Young Samurai: The Ring of Sky (11 page)

But however fast they ran the samurai had
one distinct advantage – they were on horseback.

Jack had spotted the mounted patrol crest
the caldera at the same time as he and Benkei reached the crater basin. Still too far
away to make out any details, he did glimpse a flash of golden armour. With a heavy
heart, he realized this was no ordinary patrol. It could only be the Shogun’s
elite samurai.

‘We should hide,’ said Benkei,
panic seizing his voice.

‘
Where
exactly?’ replied
Jack, indicating the wide-open terrain before them.

Beyond the forested slopes, there was
minimal cover to conceal their escape. The plateau was just rice field after rice field,
with a few villages and farmhouses dotted here and there.

The handful of workers tending the fields
watched wide-eyed as the two fugitives shot past.

‘They’re bound to catch
us … if we just keep running,’ said Benkei.

Jack realized he was right. Even Dragon
Breathing was no match for a galloping horse.

‘Maybe we can lose them among
Aso-san’s peaks,’ he suggested, pointing to the five smouldering mountains
that divided the caldera basin.

‘But they’re active
volcanoes!’ exclaimed Benkei.

‘Exactly,’ replied Jack.
‘The horses won’t want to go anywhere near.’

‘Nor do I!’

But Jack headed towards them nonetheless.
‘Just think of them as a bigger version of the Nine Hells of Beppu.’

‘That’s reassuring!’ cried
Benkei, reluctantly following. ‘You almost broiled me alive there.’

With their heads down, they sprinted for the
slopes of Mount Taka, the highest of Aso-san’s five summits. Their plan was to
cross from here to Naka-dake, the volcanic offshoot of this peak, lose the samurai amid
the sulphurous vents and escape west.

As they ran the last stretch, the
Shogun’s samurai emerged from the forest. Paying little regard to the farmers or
their crops, the patrol thundered in a direct line across the paddy
fields. Their horses trampled rice under their hooves, breaking apart bunds and
scattering the workers in their wake.

Jack and Benkei scrambled up the
mountainside through the treeline to the craggy heights. But the steep slope slowed
their pace and the patrol rapidly gained ground.

‘Faster!’ urged Jack, almost
pushing Benkei up the volcano.

They were barely halfway when the
Shogun’s samurai began their ascent. The horses struggled on the rough terrain,
but their riders spurred them on.

As Jack and Benkei passed the last traces of
vegetation, they were confronted by a forbidding sight. Swirls of black and grey lava
stone scarred a desolate landscape. Craters the size of islands pockmarked the surface
and the volcanic ash under foot was dangerously unstable. Clouds of sulphurous gas
pumped out of gaping vents, creating a billowing blinding fog.

‘Now this
is
Hell!’
wheezed Benkei, coughing and spluttering from the acrid air.

Jack pulled his bandanna over his mouth and
nose, then offered a spare bandage for Benkei to do the same.

‘Stay close,’ warned Jack as a
steam cloud enveloped them. ‘We only want to lose the samurai, not each
other!’

The going was arduous and disorientating,
and Jack wondered if he’d made a fatal mistake heading into the heart of a
volcano. But as they neared the summit he heard the samurai’s horses whinnying in
protest. Through a brief gap in the sulphurous clouds, he spotted the patrol dismounting
lower down the slope and continuing their chase on foot. Jack’s strategy was
paying off.

All of a sudden Benkei stopped.

The ground ahead sheered away into seeming
oblivion. They’d reached the jagged lip of the main crater. Far below, amid the
turbulent steam, a seething green-grey lake boiled and bubbled.

‘Which way now?’ asked Benkei,
gagging on the sulphuric reek of rotten eggs.

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’
replied Jack, his eyes red and streaming.

They decided to head right, skirting the
crater rim. As the steam swirled around them, they caught further glimpses of the
samurai. The patrol had been forced to split up to increase its chances of capturing
them.

