by Nick Lake
Taro’s mother was still looking at him strangely, as if about to tell him something. He frowned. “This bow,” he said. “I have never seen Father make another. I’ve never seen him carve anything. Did he not—”
She cut him off with a sharp gesture, turning at a sudden sound from the other side of the screen.
Taro stood very slowly. It sounded like someone was moving very quietly in the part of the hut where his father slept. Just as he began to move toward the screen, he heard a dull thud as of a body falling.
Father.
Taro walked around the screen and stifled a scream. His father’s body lay at an angle on the sleeping mat …
… and his severed head lay on the ground beside it.
CHAPTER 4
In the semidarkness the blood surrounding Taro’s father was black on the ground.
Then, as if forming itself from the pool of blood, a figure dressed all in black moved quickly forward, drawing a blade that gleamed in the darkness like a fish glimpsed in deep water. He wore a black mask that revealed only his eyes.
Ninja.
Taro had time to fix his eyes on the dagger moving toward him, before another blade burst through the man’s chest. The assassin coughed, looking down at the sword point in wonder. Blood bubbled out of his mouth and down the folds of black cloth that masked his face.
He fell, and as his body slumped, another man in black who stood behind him slid the blade from his torso, with a grunt of satisfaction.
Taro blinked. That ninja just killed that other—
Just then, his mother screamed.
Taro turned and saw a third dark-clothed figure crouched behind his mother. The ninja moved his arm almost imperceptibly, and a knife appeared in his hand. He went to slit Taro’s mother’s throat.
“N—,” Taro screamed, his cry cut off by a hand that came from nowhere and covered his mouth. The figure at Taro’s side pushed him to the ground, just as he pulled something from his cloak and threw it at the man who knelt behind Taro’s mother. Taro saw a gleaming star stick in the man’s masked face, then the ninja fell soundlessly to the ground. Taro had never seen a throwing star before, but he knew this was the legendary weapon of the ninja—the six-bladed shuriken.
“Wha—,” started Taro.
“Shut up,” said the man in black beside him. “First, do you trust me?”
“No.”
“Good. That would be stupid, as you don’t know me. But I’m afraid you’ll have to try. Otherwise you will die. Come here.” He stepped over to Taro’s mother, who sat still, her eyes wide and staring.
“You’re … not going to kill us,” she said. “I thought, earlier, when I heard what the merchant said …” She trailed off.
The ninja looked at her blankly. “No, I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to leave, with your son.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but the ninja interrupted. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep him safe. I’m sent by a friend.”
Taro’s mother’s eyes opened wide, then she nodded.
“You will need to lie absolutely still,” the ninja continued. “We are going to make it look as if you are dead. Lie here until there is complete silence, until the screaming stops. Then get up and run. Go to a monastery, go anywhere you like, as long as there is no one there who knows you. Take a different name. Take a vow of silence. But disappear. Do you understand? You may never see your son again, but you will live.”
She nodded, mutely, tears streaming down her cheeks. The ninja arranged her on the ground, then took a stick of some dark red substance from his sleeve and drew a cut across her neck. He followed this with blood from a vial concealed under the folds of his mask. Then he turned to Taro. “To you, she is dead. Yes?”
Taro shook his head, tears welling hotly in his eyes.
The ninja slapped him. “Do you want her to die?”
Taro shook his head again, still crying. “I c-can’t leave her,” he mumbled. There was also his father’s body, lying headless on the sleeping mat it had occupied for so long, getting stiffer and colder by the moment. Taro was sickened by what had happened to his father, by the way that this once strong fisherman had been laid low by illness, then dispatched into death by an assassin who had not hesitated to murder a sleeping man. Would anyone even mourn him, if Taro and his mother were gone?
The ninja sighed, appearing to hesitate. Then he unshouldered a light fabric bag, as black as his clothes, and withdrew from it a pigeon, its wings tied. The pigeon cooed lightly but seemed undistressed—Taro guessed that it was an experienced messenger.
