by Adam Baker
‘We’ll take turns to keep watch,’ he said, addressing the company. ‘Right now, you feel alert, more awake than you’ve ever been. But in while exhaustion will hit. So, when it’s your turn on lookout, walk around. Don’t sit staring into the fire.’
Ariyo crouched and examined the captive lying sprawled on the stones. ‘She’s waking up,’ said Ariyo.
‘She?’
The bandit woke squirming, her limbs bound by twine. Her eyelids were gummed closed by dried blood. She prised them open and saw men standing over her, looking down. She tried to crawl away but the samurai blocked her path and sat cross-legged in front of her.
‘Who are you?’
The woman didn’t reply. She glanced around in terror.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Ako,’ she said.
‘You’re not a fighter, are you?’
‘From the village.’ She gestured south down the valley towards the empty huts the team had passed earlier that day.
‘What happened?’
‘Soldiers came. They raped and murdered for sport. A few of us fled into the forest and survived.’
‘Why did you attack?’ asked the samurai. ‘What did you want from us?’
‘Food. Warm clothing.’
‘You should have asked. We would have shared. Come over here, by the fire.’
The woman dragged herself towards the flames.
‘These soldiers are still in the area, neh? Is that why you haven’t left the forest and travelled elsewhere?’
The woman nodded.
‘Here,’ said the samurai. He handed the woman a flask and let her drink.
‘Those of us that survived the raid approached a village to the north,’ she said. ‘A little hamlet a few miles from here. Too small to deserve a name. We have been trading with them for generations. Meat. Grain. Leather. We know their names, they know ours. When we arrived we discovered they had fortified their village, erected a palisade in case the soldiers decide to descend on their hamlet and wipe it out. We approached the gate and shouted for help but the villagers pelted us with rocks and drove us away.’
‘Do you have any idea where these soldiers are from?’
‘They are the Daimyō’s men.’
‘They have no commander?’
‘These are lawless times. Soldiers. Bandits. There is no difference. They watch the roads, steal from travellers.’
The samurai nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘Maybe we could help them,’ said the girl gesturing to the captive. ‘These villagers. They have no food, no shelter. They are more deserving of our aid than the Emperor.’
‘I took an oath,’ said the samurai. ‘An oath to complete the mission.’
‘Remember,’ said Tameyo, ‘the lives of our families hang in the balance. We keep going. Forget about these folks. They are victims. The world is full of victims.’
‘Yes, the world is full of victims,’ said the girl. ‘Maybe we should be fighting on their behalf.’
The samurai smiled and shook his head. ‘I have a code I’ve lived by all my life. I’ll live by it until I die. I swore to undertake this mission and I have to finish what I have begun. But maybe you could bring justice to some corner of Honshu. Maybe that could be your life’s work.’
The samurai drew a knife from his belt and crouched beside the captive. Ako flinched like she expected to be stabbed in the gut. Instead the samurai cut her bonds.
‘We can’t let her go,’ said Masaie. ‘What if the soldiers pick her up? What if she talks?’
‘She won’t talk.’
Ako got to her feet.
‘Here,’ said the samurai. He picked up a dead man’s cloak and threw it to her. Ako looked down at the balled fabric in her hands. Minutes earlier the cloak had belonged to a friend.
‘Take it,’ said the samurai. ‘I’m sure your companion would want you to have it. Given the circumstances.’
Ako put on the cloak.
The samurai gave her dry rations wrapped in cloth. ‘Get out of here.’
‘Thank you.
‘Good luck.’
Raku and his men rode single file along the narrow forest track. Twigs and creepers clawed at their faces and clothes. They brushed them aside. The commander kept the lead. He held his torch high and studied the track ahead of him for prints. He raised his hand and signalled halt. He jumped from his horse, crouched and inspected churned mud.
‘What can you see?’ asked Tadasue.
‘Fresh footprints. Men have walked this path in the last few hours. We’re gaining ground. We’re almost upon them.’
