Blood Ninja E-Book

Nick Lake

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Blood Ninja
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 537

Beschreibung

Taro is a boy from a coastal village in rural Japan, fated to become a fisherman like his father. But in just one night, Taro's world is turned upside down - and his destiny is changed forever. Skilled in the art of silent and deadly combat, ninjas are the agents of powerful nobles who rule sixteenth-century Japan. So why did a group of these highly trained assassins creep into a peasant's hut and kill Taro's father? And why did one ninja rescue Taro from their clutches, saving his life at enormous cost? Now on the run with this mysterious saviour and his best friend Hiro, Taro is determined to learn the way of the ninja to avenge his father's death. But if they are to complete their perilous journey, Taro must first evade the wrath of the warring Lords, decipher an ancient curse, resist forbidden love - and come to terms with the blood-soaked secrets of a life lived in moonlight.

Leseprobe

BLOOD NINJA

Nick Lake is an editorial director at HarperCollins Children’s Books. He received his degree in English from Oxford University. Blood Ninja was inspired by his interest in the Far East, and by the fact that he is secretly a vampire ninja himself. Nick lives with his wife in Oxfordshire, protected by booby traps, poisoned darts and a fat, lazy tom cat, but why not pay him a visit on Facebook or visit his website: www.bloodninja.co.uk

First published in the United States of America in 2009 by Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020.

First published in trade paperback in Great Britain in 2010 by Corvus, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.

Copyright © Nick Lake, 2009

The moral right of Nick Lake to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN 978 1 84887 387 2 E-book ISBN 978 1 84887 392 6

Printed in Great Britain

Corvus An imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd Ormond House 26–27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ

For the real Han(n)a(h)

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 60

CHAPTER 61

CHAPTER 62

CHAPTER 63

CHAPTER 64

CHAPTER 65

CHAPTER 66

CHAPTER 67

CHAPTER 68

CHAPTER 69

CHAPTER 70

CHAPTER 71

CHAPTER 72

CHAPTER 73

CHAPTER 74

CHAPTER 75

CHAPTER 76

CHAPTER 77

PROLOGUE

Near Lord Oda’s Castle, Nagoya

1565

THIS WAS NOT a good place to be out at night, all alone.

Unfortunately for the young girl currently walking through the tradesmen’s district, it was the middle of the night – and she was very much alone.

She walked with the slightly mincing step of a noble, and carried a delicate folded-up fan. Jewelled rings encrusted her fingers. Her soft indoor tabi slippers were unsuited to running or fighting.

The man in black was glad. Fighting he could handle. But when they ran – that was just annoying.

He glanced down at his young prey, checking to make sure that he had identified the target correctly. Yes, there it was: the distinct form of the Oda mon on the girl’s kimono, petals within petals.

This was Lord Oda’s girl.

The girl seemed blithely oblivious to the fine gold thread on her clothes, and the effect it would likely have on the residents of such an area.

This job is going to be easier than I imagined, the man in black thought.

He leaped, almost casually, to the next rooftop. He landed without a sound and ran, his lithe body crouching low to avoid detection. The next rooftop was too far to reach in one bound, but he simply somersaulted to the ground, rolled, then jumped nimbly to grab the overhanging eave. He let himself hang there for a split second, enjoying the feel of gravity pulling at his body, then flipped onto the tiles.

A cat that had been sleeping there stood up in an exaggerated arch of irritation and was about to hiss when the ninja raised a blowpipe to his lips. The cat collapsed softly and rolled down the sloping roof. Before it could fall off the edge and hit the ground below, the ninja stretched languorously and pinned its corpse to the bark tile with a dagger.

The ninja moved from rooftop to rooftop until he was in front of the girl. He waited for the right moment, his entire body perfectly still. When the girl passed below him, he jumped, absorbing the impact of the ground with a smooth bend of the legs that turned almost instantly into a vicious kick to the girl’s face.

The girl staggered back, and the ninja grinned, pressing his advantage with a flurry of kicks before reaching for his short-sword.

As the ninja’s hand moved to his belt, he lowered his eyes for a fraction of a second, and it was then that something smashed into his face, crushing his nose and sending a tsunami of pain and nausea through his body. Through blurred vision he saw the girl pull back her hand, and realized that the fan was not a fan at all – it was a heavy metal bar disguised as an everyday object, a classic ninja trick.

But how—?

The girl struck again with the bar, and the ninja easily blocked, feeling a new surge of confidence as he finally managed to free his sword and swing it in an upward arc, calculated to shatter the jaw and cut the arteries in the neck and—

The girl somehow turned out of the sword’s path, bringing the fan-turned-club down on the ninja’s wrist. The man felt his wrist shatter and the sword drop to the ground just as a fistful of sharp jewels destroyed his left eye.

Not rings. A knuckleduster.

His legs gave way, and he sank to the ground. But it wasn’t over. It was never over. He would heal, in time. Not his eye, of course, but the rest...

Then the girl stood over him and drew a brutal wakizashi from her kimono, the short-sword’s blade so sharp it shimmered as if surrounded by heat. She whirled it round her fingers expertly.

And then the ninja knew that it was over.

‘Tell Lord Tokugawa that if he continues to send me assassins, I will continue to send him corpses,’ she said. ‘Let him set the world against me, and I will kill the world. Tell him that. And tell him if he wants me to spare his life, he had better send Taro next time, not some weakling of an ordinary ninja. That boy owes me a death.’

The ninja looked up at her, faint hope in his one working eye. ‘You’re allowing me to live?’

The girl paused. ‘Ah. My mistake.’

The ninja tried to smile.

Then she struck, hard and true, at his heart. ‘I’ll just have to tell Tokugawa myself.’

Yes, this was not a good place to be out at night, all alone.

Especially if you were a ninja.

CHAPTER 1

Kanto Province, Lord Oda’s Prefecture

Six months earlier

TARO STRAIGHTENED UP, took a deep breath, and pulled back the string of his bow. There was a familiar twinge from his left shoulder, where a thin silver scar traced a semicircle from chest to back, at intervals punctuated by darker circles suggestive of large tooth marks.

