Young Samurai 06 - The Ring of Fire (22 page)

Junichi greeted them with the deepest of bows. ‘If only all samurai and ninja were as courageous as you, then there wouldn’t be devils like Akuma!’

Yoshi tottered out of the farmhouse, his old eyes brimming with tears.

‘I never thought I’d see the day,’ he croaked. ‘You’ve given life back to our village!’

While the families were reunited and the daughters from neighbouring villages welcomed with equal affection, Jack hobbled over to Sora’s farmhouse with Miyuki, Hayato and Neko. They were all exhausted from the night’s escape and Jack was now in serious pain from his wound.

Yori, Saburo and Yuudai were waiting to greet them.

‘What happened to you?’ asked Yori, his face etched with concern at Jack’s woeful state.

‘Apart from being beaten, burnt and buried alive?’ Jack joked. ‘We dealt our first blow against Akuma.’

‘That’s something worth celebrating!’ said Yuudai, clearly relieved to see them back safe and sound, if a little battle-worn. ‘Let’s get you inside and fed and rested.’

He opened the door for them to enter, when they heard a great wailing.

‘
Where’s Suki?
’ cried a despondent mother, searching the faces of the girls. ‘Where’s my Suki?’

The woman was becoming more and more frantic. Sora hurried over and spoke softly to her. For a moment, she just stared at him in disbelief. Then burst into floods of tears. Sora tried to comfort the woman, but she shrugged him off and strode over to Jack and the others.

‘M-m-my Suki was shot … by Akuma?’ she asked, her voice trembling with grief.

Jack now had a name for the poor girl. ‘Yes. One of his men, Kurochi, did it.’

‘I know you tried to save her,’ she said, her sorrow turning to anger. ‘But promise me, you’ll set my daughter’s soul at peace! Promise me, you’ll put an end to Akuma!’

Jack held the mother’s gaze and felt the torment in her broken heart. He could see in her features her own daughter’s face and remembered the girl, not much older than himself, sprawled in the bloodstained snow. Nodding, Jack gave his sworn promise as the memory of the girl’s senseless slaughter hardened his resolve to stop Akuma’s reign of terror … 
whatever
it took.

37

HEALING

While the village emotionally healed itself, Miyuki set to work healing Jack’s wound. Crushing up herbs she’d taken from a winter garden and mixing them with a fine powder she carried in a small container on her
obi
, Miyuki cooked up a thick green paste. She applied this to Jack’s blistered skin as he lay on his bed in Sora’s farmhouse.

Jack cried out, ‘Ow, that stings!’

‘Still the big samurai baby, I see,’ she teased, covering the rest of the wound.

Biting his lower lip against the pain, Jack asked, ‘How bad is it?’

Miyuki examined the injury, then replied gravely, ‘You could lose the leg.’

Jack swallowed in shock, his face going pale at the thought.

‘But don’t worry,’ added Miyuki, ‘Yuudai’s offered to cut it off cleanly with his
nodachi
.’

Jack glanced fearfully at the formidable sword on Yuudai’s back, before catching the smirk on Miyuki’s face.

‘Another ninja joke!’ he said, forcing a laugh as a wave of relief flooded him.

‘It should be fine in a day or so,’ Miyuki revealed, smiling warmly at him as she put aside the medicine. ‘The cold snow from the avalanche reduced the swelling. And with these herbs, there won’t even be a scar.’

Kneeling by his side, she clasped her hands together, her fingers interlaced, the index finger and thumb both extended. Closing her eyes, she began to chant softly.

‘
On haya baishiraman taya sowaka …
’

Her hands hovered over his wound, moving in a figure-of-eight pattern, and Jack felt a familiar warm tingle beneath his skin as the
Sha
healing ritual did its work.

‘What’s she doing?’ muttered Saburo, eyeing Miyuki suspiciously.

‘
Kuji-in
 … Ninja magic!’ whispered Yori reverentially. ‘Sensei Yamada told me about it, but I’ve never seen it in action.’

Yori watched rapt as Miyuki went deeper into her trance, channelling her healing energies into the wound. Jack noticed his friend copying her hand position and silently mouthing the mantra as he tried to commit the words to memory. Always the most diligent student among them, Yori loved to learn such mystical techniques and Jack made a mental note to ask Miyuki to teach his friend some more.

After an hour, Miyuki opened her eyes. She looked exhausted from the intense healing session.

‘You still have healing hands,’ said Jack, sitting up. ‘I can feel my leg getting better already.’

‘It’s never any trouble … for you,’ she replied, wearily getting up and heading for her bed. Within moments, she was fast asleep.

Saburo and Hayato came over.

‘Does it
really
work?’ Saburo asked dubiously.

Jack nodded his head. ‘Have a look.’

The wound had lost much of its red rawness and the blisters beneath the green paste were starting to disappear.

‘The ninja possess some unique talents,’ said Yori admiringly as he continued to practise the hand sign, moving it in a figure-of-eight through the air.

‘I can see why you’re so impressed with her,’ conceded Hayato, now heading to bed himself. ‘Even if she is a ninja.’

‘Ninja or not, Miyuki’s proved to be a good friend,’ said Jack, a little defensive at Hayato’s inherent prejudice towards her.

‘Well, it’s obvious she thinks the world of you,’ said Yori, too wrapped up in his
kuji-in
to realize what he’d just said.

Jack glanced guiltily over at the sleeping Miyuki. He hadn’t been aware that her feelings ran that deep or were so apparent to everyone else.

Saburo raised an eyebrow archly at him. ‘Does Akiko know about her?’

