Young Samurai: The Way of Fire (short story) (4 page)

The little insect was snuffed out in an instant.

A Final Test

‘This is a matter of faith and entrusting your body to the fire,’ explained Sensei Yamada, having completed the prescribed rituals.

The Zen master had sprinkled the ground with salt to consecrate the clearing. He’d then parted the bonfire with a long stick to create a flattened, flaming walkway. Finally he had blessed Jack, wafting the curling smoke around him and rubbing it into Jack’s body.

Sensei Yamada gave a nod of his head to indicate all was ready and the students began to chant the Heart Sutra. Jack turned to face the final challenge.

He was still several paces away, but a scalding sheen of sweat prickled on his skin. His heart thumped within his chest, his mouth was dry with fear. The candle test may have proved the act of meditation could overcome physical heat, but
this
was no candle. It was a huge flaming pyre. He was going to be roasted alive.

Taking a deep breath, he choked on the smoky air. Desperately he tried to calm his mind, emptying it of all thoughts. Sensei Yamada waited patiently at the other end of the flaming path. Jack focused his eyes on the old monk’s wrinkled face.

He stepped closer, passing through a patch of salt to purify his feet before entering the fire. The circling words of the students’ mantra thrummed in his ears, while the crackle and pop of wood receded into the background.

Jack kept walking, his body cloaked in a swirl of flames, his eyes never leaving his sensei’s face. He had no idea how far he’d gone as time seemed to melt away to nothing.

Suddenly Jack stumbled on a branch. He caught himself, but lost eye contact with Sensei Yamada. His concentration broken, Jack glanced down at his bare feet. The coals upon which he stood glowed a fierce red. He could now feel the blistering heat pressing all around him. His throat dried to dust and his lungs burned as he gasped in the scorching air. He thought he could smell the flesh searing on the soles of his feet, a sharp brilliant pain intensifying …

‘JACK-KUN!’ shouted Sensei Yamada above the roaring blaze.

Jack looked up, locking eyes with his sensei. He could feel the panic rising in his chest like a ball of flame. The smell of smouldering hair filled his nostrils. He was going to burn to death.

‘Focus on where you want to go, not on what you fear.’

His teacher’s gaze was so intense that Jack felt his mind being drawn back to its meditative state. Jack fought his fear and grappled for control of his senses. With the help of Sensei Yamada, his mind quickly emptied of sensation and the fire lost its ferocity. Jack then resumed his steady pace through the furnace, the flames fanning him but not singeing his skin.

Exiting the blaze, Jack felt his feet come to rest upon a cool green mat of wet cedar branches. He breathed an immense sigh of relief.

He had walked the Way of Fire.

‘Slow down!’ pleaded Saburo, who hobbled several paces behind Jack, Akiko and Yamato as the class wound its way through the moonlit cemetery back to their
shukubo
.

Like true samurai, everyone had attempted the Way of Fire, but not all had made it unscathed. A few were suffering bad blisters on the soles of their feet.

‘That’ll teach you to forget your meditation exercises!’ replied Yamato, shaking his head.

‘I’m just glad it’s the end of the
gasshuku
,’ Saburo groaned, grimacing with each painful step.

‘I don’t think it’s over yet,’ Emi interrupted, glancing back over her shoulder. ‘There’s still tomorrow and I heard the sensei talking about one more final test.’

‘But surely the Way of Fire was more than enough to prove our courage as samurai?’ said Jack.

Akiko suddenly stopped in her tracks. ‘Quiet! Something’s not right,’ she whispered, her eyes darting around the shadowy forest.

The students came to a halt. They could feel it too. There was an unsettling stillness to the trees. Not quite a calmness, more a deadness. The misty track they followed suddenly seemed haunted with the spirits of a thousand dead samurai.

‘We
are
in a graveyard,’ said Saburo, staggering on. ‘No wonder it feels creepy.’

‘We should go back to Sensei Yamada,’ said Akiko, a note of urgency in her voice.

‘But why? I can hardly walk,’ complained Saburo.

‘
That’s
why,’ said Akiko, pointing into the darkness.

Ambush

From behind the moss-covered tombs, shadows were rising out of the mist.

The students huddled closer to one another, terrified by the nightmarish apparitions.

Suddenly three ninja, dressed head-to-toe in black hooded
shinobi shozoku
, sprang from the forest. They landed among the students, their weapons drawn.

Jack realized this couldn’t be a random attack. The ninja had been waiting for them, which meant only one thing to Jack: Dragon Eye must have sent these assassins. His nemesis had somehow discovered he’d left Kyoto and the safety of the
Niten Ichi Ryū
. Beyond the protection of his guardian, Masamoto, Jack was an easier target. Now would be the perfect time to attack.

The young samurai scattered. The lead group sprinted off in the direction of the
shukubo
, but their way was blocked by the first ninja. Another group drew their
bokken
to face the second assassin, while the last ninja turned to confront Jack and his friends.

Before they could reach for their swords, the ninja flung out his hand, a long chain whipping out with a heavy weight on the end. It struck Saburo in the gut, knocking him to the ground.

