by Nick Lake
She moved like a snake, clamping her hand over his mouth. They must have walked right past him, she thought. Hopeless. He was holding a lantern in one hand, its weak light illuminating the area immediately around him, but robbing him of the night vision he would need to see anything significant.
Fool.
She held a finger to her lips, then raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question: Will you be silent?
He nodded, and she gently withdrew her hand. She glanced over his shoulder. She couldn’t see the little group, but she thought she could catch up with them again. The river cut them off to the south, after all, and on the other side were only tents and battle-ready samurai. Taro and his friends would have to stick to the shelter of the trees.
‘Go to Lord Oda,’ she whispered to the watchman. ‘Tell him the boy is here, in the camp. Tell him—’ She stopped. How would Lord Oda know where she was? She could follow Taro, but that didn’t mean Lord Oda would be able to follow her.
Then she saw the gun in the watchman’s other hand. Perfect – she would fire it when she was ready, and Lord Oda would only have to follow the sound, assuming of course that no battle began between now and then, ruining her plan by filling the night with gunfire.
She might even fire the gun at Hiro, if she had the chance – the shot could serve as more than just a signal to Lord Oda. Why not deprive Taro of another person he loved? It would be worth it just to see the expression on his face.
‘Give me that,’ she said, putting her hand on the gun. ‘Tell Lord Oda to follow the gunshot – it will lead him to the boy.’
At this, the watchman seemed to come back to his senses. He pulled the gun away from her. ‘Wait,’ he said, his gaze turning steely. ‘You’re just a girl!’ He grabbed her wrist. ‘I think you’d better come with me and explain what you’re—’
Yukiko moved like the falling rain, twisting from his grip, bringing her sword up to rest against the bulge of his throat. She angled the grip of the sword towards his startled, wide eyes, showing him the petals of Lord Oda’s mon. ‘See that?’ she hissed.
He swallowed, and her sword was so tight against his skin that the bobbing of his larynx against the steel made a shallow cut, which beaded with blood.
‘If you don’t do as I say,’ she hissed, ‘I will tear out your windpipe. Do you understand?’
This time he didn’t dare move a single muscle, for nodding would have been fatal. He just blinked his eyes. Satisfied, she withdrew the blade.
‘Now,’ she said. ‘Did you get all that, or do I have to repeat myself?’
The man whimpered. She raised her eyes to the heavens. Gods, the things she had to work with. And all this time Taro was getting farther away.
‘Go to Lord Oda,’ she said, as if speaking to an idiot. ‘Tell him Yukiko says the boy is here.’ The watchman opened his mouth to ask a question, but Yukiko cut him off. ‘Yes, he will know who I mean. Tell him to follow the gunshot – it will lead him to me.’ She tore the gun from his grip.
She turned to follow Taro again, then paused, seeing that the watchman hadn’t moved. She sighed. ‘You needn’t tell him that I caught you urinating while intruders crept through the camp. But believe me, if you don’t do as I ask – I will.’
The watchman turned on his heels and ran, towards Lord Oda’s tent.
CHAPTER 68
‘T HAT’S NOT A path,’ said Hiro. ‘That’s a cliff.’
They were standing in a clearing at the far end of Lord Oda’s encampment, looking up the almost sheer slope of the mountain on which sat the Hongan-ji monastery. Behind them another steep slope, heavily wooded, led down to the army’s tents and the fluttering pennants. Trees had anchored themselves in thin soil, their roots a twisting labyrinth underfoot, and it had been a struggle for Taro and the others to climb through this near-vertical forest and reach the bowl-shaped clearing in which they now found themselves.
The cliff above them was curved, extending its arms around them on either side, so that it was as if they stood in a natural theatre, or in the dubious embrace of the mountain.
‘It can’t be any steeper than the seaward side,’ said Shusaku. ‘I climbed that easily – and I’m blind.’
Hiro sighed. ‘Yes, and you’re a lot harder to kill than me. You really think this is going to work?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Shusaku. ‘But it’s better than just waiting to die, isn’t it?’
