Blood Ninja

by Nick Lake

  And really, what had Lord Oda done? Only tried to clean this stain from the earth, remove the source of the infection. His man, Kenji Kira, had killed her foster mother and sister, it was true, but he had done it in the name of seeking Taro.

  If Taro didn’t exist, then Kenji Kira would not have had to do those things, and no one would have had to die.

  Yukiko watched Shusaku burn, as Taro staggered toward her, the blood of his master staining his clothes.

  Yes, Taro had forgotten him, as he had forgotten Heiko. But Yukiko remembered. She remembered the way that Taro had fought Little Kawabata, the skill he had shown. He said that he had been helpless to save Heiko, that he had watched paralyzed as she’d died. But Yukiko had been drugged too, and she had not been paralyzed.

  She had been unconscious.

  And Taro would say anything, wouldn’t he? His ambition was limitless. There he was, the peasant son of an ama, dreaming of being shogun, leaving his friends to die.

  When Yukiko looked at him, she saw not a peasant, nor a shogun, nor even a vampire.

  She saw a traitor.

  CHAPTER 68

  Taro turned in a daze and walked to the wall of the tower.

  Yukiko had risen unsteadily to her feet. He put a hand under her arm and helped her toward the door. For one moment she turned a strange look on him, her eyes as hard as pebbles, then she grunted.

  “You cry for him,” she said.

  Taro wiped away a tear. “Yes.”

  “Hmm. But Oda must die, yes? We carry on.”

  “Yes,” said Taro. Yes. They would carry on.

  He missed the fire in Yukiko’s eyes, the way she bit and bloodied her lip.

  Taro opened the door, half-expecting samurai to spring on him. But there was no one.

  Namae had not raised the alarm. Perhaps, in his arrogance, the ninja had believed that no reinforcements were necessary.

  Still, Taro had enough presence of mind left to assume that guards would be posted on the stairs, protecting the room at the top of the tower. “No,” he said to Yukiko. “We shouldn’t use the stairs. They will be defended.”

  Again he pulled on his spiked gloves, and led Yukiko to the stone wall of the tower. “We climb,” he said.

  They sought handholds and began.

  The tower was considerably taller than the wall they had just scaled, and soon Taro’s arms were burning with the effort of pulling himself up. Twice they had to stop to rest, but Taro was conscious that—clinging onto the wall of the tower like this—they were very conspicuous. Finally he reached the uppermost window, a wide slit that gave onto a large, dark circular room. The window was big enough to fit through—this high up, who would be able to enter it?

  Taro tumbled through the gap in the stone wall, headfirst. He flipped in the air, like a cat, and landed on his feet. His feet made no sound when they landed on the ground.

  A moment later Yukiko landed beside him.

  Taro glanced around furtively. They were standing in a luxuriously furnished bedroom that was nevertheless carpeted with a thick layer of sawdust. Taro guessed that the room must have been used for some other purpose, before Oda retreated to his tower-top aerie.

  (He was right. Had he brushed the sawdust aside, he would have seen the blood that stained the stone beneath it.)

  One corner of the round room was divided off by paper screens decorated with cranes and flowers. Taro could just see that behind it was a bed, covered with silk sheets that pooled expensively on the floor at its foot, soft and as white as the foam on the waves of the Kanto.

  Taro padded around the circle of the wall, examining the rest of the room. Yukiko followed, her hand on the hilt of her short-sword. There was a desk, on which sat pieces of cream paper and an ink quill. There was also a chest, carved with monstrous reliefs—dragons, demons, devils. And there was a slender stand on which perched a magnificent chicken hawk, its head hooded. As Taro and Yukiko crept about the room, the hawk turned its head to follow their near-silent tread.

  A noise from the bed startled him, and Taro whirled around to see a torch flare into life on the wall behind the bed, projecting the clearly defined silhouette of a standing figure onto the paper screen.

  Then the figure stepped out from behind the screen.

