Young Samurai: The Ring of Sky (30 page)

Daimyo
Matsukura glared up at the
thundering avalanche. He neither ran nor showed any fear. His expression was one of
utter outrage, as if indignant that the volcano would dare to interrupt his executions.
His samurai guard, however, panicked upon seeing the lethal landslide. They scattered in
terror, scrambling up the crater’s opposite slope, leaving the shackled villagers
directly in its path. The two soldiers, who were dragging the mother by her hair, let go
and fled for their lives. But the samurai with the little girl remained determined to
toss her into the boiling
jigoku
.

Jack sprinted from his hiding place to stop
him, his feet crunching on the brittle ash as he powered towards the murderous samurai.
But he knew all his efforts would be in vain – he was just too far away to save the
little girl’s life.

He flinched as a flash of light shot past
his shoulder. His mind registered the glint of steel at the same time as the
shuriken
struck the samurai in the neck.

Miyuki!

The throwing star embedded its point deep
into the samurai’s throat. With a gargled scream, he dropped the girl to the stony
ground and yanked out the
shuriken
. Lurching in pain and
shock, blood spurting out, he tripped. A scalding hiss greeted him as he tumbled head
first into the boiling waters of the Hell.

Dashing over, Jack scooped up the little
girl in his arms and carried her away from the infernal
jigoku
. She stared up
at him with big round eyes.

‘I knew you’d come!’ she
said, tiny fingers clasping a strand of his blond hair.

‘You knew?’

‘I prayed for you, Jesus, to save
us.’

‘I’m not Jesus,’ he
quickly corrected her. ‘I’m Jack, from England.’

But the little girl merely gave him a
knowing smile.

The girl’s mother crawled over on her
knees, weeping.

Jack pulled her to her feet. ‘This
way!’ he ordered as the landslide surged in a relentless torrent down the slope
towards them.

Amid the chaos, Akiko had darted over to the
villagers and cut their bonds. Rounding them up like sheep, she cried, ‘Follow
me!’

The villagers obediently scurried through
the mist after her. Miyuki took up the rear guard, ensuring none were left behind and
that no samurai tried to stop them.

Jack raced after his friends, the girl in
one arm, her mother pulled along in his other hand. The avalanche now roared in their
ears like a thunderous waterfall. They had but seconds before the first rocks ploughed
into them.

Out of a swirling steam cloud, a pair of
stag antlers materialized like the crooked horns of Satan.
Daimyo
Matsukura
stood blocking their escape.

‘
Your head will roll for this,
gaijin
!
’ he bellowed, raising a mighty double-edged
katana
to smite him down.

With both hands occupied, Jack
couldn’t draw his swords in time.
Daimyo
Matsukura swung his cruel
katana
to take Jack’s head from his shoulders in a single slice. As
it whistled towards his neck, the steel blade parted the wafts of sulphurous steam,
cleaving a clear trail in its wake. Jack went to duck beneath the blade, when
daimyo
Matsukura and his sword disappeared before his eyes. The mother
screamed as a colossal boulder tore by, inches from them, crushing the samurai lord and
taking his sword with it.

No,
your
head was the one to
roll!
thought Jack, resuming their mad dash for safety.

As the landslide overtook them, it was like
trying to dodge a stampeding herd of oxen. Boulders bounced like oversized cannonballs,
rocks flew like missiles, ash billowed around them in blinding clouds. The ground
constantly shifted under their feet. With every step, they were in danger of being
sucked along with the cascading debris and swept into the hellish
jigoku
.

But suddenly they were beyond the worst of
it and scrabbling up the ash-covered lip of the volcano. Hands reached out and pulled
the three of them to safety. Jack lay gasping on the crater’s edge, the girl still
in his arms.

‘Maiko! Rimika!’ cried Takumi,
first embracing his daughter, then reaching for his granddaughter.

Jack let Rimika go and she ran into her
grandfather’s arms.

