The fight ended in an instant. The Monk took a faltering step forward and launched a down strike intended to split NoName’s head in two. NoName should have jumped clear but instead he lunged beneath the descending blade and drove the tip of his katana so deep into his opponent’s belly it erupted from his back. The Monk grunted as if he had received a gut punch. NoName wrenched the weapon free and stepped away. The Monk dropped his sword, looked down and watched his yellow robe creep dark with blood. The crowd were silent as the two men faced each other. The Monk looked at NoName without animosity. He looked over at Tengu and smiled as if to say: Don’t worry. Everything is fine. Then he sank to his knees, toppled onto his side and died with an expression of blissful relief, all his pain at an end. NoName wiped his sword on the hem of the dead man’s robe, re-sheathed, then untied the black rag from his forehead and used it to bind the wound in his bicep. He walked back to his hut, sat on the steps and watched the Monk’s body being dragged by the ankles from the killing ground, leaving a red streak across the flagstones. The Monk’s yellow pennant was removed from one of the arena posts, leaving a bare stake.
Kotau crossed to NoName, crouched beside him and hissed:
‘Get up. You must bow to the General.’
NoName didn’t reply. He closed his eyes and withdrew into himself, glad to have lived through another day.
‘General Yukio is watching,’ said Kotau. ‘He expects to be acknowledged. He will be insulted if you don’t get to your feet and bow. That’s all you have to do. Just stand and bow.’
NoName ignored him. He slowed his breathing, calmed his pounding heart then retreated to the darkness of his hut. Kotau anxiously looked towards the General to see if he was angered by the slight. Yukio got to his feet and returned to the pavilion, his face unreadable.
The Monk’s body was laid beneath a tree. A couple of villagers started to wrap him in a canvas shroud. Tengu walked over to the tree and gently pushed the villagers aside.
‘Let me,’ she said. She tucked the shroud around the Monk’s body as if she was preparing a child for sleep. She drew the canvas over his calm, contented face and then lashed the shroud in twine and bound it tight. She helped lift the body onto a branch litter and gripped the frame ready to drag the Monk on a final journey down the road just as, days earlier, she had hauled him down remote tracks on a cart, but one of the villagers respectfully blocked her path.
‘This is our task,’ he said.
‘I must do this on my own.’
‘Please, noble sir. This is our task. You don’t need to soil your hands. It is time to take your leave of your comrade. Remember him as he was in life.’
Tengu nodded and reluctantly turned her back. Better to recall the Monk’s sardonic humour than the sight of his corpse strapped for burial.
She returned to the Monk’s hut and sat on the steps. She had known he would almost certainly die in the final bout, but nevertheless she still found herself shocked numb and thoughtless. She was sure the muffled meat-rip of NoName’s blade puncturing his belly below the ribs would stay with her for years. No doubt the villagers would be pleased to have a holy man buried in the village. His spirit would bring them luck. They would pray to him each harvest time, ask for his blessing.
Perhaps it was best she wasn’t present when the Monk was rolled into the ground. She didn’t want to see earth shovelled onto his body. She didn’t want to see labourers tamp the soil down. She would visit his grave when the tournament was over, lay a flower on his resting place as her last act before she left the valley.
She closed her eyes and prayed for the Monk. She had only known him a few days but she felt empty now he was gone. People pass in and out of our lives, she reminded herself. That’s what a holy man would say if she visited a temple and asked for advice. Enjoy their presence, the unique gifts they bring, but don’t try to hold on to them. The imagined lecture didn’t help lift her loneliness so she retired to the dark interior of the hut before someone saw her tears fall from her reddening eyes.
* * *
Kotau stood at the kitchen window and waited until the crowd had left the shrine. When the quadrangle was empty he retrieved a blood-darkened sack from the kitchen and carried it to the arena. He reached in the bag and removed the first severed head. The Ronin’s slack face was lit by the flicker of dying torchlight.
Chikaaki watched from the moon-shadowed porch as Kotau jammed and twisted the head into position at the top of the Ronin’s empty colour pole. He turned away in disgust and left Kotau to his macabre task.
When all four heads were positioned around the fight space Kotau stood back and admired his work. He paced the killing ground and enjoyed his audience of the dead.
* * *
Tengu couldn’t sleep. She lay in the dark beside the Monk’s empty mat and felt the hut walls close around her as if she had been entombed alive. She was desperate for space and air so she scrambled to her feet, ripped the entrance curtain aside and ran outside.
The arena was lit by moonlight and the single torch which had yet to burn out. She stood at the centre of the arena, looked up at the midnight sky and drank in the fabulous star field above her. She felt cleansed by the cool night air. Then she glanced down and recoiled in sudden horror as she saw the dead farmer staring at her from the shadows. For a moment she thought she was face-to-face with a vengeful spirit; then she realized the man’s severed head had been jammed on top of a stake. His face was still etched with protective spells and his unfocused eyes looked through and beyond her.
