The Way Of The Dragon (5 page)

‘Our apologies,’ said Akiko, startled. ‘We didn’t mean to disturb your prayers.’

‘Prayers!’ she croaked. ‘I long since abandoned my faith in Buddha. I was sleeping until you rats scurried in.’

‘We were just going,’ explained Yamato, taking a step away from the foul-looking woman, her face veiled by the lice-ridden cowl.

But Jack remained where he was. ‘What did you just say about Kunitome-san?’

‘You’re not from here, are you, boy?’ the hag spat. She sniffed the air, then seemed to gag on the smell. ‘You’re
gaijin
!’

Jack ignored the insult. ‘Did you say the swordmaker did
not
commit suicide?’

‘No. He didn’t.’

‘Then what happened?’

The old woman stretched forth a bony hand, its skin dead as a corpse. She remained silent, but the message was clear. Akiko reached inside the folds of her kimono, pulled out a small string of coins, removed one and dropped it into the woman’s waiting palm. The hag snatched her prizeaway.

‘He didn’t commit suicide, but he
was
killed by his own sword.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Jack.

‘Kunitome-san had been commissioned to make a special sword for a very special client,’ she explained, letting her fingers run down the splintered edge of an effigy’s carved wooden blade. ‘The sword was called
Kuro Kumo
, Black Cloud, on account that it was finished on the night of a great storm. It was his finest sword yet, sharper and deadlier than any blade in existence. It turned out to be the last sword he ever made.’

The hag shuffled closer to Jack.

‘That night the client came and demanded a cutting test to prove the quality of the blade. Kunitome-san arranged for four criminals to be bound over a sand mound. Black Cloud went through all four bodies like a ripe plum cleft in two. You should have heard their screams.’

She extended a talon of a finger and ran it across Jack’s neck. He shuddered at her touch.

‘The client was so impressed he beheaded Kunitome-san there and then with his own creation.’

‘Why did he do that?’ asked Jack, swallowing back his revulsion.

‘He wanted to ensure Kunitome-san never made another blade that could defeat Black Cloud. But when Kunitomesan was murdered, a fragment of his maddened soul entered the sword. As if possessed, the storm then raged all night long, ripping the heart out of the village, ravaging all the crops, destroying the temple. Little was left standing by the morning.’

‘Who was the client?’ asked Akiko.

The old woman looked up, and though Jack couldn’t see her face within the cowl, he swore she was smiling.

‘Dokugan Ryu, of course. The one you seek.’

The hag leant forward and whispered into Jack’s ear, ‘You wish to know where he is?’

‘Yes,’ breathed Jack.

The old woman put out her skeletal hand again. Akiko dropped another coin into the grimy palm.

‘Where is he?’ demanded Jack, impatient for the answer.

She beckoned Jack closer, then croaked, ‘Behind you!’

All three of them spun round to be confronted by a huge green eye.

The old woman cackled at their gasps of shock. But the eye only belonged to a large dragon carving hanging over the doorway, its head turned to one side, its forked tongue flicking out of its red-painted mouth.

‘Very funny,’ snarled Yamato, lowering his guard. ‘There’s no one there.’

‘Oh… but there is,’ corrected the woman. ‘Dokugan Ryu will always be behind you, sneaking up on you like a poisonous shadow.’

‘Let’s go,’ Yamato insisted. ‘This witch is mad.’

Jack had to agree and turned to leave.

‘But it would help if you knew who Dokugan Ryu really is, wouldn’t it?’ whispered the old hag.

Jack stopped in his tracks.

‘Don’t you want to know?’ she taunted, her palm already outstretched, fingers beckoning like an upturned crab.

Jack looked to Akiko. Yamato shook his head in dismay as Akiko begrudgingly handed over another coin.

‘You’re very eager for knowledge, young ones. And I won’t disappoint,’ the hag cackled, slipping the coin into her filthy robes. ‘Dokugan Ryu is the exiled samurai lord, Hattori Tatsuo.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ scoffed Yamato. ‘That warlord was killed in the Great Battle of Nakasendo.’

‘Listen, you little rat!’ she hissed, cutting him off. ‘You paid for a story and I
will
tell it. Hattori Tatsuo was born in Yamagata Castle in the summer of the Year of the Snake. As a child his eye became infected with the smallpox. He pulled the diseased organ out of his skull himself!’

