Young Samurai: The Ring of Sky (28 page)

The five men had travel-worn appearances,
their kimono slightly threadbare and their faces unshaven. They each held weapons that
were chipped and stained with the dried blood of old battles. No
kamon
or other
insignia were visible on their clothes. The gang were all
ronin
, masterless
samurai.

Jack and his friends had no way to avoid the
ronins
’ blockade. The tea house sat upon the lip of the plateau which
rapidly dropped away down a rocky slope. The other side of the road met a steep bank of
forest. The only route they could take was
through
the line of samurai and they
weren’t shifting.

‘We’ve been waiting for you,
Benkei,’ said the apparent leader, a warrior with bulging arms like knotted ropes
and a chest as solid as a battering ram.

‘Me?’ said Benkei, alarmed.

‘Is there something you haven’t
told us, Benkei?’ asked Akiko, her hands subtly reaching for her bow.

‘I’ve never seen these men in my
life!’ he protested.

Saburo raised a questioning eyebrow at him.
‘But he knows your name.’

‘So do a lot of people.’

‘Could you have tricked them at some
point?’ asked Jack, keeping the rim of his hat low over his face.

Benkei took a good look at the five men.
Along with the leader was a thin samurai with a scar down his right cheek; a heavily
bearded warrior with fists like boulders carrying a studded club; and the last two
appeared to be brothers, they shared the same crooked noses and pencil-thin mouths. The
only difference was that one was missing an ear.

‘I … don’t think
so,’ said Benkei, slowly shaking his head. ‘I would’ve remembered men
this ugly.’

‘Well, we know
you
!’
snorted the bearded
ronin
, slapping his club in one meaty hand. ‘And
I’ll make you pay for that insult … in blood.’

Benkei shied away, moving behind Jack for
protection.

‘And I think we’ve found the
gaijin
samurai too!’ exclaimed one of the brothers, pointing at Jack.
‘Look, his
daishō
have red handles.’

Jack now glanced up, his identity
discovered.

‘It
is
the
gaijin
samurai!’ confirmed the other brother, rubbing his hands together in delight.
‘We’re going to be very rich indeed.’

‘But I thought there were only
supposed to be two of them. Not six,’ said the thin samurai, the scar on his cheek
wrinkling like a snake as he spoke.

‘No matter,’ replied the leader,
launching a gob of spit at the ground. ‘They’re just
young
samurai.’

He drew his sword, a mighty
nodachi
, the blade twice the length of a usual
katana
, and advanced on
them. The other
ronin
took up battle formation on either flank. Jack and his
friends seized their weapons as the samurai rushed towards
them. With
effortless calm, Akiko selected an arrow, nocked it on her bow and took aim. In the
blink of an eye, she let it loose towards the brother with the missing ear. The arrow
struck him in the shoulder with such force he was thrown backwards into the tea house
and pinned to the wall. Howling in pain, he struggled to free himself.

Enraged by the attack on his brother, the
other sibling charged at Akiko before she could fire off another arrow. He swung his
katana
to cut her down from her horse, but Saburo blocked the attack with
his sword. Then he roundhouse-kicked the man in the stomach and sent him staggering
backwards. Yori was waiting for him and thrust his staff between the brother’s
legs. He rolled once before disappearing over the edge of the plateau. A rattle of rock
and scree receded into the distance as he tumbled head over heels down the slope.

At the same time, the bearded warrior
attacked Benkei. He wielded his club in lethal arcs, forcing Benkei to dive out of the
way. Jack leapt to his defence, using his
katana
and
wakizashi
to
drive the
ronin
towards Miyuki. Like a cat, she pounced on the bearded
ronin
’s back and buried her hairpin into a nerve point on his neck.
The man’s eyes rolled in his head and he collapsed like a felled tree, unconscious
before he even hit the ground.