‘Y-yes,’ said Jack, awkward at the implication. ‘They met once in the Iga mountains.’

‘I bet some sparks flew when they were introduced!’ Saburo laughed.

‘You’re not far from the truth,’ Jack admitted, recalling the girls’ first tense encounter within a blazing farmhouse, set alight during
daimyo
Akechi’s invasion of the ninja village.

Wanting to shift the focus from Miyuki and Akiko, he asked, ‘How’s Kiku? Have you seen her since the Shogun closed the school?’

It was now Saburo’s turn to look flustered. ‘She’s well,’ he replied, suddenly finding the hilt of his new
katana
of great interest. ‘In fact … she was the other reason I went on my
musha shugyō
 … to impress her father!’

Jack grinned at discovering Saburo’s romance blossoming. He’d suspected as much when Kiku had stayed behind following Saburo’s injury in the attack on the
Niten Ichi Ryū
.

‘Well, if we survive beyond the black moon, you’ll have enough tales of courage to win her father over.’

‘
If
we survive?’ queried Saburo, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I thought you’d burnt the bandit’s camp to the ground. Surely Akuma’s no longer such a threat?’

‘Jack entered the cave and roused the bear,’ said Yori, now anxiously rubbing a set of prayer beads at the thought of the impending raid.

‘But the bandits will be weakened from hunger and without supplies or weaponry,’ Saburo argued.

‘Perhaps,’ said Jack. ‘But I wouldn’t be surprised if Akuma doesn’t have some hidden reserves.’

Alone with his two close friends, Jack felt he could admit his true concerns.

‘Having seen Akuma for myself, I’m even more worried than before. The man isn’t called Black Moon for nothing. His heart is black. He didn’t show an ounce of pity or remorse when torturing that farmer. Akuma’s not just cruel, he’s pure evil. We either win this battle outright … or we must prepare ourselves for the worst.’

38

STRAW SOLDIERS

The celebratory mood among the villagers quickly disappeared in the cold light of morning. Fear and worry returned with a vengeance when they realized that the black moon was little more than a day away. Noticing the growing panic, Jack immediately put the village to work and the furious last-minute preparations helped to distract the farmers from the coming attack.

Most were involved in the final push to finish the dry moat. When they showed signs of flagging, Saburo shrewdly split the workforce between the two ends and challenged his unit to race Yuudai’s to the completion point. A samurai’s sense of pride soon took over. Saburo and Yuudai’s competitiveness was heard throughout the village in their increasingly vocal shouts of encouragement.

While this digging race went on, Jack took the opportunity to inspect the state of the other defences with Yori. Thanks to Miyuki’s ninja healing, he no longer walked with a limp and she promised a full recovery in time for the battle.

Heading first to the barricade, Jack was stunned to discover it guarded by a line of samurai.

‘Where did all these
ronin
come from?’

Yori simply grinned at this reaction.

‘How did you persuade –’

It took Jack a second look to realize their new recruits were straw dummies wearing the spare samurai helmets and armour. Crossing the wooden gangway and drawing closer, it was now obvious. But from a distance, the impression had been entirely convincing.

‘This was
your
idea?’ said Jack, rapping his knuckles upon the helmet of the nearest straw soldier.

Yori nodded. ‘They’re no good at fighting, of course. But hopefully Akuma will be fooled into thinking we’ve got a whole battalion of samurai! We can also use them to draw musket fire.’

‘Yori, you’re a genius!’

‘I merely remembered one of Sensei Kano’s lessons,’ Yori replied humbly. ‘
The eye sees only what the mind believes it sees
.’

‘Well, my mind fooled me,’ said Jack. ‘And the bandits will definitely be deceived.’

The two of them made their way over to the forest. As before, the defences appeared to be non-existent – apart from Miyuki’s basic wooden barrier and Saburo’s thorn-filled ditch that now cut across the main path.

Yori glanced nervously at Jack. ‘Akuma could march straight in here.’

‘
To see with eyes alone is not to see at all
,’ said Jack with a wry smile, as he recited another of Sensei Kano’s teachings. ‘When you’re dealing with a ninja, it’s what you
don’t
see that you should be afraid of!’

As they crossed the southern paddy fields to the bridge, Jack’s heart dropped like a stone. In all directions, the water had become encrusted with ice.

‘We’ve flooded these too early!’ he exclaimed.

‘It can’t be very thick yet,’ said Yori, picking up a rock from the pathway and tossing it high into the air.

The rock bounced and skittered across the hardened surface.

‘Well … I doubt it’ll take the weight of a man,’ said Yori.

He placed a tentative foot on the ice. It crackled around the edges, but held firm. He stepped on with his other foot.

‘Oh dear,’ said Yori, fully supported by the ice. ‘It seems that –’

All of a sudden he fell through, ending up thigh deep in ice, water and mud. Yori looked down as he began to sink.

‘I suppose that’s good news,’ he said, trying to pull his feet out.

‘Let’s pray it stays that way,’ replied Jack, quickly hauling his friend back on to the path. ‘But if not, we’ll just have to station the majority of the farmers along this front line – and hope.’

They headed over to the bridge, Yori squelching at his side. As they approached the river, they heard sounds of bickering further back up the road. Miyuki and Hayato were positioned beside the hay bales at the village’s eastern entrance.

‘I thought you were a skilled archer!’ cried Miyuki.

‘I am,’ Hayato snapped, drawing another arrow from his quiver.

‘Then how come you missed?’

‘Because I’ve got you breathing down my neck.’

Jack and Yori hurried over.

‘What’s the problem?’ asked Jack.