by Clint Dohmen
“Who are these people?” Aldo asked as he stood up and brushed himself down. But he quickly dove back behind the barrel as a second, third, fourth, and fifth volley peppered the Tigre.
“Thank Christ you Venetians put up these wooden awnings or we’d be skewered by now,” Simon said, still amazed at what he was witnessing.
Aldo crossed himself again and scowled while remaining firmly planted behind his barrel. “You can thank the engineers at the Arsenal for the concept, and Luca for the execution. But there is no need to blaspheme.”
The enemy arrows, which rained unceasingly from the sky, came at a flatter trajectory as the two ships drew closer. A howl from the forecastle announced to everyone that their meager manpower had just become that much scarcer. Aldo did not want to declare war on a country that Venice might have future trade relations with, but he also prized his own skin and that of his crew above his country’s future diplomatic initiatives. Aldo looked down to the waist of the ship, where his sailors crouched tensely next to the starboard cannons. There were barely enough men left to serve the guns. “Fire!”
Chapter 2
A GREAT BOOMING sound traveled across the water, and Yajuro watched white wisps of smoke cough out of the black barrels that had initiated his sense of dread. Soon after his ears registered the sound, the air around him seemed to eddy as giant, cast-iron balls hissed past him, slamming into his ship and his men.
One well-aimed ball hit the seki bune’s only mast, causing it to come crashing down onto the deck, crushing two samurai and trapping others beneath it. Another ball tore through the ranks of archers at chest level, blasting through the torso of the first man it came into contact with, ripping an arm from the man behind him, and knocking the head off a third. Still another cannonball skipped across the deck, severed a man’s leg at the hip, and bounced up to smash another’s face beyond recognition.
“Release arrows!” Yajuro roared.
“Hai!” the samurai warriors responded as one, smoothly re-notching their bows, oblivious to the cries of the wounded around them.
“Hard starboard,” Aldo ordered.
“Aye, Captain,” Simon said as he steered them closer to the fat, foreign galley. As the ships neared impact, the Tigre’s crew put lit matches to the touchholes on the rail-mounted hand cannons. Tongues of fire erupted from the gun breeches, and rocks, glass, nails, and round shot swept across the enemy deck like an invisible scythe. Seaman Aversa picked off targets with a crossbow from his perch in the rigging.
“Place your scrotums against the bulwarks, gentlemen,” Simon alerted the crew to brace for impact. The starboard side of the Tigre slammed into the port side of the smaller ship. Due to the grossly uneven weight difference, several samurai were tossed overboard, and the rest were thrown to the deck.
“Grappling hooks!” Aldo shouted needlessly to his skilled crew who, while considerably diminished in both strength and numbers, still knew their business. After all, they were Venetian, and Venice ruled the waves.
As if Kojiro Takeda’s head didn’t hurt badly enough, the disquiet in his stomach was overwhelming, forcing him to vomit into his mouth.
Two decks below Yajuro’s samurai, the environment rolled rhythmically, loosening the remaining control Kojiro held over his temporomandibular joints, and the vomit spilled out of his mouth and onto his chest. His sense of smell regrettably chose that moment to return, and he inhaled the malodorous substance now covering what was left of his shredded kimono. Kojiro tried to focus his blurred vision, but he felt like a man with his eyes open underwater. Though he could see almost nothing, he could hear the sounds of creaking oak, and a man shouting orders.
As the nausea briefly subsided, Kojiro became aware of a searing pain in his abdomen. Since he could not see what was causing it, he attempted to use his hands to feel the injury, but discovered that his hands were bound behind him to a large, wooden pole. “Ittai dokoya?” he mumbled softly to himself. Where the hell am I?
Overwhelming the powerful stench of his vomit was another more fetid aroma: rotten flesh. A large, dead animal such as a pig, if left to rot in the summer sun, would smell similar, but there was only one type of meat that secreted these unique olfactory properties. As Kojiro heard the unmistakable sound of oars grating in their oarlocks above him, a misshapen round object rolled onto his lap. His vision focused momentarily, and in the dim light he was able to make out the head of a warrior monk. Shame and anger invaded his foggy brain in a rush as pieces of his memory returned.