This was not surprising – they were tooth marks.

Taro ignored the old pain and lined up his arrow with the fleeing rabbit. He held his breath, concentrating on making the bow an extension of his own body. From an early age he had taught himself to make firing the bow a kind of meditation, believing in his mind that the arrow was already sunk deep in its target, that the only thing required was to loose the string and let it fly.

He loosed the string.

The arrow arced over brown summer grass and met the rabbit as it jumped over a tussock, driving it to the ground.

Taro walked over to the dead rabbit. He knelt and removed the barbed tip, then wiped the arrowhead on the grass before returning the arrow to his quiver.

Taro dropped the rabbit into his shoulder bag and turned for home. He wasn’t far from Shirahama, the coastal village where he’d grown up: he’d come only as far as the first way marker showing the road to Nagoya. He had kept the sea in view, however, and now as he rounded the headland, he could see Shirahama bay, cradled by tall mountains whose flanks were heavily forested with cedar, chestnut, and pine. The simple dwellings of the village nestled on the side of a hill overlooking the sea. The sun was setting, and already a few plumes of smoke rose from houses. It was warm, but there was always fish to smoke, and seaweed to dry for its precious salt, so the fires were always burning.

The air that Taro breathed as he walked through the trees was scented with pine oil and the salt of the sea. Like most of the other coastal settlements in this part of Japan, Shirahama was entirely dependent on the sea. The men went out on fishing boats, the women were ama divers, and both men and women joined great gatherings of seaweed in the autumn, so that from the slimy, bubbling stuff could be burned salt to sell to the nobles.

Taro was not like them. He loved the earth as much as the sea. He had no desire to grow rice, like the peasants of the interior, but he liked to hunt using his bow. As he walked, he cradled the arc of smooth wood in his hand – it was slender and fine, but filled with taut, latent energy. His father had made it for him when he was too young even to hold it, but since then he had grown fearsomely accurate with it, and often employed it to supplement the family’s food stocks with a rabbit or a fat wood pigeon.

The village people didn’t like that – well, except for Hiro.

But the others said hunting was only for samurai, and that peasants like him should content themselves with the bounty of the sea. They said that to kill four-legged creatures angered the kami who walked the woods, Shinto god-spirits who were everywhere in these parts, though the Buddha was supposed to have chased them from all of Japan.

People said a lot of things about Taro – jokingly, and otherwise. They said he was half kami himself, his delicate features and perpetually pale skin out of place in a simple village where rough faces and sunburn were the norm. They said his skill with the bow was supernatural; they said his parents must have gone into the mountains and swapped him with a god at a shrine somewhere. Taro hated it. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t look like anyone else, or think the same way.

And anyway, the villagers were hypocrites. Taro didn’t see why the Buddha should accept the killing of fish and sea creatures but condemn the murder of a rabbit. There was also, deep within him, a dream he could never have shared with the other villagers, nor even completely admitted to himself.

He dreamed that one day he might actually be a samurai; that he might leave this little village to enter the service of the great Lord Oda, fall in love with a beautiful samurai woman, and finally die gloriously with a sword in his hand, refusing all mercy, and tendering no surrender.

There was only one other person in the village who shared Taro’s enthusiasm for tales of war and honour and duels, and that was his closest friend, Hiro. So Taro was pleased when he came out of the woods onto the Nagoya road and saw Hiro there.

On the dusty road that led into the village, Hiro was standing, bowlegged, in a posture of defiance. His massive body glistened in the failing sunshine, naked but for a white loincloth. A heavily muscled traveller was stripping off his kimono and squaring up. By the way he carried himself, he had to be one of the wave-men – ronin – who had been left without allegiance after the colossal defeat of Lord Yoshimoto’s enormous army by the cunning Lord Oda Nobunaga.

Having been conquered in battle, ronin served no lord, followed no code of loyalty, and thus were as the waves – many and masterless, with no purpose and no end. Most of the ronin in these parts had served Lord Yoshimoto, once, but their very existence proved they had refused seppuku after Lord Oda’s victory, and so had lost themselves the status of samurai.

Taro smiled as he watched Hiro limbering up. His friend loved to challenge passing strongmen to wrestling matches – and despite his apparently fat body, he rarely lost. This particular ronin didn’t know what Hiro was capable of – and Hiro was relying on it. The man and his companions would have placed heavy bets on the bout, confident of victory over the chubby peasant.

Taro sat down, ready to enjoy the show.

As Hiro and the ronin circled each other, looking for weak points, the ronin’s companions stood to one side. Taro watched them, curious. Unlike the usual onlookers, they didn’t seem all that interested in their friend’s performance, though from their armour and swords they were clearly ronin too. Instead, they appeared distracted. Taro scooted over a little closer to where they were standing.

‘... two puncture wounds, on the neck,’ said one.

‘And this was where?’ replied the other.

‘Minata. Just down the coast. The peasant was drained of all his blood.’

The first traveller whistled. ‘A kyuuketsuki on Lord Oda’s land. It’s a bad omen.’ Then, suddenly noticing Taro crouching near him, the man glared and turned back to the fight.

Taro turned away from them as if he had not been eavesdropping, and watched as the wrestling ronin stepped forward and lunged, grabbing Hiro round the neck and waist. But Taro’s attention was now elsewhere, and he watched the fight as distractedly as the two ronin. A man had been killed, that much was obvious. And the ronin suspected a kyuuketsuki...

Taro had thought that the bloodsucking demons were only storybook things, meant to scare children into obedience, not real killers that could step out of the shadows and kill peasants only three ri from his home.

He felt a shiver run down his spine, and a sense that danger had landed in Shirahama, as large and ponderous and unshiftable as a beached whale. Then he shook away the feeling. No, he was safe there, with his best friend, and there was no such thing as a kyuuketsuki – not outside the old folktales, anyway.