She backed away from the head and looked around the arena in horror. The Drunkard had been staked near the tavern, his eyes closed as if asleep. The Ronin’s head had been staked on the north side of the arena. The veteran warrior’s jaw hung open, giving his face a slack, imbecilic expression. She slowly turned around and looked behind her, already knowing what she would see. The Monk’s head stared back at her, still with his contented smile. She backed away before deciding she couldn’t leave his head mounted as a trophy. She had to take it to the village and restore it to his grave. She approached the stake and tried to summon the courage to wrench the head from its spike.
‘No,’ said a voice from the darkness. ‘Leave him there.’
Kotau emerged from the tavern’s shadow and entered the pool of torchlight.
‘The sight of the vanquished swordsmen will spur tomorrow’s contenders to fight even harder,’ he said. ‘I’m sure the prospect of ending the day mounted on a stake will concentrate their minds.’
He stared her down, torchlight dancing in the darkness of his eyes. Tengu realized she was alone among the ruins with something daemonic.
He flicked a coin. She instinctively snatched it out of the air.
‘Goodnight,’ he said, with a mock-courtly bow.
Tengu returned to the Monk’s hut and sat against the back wall. She toyed with the little bronze coin and thought about what it meant to serve monsters for money. She laid her sword ready across her lap, and waited for the dawn.
* * *
General Yukio retired to his quarters, allowed his servants to strip him of armour then knelt at his table. Tookage accompanied the servant who brought food and set a tray in front of the General. The tray held a single porcelain bowl. The servant lifted the lid. Yukio leaned forward, sniffed the noodle broth and scowled on finding himself presented with a peasant dish.
‘The swordsmen were offered a meal of their choice before they fought,’ explained Tookage. ‘The Ronin chose fish broth. He said it was his favourite meal.’
The General smiled. Tookage knew him well enough to know there was nothing he relished more than pleasures lost to the dead. It made him feel fiercely alive.
The General picked up his nashi, slowly lowered a clump of noodles into his mouth and relished their flavour.
Tengu walked into the trees. There was a sentry cordon thirty paces into the woods, a line of soldiers spaced each in sight of the other, facing outwards into the forest, al
ert for any sign of attack. It would be a long and boring watch. The temptation to lean against a trunk and drowse was strong but the penalty for failure, the punishment for letting down one’s guard and allowing an assailant to slip past would be immediate execution, so the men shifted from foot to foot and shook themselves alert each time their eyelids began to droop.
Tengu passed through the cordon. The men watched her, their expressions cold and hostile. She walked deeper into the trees and entered the thick underbrush. She crouched in the middle of a glade and contemplated bracken dappled by morning light. Maybe there was no assassin. Maybe the killer hunting Kotau was a product of his imagination, an embodiment of the anxieties that pursued him in dreams. But she had undertaken to protect him so she tried to think like a man charged with ending his life. How would she approach the task? She assumed an arrow would be the best way of stopping his heart, but she reviewed other options in case there was an approach she had overlooked. A killer couldn’t pose as a member of the crowd because the villagers knew each other. A thug dispatched from Makoto’s plantation or a stranger hired from a nearby town would be too conspicuous. And even if a stranger were able to mingle with the spectators and rush Kotau, they would only have time to stab him once, maybe twice, before nearby samurai cut them down. Tengu doubted a hired cutthroat or any of Makoto’s men from the estate would agree to undertake a suicide mission. They would kill for money but be sure to live long enough to spend it. Could she creep into the compound at night, locate her prey and stab him in his sleep? No. General Yukio’s men would patrol the shrine precincts throughout the night. The best approach would be to wait until the General’s men left at the end of the tournament. The regiment would march from the valley, the crowd would disperse and return to their homes, and Kotau would be alone and vulnerable. But what if she couldn’t wait? What if she had been ordered to kill Kotau immediately? She nodded to herself, affirming the assessment she had given Kotau the previous day. She would find a skilled archer, someone who could kill him from a distance then flee. She circled the shrine, moving from one clearing to another and looked for footprints, crushed flowers or disturbed bracken, anything that might betray the presence on an unseen watcher prowling the shadows between the trees, looking for the perfect moment to strike.
Tengu walked through the forest to a massive granite outcrop. She climbed a crag and looked out over the valley. Morning mist hung over the treetops and, on the far hill, she could see the bush rows of the tea plantation. She sat cross-legged and wept from sheer loneliness. She was on her own in the world. Everyone she met, every warrior-monk she befriended while walking the country roads, eventually passed out of her life. She had been forced to accept isolation as a necessary part of a swordsman’s path, the price of a short but transcendentally intense existence. But, she reminded herself, loneliness would dog her days no matter how she chose to live. Parents die. Children leave and build their own families. The only escape from the eternal cycle of love and loss would be her final sleep.
She dried her eyes and hoped they would no longer seem red and swollen by the time she reached the shrine.
She stood and listened to the birdsong and the oceanic rush of wind passing through the treetops. There was something about the forest, the quiet cool, the vastness of arboreal time, that calmed her. But as she looked out over the vapour-shrouded canopy she couldn’t shake a deep unease, the conviction that some heavy reckoning would be waiting for her when she climbed down from the crag and returned to the shrine.
