Young Samurai _ The Way Of The Dragon - Chris Bradford [118]
Father Bobadillo was now juddering slightly, a wet choking sound issuing from his lips. His breath rattled in his chest and his skin burst out in red patches.
‘You no doubt recognize these symptoms, gaijin.’
Dim Mak. Jack wouldn’t wish the Death Touch on anyone, even his worst enemy. In a previous encounter with Dragon Eye, Jack had personally experienced its crushing agony. The burning sensation that grew like a forest fire in the veins. The feeling of the heart trying to punch its way through flesh and bone. The tight constricting suffocation as the lungs began to fail. The pressure building and building until eventually the victim’s heart burst within his chest.
‘Unlike you, I doubt he’ll survive,’ said Dragon Eye, lifting up Father Bobadillo’s lolling head by the hair.
The priest’s eyes were now bulbous and streaked dark red.
Jack heard a distant pop like a stone being thrown into a pond. A moment later, blood spewed out of the Jesuit’s mouth.
Father Bobadillo crumpled to the floor like a rag doll.
Sickened by his enemy’s gruesome death, Jack forced himself to act, before he became the ninja’s next victim. Snatching the rutter from the table, he sprinted out of the study into the prayer room.
To his right was the closed shoji, while to his left the door beside the altar was open.
With Dragon Eye hot on his heels, he fled through the open door.
Entering a deserted corridor, Jack realized he’d discovered Father Bobadillo’s private access to his lordship Satoshi. The floor was laid with fine tatami mats and the walls richly decorated. This section was also isolated from the rest of the keep, with only a flight of stairs leading upwards.
Dashing up the staircase, Jack could hear the soft pad of the ninja’s footsteps closing in on him.
54
REVENGE
Cannonshot shrieked through the air and fireballs whizzed by, almost scorching Jack’s skin as he stood upon the balcony overlooking all of Osaka. On any other day the view from the top tower would have been magnificent, reaching far beyond the city, over the Tenno-ji Plain to the sparkling ocean itself.
But on this night, all Jack could see was devastation and destruction. Fires raged throughout the castle compounds. Bodies littered the burning ramparts. The enemy swarmed over broken battlements, firing cannon and arquebuses at the stronghold of the keep. Below, the Red Devils had smashed their way through the last gateway into the inner courtyard. They were now engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat, as Satoshi’s troops made their final stand.
By contrast, the private meeting chamber on the donjon’s eighth floor was a haven of peace. The room, lit by elegant free-standing oil lamps, was exquisitely decorated in gold leaf and framed by dark wooden beams. A mural of samurai lords adorned the walls, showing them hunting, meditating and enjoying tea beneath leafy green trees, all scenes recalling a more harmonious episode in Japanese life.
When Jack had reached Satoshi’s personal chamber on the seventh floor, he’d discovered the ruler-in-waiting and all his retainers dead. There had been no sign of a struggle, but the tatami was soaked through with their blood and beside each of them lay a wakizashi. Realizing his forces faced defeat, Satoshi had taken the only honourable course of action available to a vanquished samurai lord. He’d committed seppuku. Bound by duty, his retainers had followed him into death, ritually disembowelling themselves with their own swords.
‘Your time has come,’ said Dragon Eye, appearing in the chamber behind Jack. ‘Hand over the rutter.’
‘No!’ said Jack, defiantly slipping the logbook into his pack.
‘I don’t intend to disappoint daimyo Kamakura. Give it to me now!’
‘If you really are Tatsuo,’ challenged Jack, ‘why are you helping daimyo Kamakura? He betrayed you at Nakasendo.’
‘It’s a decision he regrets,’ replied Dragon Eye gravely. ‘But he’s made amends by waging war for me.’
‘For you?’ exclaimed Jack in astonishment.
Dragon Eye gave a self-satisfied nod.
‘But this war’s about expelling