‘We were saved … by
Jesus!’ she said, her eyes mesmerized by Jack’s hair.

‘Thank the Lord!’ sobbed Takumi,
his prayed-for reunion overwhelming him. ‘Thank the Lord!’

‘Or you could just thank
us
,’ said Saburo, jogging over with Benkei and Yori.

Jack sat up. The landslide had rumbled to an
uneasy stop, but smoke and ash still swelled up from the crater’s base like a
poisonous mushroom.

‘Your plan worked a treat!’
Benkei declared, slapping Saburo on the back.

‘A little too well …’
coughed Jack, clearing his lungs and struggling to his feet.

Saburo offered him a hand and an apologetic
smile. ‘I didn’t plan such a
large
landslide.’

‘You idiot! You almost killed us
all!’ Miyuki yelled, charging over and knuckle-punching a nerve in his arm.

‘Ow!’ cried Saburo.

‘I thought dodging a landslide would
have been child’s play for a ninja,’ remarked Akiko as Saburo tenderly
rubbed his dead arm.

‘And you
weren’t
worried?’ shot back Miyuki.

Akiko appeared about to deny this, then
stopped herself. Instead she offered Miyuki a conciliatory bow of the head and admitted,
‘To be honest, I was
terrified
!’

Then she knuckle-punched Saburo’s
other bicep.

‘Ow!’ groaned Saburo, now
rubbing both his arms. ‘Is that
all
the thanks I get for saving the
day?’

‘YES!’ said Akiko and Miyuki
together.

‘At least the two of you can agree on
something,’ remarked Yori, suppressing a grin.

Jack looked over at the flock of dazed
villagers. Almost unable to believe their miraculous escape, they fell to their knees
and bowed as one to Jack and his friends.

‘We thank the Lord for delivering us
from evil and sending us his angels of mercy,’ praised one of the farmers, making
the sign of the cross.

‘Amen,’ chanted the villagers in
unison.

As they bowed again, expressing their
gratitude both to God and their samurai saviours, Jack noticed the black ash around them
shifting. Then the ground beneath their feet started to tremble.

48
 
 

‘Saburo … what
have
you started!’ accused Akiko, peering into the crater’s
depths.

Below, the steam and dust had settled and
they saw that Saburo’s landslide had blocked the main vents of the Great Shout
jigoku
. With no way of escape, the super-heated waters snaked through the
earth, seeking out other routes. The back pressure rapidly building, the crater floor
began to fracture along its fault lines before their very eyes …

‘RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!’ shouted
Jack as Unzen-dake awoke from its grumbling slumber.

Sweeping Rimika into his arms again, Jack
and his friends herded the villagers in a frantic race down the mountainside. Saburo
carried one of the elderly men on his back. Yori had given his staff to another. Akiko
and Miyuki worked together, shouldering a lame woman between them. The rest of the
villagers, half-starved as they were, proved to be hardier than they looked. With the
sure-footedness of mountain goats, they scrambled down the rocky slope.

‘This way!’ cried Benkei as the
volcano rumbled and loose shale and stones clattered past, seemingly determined to beat
them in their flight. Their pace slowed dangerously as they wound
a circuitous path through the gullies and ridges of old lava flows. Far below in the
valley, the haven of the village seemed to be getting no closer.

All of a sudden a huge explosion shook the
ground. The earth pitched like the deck of a storm-tossed ship and all of them were
thrown off their feet. Knees and hands were scraped bloody and raw as they tumbled out
of control down the slope. Clutching Rimika tightly to his chest, Jack skidded to a
painful stop.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked
her, brushing ash from her hair.

She nodded brightly. ‘I’m safe
in your arms.’

Jack only wished that was really true. He
staggered onward with the others. The volcano was belching out an apocalyptic pall of
smoke and ash. The sky darkened, a sinister twilight smothering the land as the sun was
eclipsed behind the billowing inky cloud. The heavens began to hail shards of rock, and
ash fell like black snow on to the ripped earth.

