Cave of the Shadow Ninja: Part II Read online

  “I already have what I want, Shadow,” Kubaba spat, looking down at Akiko with anger rising in her throat.

  Akiko looked up through her mud-soaked hair. “Please, I—” Before she could finish, the sight of the sword Kubaba clutched in her bony hands drew the breath from her lungs. It was beautifully crafted. A blood-red polished wood and gold scabbard with black onyx finish, the weapon of a national hero, not this gangrenous witch standing in the moonlight.

  “Oh, you know this sword?” Kubaba asked, feigning ignorance.

  “Everybody knows that sword,” Akiko whispered, her teeth clenched in pain and anger.

  “Ah yes, of course,” Kubaba continued with a soul-splittingly sweet tone. “It belongs to the greatest samurai who ever lived. You wanted desperately for Sato to train you once, but he, like the others, wouldn’t waste his time on a girl.”

  Akiko rolled to her back as the pain throbbing at the side of her head moved down her neck and into her shoulder.

  “You didn’t want the life of a washer woman,” Kubaba continued. “You couldn’t be a samurai, so what did you do? You learned to fight another way.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Akiko mumbled.

  “You sold your soul,” the old woman barked. “Buried any honor you had left, and joined the Ninja in the shadows of disgrace. But like most things in your life, you couldn’t even commit to that!” Kubaba’s anger grew with each word. “The spoiled little warrior decided she’d had enough of the darkness, so she betrayed her master like she betrayed her family and vanished. Last I’d heard you were wandering the two worlds, begging from master to master like a lost kitten.

  “Now I find you here, doing what you always swore you’d never do, acting as a servant to men who abuse you. Have you considered their proposals yet? Are you that deep in your own denial?” Kubaba examined the sword in her hands as she continued, thumbing a dark crack in the polished wood. “Now you’ve broken his sword with your hard head. Sato went looking for you,” Kubaba continued with a darkening tone. “Did you know that? Or were you too selfish to think of him for one second more after you left?”

  Akiko deflated slowly. As her emotions took over, the pulsating discomfort in her head began to give way to a deeper, darker agony that boiled up from the bottom of her throat.

  “Two long years he searched,” Kubaba persisted, “until he got word you went across the Backbone, a rumor planted by me. The last I saw of him, he was captive in our master’s home in Bushan.”

  Akiko closed her eyes as the news caved her in on all sides. “Do you remember our master?” Kubaba hissed. “He saved you from the gutter and graciously gave you the training you always dreamed of. Then he sent you on a quest from which you never returned. He’s been very worried. Now he has a message for you, Shadow: ‘If you don’t complete your quest in twenty days, Sato will die.’ I was told to give you his sword to prove I wasn’t lying, but since you’re being so stubborn, I just might keep it.”

  Akiko rolled onto her hands and knees, glaring at the old woman through the strands of her muddy hair. “I’m no Ninja!” she yelled back in desperation. “Why don’t you believe me?”

  Kubaba shrugged. “Maybe I’ll talk to his sons instead,” she continued. “I’d love to tell them where their father went and where they can find the one responsible for his capture. Or how about his sweet wife? She’s old now, but I’m sure she’d find a way across the Backbone to see her beloved husband again.”

  Whatever hid inside Akiko, Kubaba’s last words opened a lock to release it. Suddenly, the young woman’s broken form straightened and she leapt from the mud, surprising the old woman with a kick across the jaw. Akiko attacked with a grace and regard so fluid and whole, she seemed to dance like a tongue of fire, burning out the very darkness emitted by the witch. Akiko was no longer a cook but an artist, engaging full on, grasping and fighting for the sword Kubaba held, taking it, losing it, blocking with it, trying to pull it from its scabbard.

  She and the witch moved through the courtyard, leaping over tables, and breaking through the sunshade poles. Akiko recognized each exchanged blow and form Kubaba took. The witch was not lying, they did share the same master, the head of a shameful institution Akiko spent many years trying to forget. Unfortunately, the institution had not forgotten her, and this hideous woman was fully prepared to kill in order to prove it.