Akiko recoiled at the thought.

‘Because of his missing eye, his own mother considered him unfit to be the future head of the Hattori family, so began favouring his younger brother as heir. She even poisoned Tatsuo during dinner once, but miraculously he survived, though somewhat maddened and his eye now green as jade.’

Yamato was shaking his head in disbelief and signing to Jack that the woman was crazy.

‘Tatsuo then killed his own brother in order to ensure his rise to power. When he was barely sixteen, he went on his first raid with his father. His father was killed during a skirmish, some say by Tatsuo himself. Tatsuo was now head of the family. But not satisfied with this, he set his eye upon becoming the
daimyo
of northern Japan. First, though, he sought revenge for his mother’s betrayal.’

‘How?’ breathed Akiko, but not really wanting to know the answer.

‘How else? By gouging out
both
her eyes!’ screeched the hag.

‘That’s enough!’ ordered Yamato, seeing Akiko wince at the horrific image the woman had conjured. ‘None of this nonsense explains how Tatsuo supposedly ended up a ninja.’

The old hag, tutting, wagged a bony finger at Yamato.

‘Such impatience! There is more. Much more. On the battlefield, Tatsuo gained a fearsome reputation as a ruthless warrior. Soon he became
daimyo
of all northern Honshu. During his campaigns, he’d borne a son. So he now desired all of Japan for his heir. Tatsuo’s army crushed all those before him -‘

‘Until they were defeated at Nakasendo,’ interjected Yamato.

‘Yes, you’re quite right. The battle raged many days and nights. But only the combined forces of the southern and central lords,
daimyo
Hasegawa, Takatomi and Kamakura, defeated the great Tatsuo.’ She spat on the floor. ‘Kamakura, that traitorous samurai, had switched sides and sealed Tatsuo’s fate. His army was slaughtered, his son cut down defending him before his very eye, by one of
daimyo
Takatomi’s bodyguards. Yet, despite all this, Tatsuo fought to the bitter end.’

‘But I’ve already told you, Hattori Tatsuo was killed in battle,’ Yamato stated. ‘It’s impossible for him to be Dragon Eye.’

‘No, Tatsuo survived. He escaped into the Iga mountains. Hunted down, he was forced into hiding. But fortune was on his side at last. A ninja clan took him in, where he studied their secret arts and became the man he is today. Dokugan Ryu, the most feared ninja to have ever lived.’

The old woman sounded almost proud at the idea.

‘But how do you know all this?’ demanded Jack. ‘No one else seems to know his identity.’

‘No one’s ever asked
me
before,’ replied the old woman, pulling back her hood to reveal a gruesomely scarred face… with two empty eye sockets.

Jack touched the arrow buried in the
sakura
tree.

His fingers lightly brushed the weathered flights and the sensation sent a chill through his body despite the sticky summer heat. He couldn’t quite believe it was still there, piercing the bark of the cherry blossom tree like a needle in the eye. Its target had been Dragon Eye, but he had escaped, as always.

‘Masamoto-sama commanded me not to remove it.’

Jack spun round in surprise to find Uekiya, the old gardener, tending an immaculate rose bush. The withered man blended in like an ancient tree. He was as much a part of the garden as he was of Jack’s fond memories of Toba, the little port where he’d first arrived in Japan.

Although the reason for Jack’s return was dishonourable, the welcome by Hiroko, Akiko’s mother, had been warm and reflected the care she’d given Jack during his first six months in Japan.

After their disturbing encounter with the blind hag, Jack, Akiko and Yamato had hurriedly left Shindo and the next day departed on the final leg of their journey to Toba. The going had been slow due to Kuma-san’s injury and was made even more arduous by the stifling heat. Upon their arrival, Hiroko had provided much needed refreshments and organized for the bath to be filled so they could wash away the dirt of the trip. While Yamato took the first
ofuro
and Akiko caught up with her mother’s news, Jack had sought the cool shade of the garden to recover.

The old man smiled a toothy grin, obviously pleased to see Jack once more in his garden.

‘Did Masamoto-sama give a reason for leaving it?’ Jack asked, letting go of the arrow.

‘It’s to remind us never to lower our guard.’

Uekiya’s smile faded as he gently cut a blood-red flower from the bush and presented it to Jack. ‘And this rose bush I planted to remind me of Chiro.’

