“And the cherry trees! They were wonderful! Everything was so wonderful! I could have wept for the beauty.”
“Wet sleeves are always fashionable for young ladies. It helps to attract husbands, so they say in the court.”
“But I’m not a weepy court maiden, Hatsumi,” Kazuko said with a wry smile.
“No, you are a princess of bumpkins, and sometimes you think you are a man,” Hatsumi said with an innocent expression.
Kazuko gasped and slapped Hatsumi’s leg affectionately. “I cannot help if Father’s estate is so far from anywhere important. I’m sure you would rather be the servant of some court concubine, someone with a more wealthy family, or higher standing?”
“Only if you were there, Kazuko. You know I could never leave you.”
“And I also cannot help that Father had no other children.”
“Sometimes he thinks you are a boy. But one thing is certain. Lord Tsunetomo did not think you were a boy.”
Kazuko’s mouth fell open, and she feigned ignorance. “What do you mean?”
Hatsumi giggled. “I noticed him looking at you like a hungry tiger.”
Kazuko felt herself blushing. “Yes, so did I. I . . . I didn’t like it.”
“Do you suppose your father is trying to find a husband for you?”
Kazuko shook her head vigorously. “Don’t be foolish.”
“You are the foolish one. You are old enough to be married now. You should start paying attention to such things. Why do you think Madame Hayako has been tutoring you in the ways of being a lady? Before you know it, you will be too old to find a husband, like me.”
Kazuko protested, “But you’re not too old! You’ll find a husband someday!”
Hatsumi sighed wistfully. “I hope so, but I’m sure you’ll be married long before me. No man ever notices me when you are nearby.”
“I will talk to Father about matching you with one of his men.”
Hatsumi smiled. “So you want to be my matchmaker, eh? Very well, you can be my matchmaker.”
“Oh, it will be so much fun! And I’ll be sure to find you a strong, handsome husband!”
Hatsumi patted Kazuko’s hand. “I’m sure you will, Kazuko. And don’t forget, he must be rich.”
Kazuko giggled and looked back outside through her small opening in the flap at the bushi guarding the palanquin. “I do not know if any of these men are married.”
“Captain Mitsubashi is quite handsome.”
Kazuko leaned back out of view as the yojimbo she had been watching, a man named Harata, turned to glance at her as if he had heard part of the conversation. Her ears grew hot with a flush. Then she said, “Why do you think Lord Tsunetomo never married?”
“I heard that he was married once, long ago, but his wife died from a fever.”
“Oh, that’s terrible, but why did he not get married again? He is too old now. He is near retirement age. So unfortunate that a man of his status has no children.”
“I do not—” Hatsumi was cut off by a sharp scream of pain from outside. The palanquin lurched. Hatsumi nearly fell out of it as the front corner fell to the ground.
Kazuko heard the shouts of her bodyguards and other shouts from farther away, along with a few vulgar taunts.
The palanquin lurched again and fell to the ground as if all eight bearers had dropped it together.
A chorus of more screams, in front and behind.
Another voice louder than all the others, as deep and penetrating as thunder, boomed in the air, laughing with malicious glee.
She peered out past the flap and saw three of her bodyguards, swords drawn, backing up from someone she could not see, looking upward, fear showing on their usually grim faces.
More of that terrible laughter.
Then the palanquin jumped into the air as if it had been kicked by a giant. Kazuko’s head crashed into the ceiling. The palanquin came down on its side, and her breath was driven out of her in a whoosh as she slammed down onto the curtain with the ground beneath. Her vision hazed. Hatsumi moaned in pain. Kazuko closed her eyes and imagined that if she hoped hard enough, she would wake up and find this was all just a horrible dream.
Hatsumi yelped with surprise, then screamed, a scream that quickly receded. Kazuko opened her eyes again and gasped when she saw that Hatsumi was gone, and the side-flap of the carriage now hung open above her. The carriage heaved again, throwing her against the ceiling, and again her head struck a wall of the carriage, casting her into blackness.
