A murmur of disapproval ran through the crowd as the spectators realized they might be cheated of a death.
Kotau and Chikaaki crouched beside each man.
‘Their hearts are still beating,’ said Kotau, checking the Thief’s neck pulse. He tried to slap the man alert but couldn’t get a response.
‘We’ll take them back to their huts,’ said Chikaaki. ‘We’ll patch them up and get them ready to resume the fight.’
Kotau started to drag NoName across the quadrangle back towards his hut. He saw Chikaaki was struggling to drag the Thief from the arena so he beckoned to Tengu.
‘Help him,’ he said. ‘Bind the bandit’s head and put a sword back in his hand. Give him plenty of wine to dull the pain.’
Tengu gripped the Thief’s ankles and hauled him to the Monk’s hut. He moaned as she dragged him inside and rolled him on the mat. She held a lamp close to his face. One of his pupils had dilated; the other had shrunk to a pinprick.
‘Fetch a jug of water,’ she commanded Chikaaki. He hurried to comply. She gently turned the Thief’s head and examined the wound above his ear. His hair was gummed with blood. The skin of his temple had been sliced down to the butter-yellow bone. She couldn’t tell if his skull had been cracked by the impact of the blade.
‘Can you hear me?’ she asked, leaning over the man and gently patting his chest. ‘Can you hear my voice?’ His lips moved like he was trying to reply but no sound emerged.
Chikaaki returned with a jug of water. She poured a steady trickle over his matted hair and flushed blood from the gash in his scalp to get a clearer view of the wound. The Thief looked up at Tengu in groggy confusion.
‘This is a very severe injury. The bone is cracked. He may never fully recover.’
‘Can he fight?’ asked Chikaaki. ‘Can he finish the bout?’
‘No.’
‘The tournament must continue. The General is here for two more days. This entertainment must be concluded before his regiment leaves the valley, otherwise all this effort, all this bloodshed, will have been for nothing. I’ll confer with my son and check the condition of the other swordsman. In the meantime, get the criminal ready to fight before the crowd gets too restless.’
‘The bout is over. The bandit is defeated. Go outside, face the crowd and declare the result.’
‘You understand the rules of the tournament. No forfeits, no withdrawals. Each man fights to the death.’
Chikaaki ducked out of the hut. The Thief groaned and rolled his eyes like he was lost in a delirium. Tengu whispered in his ear.
‘Don’t wake up,’ she said. ‘You’re bleeding. You’ve hurt your head. Just keep your eyes closed and your mouth shut. Convince them you’re too injured to fight then lie here for a few days. This is the chance you’ve been looking for, the chance to win your freedom. If you act weak and simple then they might come to pity you enough to let you go.’
‘I’m perfectly well,’ muttered the Thief as he tried to sit up.
‘No,’ said Tengu, gently pushing back down. ‘You’re not thinking clearly. Lie still. Your life depends on it.’
He reached up, gripped her hair with a bloody hand and drew her close.
‘We’ll take that sword,’ he said. ‘The iron sword. We’ll steal it together. We’ll do it at night, late at night, just before the sky begins to lighten. That’s when the General’s sentries will be at their most careless, the tavern folk in their deepest sleep. We’ll steal it then take to the road and never look back.’
‘You have to stop talking,’ she said, trying to prise his fingers from her hair. ‘Lie as still as you can. You’re badly hurt, even if you can’t feel it.’
He pulled her head closer.
‘We mustn’t use the village track. That’s the first place they’ll look when we flee. We’ll head into the woods and cross the hills, choose a route they will be unable to follow on horseback. They’ll expect us to head north towards the nearest town, so we’ll go south.’
‘Please rest.’
‘Want to know the best way to elude someone if you’re being pursued? Find a stream then wade up or down it as far as you can. A person can easily can track you through grass, follow footprints and disturbed bracken, but the moment you reach the water’s edge your trail will cease. It will be as if you turned to smoke and drifted away.’
He released his grip and lay back.