“I had this for an emergency, but I suppose this counts as one, since if your son doesn’t come with me, you will both die in the next few moments.” The ninja tucked the bird into Taro’s mother’s robe. “When you are safe, write a note for your son. Tell him where you are. The bird will reach me.”
“Thank you,” whispered Taro’s mother. The ninja grunted, irritably, as if he were conscious of making a mistake, and annoyed with himself for being unable to resist it.
Then she gave Taro one look—one single look in which all her love was encompassed. Taro almost cast his eyes down, embarrassed—for she looked at him as if he were a scroll containing the words that would save her soul.
She turned away. The ninja looked at Taro, and sighed again when he saw Taro’s eyes cut to the screen behind which lay his father’s body. “He’s dead,” said the man. “You will do him no honor by joining him.”
“But …,” mumbled Taro. “I shouldn’t just let him lie there. I should help his soul by—”
The ninja raised a peremptory hand. “Help his soul by taking vengeance on his killers,” he said. “Not by dying with him.”
Numbly, Taro nodded. He looked one last time at the screen, then gripped the bow in his hand.
The ninja looked at it. “Do you know how to use that thing?”
Taro nodded.
“Good. There are others coming. We will need to fight.”
Taro looked at the dead man behind his mother’s seeming corpse, then at his savior. They were dressed identically, in loose black robes and with black scarves covering their faces, leaving only the eyes visible. “You are with them,” he said, wonderingly. “And yet you save me.”
“Yes,” said the man, simply.
“Did you kill my father?”
“No. Enough questions.” He pulled out a short-sword. Less elegant than a samurai’s katana, it nevertheless had a brutal, businesslike air. Then, without warning, he slashed at Taro with the sharp edge. It was a trap! Taro dodged backward, felt the blade slashing his kimono, had time only to think I can’t die now—
—and the black-clad man stepped back, holding a piece of Taro’s robe. “We don’t have much time,” he said as he stepped over to the doorway and pinned the scrap of robe with his sword to the wooden jamb. The fabric was positioned so as to be visible from the outside. “They’ll soon wonder why we haven’t come out. Get over here and draw your bow. Get ready to fire.” He beckoned Taro, positioning him on the side of the door opposite the scrap of robe. “They’ll think you’re waiting to ambush them on the other side.” And with that, he crouched, putting his finger to his lips.
Sure enough, a moment later another ninja whirled into the room, the blade of his sword making a silvery circle in the air as he brought it down where he thought Taro was standing. The sword met only thin air, and the man let out a grunt as the sword struck the side of the door, where the scrap of silk fluttered in the breeze.
Taro didn’t hesitate. He let go of his arrow, and it crossed the narrow space at the speed of thought, burying itself in the man’s neck. The ninja dropped to the ground.
“Good,” said the crouching ninja. “A true warrior’s instinct.”
Taro looked down at the dead man, and suddenly a terrible sickness rose in his throat. He doubled over and was sick. He had never killed a man before—and he had done it so easily! He had barely paused. He was a monster!
; “Ah. A warrior’s instinct but not a warrior’s stomach. Come, there are still more and we must hurry.” Quickly, the man crossed the open doorway—shimmying to the side as a silver star sang through the air at body level—and took back his sword from where it had bit into the wood.
He grabbed Taro’s arm and pulled him to the back of the room. “We’ll break out through the shoji,” he said.
The ninja kicked a hole in the thin wooden wall and stepped through, pulling Taro behind him. Outside was black as ink, the only sound the beating of the waves on the rocks below. Then the light of a torch flared nearby, and a voice called out. “Hello? Is everything all right?”
The huge form of Hiro loomed out of the darkness. The ninja beside Taro reached for something in his robes, but Taro put a hand on his arm. “No. He’s my friend.”
The ninja stilled his arm, but just then another dark figure appeared out of the night and launched itself at Hiro, short-sword whirling. Hiro ducked below the sword’s trajectory and brought his fist up hard, smashing it into the man’s solar plexus. The ninja slumped, and Hiro, not hesitating even a fraction, stooped to pick up the sword and then stabbed it downward, cleaving the attacker’s neck.
