Winter Raven (Path of the Samurai Book 1)

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Winter Raven (Path of the Samurai Book 1) Page 19

by Adam Baker


  He emerged from trees and found himself facing a sheer valley wall. It seemed as if his prey had run straight into a granite cliff like some kind of ghost. He scanned the moonlit rock face then spotted an aperture, a narrow crevice. He cautiously approached and peered inside. It was pitch dark but the steady echo of a water drip told him he was standing at the mouth of a deep cave. Fresh mud prints led into the gloom.

  Tadatoo took a step inside the cave. He pushed a pile of tinder-dry twigs and grass together with his foot while keeping his eye on the dark interior of the recess. He crouched and sparked a flint, fanning glowing embers with his hands. Twigs caught light and he added a couple of branches to the fire. Flames danced high. He held up one of the burning torches in his left hand and gripped the crossbow in his right.

  ‘Might as well come out and face me, bitch,’ he shouted. His voice echoed back at him from the interior of the fissure. ‘Don’t want to die like a cornered rat, do you?’

  He held the torch high and cautiously advanced into darkness.

  Tadasue stood in the moonlit hall and surveyed the treeline.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘There’s something in the bushes over there.’

  They crossed the derelict hall. Raku crouched and examined the undergrowth. He saw a bare foot among bracken. He pulled branches aside and uncovered the body of a bandit. The dead man lay on his back, chest wet from multiple stab wounds.

  ‘There are a couple more bodies over here,’ said Tadasue, peering into the brush.

  ‘These dogs saw a group of travellers sitting round a fire,’ said Raku. ‘Assumed they would be an easy target. A fatal mistake.’

  Tadasue found a break in the treeline. Snapped bamboo and fresh footprints.

  ‘Looks like they left in a hurry.’

  ‘Some of them,’ said Raku. ‘But maybe not all.’

  ‘Shall we go after them, Commander-sama?’

  The commander opened his mouth, intending to say: We had better wait for your brother. Then something was hurled from the shadows. It hit the flagstones and rolled coming to a halt near the campfire.

  They cautiously approached. Tadatoo’s severed head. His jaw was slack and his eyes half-closed. His neck had been cleaved by a clean sword stroke. Breath left Tadasue’s body like he had taken a gut punch.

  ‘Don’t look,’ said Raku. He held Tadasue’s shoulders, turned him around and pushed him away from the spectacle of his brother’s head. They stood back-to-back in the centre of the derelict hall, swords raised.

  ‘My brother,’ said Tadasue, struggling to retain his composure.

  ‘And later we will mourn and bury him. But now we fight.’

  They peered into the treeline, tensed for attack.

  ‘I accept your challenge,’ bellowed the commander. ‘Come on out. Let’s settle this like samurai.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘I am Commander Raku of the Takeda clan, sworn to General Motohide of Etchū. Identify yourself.’

  Silence.

  ‘Coward,’ bellowed Raku.

  ‘We need to build the fire,’ said Tadasue, peering into the shadows of the ruined temple. ‘We need more light.’

  * * *

  They threw more wood on the fire. The flames grew higher. They stood fearfully by the fire and peered into surrounding gloom: the broken stonework and arches, the thickets of bamboo. They put their backs to a crumbled section of wall.

  ‘Maybe we should search the bodies,’ suggested Tadasue, gesturing to the corpses lying sprawled in underbrush. ‘They might have weapons. Things we can use.’

  ‘A waste of time. The bodies will have been stripped.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Common sense,’ said Raku. ‘If I killed a bandit, I’d take their money, their knives. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘We should run for it.’

  Raku shook his head.

  ‘We need to stand and fight.’

  ‘Surprise. That was our advantage,’ said Tadasue. ‘And that advantage is lost. We should get out of this valley as quickly as we can.’

  ‘Flee like women, like children? We would earn his contempt. Give him permission to swat us like flies.’

  ‘And your alternative? My brother was the finest swordsman I knew. Now he’s dead. We can’t win this battle. All we can do is survive. I say we run.’

  Raku hesitated.

  ‘All right. Let’s go.’

