Disciple of the Wind (53 page)

Daigoro took a deep, centering breath. His fingers tightened on Glorious Victory’s grip. Time slowed to a crawl. His enemies settled deeper into their stances, coiling to spring. Daigoro feinted and all three leaped back. That was good. They were afraid of him.

But that would only work once. Even now they crept closer, one slow footstep at a time. Daigoro understood how a wounded deer must feel when the wolves circled in.

Then he remembered Katsushima’s watchdog, Kane, and the moral
that came with that story:
Arrogance in the face of impossible odds. That’s the way to win a fight.

To hell with it, he thought.

He threw himself at the closest samurai. Inazuma steel cleaved helmet, bone, and brain. Behind him, Oda shouted a
kiai
. Daigoro spun, his
odachi
reaching long and low. Glorious Victory sheared off Oda’s katana at the hilt.

Oda pressed on, heedless of death. Daigoro sidestepped, let him pass, cut for the spine. The second samurai spoiled his cut. Steel flashed at Daigoro’s face. He parried and counterstruck. Glorious Victory cut deep but did not kill.

Now Oda was on him again,
wakizashi
in hand. Daigoro chopped at Oda’s hand. He missed, but he cut the
wakizashi
in two. Weaponless, Oda was no threat. Daigoro rounded on Shichio’s last remaining samurai and pressed a furious assault.

Sword-song echoed in the valley. Daigoro stumbled on wet rock. The samurai moved in for the kill. Daigoro’s knee buckled completely. He fell, but Glorious Victory did not. Daigoro held it fast, like a spear set to meet a cavalry charge. The Inazuma blade caught the samurai under his breastplate and punched out below the shoulder blade.

Then Oda kicked Daigoro in the back of the head. The world went dark.

46

D
aigoro woke to crushing pain. His hands were tingling, almost numb. Something bit down on his wrists with the malice of a dragon.

His eyes fluttered open. A devil stood before him, and Daigoro wondered if he was in hell. Blinking hard, he cleared the spots from his vision. It was not a devil after all, but rather a devil mask. Solid iron, pitted with rust and age, too small to conceal Shichio’s triumphant smile.

“Ah, at last he wakes,” Shichio said. “But let’s wait for Oda-san before we get started, shall we? He’s earned his place at the table. Yes, he has.”

Daigoro had to blink again to drive the spots away. Gradually he took in his surroundings. He was in the teahouse, bound hand and foot to something vertical. Craning his head, he could just make out what it was: a support beam. The waterfall thundered endlessly behind him. The wall was open, the
fusuma
pushed apart to either side, but no sunlight came in. Crickets and frogs sang to each other in the night. A cold breeze made Daigoro realize he was naked to the waist.

He looked down to find his body wrapped in coils of hempen rope. The same rope crushed his wrists, which were stretched so high above his head that Daigoro’s shoulders felt they might twist out of their sockets. He could not move his wrists at all, and his ankles were
held just as fast, but the rest of his body was free to twist and squirm. The rope coiled randomly up and down his arms and torso, crossing itself many times over. There were many knots, all of them tied artfully, and the coils were pulled so tight that Daigoro’s flesh bulged up between them. But why? They wrapped only around his body; they did not hold him fast to the beam. What use were bonds that did not bind?

“I usually use a table for this,” Shichio said. “A very special table. Your friend General Mio could have told you all about it, if only I hadn’t cut out his tongue.”

A terrible vision flashed in Daigoro’s mind: Mio Yasumasa quivering on his deathbed. His whole body was coiled with thin purple bruises. Huge ovular cuts festered, as if an animal had taken bites out of him. Before, Daigoro had never understood what could inflict such bizarre ropelike bruises. Now he understood all too well. Yet the bleeding, festering wounds were still a mystery. What could cause bitelike wounds, not ragged but smooth-sided, like the cuts of a razor? He could only imagine, and his imagination terrified him.

“Usually I strip my victims naked too,” Shichio continued. “It makes them wonder how long I’ll allow them to keep their manhood. But you . . . by the gods, that leg! How can you stomach it? I’d sooner cut it off than wake every morning to the sight of it. How can you let it share your bed?”

He shuddered and unsheathed his
wakizashi
. “Of course I could cut it off for you, but what would be the fun in that? You’d bleed to death right away, wouldn’t you? Yes, you would.”

In the center of the room, a brazier glowed as red as a demon’s eyes. Now a new source of light drew near, orange, fluttering, crackling. Oda Tomonosuke slipped out of his sandals and stepped into the tearoom, a torch held high in his left hand. He looked at Daigoro with disgust.