‘We’ve got to take the iron sword from them,’ he said. ‘We can’t just play their game. They have us killing each other for their amusement. They do it inside the arena, they do it everywhere, our whole lives. They treat us like cattle. But we are men. We can fight back. We can defy them. Please, whatever happens to me, promise you will take the sword. It doesn’t matter what you do with it. Sell it, present it to a temple, or just throw it in the river if you wish. Just don’t let them have it.’
Chikaaki returned.
‘How is the bandit?’ he asked, leaning over the Thief and examining the man’s head wound. ‘What’s his condition? We’ve bandaged the other swordsman’s leg and he says he feels recovered enough to fight. What about the bandit? Can he stand?’
‘He took a heavy blow to the head. He’s delirious. He’s moving and talking, but he barely knows his own name. We need to get some honey on this wound and stitch it closed. Then he will need plenty of rest.’
She picked the Thief’s brown headband from the floor, wet it and dabbed blood from the injured man’s temple.
‘But can he stand unsupported?’ asked Chikaaki. ‘Can he hold a weapon?’
‘He can’t possibly fight. It will be many days before he is in any condition to face combat.’
‘We don’t need him to put on some great display of sword skill. We just need him to stand in front of the crowd and die.’
The Thief struggled upright. He held the wall for support and retied his headband to bind his wound and press the hanging flap of scalp back in place against his skull.
‘No,’ said Tengu, laying a restraining hand on his shoulder and trying to draw him back towards the mat. ‘You have to lie down.’ He shook her off and tried to stand unaided.
‘I’m happy to resume the fight. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. I’ll carve my name on this fool’s chest. He’s spent more time combing his hair than he has practising swordcraft, and now he’s got a leg wound so deep he can barely move. I feel sorry for the man. This isn’t a fight, it’s an execution.’ He leaned close to Tengu and whispered in her ear. ‘I’ll rest when this bout is over and you should rest as well. But before you do, find a couple of blankets and some food and water, enough for three days’ travel. We have to be ready for tonight’s journey. We’ll need to move quickly and cover a lot of ground before dawn tomorrow.’
His sword was leaning against the hut wall. He tucked it in his obi. He adjusted his robe, left the hut and made slow and woozy progress across the flagstones to where NoName stood waiting at the centre of the arena. NoName was clearly in pain. He was pale and sweating, but his expression was focused and alert.
Kotau stood between the men.
‘Are you ready to fight?’ he asked. They both nodded.
‘To the death,’ he declared, then rang the bell and stepped clear.
The Thief readied his stance and tried to compose his thoughts. He flexed his fingers and prepared to unsheath his sword. His mind was so fogged he didn’t notice a flash of steel as NoName drew his blade and whipped it in a tight arc. He was still readying himself for the fight even as his severed head toppled from his neck, hit the flagstones and rolled to a standstill.
‘We have our victor,’ declared Kotau. ‘This swordsman,’ he said, saluting NoName, ‘is the first of the two warriors who will compete for the title tomorrow. We will discover the second of tomorrow’s champions at the end of the final bout later this afternoon.’
He was turning to invite the peasants charged with tending the arena to drag the Thief’s headless body from the fight space when an arrow slamm
ed into his chest and knocked him onto his back. The crowd were stunned to silence but General Yukio’s men immediately sprang to action. They drew their swords and formed a protective circle around the General. The samurai shuffled backwards towards the pavilion with Yukio at the centre of the group, flustered and urging his men to move faster.
Tengu sprinted across open ground, cursing herself for a heartbeat’s stunned inaction when the arrow struck. She dived into the undergrowth, took a few paces and paused at the first clearing she reached. She wanted to listen for any disturbance in the woods, the sound of the assassin fleeing through the bushes, but Yukio’s security cordon was blundering its way through the undergrowth slashing at the foliage with their swords as they worked their way outwards in all directions. They had let the killer get through the cordon and within shooting range of General Yukio; their lives were forfeit unless they could bring him back for questioning.