  Golden light from the torch filled the room. Taro moved forward. He drifted in a dazzle of sawdust, the motes spangling the air around him as if he walked through diamonds.

  Through that constellation of air, he saw his victim’s face.

  It was not Lord Oda.

  It was a girl.

  The same girl they had rescued in the woods, from the ronin.

  Hana got out of bed. She had heard a noise in the room, and had risen to investigate. It did not occur to her for a moment that there might be intruders, interlopers in her bedroom. That ninja, Namae, was outside, after all. The one she’d overheard with her father. She wasn’t supposed to know that he was there. She wasn’t really supposed to know that she was in any danger, in fact—and the truth was that while she knew it, she didn’t really understand it. Moving to the tower felt like an imprisonment, not a necessary precaution for her safety. For days she had banged on the door, trying to rouse a response from the guard outside, trying to get an answer from her father. But all that came was her twice-daily meal, pushed under the door.

  She was furious.

  She wanted too an explanation of what had happened to the Tokugawa boy and his mother. She had watched them being dragged to the tower, and suspected that they had been sequestered in the room below this one. But while she had heard dim cries at first, on her arrival here—had caught the odd plaintive echo through the stone—she lived now in a solitary silence unpenetrated by human voice or form.

  Until she stepped around the paper screen and saw, on the other side of her room, two ninja. One of them was holding a short-sword already. The other held a surprisingly small and delicate hand to the pommel of his.

  Hana opened her mouth to scream. But with a speed that seemed impossible, the larger ninja had dropped the sword and was upon her, holding his hand over her mouth.

  “What are you doing here?” he whispered urgently.

  Surprised, she tried to answer, but all that came out was a grunt. His fingers crushed her lips, while his thumb pressed against the bottom of her jaw, holding her mouth closed to stop her biting. The ninja leaned in close, and she was struck to see that his eyes were clear, kind, and, most of all—young. She felt she recognized them from somewhere.

  He mimed a question. If I move my hand, will you scream?

  Hana found herself more curious than afraid. She shook her head. Rousing the guards would be pointless, anyway—from the speed with which the ninja had leaped across the room, she guessed he could gut her before the scream had fully exited her lips.

  The ninja considered for a moment, then withdrew his hand.

  “I should ask you, what are you doing here?” whispered Hana. “This is my bedroom.”

  “No …,” said the ninja, apparently in some shock. “You should be Oda.”

  “Yes,” said the smaller ninja, stepping forward, and Hana was startled to realize that it was a girl. “You should be Oda, and you should die.”

  “I am Oda. My name is Lady Oda no Hana. I am Lord Oda Nobunaga’s only daughter.”

  The boy ninja gasped. “But Shusaku said …,” he whispered, seemingly to himself. An expression of confusion, then anger, flitted across his face.

  He fell back, confusion written in his movements, as the lines of a calligraphy character can betray the turmoil of its author.

  Hana felt suddenly sorry for this clear-eyed ninja. He did not appear very threatening. She put a hand on his arm. “Tell me,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  Taro looked into the girl’s sea-gray eyes. She was asking him what he was doing there, but he found it hard to concentrate on anything other than the cool roundness of those irises, the graceful splay of those long dark lashes. The
pain of losing Shusaku was still there, but as he looked at the girl before him, the pain seemed to fade, to melt into the background, like words written in ink that has dried in the sun.

  “I won’t kill you, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “I’m supposed to, I think … but I won’t do it.”

  “You … expected my father?” asked the girl.

  “Yes. And I didn’t expect you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Taro took his mask off, and Hana gasped. “You! From the woods!”

  Taro held out his hand, showing her the ring he still wore on his little finger, the one she had given him after they’d saved her. It seemed right that they should meet again like this, as if fate, once more, were at work. He remembered that she had been reluctant to tell them who she was, that she had spoken of rewards but had said that she couldn’t tell her father she was out alone.

  No wonder, if she was Lord Oda’s daughter.

