Young Samurai: The Ring of Sky (36 page)

‘Completing your journey would be the
best revenge,’ Yori replied calmly. ‘Honour her sacrifice not through hate
and killing, but through triumph and mercy. Remember, the Way of a Warrior is not to
destroy and kill, but to foster life. To protect it.’

Jack was struck by Yori’s words. They
were exactly the same as Sensei Yamada’s three years before, when his Zen master
had spoken with him about his desire for revenge against Dragon Eye. ‘But why
should
Kazuki survive? If I’d been the one to die, Miyuki
wouldn’t hesitate to end his life. I owe it to her.’

‘Then you must decide whether
you’re a samurai or a ninja, Jack.’

Yori turned his gaze upon Kazuki. ‘But
think on this: a far greater punishment than a quick death would be a long life lived in
the knowledge that his efforts were all in vain. That he’d
failed
in his
duty as a samurai to the Shogun. The loss of face would be unbearable.’

Kazuki scowled at Yori, the truth of his
words cutting deeper than any sword.

Jack pressed his
katana
against
Kazuki’s throat, drawing a thin line of blood. It would be so easy to end this
feud. But would he be any better than his rival if he killed out of revenge? Sensei
Yamada’s counsel came once more to his mind:
Rectitude, your ability to judge
what is wrong and what is right, is the keystone to being samurai.

Kazuki glared up at Jack, daring him to push
harder.

With immense willpower, Jack withdrew his
blade. He of all people knew that revenge didn’t heal the wounds of the heart. The
death of Dragon Eye had brought him little comfort; he still deeply missed his father
and no day passed when he didn’t think of Yamato. So why would executing Kazuki be
any different? Whether his rival was dead or alive, the loss of Miyuki would haunt Jack
forever.

But, by showing compassion at least, he
could hold his head high and know his rival suffered too.

He pulled out his
wakizashi
with a
sharp jerk. Kazuki collapsed to his knees, clutching his wounded side, blood seeping
through his clasped fingers.

‘I despise
you … 
gaijin
,’ he spluttered, pure malevolence in his
eyes.

‘And I … forgive you,’
replied Jack, the words hard to say, but even harder for Kazuki to accept.

The bitter shame of defeat and Jack’s
unexpected mercy crushed him. In a last-ditch attempt to save face, he turned his secret
blade upon himself. But Jack stamped on the steel, snapping it from its fixings, and
kicked the blade away into the bushes.

Curling up in a ball, Kazuki sobbed in
frustration, ‘You won’t even let me die an
honourable
death! Curse
you,
gaijin
!’

From inside the inn, Goro spotted Kazuki at
Jack’s feet, bowed and defeated. Immediately he broke off his fight with Saburo
and bolted out of the inn’s entrance. Akiko stood over the pinned Hiroto, his
katana
clasped in her hand.

‘Please … don’t kill
me,’ he pleaded.

Bending down, Akiko pulled the knife from
his shoulder
and, with a kick to his rear end, sent him on his way. He
blundered after Goro.

‘When the tree falls, the monkeys
scatter,’ observed Yori with a wry smile.

Saburo and Akiko joined them beneath the
cypress tree. Although Akiko looked pale, their victory had given her renewed strength
and she strode over without help from Saburo.

‘You arrived in the nick of time,
Saburo,’ said Jack.

‘But we saw you die,’ said Yori,
overjoyed to find his friend safe.

‘Then I must be a ghost,’ he
teased, wringing the water from his kimono sleeves.

‘So how did you survive?’ asked
Akiko.

‘As we rolled down the bank, I managed
to twist the
tantō
round. The
ronin
impaled himself on his own knife.
I knew the other samurai would slaughter me if I surfaced, so I used the ninja method of
breathing through a reed, just like Miyuki had once shown me …’

He trailed off, keenly aware of her absence,
and a deep grief consumed the five surviving friends.

After a moment’s silence, Akiko asked,
‘But how did you both find us?’

Saburo managed a smile. ‘I spotted
Benkei hanging from the tree!’