Tengu tried to think like a mercenary killer. The soldiers were searching the undergrowth, trying to track his steps. The assassin would anticipate this kind of pursuit, so what would he do evade it?’
She leaned against a tree, kept as still as she could and listened for the slightest sound.
* * *
The Archer drew back the arrow until the feathered fletchings were flush with his cheek, and focused down the shaft. He took aim at Kotau’s chest then adjusted his sighting up and to the left to compensate for drop and windage. He held his breath to steady his hand then loosed the arrow. He didn’t wait to see the arrow strike its target. He threw his bow, string still vibrating, into the nearby ditch shelter he had dug with his hands. He jumped inside, curled foetal and pulled the camouflaged branch lid over himself like it was a blanket. He lay still and listened to the shouted commands of the sentries posted nearby as soldiers hurried to locate the assassin. He heard samurai thrash through the undergrowth around him. He could see slivers of daylight through the weave of twigs and leaves above his head. A shadow passed over him as a soldier stepped over the hidden shelter and hurried deeper into the forest in search of the bowman.
The Archer tried to calm himself. He knew, in his agitated state, it would be hard to measure time. He needed to wait for a prudent interval before he emerged from hiding but it would be treacherously easy to convince himself a great portion of the afternoon had passed when, in truth, it was only a few breaths since he fired the arrow. He studied a patch of sunlight on his wrist. He kept his arm as still as he could and watched with eyes half closed as the coin-sized fleck of sunlight crept across his skin towards the veins in the back of his hand. When he judged that the sun had made significant progress across the sky he lifted the lid of his hideout a thumb’s width and peered around to check he was unobserved. There was no one in sight. No doubt General Yukio’s men were working their way through the undergrowth trying to pick up his trail on the assumption he had fled deeper into the forest. He slowly slid back the lid of his den. He was awash with adrenalin as he climbed from the pit. He crouched in the bushes and looked around to make sure he was unobserved. He could hear distant shouts and the crack of branches hacked aside. Evidently the troops were hoping to corner him at the head of the valley. He wondered how long it would be before they lit torches and set the undergrowth alight in an attempt to smoke him out.
He knotted his leather belt quiver and picked up his bow. He intended to head for the nearby crags and climb hand over hand using a rope he had tethered to a lightning-blasted stump at the top of the ravine. He started to shoulder his way through the brambles but a voice behind him said:
‘Stop where you are.’
He spun round. A young lad with a blade tucked in his obi leaned against a nearby tree. The Archer instinctively knew he couldn’t outrun the swordsman. If he tried to sprint through the forest, sooner or later he would trip and be at the man’s mercy. He scrambled to ready his bow as the lad strolled towards him with an unhurried gait. He strung an arrow and began to pull back his arm but a blade stroke broke the bow and he was left holding splintered bamboo and a tangle of limp hemp string. He reached for the sheath knife tied to his ankle but Tengu put the tip of the sword to his throat and repeated:
‘No. Not if you want to live a little longer.’
* * *
Tengu marched the Archer from the tree line across the quadrangle. Soldiers had formed a protective ring around the General’s pavilion. The crowd had taken shelter in case more arrows arced from the woods. Some hid behind the huts and some had fled down the road back to the village. The Archer looked around in desperation for some avenue of escape but there were too many people, too many samurai, for him to stand any chance of making it back to the forest. Tengu shoved him up the steps into the tavern. She kicked his legs from under him and he fell beside the unlit fire.
‘Stay down,’ she said. ‘Keep still or I’ll cut off your feet.’
Chikaaki tied the man’s wrists behind his back. The Archer sat cross-legged with his head bowed in submission and waited for whatever torments were to come. He tried to keep his face an impassive mask but couldn’t help react in astonishment as Kotau walked in and stood over him. Kotau had an arrow in his hand and a bloodless hole in the chest of his robe.
‘We should tell the General we have captured the assassin,’ said Chikaaki. ‘He will be angry if he feels we have kept information from him.’
