Young Samurai: The Ring of Sky

by Chris Bradford

‘You’d best arm yourself, Benkei,’ Jack suggested, unsheathing his katana as the patrol advanced.

  ‘You’re the one with the swords. You fight them.’ Benkei began to back away. ‘My mother always said, when in trouble … run!’

  Hightailing it up the street, Benkei left Jack to fend for himself. Outnumbered ten to one, Jack decided that Benkei’s mother might be right in this instance. Cutting the ropes binding the woodpile, he shoved his shoulder into it with all his might. The logs rolled and clattered their way down the alley. They caught the feet of the approaching samurai, causing them to stumble and sprawl on the ground. In the confusion, Jack took off after Benkei.

  He finally caught up with him near the outskirts of town.

  ‘They’re still after us,’ cried Jack.

  ‘Of course they are,’ replied Benkei, rolling his eyes. ‘You’re charged with treason against the Shogun himself! I was better off buried up to my neck in sand!’

  ‘And I’d be long gone if I hadn’t stopped to save your life,’ retorted Jack.

  Benkei sighed. ‘Fair point, nanban. But don’t start thinking I owe you any life debt. I don’t believe in any of that bushido nonsense.’

  ‘There they are!’ came a shout as the samurai patrol made a reappearance further down the road.

  ‘Here we go again,’ sighed Benkei in exasperation. ‘We’ll have to risk the Nine Hells of Beppu.’

  ‘Nine hells?’ Jack wasn’t reassured by the sinister-sounding name.

  ‘It’s our only hope,’ Benkei replied gravely, scrambling up a trail into the forested hillside. ‘The nine jigoku are home to the demons of the volcano. No one goes near, unless they have to.’

  The path wound its way through the trees and bushes, before passing beneath several red torii gates. As they progressed deeper, the trees became sickly, their leaves blotched and limp, their trunks bleached white as bone. Wisps of steam swirled amid the skeletal branches, lending the forest an eerie and unearthly atmosphere. Jack felt as if he’d entered another world, one of spirits, demons and dragons. The air was humid and thick with the tang of sulphur. A ferocious hissing, like an angry nest of serpents, issued from within the veils of mist.

  ‘Careful where you tread,’ warned Benkei, pointing to a small fissure in the ground through which scorching vapour whistled out. ‘The heat will as soon cook you as it’ll cook rice!’

  Jack kept close to Benkei as he guided him across a hellish landscape. Through the swirls of roaring steam, Jack spied noxious pools of bubbling mud and shimmering lakes in lurid hues. A pond, bright blue as a cobalt sea, simmered like a giant’s cooking pot. Another flowed white like sour milk. A third seethed with waters yellow as molten gold.

  ‘Fall into a jigoku and you’ll be boiled alive!’ warned Benkei, holding a hand to his mouth against the egg-like stench that filled their nostrils.

  As they negotiated their way round the different Hell ponds, they heard an argument break out among the samurai patrol.

  ‘I don’t care what demons or dragons dwell in this place!’ barked the leader, his voice strangely disembodied amid the steam. ‘The Shogun signed this gaijin’s arrest warrant personally. Now spread out and find them – or I’ll throw each of you into a Hell!’

  Hidden by the same mist, Jack and Benkei silently made their escape. They passed a pool of hiccupping grey mud, large bubbles rising like the bald pates of Buddhist monks until they burst with a pop.

  All of a sudden the air cleared and Benkei found himself face to face with a steely-eyed samurai. He barely managed to duck as a blade sliced towards his neck. Jack withdrew his katana in a flash, blocking a second strike aimed at Benkei’s midriff, and pushed him out of harm’s way.

  The samurai now swung his sword with deadly intent at Jack. Deflecting the blade easily, Jack countered with a rising cut. The tip sliced within a hair’s breadth of the samurai’s chin and would have made contact if Jack hadn’t been seized from behind. A second larger samurai wrapped a forearm round Jack’s throat and began to strangle him. Anticipating an easy kill, the first samurai charged forward to skewer their foreign captive through the stomach. But Jack still had his sword arm free and managed to fend off the attack. The samurai struck again. Jack deflected it – and the next strike – much to the warrior’s frustration. But the other samurai was fast choking the life out of Jack. Black spots were clouding his vision and Jack knew he was fighting on borrowed time.

