Young Samurai: The Ring of Sky

by Chris Bradford

  Following the slow drawn-out ritual of preparation, the bout itself lasted a matter of seconds.

  The winner bowed his respects to daimyo Kato, who applauded the man’s victory. Then the samurai lord at last turned his attention to Jack and Akiko.

  ‘Good work,’ said daimyo Kato, addressing the officer of the samurai unit. ‘Ensure the informant is handsomely rewarded. Such loyalty to the Shogun is deserving of special consideration.’

  ‘As you command, daimyo Kato,’ said the samurai officer, bowing.

  Akiko glanced at Jack, her eyes telling him all: Benkei had betrayed them.

  Jack couldn’t … wouldn’t believe it. The informant had to be the innkeeper. But the suspicious old man hadn’t managed to see his face, so how could he have known Jack was the gaijin samurai? A tiny seed of doubt was sown. Maybe twenty koban was too much for any person to resist?

  Daimyo Kato’s gaze raked appreciatively over Akiko and he tutted at her injuries.

  ‘That’s no way to treat a lady,’ he remarked. ‘Untie her.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ said the officer. ‘She’s a wildcat.’

  The daimyo laughed. ‘Like this tiger?’ he said, tapping the skin of the dead animal with his fan. He caught Akiko’s eye. ‘I killed this tiger in Korea … with just a tantō. If you try anything, I’ll snap your neck in two. Do you understand?’

  Chilled by his murderous tone, Akiko offered a submissive nod.

  Confident he’d broken her will, the daimyo smiled and indicated for her bonds to be cut.

  ‘And the … gaijin?’ queried the officer with hesitation.

  ‘Is he as dangerous as they say?’

  The officer nodded his head. ‘It took all ten of us to subdue him. He broke the arm of one of my men and threw others around like they were toys.’

  Daimyo Kato rested his chin upon the end of his fan, his expression one of marked interest rather than concern.

  ‘A spirited fighter!’ he said, regarding Jack with a hint of admiration. ‘Let’s put that warrior spirit of yours to the test.’

  35

  Sumo

  ‘Sumo is combat at its purest,’ declared daimyo Kato, gesturing towards the dohyō with his fan. ‘Two mighty forces confronting one another. Yet the battle is rarely won on strength alone. The true conflict takes place in the mind. The conqueror and conquered decided in the blink of an eye.’

  He clapped his hands. ‘Gyōji! Summon Riku.’

  The sumo referee bowed and turned to one of the many armed retainers, who stood unnoticed at the edge of the hall. The retainer hurried out and returned a few moments later accompanied by a hulking young man. With the body of an ox and legs like tree trunks, the wrestler clomped across the dojo floor to the central ring.

  ‘Riku is our youngest champion,’ explained the daimyo. ‘What he lacks in girth compared to his opponents, he more than makes up for in skill and mettle.’

  In Jack’s eyes, Riku looked as huge and intimidating as the other two wrestlers, but he wasn’t going to argue with the daimyo. In fact, he couldn’t – even if he’d wanted to – the gag was still in his mouth.

  ‘I wonder,’ mused the daimyo, a playful grin on his lips, ‘can a gaijin survive a sumo bout?’

  With a wave of his fan, he commanded the officer to unbind Jack.

  Glad to be free, Jack swallowed the dryness from his throat and rubbed his raw wrists. He glanced over at the man-mountain that was Riku. The young wrestler was pounding a fist into a fleshy palm, the message clear: he would beat Jack into a pulp.

  ‘I’m not here to entertain your whims,’ said Jack. ‘What reason do I have to fight your champion?’

  Daimyo Kato considered this a moment – then glanced at Akiko. ‘For her life.’

  Jack felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of him. He knew their situation was desperate, but the daimyo’s statement brought home the grim truth. As prisoners of a loyal supporter of the Shogun, they were destined to die. Yet a chance, however slim and uncertain, had been offered to save Akiko’s life.

  ‘He’s just playing a cruel game with us,’ whispered Akiko.

  ‘You’re right. But what a prize to win,’ said daimyo Kato, his hearing keen as a hawk’s. ‘While all traitors must be punished by death, clemency is possible in certain circumstances. I’ve considerable influence with the Shogun. Defeat my champion, gaijin, and, I assure you, your lady will live.’

