Cave of the Shadow Ninja: Part I

by David Parkin

  Moments later, Ichi felt his muscles relax and the floor beneath him slowly fall away until the white light of enlightenment began to warm his core. Ichi stayed on the blissful plane for only a moment, however, until the sound of a soft snore erupted beside him. It was Ozo, his reckless and impulsive youngest brother.

  Ichi cleared his throat loudly enough to wake Ozo with a snort. “How can I think about nothing when Ozo can’t even stay awake?” Ichi pleaded with the ever-watching eye of his ancestors, ready to try again.

  Like sleep, one who meditates only knows he’s achieved enlightenment once he wakes from it. After a few minutes of peace, the weight on Ichi’s shoulders, his reputation as leader of the famous “Sons of Sato,” and the weight of his father, the most famous samurai in history, left him and he was . . .

  “However,” Ichi suggested to himself, “such weight is not so easily released into the ether.” A few seconds went by before thoughts of earlier sank in from the shadows of his mind. That same autumn, their father told Ichi that it was up to him to lead his brothers now. The eldest son of Sato understood the meaning of his father’s message but had no idea how fast he expected the mantle to pass. The very next morning, Sato had vanished without telling his sons his goal or destination.

  At first, Ichi was excited and honored for the opportunity to prove his worth but now, sitting in a temple overlooking the capital city of Kaito, he began to doubt his father’s decision.

  Bushan, like Kaito, was a spiritual and honor-based society with a focus on martial arts as not just a way of war, but a form of discipline and a path to uniting the spirit and body. The Bushanese samurai, like Ichi, his father, and his brothers, were a quiet and noble band of warriors without military organization and leadership, but with a code of honor that kept balance among them. Meeting a samurai in battle meant facing an opponent wearing brightly colored flags across his shoulders to announce his presence. It meant fighting face to face without the use of spies or tactics deemed “unfair” and “dishonorable” among the western world. Through the war, Kaito gained a great respect for their foe, which had helped in smoothing relations once the bloodshed had stopped.

  The greatest example of honor among all of the Bushanese samurai was Ichi’s father, who had fought against the Kaitians in the Great War for almost twenty years. He became so well known for his ethics that upon his return, Kaitian soldiers saluted his valor. Kejni, the emperor of Bushan at the time, had credited the move for assisting in the formation of peace.

  As a reward for his service, it was said that Kenji called Sato to his temple and told him that each of his children would be blessed with remarkable gifts from their ancestors as a reward for their father’s service. As it turned out, the emperor was right.

  As Sato’s three sons reached the age of manhood, each began to exhibit remarkable talents. First, Ichi noticed his eyesight began to improve. His perception grew so keen that the fleas on a cow’s back became as clear to him as the cow itself. Next they learned of Toji’s incredible hearing when he began to complain that the conversations in the next town were keeping him awake at night. And, finally, Ozo, the youngest, developed a sense of touch so remarkable he could feel a stalking leopard’s heartbeat from miles away through the vibrations in the ground.

  Sato knew the significance of his sons’ gifts and became determined to ensure the boys used them for just and honorable means. The old man took it upon himself to train them in the code of the samurai, the rigid system of honor, structure, and honesty that guaranteed all warriors who followed it a clear conscience and a fair fight.

  In these last few months, Ichi tried as he might to keep his brothers on the path of integrity. His father prepared them well enough for the task, but one thing Sato neglected to mention was how to find the path in the first place. Ichi knew how to bow. He knew how to tell the truth and how to fight with honor, but what he wrestled with was choosing which fights to fight, which jobs to take, and who to trust.

  When Captain Ping’s runner approached them days ago, Ichi couldn’t understand why the head of their, until recently, sworn enemies’ military would have anything to do with the Sons of Sato, let alone trust them to save the nation’s entire future. When the messenger mentioned the “Ninja,” however, he understood.

