Under the Wheel

The footsteps stopped beside the cart. Taro clamped a hand over the younger boy's mouth. The name came with the motion.

Hachi.

His little brother was nine. He hated thunder, stole roasted chestnuts when he thought no one was looking, and slept with one foot outside the blanket even in winter.

Ken Arai had never met him.

Taro knew him anyway.

The contradiction opened inside his head like a crack in ice. A spear butt struck the wheel.

Hachi flinched under his hand.

Taro raised a finger to his lips. Outside, a man muttered, "Nothing but charcoal." His voice was close enough that Taro could hear him breathing.

The space beneath the overturned cart gave them almost nothing to work with. A broken basket. Charcoal scattered in the mud. One support beam split lengthwise where the wheel had collapsed.

No room to stand. No clean way out. Taro's ribs hurt every time he breathed. Blood from a cut above his eye kept running into the corner of his vision. His right shoulder worked, though badly.

He looked at his own hands. Thin. Callused. Nails black with charcoal. A boy's hands. Fourteen. The number surfaced with the same impossible certainty as Hachi's name. The raider crouched.

His face appeared beneath the wheel. Short beard. Missing front tooth. A rain-dark coat under mismatched armour.

He saw Hachi first.

"There you are."

Taro grabbed the split support beam and drove the jagged end forward. He expected the movement to be faster. That almost killed him. The beam glanced under the man's chin. The raider swore, caught Taro by the wrist, and yanked.

Taro's shoulder slammed into the frame. Pain went white behind his eyes. The man dragged him halfway into the open. Taro kicked at his knee. His bare foot struck armour and did little more than annoy him.

The raider laughed.

"So fierce."

His spear lay in the mud to one side, out of reach. He drew a knife instead. Training came back to Taro in uselessly clean pieces. Control the weapon arm. Close distance. Break balance.

Ken had done those things on mats, in boots, with an adult body that weighed nearly twice what this one did. The knife came down. Taro caught the man's wrist with both hands.

The impact drove his elbows into the earth. The blade stopped above his face. For one second he thought technique might be enough. Then the raider leaned his weight into it.

Taro's arms began to fold.

Hachi made a frightened sound beneath the cart. The raider glanced toward him. Taro stopped trying to push the stronger man away. He turned his hips and pulled sideways.

The knife stabbed into mud beside his ear. The raider lost his balance and struck the cart frame with one shoulder. Taro drove his forehead into the man's nose.

There was a wet crack. The grip on his wrist loosened. He seized the broken beam with both hands and shoved it upward. The jagged wood entered beneath the raider's jaw.

The man stared at him. Taro felt the resistance through the wood. He almost let go. The raider's hand reached for his throat.

Taro pushed again.

The hand dropped. The man sagged against the wheel and slid into the mud.

Taro stayed where he was.

His hands were still wrapped around the beam. Blood ran down it and reached his knuckles. Ken had spent years training for violence without ever killing anyone. Now a man was dead close enough for Taro to smell his breath.

His stomach rolled. He turned and vomited into the mud. Hachi crawled out from under the cart.

"Brother."

Taro wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Are you hurt?"

Hachi looked at his left arm as if he had forgotten it was there. Blood soaked one sleeve. Taro pulled the cloth back. The cut was shallow. Ugly, but not pumping blood.

"Hold this tight."

He folded the sleeve against the wound. Hachi obeyed, then looked past him at the dead raider.

"Did you kill him?"

There wasn't time to build a gentler answer.

"Yes."

Hachi stared at Taro's face.

"You don't fight like Taro."

For a moment, the burning village seemed farther away.

Taro had no answer.

A shout came from near the well. He looked over the cart. Three houses were burning. Several villagers knelt beside the well with their hands tied. Armed men went in and out of homes carrying food, tools, anything portable.

Taro counted because it gave his mind somewhere to stand. Seven men in sight. An eighth came out of a house carrying a sack of millet. One horse near a fence. Another farther down the road. Smoke hid the lower end of the village.

There would be more. The settlement itself was small, perhaps twenty houses stretched along a mountain road. Charcoal mounds rose under the cedars above it. Rain turned the ash into black paste.

Kurotake. The name arrived with a rush of memory. His mother's hands wrapping cloth around a burn. His father splitting cedar despite a left hand that never closed properly.

Kiku counting beans before supper and accusing Hachi of stealing two. A winter morning when Taro had woken before dawn to help open a kiln. He pressed his fingers against his temple.

The world pitched sideways.

"Brother?"

Hachi touched his sleeve.

Taro looked at him.

"I'm here."