Taken aback by the ease with which the young
samurai had dispatched three of his men, the leader of the gang now went for Jack, his
nodachi
raised high to slice him in half. Akiko fired off a second arrow.
The steel tip buried itself in the man’s chest. But the leader was strong as an
ox. He merely grunted and tore the arrowhead out before swinging his massive sword again
at Jack’s head. Jack deflected it with his
wakizashi
then
retaliated with a cross-cut. The tip of his
katana
missed
the man’s neck by a fraction. The lethal length of the
nodachi
meant Jack
couldn’t get close enough to inflict a damaging blow.

But Miyuki could. She threw a
shuriken
. It embedded itself in the man’s right bicep and he howled
in pain. The distraction allowed Jack to disarm the leader with a double Autumn Leaf
strike and the
nodachi
clattered to the ground. The leader roared in fury and
charged headlong at Jack. Akiko tugged on the reins of Snowball and the horse turned and
kicked out with its hind legs. The hooves caught the leader in the chest and sent him
flying over the lip of the plateau to join the other
ronin
.

Only the scarred samurai was left. He made a
last-ditch effort to kill the
gaijin
samurai. But his sword skills were no
match for Jack’s. With a simple Flint-and-Spark strike, Jack knocked the
samurai’s blade aside and cut up at the man’s face. The steel tip of the
katana
sliced across his left cheek to leave a thin red line of blood.

‘Now you have a matching scar,’
said Jack. Standing in a Two Heavens stance, one sword held high, the other low, he gave
his opponent the opportunity to reconsider his chances of survival.

Outskilled and outnumbered, the samurai
dropped his sword, turned tail and fled down the road. He was running so fast, he left a
dust trail in his wake.

‘We need to get moving before he tells
everyone
in Shimabara about you,’ said Akiko, securing her bow back
on the saddlebag.

Jack nodded in agreement and sheathed his
swords to leave.
But Miyuki picked up a rock and flung it after the
fleeing samurai. The rock sailed through the air and struck the man in the back of the
head. He took one more faltering step, then collapsed face first in the dirt.

‘That should give us a little more
time,’ said Miyuki, arching an eyebrow at Akiko.

Akiko nodded a stiff acknowledgement, while
the others stared at her, astounded by the accuracy of her long shot.

‘How did you do that?’ said
Saburo.

‘I’m a ninja,’ stated
Miyuki, her tone matter-of-fact.

Then Yori cried in alarm,
‘Where’s Benkei?’

Jack and the others looked around, but he
was nowhere to be seen – not on the road, not beside the tea house or even down the
slope. Then Benkei’s head popped out from behind a tree. ‘Is it safe to come
out yet?’

Jack smiled and nodded.

‘Well, you’re a brave
one!’ mocked Saburo.

‘I didn’t want to get in the
way,’ replied Benkei, unashamed by his obvious self-preservation. ‘Besides,
when you all fight so well together, you don’t need Benkei the Great spoiling your
flow.’

‘What I want to know is how they
recognized you and me in the first place,’ said Jack.

‘Why don’t we ask the
ronin
?’ suggested Akiko, pointing to the brother still pinned to the
tea house.

‘Release me … please!’
the man whimpered, feebly tugging at the arrow shaft.

‘As soon as you tell us why you were
lying in wait for Benkei and Jack,’ demanded Miyuki.

‘A samurai … hired
us,’ he gasped. ‘Told us … to look for
someone
in a multicoloured kimono … and a warrior in a straw hat with red-handled
swords …’

‘What did this samurai look
like?’ asked Jack, already fearing the answer.

‘Black armour … a golden
helmet … the crest of a red sun …’

‘Kazuki!’ spat Saburo in
disgust.

‘I bet you he’s recruited
ronin
all the way to Nagasaki,’ cursed Miyuki.

‘That means
no place
is
safe,’ said Yori as they all turned to depart.

‘Wait … the
arrow …’ groaned the
ronin
, clutching at his wounded shoulder.
‘Take it out … you promised.’

‘Of course!’ said Akiko. She
ripped the shaft out of the man’s shoulder with a single sharp tug. The
ronin
gave a startled scream as the barbed arrowhead tore his flesh.