Before him, the ronin threw his weight forward, trying to pull Hiro off his centre of balance. Hiro fell backwards, and the man gave a roar of triumph, which died in the air as Hiro tucked his legs in, placed his feet on the attacker’s chest, and did a rolling kick, sending his opponent flying across the road. Hiro flipped back onto his feet as the traveller came running at him, his humiliation at the hands of a countryside oaf turning into an anger that blinded him to caution.

The traveller leaped into a jumping kick, aimed at the chest, that would floor even the strongest warrior. Hiro sidestepped neatly, grabbed the traveller’s foot, and twisted, sending his body spinning to the ground. This time the challenger was much slower to get up, and when he got close enough to try a lock, Hiro pinned him easily to the ground. The man smacked his palm on the ground, indicating surrender.

Taro stood and walked over to the improvised wrestling ring. Hiro grinned and pulled him into a hug, which drove the breath from Taro’s lungs.

‘All right, big man,’ said Taro. ‘No need to kill me.’

Hiro pulled away, but, as always when Taro’s shoulders were uncovered, Hiro glanced rapidly at the scar running round the top of Taro’s arm, then looked away again, both of them pretending not to have noticed.

Behind his friend’s broad back, Taro saw two of the ronin’s companions muttering, then heard the unmistakable hiss as a sword was drawn. Spinning away from Hiro and round again to face the men, Taro drew an arrow from his quiver and notched it, all in one smooth motion. He aimed the arrow straight at the nearest traveller, who stood with a half-drawn sword and an open-mouthed expression of surprise. ‘Go,’ Taro ordered. ‘And leave your bets here on the ground.’ The men frowned sourly but dropped a money purse and walked away, following the road to Amigaya territory.

‘Some day,’ Taro said, turning to Hiro, ‘you’re going to pick a fight with the wrong ronin.’

‘There’s no such thing as a right ronin,’ said Hiro, laughing, his voice deep and sonorous. Both boys were keen admirers of the samurai – noble, upstanding warriors who protected the nation’s lords, who were themselves samurai. They had grown up on tales of bravery and honour; tales of samurai victory against heathen and bandit alike. Many times they had spoken of how one day they would take up swords together.

Yet Taro knew that for Hiro this dream of leaving could remain safely that – a dream, passingly entrancing and then gone, like cherry blossoms in summer. Even though Hiro was the son of landlocked refugees, he belonged there, by the sea, fishing and wrestling.

Hiro had come from the interior, where peasants were grown stockier and heavier than the seaside variety; yet still it was Taro who felt a foreigner in his own land. Hiro entertained a mere fantasy of being one day a samurai. But Taro fervently wished it.

‘And anyway,’ continued Hiro, ‘we’ll always be there to protect each other, won’t we?’ He gave Taro a look so open, so innocent, that Taro was forced to look away. Hiro was unable to imagine a future where they were not friends and protectors to each other, but Taro feared that to make his way in the world, he might one day have to leave the village. His delicate features had, with age, only become more pronounced and noble-looking, setting him apart from everyone else, much as he tried to be friendly. Hiro, with his ruddy complexion and brawny body, was much more the village type.

Taro knew that Hiro would follow him anywhere. The problem was that deep down, Taro wanted to be anywhere but Shirahama.

‘Did you hear what the other ronin said, about the kyuuketsuki?’ Taro said finally, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

Hiro looked blank. ‘A bloodsucking spirit?’

‘The ronin said that a kyuuketsuki had killed a peasant near here.’

‘Just a silly rumour, I expect,’ said Hiro. ‘Kyuuketsuki don’t exist. And anyway, travellers are always telling outlandish tales.’ He set off towards the village. ‘Earlier, before those ronin showed up, there was a merchant passing through. Your mother was here – traded him some pearls for a bag of rice. He told us a story about a family just down the coast who were killed by ninja. A fisherman, his wife, and their teenage son. Claimed the villagers found throwing stars embedded in their bodies.’

Taro hurried to catch up with his friend. ‘Ninja?’ he asked, incredulous.

The secretive group of black-clad assassins were, unlike the kyuuketsuki, thought to be real. They had been blamed for several assassinations, and it was said that Lord Tokugawa – Lord Oda’s strongest ally – used them often for clandestine missions. But the thought that these well-trained and deadly killers might take the trouble to erase from the world a fisherman’s family was absurd.

‘That’s what they said,’ Hiro replied. ‘Like I told you, travellers are forever coming up with ridiculous stories. We’re far into the countryside here – rumours have a lot of space in which to grow and change before they reach our ears.’

Taro grunted assent. But something about this conjunction of claims struck him as peculiar – the idea that, in a single day, there should be talk of both evil spirits and ninja near their quiet little village. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I have a bad feeling about all of this.’

‘Like mother, like son,’ said Hiro.

‘What do you mean?’

‘When the merchant told that story, your mother went pale. Ran off back to the village. She would have forgotten the rice, if I hadn’t chased after her.’

Taro frowned. It wasn’t like his mother to overlook something like that, especially where food was concerned. She took great care of the flow of goods into and out of the house, always making sure not to pay over the odds for anything.

‘You know what I think?’ said Hiro. ‘I think the ronin want to stir up unrest. You spread a few stories about peasants getting killed by imaginary monsters, and pretty soon no one feels safe. They want to make things difficult for Lord Oda.’

‘You’re probably right,’ said Taro. ‘A lot of them served his enemies.’ The ronin were known to despise Lord Oda, and to blame him for the loss of the their honour, when Oda’s troops destroyed the armies belonging to Lord Yoshimoto. That war had affected everyone – even Taro and Hiro. It was fleeing the violence inflicted by Lord Yoshimoto’s samurai that had brought Hiro’s parents to the village of Shirahama, like so many other peasants of the interior who’d been forced outward to the coast, and a new life of fishing that they had had to learn quickly, or perish.

But Hiro’s parents had not learned quickly enough, and that was why they were dead.