  Although Akiko urged him to refuse, Jack nodded his acceptance of the challenge. Akiko’s welfare was all that mattered now. And he would fight till his last breath to save her.

  The officer led Jack at sword point over to the dohyō. Two attendants stripped him to the waist, then shoved him into the ring. The samurai patrol eagerly crowded round the edge to watch the spectacle. Akiko remained kneeling with one of the samurai guarding her closely. She offered Jack an encouraging smile, but her eyes couldn’t disguise her concern. The inevitable result of the forthcoming bout was impossible to ignore as Riku stood on his slab-like feet, an immovable mound of flesh and muscle, waiting to destroy him.

  Nonetheless, Jack took up position behind his white start line. The referee in the purple robes turned to him. Although he was a great deal shorter, the man somehow managed to look down his nose in distaste at Jack when he spoke. ‘The winner of the bout is the first wrestler to force his opponent out of the ring, or make him touch the ground with any part of his body other than his feet,’ explained the referee. ‘It is against the rules to use fists, pull hair, or choke your opponent. Is that clear?’

  Jack nodded. Despite never having fought sumo-style before, he had trained in taijutsu and was familiar with a number of wrestling techniques. Almost every day at the Niten Ichi Ryū, Sensei Kyuzo had tested their throwing and grappling skills.

  Break their balance, break the opponent! That was what Sensei Kyuzo had drilled into them.

  Jack rapidly assessed his opponent. There was no way he could match Riku’s brute strength or sheer weight, but he did have the advantage of agility and a longer reach. If he timed his movements so that Riku overcommitted to an attack, he might be able to use the wrestler’s immense power against himself. He would only have one chance at this, so he had to make it count. Adjusting his feet for the best stability, Jack felt the coarse sand between his toes and the hard unyielding clay beneath. He dropped into a crouch, his knuckles on the line, and readied himself for the charge.

  Glaring at Jack, Riku raised his left leg high and stomped the ground. Then he lifted his right leg and brought this crashing down. Each time his foot pounded the clay, Jack felt the whole dohyō shudder. The wrestler was like an earthquake about to happen and Jack was directly in its path. Then Riku broke away and stepped out of the ring. He drank a ladleful of water from a bucket before drying his lips with a piece of rice paper. Returning to his white line, Riku squatted, clapped his hands and spread them wide …

  In his determination to win, Jack had forgotten about the sumo rituals that preceded the actual bout. He now mirrored Riku’s gesture, opening out his arms to show he held no weapons. Satisfied, Riku returned to his corner and scattered a handful of salt. With the ring purified, he crouched once more in front of Jack and locked eyes with him. To Jack, it was like staring into a fathomless pit – Riku’s stony gaze giving nothing away.

  Daimyo Kato had spoken the truth when he said sumo was a battle of the minds.

  Riku’s glare continued to bore into him and Jack shifted uncomfortably. At that tiny lapse in concentration, Riku charged. The speed of his attack was inconceivable for his size. Jack barely had time to raise his arms before Riku almost pulverized him. Meaty forearms slammed into Jack’s chest. Hands like rocks slapped at his face. As the avalanche of muscle and flesh bowled into him, all Jack’s tactics crumbled like a castle made of sand.

  He numbly felt the edge of the ring with his back foot and in a last-ditch effort tried to stall Riku’s charge. But the wrestler, rather than going for a final push, gr
abbed Jack by an arm and a leg and lifted him high above his head. Flailing helplessly in Riku’s grip, Jack was then slammed into the clay ring. The impact was bone-shattering; Jack’s skeleton rattled like a child’s toy, even his brain seeming to shake inside his skull. Yet through the pain all Jack could think of was that he’d failed to save Akiko’s life.

  ‘Disappointing,’ remarked the daimyo, as Jack gave an agonized groan and curled up in the foetal position on the dohyō. ‘I expected more from the infamous gaijin samurai.’

  Although Jack’s body throbbed as if a stampeding bull had thundered over him, he wasn’t defeated. With an immense effort of will, he pulled himself back to his feet and gasped, ‘I demand … a rematch … now I understand the rules. Best out of three!’