“The torch you requested, Lord Kumanai.”

“Yes, yes, bring it closer.” Shichio beckoned with his sword. Then, stepping onto the veranda overlooking the pool, he shouted, “Are you
there,
ronin
? Can you see your friend? Or have you abandoned him like everyone else?”

A quick slice, and a gobbet of flesh hit the floor. Hot blood ran down Daigoro’s back. Shichio’s blade was sharp; there wasn’t much pain—at least not physically. But Daigoro had never been so scared in his life.

“Sharp, isn’t it?” Shichio said, eerily echoing Daigoro’s own thoughts. “It’s Hashiba’s, you know. General Toyotomi’s. He gave it to me when he made me his
hatamoto
.”

Daigoro smirked. Arrogance in the face of impossible odds. He would not let Shichio see him afraid. “Yes, I heard. ‘Lord Kumanai,’ is it? The same
kuma
of Okuma, I think.”

“Yes.
Kuma-Nai
, ‘No Bears.’ And also ‘No Okumas.’ Do you like it?”

Daigoro threw out a laugh, loud enough to echo off the cliff. “I love it. You want to be rid of me? You named yourself after me!”

Shichio’s grin curled into a snarl. He set his blade against Daigoro’s belly and sliced. This one hurt. Shichio made sure of that. He drew the blade slowly, and left the bleeding slab dangling by a flap so it tugged at the wound.

“Laugh at me again and I will cut out your tongue,” he said. “Just as I did with your friend Mio. Just as I’ll do with your
ronin
up on the cliff, as soon as I catch him. Now why hasn’t he come for you yet? At sunset he was still up there. I expected him to ride in to your rescue. Yes, I did. Why hasn’t he come?”

Because he’s a full day’s hike from here, Daigoro thought. Or a quick jump, if only the pool weren’t so shallow. Katsushima had brought a length of knotted rope with him, and also a great bow and quiver; the fact that he’d used neither meant he must have injured his hands. If he could have joined the fight, he would have. And since he couldn’t, one thing was certain: he’d stay as close to Daigoro as possible. Daigoro could not turn his head far enough to see atop the cliff, but he knew Katsushima was up there, watching helplessly. The man
who had loved him like a father now had to watch on as Daigoro was tortured to death.

That thought wounded Daigoro more sharply than his own pain. He could not do that to Katsushima. “Face me, you coward. Cut me loose and face me.”

“With what? With this?” Shichio picked up Glorious Victory Unsought. The mighty blade had been resting in the corner, along with Daigoro’s
wakizashi
and the rest of his effects. Now Shichio unsheathed it, and took a nick out of the rafter because he was not used to the
odachi’s
reach.

“Oh no,” he said, and his eyes shot up to the scarred rafter. His sympathy for the rafter startled Daigoro. The peacock studied Glorious Victory’s edge, then the ceiling again, then the steel. “Oh, thank the gods. I didn’t blunt the sword.”

Daigoro looked at him in horror. Until now he hadn’t realized the depths of Shichio’s depravity. This man felt more for works of art than he did for human beings.

The same horror showed in Oda’s eyes. “Lord Kumanai, the boy is right,” he said. “Cut him loose and make him kneel. If he’s too cowardly to open his belly, I’ll behead him for you. But this . . . this is no way to kill a samurai.”

“Oh, but our Bear Cub isn’t a samurai, is he? Okuma Daigoro—now there was a samurai if ever there was one. But this whelp? Look at him. Does he shave his pate? No. Does he fight honorably? No. He comes dressed as a woman. Even now the smears of face paint linger, despite all the sweat and blood. He looks like a ghost.”

Shichio returned to the heap in the corner, where Daigoro’s clothes and armor were strewn. Lying atop the pile was Daigoro’s
wakizashi
, until Shichio kicked it across the room. The sight was more than Daigoro could bear. That was an Okuma blade. It once belonged to Daigoro’s father, and to his grandfather before him. Now this peacock had sullied it with his foot.

Shichio kicked it again. “What makes a samurai? The topknot and swords,
neh
?”

“Honor,” said Daigoro.

“Well, yes,” Shichio said, “that too. If you count a reign of terror as honorable. You’ll forgive me; I’ve only been samurai for a month. I haven’t quite worked out which acts of butchery our honor code permits.”