The ship rolled again and the monk’s head, with its accusatory eyes scorning him for being alive, skipped off his lap to find a new resting place against a dense form to his left. Kojiro initially guessed that the form may have been the rest of the monk, but as his hearing became more attuned to the environment, he realized that the form was straining to breathe.
“Kikoeruka?” Can you hear me? There was no answer, but Kojiro could still hear the raspy breaths. Someone was alive down here with him. Kojiro was roused from his speculation about the body by a familiar and loathsome shout on the deck above him. The cry of “Ouchi” knifed through the sensory overload in his brain, pruning away all thoughts but one: vengeance.
Kojiro’s entire body shuddered as the pole at his back jumped sideways. Pain shot through him, but the pole’s movement loosened the ropes that bound his hands. He managed to work himself free, and he half-crawled, half-stumbled his way towards the source of the raspy breathing. Kojiro found his young friend Taro on his back, bound hand and foot, with an accumulation of monk heads resting against his body. Kojiro was unable to wake the severely injured samurai, but he removed Taro’s restraints and scanned the dark, cramped quarters for a more comfortable place to lay him.
The space was bursting with treasure. It looked like the entirety of Kyoto’s grand estates had been robbed and jammed into the hold of this boat. Also taking up space were crates of heads, at least one of which had spilled open during the voyage. Kojiro despised the Ouchi proclivity for taking trophy heads; it was devoid of honor. Therefore making it well-suited to the Ouchi, he thought. He reached under Taro’s shoulders and pulled him towards a ladder, which, based on the light filtering down, led out of the hold.
After searching fruitlessly for weapons amongst the crates, barrels, sacks, and scrolls, he started up the ladder.
About halfway up, he was knocked viciously off the ladder as the entire ship jolted around him. Picking himself up, he looked at his hands and saw fresh blood. Kojiro swallowed and tasted the tang of copper. Blood ran down the back of his throat. “Kuso.” Shit, he muttered to himself, broken nose. With two deep exhalations, he blew snot and blood out of both nostrils, wiped his crooked nose on the sleeve of his ragged kimono, and started back up the ladder.
Dirty, sweating, nervous-looking peasants manned the deck above. They made no move to stand up or interfere with him, so he ignored them. He moved toward the stairs that led to the upper deck from where, like music to his ears, he heard screaming. Here, where the light was dim but not dark, he took the time to examine his abdomen, which pained him with every step. His skin was black, blue, and green, but he was not bleeding. Broken ribs, I’ll live long enough to kill somebody.
Buddha smiled upon him as he approached the stairs, because an Ouchi samurai came tumbling down with a short, arrow-like projectile protruding from the back of his head. The man’s dead hands still grasped his katana, a burden of which Kojiro relieved him. He stepped over the dead samurai, up the stairs, into daylight.
Yajuro took stock of his decimated crew. Most lay screaming and dying about him on the blood-slickened deck. “Form on me!” Yajuro shouted to his remaining men.
“Hai.”
Six men joined him at the center of the deck, prepared to face whatever came off the enemy ship. He drew his katana with his one good arm and defiantly shouted the name of his clan: “Ouchi!” The six men who joined him echoed his deep-throated cry, as did the injured and dying who still had the strengt
h and pride to shout for their captain and clan. Across the deck littered with splintered wood and mangled men, “Ouchi, Ouchi, Ouchi” reverberated. One man held his bowels inside his body with his left hand and tried to stand by bracing his sword on the deck with his right. Unsuccessful, he flopped back onto the deck but still managed to scream one last “Ouchi” before the blood gurgled from his mouth and he could speak no more.