  The daimyo raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘I do admire your fighting spirit, gaijin. On your head be it.’

  Splashing water in his face with the ladle, Jack revived himself and took up position at the white marker. Daimyo Kato dipped his fan to indicate to the official to commence the match. Riku re-entered the ring and faced off against Jack.

  ‘I’ll break every bone in your body, gaijin,’ warned Riku, loosening his neck with a crack.

  ‘I’ll do the same to you,’ replied Jack, ‘if I can find any!’

  Riled by the insult, Riku began stomping the ring.

  This time Jack followed all the rituals of sumo: clapping his hands, stamping his feet and tossing the salt. If Riku was offended or thought Jack was ridiculing him, he didn’t show it. He remained as stone-faced as before. As they crouched opposite each other, his hard and glassy stare focused on Jack, Riku gave no ground on their mental battlefield. Yet neither did Jack. This resulted in a second round of staring. On this occasion, Jack played to Riku’s overconfidence and feigned a flash of doubt. Riku registered it but broke away without charging, trying to hide the smug grin of certain victory on his face.

  They both returned to the ring, Riku tossing salt. Taking up their fighting positions, the battle of wills reached its peak. The moment both fists touched the sand, Riku exploded into a charge. But, like a spitting cobra, Jack flicked the salt he still held into the eyes of his opponent. Riku was momentarily blinded, allowing Jack to neatly sidestep him. Sweeping his right foot across, Jack knocked Riku’s legs from under him. His balance taken, the wrestler tumbled head first into the sand. His own momentum drove him forward and over the edge of the raised dohyō. Riku landed like a beached whale on the woodblock floor below. A muffled crack and cries of pain filled the hall: not just from Riku, who rolled around like a defective Daruma Doll, the force of the drop having broken several ribs, but also from the two samurai who’d captured Akiko. They lay pinned beneath the mammoth wrestler, Riku’s immense weight crushing the breath from them.

  Payback for Akiko!

  Dusting his hands of the salt, Jack locked eyes with Riku. ‘Seems I did find a bone or two to break!’

  36

  Bid for Freedom

  With Riku struggling to rise for a third bout, even with the help of two attendants, Jack turned to daimyo Kato and declared, ‘Final match is forfeit. I win.’

  ‘No!’ said daimyo Kato firmly. ‘You cheated.’

  ‘I used tactics,’ corrected Jack. ‘You said the conqueror and conquered are decided in the blink of an eye. Riku blinked.’

  Outfoxed, daimyo Kato fumed, his face contorting in silent rage. His hands gripped his fan so tightly it was on the verge of snapping in half. Then the referee stepped in.

  ‘The gaijin is disqualified,’ he announced, ‘for being over his start line.’

  ‘I wasn’t –’

  ‘The referee’s decision is final,’ cut in the daimyo, with an imperious sneer, as the sumo official turned his back on Jack’s protests and left the ring.

  Jack realized the samurai lord had been playing a cruel game with him, one that he’d had no intention of letting Jack win. Incensed, Jack glanced at Akiko held prisoner at the feet of the smugly smiling daimyo. Forever bound to one another, he mouthed to her, then leapt from the dohyō.

  The samurai patrol, clustered round the defeated wrestler and their crushed comrades, were too distracted to notice Jack’s bid for freedom. As he touched down on the dojo floor, Jack targeted the neck of the nearest samurai with a knife-hand strike. The man collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Jack swiftly unsheathed the katana from the samurai’s saya as he fell.

  The patrol officer, suddenly realizing what was happening, rushed to draw his own sword. Jack floored him with a spinning elbow strike to the jaw. He took out the next samurai using the brass pommel of his katana’s handle, embossing the man’s forehead with the dragon design that adorned the end. The five other samurai finally pulled themselves together and drew their weapons. In a frenzied attack, Jack charged into them, knocking one samurai over the writhing body of Riku and attacking another with his sword.