He straightened up, holding the torch and the sword, turning his head searchingly.
“Over here!” said Taro, as loud as he dared.
Hiro moved toward him, picking his way across the rocky ground. Then Taro saw a black shape rising in front of his friend.
Ninja!
The ninja threw something—like a black stone—and before Hiro could move to avoid it, there was an explosion in front of his face, and as Hiro was distracted by the flash, the ninja brought up his wakizashi and knocked the stolen sword from Hiro’s grip. The torch Hiro had been holding in his other hand fell to the ground and guttered there, vacillating in the wind. In the flickering light the ninja stuck out a hand and jabbed a finger into Hiro’s neck—Hiro’s legs crumpled and he collapsed to his knees.
Taro started forward, reaching behind his head for an arrow even as he kept his eyes fixed on the black figure as it drew its sword and raised it, ready for the killing stroke—
Taro armed the bow and let the arrow fly in one smooth movement, and the black figure paused, seeming to stare down at Hiro. Then he tumbled forward. Taro grabbed Hiro’s arm and helped him to his feet. Beside him lay the ninja, an arrowhead protruding from his mouth, like an obscene tongue, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
Hiro picked up his sword and torch. “Good shot,” he wheezed. Then he saw the ninja who was helping Taro, and his eyes went wide and he raised his sword. Taro held up his hands.
“No! This one’s on our side,” he said. “He’s a good ninja.”
Hiro raised his eyebrows in suspicion but lowered the sword.
“Gods,” said Taro. “You’re wounded.”
Hiro moved his hand to his face. He grimaced, and Taro knew that his old friend was in agony. For Hiro to succumb to the pain enough to acknowledge it in any way was a bad sign. The boy’s left cheek was split open, blood spilling from it thickly.
“It will heal,” said Hiro.
Taro nodded. They would worry about the cut later. “Are they gone?” he asked, turning to the ninja. The man shook his head.
Into the circle of light cast by the torch, a black figure stepped, his weapon raised. “You are turned traitor, I see,” he said to Taro’s rescuer. “But now you must give yourself up. And the boy, too. You are outnumbered.”
Then something happened that Taro could never afterward remember clearly.
A pale movement flashed in front of him, light gleaming on something long and thin.
Then a sword hilt was sticking out of his stomach, like a grotesque growth. Taro stared down at it. Blood was soaking through his cloak, and dripping down his trousers to pool in the crevices of his toes.
“What—,” he began.
And then the pain hit.
He doubled over, gasping, unable to breathe, feeling the burning metal that had pierced his organs and—he knew without checking—burst out through his back. At that moment his knees gave way, and it struck him with a horror that crawled on his skin that his spine might have been severed.
But I can’t just die, he thought. I was going to be a samurai …
His vision blurring so that it seemed the scene was darkened by rain, he just made out the good ninja as he swiftly slit the throat of the man who had stabbed Taro. For a moment he was a tearing, spinning thing, a whirlwind, and then there was a calm point in the storm.
Ahead, Hiro pushed back the ninjas, who had fallen away, retreating from the good ninja’s onslaught.
Then a hand clasped his shoulder. The ninja. “Taro,” he said—but had Taro given him his name? He couldn’t remember. “You’re dying. There is only one chance to save you. But it will mean living your life in secret, in the darkness, hiding with me. You may never see your mother again. Do you agree? Answer, quickly. If you do not agree, both you and your mother die.”
Taro stared, unable to respond.
“You will die now if I do not do this, and so will your mother. I said, do you agree?”
To never again see his mother? To never again witness her smile, which was like the rising of the sun to him?
And yet if he did not agree, he would die, and she would be killed too.
The fear for her mixed with the pain in his belly, striking him through with agony.
“I—I agree,” Taro stammered.
The ninja drew back his lips, revealing a pair of long, sharp canine teeth. Then he bent his head and bit deep into Taro’s neck. Hiro yelled, “What are you doing!” and turned from the attackers, but the ninja pushed him back easily with his free hand and sprang back, releasing Taro.