Yamato, his
bokken
now drawn, rushed forward to protect his injured friend. He sliced down at the ninja’s head. The ninja, retracting his
manriki-gusari
with a flick of the wrist, spun its length round Yamato’s wooden blade. Wrenching the sword from his grasp, he pulled Yamato off-balance and side-kicked him in the chest. It happened so fast Jack could only watch as his friend crumpled against a tombstone.

Akiko flung herself in front to defend Yamato, but the ninja ignored her and bore down on Emi instead. The
daimyo
’s daughter threw up her guard as the assassin blasted her with a devastating combination of punches and kicks. She managed to defend herself against the onslaught, retaliating with a desperate roundhouse to the head. But the ninja blocked it, capturing her leg with one hand and sweeping her to the ground.

As Emi rolled away between two gravestones, the ninja wound up his chain for the killing blow. He launched a weighted end at her. Without regard for his own safety, Jack jumped between them and cut down with his
bokken
. The chain wrapped round the blade, causing the lethal weight to stop short of Emi’s heart.

Before the ninja could whip the
bokken
out of his hands, Jack thrust it between the two graves, jamming the weapon into place. Caught off-guard by the move, the assassin struggled to untangle his chain. Jack seized the opportunity and launched a spinning hook kick at the ninja’s head. Disorientated from the blow, the assassin stumbled into the mist-laden undergrowth and disappeared.

‘Let’s go!’ urged Akiko.

She grabbed the winded Saburo and, with Yamato, hauled him up the path towards the safety of the Hall of Lanterns.

‘Thank you,’ Emi gasped, as Jack helped the
daimyo
’s daughter to her feet.

‘Thank me when it’s over,’ said Jack, quickly unwinding the chain from his sword and discarding the heavy
manriki-gusari
into the bushes.

Jack and Emi hurried after their friends.

‘Who are they? What do they want?’ cried Emi, her face pale with shock.

‘I think they’re after –’

But Jack didn’t finish his sentence. The ninja’s
manriki-gusari
shot out of the darkness and wrapped itself round his throat. Letting out a strangled cry, he was yanked off his feet and dragged into the depths of the graveyard.

Akiko, hearing his cry, ran back to save him.

Half choking to death, Jack saw her leap into the air, cartwheeling over his body to land a front kick in the ninja’s chest. The assassin dropped his weapon as he was forced into close combat with Akiko.

Jack pulled the chain from his neck and staggered to his feet.

For a moment Akiko seemed to be overpowering her attacker, then the ninja thrust a spear-hand strike into a nerve-point beneath her shoulder. Akiko’s entire left arm went slack and her eyes widened in panic. With her arm useless, she was unable to defend herself properly.

The ninja wound up to strike. Jack had only seconds to react. Recalling his time on-board ship throwing the mooring lines round dock bollards, he spun the ninja’s chain above his head and released it. The chain sailed through the air, wrapping round the ninja and binding his arms to his side.

With the assassin immobilized, Jack knocked him to the ground and pulled free the
sageo
cord from his
saya
. With a few deft twists of the cord and a self-tightening gunner’s knot, he had the ninja’s wrists bound behind his back.

‘That should hold him,’ said Jack, running over to Akiko who was rubbing her paralysed arm. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. It’s already loosening up.’

With Jack’s attention focused on Akiko, the ninja silently flipped to his feet. Letting out all his breath and relaxing his muscles, he shrugged off the slackened
manriki-gusari
.

‘Watch out!’ Akiko cried.

Jack looked back over his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. He can’t do much harm with his hands tied behind his back.’

The ninja laughed. Jumping into the air, he brought his feet up and back through his arms. He landed neatly, his bound hands now in front. Jack and Akiko exchanged a look of amazement then, realizing the danger they were back in, sprinted away.

‘Hurry!’ shouted Akiko, catching up with the others. ‘He’s right behind us.’

‘Not that way!’ warned Yamato, as another ninja dropped from the trees to block their escape.

This assassin, a
tantō
blade glinting in one hand, headed directly for Jack. Through the slit in the ninja’s hood, Jack could see a single emerald-green eye glaring at him. Jack’s blood ran cold.

It was Dragon Eye.

Dragon Eye

‘Run, young samurai.
Run!
’ hissed Dragon Eye.

No one moved.

‘It’s the
gaijin
I want,’ he said, pointing the knife at Jack.

Emi glanced fearfully at Jack. He realized she thought this was a revenge attack for the time he’d stopped Dragon Eye assassinating her father, the
daimyo
of Kyoto, earlier that year. But Jack knew different. The ninja was here to find out where he’d hidden the precious
rutter
.

Dragon Eye took a step closer.

‘
No!
’ screamed Emi, kicking out to knock the
tantō
from his grasp.

Dragon Eye deftly evaded the attack, slashing her thigh with his knife. She screamed as she dropped to the ground, grasping her bleeding leg.

‘Any other heroes?’ enquired the ninja, placing the tip of his blade under Emi’s chin. ‘It would be a shame to ruin such a pretty face.’