Kaguta - Or, Ankūro - The Warrior, The Thief and The Killer

28

Look inside the heart,
The essence of bravery,
Lies there, deep within.
- Zōinō.

Saiban took to the task, determined to cut the shame from himself. The reason, the real reason, he had balked at continuing the search through the fortress for answers was through fear and nothing else. He had seen how the old woman worked and knew she had skills far beyond his own and knew that his bravado had become outmatched by his sense of self-preservation. He did not want to die. Not here. Not for some ephemeral promise of answers for questions that should not have mattered to him.

He was a thief, not a warrior. A wanderer, not a Haūdo. A loner, not a leader or one to have a cadre of allies and, perhaps, friends around him. His first, true, encounter with a Sansui had almost cost him his life. If Nesukē had not distracted the man, Saiban would never have come to this place. It would have been his body lying in a pool of blood among the slaughtered merchants and guards all those days ago.

The very idea that he could infiltrate a fortress, with hundreds of soldiers and twelve Sansui inside, was the most ridiculous thought he had ever made. The old woman? For certain. Having seen her work, he could well imagine her facing those Sansui and striking fear into their hearts. The noble? Possibly. She would die, but the Sansui would know they had fought a killer. The monk? Unknown. He carried a staff, for the love of the Divines! But, he was once a Sansui himself, a warrior. The monk was an unknown factor. Saiban was not a Rokoi demon, not a killer, as such, and, for certain, not a warrior.

He looked out from the open end of the stables and fancied the storm had lessened its fury, if only a slight. He had found over a dozen, well-fed, well-maintained horses huddled at the far end of these stables, one of many others he suspected, terrified of the howls of the wind and the detritus that flew around in a chaotic display of the unnatural strength of the gusts. Six he had tied together. One for each of them that had come to the fortress and two others for those that he hoped still lived. Especially Nesukē.

The others he needed for his plan to succeed. A stupid plan, doomed to failure like everything else he had attempted in life, save his thievery, but the only plan he could think of. He had no time to attach saddles and only enough foresight to add bits and reins to the six he had tied together. The others could run free, unfettered by human adornments.

A glance back toward the gates of the inner wall told him little had changed since he looked earlier. Another long, tracking gaze showed that the storm still had the others sequestered within safe, warm barracks and bunk houses. That, at least, had not changed. He need only begin and hope he had skill enough to make it work.

Severing the hitching strings with the short sword, Saiban clapped his hands, slapped powerful hinds and grunted encouraging sounds. At first, the horses shied away, preferring to remain in shelter, but he persisted and, after too long, first one horse dashed from the stables, followed by another and another. All six unbridled horses began to rush about within the courtyard, not knowing where to run until they neared the gates and the two doors either side.

Saiban almost sighed as he saw two guards emerge to see what commotion occurred in such a frightful night, two more followed as they all began to try to herd the horses away from the gates, unwilling to move further away from their assigned duty and the safety of those guard rooms. Now Saiban took his own opportunity, bounding onto the back of the lead horse of the six he had tied together and kicking the flanks, sending the horse rearing out of the stables.

The short sword held in his hand, Saiban guided the horse toward the gates and, before the first guard even realised another horse had joined the tumult, Saiban had sliced the short sword across the man's face. That face, and part of the guard's skull slid from the rest, the Sansui short sword proving its edge. Saiban couldn't take the time to admire the sword's quality.