Aldo fired his hand cannon, then moved next to Simon on the aftercastle deck where they observed the behavior on the enemy vessel. It was not encouraging. Their adversaries had just taken what looked to be upwards of eighty percent casualties, yet it appeared to have no impact whatsoever on their will to fight. That just isn’t normal, Aldo thought. “What do you think they’re all yelling?”
“Sounds to me like ‘ouch,’” Simon said, “which, if true, would certainly go down as a monumental understatement.”
Looking at the seven determined men on the enemy deck, and then looking back to his emaciated crew hauling feebly on the grappling lines, Aldo was not sure, even at three-to-one odds, that they would win this fight. It was certain, however, that any victory would come with losses they couldn’t afford.
The same unspoken thought occurred to Simon as he watched an eighth man appear on the enemy deck. “I wonder how many more of the tough bastards there are below decks.”
Kojiro emerged onto the deck, and although the sky was overcast, it took some time for his eyes to adjust to the increased brightness. Hampering his ability to see clearly were thick clouds of white smoke that stung his eyes and smelled of rotten eggs. What kind of devilment is this? The high-octave screaming caused him no concern, but smoke without fire and the smell of hot springs in the middle of the ocean were disconcerting.
Squinting through the daylight and smoke, he could see over thirty crumpled and dying samurai, all with the Ouchi black, diamond-shaped marking on their sashimono flags. His gaze settled next on the towering ship that appeared to be the source of both the smoke and the Ouchis’ misfortune. The strange ship was slowly pulling closer with grappling ropes, and it occurred to Kojiro that they might rob him of his vengeance completely.
The Ouchi samurai did not see him approach as they were entirely focused on the deadly, otherworldly enemy in front of them. Kojiro killed the first samurai with a forward thrust through his back and into his heart. He followed this with a roundhouse slash to the base of a second man’s neck, which severed his head cleanly. Tunnel vision kills, Kojiro thought. He could tell from the outcome of his first two sword strokes that the previous owner of this newly acquired blade had taken pride in its upkeep.
The enemy captain turned towards him, and before he could give the command, two of his remaining samurai engaged.
The Ouchi samurai’s katana came slicing down toward his head. Kojiro grabbed the man’s wrist with his left hand and wrapped his right arm around the man’s waist. Kojiro allowed the samurai’s arm to continue its downward motion as he pivoted into the man. His hips shifted underneath the man’s torso, and he assisted the man’s momentum by pulling forward on the wrist and bucking up with his own hips. The man rose above Kojiro’s back until his legs were perpendicular to the deck, at which point Kojiro stepped aside and pulled the man head first onto the boards, snapping his neck. Kojiro grabbed the man’s falling katana with his left hand, and pivoted back on his rear foot to avoid a sword strike from his next attacker.
Kojiro had been born left-handed, much to the chagrin of his parents who, in keeping with Japanese society in general, prized conformity. From the moment he shifted the first pair of chopsticks into his left hand, his parents began forcing utensils and writing instruments back to his right. Eating was a wash, but in calligraphy, being right-handed was close to necessary. The over two thousand characters necessary to be fluent in Japanese were all written left to right, top to bottom. A left-hander making left to right brushstrokes had to cope with their hand covering their work, so Kojiro learned to use his right hand. Whenever his parents weren’t looking, of course, he moved his chopsticks back to his left, not realizing that later in life, this ambidexterity would pay dividends.
Now holding swords in both of his hands, Kojiro swung them in a rearward, circular motion to gain momentum, then brought them down to bear on the shoulders of the attacker who had just missed him. Kojiro’s blows sliced through the samurai’s light shoulder armor near the neck, and cut through his trapezius muscles, causing him to release his own katana and drop to the deck in agony.
After watching his captive display his sword skills, Yajuro knew that with one arm, he had no chance to defeat him. Even in my prime, I might not have been that good. But to die at the hands of a skillful samurai was honorable. To fall to the white smoke magic that killed without skill or face-to-face contact was not. His stomach tensed. He turned his back on the ship that had destroyed his crew and lunged forward at the samurai with the crane marking on his tattered, stinking kimono.
