by Travis Bughi
By the angels, she thought. How can trees grow this close to each other? I hope we pass this soon.
“How can you be certain?” she asked after pushing her bow and then herself through a tight gap.
“How can it be anything else?” he said, drawing his katana to hack away at some thick branches that barred their passage. “You’ve ruled out the angels reaching out to you, so it can’t be them. You keep dreaming of being a colossus, the very colossus you touched, never any other. To top it all off, this didn’t start until you physically touched one. I think you’ve got it all wrong, Emily. You’ve been thinking that this image of the colossus is a message to you, when really the colossus is just the messenger.”
A couple more hacks and the tree limbs blocking their way were no more. Takeo sheathed his katana and then slipped through the last space. He stopped on the other side, and reached a hand through to Emily. She took it, and stepped out into a large clearing.
The thick line of trees they’d passed through continued in a wide circle about them, creating a clearing as large as the top of a kraken’s head. Blue sky spotted with patchy white clouds looked down upon them, like a reverse lake of tranquility. Emily looked up at the open world above, and then scanned the empty clearing.
“A messenger?” she said, turning to Takeo. “What could his message be?”
He just pursed his lips and shook his head.
Emily put her hands on her hips. “Well, that just asks more questions. Here I thought I was deciphering a letter, and now you’re telling me I haven’t even opened it yet?”
Takeo shrugged and said, “Sometimes we have to take a step back in order to take a step forward.”
“Is that why you’ve brought us to an old ninja camp?” Emily asked. “Stepping back so we can step forward?”
Takeo smiled at her, then, one of his rare smiles that showed teeth. His dark eyes reflected the blue sky above, and Emily felt a sudden flush of warmth in her cheeks.
“You catch on so quickly,” he said.
Chapter 9
They searched the clearing, but not for signs of previous residency—Takeo had already explained that they would find none and that he only knew they were in the right place by memory. They searched for the practicality of it. They looked for fruit trees, found a nearby stream, and selected a campsite that would allow them to rest easily but also to retreat into hiding if they were disturbed by unwanted company. Takeo didn’t know how long they’d be there. He hoped a few days, but he wanted to plan for a couple of weeks.
Immediately following this, Emily set about cutting and fletching more arrows. She intended to go on doing this until she ran out of room in her quiver, which wouldn’t hold more than thirty. It wasn’t optimal, but she would have to be happy with that. In the meantime, Takeo collected some fruit and then set about using his katana to cut wood for a fire. It was apparently a laborious task because, in no time at all, Takeo was grunting with effort and working up a glistening sweat in the evening light.
“Can I tell you something?” he asked.
“I’m listening,” she said, giving her own grunt as she ran her dagger along the next branch to be whittled into a shaft.
“This is a very stupid thing I’m doing.”
Emily laughed. “Well, why don’t you stop?”
He paused with his katana held high and glanced at her. “Because that would be worse. You see—”
His katana sliced through the air, whistling until it struck wood and split the log in two.
“—we need the fire to signal our presence to the ninjas, assuming they aren’t here already, listening to our every word. However, it’ll also tell everyone else of our existence. The problem with this being that the only people who’d be this far into the forest during the war are either bandits or soldiers, neither of which we’ll want to meet.”
“Really now, Takeo? Do I have to convince you that your own plan will work? We’re racing against time here. You heard Mako. Katsu is winning this war. In fact, who knows how old her news is? It might be this war is already lost, and you and I aren’t in Juatwa anymore. Perhaps this place is Katsuland or Ichirofield now. The ninjas will know—according to you, information is half their profession—and how else are we to attract them without contacts we can trust or gold in our pockets? Starting a fire and staying in their old camp is the best option.”
Emily gave Takeo a defiant glance, daring him to counter her, but he just pursed his lips and averted his gaze.
“That settles that, then,” he said, letting his katana fall again to split more wood. “Unfortunately, that’s not the only stupid thing I’m doing right now.”
“Bad and worse, wrong and less wrong.” Emily bobbed her head from side to side. “Is anything ever good for you, Takeo?”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He paused in his strikes, breathing hard, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. The air was cooling around them, faster than the previous evening. That was probably thanks to the lack of trees above them. In the night, an open sky was always cooler than a sheltered one. Takeo must have thought the same thing, because he glanced up at the steadily fading light and removed his arms from the sleeves of his kimono. It fell over him, revealing his chest and back, and hung from his waist like a very long skirt. Despite having seen it before, Emily still struggled not to gawk.
Takeo claimed his life had been one of constant war, peppered by sparse, blissful, fleeting moments of peace that were never more than a calm before the storm. It was a metaphor for Juatwa, really, a common story amongst the people that lived here, samurai and villager alike. However, if anyone were to doubt Takeo’s words for any reason, all he’d have to do to convince them would be to show them his body.
The scars were the most prominent. Emily counted at least ten, which was nine more than she carried and ten more than she’d like to have. Time had faded all except for the one that ran along his left cheek, but they would never disappear. There were four on his back, two on his right side, one near his waist, and several tiny ones near the center of his chest, showcasing the area his enemies had aimed for the most. The first time Emily had seen them all, it had been by accident. Aboard the viking ship, Emily had walked in on Takeo rinsing himself in cold seawater out of a bucket.