Jack could no longer meet the gardener’s gaze. He recalled the night when Dragon Eye had initially attempted to steal the
rutter
from him. It had been the first time Jack had witnessed Akiko’s fighting skills, which after two years of training at the
Niten Ichi Ryū
had now been honed to a fine art. Chiro, however, wasn’t a warrior. She was Hiroko’s maid and had been killed in the attack, while the samurai guard, Taka-san, had been seriously injured defending the home.

It had been a great relief for Jack upon returning to Toba to find Taka-san fully recovered, the only indication of his injury a vicious scar across his belly, which he bore with some pride. But the guilt of Chiro’s death still remained.

‘Welcome home, Jack-kun,’ Uekiya added, forcing a smile back on his face as he continued to prune the rose bush.

‘Thank you,’ Jack replied, settling down beneath the cool shade of the
sakura
tree. ‘After such a long time in Kyoto, it is almost like returning home. I’d forgotten how beautiful your garden was.’

‘How can that be?’ said the old man, his brow furrowing in puzzlement. ‘You’ve been carrying a piece of it with you ever since you left.’

‘You mean my
bonsai
?’ asked Jack, referring to the miniature cherry blossom tree he’d been given by the gardener the day he’d departed for samurai school.

‘Of course, it’s grown from the very tree you sit beneath. It’s not dead, is it?’

‘No,’ said Jack quickly, ‘but it does need some attention after the long journey.’

As he had no idea how long he would be staying in Toba, he’d brought the tree back with him in its original carrying case, along with all his other possessions.

‘Let me do it,’ said Uekiya, putting down his pruning knife. ‘Though if the truth be known, I never expected to see it alive again.
Bonsai
are very difficult to grow. Perhaps you do have a little Japanese in you, after all.’

With a wry smile upon his wrinkled face, the old gardener bowed and walked across the little wooden bridge that spanned a pond dotted with pink water lilies. He weaved his way along the pebbled path towards the house, leaving Jack alone to his thoughts.

Jack had spent many happy hours beneath this
sakura
tree. At first recovering from the broken arm he’d sustained escaping the ninja attack on the
Alexandria
; then studying his father’s
rutter
; and, most enjoyable of all, being instructed by Akiko in her language and customs. Sitting there now, it was like finding sanctuary again.

But it
wasn’t
like returning home.

England was his home. Though after nearly four years, two of which had been at sea, it had become a distant memory. The only things tying him to his native land were his heart, his little sister Jess, his father’s
rutter
– now stolen – and a scrap of paper he’d found tucked within it.

Jack opened the
inro
carrying case attached to his
obi
and carefully took out the fragile paper. It was a drawing given to his father by Jess before they’d left for the Japans. As had become habit, his fingers traced the outlines of his dead father, his sister in her summer smock holding hands with his own stick-thin body, and lastly his mother with her angel wings. Wiping a tear from his eye, Jack said a little prayer for Jess. Having only an old, ailing neighbour to rely on for his sister’s welfare, he feared for her future without a family. Jack
had
to find his way back to England.

Yet he was trapped by circumstance. Adopted by Masamoto, his guardian considered himself responsible for Jack’s care until he was sixteen and deemed ‘of age’. Besides, any journey to the southern port of Nagasaki, where foreign trading ships docked, was fraught with danger now that
daimyo
Kamakura, the lord of Edo Province, had begun to rouse the population against Christians and foreigners.

Not only that, Jack had to contend with the constant threat to his life posed by Dragon Eye. He couldn’t leave Japan without his father’s
rutter
. It was rightfully his and the key to his future. He had to retrieve the logbook before the code was broken. The hunter had now become the hunted. He
had
to find Dragon Eye.

Dokugan Ryu’s eyeless mother had laughed at the suggestion of seeking out her ninja son. Dragon Eye was like the wind, she said, and moved with the seasons, never settling in the same place twice. Despite the offer of another coin, she refused to reveal his location. Yamato very much doubted she knew it anyway. He believed she was making the whole story up and they’d wasted their money on worthless lies.

‘Nice picture,’ Yamato commented, rounding the trunk of the
sakura
, fresh from his bath. ‘That the one Akiko rescued from the tree?’

‘Yes, it is,’ mumbled Jack, startled by his friend’s sudden appearance.