Taro felt a little better now. Of course the ronin were seeking to destabilize Lord Oda. He was the strongest daimyo the Kanto had ever known, and strong samurai always made bitter enemies. His heroism, his extraordinary ability with the blade, and his genius for the tactics of battle had made him a god to his people, and a demon to those he had defeated. It was said that when he was first named a kensei – a ‘sword saint’ – in recognition of his mastery of the katana, he barely went a day without being challenged by some samurai desperate to make his name ring out over the land. All of them had died.

And when Lord Oda had lost the use of his right arm in battle, he had simply switched his sword to the other hand, and become once again a kensei.

Yes, he was the kind of man who could provoke the weak to make up silly rumours.

Taro shouldered his bow, clapped Hiro on the back, and set off towards the village. He didn’t know that later on that night he would get all the adventure he wished for, or that real adventure was not like the feats he had heard of in stories.

Real adventure involved pain, loss, and blood. Sometimes all at once.

CHAPTER 2

THEY PASSED HIRO’S hut first.

When Taro’s father had brought him back to the village after the death of Hiro’s parents, Taro had been so badly injured that he had almost died of blood loss. Seeing what Taro had risked to save the chubby little boy, his parents had taken Hiro in, lavishing all the care on him that they wished they could give to their son.

But Taro had been in the healer’s hands, and the Buddha’s, and they could do nothing for him. Finally, on the seventh day, Taro awoke from fever dreams. His wound was already healing and, miraculously, infection had been held at bay. He returned to find a new brother in his home.

A couple of years ago, though, Hiro had earned enough from his wrestling and fishing to acquire a small shack only a few hundred meters from the sea that had taken his parents. Hanging from a wooden nail above the door was the open jaw of a shark, white against the dark wood.

Even now, when Taro saw the jaws and their serrated teeth, he would sometimes shudder. But Hiro would never get rid of the thing. It was a talisman, almost, of their friendship – a tangible reminder of what Taro had done for him.

That day itself was a little blurred in Taro’s memory, by time and also because for many days afterwards he had been unconscious, first from blood loss and later from fever. It had been a bright summer’s day, the breeze bringing scents of pine and dry seaweed. Taro had been up on the headland, playing with his bow. The first he had known something was wrong was when he’d heard screams, and looked down to see a little boat in the bay, people splashing round it.

He’d seen the blood next.

The villagers had warned the refugees from inland about the mako who patrolled the waters, the sleek, large sharks that followed the tuna. But the inlanders must have thought it just a superstition, or a story made up to frighten them, perhaps because there were no monsters to kill people where they came from, only samurai and wars.

Hiro’s parents, ignoring the warnings, had cut up their fish and thrown them into the water round their boat, thinking to attract more fish into their nets. All they had attracted was a mako, and it had capsized their boat with no trouble at all.

Of course, Taro hadn’t known any of that then. All he’d known was that someone was in trouble. He ran down to the beach, threw himself into the water, and swam out, not thinking for one moment of his own safety. Diving into the murk, he found a chubby young boy, drowning. He seized the boy and dragged him back to shore.

‘My mother!’ gasped the boy when Taro dragged him onto the sand. ‘Did you see my mother?’

Taro shook his head, winded.

‘A monster came from the sea and... bit her,’ said the boy. ‘I tried to find her, but I can’t swim, and my father can’t either...’

Taro looked out again at the dark slick on the sea, and pursed his lips grimly. A mako attack. The boy’s parents were surely dead. But he couldn’t just leave it at that. Without a word to the boy he checked that his knife was in his belt and dived again into the waves, swimming out towards the slick.

He didn’t find anything, but when he was swimming back to shore, he did feel a rough impact against his side, and then the shark was circling and coming for him again, its mouth open. The salt water stinging his open eyes, he fumbled the knife from his belt, and that was when the shark collided with his shoulder, biting down, and he felt pain flooding his chest.

Blood ribboned from his wound into the clear water. He was surprised that alongside his pain he felt no fear. Only an all-consuming fury at this beast that had orphaned the boy on the beach, and looked like it was going to kill him too. Dizzy from the bleeding and the pain of moving his arm, Taro snapped his hips aside on the shark’s next pass, threw his arms round the coarse, rough body, and stabbed down with his knife.

After that, Taro’s memory failed him, but he must have fought like a demon from Enma’s hell realm, because his father said the shark was more wound than flesh in the end. When it was dead – and this was the part Taro could never remember, but that had bonded Hiro to him forever – Taro dragged its weight into shallow water, then hauled the carcass up onto the sand.

Collapsing to his knees in front of Hiro, he gestured to the dead shark. ‘There,’ he said. Then he passed out, and Hiro ran screaming for help, and it wasn’t till three days later that Taro awoke and asked how the little orphaned boy was doing.

Now the two of them never spoke of that day. Hiro kept the jaws on his hut, Taro kept the scar on his shoulder, and that was that. The two boys had grown up as brothers, and even now that Hiro lived on his own, they spent most of every day together. Taro’s mother had wept when Hiro had left their home, waving smoke from the cooking fire away from her face, impatiently, as if it were that which had made her eyes water and not Hiro’s going. But it was a small dwelling place for four, especially when one of them was as big as Hiro. The best way to repay them their kindness, said Hiro, was to give them their home back.

As the two friends entered the village, the sun dropped below the mountains to the west, setting fire to their peaks.

‘Well,’ said Taro. ‘Another day gone. What shall we do tomorrow?’

‘I had it in mind that I might visit some friends for tea,’ said Hiro.

‘Ah. I was going to have a new kimono made. I thought perhaps a pattern of peony flowers and birds. Then I might visit my sword smith and pick up my new katana.’

None of these things would happen: Taro would spend the next day hunting with his bow, as always, and Hiro would spend the day wrestling strangers, as always.