  Where’s Benkei when I need him?

  Blocking another deadly sword thrust, he front-kicked the first samurai in the chest, sending him staggering backwards. Then he elbowed his captor hard in the gut, loosening the man’s grip. Dropping to one knee, Jack threw him using ippon seoinage, a one-arm shoulder throw. The samurai flew through the air just as the other warrior charged forward again, the tip of his sword targeted at Jack’s chest. The two samurai collided. The blade impaled the second samurai, while the first was knocked off his feet by the impact. As his companion clutched his bleeding stomach, the first samurai teetered on the lip of the boiling mud pit.

  ‘Help!’ he cried, his arms flailing to regain his balance.

  Barely recovered from his throttling, Jack staggered forward to save the man, but was too late. A horrendous scream escaped the samurai’s lips as he plunged into the bubbling jigoku. Covered head to foot in scalding mud, only the whites of his eyes visible, the warrior floundered in the Hell like some primordial monster. He clawed for the bank, but quickly disappeared beneath the surface, the pit sucking him into its foul depths.

  Rejoining Jack near the edge, Benkei stared into the mud pond with a mix of fascination and horror. ‘You can see where the name comes from now. That really is one hellish way to die!’

  7

  Tornado Hell

  ‘Where were you?’ gasped Jack, massaging his bruised throat. ‘Why didn’t you help me?’

  Benkei patted him on the back affectionately. ‘You looked to be doing fine on your own.’

  Jack was about to protest this, when the rest of the patrol materialized out of the mist on the other side of the pond.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Benkei, racing off towards the remaining Hells.

  Running virtually blind through the steam, they weaved in between the deadly pools. A samurai cut across and blocked their path. They switched directions. In his haste, Jack landed on one of the steaming vents. Crying out in shock and pain, he stumbled and pitched forward. Directly ahead was a blood-red Hell – its crimson waters waiting to strip the skin from his flesh. At the last second, Benkei grabbed his arm and pulled him back from the brink. ‘This is no time for a bath!’

  Eventually they reached a rocky slope at the edge of the Nine Hells, only to be faced with a roaring wall of white-hot steam. The blast subsided, then roared again as if it were the pulse of the volcano.

  ‘Mountain Hell,’ explained Benkei. ‘We’ll have to go round it.’

  They skirted the Hell until they came to a boulder-strewn patch of ground at the base of a small cliff. As they searched for a route up the rock face, the samurai patrol caught up and surrounded them.

  ‘Nowhere to run this time,’ declared the leader with a triumphant grin. ‘Surrender or die.’

  ‘Not much of a choice,’ remarked Jack, turning to face them, ‘when the punishment for treason is death anyway!’

  ‘True,’ agreed the leader, giving the command to attack.

  Jack unsheathed his wakizashi, raising it over his head while keeping his katana poised in a front guard. Despite the impossible odds of battling eight samurai at once, Jack realized their only chance of survival lay in the Two Heavens – a devastating double sword technique that his samurai guardian, Masamoto, had taught him.

  Unfazed by the threat of a gaijin wielding two swords, the samurai patrol continued to advance.

  ‘I could do with some help this time,’ said Jack out of the corner of his mouth to Benkei.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m right behind you,’ replied Benkei reassuringly.


  Jack glanced back to see his companion literally shielding himself behind Jack’s own body.

  The first two samurai attacked, their blades arcing for Jack’s neck from either side. Jack blocked both sword strikes before side-kicking the warrior to his left. He then spun round, slicing his katana across the other’s chest. The samurai barely managed to leap away in time, his kimono left in tatters by the sword’s razor-sharp kissaki.

  Witnessing Jack’s deadly defence, four warriors now charged at him. Jack’s katana and wakizashi became a blur of steel as he fended off strike after strike. He ducked beneath a vicious sword swipe for his head, then leapt over another blade. Quickly rolling between two samurai, he cross-blocked a lethal attempt to cleave him in half by the leader himself.

  ‘So the rumours are true!’ spat the leader, with something approaching respect. ‘You have mastered the Two Heavens.’

  His heart pounding and his lungs burning, Jack fought like a warrior possessed. The samurai patrol couldn’t lay a single blade upon him. But, with Benkei left unprotected, the attention of one of the patrol was turned on him.