In that awkward moment, Emily had stared wide-eyed, forgetting all the manners her parents had drilled into her. Afterwards, she would realize that it was stupid of her not to expect this. Takeo was not an amazon; he did not fight from afar with a bow and arrow. Neither was he a knight; he did not cover himself in plate armor and carry a shield. He was a samurai, and for honor, they fought with a naked blade in close quarters, attempting to slice each other apart for the victory of their lord. Emily was a fool to expect that anyone could live such a life and never carry a scar, even if his skills were legendary.
Takeo, for his part, had not judged her. He had waited, ever patient in his silence, hands clasped together holding the cloth he’d used to dab himself. His eyes fell on her until she’d stammered a meager apology and left. Only after she had regained control of her mind did it suddenly dawn on her why Takeo had never removed his clothes when they had bathed together in Savara’s springs. He didn’t want her to speak of it, she realized, and so she never did.
Although, truth be told, it wasn’t just Takeo’s scars that caught her attention.
“The other stupid thing,” he said, splitting another log, “is that I’m using my katana as an axe. I’m using my only weapon, the thing that’s supposed to keep me alive, to split hardwood. Right now, with every swing, I’m dulling the edge and tiring myself out at the same time. I have to work harder because a katana doesn’t have the weight of an axe, and all in all, that makes me very, very stupid.”
Emily blinked and took a sharp inhale. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath.
“Well then,” she said, returning her attention to her arrows, “you’ve convinced me. I concede. You are stupid.”
He smirked.
In time, Emily finished her arrows, fletching and all. Takeo finished his chores, too, and they settled in for the coming night on the edge of the clearing near the tight throng of trees. They had a small stack of wood, a nearby stream to slake their thirst, and a meal of kappa meat and fresh fruit. Emily could not have asked for better.
“This one is an apple,” Takeo explained, showing what he’d found. “You’ll find the ones here are sweeter than the ones from Lucifan. And this here is a peach.”
“Is that like a mango?”
“I don’t know,” Takeo admitted. “What’s a mango?”
“I’m not sure I can explain it.” Emily frowned. “Here, let me try that.”
They were sitting not quite opposite the small fire they’d made. Takeo was laid out on his side, the fruit collected near his head, while Emily sat cross legged within arm’s reach of the food. Takeo gestured to the peach, and Emily took hold of it. It was softer than she expected, and also a bit fuzzy. It surprised her.
“Do I peel it?” she asked.
“You can, but I don’t.”
“Then I won’t either,” she said and bit into it.
As with any fruit, the taste seemed to explode in Emily’s mouth. Her diet usually consisted of dried meat or baked bread, which always held flavor in short supply, and so the peach was like a blast of sweet nectar that made her grin so wide that juice trickled down her chin. She wiped it away quickly and showed her grin to Takeo.
“Delicious,” she said.
“Yes, they are,” he said with a nod and took a bite out of the apple.
“So, what are we going to do all day while we’re here? Talk about the weather?”
“We could do that, but I was thinking you might benefit more from some additional training. Not that you’ll become a master samurai, but two short months sparring aboard a viking ship might be inadequate if we’re planning on having you survive this war.”
“I have a bow,” Emily protested.
“With how many arrows? Katsu has an army of thousands—tens of thousands. That’s far more opponents than we can take down, so realize that, you and me, we aren’t going to win this war with only our weapons. They’ll certainly help, but if we want to stop Katsu, we’re going to have to stay alive and avoid him where he is strong and we are weak. And since we cannot diminish his strengths, we must instead diminish our weaknesses. Your immediate weakness is surviving face-to-face against warriors like me.”
Emily nodded her understanding.
“So, here’s my suggestion.” Takeo put his fingertips on the dirt as if he were sliding a battle plan towards her. “I noticed you didn’t care for the katana.”
“Good catch.” Emily winked.
“So, lucky for you, we don’t have a second katana to practice with. That leaves only your knife, and if you really want to fight with it in Juatwa, then you’d better be the best. I know you’re good with a dagger. I’ve seen you, even fought you, and you are very adept at making your opponents underestimate you, but you’re going to have to be better here. In the middle of a war, there’s not enough time to single out your enemy and wait for him to make a mistake. You’re going to have to learn to make the first move when the opportunity arises. That’s how the ninjas survive against the samurai. They hit first, and they hit hard.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Simple, really,” Takeo said with a shrug, “your knife against my katana. We spar until you win or the ninjas find us. I’ve already cut some branches. You just have to whittle them.”
Takeo gestured to the wood pile, and Emily looked to see two straight branches, one long and one short, set off to the side. She stared at them for a moment and then sighed.
* * *
In the morning, Emily whittled until she had two respectable, weapon-like objects. Her arms and hands were sore afterward, but Takeo would not allow that as an excuse. Emily’s training began immediately and went just about as well as she expected.