* * *
When Ken’ishi reached the source of the noises, he saw an overturned palanquin lying in the middle of the road, surrounded by the bleeding corpses of its eight bearers. A brutal melee swirled around the fallen palanquin. Four grim-faced samurai defended the palanquin against eight bandits. All of them bled from numerous small wounds, blood soaking the lips of the neat gashes in the fine, silken folds of their clothes. One of them clutched vainly at a slash in his abdomen; his strength was flagging.
The bandits laughed and taunted them as they fought, but their snarling faces held no true mirth, unshaven, twisted and ugly. Their clothes were ragged, except for a few instances where one of them wore a fine obi or tunic they had doubtless stolen from unfortunate victims like these. Ken’ishi glanced down at his own clothes, and suddenly felt the weight of the coins.
The bandits attacked with a multitude of weapons, swords and spears, one with a sickle in each hand, and one with a strange weapon that Ken’ishi could only describe as a sword blade attached to the end of a one-ken-long pole. The blade was different from that of a katana or tachi, heavier and with more curvature near the point but straighter along the length.
Ken’ishi would feel no qualms about killing hardened criminals such as these.
A bandit with a katana charged into close quarters with one of the samurai, driving him back a step. The samurai stumbled, and the muscular bandit with the unusual sword-pole lunged into the opening with the long reach of his weapon, slashing with a powerful downward stroke with all the leverage of the pole and body. The curved sheen of steel split the hapless samurai in a diagonal cut from shoulder to hip. In a spray of crimson gore, the cleft body fell to the earth.
A wounded samurai summoned a surge of strength to batter one of the bandits’ spears aside, then lunged in and slashed across the bandit’s wrist. Half of the bandit’s spear fell to the ground with a single hand and wrist still clutching the severed shaft. The bandit reeled back, howling in pain and fear, watching his blood spurting from the stump of his forearm, his scream fading as he passed out.
Another agonized shriek pierced the air, and Ken’ishi’s gaze snapped toward the source. A woman’s scream. Just off the path, the leaves of a bush shook with rhythmic violence, and a deep cruel laugh followed the scream like the rush of a bull. A scowl hardened Ken’ishi’s brow, and he reached for an arrow. He stood to his full height, now only half hidden by the tree. With unhurried speed, he nocked the arrow, raised the bow to point skyward, then lowered the point of the arrow and drew with a single motion. He released a heartbeat later, allowing the arrow to find its own way. The arrow hissed as it flew and sank deep between the shoulder blades of one of the bandit swordsmen. The bandit lurched forward onto his face, clutching at the out-of-reach shaft. The remaining six bandits shuffled their position to put the samurai between them and Ken’ishi’s position. The samurai followed, staying between the bandits and the carriage.
Ken’ishi nocked another arrow, drew, and fired. A spearman fell to the ground, convulsing around the feathered shaft protruding from his belly just above the groin. As one, the remaining bandits decided that they were finished playing with the three samurai. They rushed forward and impaled two of the samurai on their spears. The one remaining samurai shouted a brave cry and slashed open the ribcage of one of the spearmen with a precise diagonal cut.
Two of the bandits charged Ken’ishi’s position, the one with the sickles and the one with the strange sword-pole. He sa
w them coming for him in a strange slow motion, as if he watched them from the bottomless well of emptiness between instants. With what seemed to Ken’ishi no particular hurry, he readied another arrow and fired, sending the polearm wielder face down in the dust with an arrow through his heart. Then the sickle wielder reached him. The bandit cursed at him and slashed with his wickedly curved blades. Ken’ishi dashed his bow into the man’s face and leaped aside. The well of emptiness was gone like a dried-up pool, leaving him scrambling for his life. He dodged around the tree, and the sickle man hacked through the space he had just occupied, one of his weapons lodging in the bark of the tree.
Ken’ishi thrust himself closer before the man could jerk it free and smashed his left elbow into the bandit’s teeth. As the bandit reeled backward in pain, Ken’ishi drew his sword and slashed with a single motion. The man gulped, and his eyes bulged as he staggered backward, his hands clawing at the neat slit in his belly that bared his entrails to the sun goddess.
Ken’ishi spun to see how the last samurai fared. The last two bandits lay on the ground, their limbs jerking to the music of death. The samurai sank to his knees with the blood-smeared point of a spear protruding from his back just below the ribcage. His sword sagged to the earth, and his chin sank to his chest.