  They bolted for the forest path and hurled themselves into the undergrowth. They clawed their way through the brush for a few paces, then the commander grabbed Tadasue’s shoulder and dragged him to a halt. Something hung from a branch up ahead. Raku crept forward and squinted at the moonlit object. Tadatoo’s headless body hoisted by rope. His belly had been slit open and entrails hung down, glistened black and wet. Tadasue took a step forward, intending to cut his brother’s body down.

  ‘Don’t,’ warned the commander.

  A crossbow bolt slammed into a tree beside them. They ran back towards the ruins.

  * * *

  The commander raced across the derelict hall and threw himself down beside the campfire. ‘He won’t let us leave. He’s toying with us,’ he panted.

  Raku looked around and realised he was talking to himself. Tadasue was no longer with him. He lay on the other side of the hall clutching his leg, a bolt buried in his shattered ankle. Raku ran, gripped his wrists and dragged him towards the fire. Tadasue’s leg left a blood-smear across the flagstones. He was blue-lipped with shock.

  ‘Clean through the bone,’ said Raku, inspecting the wound.

  ‘He’s torturing us,’ panted Tadasue. ‘Like a cat tormenting a mouse.’

  ‘I’m going to pull the bolt from your ankle,’ said Raku.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re numb with shock. It might best to remove it now, before feeling returns.’

  Raku unsheathed his knife. He sawed through the wooden shaft and removed the barbed iron tip. Then he gripped the headless projectile by its fletched tail and, with a wrench, jerked it free. Tadasue arched his back, mouth wide in a silent, juddering scream. Raku threw the bolt on the fire. Blood fizzed and boiled. He ripped Tadasue’s cloak and bound the wound with torn fabric.

  ‘Do you think he’s watching us?’ asked Tadasue. His eyes rolled and his lids drooped like he was about to pass out.

  ‘Yes, I imagine he’s watching.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he kill us?’

  ‘I think he’s curious to see how we will respond to our predicament.’

  Raku pulled logs from the fire and hurled them towards the four corners of the derelict hall. Flame-light illuminated broken walls and arches, the surrounding forest. He pulled off his gauntlets and threw them aside then unbuckled his armour.

  ‘What are you doing?’ croaked Tadasue.

  The commander stood at the centre of the quadrangle and spread his arms.

  ‘Here I am,’ he shouted, slowly pacing a circle, addressing the moonlit ruins, the sinister shadows of the undergrowth. ‘Shoot me in the back, if that’s the kind of man you are.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Or come out here and face me.’

  Silence.

  ‘I know who you are. You’re the assassin. You tried to kill the Emperor. You dared to kill a god. And now you’ve been dispatched to kill my master. Tell me. Why do you fight on behalf of the Imperial House? What hold do they have over you?’

  No reply.

  ‘I heard you lost an arm. But they sent you on this mission anyway. They must have great faith in your abilities. I have no doubt their faith is well placed.’

  No reply.

  ‘Will you face me? Will you grant me that honour? I am Raku, a commander in General Motohide’s guard. You won’t shoot me from the shadows. You won’t debase yourself. So come out and face me. Let’s finish this.’

  Something hit the stones in front of him with a clatter. Raku bent and examined the item. The crossbow. Raku looked towards the moonlit trees f
rom which the crossbow had been flung.

  ‘All right,’ he shouted. ‘You want to play a game? We’ll play your game.’

  He pulled a burning branch from the fire and set light to withered vines hanging from a wall. He hurried round the perimeter of the hall setting over-hanging foliage ablaze. Vines and branches crackled as they caught light. Boiling sap popped and hissed. Wooden support beams, the remains of the roof frame, began to burn and lit the ruins dancing, infernal red. Raku returned to the campfire and snatched up his sword. He hauled Tadasue upright, He supported the injured man with an arm round his shoulder.

  ‘We’ll head back to the village,’ he said. ‘We’ll recover the horses. The flames and smoke will give us a little cover.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Tadasue. He limped to the crossbow, Raku supporting him as he hobbled towards the weapon. He scooped it up.

  ‘You should leave it,’ said Raku.

  ‘We need any weapon we can get.’

  ‘It’s a coward’s weapon. That’s the way he’ll see it. You’ll forfeit your right to live.’