He thrust the torch into pooled rainwater to smother the flame. Water hissed and boiled.
* * *
Raku glimpsed bamboo structures through the trees. The track widened into a moonlit glade. Crude shacks ringed a clearing. They rode into the village square, dismounted and looked around, spooked by the eerie silence. Tadatoo and Tadasue drew their swords.
Raku made a cursory exploration of the village. Empty houses. Scenes of interrupted domesticity. Scattered pots, scattered clothes, half eaten meals spilled on mats. He inspected a doorframe. A blade hack and blood splash on the wood.
‘Someone put this village to the sword,’ he said.
‘Sheep are meant to be sheared,’ said Tadasue with the contempt of a man who was born into rural poverty and had been running from it ever since.
Raku examined the ground for tracks. Nothing. The soil surrounding the shacks was too packed to take impressions.
‘Maybe we should stay here a while,’ said Tadatoo, looking up at the starlit sky. ‘Get a couple of hours sleep before dawn.’
The commander sniffed the air. ‘Smell that?’ he asked.
‘No.’
The commander approached a track that led north through dense brush away from the village. He raised his head and took a slow lungful of air.
‘Wood smoke. They’re close by.’
‘Think it’s them?’
Raku nodded.
‘What do you want to do?’
‘We have the element of surprise,’ said Raku. ‘We should use it.’
‘But what if we fail?’ asked Tadasue. ‘There will be no one to warn the general. We should leave them well alone and stick to our original plan: overtake them, reach the castle and fetch reinforcements. We could chase down the assassins with a thousand men. They wouldn’t stand a chance.’
The commander thought it over. Warrior instinct versus tactical advantage. He breathed deep, cleared his mind, and looked up at the moon. He closed his eyes and prayed. Then he nodded like he had received the answer to an unspoken question.
‘We attack.’
They unsaddled their horses and left them to graze in the clearing. They prepared for combat. They checked their armour and weapons. Tadatoo opened his pack and took out a compact crossbow and a quiver of bolts. Tadasue slung bandoliers over each shoulder. Each leather strap held ten bo shuriken: heavy iron throwing-darts with silk fletching. They checked gauntlets, checked helmet straps. Commander Raku adjusted his belt making sure his sword hung comfortably at his hip. The man faced each other.
‘For glory,’ said Raku. His companions nodded assent.
They headed down the track.
* * *
They crept through the undergrowth. Moonlight shafted through the branches. Every trunk and leaf seemed etched silver. The forest shone like it was sculpted from glass. They waded through tall grass weaving left and right to avoid bamboo thickets. There was no way of hacking through undergrowth without creating a cacophonous noise. They kept their progress silent as possible moving lithe as panthers, like liquid shadow. The commander raised his hand and signalled halt. The smell of wood smoke was getting stronger. He glimpsed flickering flames up ahead. He glanced back at his companions and received confirmation nods they were ready for combat. He drew his sword, crept forward and prepared to attack.
The girl kept watch. She sat by the fire mesmeri
sed by the dancing flames. She began to succumb to sleep. Her eyelids grew heavy and her head nodded towards her chest. She snapped awake, angry at herself for neglecting her watch.
She stood, stretched and walked to shake off fatigue. The team slept curled by the fire. Ariyo, Tameyo and Masaie. Their mean faces had softened in repose as if revealing their secret selves: the lonely, damaged, hand-shy children that, in their waking moments, wore a tough carapace of cynicism and distrust. The samurai sat cross-legged and stared into the flames, breathing deep and slow. His eyes were half-closed and it was hard to tell if he were awake or asleep. The girl wondered if he had watched her drift into unconsciousness, observed that moment of failure. She wanted to be a warrior but knew she was just a child. She had killed a man but he had been half-dead anyway. More of a mercy killing than a victory, like drowning a sick dog.
She leant against a tree and surveyed shifting moonshadows. She looked up and checked the constellations, tried to estimate how long before she could shake Masaie awake to take over her watch.