Taro and Hiro walked past the wooden houses of the village, light spilling from the paper shoji windows onto sun-dried ground. But no light shone from the hut Taro shared with his parents, and as he approached it, he frowned. His mother should have been back by now, lighting the fire, preparing food. He had been looking forward to showing her his rabbits.

Taro glanced at the bay, scanning it for the forms of the ama, black against the now-dark water. When he saw the boat, he let out a sigh. He could see his mother’s little boat over on the far northern side of the bay, below the promontory on which stood an ancient red torii shrine, its sweeping roof resembling a dragon’s back. The other amas were nowhere to be seen – perhaps they were on the other side of the finger of rock, diving near the shrine to the Princess of the Hidden Waters, who protected the amas from harm.

But even the Princess of the Hidden Waters would be no help to Taro’s mother if she got into trouble in those waters.

‘What’s wrong?’ said Hiro, sensing Taro’s anxiety.

Taro pointed to the boat. ‘My mother. She’s very near the wreck.’ As he spoke, he saw her head break the surface, her dark hair matted to her scalp as she pulled herself into the boat and took up the oars.

‘Gods,’ said Hiro. ‘What’s she doing?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Taro. ‘She told me she wasn’t going to dive there any more.’

Everyone knew that the part of the bay in which his mother was diving was unsafe – especially the ama. It was his mother and her friends who had told Taro about the royal ship that had gone down there centuries before, and how its wreck had cursed the waters. They spoke of the hungry ghosts of its sailors – gaki – that had been left by the suddenness of their drowning forever barred from enlightenment, and could only now relieve their eternal hunger by causing others to drown as they had drowned.

The amas spoke of an enormous octopus, which had stolen one ama away, and made a wife of her corpse.

But above all, they spoke of the dangerous, unnatural currents, and the possibility of death for anyone who dived there.

Taro turned to Hiro. ‘You go home. I want to make sure she’s all right.’ He hurried down the hill towards the shore.

It was bad enough that one of his parents should be dying, without his mother killing herself too.

CHAPTER 3

TARO WATCHED HIS mother’s every move as she put some rice on to boil. He kept his eyes on her movements all the time. He knew that amas could be hurt by diving too deep and coming up too quickly, and he didn’t like the pallor of his mother’s skin. A couple of times recently he had seen thin trickles of blood coming from her ears, which she had wiped away quickly, refusing to answer questions about it. He feared that there might be more blood too, when he wasn’t looking. Amas could dive only so long – eventually even the strongest went deaf, or worse, as the coral of the sea took root in their ears.

She turned to him, her eyes dark pits of shadow in the dim light of the little hut. With the glow of the fire behind her, she seemed ghost-like, thin, weak.

‘I’m not going to break, you know,’ she said. ‘There’s no need to worry about me so much.’

Taro shrugged. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘You told me you wouldn’t dive in deep water.’ He didn’t say, or near the wreck, but the accusation hung between them anyway.

‘I needed some pearls,’ said his mother. ‘With your father ill...’

Taro glanced over at her diving bag. He’d seen her take out some abalone – not much, in fact – but no pearls. ‘You didn’t find any?’ he asked.

His mother looked up quickly. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Sometimes the sea takes but doesn’t give.’

‘Takes what?’ said Taro.

His mother shook her head. ‘Nothing, Taro. Nothing.’

But Taro knew it was not nothing. What the sea took, eventually, if you dived its depths for long enough, was your hearing, your sight, eventually your life. It worked its way into you, calcifying you, making you slowly into rock or reef.

Taro’s mother busied herself with the rice, averting her eyes from his, clearly wanting to avoid further discussion of her diving. On the other side of the curtained partition, Taro could hear his father’s heavy breathing. Leaving his mother’s side for a moment, he went to peer in to where his father lay. The old man snored, oblivious – he had been bed-bound by illness for months now, his body clinging to life even as his spirit seemed to have made up its mind to depart the human realm. He lay on his back, mouth and eyes wide open, but no sound issued from the former and no light of understanding from the latter.

As Taro looked down at his father’s frail frame, he couldn’t believe that this was the same man who had taught him spear-fishing, who had showed him how to keep his ears from popping when diving right down to the floor of the bay. Steeling himself, Taro knelt by the bed, and kissed his father on the forehead. He made a prayer to Amida Buddha, to fish his father’s soul back from whichever dark depths it swam in. ‘Come back,’ he said. ‘You are the only father I have.’ Even as he said it, he knew it was childish, stupid.

Taro’s father was older than his mother – older than almost anyone else in the village, in fact. But it seemed cruel that this illness had taken him down into sleep and forgetfulness, before Taro and his mother could say goodbye. Taro just hoped now that his father would recognize him – only once – before he died, and they could speak before his shade went to the next realm.

Taro touched his father’s wrinkled hand – cold, and hard – then kissed him again on the forehead. He had been worried about losing his father for a long time. And he felt like he might at any time lose his mother too – she could have drowned there by the old wreck, or worse – been possessed perhaps by some vengeful spirit. A chill passed through his body. He didn’t know what he would do if his parents were taken from him.

Returning to the main room, Taro sat down again as his mother passed him a bowl of rice.

‘He’s asleep?’ she asked.

Taro nodded. It was a pointless question – his father was always asleep.

They ate, after that, in silence, but the warm food seemed to have a restorative effect on his mother, who got up with some of the old springiness in her body, and began to clear away.

She seemed now as strong as ever. Her face was lined by the years and the harsh water of the sea, but there was still prettiness in the sparkling eyes and the pleasingly oval line of her jaw. She smiled and was illuminated almost by a kind of inner light that only the kindest and wisest of people possess. She gestured to a bowl of mussels. ‘I brought up some abalone too. I should be able to sell it to the trader, if he comes tomorrow.’

Taro in turn pointed to the brace of rabbits where they lay in the corner. It was a ritual of theirs to show each other their day’s gatherings. ‘They’re fat,’ he said. ‘Must have found some green grass somewhere.’