Hiro shrugged as if he wasn’t convinced. Actually, Taro was worried too. He had a surer sense of poise, and a firmer grip, since he’d been made a vampire, but that didn’t mean he was infallible. Where he came from, there was an expression: even Kappas can drown. Hadn’t he seen for himself how the sea demons were powerless against some greater forces? He thought that went for climbing vampires, too. And even though a fall probably wouldn’t kill him, it would definitely hurt.
He turned to look back where they had come from. Down there, smoke rose in wreaths from the tents, and it was just possible to see the horses and gunners arrayed on the lower slopes of Mount Hiei. It was an awesome sight. The biggest army Taro had ever seen, and it was all assembled to kill him. They had been lucky to get past it once – to try to return would be suicide.
And yet, on the other side of the grassy theatre in which they waited, the rock face loomed over them, almost mocking their intention to climb up to the Hongan-ji.
In the end it was Hana who stepped up to the cliff first, brushing her hands together to dry them. Hiro had no choice, then, but to follow.
Shusaku pushed his bag over his shoulder, putting the weight of the golden, false ball on his back. Taro followed suit, though his bag was smaller and lighter, for it carried the real ball. Taro had asked Shusaku why he was bothering to carry the big lump of useless gold, and Shusaku had shrugged. ‘It might come in handy,’ he’d said simply.
Now Shusaku chose a section of cliff next to Hana and reached up to seize a thick root. Taro was climbing behind them when there was a loud bang from the trees at his back, and he whirled round, startled. Shusaku dropped to the ground and spun, crouching. But there was nothing there that Taro could see – just the hint of a shadow, flitting between the trees, and a thin trail of smoke that lingered in the night air.
A gunshot, thought Taro.
Shusaku’s hand went to his sword, and Taro followed suit. Hana pulled back her own blade, which she had slung over her shoulder as she approached the cliff.
Nothing happened.
Taro looked around for shelter, but the clearing was bare – and anyway, no further shot followed.
‘It could be a watchman’s signal,’ said Shusaku, sounding nervous. That was what scared Taro most of all. He’d never seen Shusaku unsure of himself before. ‘We should get moving,’ continued Shusaku. He turned again to the cliff, holding his sword in his teeth.
‘Stop,’ said a voice that Taro knew all too well. He turned to see Yukiko standing by a cedar tree. She threw a spent gun to the ground and pointed her sword at Taro. ‘You were careless,’ she said. She was smiling, and Taro felt a rush of anger that literally stopped the breath in his lungs. She’d killed his mother, and now she was standing there smiling at him.
But wait.
He peered at her. Though she was smiling, her skin was sallow and creased, as if she was already developing wrinkles. There were dark patches of skin under her eyes. She looks sick, he thought. But then she smiled even wider and he didn’t see her illness any more, he saw only the person who had taken a sword to his mother.
Taro was moving before he was really aware of it, as if his sword were dragging him forward across the grass. Yukiko raised her blade and read his first slash, blocking him easily. But she had only one sword this time and was not in full armour, as if she had readied herself quickly. Taro guessed that she’d been sleeping when she heard them, or sensed them, or whatever it was she’d done to find them.
She was fast, but something seemed to be weakening Yukiko, and he was faster. Their blades
flashed in the moonlight as he danced around her, looking for the opening that would see his blade dart in and cut her down. She panted for breath, her lips no longer ruby red but drained, pinched and white, as if she herself were the passive and helpless victim of a kyuuketsuki. She spat in his face, and at that moment all his peace left him, and he was no longer content that his mother had melted into oneness.
He just wanted Yukiko dead.
He was dimly aware of Hana saying something behind him, expressing some kind of concern, but he was not in that world any more, he was in the circle of steel. He noted that Yukiko, too, was twisting the katas to her own devices, using moves he’d never seen before. At one point she ducked under one of his strikes, then slashed open his forearm. He barely glanced at the wound before landing her a cut right across the scalp.
Then came the moment he’d been waiting for.
Taro feinted to the left and for some reason, though she had seen through all his previous deceits, Yukiko went to block his sword. Twisting his blade in mid-movement, he brought it down towards her side.
