Young Samurai: The Ring of Wind (9 page)

‘Isn’t it dangerous to sail at night?’

‘No … not if you know the waters,’ replied Jack, regaining his composure. ‘Of course, there’s always a risk. But I suppose the captain’s trying to avoid pirates.’

‘Possibly, or …’ Miyuki lowered her voice, glancing round to check none of the crew was nearby, ‘… because he’s an illegal trader.’

‘What makes you say that?’ asked Jack.

‘In the hold, hidden beneath the crates of pottery, I discovered bundles of the finest silk cloth. He must be trying to avoid paying port taxes. And
that
might cause us problems.’

Jack considered this. ‘Why? Isn’t the fact that he’s avoiding the authorities good for us?’

‘Perhaps,’ Miyuki conceded. ‘On the other hand, his criminal activities could attract the sort of interest we don’t want.’

Jack nodded in agreement. ‘Let’s discuss this with the others in the morning –’

All of a sudden, there was a shriek. One of the crew was pointing port side with a trembling hand.

‘
Fuma!
’ he cried, his face drawn back in horror. ‘
Wind Demons!
’

Close-Hauled

Out of the darkness materialized a white sail upon which a huge black spider had been painted. The ship, twice their size and with a second foresail for speed, was cutting through the waves towards them. The crew began to panic, cowering beneath the cargo in a futile attempt to hide. As the apparition bore down on their boat, the captain stood rooted to the deck, gawping with a combination of fear and disbelief.

Jack grabbed the nearest crewmember. ‘What are Wind Demons?’

‘N-n-ninja pirates,’ spluttered the man, his face pale as a ghost’s in the moonlight. ‘Wind Demons capture and eat their victims alive!’

Ignoring the man’s ravings, Jack turned back to Miyuki. ‘If they’re ninja, we’ve nothing to worry about. We just need to show them the Dragon Seal.’

Jack formed the secret hand sign the Grandmaster had taught him, the one that ensured a bond of friendship between any true ninja.

Miyuki gravely shook her head. ‘Not with the
Fuma
clan. They’re more pirate than ninja.’ She stared darkly at the approaching vessel. ‘After the samurai, the
Fuma
are a ninja’s worst enemy.’

The pirate ship was gaining on them fast. If the captain didn’t take evasive action soon, they would be rammed and boarded.

‘What are we going to do?’ asked Yori, joining them at the guardrail with a sickly Saburo.

‘We have to outrun them,’ replied Jack.

‘In this piece of junk?’ groaned Saburo. ‘We haven’t got a chance!’

‘Handled right, she’ll go faster than the wind,’ said Jack.
If her battered hull and wrecked rigging can hold out long enough
, he thought. But he didn’t admit this to his friends. ‘The three of you start throwing crates and the bamboo overboard. We need to lighten the load.’

‘NO!’ cried the captain. ‘Those are my goods.’

‘They’ll be no good to you if you’re dead,’ Jack shouted back, before darting up to the stern’s deck and wrestling the tiller from the inept captain.

‘This is
my
ship!’ he protested, shocked by the apparent mutiny.

‘Then let me save it for you,’ replied Jack, revealing his face to the captain for the first time.

‘Y-y-you’re a
gaijin
!’

‘I’m also a sailor and a pilot,’ said Jack, leaning hard on the tiller and steering the
Golden Tiger
on a westerly course.

‘What are you doing?’ cried the captain in alarm. ‘We should be running before the wind, not heading into it!’

‘The Wind Demons have two sails,’ stated Jack. ‘They’d catch up with us in no time. Our only hope is to outsail them. We need to be close-hauled. Now get your men to trim the mainsail.’

The captain looked thoroughly unconvinced by Jack’s plan of action. Nonetheless, still in shock at his foreign appearance and with the pirate ship surging towards them, he ordered his crew to pull in the sheets. The canvas stopped flapping, no longer spilling precious wind power, and the
Golden Tiger
immediately picked up speed.

Jack realized he was taking a great risk. Close-hauled was the most challenging point of sail and the hardest in which to get the best out of a boat, especially one as battered as the
Golden Tiger
. The difficulty lay in how close to the wind he could get. Jack had to aim the
Golden Tiger
’s bow as high as possible, while maintaining the fastest attainable speed. He’d be sailing on a knife’s edge. The brisk breeze meant a sudden gust could capsize them at any moment. If he steered too much into the wind, the
Golden Tiger
would enter the no-go zone and stop dead in the water. If he angled further away from the wind, the boat would increase speed but have to cover a lot more ground – and this would allow the faster pirate ship to gain on them.

Jack’s sole hope relied upon their enemy being less manoeuvrable and unable to take such an acute angle to the wind. This would force the ninja pirates to tack more often, slowing their progress every time they had to beat a new course.

Miyuki, Yori and Saburo continued to dump cargo into the sea. Whimpers of pain and loss sounded from the captain with each crate thrown overboard. But the
Golden Tiger
benefited from the reduction in weight and began to fly through the water.

‘They’re still going to hit us!’ wailed one of the crew.

Jack glanced back. The fearsome pirate ship, its black spider sail seeming to swallow the stars behind, crested a wave like a breaching whale. Its exposed hull revealed timbers reinforced for ramming. As its bow came crashing back to the sea, plumes of white spray spurted into the air.

‘Change tack!’ insisted the captain to Jack. ‘They’re headed straight for our port side.’

‘No,’ replied Jack, steadfastly keeping his bearing. The
Golden Tiger
was virtually nose to the wind, the telltale feathering of the canvas warning Jack of just how close they were to disaster.