He kicked the sword again, rolling it toward Daigoro’s feet. “I understand the bit about the swords, though. Only samurai are allowed to wear the
daisho
. So if you’re not samurai, this
wakizashi
of yours is illegal, isn’t it? Yes. Yes, I think it is.”

Glorious Victory rose and fell. It sheared right through Daigoro’s
wakizashi
and into the tatami. The Inazuma was unharmed, but the Okuma blade lay in severed halves. Daigoro felt it as bitterly as if Shichio had cut off his arm.

“There,” Shichio said. “I have two swords and you do not. I have a surname and you do not. I have lands, and lordship, and this ghastly topknot. What does it matter which one of us has honor? I am samurai forever more. You will die a common criminal.”

Daigoro could stand no more. He pulled at his bonds but only succeeded in digging the ropes deeper into his wrists. Shichio enjoyed the show. He left Glorious Victory stuck in the floor, jutting up like the mast of a listing shipwreck. Stepping gingerly around it, he came to stand at Daigoro’s side. Then, in a sickening act of kindness, he caressed Daigoro’s cheek.

It was a lover’s caress. Daigoro pulled his head away, but there was only so far he could go. “My dear boy,” Shichio said. “We’re just getting started. These bonds will slow your bleeding considerably. And you’re a tough one,
neh
? Yes, you are. This could take until morning.”

Shichio drew Hideyoshi’s
wakizashi
again, and laid it against a strangled bulge of muscle just above Daigoro’s armpit. The blade was so close that Daigoro could see his panicked breaths misting on it. He watched as the blade glided smoothly through skin and sinew. Dark blood spilled from the wound, steaming on his skin. The sight made him gag.

He was not alone. Even Shichio seemed sick. Lord Oda actually
ran from the room, his torch guttering loudly. He retched in the darkness. The sound redoubled Daigoro’s urge to vomit.

“Samurai!” Shichio said with a snort. “Savages and hypocrites, that’s all you are. Ask you to kill a thousand unarmed monks and you set about it with a will. But make it one of your own kind and it’s a different story, isn’t it? Render
you
unarmed, render
you
helpless, and all of a sudden the bloodletting is ‘dishonorable.’
Neh?
Only now does it make you sick.”

“You too,” said Daigoro. “I can see it. You’re turning green. I guess you’re one of us after all.”

Shichio slapped him. “No! And . . . and yes.” His head sagged, pulled down by the mask. It was as if the mask had doubled in weight—and perhaps it had, not physically but morally. He was a different man wearing it. The pettiness was gone, replaced with a thirst for blood. He gripped his sword like a half-starved dog clamping down on stolen food. His whole body spoke of desperation.

“It
is
wrong,” Shichio said. “I know it is. And yet . . .”

“Take the mask off,” Daigoro said softly. “Free yourself of it.” And then free me so we can fight like men, he thought.

“No!” Shichio snarled, baring his teeth. “I will not take orders from you. Command me again and I’ll cut out your tongue.”

“Do it,” Daigoro said. Better to drown in his own blood than to die one slice at a time. “I command it.”

Shichio took another piece out of him, just to show he could. Daigoro heard a grunt of dismay and realized Oda had returned. He hadn’t noticed before, which meant Oda must have doused his torch before coming inside. If he was to be a spectator to Daigoro’s torment, perhaps he did not want to see quite so vividly.

“Lord Oda,” Daigoro said, “look at the man you’ve taken sides with. He is a monster. You know this—and you are
better
than this. Remember your pride, my lord. Remember you are samurai.”

“Silence!” Shichio raised his sword as if to open Daigoro’s throat. Daigoro welcomed it; anything was better than dying piece by severed piece. “You killed his son! Have you forgotten?”

“No,” Daigoro said. “I remember. I took his son. I took his livelihood. But no man can take your honor, Lord Oda. Your enemies can take everything else from you, but you give up your honor of your own free will.”

He wished he could see Oda, to know whether his words had any effect. He could hear the man’s breathing, but Oda stood somewhere out of sight. Daigoro had little ability to look for him, for he could not move his head freely—not without cutting himself on Shichio’s razor-sharp sword.

“What’s this?” Shichio said. A smile spread behind those iron fangs. “Is that fear I see? Yes it is. You don’t like the look of my blade, do you?”

He took it back as if to sheathe it, then raised it so its tip hovered just in front of Daigoro’s right eyeball. It edged ever closer, until at last Daigoro’s eyelash brushed the very point of it, freeing a drop of blood that melted into Daigoro’s eye.