Takeo made Emily attack first every time. She felt awkward and unsure of herself, squinting and frowning as she decided how best to approach the samurai. She tried wide strokes first, attempting to bait him and then shift her attack to another side. He beat away her swings effortlessly and countered with enviable speed. She spent more time dodging than attacking, but the katana was too long of a weapon to stay out of reach, and it touched her skin only seconds into those first few bouts. Emily tried ducking, bobbing, and weaving, but Takeo’s sword was an extension of himself, and that branch moved quicker than she did. Emily’s anger, so normally controlled, began to rise. She hated failure with a passion, especially total failure, and it left a taste of bile in her mouth as her jaw clenched.
As the day dragged on, her patience continued to wane, and she began to lunge at Takeo, wooden point first, trying to strike him just once before the sunset. He only danced to the side, slapped her weapon away with his, and countered with a flick of his wrist. When the wooden katana bounced against her stomach and made her grunt, she growled in frustration.
“Calm,” Takeo cautioned. “Your anger’s going to blind you.”
She heard the words, understood them even, but it still took a few breaths to swallow her agitation. She took a moment to stare up at the sky, admiring the beautiful day gracing their presence. The clouds were puffy and light, inching across the blue background like lazy behemoths with not a care in the world. The light breeze that carried those clouds seeped into the valley and fluttered Emily’s hair. The feeling reminded her of the Great Plains, and she turned her head just enough so the hair would be blown into her mouth.
That helped, she thought, and brushed the hair from her lips.
“Done so soon?” Takeo taunted.
She grinned and said, “Not a chance.”
They sparred constantly that first day in the clearing—if one could call Emily’s attempts to strike Takeo sparring. She focused all her efforts on the task at hand, giving not a single care to watching or searching the world around her. The ninjas could have been studying them from a mere five paces away for all the concern Emily gave them. She was determined to improve her skills and score against Takeo at least once.
When the day came to an end, though, all her efforts seemed to count for nothing. Her short, wooden knife seemed like a child’s toy to Takeo’s wooden stick, her own skills a pale shadow of his deft talents. At every attack, he’d kept her at bay as if she were the same sixteen-year-old girl she’d been back on the Great Plains. It angered her, though she did not blame him. Emily had never learned to let others bear the guilt of her failures. As the sun settled beneath the trees, Emily stopped and collapsed to the ground, her breaths coming in short and heavy waves.
“No more,” she begged. “I’m done.”
Takeo relaxed his stance and considered her. Sweat drenched her clothing and his, and their sticks were battered and rubbed raw. She gazed back at him, daring him to defy her wish, but he just shrugged and took a seat beside her.
“That was a good start,” he said.
“Ha!” Emily rolled her eyes. “It’s always a good start when you have nowhere to go but up.”
He frowned. “I didn’t say that. You’re better than you think.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “I’ll never beat you.”
“Not with that attitude, you won’t.”
Chapter 10
The nearby stream became a sanctuary. The gentle touch of its lukewarm water washed away the sticky sweat that caked Emily at the end of every day. Her weary muscles and achy bruises eased as she splashed water onto them, bringing a cascade of relief-filled sighs. Like Takeo, she began to wash every day—a new ritual that ushered in a pleasant night’s sleep.
The steady sound of rushing water also brought a soothing comfort to her otherwise frustrated feelings. Her progress was agonizingly slow when it wasn’t nonexistent. She fared no better on the second day than on the first, and worse than both
on the third. It wasn’t until the fourth day that she felt she made progress, and even then it was difficult to tell. Takeo was like a mountainous, coastal cliff, and she was like an ocean raging against his indifferent stone. Her attacks came faster, harder, and stronger with each day, but never once did he seem perturbed by her assaults. His wooden katana cut the air, batting aside her tiny wooden knife and pushing her back before she could get near him. His reach and speed were insurmountable, and Emily began to loathe her lack of progress.
On the fifth day, she began to curse herself with every failure as the tension boiled over and made her attacks even worse.
After trying to reach within Takeo’s guard and getting her wrists slapped hard enough to numb them, she screamed and stomped the ground. “Damn this!” she yelled. “I’m never going to hit you! Forget it. This is stupid! I’m cutting myself my own katana. I’m never going to touch you with this.” Then she chucked her whittled stick to the ground, folded her arms and muttered, “Stupid knife.”
And then she felt guilty, because that wasn’t what her mother had taught her. She knew better than to blame the knife and not herself. Emily let her arms fall and gritted her teeth, spinning in a circle as she looked up to the sky. White, puffy clouds floated lazily across a bright blue sky, and a carefree breeze brought a pleasant touch to the air, though Emily wished for a thunderous storm, instead—one violent enough to accommodate her mood.
She glanced at Takeo and saw that he was leaning on his katana, the tip buried into the ground, and watching her with his head tilted and his face stained with curiosity, not disappointment. That distracted her long enough for her to forget some of her frustration. She picked up the wooden dagger and brushed off the dirt that clung to the sweat on the handle.
“Do you find me amusing?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” he admitted after a pause.
“And what do you find amusing?”