  After the war, rumors began to rise that the famous Bushanese school of honor and discipline had given birth to something evil, a hidden clan of ghosts working as thieves and assassins, attacking, silent and invisible, often robbing or killing a target without knowledge the attack had occurred until it was too late.

  These criminals dubbed “Ninja” by those who heard their stories stood in opposition to the honor of their samurai cousins. The very idea of the Ninja’s practice was so toxic and repugnant to the Bushanese people that most, including Ichi, believed they were nothing more than drunken pirates spreading ghost stories in an effort to strike fear in their enemies. His were a people of honor and he would never believe that Bushan could birth such a disgrace.

  Whatever it was that Ping thought he saw, Ichi chalked it up to an intimidation tactic, no more serious than a Snowlander’s painted face or a Woodlander’s flashed undercarriage. “At night,” he reminded himself, “when the blood is up, the untrained mind can do strange things.”

  Once again, Ichi corrected his posture. “Think of nothing,” he reminded himself. “Father would never spend so much time worrying about his decisions.” As he began grasping for peace once again, Ozo suddenly scoffed and pointed to the ceiling, annoyed.

  “There’s a worm rattling around in that lantern! How am I supposed to get any slee—?”

  “Trying to what?” Ichi asked, calm. He didn’t need gifted eyes to see the guilty expression Ozo made as he caught his words.

  “Meditate,” Ozo continued, sheepishly, “I’m trying to meditate.” Above them, the little white worm had indeed crawled onto a large lantern and began chewing the rice paper cover.

  “Respect, Ozo,” Ichi sighed, “this is a temple, after all.”

  “A Kaitian temple,” Ozo responded flippantly.

  “The temple of our would-be employer,” Ichi corrected. “It’s just a worm. Pay it no mind.”

  It had taken the Sons of Sato a lifetime to hone their gifts. Once, Ichi overheard his father telling their mother that with so much information to process, he was amazed their sons hadn’t gone insane. Ichi was the lucky one; his eyesight was truly remarkable, but if he ever needed a moment free from the river of noise they brought in, he needed only to close them. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Toji and Ozo, unable to turn off their senses. This reason, above all, was why Ichi believed he could offer a level of patience toward his brothers that his father never could.

  With another moment of silence, Ichi tried again to escape, but Toji interrupted before he began. “Six men on the road from the palace,” his brother said, with his eyes still closed.

  Ichi took a breath. “He’s the emperor. It’s his job to be cautious,” he said. “Let them find us. He can squirm around with his doubts for a little while longer. Until then, find your Chi, brother.”

  Toji closed his eyes as Ichi let the silence lift him up once again. After just a moment, Ozo spoke up. “Isn’t there enough work for us in Bushan?” he complained.

  “Not if Kaito loses its silk trade to a Ninja,” Toji responded. “If that happens, we’ll be at war again.”

  “It couldn’t have been a Ninja,” Ozo said with confidence.

  “Have you ever met one?” Toji asked.

  “There’s no such thing,” Ichi corrected.

  “Regardless of their existence, Toji offered, “Someone took those worms.”

  “We stay,” Ichi said with finality. “Like it or not, we’re helping Bushan more right here than we ever could at home.”

  “I can hear the worm now,” Toji deflated. “It’s no use.”

  “If a worm can distract you, how do you expect to fight a . . . whatever we’re after?” Ichi dodged
the word Ninja, trying to keep the argument on point.

  “If he lumbers around like the emperor’s men,” Ozo said, “it shouldn’t be too hard. They’re approaching as stealthy as a train of broken wagons.”

  “Respect, Ozo,” Ichi sighed.

  “Their hearts are beating like drums, and they’re breathing like steam kettles,” Toji agreed. “These are the best the palace has to offer? Let the war come again. With enemies like these, it’d be over in a fortnight.”

  Ichi grumbled as he stood and faced his brothers, finally giving up himself. “Listen,” he said, “with father detached, it’s my job to think like him. What did he always tell us? ‘If we let our strengths do all our thinking, they’ll become our weaknesses.’ I saw that!” Ichi snapped as Ozo rolled his eyes.