  Benkei picked up a rock to arm himself – and immediately dropped it.

  ‘Oww!’ he cried, blowing on his fingers. ‘That’s red hot.’

  The samurai laughed at his misfortune. But his gloating was his downfall. Benkei hurriedly wrapped his hand in a piece of cloth torn from his motley kimono. Then he snatched up another rock and hurled it at his attacker. The missile struck the samurai square in the face, searing his flesh. The samurai reeled away in agony.

  Meanwhile, Jack fought his way back to Benkei and they held off the patrol with a combination of sword and rocks. But the demands of battling so many opponents rapidly drained Jack’s strength.

  ‘I’ve run out of rocks!’ exclaimed Benkei.

  The patrol closed in for the kill.

  As Jack prepared to make a final stand, the ground started to tremble. A rumbling noise deep below the earth grew louder and louder.

  ‘The dragon awakes!’ cried a terrified samurai, turning on his heel and sprinting off through the mist.

  The next moment, scalding steam erupted into the sky, followed by a jet of super-heated water. Beads of blistering rain pelted the samurai and they fled in all directions.

  Shielding himself with his pack, Jack grabbed Benkei and ran too.

  ‘They’re getting away!’ shouted the leader in fury.

  ‘I forgot about … that last Hell,’ Benkei panted as they dodged the thundering geyser. ‘Tatsumaki Jigoku.’

  Tornado Hell, how appropriate, thought Jack, recalling his violent encounter with the Pirate Queen of the same name.

  He stopped before Mountain Hell and caught a glimpse of the forested slopes beyond. The wall of steam continued to throb in blasting waves. ‘If we time it right, we can make it through.’

  ‘Are you completely mad?’ exclaimed Benkei, eyeing the scalding barrier.

  ‘Do you know the Heart Sutra?’ Jack asked with all seriousness.

  ‘Of course, everyone’s heard of that Buddhist scripture. But what’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘I was taught how to use one of its mantras to walk across a fire pit,’ Jack hurriedly explained, remembering Sensei Yamada’s lesson during the gasshuku training camp in Koya-san. ‘Essentially, by emptying your mind, you empty your body of all sensation, all pain and all suffering. Have you ever meditated?’

  ‘Well … once or twice,’ blustered Benkei.

  ‘Good, then recite this and it will help protect you from the heat: Om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha …’

  Jack chanted the mantra until they were both repeating the incantation in unison. A sense of calm amid the storm descended upon them and Jack felt a familiar tingle spread throughout his limbs.

  ‘There they are!’ came a cry.

  Unable to wait for a lull in the blasts, Jack grabbed Benkei’s arm.

  ‘No! Stop!’ shouted Benkei. ‘Didn’t you say the mantra was for fire?’

  But Jack had already dived head first into Mountain Hell, dragging Benkei through the steam along with him.

  8

  Grief

  ‘I’m red as a lobster!’ complained Benkei, inspecting his raw blistered skin as he stood cooling beneath a waterfall on the upper slopes of Mount Tsurumi.

  ‘At least you’re a live one,’ replied Jack, his legs dangling in a rock pool.

  ‘No thanks to that mantra of yours. I’ve got burns in places I can’t even see!’

  ‘You’d be a lot worse without its protection,’ said Jack, who’d escaped Mountain Hell with little more than scalded feet. ‘Besides, we lost the patrol, so the gamble was worth it.’

  Benkei shook his head in astonishment. ‘You’re the craziest nanban I’ve ever met! And the deadliest. Where did you learn to fight like that?’

  ‘I trained at the Niten Ichi Ryū in Kyoto … until the school was closed by the Shogun.’ Having only just met Benkei, Jack decided to omit his time spent training as a ninja. Discretion at this stage in their relationship was wiser and far safer.

  ‘And that’s another thing – why’s the Shogun so desperate to kill you?’ asked Benkei. ‘I realize you’re a foreigner, but that patrol leader said the order was personal.’

  ‘Kamakura has borne a grudge against me, ever since I made him lose face by defeating his sword school in a Taryu-Jiai contest,’ admitted Jack. ‘Then I fought against him during the Battle of Osaka Castle.’