  Taro’s head spun. They had been so close to Oda, all those weeks ago, when they had killed those ronin in the woods! They had saved his own daughter! He felt as though he were taking part in a vast and complicated play, in which nothing was mere coincidence. For a brief instant he entertained the shameful notion that if they had known who the girl was, that night in the woods, they could have taken her hostage.

  But no. He would not become like Lord Oda in the service of killing the man. He would not view people as mere playing pieces, helpful to the execution of his aims.

  And besides, he suspected with a more cynical and lizard-like part of his mind that Lord Oda would have seen the girl die, rather than have her be used as a bargaining chip. Taking her hostage would have achieved nothing.

  All this went through his mind in a fraction of a moment, and then he made his decision, and bowed. “Taro, at your service.”

  CHAPTER 69

  Yukiko stared at Taro and Lord Oda’s daughter. She didn’t understand at all what was happening. It seemed like Taro and the girl knew each other, but at the same time it appeared that they were strangers. Which was the truth and which was the pretense?

  It was impossible for her to tell.

  One thing she knew. Since her sister had died in Taro’s defense, she had felt as a samurai in armor—girded in cold metal, no signs of the human life inside.

  That was until Taro had left Shusaku to die. Then she had felt anger take hold.

  Now it burned fast, feeding on the aridity inside.

  Heiko had died for Taro, and now here he was facing the daughter of their greatest enemy, and stammering, as if he were in a love story, rather than a story of revenge and violence.

  She poked Taro with the end of her sword, and he turned to her, frowning. “What was that, about the woods?” she asked. “And what is that on your finger?”

  He held his hand out to her. “It’s her ring,” he said. “She gave it to me.”

  Yukiko felt as though the ground were giving way beneath her. “Lord Oda’s daughter gave you a ring?”

  “Yes. I mean, I didn’t realize it then, but—” He paused in his babbling. Yukiko didn’t know what was happening, but she could see one thing. Taro was a liar and a traitor, and was certainly not the peasant he had appeared to everyone—including Shusaku!—to be. Here he was gazing into the eyes of Lord Oda’s daughter, and wearing her ring. She was sure of only one thing, and that was that nothing had been what it appeared. “We saved her life,” he said now. “In the mountains. Well, Shusaku did, mostly.”

  “You’re too modest,” said Lord Oda’s daughter. “Your work with the bow was extraordinary.”

  Yukiko stared at him. “You saved her life?” she asked, incredulous. “She’s the daughter of your enemy.”

  Heiko gave her life for him because she thought he deserved to be shogun. She is dead not two days and now he stands before Lord Oda’s daughter, the spawn of his worst enemy, like a love-struck fool!

  Then the most horrible thought of all struck Yukiko with the force of a heavy bokken blow to the head, worse than before, when it had passingly crossed her mind.

  He could have saved Heiko. He was not paralyzed, and I was a fool to believe it.

  He lied.

  Yukiko backed away from them, disgust turning in her stomach like a trapped fish.

  CHAPTER 70

  Lady Hana stared at the boy. She had heard the name Taro only the other day—and in extraordinary circumstances.

  It was when her father and the ninja guard were speaking.

  She looked into the boy’s startling gray eyes. “I heard that Lord Tokugawa has a son named Taro,” she said. “A secret son.”

  As she had half-expected, the boy blinked. “I … I mean, yes, that’s me.”

  She’d wondered, but the confirmation shocked her nevertheless. “You’re really Tokugawa?” Lady Hana asked the boy ninja, incredulous. The enmity between her father and Lord Tokugawa no Ieyasu had been her favored topic of gossip with her serving girl, Sono, but it had seemed less distant and abstract after Lord Tokugawa’s wife and son had been hauled off to the tower. Now she found herself experiencing a confusing mixture of emotions. Anger with her father, for his violent temper and harsh treatment of others, vied with a deep-seated mistrust of the Tokugawa clan that had been instilled in her almost since birth.