‘And it was a good thing that I
dropped
in too,’ jested Benkei, popping his head out from behind a
bush. ‘Without me, you’d be dead by now.’

‘True,’ said Jack, glancing at
the unconscious Nobu. ‘And you hit the bullseye!’

He turned back to Kazuki, crumpled on the
ground, then looked at Akiko. ‘What about Kazuki’s vendetta against
you?’

Akiko shook her head, untroubled.
‘With all his gang abandoning him, he’s a scorpion without a
sting.’

A low, weak chuckle bubbled from
Kazuki’s lips.

‘What’s so funny?’
demanded Jack.

‘
Your
efforts – not mine –
are all in vain!’ he said, giving Jack a hard cold stare. ‘The
Shogun’s samurai are on their way.’

59
 
 

Four samurai in gold-and-black armour stood
over Miyuki’s lifeless body. A trail of corpses led from the alleyway to where
she’d fallen in battle in the middle of the street. Jack and his surviving friends
hid within the entrance to the inn.

‘We should have gone back to save
her,’ said Jack, his vision blurring with tears.

‘How could we?’ said Saburo.
‘We were all fighting for our lives.’

‘And we wouldn’t be here
now,’ Akiko reminded him, ‘if Miyuki hadn’t been so brave.’

‘The blossom may fall, but the tree
survives,’ said Yori, planting his staff between them.

Following Yori’s gesture, Jack, Akiko,
Saburo and Benkei gripped the
shakujō
as one and bowed their heads in silent
prayer.

The sound of horses’ hooves made them
look up.

‘We’d better go,’ said
Akiko as more of the Shogun’s samurai arrived at the burnt-out bridge.

With one last grieving look in
Miyuki’s direction, Jack followed his friends through the inn and across the
garden. As
they headed for the back gate, he spotted a
gardener’s straw sunhat and grabbed it.

‘You can run, but you can’t
hide,
gaijin
,’ wheezed Kazuki, a malicious glint in his eyes.

‘Save your breath for living,’
replied Jack and closed the gate on his rival, who they’d left bound to the
cypress tree along with the dazed Nobu.

Keeping low, they evaded any patrolling
ronin
and escaped the death-trap village. Once they were a safe distance,
Akiko whistled twice and Snowball galloped from the fields to reunite with them. Much to
Jack’s relief, his pack and its precious contents were still tied to the
saddle.

Exhausted, injured and bleeding, they
embarked on their final dash for Nagasaki, praying they could reach the port before the
Shogun’s samurai caught up with them.

‘How much further?’ asked Jack,
breathing hard as they raced along the dirt road.

‘If I’m right, the main road
from Fukuoka should be over that next hill,’ Benkei panted, hobbling slightly from
the arrow wound to his rear. ‘And then it’s no more than five
ri
.’

Jack rammed the straw hat on to his head; it
was proving too small for him and threatened to fall off. He grimaced as he lowered his
sword arm. His injuries from the duel were mercifully only flesh wounds, but still
painfully raw and seeping blood.

Yori limped alongside him, aided by his
staff. He winced with every step of his blistered feet, but made no complaint. Akiko,
the most gravely injured among them, trotted behind on the back of Snowball. Saburo
followed last, keeping a lookout for any sign of their pursuers. Since leaving the inn,
they’d
paused only to apply a fresh bandage to Akiko’s
shoulder, eat the last of their supplies and drink from a stream. Ragged and battleworn,
they looked like refugees of war. And, as they passed farmers in the fields and other
travellers on the road, they were greeted by barely suppressed gasps of astonishment and
given a wide berth.

But being noticed was the least of their
concerns now. They simply needed to make a run for it.

Joining the main road to Nagasaki, they
encountered more foot traffic as the route wound through the last knot of hills and
valleys towards the coast. Akiko led the way. Her samurai status and the fact she was on
horseback cleared a path through the stream of farmers, pilgrims and merchants headed
for the port. On either side of the road, tea houses sprang up at each milestone and
small food stalls offered welcome refreshments to the weary travellers. With the blazing
sun giving no respite from its glare, the establishments were doing a roaring trade.