‘
CHANGE COURSE!
’ screamed the captain, throwing his arms over his head and bracing himself for the impact.

The pirate ship drove towards their port quarter … and missed. It sailed past like a great black ghost, its menacing crew glaring over the side at their escaping quarry.

Unable to sail Jack’s line, the pirate ship was forced to tack several more times in order to make another run at them.

‘Pin that sail in tight!’ Jack shouted to the crew, seeing the canvas begin to flap again. Waves lapped over the leeside gunwale as he fought to keep the boat on its extreme bearing. The wind whipped past, sending chill sea spray into Jack’s face. The
Golden Tiger
groaned under the strain, its rigging threatening to snap.

‘She won’t take much more of this,’ warned the captain.

‘We don’t have any other choice,’ replied Jack, gritting his teeth as he held firm to the tiller.

The
Golden Tiger
was now maintaining its lead, but wasn’t pulling away. Jack needed to get even more from the boat.
But at what cost?
This single square-sailed rig wasn’t built for such demanding sailing.

Miyuki clambered over the heeling deck to join Jack at the stern. ‘That’s every bit of loose cargo we can shift.’

Jack considered their options. The pirate ship was relentlessly pursuing them, picking up speed for a second collision course. He
had
to squeeze another knot of speed from the
Golden Tiger
.

‘Get everyone aft and on the windward side,’ ordered Jack.

Miyuki ran off to collect Yori, Saburo and the crew. They gathered on the stern deck beside the port quarter.

‘Now sit on the guardrail and lean out,’ instructed Jack.

‘Are you crazy?’ said Saburo, glancing fearfully with Yori at the rushing sea beneath them.

‘We need to counterbalance the wind and keep an even keel,’ explained Jack. ‘The heeling of the ship is slowing us down.’

Without needing to be told twice, Miyuki jumped on the rail and, grabbing hold of a rope, hung herself over the side. The four crew slipped their feet through the gaps in the bamboo latticework and leant back as far as they could. With great reluctance, Saburo took hold of two ropes and did the same. Drawing in a deep breath, Yori perched on the guardrail and, closing his eyes, suspended himself above the open sea.

‘And you, Captain!’ ordered Jack.

As everyone threw their weight to port, little by little the
Golden Tiger
righted itself.

‘Please tell me, we’re going faster?’ Yori begged, unwilling to open his eyes.

‘Yes! Yes! We’re losing the Wind Demons!’ shouted a crewmember in delight.

Gradually, the distance between the
Golden Tiger
and the pirate ship began to increase. Jack reckoned if they could maintain their speed, the black spider sail would be no more than a dot on the horizon by dawn.

Jumping on deck, the captain slapped Jack on the back. ‘Fine sailing,
gaijin
! Get us to Hiroshima in one piece and I’ll forget about the cargo you ditched … and the fact that you’re a foreigner.’

Jack’s gamble had paid off. The crew smiled with relief at their narrow escape and gazed in wonder at the
gaijin
sailor who’d saved them.

Suddenly a rigging line snapped, the sail slackened and the
Golden Tiger
lost speed. Behind, the Wind Demons closed in again for the kill.

Sea Dragon

‘Head for that island,’ said the captain urgently, pointing to a dark outline off their starboard bow. ‘There’s a sea cave on the far side of the bluff. I’ve used it once before to hide from these cursed
wako
.’

Jack adjusted course. If they could make it round the headland, they might have a chance. The darkness of night would help conceal their movements and, with any luck, the pirate ship would pass them by.

‘The Wind Demons are catching up,’ warned Miyuki.

‘I know,’ said Jack as he continued to spill wind from the sail. But he daren’t risk putting any more pressure on the damaged rigging.

The
Golden Tiger
limped on towards the fortress of rock that thrust up from the sea, its peak capped by a mantle of windswept trees. The shoreline was craggy and treacherous, and Jack had to precisely follow the captain’s instruction to avoid running into submerged rocks – even more so, when a cloud slipped across the moon, muting its pale light.

The pirate ship disappeared from view as they rounded the bluff.

‘There’s the cave!’ said the captain, pointing to a black crevice at the base of a huge cliff. It was hard to make out in the gloom, but that made it an ideal refuge.

Wind bleeding from the sail, Jack allowed the
Golden Tiger
to drift towards the opening. Their progress seemed excruciatingly slow. At any moment the pirate ship would clear the headland and the
Golden Tiger
would be in plain sight.

They all silently willed the boat to go faster.

‘We’re almost there,’ breathed Yori, his knuckles having gone white from gripping the guardrail so hard.

Jack stared dead ahead, his focus entirely upon the cave entrance. He wiped a forearm across his eyes.
Was that a glimmer of movement inside?

Suddenly a ball of flame burst forth, followed by an almighty roar. In the blinding flash, Jack and the others confronted a terrifying vision – a ferocious dragon with an armoured spine of spikes, a devil-horned head and razor teeth like scythes spat fire at them. A split second later, the
Golden Tiger
’s mast exploded.

‘
Sea dragon!
’ screamed one of the crew, his eyes wide as the moon with sheer horror.

Unable to believe his eyes, Jack yanked hard on the tiller, desperately attempting to alter their course. The
Golden Tiger
veered away and was blessed with enough momentum to head back into open water. But there was little hope of escape. The mainsail was ablaze with hellfire and the
Golden Tiger
was crippled.

‘Cut the rigging!’ ordered Jack, relinquishing the tiller to the captain. ‘The whole ship will go up in flames.’