Jack and Benkei hurried on. When they
finally reached the far side of the crater, they discovered a lava field leading across
to Naka-dake. Running as fast as the treacherous rock-strewn ground allowed, they almost
tumbled head first into a chasm. It yawned like a jagged mouth between the two peaks,
dropping dizzily into a grey graveyard of boulders, rocks and rubble.

‘Look, there!’ cried Jack,
pointing to an old rope bridge strung across the chasm.

They darted over, but Benkei halted at the
foot of the bridge and refused to go any further.

‘I can’t cross
that
,’ he yelled, visibly trembling.

Somewhere in the mist the shouts of the
samurai drew closer.

‘If one sees with the eyes of the
heart, rather than the eyes of the head, there is nothing to fear,’ said Jack,
recalling the lesson of his blind
bōjutsu
master, Sensei Kano, when they were
asked to cross a similarly dangerous gorge.

‘What’s that supposed to
mean?’

‘If the height scares you, simply
don’t look. Become blind to your fear.’

‘I’m not scared of
heights,’ replied Benkei. ‘I’m scared of the bridge!’

Jack now saw that the construction was on
the verge of falling apart. The ropes were frayed, the wooden planks pitted and rotten
from the acidic atmosphere. The bridge was only wide enough for one person to cross at a
time, but the gaps between the planks were equally wide enough for a person to fall
through.

The shouts of the samurai were closing
in.

‘We’ve no choice but to risk
it,’ said Jack.

‘Then we go one at a time,’ said
Benkei.

Jack nodded his agreement. ‘You go
first. I’ll hold off any samurai.’

‘I’m not sure which is more
dangerous,’ muttered Benkei, taking a deep breath and stepping on to the rickety
bridge.

It creaked loudly, the ropes becoming taut.
But it held his weight. Step by cautious step, Benkei began crossing the swaying bridge.
Below, piles of sharp rock and jagged boulders promised to impale him if it
collapsed … or he lost his footing.

Benkei was barely halfway when a figure
emerged out of the fog behind them.

Jack turned to face the samurai. The warrior
was dressed in black leather armour adorned with gold fastenings and a red sun
kamon
emblazoned on the breastplate. He wore an ornate golden helmet with a
fearsome
menpō
covering his face.

‘I vowed I’d hunt you down,
gaijin
.’

With a black-gloved hand, the samurai removed
his mask to reveal a young handsome face with dark hooded eyes and high imperious
cheekbones.

Jack instinctively drew his sword.
‘Kazuki!’

19
 
 

‘That’s no way to greet an old
schoolfriend!’ remarked Kazuki, eyeing Jack’s
katana
and keeping
his distance.

‘
Friend?
You’ve no idea
what friendship means,’ replied Jack, feeling his blood boil at his rival’s
arrogance. ‘You betrayed
everyone
at the
Niten Ichi
Ryū
.’

‘I was being
loyal
to my
family and the future Shogun,’ shot back Kazuki. ‘That is true
bushido
.’

Jack regarded him with contempt. ‘You
know nothing of Respect, Rectitude or Honesty. Without those, you’re no more than
a common mercenary. And it’s obvious you’ve been well rewarded for your
treachery.’

‘This?’ said Kazuki, patting his
golden helmet and grinning. ‘This is my promotion for capturing Sensei
Kano.’

Jack was too stunned to reply. He’d
thought their
bōjutsu
master had managed to disappear after leading the
surviving
Niten Ichi Ryū
samurai to safety during the Battle of Osaka
Castle.

Kazuki laughed cruelly. ‘No one
escapes the Shogun’s wrath,
gaijin
. After sustaining some injuries in the
flood during our last encounter, I was recommended to a blind healer.
Imagine my surprise when he turned out to be Sensei Kano!’

‘You handed him over, when he was
helping
you?’ exclaimed Jack, aghast.

‘No,
after
he’d helped
me,’ corrected Kazuki, without a flicker of remorse.

