacked the bo against the man’s knees, causing them to buckle.
 
The ronin fell but picked up his sword as he fell, and Akira found himself face-to-face with an angry warrior.

He could hear Rokuro’s admonitions in his head:
This isn’t a game, Akira.
 
Someone is going to die once the sword is drawn.
 
Akira didn’t even have a sword, which made the ronin that much more dangerous.

You could run,
the Tengu whispered in his ear.

Akira started but didn’t look.
 
The Tengu had abandoned him to his fate.

Not true,
the Tengu replied, obviously affronted.
 
I need to see what you’ve learned.

Akira didn’t bother with a response.
 
The ronin eyed him warily, trying to judge Akira’s prowess with the bo.
 
Akira matched him move for move, knowing full well that if he didn’t concentrate, he’d likely be spitted on the ronin’s katana.

“Boy, put down the stick, and give me your money.
 
I won’t hurt you,” the ronin said.
 
His eyes shifted warily from Akira’s bo to his face.

Keep your face guarded,
Rokuro’s voice echoed in his mind.
 
The warrior who does not broadcast what he is feeling and what he is about to do will be the winner.

The ronin stepped forward, and Akira took a quick swipe with the bo before coming back to his guard position.
 
Again the ronin feinted.
 
This time Akira waited and watched as he withdrew.
 
He nodded inwardly.
 
The ronin would try for an opening created by the feint.
 
If Akira didn’t react, he might simply attack.
 
But where was the point of commitment?

The ronin stepped within Akira’s striking distance.
 
Akira ignored the feint.
 
While the sword was sharp, Akira had distance with the six-foot staff if he chose to use it.
 
The ronin pressed forward; Akira judged him to be within his own strike zone and brought the bo crashing down on the man’s wrist.
 
Again, the ronin dropped the sword.

This time Akira attacked.
 
The man could be deadly with the wakizashi, but Akira couldn’t allow him to pick up the katana.
 
The ronin drew the short sword, but Akira pressed him backward with a flurry of strikes.
 
The ronin tried to circle back to grab the katana, but Akira was fast and whirled the staff with such ferocity that he smacked the man sideways with a blow to the side of the head.
 
The ronin tottered for a moment before collapsing.

Akira waited a few seconds before walking over and prodding the man, finding him unconscious.
 
Akira frowned.
 
He could leave the man there, but once he was conscious, the man might attack someone else.
 
But if he brought anyone here, Rokuro would know of his hiding place, and he might not learn anything from the Tengu after that.

Akira looked at the unconscious ronin.
 
He could kill the man—his right as a samurai—but somehow it didn’t
seem
right.
 
This man was desperate; by his looks, he probably had been without a lord for some time.
 
It didn’t seem right that a man should die for being lordless.
 
He looked around for the Tengu but saw no sign of the crow.

He could tie the man up if he could find something to tie him up with.
 
Akira didn’t have any rope, and the only thing the ronin had was his obi.
 
Akira stepped forward and loosened the man’s belt.
 
He was a heavy man, and Akira struggled to pull the belt off.
 
He stared at the swords.
 
They weren’t good quality but could kill nonetheless.
 
He tied the man’s hands behind his back and tried to drag the man to a tree.
 
That proved unsuccessful, so he let it be and took the man’s swords.

He started down the mountain, and the crow appeared at his side.

You should’ve killed him,
the crow told him.

Akira wasn’t in the mood to talk and started walking down the mountain, despite the bird’s protestations.
 
He walked down the path with his bo in one hand and the ronin’s swords stuck in his belt.
 
He would go to Rokuro and hand him the swords.
 
He knew that Rokuro would send his father’s men, the ashigaru, to take the ronin prisoner.
 
Akira was sure he would be hailed as a hero.

As he walked down the path that led to his father’s estate, he let his mind wander to what a great samurai hero he was.
 
Without a sword, he had defeated a ronin.
 
Certainly Rokuro would consider him a hero.
 
Maybe he might lighten up on Akira’s training.

As Akira entered the courtyard beyond the gates, he knew something was wrong.
 
Ashigaru were standing guard, and many were assembled before Rokuro.
 
Rokuro paced before them, agitated; his dark eyes glinted as he shouted orders to the guard.
 
Akira had never seen the old samurai so angry.
 
He followed the ashigaru’s gazes to Akira, and the young samurai shivered involuntarily as Rokuro limped toward him.

“Akira!
 
Where have you been?”
 
Rokuro’s brow furrowed on his red face.

Chapter Fifteen

Kasumi awoke in her room aboard the ship.
 
She had all the signs of demon-sickness.
 
She had seen other Neko who faced the demons come down with the illness.
 
Most who were afflicted were usually young and had never met their first demon until then.
 
Kasumi had thought with her first encounter of a demon in Nanashi’s quarters that she had been spared the sickness.

That had obviously not been the case.
 
She tried to sit up and began retching.
 