But Jack and his friends didn’t dare
stop to eat or rest again. Hounded by the unseen force of samurai, they pressed on.

As they crested a rise, the view opened out
into a long, narrow bay. The large natural harbour was bounded on either shore by a
ruckle of steep green hills and the late afternoon sun shimmered like silver across its
still waters. A busy port filled the flatlands of the bay before fanning out into the
tucks and crevices of the surrounding hills.

‘Nagasaki!’ exclaimed Jack,
unable to believe they’d actually made it.

Protected from storm and wave, the bay was a
haven for ships of all kinds – large and small, fishing and merchant, ocean
and coastal, Japanese and Chinese and … European. There
were so many different boats nestled in the harbour that Jack thought an armada had
arrived. Only a few were ocean-going galleons, but one of them
had
to be
English.

His pace became urgent. But Akiko pulled on
her reins and brought Snowball to a sudden halt.

‘There’s a checkpoint
ahead,’ she said.

At the end of the road, a wooden-gated
entrance marked the port’s boundary. A unit of guards was meticulously checking
permits.

‘How will we get past
them
?’ said Yori.

Jack looked towards the surrounding
hillsides, but any such approach would easily be spotted by a sharp-eyed guard, and then
there was the high boundary wall to negotiate. Their only other alternative was to wait
until nightfall, but the Shogun’s samurai were bound to reach Nagasaki and find
them before dusk came.

‘Why don’t we carry Jack through
in style?’ Benkei suggested, pointing to a palanquin parked outside the last tea
house.

The enclosed wooden seat, mounted on two
poles for carrying, was fancy and ostentatious. Decorated with black lacquered wood and
gilded with flowers and birds, the palanquin clearly belonged to an aristocrat of some
importance. Inside were soft plush cushions, but the seat was empty, its owner dining
within the tea house. The four bearers were fast asleep under a tree, exhausted from the
heat of the day and their exertions. Despite wearing just loincloths, their bronzed
bodies still glistened with sweat.

‘Palanquins are for high officials
only,’ reminded Akiko.

‘Exactly,’ Benkei replied with a
grin. ‘And they
don’t
need travel permits.’

Jack and his friends immediately grasped
Benkei’s plan.

‘We can’t
steal
from a
high official,’ exclaimed Yori.

‘Technically, it’s not
stealing,’ Benkei assured with a wink. ‘Just borrowing.’

‘But how are we going to carry it? We
won’t pass as bearers,’ said Saburo.

‘Perhaps we can help?’ said a
familiar voice.

Jack and the others spun to discover the old
farmer Takumi standing unexpectedly behind them. He was accompanied by four younger men
from the Christian village they’d saved.

‘What are
you
doing
here?’ exclaimed Jack.

Takumi bowed. ‘We prayed as you asked
and the Lord spoke to us. He told us to follow.’

‘A god who foresees need is a powerful
one indeed,’ remarked Yori.

‘Our prayers were answered when you
came to our rescue.’ Takumi smiled. ‘True faith can move
mountains.’

‘Well, can it move a palanquin?’
said Benkei, hurriedly beckoning them over to the tea house.

With no time to waste, Jack clambered inside
the palanquin and slid the ornate door shut. The four farmers, having stripped to their
waists, lifted the seat by its poles and hurried down the road before any of the
official bearers awoke. Once again Akiko took the lead, her samurai armour and horse
adding status to the ragtag entourage. Yori, Saburo, Benkei and Takumi brought up the
rear as loyal followers.

Hidden inside the swaying palanquin, Jack
peeked through
a gap in the door. They were approaching the gate.
Everything now relied upon the impression of high status.

A guard held up his hand. The farmers slowed
to a stop.

‘What happened? Where’s the rest
of your escort?’ the guard demanded, peering suspiciously at the palanquin.

‘We were attacked by bandits,’
Akiko explained, indicating her wounded shoulder. ‘Many lost their lives, but
thankfully our master is safe.’