Then something hot and hard struck him in the right shoulder, knocking him back and causing his blade to drop to the ground from his suddenly numb fingers. He stumbled, pressing his hand to the wound and taking it away wet with blood. Before him, a samurai emerged from the woods, holding a gun.
Behind the samurai, walking casually, came the unmistakable figure – lopsided, its right arm withered; a beautiful katana in its stronger left arm – of Lord Oda Nobunaga.
CHAPTER 69
‘KILL THE OLD one,’ said Lord Oda. ‘He’s dangerous.’
Obeying his daimyo’s orders, the samurai rushed past Taro to attack Shusaku.
Lord Oda winked at Taro. ‘You,’ he said, ‘are going to die.’ He turned to Hana. ‘And you are coming home with me. I haven’t decided yet what your punishment will be. Probably I’ll lock you up in the tower for good this time, after I’ve cut you up a bit. I wouldn’t want any noblemen – or peasant boys – getting any ideas.’
She stared at him. ‘Father. . .,’ she said, and Taro wasn’t sure if it was a plea, or a statement, or an expression of horror.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Lord Oda. ‘Your wounds will only be superficial, if painful. I wouldn’t want to. . . ruin you.’ He paused, cocking his head to one side. ‘You know, you look more like your mother than ever.’
Hana let out a scream and ran at him, her sword high. But Yukiko came forward to meet her, blocking Hana and then dropping back, keeping up a quick succession of parries that did little more than ward off Hana’s blows.
Taro bent down to pick up his sword in his left hand. The world had taken on a greater brightness and detail, as if his wound had opened him to reality and let more of it in. He could hear Shusaku behind him, muttering to himself as he fought the samurai. Taro wasn’t sure if Shusaku knew that he did this. Probably not – it was like he went into a trance when he was fighting.
It was almost funny, or would have been, under different circumstances. Taro knew that Shusaku would kill the samurai – that wasn’t a concern. What was a concern was Hana’s safety, and Hiro’s. Other samurai were bursting into the clearing now, and one of them ran towards Taro’s large friend.
He doesn’t even have a sword, thought Taro.
But he needn’t have worried – Hiro went down on one knee, knocked aside the man’s sword, and rammed his shoulder up and forward into his chest, sending him flying. There was a time when Hiro had challenged passing ronin to wrestling matches, pocketing the money that their overconfident friends bet against him. His instincts had obviously not left him.
Taro turned away from Hiro, worried for him, but knowing that he had to kill Lord Oda if this was ever going to stop. He moved forward, glancing occasionally at Hana, who was still fighting Yukiko. It was odd – Yukiko had fought free-form with him, but now she was meeting Hana’s competent but unimaginative kata forms with predictable blocks and simple moves.
Why isn’t she fighting properly?
But he didn’t have time to think about it, because at that moment Lord Oda was on him, his sword nothing but a silvery streak in the air, coming at Taro from the wrong side, which would confuse and distract a swordsman educated according to the conventions.
Yet Taro was not a conventional swordsman.
Taro met Lord Oda in the centre of the clearing, keeping his hand loose on the pommel of his sword. Neither he nor Lord Oda said anything – it wasn’t necessary. When they’d last fought, Taro had left the daimyo for dead. He wasn’t going to rest until Taro paid for it.
I might as well have signed my death warrant, he thought, as he was pressed irresistibly backwards, towards the cliff. A strike from Lord Oda came within a finger-span of his chest – would have speared his heart if he hadn’t turned, letting the blade go past. For a moment there was an opportunity – he lunged at the opening in Oda’s side, but the sword saint was too quick. Leaping back, Lord Oda got his sword up and twisted Taro’s blade aside, raked his blade along Taro’s arm as its point pressed towards his chest again. Only by giving up more ground, his back almost against the rock now, was Taro able to avoid the blow. Taro was slower than the daimyo – as he parried the blows, he knew that the fight couldn’t go on for much longer. Terror was gripping his heart, squeezing it. He was finding it more and more difficult to breathe.