‘You’re the lowest of the low,
Kazuki!’ Jack couldn’t stand his rival’s bragging any more. He shot a
glance in Benkei’s direction. His friend was almost to the other side of the
bridge. Jack could make a run for it … or confront his enemy. A showdown was
long overdue and, fuelled with outrage at Sensei Kano’s fate, Jack raised his
katana
to attack. But as he gripped the handle with both hands, an
agonizing fire shot through the stump of his little finger and he winced.

‘Missing something?’ smirked
Kazuki.

‘Thanks to Sensei Kyuzo,’
seethed Jack, clenching his teeth against the pain.

Kazuki nodded approvingly. ‘He was
always my favourite teacher. That’s why I didn’t turn him in when I
recognized him in Yufuin.’ He held up his gloved right hand, his fingers curled
into an impotent claw. ‘At least we’re more evenly matched now – although
yubitsume
is hardly enough punishment for Akiko’s arrow through my
hand.’

Jack bristled at the implied threat.
‘You vowed to leave her alone!’

Kazuki smirked at his impassioned reaction.
‘Don’t worry, I haven’t gone near your beloved
friend … yet.’

Struggling to keep his temper in check, Jack
advanced on Kazuki. But, rather than going for his sword, his rival retreated.

Jack pursued him into the mist.

‘
Nanban
, it’s this
way!’ cried Benkei, stopping several planks short of the end.

Chasing after shadows, Jack realized too
late that Kazuki had baited him on purpose. Out of the steam materialized the rest of
the patrol. And Jack recognized them all.

The samurai were the four key members of
Kazuki’s Scorpion Gang, the unit established in honour of
daimyo
Kamakura’s campaign to rid Japan of foreigners – and Jack was the
gaijin
at the very top of their death list.

Nobu stomped towards him, a solid wall of
muscle and flesh like the bulbous body of a walrus. While no match for Jack’s
sword skill, he possessed the sheer brute force of a sumo wrestling champion.

Hiroto, on the other hand, was as skinny as
a bamboo stalk and had eyes that sat too close together aside a pinched nose. Limping
slightly, he wielded a lethal barbed spear and wore thick body armour, clearly worried
that Jack would wound him in the stomach for a third time.

A greater threat was Goro, a muscular
hardened warrior with devastating sword skills and total lack of honour. The boy slashed
the air threateningly with his
katana
, the blade whistling as it cut through
the mist.

Finally, a giant stepped out. A good head
taller than everyone else, Raiden was like a tree trunk with legs – and just as thick.
What he boasted in pure strength, he lacked in brain. Jack had beaten him once in a
taijutsu
match, but the fight had almost been the end of him. On this
occasion, Raiden brandished a formidable
nodachi
sword, its blade twice the
length of Jack’s
katana
. Such a weapon could cleave him in half.

The last gang member was missing: Toru.

‘If you’re looking for my
brother,’ grunted Raiden, ‘he drowned in the flood … and
it’s
your
fault.’

Kazuki reappeared, his mask back on, his
katana
unsheathed in his left hand.

‘I’ve promised Raiden that he
can cut off your head, once
I’ve
finished with you.’

Kazuki’s eyes fixed on Jack – his
unwavering stare certain of victory.

Jack cursed himself for letting his rival
trick him so easily. With only a single
katana
at his disposal against five
opponents, he didn’t have a hope of defeating the Scorpion Gang all at once.

Divide and conquer.

That had been one of Masamoto’s key
strategies in combat training. Somehow Jack had to reduce the gang’s combined
fighting strength. The bridge was the answer. Crossing it, they’d be forced to
engage him one at a time. But first he had to reach there alive.

Jack’s foot found a loose rock on the
lava field. As Kazuki advanced on him, he flicked it into his face and caused his rival
to flinch. Then, with lightning speed, he leapt at Hiroto and cut down. The
katana
blade sliced the barbed spear in two as if it were no thicker than a
chopstick. Left with a useless stump of wood, Hiroto’s eyes widened in terror as
he stood defenceless against Jack’s sword.

‘Not
again
!’ he wailed,
trying to protect his stomach.