  At the same time as Jack was decimating the patrol, Akiko dropped forward as if to bow to the daimyo, then mule-kicked the guard behind her. The samurai went flying. He landed unceremoniously on his backside and skidded across the polished woodblock floor. Leaping cat-like to her feet, Akiko raced to help Jack. But the two sumo wrestlers from the earlier bout charged to intercept her. As they converged on either side, determined to crush her between their bloated bodies, Akiko sprang into the air and somersaulted away. The two titans collided head first. There was a sickening crack of skulls and they collapsed in a fleshy useless heap.

  Jack fought furiously, but with only a single katana to keep the four samurai at bay he was in mortal danger. As he deflected a blade slicing for his chest, he heard the ominous whoosh of a sword cut from behind. With no hope of avoiding it, Jack anticipated the icy sensation of razor-sharp steel scything through his flesh. But the blade missed and the sword clattered to the floor as his attacker let out a pained grunt and crumpled where he stood.

  Akiko had destroyed the samurai with a flying side-kick. Snatching up the dropped katana, she joined Jack at his side and engaged the remaining three samurai. Executing an Autumn Leaf strike, she disarmed one and took another down with a spinning hook kick, the heel catching the man’s jaw with a concussion-inducing crunch.

  ‘What’s the plan?’ she asked as Jack fended off the final samurai.

  ‘Plan?’ exclaimed Jack, disabling his attacker. ‘I hadn’t got that far.’

  ‘Then we’d better get out of here fast.’

  Together, they raced for the double doors. Jack glanced over his shoulder to check on any pursuers. Daimyo Kato, rather than looking alarmed by the situation, merely observed their escape with the enthralled amusement of a man watching a sporting match. The daimyo’s quiet confidence unsettled Jack, but that was the least of his worries as the armed retainers now rushed from their stations around the hall to head them off.

  Jack and Akiko fought their way through, edging closer and closer to the double doors. Attacks came from all directions, but by battling back to back they managed to hold them off.

  The double doors were now almost within reach …

  Like a crack of thunder, daimyo Kato clapped his hands together. The noise silenced the hall and all his samurai retainers withdrew. Jack and Akiko were left panting for breath, bewildered by the sudden retreat.

  ‘I stand corrected, gaijin. You certainly don’t disappoint,’ stated daimyo Kato. ‘You remind me of the legend of the Furious Frog. Unfailing courage against impossible odds.’

  He looked around at the profusion of groaning and unconscious bodies littering his dojo.

  ‘My men could learn a great deal from your fighting skills,’ he admitted with begrudging admiration. ‘But, as diverting as your little bid for freedom has been, I must quash your hopes of escape.’

  He rapped the iron edge of his fan against a bronze gong, the shimmering ring filling their ears. The doors to the hall burst open and the dojo flooded with troops. Within seconds, Jack and Akiko were encircled by a ring of steel-ti
pped spears.

  Daimyo Kato offered Akiko a pitying look. ‘I warned you not to try anything.’

  37

  Wraith

  Three torturous days … three painfully long nights … with neither sight nor sound of Akiko.

  Jack had barely slept for worry. Had daimyo Kato killed her? Snapped her neck as he’d promised? Or was he torturing her? Making her pay for their defiance. After all, unlike Jack, she was of little value to the daimyo. The best he could hope for was that she was languishing in another foul cell like his, perhaps crouched in a damp filthy corner worrying about his fate. Jack pictured her sitting in the only light that came from a pale crescent moon, barely glimpsed through the bars of a tiny grate high in the wall. There was a chance she might be still alive, looking at that same moon. For three whole days Jack had clung to that dream. But now he felt it slipping from his grasp, a nightmare consuming every flicker of hope.

  Daimyo Kato rules with an iron fist … prides himself on the brutality of his samurai …

  In their situation, a quick death might have been the most merciful option. Jack shifted his position on the dirt floor and groaned, rubbing his bruised and battered ribs. The guards checked on him twice a day: to bring him food – a thin rice gruel – a jug of slimy water and, at the end of every visit, a fresh beating. Nothing that would permanently damage him for his presentation to the Shogun, but enough to make his stay in the cell as painful and unpleasant as possible.

  A rat scuttled in the darkness and Jack batted it away with his foot. The creature had squeezed itself under the door and was looking for anything to eat. Jack shuddered at the thought that he might fall asleep, only to wake and find vermin gnawing on his hands or bare toes. He couldn’t afford to lose another finger.