Young Samurai_ The Way of the Sword - Chris Bradford [94]
Dragon Eye was on him in an instant. He stamped on the staff, snapping it in two. Then he front-kicked Sensei Kano full force in the face. Jack heard the sensei’s nose break and blood gushed out.
‘Did you honestly believe you could defeat me?’ said Dokugan Ryu, grabbing hold of Sensei Kano’s head to expose his throat for the killing blow. ‘Don’t you know that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king?’
With the speed of a cobra, the ninja chopped the knifeedge of his hand at Sensei Kano’s windpipe with the intention of snapping it.
Despite his disorientation and pain, Sensei Kano instinctively blocked the attack. Taking hold of Dragon Eye’s wrist, he locked the ninja’s lead arm and thrust a spear-hand into his face. The ninja barely avoided the counterstrike, but managed to retaliate with a vertical fist punch at the samurai’s barrel-sized chest. Sensei Kano’s greater strength allowed him to absorb the blow and fight his way back into a standing position.
Through a haze of excruciating pain, Jack watched as the two warriors battled at close range in lethal chi sao. The first to make a mistake, Jack knew, would be the one to die.
The speed of their attacks and counters was so fast that Jack only saw their arms as a blur. Their skills were evenly matched and each strike was met with a block, each trap with a counter. Neither gave any ground.
‘NINJA!’ came a cry.
Dragon Eye glanced up the main passageway and saw a vanguard of castle samurai approaching. Disengaging from Sensei Kano, he vaulted the alley wall with a single mighty leap on to the roof. Taking one last look at Jack, he spat, ‘There won’t be a next time, gaijin. For you, at least!’
A moment later he was gone, a shadow in the night.
Sensei Kano hobbled over to where Jack lay slumped against the wall. ‘What’s that ninja done to you?’
Jack could hardly breathe now. The world was dim and distant, Sensei Kano’s face seemed to be at the opposite end of a long dark tunnel. His heart still thudded hard, but had slowed as the pressure had built. He thought his whole chest was about to explode.
‘Death… Touch,’ Jack somehow managed to gasp.
‘Dim Mak!’ breathed a horrified Sensei Kano.
Immediately, the great sensei ran his hands over Jack’s body. Having found what he was feeling for, he pulled Jack forward and, in five rapid strikes with the tips of his fingers, hit Jack at key points on his back and chest.
Like a new spring dawn, Jack’s body jerked into life.
He drew in a great breath as his lungs expanded wide. The pressure in his chest vanished as if the gates of a mighty dam had been opened, and his blood flowed through his body in one life-giving flood. His eyesight rushed back and he could now see the bloodstained, bearded face of Sensei Kano, his fingers searching for Jack’s pulse in his neck.
‘I’m all right, you can stop now,’ said Jack wearily as his sensei began to massage his chest.
‘I can’t. I must ensure your ki is flowing freely.’
‘But how do you know what to do?’
‘I learnt the black art called Dim Mak from the same blind Chinese warrior who taught me chi sao,’ explained Sensei Kano quietly.
He began to work on Jack’s limbs.
‘Dim Mak is the source of the ninja’s Death Touch technique. Think of it as the opposite side of the coin to acupuncture. While acupuncture heals using pressure points and nerve centres, Dim Mak destroys. You’re extremely fortunate to have survived, young samurai.’
He carefully picked up the weakened Jack like a bear cub in his huge arms.
Before heading back to the temple, the great samurai took a moment to pull out the bloody metal spike that had speared his foot.
‘Probably poisoned,’ he mumbled, inspecting the tetsubishi. ‘I’ll need to keep this for the antidote.’
46
MOUNTAIN MONK
Tadashi ran over to Jack. Pale-faced and sweating, his eyes as wide as saucers, he garbled something incomprehensible then passed out at Jack’s feet.
Jack looked down at the comatose traitor. He had little sympathy for his old training partner and false friend who had cheated twice during the Circle of Three.