  Kubaba’s primal skill had a vicious ring from which Akiko’s rusty arms could barely stay ahead, but there was one rule she had grown to expect from such a dishonorable exchange: “A dirty fighter will always fight dirty.”

  In a match between two seasoned warriors, such predictability came at a deadly disadvantage. Like a chess master watching the game from twelve moves ahead of her opponent, Akiko took hold of the scabbard but let her grasp slip just a bit. This gave Kubaba the chance to strike below the belt, a dishonorable move in any part of the two worlds.

  The witch took the bait, striking at Akiko’s knee, and the young cook spun into a switch-kick, forcing Kubaba to sacrifice her hold on the sword for a protective block. Akiko won the steel, pulled the sword from its blood red cradle, and slapped Kubaba across the side of her face with the flat edge of the blade. As the young warrior stepped out of her opponent’s offensive range, Kubaba screamed and grasped at her cheek is if it had been scorched by the cold steel. For a moment, the white in the witch’s right eye faded, revealing a deep brown iris before she blinked it away and the color faded once again.

  As Akiko raised the famous sword, to continue the fight, Kubaba spun on her heels at an inhuman speed. The force of her magic blew Akiko onto her back as the witch’s cloak elongated and lifted her into the air like a black tornado. “You have twenty days, Ninja!” her snarling voice echoed as the whirlwind continued upward until it disappeared over the buildings around the courtyard. “I’ll be watching you . . .”

  A heartbeat later, Akiko fell to the mud and the choir of crickets returned. The tears came with the rain as the young woman held the famous red sword of Sato in her arms, begging it for a way to abandon her fate. But Akiko knew as well as the rain, that whomever makes a deal with the shadows agrees to a debt that will never be paid in full.

  In the space of a moment, the life Akiko built, her restaurant, and her home became nothing but an empty building with a cowering girl lying in its courtyard, broken and lost once again.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “A woman!” Patrick repeated for what seemed like the hundredth time that evening. “I’ll never hear the end of this Sendai, you know that, right?”

  Akiko looked to Sato’s sword, now resting beside the campfire between Sendai’s curved flat-bladed scimitar and Patrick’s two-handed claymore. She had spent the last hour tied up, listening to the Wolfen and Sendai argue. With her secret out to these two rather loud companions, Akiko wondered what changes she’d be forced to make in her travels. Sendai might be a great swordsman and the cricket was a clever idea, but they really had no hope of keeping her captive. After all, Akiko’s skills went far past the use of her blade.

  “How did you know that the rainstorm showering violence across this great land was a woman?” Patrick demanded of Sendai.

  “If there’s anything Sendai knows, it’s the female form,” he answered cockily.

  “Even in the dark?”

  “Especially in the dark,” Sendai came back.

  Patrick opened his mouth to retort, but he couldn’t argue with that. “You could have warned me, at least, before I made a fool of myself.”

  “If I’m to warn you every time you make a fool of yourself,” Sendai countered, “then I’d never stop talking.”

  The Metecian stood, having had enough of Patrick. He approached and kneeled to Akiko’s level. “Your skill is unmatched,” he said to the young Ninja, with the stars reflecting in his dark goggles. “There may be honor there, but it shares its time with revenge.”

  Akiko had kept mute since Sendai had beaten her, pulled off her
mask, and taken her captive. In that time, she had watched the two foreigners study her and felt confident her secrets were safe, but they were still strangers, and she had her own ways of knowing whom to trust. Her silence was for their own good. If they knew the reason behind her quest, their life would be in as much danger as hers.

  “If I didn’t know better,” Sendai continued prodding, “I’d say you fought more like a samurai.”

  “I’m no samurai!” Akiko spat the word like an insult then recoiled, surprised and embarrassed by how quickly she had broken her silence.

  “You’re no murderer, either,” Patrick reminded her. “Of all the women I’ve ever fought, you were the only one that wasn’t trying to kill me.”

  “You’re not here for greed, but you hold Sato’s sword,” Sendai added. “Has he been kidnapped? If so, why do you care? Is someone forcing your hand? If so, who?”