  “Yes. My father hid me in a fishing village. Lord Oda tried to have me killed.” He looked pained then. “Sorry. But it’s true.”

  Lady Hana waved away his apology. It did not surprise her that her father would attempt to kill a mere boy. She knew his character better than anyone else.

  Anyway, she was not overly given to tradition, in any of its forms, even if tradition did demand that she should defend her father’s honor. Looking at this boy, she felt a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach—a swooping, dropping feeling, as if the core of her had been stolen by a seagull, and it was flying about with it. She felt something for this boy, some powerful connection that went beyond the bonds she felt to family or teachers.

  “Can you climb back down the tower?” she asked.

  The boy ninja—Tokugawa no Taro—shook his head. “The surface is too smooth. Climbing up was hard enough—the plan was always to go down the stairs.”

  Hana stared. “There’s sure to be a guard. Maybe more than one. You could be killed.”

  Taro gave her a wan smile. “My mother always used to say, Ame futte ji—”

  “Katamaru,” completed Hana. Her own mother had said it too. A samurai girl can expect a lot of rain in her life, and has a lot to harden herself against, so the expression had been frequently apt. She smiled at the boy ninja. “Your mother was a wise woman.”

  A troubled expression crossed his face, and Hana had the sense that something had happened to his mother, or had happened between them. “As was yours, it would seem.” He bowed, then frowned, looking around him. “The other … ninja. Where did she go?”

  Hana cast her eyes around the room. “I don’t know.”

  Taro swore. “Is Kenji Kira nearby? She has … business to conclude with him. She may have gone to find him.”

  Hana shook her head. “Kira is abroad in the country, looking for something. I think … it might be you.”

  Taro grunted. “Well, she won’t find him then. Let’s hope she can find her own way to safety.”

  A moment later Taro was at the door that led to the spiral staircase. He felt Hana’s hand on his arm. “I’m coming with you,” she said. She began to pull on a heavy cloak over her sleeping garments.

  “What about your father?” asked Taro, shocked. Already he feared that he might not leave the castle alive. To be weighed down by this girl, even if she was a samurai’s daughter, would be suicide. “Shouldn’t you stay here with him?”

  “What for? To be married for my father’s convenience? I would rather die.” She looked at him sharply. “You’re worried I’ll slow you down, aren’t you?”

  Taro stared at her. That was exactly what he was worried about.<
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  Sighing, she reached behind her back. A katana appeared in her hand. She brought it round in a flat swipe to end up a hair’s breadth from Taro’s neck. He gulped, looking down dumbly at the blade. He hadn’t even known she was carrying it—and if she’d wanted to cut his throat, he wouldn’t have been able to move before blood was spilling from the wound.

  Taro moved the blade aside, gently, with his finger. “I saw you kill that ronin, remember?” he said. “No need to convince me you know how to handle a blade.”

  Hana spun the katana in a couple of graceful moves, and Taro saw that her skills of kenjutsu were superior even to his own. “Good,” she said. “Just don’t forget it.”

  “All right,” he replied. “Let’s go.”

  The girl held up a hand to stay him for a moment. She went to her bed and picked up a few items, which she placed in a silk bag. Then she lashed a leather guard to her left forearm. She went to the stand and coaxed the hawk onto her wrist.

  Taro looked pointedly at the bird.

  “She goes with me,” said Hana.

  Taro shrugged, resignedly. He opened the door to see a sword swinging toward his face, held two-handed by a burly samurai wearing a tusked face mask designed to resemble a wild boar.

  Instinctively Taro ducked. He felt stirred air on the nape of his neck as the blade passed overhead. He struck at the man’s legs with his own short-sword, opening a wound on one meaty thigh. The samurai cursed. Coming out of his duck, Taro met the man’s next blow, deflecting it with the side of his blade. Then, feeling a tap on his right shoulder, he sidestepped to the left, striking backhand at the right side of his opponent’s face, bending his elbow to create a wide space between his arm and his body. He hoped that he had interpreted Hana’s signal correctly.