Ken’ishi ran toward the dying warrior and knelt before him. The samurai’s half-lidded eyes opened, and his chin rose just enough to gaze up into Ken’ishi’s face. “You are not one of them.”
“No. Never!” Ken’ishi said.
“Then, I beg of you, save the lady. My strength . . . is gone. I fear I . . . cannot. . . .” The warrior’s eyes closed. His torso sagged against the shaft of the spear and remained propped in its kneeling position as his final breath escaped.
Deep laughter rumbled like an avalanche out of the bushes beside the road, but no scream followed this time. Ken’ishi crept toward the bushes, but a soft sound from the overturned carriage turned him back around. He grasped the top of the carriage and set it upright. A young woman tumbled through the curtain and sprawled on the ground at his feet.
Her beauty struck him like a bolt from the thunder god. Even the ripening bump on her forehead could not mar the porcelain perfection of her features. A soft moan escaped her lips, and she stirred, like a fallen leaf caressed by the wind. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Are you a fox?” he said in amazement.
Her eyes opened wide and glimmering. Her voice was breathless and weak. “A fox?”
A deep voice boomed behind him. “What the hell is going on here! Where are all my men?”
Ken’ishi spun, and a gasp escaped him. He stepped backward at the sight of what stood before him and almost stumbled over the young woman’s body.
“Who the hell are you?” the creature roared.
It stood head, shoulders, and breast above him, its upper body looming above the roadside thicket. With skin the color of congealed blood, its rippling muscles stood out like ropes on its thick, gnarled limbs, barrel-like chest, and hunched shoulders. Its head had been carved from pure nightmare, glaring down at Ken’ishi with two beady yellow eyes set in deep, close-set sockets. Three yellowish-brown horns crowned its thick, low brow, each the length of a hand. A wild shock of coal-black hair was tied into an unruly caricature of a samurai’s topknot. Broad, brutish features and thick, flabby lips twisted into a snarl that bared cracked, yellowed tusks. In one of its three-fingered hands, it gripped a tremendous, studded iron club caked with bits of bloody flesh and hair. It stalked out of the bushes. Standing out straight before the beast, thrusting aside its meager linen loincloth, was its monstrous member, the size of Ken’ishi’s forearm.
“Jizo preserve me!” Ken’ishi whispered.
“Who the hell are you!” The creature’s voice sent shivers down Ken’ishi’s spine and raised the hairs on the nape of his neck, as if thunder itself were given voice.
He glanced toward the sound of a gasp. The young woman cringed away from the creature, backing against the palanquin.
The oni laughed again. “I’ve saved the sweetest for last, I see!” It leered down at her, its yellow eyes blazing with brutal lust.
“No!” Ken’ishi shouted, stepping between them to face the oni, raising his sword into the high stance. “You won’t touch her! I’ll kill her before you touch her!”
“It matters not to me whether she is alive or dead. Only that she is warm!” The oni laughed again. The oni reached down toward one of the dead samurai at its feet and wrenched an arm free of its socket, raised the dripping limb to his mouth, tore off a great chunk of raw flesh with its tusks and gulped it down. “Now, I must wash it down. Your blood will do, whelp!”
Ken’ishi clenched his teeth against his rising gorge. “Back to hell with you, demon!” Then he glanced down at the young woman. “Run!” he hissed.
She looked up at him.
“Run!” he shouted at her.
She scrambled to her feet and dashed up the road as quickly as her heavy garments would allow.
The oni watched her go with a look of irritated disappointment. “Now I must catch her again! Damn you, whelp! I’ll peel your hide in strips and use your skull for a bowl!”
The creature crossed the distance between them in four great strides and swung its iron club with startling speed. Ken’ishi darted aside, and the iron club splintered the carriage like kindling. A three-toed foot lashed out and plowed into Ken’ishi’s belly, sending him flying. Agony exploded in his guts, and stars flashed in his vision, but on the downward half of his arc, he spotted the upturned point of a broken spear in the path of his landing. He managed to twist in midair to extend his hands under him to avoid the spear point by a finger’s breadth. He hit the dirt and rolled to his feet, gasping for breath, his belly a blazing ball of hot pain.