  Sometimes Akiko wished she didn’t hold the “honor” these two continued complimenting her on so vigorously. It would have been much easier leaving them where they found her for the flying hyenas to snack on. “Let’s just say, it’s personal between he him and me,” She said, finally giving in. “And, I am no, ‘rainstorm.’” She added, shooting a look to at Patrick. “I don’t ‘shower’ anything with ‘violence,’ I place it exactly where it needs to be.”

  “Good,” Sendai stood up, satisfied, “then we’ll help you.”

  “What?” Patrick blurted out as he dropped his meal in the fire.

  “Come on, Wolfen, when have you ever turned down an adventure?” Sendai challenged.

  “When doing so comes with ‘untold riches,’” Patrick answered, trying to fish his dried meat from the coals. “Why do you hate money all of a sudden?”

  “I’ve had money. Believe me, partner, it’s not worth it.”

  “You may be right, my gourd-sworded friend, but that’s a lesson I’d like to learn for myself.”

  “You want to escort her all the way back to Paoyang with her skills, go ahead,” Sendai pointed to Akiko, smart enough to keep his distance even with the binds on her wrists.

  Patrick thought a moment before giving in. “Alright,” he moaned, turning to Akiko with a shrug. “How can we help you?”

  Akiko’s response was simple, but she knew it wouldn’t be the answer the two men were looking for. “If you want to help me, let me go then get off the Backbone. You’re in danger here.”

  “Listen, child,” Sendai responded, “I understand your need for isolation, but we’re not the only bounty hunters on the high road. The emperor hired the Sons of Sato. Don’t you think they’d be interested as to why you carry their father’s sword? I doubt they’ll be as sympathetic as we.”

  “I’m counting on that,” Akiko uttered. Suddenly, the Ninja looked to the sky as if the stars spoke to her directly. “I’m sorry,” she continued, “I planned to wait till you were asleep, but there’s no time.” Without employing even the smallest effort, Akiko stood and left the ropes around her hands and feet on the rocks, slashed. Quickly, Sendai dove for the three swords by the fire, but Akiko was already there. She took her sword and threw the others over the edge of the cliff.

  “Skyfire!” Patrick swore at the sound of his and Sendai’s swords splashing into water below, “How did you—” Patrick stopped himself. “Oh, right. Ninja.”

  With the two speechless bounty hunters at the mercy of her blade, Akiko took a share of food and water from their supply bag and backed slowly toward the maze of glass rocks behind her.

  “When you go for your swords,” Akiko advised, “don’t drink the water in that pool. It’s,” she paused, “off. Remember, there are far more dangerous things on the Backbone than the me or ‘The Great Sendai.’” Before disappearing, Akiko’s curiosity got the best of her. “Is it true you met a genie?” she asked Sendai. “Did you really wish for every woman who looked you in the eyes to fall in love with you? Is that why you wear those goggles?”

  “Come take them off and find out,” Sendai dared her cryptically.

  Akiko smiled, expecting nothing less from the Metecian.

  Patrick turned curiously to Sendai.

  “Not a word,” Sendai groaned, anticipating Patrick’s question.

  “Just do me a favor,” Patrick teased, “don’t take those things off around me.”

  At that, Akiko disappeared into the blackness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Not fair!” Ping shouted as the boy of seven and his older brother swung two sticks fashioned into imaginary swords and dodged over an ancient pile of rubble in Paoyang’s most impoverished neighborhood. Moshai Wall was a huge fortification left over from some long forgotten siege, cutting through the Ratway like a poorly healed scar. Today it served as a playground for the children in the outskirts.

  “Nothing’s fair in war!” Sampot answered as he shifted his calloused bare feet against his opponent and sent a spattering of gray rocks clacking across the roofs of the shacks below.

  “The war’s over!” Ping interjected as he followed his big brother up the steep rise and cracked his sword into the rocks at his ankles.

  “You know why that is, don’t you?” Sampot boasted. “Bushan got word I was coming of age and backed down so they wouldn’t have to face me!”

  “If you ever join the academy, I’ll eat my hat!” Ping yelled back.