His mother nodded. ‘Your father stirred, this afternoon. I thought he might wake, but he only mumbled and then slept again.’ Her eyes flashed to the shoji screen that separated off the sleeping area. The whole shack was no more than six tatami mats in size, and the restricted space did not allow for much privacy.

‘Do you think he’ll die?’ Taro asked, his voice cracking as if giving way under the weight of the question.

Taro’s mother looked up, startled. When she spoke, it was with childish force. ‘No. Never. He wouldn’t leave us alone like that. He never has.’

Taro looked down, abashed. ‘Of course. It’s just... painful. That’s all.’

His mother looked at him, her eyes kind. ‘Yes. But what do I always say?’

Taro smiled. ‘Ame futte ji katamaru.’

Land that is rained on will harden. Suffering makes us strong.

Taro’s mother nodded, as if that settled it, but Taro pursed his lips. He was suffering; so was his father. But no good would come of it.

His father would only die, and soon. Taro knew it.

It was now fully dark outside and the room was dim, lit only by the fire and by a couple of whale-fat candles. The people of the village didn’t kill creatures of the land, preferring to subsist on the fruits of the sea and avoid killing as the Compassionate One had taught.

But if a whale beached itself on the shore, every available man, woman, and child would be summoned to strip it of its natural bounty: meat, bones, and blubber would all be taken and put to good use.

Taro wasn’t quite ready for sleep yet, so he reached over and picked up his bow, running his hand along its smooth wooden belly, checking the tautness of the string.

‘It’s still as good as new,’ Taro’s mother said, looking at the weapon in Taro’s hands with a strange, wistful expression. ‘Just like he said it would be.’

‘Like who said?’

The wistful expression left his mother’s eyes and was replaced by a hard, flat look. ‘Oh, your father, of course.’

Taro balanced the bow in his palms. It was beautiful – curved like a beach, smooth like pebbles washed by the sea, as hard as whale ivory. On the inside of the bow, hidden from casual view, was carved a tiny insignia: three hollyhock leaves inside a circle, pointing to the centre. Taro’s father had made the bow when Taro was a baby, sensing somehow that he would need it. But when Taro had asked about the insignia – which was not repeated on any of the tools his father had made – he had only shrugged. ‘I felt like carving leaves,’ he’d said.

Taro’s mother was still looking at him strangely, as if about to tell him something. He frowned. ‘This bow,’ he said. ‘I have never seen Father make another. I’ve never seen him carve anything. Did he not—’

She cut him off with a sharp gesture, turning at a sudden sound from the other side of the screen.

Taro stood very slowly. It sounded like someone was moving very quietly in the part of the hut where his father slept. Just as he began to move towards the screen, he heard a dull thud as of a body falling.

Father.

Taro walked round the screen and stifled a scream. His father’s body lay at an angle on the sleeping mat...

...and his severed head lay on the ground beside it.

CHAPTER 4

IN THE SEMI-DARKNESS the blood surrounding Taro’s father was black on the ground.

Then, as if forming itself from the pool of blood, a figure dressed all in black moved quickly forward, drawing a blade that gleamed in the darkness like a fish glimpsed in deep water. He wore a black mask that revealed only his eyes.

Ninja.

Taro had time to fix his eyes on the dagger moving towards him, before another blade burst through the man’s chest. The assassin coughed, looking down at the sword point in wonder. Blood bubbled out of his mouth and down the folds of black cloth that masked his face.

He fell, and as his body slumped, another man in black who stood behind him slid the blade from his torso, with a grunt of satisfaction.

Taro blinked. That ninja just killed that other—

Just then, his mother screamed.

Taro turned and saw a third dark-clothed figure crouched behind his mother. The ninja moved his arm almost imperceptibly, and a knife appeared in his hand. He went to slit Taro’s mother’s throat.

‘N—’ Taro screamed, his cry cut off by a hand that came from nowhere and covered his mouth. The figure at Taro’s side pushed him to the ground, just as he pulled something from his cloak and threw it at the man who knelt behind Taro’s mother. Taro saw a gleaming star stick in the man’s masked face, then the ninja fell soundlessly to the ground. Taro had never seen a throwing star before, but he knew this was the legendary weapon of the ninja – the six-bladed shuriken.

‘Wha—’ started Taro.

‘Shut up,’ said the man in black beside him. ‘First, do you trust me?’

‘No.’

‘Good. That would be stupid, as you don’t know me. But I’m afraid you’ll have to try. Otherwise you will die. Come here.’ He stepped over to Taro’s mother, who sat still, her eyes wide and staring.

‘You’re... not going to kill us,’ she said. ‘I thought, earlier, when I heard what the merchant said...’ She trailed off.

The ninja looked at her blankly. ‘No, I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to leave, with your son.’

She opened her mouth to speak, but the ninja interrupted. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll keep him safe. I’m sent by a friend.’

Taro’s mother’s eyes opened wide, then she nodded.

‘You will need to lie absolutely still,’ the ninja continued. ‘We are going to make it look as if you are dead. Lie here until there is complete silence, until the screaming stops. Then get up and run. Go to a monastery, go anywhere you like, as long as there is no one there who knows you. Take a different name. Take a vow of silence. But disappear. Do you understand? You may never see your son again, but you will live.’

She nodded, mutely, tears streaming down her cheeks. The ninja arranged her on the ground, then took a stick of some dark red substance from his sleeve and drew a cut across her neck. He followed this with blood from a vial concealed under the folds of his mask. Then he turned to Taro. ‘To you, she is dead. Yes?’

Taro shook his head, tears welling hotly in his eyes.

The ninja slapped him. ‘Do you want her to die?’

Taro shook his head again, still crying. ‘I c-can’t leave her,’ he mumbled. There was also his father’s body, lying headless on the sleeping mat it had occupied for so long, getting stiffer and colder by the moment. Taro was sickened by what had happened to his father, by the way that this once strong fisherman had been laid low by illness, then dispatched into death by an assassin who had not hesitated to murder a sleeping man. Would anyone even mourn him, if Taro and his mother were gone?