“Stupid monkey! I am the demon bandit Hakamadare! I am the Shogun of Robbers! When I was a man, I was the most powerful bandit chieftain in a hundred years! No one could stand against me then! How can you stand against me now that I am a demon?”
Ken’ishi tried to compose himself enough to seek the emptiness. He tried to steady his breathing, but the sight of the creature whipped his heart into a thunderous gallop. The oni was upon him again in two strides, and the tetsubo whooshed downward like a falling boulder. Ken’ishi threw himself backward, and the club thumped into the earth with a spray of wet earth. The impact of the blow pulsed through his hands and feet. The size of the club and length of the creature’s arms gave it a great advantage of reach over Ken’ishi and his sword.
The oni swung the club again, this time through the space Ken’ishi’s head had occupied the shaved moment before he dropped into a crouch. The oni spouted a torrent of vile curses as Ken’ishi dodged and darted out of reach. Then Ken’ishi noticed a slim, white figure dart behind the creature from the right. He purposefully glanced to the oni’s left, away from the location of the approaching figure. The creature paused its attack long enough to follow his glance, and at that moment a shrill battle cry pierced the air. Ken’ishi saw the flash of steel and heard a sound like a blade chopping into wet wood. The oni grunted a puzzled curse, and its right leg collapsed. The slim white shape twirled away.
It was the young woman, wielding the strange sword-pole. The weapon spun in her grasp, and she assumed a stance that placed the blade of her weapon between herself and the creature, point down, razor-edge up, poised for a gutting upward swipe.
“My leg!” the creature roared. “You little bitch! I should have had you first!”
“Can you pierce me with your shaft hacked off?” Her words came out in a scream, shrill and half-crazed by fear and loathing. “Can you chase me with your legs hamstrung?”
“My flesh will heal quickly enough.” The creature’s sneer bared even more of its crimson-stained yellow teeth. “Come nearer. I want to taste yours!”
She had shed her heavy, quilted outer robes to allow more freedom of movement and now wore only light silk undergarments. Her beauty wa
s even more breathtaking as she gripped the sword-pole with well-trained ease. Her small breasts heaved against the silk.
Ken’ishi swallowed the lump forming in his throat and returned his attention to the oni. The creature rested on its knee, holding its tetsubo ready. Its head was now level with Ken’ishi’s. He glanced at the young woman and began to circle the oni, remaining well out of reach of its weapon. Her fierce dark eyes fixed on him for an instant, and then she followed his example and circled the other direction. Then, almost as if they read each other’s thoughts, they attacked as one from opposite directions. As it swatted at Ken’ishi with its club, the young woman’s sword-pole, with its longer reach, swept up and sliced deep through the side of the creature’s throat. The creature gurgled like a man struck a mortal wound, but Ken’ishi was astonished to see no blood flow from the gash. Instead, a thick black ichor like warm tar welled from a cut that would have been fatal to any human. A moment later, a nauseating stench struck Ken’ishi like a punch in the nose, as if its blood was the essence of death and decay. The oni covered the wound with its free hand to staunch the sluggish flow and swatted at the young woman. She danced back out of harm’s way, and Ken’ishi seized his opportunity. He raised Silver Crane high and slashed with all his strength, focusing his spirit, sword, and body into the blow with a sharp battle cry. The oni’s head tumbled from its shoulders into the dirt and bobbled away. Ken’ishi lowered his weapon.
A gasp escaped from the young woman. The oni’s body did not fall. Its free hand groped for the fallen head. The head snarled and burbled and mouthed, tusks gnashing, yellow eyes bulging. Ken’ishi kicked the head away from the fumbling body. The tetsubo swung at him, missing widely. The young woman stepped behind the body and with a single slash severed the hand gripping the iron club, which fell to the earth with a heavy thump.
“What should we do?” she asked. “It won’t die!”
“Burn it!” Ken’ishi said, his face taut with the effort of self-control.
“Use my palanquin for a fire!”
Heart of the Ronin Page 6