Jack followed Benkei and the others into the
treeline. The pine trees swayed wildly, as if trying to tear their roots from the earth
and run free. Splintering cracks and woody groans filled the ashen air in the
forest’s angry protest against its inevitable devastation. A huge tree trunk split
apart and toppled into their path, almost flattening Benkei. He jumped aside with a
startled yelp. Then, recovering, he beckoned the villagers onwards, guiding them past
obstacles and through the perilous forest, his multicoloured robe a beacon in the dim
light.

Jack levelled with Saburo, who was puffing
and wheezing from the old man he bore on his back.

‘You don’t
seem … scared … by the eruption,’ he was gasping to his
passenger.

The old man nonchalantly shook his head.
‘I’ve seen far worse in my time.’

‘Really? Ever been … this
close to one?’

‘No, neither do I want to be. So stop
your yabbering and get moving!’ he scolded, cajoling Saburo with an impatient pat
on the head as if he were a mule.

Saburo’s indignant face turned purple
at the farmer’s lack of respect towards a member of the samurai class, but fear
for their lives outweighed his desire to correct him. Jack would have laughed at the
exchange, if he too wasn’t terrified out of his wits. Having been caught in an
eruption once before, he’d vowed not to repeat the experience. The volcano was a
foe that could never be beaten, only survived.

And, as the mountain roared again, their
very lives hung in the balance.

The ground trembled, a shock wave rippling
through the earth and scattering the villagers like leaves. Jack forced himself to keep
moving. The further away from the volcano they were, the better their chances. Yori
urged everyone on, offering words of encouragement even when terror held him in its icy
grip. Akiko and Miyuki staggered through the gloomy forest, still bearing the lame woman
between them. As they fled, Jack lost all track of time. He was just running, blindly
following Benkei and carrying Rimika like the most precious jewel in his arms. Then all
of a sudden they were out of the forest and dashing across the plateau of paddy
fields.

Exhausted, scratched from rock, filthy with
ash, they hobbled into the village. The volcano continued to grumble,
smoke still pouring from its devil-fanged cone of a mouth. But fortunately only steam,
not lava, flowed from the gashes in its sides and the tremors had all but died down.

‘Told you, the eruption was a minor
one,’ said the old man as Saburo dropped to his knees in the road.

‘Get yourself a new horse!’
replied Saburo through gritted teeth.

‘Thanks for the ride,’ the man
said with a toothless grin. Dismounting, he stretched his legs and tottered off.

Saburo’s jaw fell open, incredulous,
as he watched the farmer go, perfectly able to walk.

‘Now there’s a wily old
trickster!’ remarked Benkei with admiration. ‘I could learn a thing or two
from him.’

The villagers gathered together and Jack
returned Rimika to her mother.

‘How can we ever thank you?’
said Takumi, bowing his head deep with respect.

‘Seeing Rimika safe is thanks
enough,’ replied Jack humbly.

Rimika beamed at him.

‘But there must be something more we
can do?’ insisted Maiko, ruffling her daughter’s hair.

‘How about a bath?’ suggested
Akiko, glancing down at her soot-stained kimono.

Takumi and Maiko lowered their gaze,
embarrassed.

‘Unfortunately,
daimyo
Matsukura’s samurai destroyed the only tub in the village,’ Takumi
apologized. ‘But there is a natural hot spring further along the road, near where
a stream crosses. I trust that will do.’

‘Sounds perfect,’ said Akiko,
not wishing the villagers to feel ashamed of their lack of means.

‘Perhaps a meal before you leave?’
Maiko offered graciously.

Jack glanced around at their devastated
village with its ramshackle homes and empty rice barn. Whatever food they had left, he
realized, would be their last. And these villagers were willing to give everything they
had by way of thanks. This only reaffirmed to him that the risk they’d taken had
been worth it to save such good people.