The ninja sighed, appearing to hesitate. Then he unshouldered a light fabric bag, as black as his clothes, and withdrew from it a pigeon, its wings tied. The pigeon cooed lightly but seemed undistressed – Taro guessed that it was an experienced messenger.

‘I had this for an emergency, but I suppose this counts as one, since if your son doesn’t come with me, you will both die in the next few moments.’ The ninja tucked the bird into Taro’s mother’s robe. ‘When you are safe, write a note for your son. Tell him where you are. The bird will reach me.’

‘Thank you,’ whispered Taro’s mother. The ninja grunted, irritably, as if he were conscious of making a mistake, and annoyed with himself for being unable to resist it.

Then she gave Taro one look – one single look in which all her love was encompassed. Taro almost cast his eyes down, embarrassed – for she looked at him as if he were a scroll containing the words that would save her soul.

She turned away. The ninja looked at Taro, and sighed again when he saw Taro’s eyes cut to the screen behind which lay his father’s body. ‘He’s dead,’ said the man. ‘You will do him no honour by joining him.’

‘But...’ mumbled Taro. ‘I shouldn’t just let him lie there. I should help his soul by—’

The ninja raised a peremptory hand. ‘Help his soul by taking vengeance on his killers,’ he said. ‘Not by dying with him.’

Numbly, Taro nodded. He looked one last time at the screen, then gripped the bow in his hand.

The ninja looked at it. ‘Do you know how to use that thing?’

Taro nodded.

‘Good. There are others coming. We will need to fight.’

Taro looked at the dead man behind his mother’s seeming corpse, then at his saviour. They were dressed identically, in loose black robes and with black scarves covering their faces, leaving only the eyes visible. ‘You are with them,’ he said wonderingly. ‘And yet you save me.’

‘Yes,’ said the man simply.

‘Did you kill my father?’

‘No. Enough questions.’ He pulled out a short-sword. Less elegant than a samurai’s katana, it nevertheless had a brutal, businesslike air. Then, without warning, he slashed at Taro with the sharp edge. It was a trap! Taro dodged backwards, felt the blade slashing his kimono, had time only to think I can’t die now—

—And the black-clad man stepped back, holding a piece of Taro’s robe. ‘We don’t have much time,’ he said as he stepped over to the doorway and pinned the scrap of robe with his sword to the wooden jamb. The fabric was positioned so as to be visible from the outside. ‘They’ll soon wonder why we haven’t come out. Get over here and draw your bow. Get ready to fire.’ He beckoned Taro, positioning him on the side of the door opposite the scrap of robe. ‘They’ll think you’re waiting to ambush them on the other side.’ And with that, he crouched, putting his finger to his lips.

Sure enough, a moment later another ninja whirled into the room, the blade of his sword making a silvery circle in the air as he brought it down where he thought Taro was standing. The sword met only thin air, and the man let out a grunt as the sword struck the side of the door, where the scrap of silk fluttered in the breeze.

Taro didn’t hesitate. He let go of his arrow, and it crossed the narrow space at the speed of thought, burying itself in the man’s neck. The ninja dropped to the ground.

‘Good,’ said the crouching ninja. ‘A true warrior’s instinct.’

Taro looked down at the dead man, and suddenly a terrible sickness rose in his throat. He doubled over and was sick. He had never killed a man before – and he had done it so easily! He had barely paused. He was a monster!

‘Ah. A warrior’s instinct but not a warrior’s stomach. Come, there are still more and we must hurry.’ Quickly, the man crossed the open doorway – shimmying to the side as a silver star sang through the air at body level – and took back his sword from where it had bit into the wood.

He grabbed Taro’s arm and pulled him to the back of the room. ‘We’ll break out through the shoji,’ he said.

The ninja kicked a hole in the thin wooden wall and stepped through, pulling Taro behind him. Outside was black as ink, the only sound the beating of the waves on the rocks below. Then the light of a torch flared nearby, and a voice called out. ‘Hello? Is everything all right?’

The huge form of Hiro loomed out of the darkness. The ninja beside Taro reached for something in his robes, but Taro put a hand on his arm. ‘No. He’s my friend.’

The ninja stilled his arm, but just then another dark figure appeared out of the night and launched itself at Hiro, short-sword whirling. Hiro ducked below the sword’s trajectory and brought his fist up hard, smashing it into the man’s solar plexus. The ninja slumped, and Hiro, not hesitating even a fraction, stooped to pick up the sword and then stabbed it downward, cleaving the attacker’s neck.

He straightened up, holding the torch and the sword, turning his head searchingly.

‘Over here!’ said Taro, as loud as he dared.

Hiro moved towards him, picking his way across the rocky ground. Then Taro saw a black shape rising in front of his friend.

Ninja!

The ninja threw something – like a black stone – and before Hiro could move to avoid it, there was an explosion in front of his face, and as Hiro was distracted by the flash, the ninja brought up his wakizashi and knocked the stolen sword from Hiro’s grip. The torch Hiro had been holding in his other hand fell to the ground and guttered there, vacillating in the wind. In the flickering light the ninja stuck out a hand and jabbed a finger into Hiro’s neck. Hiro’s legs crumpled and he collapsed to his knees.

Taro started forward, reaching behind his head for an arrow even as he kept his eyes fixed on the black figure as it drew its sword and raised it, ready for the killing stroke—

Taro armed the bow and let the arrow fly in one smooth movement, and the black figure paused, seeming to stare down at Hiro. Then he tumbled forward. Taro grabbed Hiro’s arm and helped him to his feet. Beside him lay the ninja, an arrowhead protruding from his mouth, like an obscene tongue, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Hiro picked up his sword and torch. ‘Good shot,’ he wheezed. Then he saw the ninja who was helping Taro, and his eyes went wide and he raised his sword. Taro held up his hands.

‘No! This one’s on our side,’ he said. ‘He’s a good ninja.’