Luckily she had either thrown up earlier or had nothing in her stomach because nothing came up, not even bile.
 
She frowned, chagrined.
 
Most of those who had caught the demon-sickness recovered, but they had the benefits of the Neko clan and their medicine.
 
Her mother, Keiko, would make a special potion from a root that grew on Neko-shima, which combated the sickness, but Kasumi had no such medicine.
 
Some Neko did not survive the sickness.

Kasumi closed her eyes.
 
Without the demon draught, she might die, but she didn’t think so.
 
It felt like a very bad case of seasickness; the others would think she was seasick and nothing more.
 
But it also meant that she would be incapacitated for a while.
 
She did not relish that.

She wondered what the others thought of this.
 
She hoped none noticed the demon shadow or the way it reacted to her.
 
Humans were superstitious; sailors, doubly so.
 
They would throw her into the ocean if they knew she was part kami.
 
She suspected that her loud-mouthed half brother would tell everyone she had gotten seasick.
 
That would probably mollify most of the sailors, but some old-timers would undoubtedly think it odd she would show seasickness only after several days.
 
Still, she was a woman, and women behaved oddly in men’s eyes.

Her cabin door opened, and Jiro strode in.
 
No knock or anything, she noted, feeling the tiger anger well up in her throat.
 
She hated how he treated her.
 
Even though they had the same father, the fact he was in line for the inheritance and she wasn’t made him cocky.
 
He looked at her sideways through slit eyes.

“You still sick?”

“Yes,” she said.
 
“Didn’t your mother teach you to knock?”

Jiro shrugged and rummaged through her packs where she kept pears.

“Those are mine.”

“You’re not eating them.”
 
He pulled one of the pears out and bit into it.
 
“Honestly, Kasumi, you’re being stupid.
 
Who ever heard of getting sick during a pirate attack?”

“Are you accusing me of cowardice?”
 
She stared at her brother, who just took another bite.
 
“Get out of my room!”
 
She felt like throwing up again.
 
He grinned before leaving with a slam of the door.

Demon-sickness,
she thought and felt her stomach try to heave again.
 
She stuffed her fist in her mouth and bit down on her knuckles until they bled.
 
The tiger within her awoke as she tasted the hot, salty blood on her tongue.
 
Tiger, I am a tiger, not some mere mortal.
 
She looked around her cramped quarters.
 
Normally, if she were a man or not samurai, she would have to stay in the bunks with the other sailors, but they made allowances for her.
 
Carrying the two swords gave her rank far above that of commoners.

Yet she and all samurai served at the whim of a daimyo.
 
Her family’s ancestral lands would never be hers or belong to anyone in the Neko clan; they belonged to the commoners and the emperor.
 
Nanashi could demand the Neko clan’s lands but at the ire of the emperor and other samurai families.
 
No, it would be better if he tried to take them first and take everyone by surprise.
 
That way he could destroy the Guardian of the
Kimon
and bring the demons in.

There were demons already here, though.
 
The
Kimon
was not the only way out of the demon world.
 
Nanashi’s summonings proved that.
 
And now she was certain that a demon stalked her.
 
Could she possibly fight it?
 
She took a deep breath and swallowed the sour bile in her throat before pouring a small cup of water and drinking it down.

Kasumi needed rest; that much she knew.
 
It didn’t matter what Jiro or any of the sailors thought about her.
 
She had to be ready when the demon appeared again.
 
That meant rest and food.
 
She closed and barred the door.
 
She wasn’t quite ready for food, but she was tired.
 
Exhausted, she blew out the light and curled up in a ball, as she had often done as a cat, and fell asleep.

#

Kasumi awoke several hours later to the gentle rocking of the ship.
 
Her headache had subsided, as had her nausea.
 
As she lay on the pallet, she felt a slight change.
 
She raised her head and snuffed the air.
 
It was ship’s air, dank and musty, with the taste of brine and the stench of sailors.
 
But there were other scents her cat nose picked up.
 
She could smell pines through the wind, plants, and rice paddies.
 
Her ears heard the cries of gulls and other birds above the creaks and groans of the ship and noise of the crew.

Thank Maneki Neko,
she thought as she slowly stretched.
 
They were near the island of Tsuitori.
 
She would be glad to be on land again.
 
A ship was no place for a cat.

She got up, not bothering to change her clothes.
 
She had not vomited on herself, and she thanked the goddess that she had kept clean enough to not have to bathe again.
 
She unlatched the door and peered out of her room.

Kasumi didn’t need to look to know that the crewmen busied themselves preparing to make port.
 
There was a small port on the western part of the island, not far from where Takeshi Ikumi lived.
 
Kasumi hoped Ikumi would be able to help her.

But there would be the charade.
 
She would have to visit the temple, and she would have to put up with Jiro’s mocking behavior.
 
She sighed and left the cabin.
 
She hoped she could get help before the demon attacked her.