But Lord Oda was too arrogant in his strength. He lowered his guard for a fraction of a moment to attempt a clever strike, and Taro put his blade through the man’s sword arm, rather than the heart he had been aiming for, feeling the scrape as it filleted the daimyo’s bicep from the bone. He was pleased for a heartbeat, but then he yanked back on the sword and felt it resist his pull – he’d stuck himself to Lord Oda now, and left himself open to a sword tip in the guts.
His sword came free, but not before Lord Oda dealt him a deep cut through his side. Pain was a bright flash in Taro’s vision, making the forest scene in front of him pale and luminous. He clutched at the cut with his left hand, feeling how deep it was, biting his tongue at the agony of it. It had missed his organs, at least. As he explored the wound with his fingers, he realized that he was lucky – the daimyo’s injury had taken the force out of his strike, which could otherwise have gone right through him. Without thinking, he raised his bloody fingers to his face and wiped streaks of red on his cheek.
‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ Taro spat, the pain of the cut in his side making his voice tremble more than he liked.
Lord Oda screamed, as much in frustration as rage, and stepped back into the fighting stance. Taro saw Yukiko look over to see what had happened to the daimyo, then return her attention to Hana as she redoubled her attack.
Lord Oda’s wounded left arm hung awkwardly. He glanced at it, then tossed his sword into his withered right arm, the one that had been wounded so many years ago, forcing him to adapt his technique. He came at Taro with a flurry of blows.
‘At first,’ said the daimyo as he fought, ‘I learned to fight with my remaining good arm. I made myself a sword saint again, learned every move backward.’
He turned aside one of Taro’s strikes and got his blade inside Taro’s, his sword tip plunging into Taro’s bullet wound before it was pulled back, as Lord Oda leaned away from Taro’s counter-strike. Over Lord Oda’s shoulder, Taro saw a group of samurai wearing the Oda mon run into the clearing.
Oh, gods, we’re outnumbered, he thought. Badly outnumbered.
Lord Oda must have heard them, because he raised his bloody, wounded arm and shouted, without turning, ‘Keep back! The boy is mine. Seize my daughter if you can.’
Then he focused on Taro again, his sword still leaping and slashing, and began to talk once more, as if this were a polite conversation, not a fight to the death.
‘But then I saw my small-mindedness,’ Lord Oda continued. ‘Why should a weak arm be a bad arm? I began to teach myself to fight with this arm too. The sword is not just about strength. It
’s about speed and agility.’
As if to demonstrate, he let loose a succession of lightning-fast moves, forcing Taro to block ever more quickly. Taro was beginning to tire. Lord Oda was a kensei, a sword saint, and Lord Oda was going to kill him.
Then Taro heard Shusaku’s voice. ‘Drop your sword, Nobunaga.’
Lord Oda held Taro’s sword down and turned to see what Shusaku was doing. And then, to Taro’s surprise, he backed away.
And dropped his sword.
CHAPTER 70
AT FIRST, AND as always, Shusaku felt the dead pressing in on him. Shadowy forms, they filled the clearing, and all of them had been opened up or shortened by his sword – he could see its mark on them like a trace of silver.
This is my karma, he thought. It surrounded him, crowded him, threatened to drown him. He’d never had a child. All he had done was to send people back, into the darkness, and their souls as they passed into hell were like a great counterweight, dragging Shusaku farther and farther down into his own hell, from which only death would be an escape, and even that would lead to nothing but suffering.
At first, and as always, he didn’t want to kill the samurai before him. But really, what was the choice? It was either the other man or him, Shusaku knew. And one thing was for sure.
It wasn’t going to be him.
Gathering his qi for one final time – I promise it’s the final time – he saw the samurai in his mind’s eye, a skeleton of pulsing red, smelling strongly of sweat and horse dung and leather. He blocked the childish, almost insulting attack, and sighed inwardly. Once he had woken a man he was supposed to assassinate, just to see what it was like when they fought back.
The answer was that it didn’t really make any difference.
Shusaku had long since come to the conclusion that the sword loved him, for some reason. It was nothing to do with being a vampire – it was a deeper romance than that, between every fibre of his being and the hammered steel. He saw the same thing in Taro, and much as he loved the boy, he felt sorry for him.