She snapped alert. A sudden, skin-prickling sense of threat. The past couple of hours had been accompanied by faint scuffling sounds that suggested rats had discovered the bodies in the undergrowth and had begun gnawing extremities. But the sound suddenly ceased. The forest was ominously still. Her hand drifted down to the tsuka at her hip. She gripped, ready to draw. The samurai rose to his feet in a silent, fluid movement. He felt it too. Something not right. He stood and listened to the oppressive silence then crouched by the sleeping convicts and woke them one by one. He mimed hush as they each blinked awake, scrambled to their feet and drew knives.
‘What’s going on?’ hissed Ariyo.
‘Someone out there?’ asked Tameyo. ‘Are the bandits back for another try?’
‘No.’
‘Who then?’
‘Someone else.’
The samurai scanned the treeline and drew his sword.
Raku crawled through undergrowth towards the campfire and pulled aside a curtain of grass. He watched figures move back and forth in front of the flames. Tadasue and Tadatoo slithered through the grass and lay beside him. Tadasue pulled a couple of bo shuriken from a shoulder belt. Tadatoo slotted a bolt into his crossbow and carefully pulled back the string until it locked with a discrete click. He put the bow to his shoulder and took aim at the silhouette of a man standing in front of the fire. The man had turned to look their way, like he heard movement in the underbrush. Tadatoo glanced at Raku tensed for the signal to go.
Raku raised a fist then let it drop: attack.
Tadatoo fired. A sharp clack as the bolt released. The target’s head was immediately thrown back, a bolt buried in his forehead. He toppled backwards into the campfire. An explosion of sparks and flames. His clothes, hair and beard started to burn.
A flicker of movement beside the fire as a figure got to its feet. Tadasue hurled a shuriken. The man howled in pain and fell to the ground.
Raku sprang up and charged from the brush into the clearing, sword raised. A man ran at him, a stumbling charge, a shuriken bedded in his neck. Raku bellowed a war cry. The assailant skidded to a halt, shocked by the scream and held up his hands to defend himself. Raku cut off the man’s arm with a down-sweep of his sword. The man fell to his knees, mouth open in shock, stump pulsing blood. A second sweep of the sword took his head.
The fight was over in a few heartbeats.
Tadatoo glanced at the body sprawled in the fire. Bubbling, cooking flesh filled the air with meat-stink. He loaded a fresh bolt into his crossbow. Tadasue found a frightened man lying on a bedroll, an arrow protruding from his shoulder.
‘This one’s alive.’
They stood over the injured man. Raku checked him out. He was ragged, starving and filthy.
‘These aren’t the men we’re chasing,’ he said. ‘These are bandits.’
Raku crouched and addressed the man. ‘Who are you?’
He didn’t respond, clearly too terrified to reply. Raku reached forward and gently twisted the arrow wedged in the man’s shoulder. He arched his back and screamed.
‘Who are you?’
‘Village.’
‘You’re from the village? The group of hovels down the valley?’
‘Soldiers. Soldiers came. Everyone killed.’
‘When was this?’
‘Days ago.’
‘But they didn’t do this to you, did they?’ said the commander, gesturing to the arrow. The wound look fresh. The blood had yet to dry.
‘No. Men. Travellers. We tried to rob them. They were armed and ready.’
‘How many?’
‘Five or six. Not sure.’
‘Where are they?’
‘Don’t know.’
Raku reached for the arrow.
‘Don’t. Please,’ said the man. ‘They’re close by. There are ruins north of here. They built a fire and cooked a meal.’
The commander nodded gratitude, unsheathed his knife and drew the blade across the injured man’s throat. The bandit choked and convulsed and Raku cupped his hand over the bandit’s mouth to quiet his guttural scream. He waited patiently for the man to bleed out and die.
‘Commander-sama,’ shouted Tadatoo. ‘More of them.’ He raising his crossbow and took aim at undergrowth.