  “You don’t have a hat!” Sampot giggled along with his brother.

  Before the skirmish had chance to ramp up again, the all too familiar voice of their mother echoed from the Ratway shacks below. “Boys!” her voice called out, cutting through the customary racket of crying babies and clanking dishes so familiar to in the mornings.

  “Yes, Mother,” the two brothers groaned as their wooden swords clacked together one last time, signaling the end of play and bringing their battle to an anticlimactic end.

  In Kaito, a position in the military brought a healthy wage and a hefty amount of respect. Anyone capable of standing under their own steam was eligible to apply to the Royal Academy on the Mountain, but the positions were almost always awarded to the sons of the wealthy who had spent their youth training in the expensive private kung-fu schools in town.

  For the boys of the Ratway, all they had was the wall, a haven where they spent stolen seconds between a life of hard labor fantasizing about a place among the elite before the inevitable call brought them back to the thralls of the poor.

  Each time the young Ping made his way down the wall, he took care to glance toward the palace and the peaks of the academy temple, barely visible inside the stone canyon above.

  As one of the smallest of the children among his peers, Ping was often the subject of bullies, but the young man never felt more intimidated than when he looked the two structures reminding him of his place in the gutter. Like every child, Ping loved to dream, but deep down, the children of the Ratway understood that there was no real chance of breaking away from the world in which they lived.

  “Today’s the day!” Ping’s overworked mother roused from down the alley as she waved her hand in circles, reeling in the boys as if they were on an imaginary fishing line. “Hurry!”

  Ping moved through the trickling gutters and the countless banners of laundry hung between the shanties toward his mother’s hopeful smile. She stood by the entrance of their small hovel on the ground floor.

  “Today’s the day for what?” Ping’s voice echoed through the warren as he passed his father lying forever unconscious in the furrow outside the door.

  “No time, son,” his mother beckoned. “Now take off those clothes.

  “Ping’s coming, too?” Sampot protested.

  “Better odds this way,” their mother answered as she wiped their faces with fingers moistened by her tongue.

  “Better odds for what?” Ping asked, sensing something big on the horizon.

  “But he’s a worm!” Sampot shot back.

  Their mother’s eyes warmed to a look of hopeless pity as she took in Ping’s di
rty face. “Good,” she said, “in Kaito worms are priceless.”

  With their father in a constant opiate coma, Ping’s mother ran the house. The young boy didn’t know what she had up her sleeve that morning, but if it meant time off from working the odd jobs he and his brother performed around the clock, it didn’t matter to him.

  Ping pulled a borrowed shirt over his head as he struggled to keep up with Sampot and his mother, moving through the bustling square toward the center of Paoyang. Once they arrived, Ping marveled at the sight. It seemed the entire city was there, standing in a wide circle against the polished wood shops and restaurants. In the center square, scores of young boys stood in long rows like dolls in a window.

  “What are all the—”

  “Come on!” Ping’s mother cut him off again as she grabbed him by the sleeve and planted him in line with all the others. The boys glared at him, laughing at the shirt that he just noticed himself was far too big on him. These were boys from the north, wealthy from the looks of their polished hair and fine silk clothes.

  “This shirt doesn’t fit,” Ping complained, raising two arms buried somewhere inside the sleeves.

  “Good luck,” his mother offered dubiously, as she gave him a final dusting and continued down the line with his brother.

  “Good luck with what?” Ping called after her.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sampot called over his shoulder. “It won’t be you.”

  Ping didn’t have time to wonder what that meant or what he was doing among all the judgmental eyes staring down at him before something in the center of the square silenced the murmur from the hundreds of people surrounding them. Ping frowned as he strained to see over the boys ahead.

  “What’s over there?” Ping asked the much older and much taller boy beside him.

  “Quiet, tiny,” the boy spat, as he stuck out his chest and stared forward like a well-polished statue.

  Ping jumped and jumped again until he caught a glimpse of a pristine white and red chariot over the shoulders of the boys. He knew this chariot. It was the personal coach for the emperor’s conscript himself. “But what would he want with us?” Ping pondered as a red flag rose above the door, signaling its opening.