  ‘I’m not going to face him defenceless.’

  They shuffled through the entrance arch ducking low to avoid the burning vines. They headed down the path back towards the village. Tadasue was white with trauma, his face twisted in a rictus of pain and fear. Raku supported his comrade, grim with the knowledge they would both most likely be dead by dawn.

  The men limped down the track towards the village. The samurai followed a parallel course to their left. He matched their route, skirting trees and moonlit undergrowth bending beneath branches and squirming between thick trunks of bamboo. He glimpsed the men struggling down the path, could hear their blundering progress as they thrashed underbrush aside. Tadasue panted through gritted teeth as he hopped along the track occasionally losing his balance and planting his injured foot on the ground, triggering a muffled shriek of pain. The samurai could hear the man struggle but didn’t feel pity. His adversaries were samurai, like himself. This was the life they had chosen. Combat and death. To spare their lives out of pity would be an insult. The shame of being treated like a child would be crueller than any sword-thrust.

  Raku and Tadasue reached the hamlet. The samurai crouched among undergrowth and watched them enter the village square. An involuntary sob of despair came from Tadasue as they found their horses lying dead. Raku helped him sit on the steps of a bamboo longhouse then turned away and crouched beside a horse. He inspected the crossbow bolt protruding from the creature’s throat.

  The samurai had drawn out the confrontation to give the girl and the convicts a chance to pull ahead. He knew he should leave the injured men and re-join the group, yet he felt compelled to test himself against the commander. It would be his first fight since losing an arm. Maybe he was still a samurai. Or maybe he was nothing. He had to know.

  Tadasue sat slumped on the bamboo steps and reached down to unlace his leather shoe.

  ‘Don’t,’ warned Raku. ‘Your foot’s swollen. If you take off your shoe, you’ll never get it on again.’

  Tadasue ignored him and finished unstrapping his shoe before throwing it aside. He was finished. A dead man. He wasn’t going anywhere. He always assumed he would meet his end on the battlefield, his chest punctured by an arrow. If he was lucky he would be dead so fast he wouldn’t even feel it. Or maybe he would be dispatched by a swift knife-thrust during a tavern brawl, too drunk and numb to understand what was happening. But instead he would die here on this bamboo step in an unnamed valley. He wouldn’t even get a burial but would simply rot where he lay. He leant back and looked at the stars. Commander Raku sat beside him.

  ‘A cold night,’ he said.

  Tadasue nodded.

  ‘We should have stayed by the campfire. At least we’d have been warm.’

  They sat a while rubbing their eyes with exhaustion and watching their breath fog the cold night air. The north sky was tinted orange. The temple ruins were ablaze. It wouldn’t take long for the flames to die. The surrounding foliage was too damp for the conflagration to expand into an uncontrolled forest fire.

  They heard a faint rattle from a nearby shack, like someone nudged a shelf and caused clay pots to jangle together. Raku got to his feet, sword in hand and took a couple of steps towards the shack.

  ‘I’m tired of playing,’ shouted the commander. ‘Come out here. Let’s settle this like men.’

  Tadasue struggled with the crossbow. He managed to draw back the string and lock it. He took an iron shuriken from his bandoleer and slotted it into the bow with bored indifference, knowing the battle was already lost.

  Raku edged further towards the house on the other side of the moonlit square. Bamboo steps led up to a darkened entrance. He kept his eyes fixed on the doorway.

  ‘Let’s bring this dance to an end,’ he shouted. ‘It demeans both of us. Let’s finish this once and for all.’

  Tadasue watched as the commander approached the house. Anyone can see it’s a trap. Just wait here. Let him come to us, he thought. Something looped over his head. He gave a stifled choke as a twine garrotte sliced into his neck. He scrabbled at his throat and tried to call for help. The samurai was behind him, pulling one-handed, a foot between Tadasue’s shoulder blades to stop him squirming free. Tadasue waved his arms and tried to signal the commander. The last thing he saw before his silent convulsions ceased and vision failed was his own clawing hands. He died. He slumped backwards. The crossbow hit the ground and discharged, the iron bolt nailing into the ground with a muffled thump. Raku didn’t hear the sound. His attention was focused on the darkened doorway up ahead.