‘Not yet,’ said Kotau. ‘If the General thinks this arrow was meant for him then he will insist on supervising the interrogation of the prisoner himself. He’ll have him taken apart piece by piece. Which is a pleasing thought, but I want some answers first.’
He crouched in front of the Archer and plucked the purse from the man’s obi. He unlaced the pouch and counted coins into his palm.
‘I’m insulted to think my life could be bought so cheaply. I assume this is a down payment, yes? Surely there must have been more to come?’
The Archer didn’t reply. Kotau struck a flint and lit the fire.
‘You work alone, is that right?’ he asked. ‘You are the sole assassin? They didn’t send anyone else?’
The Archer remained mute. Kotau held the Thief’s arrow in the fire and lit the tip, then held the flame close to the Archer’s cheek until he shied away in pain.
‘You’re from the town to the north, is that right? I have a question. I suspect I already know the answer, but I want to hear it from your lips. Tell me who sent you.’
The Archer held out as long as he could, aware that the moment he divulged the name of his paymaster his life would likely end. He remained silent while Kotau cut his chest, tore off his earlobes and seared the flesh of his arms with the heated tip of his sword. It was only when Kotau threatened to burn out his eyes with the red-hot blade that he finally capitulated.
‘The Priest,’ he said, near delirious with pain. ‘The overseer of the Makoto estate. He badly wants to see you put in the ground. He said it couldn’t wait until the end of the tournament, it had to be done right away. He didn’t say why.’
The Archer closed his eyes, knowing he had hung on to life as long as he could, eked out his final, agonizing minutes. Now his fate was sealed.
‘Thank you for your assistance,’ said Kotau. ‘I suspected the Priest bought your services but I needed it confirmed in front of witnesses. It would be pleasant to talk some more but time is pressing and I must bring this conversation to a close. By now, the General has heard the arrow wasn’t intended for him, but no doubt his men will be anxious to ask you some questions anyway, just to be sure. Enjoy his hospitality. I doubt we shall meet again.’
Chikaaki and one of the peasants hauled the Archer to his feet and dragged him from the room.
‘What will happen to him, do you suppose?’ asked Tengu.
‘Perhaps he will be lucky,’ said Kota. ‘Perhaps the General will only take his hands.’
He gave Tengu a coin.
‘This is for fulfilling your role as bodyguard and saving my life,’ he said. He hefted the Archer�
��s purse in his hand and tossed it to her. ‘And this is payment for a task I will need you to perform early tomorrow morning.’
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘The overseer of Makoto’s estate has tried to have me killed. He has failed, so now the initiative lies with us. Tomorrow morning, I will visit the plantation. You will help me get inside the main building.’
‘The mansion will be well protected.’
‘The guards are untrained thugs, but there is no shame in declining the task if you feel they are beyond your skill.’ He held out his hand to take back the purse. Tengu hefted the coin pouch and thought it over. She had nowhere to go when the tournament was concluded. She had no higher cause, no grand purpose. She was simply a sword for hire. She tucked the pouch into her obi.
‘The Priest will be protected night and day.’
‘Just get me inside the house. I’ll do the rest.’
* * *
Chikaaki summoned Tattoo and the Champion from their huts in preparation for the second bout. Tattoo emerged from his accommodation stripped to the waist. He displayed his etched skin to the crowd, stretched and flexed in preparation for the fight. General Yukio emerged from his hut and sat on his stool, anxious to demonstrate that, despite the assassination attempt, he was unafraid.
Kotau stood on the tavern porch and watched the peasants jam and twist the Thief’s head onto a stake. He nodded approval when they were done. There was a quizzical look on the Thief’s face as if he was wondering how he came to be mounted on a spike. The blood spilled the previous day had inflamed the crowd. They had been told the swordsmen would fight to the death but hadn’t truly believed it until they saw the first man fall and understood the fighters would give their lives rather withdraw or concede. And the sight of butchered heads mounted on spikes took the contest to a macabre new level. The ruined shrine had been transformed into a temple dedicated to the worship of death.
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