‘I need it back anyway,’ she
remarked as the man passed out in shock.

45
 
 

Ascending the foothills of Unzen-dake, Jack
and his friends left the tea house behind and continued west. Pine trees clung to the
slopes in an evergreen blanket that rapidly unravelled near the summit to expose a
barren cone of rock. Clouds of sulphurous steam swirled around the craggy peak and Jack
was glad to be skirting the volcano on this occasion rather than going over it. The
thunderous mountain was like a permanent shadow in the sky and he was anxious to put as
much distance between it and them as possible.

As they travelled further from the coast,
the mountain air became cooler and less humid. So even when the road gave way to a
rutted track, they continued to make good progress. With everyone keenly aware that
Kazuki might have hired an army of
ronin
, they kept up their vigilance. Benkei
guided from the front with Akiko on horseback as first lookout, Yori walked beside Jack,
and Miyuki and Saburo took up the rear. But they encountered few other travellers along
the route.

‘What will be the first thing you do
when you return to England?’ asked Yori, almost taking two steps for every one of
Jack’s.

‘Find my sister,’ replied
Jack.

‘Of course, but what then?’

A smile curled Jack’s lips as almost
forgotten memories of home crowded his heart. ‘I’ll eat beef pie dripping in
gravy … Drink fresh cows’ milk … Listen to the bells of St
Paul’s Cathedral … Walk across London Bridge … Explore
Cheap-side market …’ His smile faded as a mournful look entered his eyes.
‘I’ll pay my respects at my mother’s grave … maybe bury my
father’s memory there too.’ He sighed heavily at the thought. ‘Then
I’ll go home to Limehouse with Jess, if we still have one after all this
time.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ said
Yori, who began to chew his lower lip as if he might cry.
‘Jack … I’ll miss you when you’re gone,’ he
admitted.

Jack turned to his friend, surprised by such
a personal expression of feelings.

‘You always stood by me at the
Niten Ichi Ryū
,’ Yori continued. ‘Believed in me, when no one
else did.’

‘Sensei Yamada believed in you,’
Jack reminded him.

‘Yes, but he was my teacher.
You’re my friend. And I only realized how great a friend you are to me, when you
were gone … when we thought you’d drowned. I know you have to
leave … but I don’t want you to.’

‘You could always come with me,’
said Jack, half serious.

‘Really?’ said Yori, the idea
cheering him up no end.

‘That’s if you could stand two
years at sea cramped into a dirty cabin with only a lice-ridden hammock to sleep
on!’

‘Two years?’ replied Yori, the
prospect not seeming to dampen his enthusiasm. ‘That’s a good deal of time
for meditation.’

Jack laughed. In every cloud Yori somehow
managed to find the silver lining.

The track emerged from the forest and cut
across an upland plain. The plateau and its lower slopes were divided into a jumble of
terraced paddy fields. A small village, no more than a cluster of flimsy straw
buildings, sat amid the dried-out beds.

As they drew near, Jack and the others could
hear the sounds of weeping.

Entering the village, they passed thatched
farm huts in various states of collapse. A wooden handcart with a broken wheel was
propped up against a ramshackle barn. A few scrawny chickens ran loose in the road. The
place was clearly impoverished – and virtually deserted. There were signs of a struggle:
several doors kicked in; a broken hoe; the remains of a fire, the ruin still smoking.
And a large patch of blood-caked earth drying in the sun.

An old man in a ragged kimono was crumpled
in a heap beside the entrance to a dilapidated house. Bony fingers covered his face as
he sobbed loudly. At their approach, he glanced up fearfully, his half-starved body
trembling all over. His face was worn with time and tears, his eyes bloodshot and sunken
with grief.

Yori knelt beside him and asked,
‘What’s happened?’

Recognizing the robes of a monk, the old man
calmed a little. He swallowed, seeming to find it hard to speak, then spat out a name as
if it was poison. ‘Matsukura! The
daimyo
of Shimabara.’