  ‘You lower yourself. Skulking in shadows. I feel ashamed on your behalf.’

  He climbed the steps and stood in the doorway. He stared into the interior and let his eyes adjust to the gloom. Chinks of moonlight shafted through walls woven from bamboo.

  ‘This is a trap. But I’m going to walk inside anyway. The shame is on you, understand? These pathetic games. The shame is on you.’

  He stepped inside, sword poised, and found himself in an empty room. He looked around at straw bedding, pots, a loom and a cold hearth. A flicker of movement. A shadow washed across a wall. Someone was prowling around outside of the hut, blocking moonlight.

  Raku dropped into a crouch and slowly swivelled on one leg. He tried to gauge the position of his opponent. Another flicker of movement. Raku crept towards the doorway, sword raised ready to strike a killing blow. A lightning blur of steel beside him. A blade suddenly thrust through the lattice walls of the house. Burning pain as his bicep was sliced open. He threw himself back into the room and rolled.

  A second sword-thrust aimed low. He rolled. The tip of the katana missed his face. He crouched, ready to dodge the next blade-thrust, ready to strike back. A sixth sense warned him of an incoming sword-thrust a moment before it happened. He threw himself aside just as a blade stabbed upward from the crawl space beneath the house. He gripped his sword and stabbed downward, repeated thrusts through reed matting. He rolled for the doorway, vaulted the steps and hit the dirt in front of the house. Raku got up, sword raised, and span round ready to strike.

  He froze in shock as he saw Tadasue slumped on the steps of a nearby shack. He took a couple of paces towards the dead man then saw the twine twisted round his throat.

  A faint cough came from the other side of the clearing. Raku saw a one-armed man, bent double. The man dry-retched, spat, then straightened up. He wore plain robes, had a scraggy beard and his hair was tied in a neat topknot.

  The samurai.

  The figure turned and walked into moon-shade behind the main longhouse. His slow deliberation sent a clear enough message. Time to fight. Commander Raku was being invited to enter the killing ground. The commander sheathed his sword and followed the man into shadows.

  * * *

  The village burial ground. A half-acre of dirt and a cluster of crooked stone markers. The samurai stood in the centre of the burial space calm and r
eady. Raku faced him and bowed.

  The samurai looked sick. Even in the moonlight Raku could see the man was grey and gaunt. He wondered if the samurai wanted to die. Maybe, deep down, he wanted a worthy opponent to end his life with a quick, clean stroke of the sword. They stood looking at each other a long while, each waiting for the optimum moment to draw and strike.

  Training bouts at a dojo could be interminable. Pupils hacked at each other with wooden bokken from dawn to dusk. It was a test of endurance as much as skill. Who would tire first? Who would allow their focus to slip for a death-dealing instant? But real-world duels were over in seconds. The samurai had fought many men and none of those fights lasted more than a dozen heartbeats. The katana was such a perfect weapon, so exquisitely lethal, the slightest misjudgement would mean serious injury followed, a moment later, by a final killing stroke. That’s why sword techniques had to be drilled to the point of thoughtless instinct. When the moment came, when the fight began, there would be no time for hesitation.

  The samurai and Raku prepared to enter that strange combat time-state when every moment seemed to last a year. Drifting moon-clouds slowed to a halt. The nearby stream froze like ice.

  The commander drew first, sliding the sword from its saya and turning the movement into a slashing cut at the samurai’s waist. The samurai blocked and swung a diagonal stroke at the commander’s shoulder. Raku deflected the blow and swung his sword at the samurai’s knees. The samurai jumped the blade and jabbed at the commander’s throat. Raku stumbled then lunged at the samurai’s chest. The sword stopped dead as the tip of the blade impacted on the iron cuirass hidden beneath the samurai’s kimono. The samurai brought down his sword in an arcing blur of steel and severed the commander’s hands at the wrists.

  The fight was concluded in seven breaths. Raku took a step backward, a look of woozy astonishment on his face as he contemplated the bloody stumps. His severed hands lay on the ground next to his fallen sword. He watched the samurai raise his sword and saw polished steel reflect moonlight. Then the blade fell and split his upturned face in two.

 

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