* * *
She returned to the quadrangle and stood beside Kotau as the villagers began to arrive for the second day of the tournament. She shivered as she watched folk line the rope cordon, smiling and laughing, evidently excited to see blood spilled. She had expected that the sight of severed heads staked around the fight space would give proceedings a darker tone, that the ghoulish spectacle would fill folk with horror, but instead the crowd laughed at the faces of the dead men as if they were novelties. She wanted to scream at Kotau, Chikaaki and the General to halt the contest. She wanted to run to the huts, rouse the remaining swordsmen and urge them to flee. Didn’t they understand the brevity of life? A moment of light between two boundless oblivions? She wanted to plead with the combatants to set aside their pride, discard their swords and run as far from this place as they could, but knew her protests would be met by ridicule and incomprehension. She suddenly understood the crazy folk she encountered on the road from time to time, wild-eyed vagrants that screamed nonsense in each village square they reached, trying to articulate a revelation words couldn’t convey.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Kotau. ‘You seem agitated.’
Tengu ignored the question. ‘You should conduct the fights today instead of your father,’ she said. ‘Draw the coloured tokens and announce the commencement of each bout. It there is an assassin hiding in the woods we should force his hand and draw him out.’
‘You want me to offer myself as a target?’
‘You are wearing the armour beneath your robe?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you are quite safe.’
‘He may aim for my heart, but what if he misses? What if he hits my head? What if he opens an artery in my arm?’
‘If there is a paid killer out there he may have us under observation as we speak. He will be watching from the crescent of trees to our right because the huts block his view from any other vantage point. If you stand at the centre of the arena, there will be fifty paces between you and the tree line. Any competent archer would be able to deliver a precise arrow shot at that distance, but you can make it easier for him by making sure he has a clear view of your chest.’
‘You expect me to invite an arrow?’
‘If there is an assassin out there, I’m sure you will enjoy adding his head to your collection.’
* * *
Chikaaki headed for the arena with the colours bag in his hand but Kotau took it from him and walked to the centre of the killing ground. He held up his arms for silence and walked in a slow circle until the crowd quietened down.
‘Friends. Honoured guests. Welcome to this second day of our great tournament. There will be two bouts today. The winners will face each other in a single duel tomorrow in which the victor will prove himself the greatest swordsman in the province.’
Tengu left the tavern porch and casually circled the crowd to put herself closer to the tree line.
‘The sun is at its zenith,’ continued Kotau, ‘and it is time for the first two warriors to test their skill.’
He reached into the colours bag and drew the first token.
‘Black,’ he declared, holding NoName’s token aloft. He angled his body to face the woodland and held the token high a couple of heartbeats longer than the moment required, but the arrow didn’t come. He drew another token.
‘Brown.’
He held the Thief’s token above his head and looked around in irritation as if, having summoned the courage to offer himself as bait, he was frustrated no one had attacked.
‘Let the swordsmen prepare to fight.’
Chikaaki summoned NoName from his hut. The killer walked to the centre of the arena. He tried to appear calm but Tengu could tell by the clench of his jaw he was tense. His first bout against the peasant from the village had been little more than butchery, but the Thief would be a formidable opponent. A sly street fighter given extra speed and ferocity by his desperation to live.
The Thief was cut from his cage. He was allowed an interval to stretch his cramped legs and shake himself mobile, then he was given a sword.
The Champion remained in his hut, once again not deigning to see his opponents fight, but Tattoo stood behind the rope cordon anxious to assess the abilities of whoever he might face if he survived the day’s battle and made it to the final bout.
‘Gentlemen, are you ready?’ The fighters took up position, readied their stances and shifted from foot to foot in preparation to strike. Kotau raised the be
ll and once again extended the moment, standing still and exposed as an invitation to anyone who might be hiding in the woods. Tengu watched the tree line with the periphery of her vision.
‘To the death,’ announced Kotau. He rang the bell and stepped back. The crowd cheered then settled to rapt silence in anticipation of bloodshed.
The fight lasted a single heartbeat. Both men drew their swords and attacked in an instant. The Thief dropped into a crouch and stabbed his blade deep into NoName’s thigh just as his opponent swung for his head and struck a glancing blow to his temple. The Thief grunted with the impact and toppled to the ground. He touched the deep head wound and looked at his blood-wet fingers with incomprehension.
NoName hopped backwards and pulled the sword from his thigh. He sprawled on the flagstones and lay with his blade raised, ready to fend off a second strike. He gripped his thigh and tried to staunch the bleed, then began to struggle to his feet.
Blood pulsed from the split in the Thief’s head and washed down his neck and shoulder. He clumsily retrieved his sword then slowly pulled himself upright. The two men circled each other, swords at the ready. They staggered like drunks. The Thief repeatedly blinked and shook his head as if he was trying to focus and think straight. He tried to remain upright but his strength gave out and he collapsed. NoName gripped his injured thigh, summoned his remaining strength and shuffled forward for a kill stroke but his wounded leg locked and he found himself unable to approach his opponent. He sank to his hands and knees and tried to crawl but his useless limb held him rooted to the spot as if he was shackled to stone. He struggled to remain conscious, slowly sank face down then passed out.
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