Young Samurai _ The Way Of The Dragon - Chris Bradford [100]
Jack stared into the void and couldn’t believe what he saw. Moonlight, reflecting off the waters of the inner moat, revealed shapes walking across the surface. Below him, shadows were scaling the walls like spiders.
Suddenly two eyes appeared out of the darkness. A flash of steel whistled through the air. Jack threw himself backwards, the shuriken barely missing his throat. A ninja scrambled over the parapet.
Without hesitating, Jack retaliated with his katana, cutting across the assassin’s legs. But the ninja jumped high into the air and somersaulted over his head. He landed behind Jack to kick him in the kidneys. Jack crumpled against the parapet as pain seared up his side. He heard a swooshing noise and instinctively rolled to one side. A heavy lead weight cracked into the stonework where his head had just been, sending shards of rock flying into the air.
Jack scrambled away, his sword out to defend himself. The ninja held a sickle and chain and was spinning the weighted end above his head. Releasing his grip, the chain whipped out at Jack. With nowhere to go on the narrow walkway, Jack cut down with his sword blocking the chain. It wrapped itself round Jack’s blade and the ninja yanked the katana from Jack’s grasp.
The ninja hissed at Jack. Leaving the sword where it had fallen, he advanced on him, the chain once again spinning above his head. In his other hand, the assassin held the curved blade of the sickle, primed to kill Jack once he’d ensnared him with the chain.
Jack backed away. He still had his wakizashi and the ninja tantō, but he’d be dead by the time he drew them. The ninja wound up to strike. Jack timed his move perfectly, stepping inside the arc of the chain and executing kuki-nage.
The ninja was taken completely by surprise, the air throw whipping him off his feet. Just as Sensei Kyuzo had done to Jack on countless occasions, Jack now spun round using the attack’s momentum to fling his assailant into the air. The ninja flew over the side of the parapet and disappeared into the blackness, his screams ending in a faint splash as he hit the waters of the moat.
Retrieving his katana, Jack didn’t have time to appreciate his perfect kuki-nage. During the fight, several more kaginawa had appeared on the wall. Jack began to cut the ropes, but three ninja further along the battlement had already clambered over. They went unchallenged, the guards all dead from the advance raiding party. Using the cover of darkness, the ninja crept towards the keep.
Jack realized Satoshi and the Council must be the target. With every defender focused on daimyo Kamakura’s forces outside the walls, the ninja would be silently assassinating the heads of state within. For all Jack knew, some of the assassins were already hidden inside the keep awaiting the Council’s retreat.
He had to warn Masamoto.
43
ASSASSINATION
Jack bounded down the stairs. He ran through the now deserted tea garden to the inner gate of the bailey, where he found Yamato and the rest of the Niten Ichi Ryū students on guard.
‘Where’s your father? Where’s Masamoto?’ demanded Jack, breathless.
‘He’s escorting daimyo Takatomi to the keep.’
‘We have to stop him!’ said Jack, pulling Yamato from his post.
‘But our orders are to man the gate,’ he protested.
‘Ninja are in the bailey and may have broken through to the keep,’ explained Jack hurriedly. ‘Our duty is to protect your father and daimyo Takatomi. Are you ashigaru or samurai? Now come on!’
Grabbing his staff, Yamato sprinted after Jack.
Yamato glanced around the moonlit courtyard as they ran. ‘I can’t see any ninja. How did they evade the wall guards?’
‘The guards are all dead.’
As they approached the donjon entrance, samurai armed with spears and swords rushed to confront them.
‘Who goes there?’ challenged the lead guard.
‘Samurai of the Niten Ichi Ryū,’ replied