  “Of course you did,” Toji moaned. “You see everything.” Above them, the silk worm began lowering itself from the lantern by a tiny thread. In the quick movements of a samurai, Ozo rolled backward onto his feet, leapt in the air, snatched the worm, and landed without a sound.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Ozo mused as the helpless white morsel rolled between his fingers. “The biggest empire the world has ever known, and it could all crumble tomorrow because of these little worms.”

  “Not those,” Toji corrected, “the stolen worms were specially bred over centuries.”

  “Just like the samurai,” Ichi added as he put his hands on his brothers’ shoulders.

  “If the thief is from Bushan, Ping needs men from Bushan to catch him,” Ichi ordered with confidence. “Come, we have a job to do.”

  Beneath the starless night, Ichi, Toji, and Ozo burst from the temple into a beautiful garden lit by lanterns and sporadic groupings of fireflies. Each of their senses came to life as the brothers’ hearts began racing and the hair on the back of their necks stood on end.

  The Sons of Sato may not have attended the Kaito Royal Academy but their training was no less impressive. Unlike a school education, their instinct for hand-to-hand combat was forced into their beings much harder and faster than the guardsmen they were about to face.

  Though Kaito enjoyed a time of peace since the Great War as a unified nation with an Emperor and common law, Bushan had not been so fortunate. The world to the west consisted of nine separate countries each with dozens, if not hundreds, of feudal lords. In the struggling postwar economy, almost all of them wasted no time fighting each other for their own small stake. The Emperor of Bushan lost the ability to control the lords, and eventually they forced him out, sentencing him to live the rest of his days in seclusion. To keep the local disputes from turning to war, the samurai took it upon themselves to police the states. The only time Ichi had ever heard his father complain was one night after a particularly difficult battle when he told his sons that he felt ashamed of Bushan for forcing their beloved samurai to come home from one war to orchestrate a thousand more.

  Beside Ichi, Toji’s ears perked. “Two on the roof,” he whispered with surety.

  Ozo lifted his heel and buried the ball of his foot into the gravel. “Two behind us, in the bushes,” he whispered with a confident smirk.

  Ichi squinted. The faint light from the palace rising above their heads revealed more to him than any owl could see. He focused on a cloud of minuscule dust particles erupting from behind two large pots at the edge of the garden. “The last two, behind the pots,” he whispered.

  The code their father taught them called for an equal and fair fight under any circumstance. A foe might try to hide, but a true samurai would always let it be known that he was coming. “If they want to squirrel away, then we’ll just have to go find them,” Ichi announced loudly enough for all to hear before the three brothers moved, quick and quiet, in three separate directions.

  Toji climbed up the ornate woodwork across the temple archway and surprised two large and ugly palace guards hiding on the pagoda roof above. Through the simple sound of their drawing swords, Toji’s gifted ears revealed a deadly weakness. . .

  A weapon drawn while defending a life is done so quickly, it develops a soft ring in the wood of the scabbard. The sounds of the guards’ scabbards were rigid against their steel, a sign of a sword drawn slowly and relaxed over its lifetime like the draw before a sparing match or training exercise. Through that simple sound, Toji understood the guards’ lumbering pace and lack of experience. These men, no matter how well trained, hadn’t yet gained the practical knowledge of war.

  A sparring partner was important for training but it was no substitute for an enemy. They might prove aggressive but any fighter without death on the line would most likely pull difficult jabs in order to favor his own back.

  As the first guard attacked, Toji caught his blade just inches further in his swing, forcing him to correct with his footing and slightly strain a muscle in his side. The second guard got the same treatment. Now, with their next swings stiffened, Toji forced them to connect even further through the strike and, like clockwork, he heard the sting of a pulled muscle tighten through their racing pulse.