Hiro raised his eyebrows in suspicion but lowered the sword.

‘Gods,’ said Taro. ‘You’re wounded.’

Hiro moved his hand to his face. He grimaced, and Taro knew that his old friend was in agony. For Hiro to succumb to the pain enough to acknowledge it in any way was a bad sign. The boy’s left cheek was split open, blood spilling from it thickly.

‘It will heal,’ said Hiro.

Taro nodded. They would worry about the cut later. ‘Are they gone?’ he asked, turning to the ninja. The man shook his head.

Into the circle of light cast by the torch, a black figure stepped, his weapon raised. ‘You are turned traitor, I see,’ he said to Taro’s rescuer. ‘But now you must give yourself up. And the boy, too. You are outnumbered.’

Then something happened that Taro could never afterward remember clearly.

A pale movement flashed in front of him, light gleaming on something long and thin.

Then a sword hilt was sticking out of his stomach, like a grotesque growth. Taro stared down at it. Blood was soaking through his cloak, and dripping down his trousers to pool in the crevices of his toes.

‘What—’ he began.

And then the pain hit.

He doubled over, gasping, unable to breathe, feeling the burning metal that had pierced his organs and – he knew without checking – burst out through his back. At that moment, his knees gave way, and it struck him with a horror that crawled on his skin that his spine might have been severed.

But I can’t just die, he thought. I was going to be a samurai...

His vision blurring so that it seemed the scene was darkened by rain, he just made out the good ninja as he swiftly slit the throat of the man who had stabbed Taro. For a moment he was a tearing, spinning thing, a whirlwind, and then there was a calm point in the storm.

Ahead, Hiro pushed back the ninjas, who had fallen away, retreating from the good ninja’s onslaught.

Then a hand clasped his shoulder. The ninja. ‘Taro,’ he said – but had Taro given him his name? He couldn’t remember. ‘You’re dying. There is only one chance to save you. But it will mean living your life in secret, in the darkness, hiding with me. You may never see your mother again. Do you agree? Answer, quickly. If you do not agree, both you and your mother die.’

Taro stared, unable to respond.

‘You will die now if I do not do this, and so will your mother. I said, do you agree?’

To never again see his mother? To never again witness her smile, which was like the rising of the sun to him?

And yet if he did not agree, he would die, and she would be killed too.

The fear for her mixed with the pain in his belly, striking him through with agony.

‘I—I agree,’ Taro stammered.

The ninja drew back his lips, revealing a pair of long, sharp canine teeth. Then he bent his head and bit deep into Taro’s neck. Hiro yelled, ‘What are you doing!’ and turned from the attackers, but the ninja pushed him back easily with his free hand and sprang back, releasing Taro.

Taro swayed. His blood hammered in his chest. He felt lightheaded, his thoughts were swirling – bright lights burst in his vision. He heard the ninja speak urgently to Hiro. ‘If you wish for your friend to live, keep back and do nothing.’ Then the man’s face swam into view, close up. ‘Taro,’ he said. ‘I know you’re feeling strange, but I need you to bite my neck.’

Taro felt a need to obey. Still swaying, he opened his mouth and leaned forward. The other man guided his teeth towards his exposed neck, white in the moonlight. Taro bit down, and warm blood filled his mouth, while a warm light filled his mind and his body, making his muscles sing, making every feature of the scene spring into vivid detail. The pain in his belly left, replaced by a feeling of warm energy.

He stood. As if in a dream, he slid the sword from his own flesh and watched as the wound closed over.

He saw Hiro, looking on in astonishment. He saw the ninja step back, smiling sadly.

Taro turned, exquisitely aware of every muscle and tendon in his neck, and faced the darkness. A dozen black-clad figures melted out of the night and stood before him, a semicircle following the line of the circle cast by Hiro’s torch. Absently, he reached out with his left hand and pushed Hiro behind him, where his friend would be safe. He was aware on some level that he shouldn’t be strong enough to push Hiro anywhere, let alone with his left hand. But the strength felt good and right.

He saw his enemies approach him, and he was glad.

He saw shurikens fly, and he ducked and weaved, avoiding them, plucking them out of the air even as they headed for Hiro.

He saw his own hands as they flew between bow and quiver, knocking ninja after ninja to the ground, every shot perfect, whether he aimed at eye or chest or hand raised to throw.

He saw the ninja beside him, his blood master now, draw a long and perfect samurai sword from a concealed scabbard that ran down his spine, under the black cloak. Taro saw the wavelike pattern of sand-cooled steel down the sword’s blade and knew that it was a masterpiece. And he saw the symbol etched into its base by the handle.

It was a circle containing three hollyhock leaves – exactly like the one on Taro’s bow.

CHAPTER 5

AFARAWAY PART OF Taro’s mind was aware that he had been bitten by a kyuuketsuki. He realized too that the other ninjas were also kyuuketsuki. One of them, when Taro shot an arrow through its shoulder, bared its sharp canine teeth in a growl that was more animal than human.

It was impossible: a ghost story come to life. But as impossible as it was, it was also happening.

Kyuuketsuki could be hurt, Taro knew that. They bled like ordinary men. But he wasn’t at all sure they could be killed, at least with conventional weapons, and they were many times faster and stronger than humans. Their weakness – the price they paid – was that they could walk abroad only at night.

Taro glanced up at the moonlit sky.

Morning was a long way off.

He turned to the left, narrowly avoiding a sword strike that would have taken off his jaw.

‘Stay by me,’ said the good ninja, as his sword traced silver loops and butterfly wings in the night air. ‘You’re stronger than them, at least while my blood flows in your veins, but they are more experienced.’

The wickedly barbed wheel of a shuriken whined through the air past Taro’s head, nicking his ear. He fired an arrow that went wide, just as the good ninja’s blade struck in front of him, as quick and lethal as a snake, gutting a man who had been about to stab him with a dagger. Taro felt that the world and the air surrounding him had grown sharp edges, and waited only for him to fall on them.