  Benkei whistled through his teeth. ‘No wonder you’re in trouble! I’d heard rumours that they were hunting samurai who’d taken up arms against the Shogun. A foreign samurai, though, is ten times worse.’

  While this was true, Jack knew that was only half the reason. The other was Kamakura’s desire to get his hands on the rutter. The Shogun knew that the logbook could be used to control the trade routes between nations, making it a very powerful political tool as well as extremely lucrative. He intended to use it for his own gain. But Jack had vowed to his father never to let the rutter fall into the wrong hands.

  ‘So what are you going to do now?’ asked Benkei.

  Jack hadn’t thought about that. He’d been too busy running to worry about his next move.

  ‘I was headed to Nagasaki until …’ From his vantage point at the edge of the rock pool, Jack gazed out across the wide expanse of Beppu Bay. Clouds of steam rose into the evening sky before scattering like departing spirits. The fading sun glimmered off the rippling waters of the Seto Sea and his eyes searched for a mast-less skiff, adrift somewhere in the bay or beyond. But it was futile. He was too far from the coast to see such things. And, in his heart of hearts, he knew that the skiff could never have survived the storm and, in all likelihood, now lay rotting on the seabed.

  A tear rolled down his cheek and he felt his throat tighten. Jack wanted to cry out in anguish and anger at losing his friends. But he clenched his fists in frustrated fury instead, banging them against the rock. Since his arrival in Japan all he seemed to have known was loss: the loss of his father at the hands of the murderous ninja Dragon Eye; the courageous sacrifice of his samurai brother Yamato; the banishment of his guardian Masamoto; of leaving his best friend Akiko time and time again … and now the tragic loss of his loyal friends, Yori, Saburo and Miyuki.

  Feeling heavy with grief, Jack bowed his head. He thought of giving up there and then – sitting upon that rock until cold, hunger or the samurai patrol took him. But he couldn’t allow all that suffering and loss to come to nothing.

  When it is dark enough, you can see the stars, his Zen master Sensei Yamada had once said.

  And there was one glimmer of light in his black funereal sky. Jack realized the only way to bring meaning to their deaths was to reach Nagasaki, return home and reunite with the sole family he had left – his sister, Jess.

  ‘Have you listened to anything I’ve just said?’ asked Benkei, plonking himself down next to Jack.

  Jack glanced u
p, quickly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I said, I’ll be your guide, nanban.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘Nagasaki, of course.’ Benkei gave him a concerned look. ‘Are you all right?’

  Jack nodded. ‘Why risk your life to be my guide? I’m a fugitive. There’s no need for you to be one too.’

  Benkei laughed. ‘My mother always said, Dip your toe in the water and you’re likely to fall in. I’m already up to my neck in this! Besides, who wouldn’t want to be chased, beaten and boiled alive in a day?’ He clapped Jack on the back. ‘Just imagine what excitement awaits us on the road to Nagasaki.’

  9

  The Shell Game

  The morning sun was a welcome relief to the cold night spent on the mountain. Its warmth banished the stiffness from Jack’s bones as he foraged for food among the bushes. Thanks to the fieldcraft he’d learnt as a ninja, he knew what to look for and where, and had soon gathered a good handful of nuts, berries and edible roots. Returning to the waterfall, he found Benkei still fast asleep. His patchwork kimono made him look like a forsaken court jester and Jack wondered who his new companion really was. So far he knew nothing of the young man’s history – not even why he’d been buried alive on the beach, although Jack guessed that had something to do with the magistrate. Until he learnt more, he needed to be on his guard with Benkei. Nevertheless, he was grateful to have a willing guide.

  Jack nudged him with his foot. ‘Rise and shine!’

  ‘Hey, nanban …’ Benkei groaned, rubbing his eyes. ‘Why did you have to wake me? I was having a wonderful dream about a banquet served by beautiful geisha –’ He yawned loudly.

  ‘Well, you’ve got me serving you instead,’ replied Jack, laying out the rations on a flat rock.

  ‘And I thought dreams never came true!’ Benkei shot him a wry smile. He rose, stretched and dunked his head in the pool, before taking several long draughts of the crystal-clear mountain water. Running his fingers through his unruly hair, he joined Jack beside the rock and sat down. Together they tucked into the modest meal.