  Knowing he had already beaten them, Toji extended mercy. He dodged another attack, slipped between the two guards, and forced their blades into the tile roof. The split second his foes took to dislodge their steel was more than enough time for Toji to pull their obi, the belt they used to tie their swords around their waist. As the guards spun, Toji tied the obis together, and the men lost their footing, falling to the tile roof and scrambling for a hold before they rolled off the edge. On the way down, their tied belts caught an overhang in the temple’s architecture and they smashed into each other so strongly, both men fell unconscious.

  In the center of the garden, Ichi moved through the moonlight toward two eight-foot-tall clay pots on either side of the gravel path. He focused on the microscopic dust particles in the air affected by the two guards’ frantic breathing.

  “Gentlemen,” Ichi said, calm, “I’m sure all this sneaking around would traditionally effect some sort of advantage, but I’d prefer it if you stepped out from there so we can just get to it.” The guards stayed quiet. Ichi shifted his weight, trying to stay patient. “Well,” he continued, “if your hearts are set on a surprise attack, I guess we can do that, too.”

  An attacker subconsciously holds his breath before a strike. When Ichi saw the particles stop dancing in the light, he had a split second to react, which, for a samurai, might as well be an eternity.

  The two men jumped from behind the clay pots, swinging two spears toward the spot in the gravel Ichi had occupied until that very moment. As the spears slapped against the empty ground, Ichi landed with one foot on each handle, used the spears as catapults, and jumped into the air over the guards’ heads.

  The men countered and swung behind them, but Ichi was not there, either. They looked up to find him suspended above their heads with one foot on each pot. This time, Ichi leaped backward, feeling the rush of air past his backside as two razor-sharp spearheads missed him once again. In midair, Ichi cut the heads off the two spears with his blade and scissor-kicked the guards. The three warriors hit the ground together, Ichi on his feet and his two opponents on their backs.

  Around the side of the temple, Ozo approached the last two men as they crouched behind a neatly trimmed row of bushes.

  “It’s too dark. I can’t see!” the first guard whispered.

  “Why is it so quiet?” the second asked, trying to gain the courage to investigate.

  Behind the men, Ozo walked upright and in full view with his hands clasped casually behind his back. The young samurai stopped behind the guards, curious as to how they could be so concerned about what was happening ahead of them that they failed to look behind.

  After a moment, Ozo cleared his throat impatiently. At the sound, the two guards stood fast and whirled around, training their swords on the youngest Son of Sato. Ozo knew he could use his superior sense of touch here. He could feel their heartbeats through the ground and know every move they made before they made it.
He could counter and anticipate their sword position and striking angles just from the vibrations he sensed whenever their swords clashed. Sure, he thought to himself, I could do all that but it’s been a long journey, I’m tired, and there’s no need for showboating in the garden of a Kaitian temple in the middle of the night.

  As the men swung each of their swords from opposite directions, Ozo leaped and spun in the air. He kicked one guard’s helmet off his head and sent it into the other’s face with a smash, knocking both men unconscious in one move.

  After taking just a moment to admire his work, Ozo crossed his hands behind his back once more and walked away humming a little tune.

  “Ridiculous,” Ozo complained as he and Toji joined Ichi. “The thief is probably halfway across the Backbone by now, and we’re here fighting the people we came to help.”

  “If he’s is as deadly as they say,” Toji offered, “then these Kaitians really do need us.”

  Ichi kept quiet. He couldn’t argue with either of them. Suddenly, between the buzzing of the fireflies, Toji looked to the palace above. “What is it?” Ichi asked, recognizing the look on his brother’s face when he had heard something worthwhile.

  “The emperor,” Toji said, “he’s inviting us to the palace.”

  “More guards coming,” Ozo whispered, listening through the soles of his feet.

  Ichi looked up to Pylo Palace and found the one window among the hundreds that housed the shadows of two men sitting in wait. “Well, brothers,” Ichi said, “it’s not like a samurai to disobey orders.”