Raku turned round. A figure watching them from the treeline. A woman wrapped in a patched leather cloak. Ako. She turned and fled thrashing through the undergrowth.
‘Find her,’ said Raku. ‘If she blunders across the assassins she could warn them we’re nearby.’
Tadatoo set off in pursuit.
The Commander headed into undergrowth and gestured for Tadasue to follow.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To find that camp.’
The convicts stood with their backs to one another and scanned the shadows of the ruined hall for movement. They listened hard and tried to gauge if attackers were close at hand.
‘Bandits?’ whispered Masaie.
‘No,’ said the samurai.
The deep urgency in the samurai’s voice and the grave look on his face filled the girl with apprehension. It was as if he could read the silence, the oppressive stillness that had settled on the forest, and knew they were facing a far more formidable foe than the ragged bandits who attacked them earlier that night.
‘Get your stuff together,’ he said. ‘All of you. Pack your things. We’re leaving, right now.’
The girl and the samurai stood guard while the convicts hurriedly rolled their blankets and stuffed gear into their packs. Masaie shouldered the explosives quick as he could without jolting his cargo, the urge to flee into the woods tempered by the need to treat the explosives with care.
The team froze as they heard a distant scream echo through the forest. A gurgling, choking howl that rose then abruptly ceased.
‘Sounds like those bandits drew a lot of bad luck tonight,’ murmured Tameyo.
They finished shouldered their packs.
‘Head north as fast as you can,’ said the samurai. ‘I’ll catch you up.’
He turned to the girl and stepped close so no one could overhear. ‘Go with them. You are in charge. Make sure they do the right thing. Don’t give orders. They won’t take it from a girl. Suggest. Nudge. Persuade. Don’t let them feel the guiding hand.’
She gave a reluctant nod. ‘What about you?’ she asked.
‘I need to see who’s following us.’
‘You’re not going to take them on alone, are you?’
‘What chance would I stand? A man with one arm?’
‘Promise me.’
‘Head north. Lead the men out of the forest. Don’t use the path. Head through the woods. Vary your route, maybe double back a few times. Make yourselves difficult to track. I won’t be far behind.’
She and the team ducked branches and headed into the undergrowth.
The samurai gripped his sword, hugged the broken walls of the temple ruins and merged with the moon
shadows.
Raku crept through moonlit undergrowth. He could make out a huge structure half-hidden by trees. He ducked beneath branches and worked his way closer to temple ruins silhouetted against the stars like jagged teeth instinctively reaching out and touching the stonework to check the building was real and not some kind of waking dream. He moved along the length of a vine-choked wall while Tadasue crept behind him. They reached the entrance archway and stopped. Tadasue stared in apprehension at the derelict precincts around him. A temple deep in uncharted woodland. The place was no doubt the home of kami, yōkai, and other malevolent spirits.
‘What can you see?’ he hissed, as Raku peered round the edge of the archway into the temple interior.
‘A big open area,’ said Raku. ‘Some kind of hall. Can’t see anyone. But there’s a fire.’
Raku entered the roofless temple hall, sword at the ready. He crouched and scanned the shadows surveying tumbled walls, encroaching trees and buckled flagstones. No sign of movement. He slid along the wall towards the fire, Tadasue following close behind.
Raku gestured to the camp fire. ‘Fresh logs,’ he whispered. ‘They can’t have been gone more than a few minutes.’
‘Maybe they’re still here.’
They edged round the wall and tried to get a better view of the roofless hall.
‘What would you do, if you were them?’ whispered Tadasue ‘If you heard us coming. Would you run, or would you stay and fight?’
‘I’d stay and fight,’ said Raku, adjusting his grip on the sword.
Tadatoo chased Ako through the forest. He did his best to keep up but Ako had lived in the valley all her life and knew the terrain. She jumped every log and root, swerved every low-hanging branch. Tadatoo blundered behind her, clothes ripped open, face slashed by thorns and twigs.