Simon and Aldo stood in shock. They had never seen such a combination of dexterous movement and swordplay.
“He’s got different markings on his clothing than the others, and no silly little flag on his back,” Simon pointed out.
“Why, yes he does,” Aldo countered. “Looks like some type of bird in a circle.”
“I’d also venture to say that there are some hard feelings between him and those other fellows.”
As they continued to watch, the man with the bird markings battered the one-armed enemy leader to the ground with rapid striking motions from the hilts of his swords. After the enemy leader fell, he proceeded to kill the remaining two warriors.
As the killings came to an end, there was complete silence on the Tigre. The Venetian crew stood transfixed. The spell was broken when Simon started slowly clapping. As the skill that he had just witnessed sank in further, Simon increased the speed and volume of his clapping until finally he shouted out to the swordsman.
“Well done, sir! I must say, very well done.”
Kojiro paused after striking down the last man and looked at the deck around him. It was filled with men who had major body parts missing, flesh destroyed by small projectiles, or both. A few had been felled by small arrows similar to the one that bequeathed him his first Ouchi sword. He wondered if the same fate lay in store for him.
The ship dipped into the trough of a wave, and cold seawater mixed with blood rushed between his bare toes. Beating back human nature’s tendency towards tunnel vision, Kojiro looked left, right, and behind, but no one rose to challenge him. A victory over a hated enemy, combined with the festering guilt of still being alive after so many of his friends had fallen, produced a guttural cry he could not contain. Part challenge, part exhaustion, part death wish, the deep explosion of his vocal cords echoed across the decks of both ships. Kojiro did not hear the clapping from the strange ship or the friendly shout. He did notice that the one-armed man he had knocked out with the hilts of his swords was coming around.
“What is your name?” Yajuro asked as he blinked into consciousness.
“I am Kojiro.”
Surprise and understanding hit Yajuro all at once as he connected the name, the crane emblem, the stories he thought were children’s fantasies, and what he’d just witnessed with his own eyes. He gasped.
“B... b... but you are dead. Everyone said you were dead!”
“Shiteru.” I know, Kojiro said with no emotion in his voice.
“That was ten years ago.” Yajuro struggled for words. He never struggled for words. Could this really be the man who held the Sanpo-in Temple gate for twelve hours?
“How did you escape?” Yajuro stammered. “Where have you been for ten years?” Yajuro had never believed the legend of the minor clan samurai who killed hundreds of Ouchi at the temple gate, then disappeared just as the temple fell. He had always assumed it was an old soldier’s tale invented to scare youngsters. Youngsters like the obedient dullard that now lay dead beside him.
Kojiro did n
ot answer.
If Yajuro’s opponent was indeed the man of legend, he knew he could expect no mercy from him. After all, the Ouchi had butchered all the monks at Sanpo-in and at every monastery they’d encountered since. But perhaps he could maintain his honor in death. After all, Yajuro, too, had once been a great samurai.
“I have heard of you, Kojiro-sama, and I ask that you let me die of my own accord.”
“I could not care less how you die,” Kojiro stated coldly as he tucked his new katanas into his belt.
Yajuro nodded his head slightly in thanks. Despite the harsh words, he was grateful for the concession. He felt around the blood-soaked deck and retrieved a short tanto dagger from the body of the young, dim samurai. He then pulled himself up to his knees and forcefully thrust the tanto into his lower abdomen. From there he pulled it horizontally across his stomach, then straight up and into his ribcage. The pain was immense, but as his life drained away, he was thankful. He had died with honor.
Well, now, that’s something new, Simon thought. He had never seen anybody disembowel himself before. He’d seen people disemboweled in battle, and people disemboweled by torture, but this was the first time he’d seen it self-applied. And this guy did it with one arm. He thought about it again for a minute. He looked at Aldo. “Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
“No.”
“It must be as painful as Christ’s crucifixion.”
Aldo crossed himself first, and then replied bluntly, “Yes.”
“Why would anybody do something like that?”