Taro swayed. His blood hammered in his chest. He felt light-headed, his thoughts were swirling—bright lights burst in his vision. He heard the ninja speak urgently to Hiro. “If you wish for your friend to live, keep back and do nothing.” Then the man’s face swam into view, close up. “Taro,” he said. “I know you’re feeling strange, but I need you to bite my neck.”
Taro felt a need to obey. Still swaying, he opened his mouth and leaned forward. The other man guided his teeth toward his exposed neck, white in the moonlight. Taro bit down, and warm blood filled his mouth, while a warm light filled his mind and his body, making his muscles sing, making every feature of the scene spring into vivid detail. The pain in his belly left, replaced by a feeling of warm energy.
He stood. As if in a dream, he slid the sword from his own flesh and watched as the wound closed over.
He saw Hiro, looking on in astonishment. He saw the ninja step back, smiling sadly.
Taro turned, exquisitely aware of every muscle and tendon in his neck, and faced the darkness. A dozen black-clad figures melted out of the night and stood before him, a semicircle following the line of the circle cast by Hiro’s torch. Absently, he reached out with his left hand and pushed Hiro behind him, where his friend would be safe. He was aware on some level that he shouldn’t be strong enough to push Hiro anywhere, let alone with his left hand. But the strength felt good and right.
He saw his enemies approach him, and he was glad.
He saw shurikens fly, and he ducked and weaved, avoiding them, plucking them out of the air even as they headed for Hiro.
He saw his own hands as they flew between bow and quiver, knocking ninja after ninja to the ground, every shot perfect, whether he aimed at eye or chest or hand raised to throw.
He saw the ninja beside him, his blood master now, draw a long and perfect samurai sword from a concealed scabbard that ran down his spine, under the black cloak. Taro saw the wavelike pattern of sand-cooled steel down the sword’s blade and knew that it was a masterpiece. And he saw the symbol etched into its base by the handle.
It was a circle containing three hollyhock leaves—exactly like the one on Taro’s bow.
CHAPTER 5
A faraway part of Taro’s m
ind was aware that he had been bitten by a kyuuketsuki. He realized too that the other ninjas were also kyuuketsuki. One of them, when Taro shot an arrow through its shoulder, bared its sharp canine teeth in a growl that was more animal than human.
It was impossible: a ghost story come to life. But as impossible as it was, it was also happening.
Kyuuketsuki could be killed, Taro knew that. They bled like ordinary men. But they were many times faster and stronger. Their weakness—the price they paid—was that they could walk abroad only at night.
Taro glanced up at the moonlit sky.
Morning was a long way off.
He turned to the left, narrowly avoiding a sword strike that would have taken off his jaw.
“Stay by me,” said the good ninja, as his sword traced silver loops and butterfly wings in the night air. “You’re stronger than them, at least while my blood flows in your veins, but they are more experienced.”
The wickedly barbed wheel of a shuriken whined through the air past Taro’s head, nicking his ear. He fired an arrow that went wide, just as the good ninja’s blade struck in front of him, as quick and lethal as a snake, gutting a man who had been about to stab him with a dagger. Taro felt that the world and the air surrounding him had grown sharp edges, and waited only for him to fall on them.
And yet still Taro moved with strength and grace. He could feel the other man’s blood in him, singing in his veins, doubling his power—for there were two of them animating this body, lifting and twisting its muscles and bone, as two men carry a weight more easily than one.
But then another shuriken flew and he didn’t move quick enough: It stuck in his left bicep, going deep enough to jar against the bone. Taro gasped. Next to him, the good ninja whirled round. “We need to go,” he said, while his left hand snapped out and hit one of the assailants in the neck, dropping him instantly to his knees. The good ninja’s sword arced in his right hand, describing a flashing silver oval that ended deep in another man’s shoulder, cutting his arm and half his chest clean off. “Let’s head for the beach. There should be boats, yes?”