He wasn't sure what he meant by it.

Voices carried from the road.

The dialect was strange to Ken's ear, old and rough, but Taro's memory supplied what Ken lacked. Search the upper houses. Take the grain. Find the eldest boy.

Taro listened again.

Find the eldest boy. Hachi's hand tightened on his sleeve.

"Mother went toward the shed."

Taro looked uphill.

A low building stood behind the family house. Smoke moved across it. Hana. The name brought a warmth that did not feel imagined. A woman who had sat awake beside Taro when fever made him delirious. A woman who always claimed not to be hungry when there wasn't enough food.

His mother. The thought came too easily.

"Kiku?"

"With Mother."

"Father?"

Hachi's mouth trembled.

The memories answered instead. Koji pulling an old spearhead from beneath the floorboards that morning. Koji telling Hana to take the children uphill. Shouting from the lower road. Then nothing.

Taro looked beside the cart.

A drainage ditch ran behind the houses and disappeared into the trees. It wasn't safety. It was simply better than the road.

"We use the ditch."

Hachi didn't move.

He was staring at the body. Taro crouched and took both of his shoulders.

"Look at me."

Hachi did.

"You only have one job. Stay behind me and keep low. Can you do that?"

The boy swallowed.

"Yes."

"Good. Don't worry about anything after that yet."

Taro reached for the dead man's spear. The weapon was more than twice his height. Rough wood, wet from rain. He expected its weight and balance to make sense once it was in his hands.

It didn't. He dragged it toward the ditch. A younger raider came running from the well. No helmet. Short sword. Cloth tied around his forehead. Seventeen, perhaps eighteen.

He slowed when he saw the dead man beside the cart.

"Saburo?"

His eyes moved to Taro.

"You killed Saburo?"

Taro backed toward the ditch.

The raider saw his trembling arms and smiled. That was useful.

Taro slid down the bank.

The young man followed. The ditch narrowed beneath exposed cedar roots. A sword would be harder to swing cleanly there. Taro wanted the man to come in angry and fast.

He got half of what he wanted. The raider jumped down and immediately knocked Taro's first thrust aside. The impact nearly tore the spear from his grip.

Taro's forearms burned.

The young man laughed.

"Throw it down."

Taro shortened his grip.

"You're a child."

The sword flashed. Taro stepped inside the cut, but his foot slipped in the mud. The blade bit deep into the spear shaft. He tried to drive the rear end into the man's throat. It struck a shoulder instead.

The raider kicked him in the chest. Taro hit the ditch wall hard enough to lose his breath. The spear fell. The raider raised his sword. A stone struck him behind the ear.

Hachi stood uphill with another in his hand.

"Run!" Taro shouted.

The raider turned toward Hachi.

Taro caught his ankle.

The man dropped to one knee and slashed backward.

Pain opened along Taro's forearm.

He held on.

Hachi threw again.

The stone missed. The raider kicked Taro in the face. Light burst across his vision. His hand opened. The man got back to his feet. Taro reached for the spear and found only mud.

This was the truth of it. He could recognise timing. He could read bad footing. He knew where he wanted the fight to go. The body couldn't always take him there.

The raider raised his sword.

"Leave my sons!"

A short charcoal knife came spinning down from the bank. It struck the man's cheek. He recoiled with a shout.

Taro looked up.

A woman stood above the ditch with a girl beside her. Hana. Kiku. Relief hit him so hard his legs weakened. The raider tore the knife from his cheek and turned toward them.

Hana shoved Kiku back. Taro forced himself up and recovered the spear. The point shook between him and the raider. Hana slid down the bank and grabbed Hachi by the collar.

"Move," Taro said.

She looked at him. There was relief in her face. He saw it. There was something else too. She knew his posture was wrong for her son. She knew the voice. The eyes. Mothers noticed changes other people called imagination.

A horn sounded from the village. One long note, then two short. The raider's head turned.

Taro didn't know the signal.

The man did. He swore and climbed out of the ditch. At the top he looked back.

"I'll remember you."

Then he ran toward the road. Taro listened until the footsteps faded. His knees gave way. He sat in the mud. Hachi threw both arms around him. The embrace hurt his ribs enough to make his eyes water.

He let the boy hold on. Hana stayed a few steps away. Kiku stood beside her, pale and silent. Taro looked at all three of them and felt the impossible weight of memories that insisted they were his.

He wanted to tell Hana the truth. He didn't know what the truth was yet. Her eyes dropped to the blood on his hands.

"What happened beneath the cart?"

Taro looked at the dead man's spear.

"I survived."

Hana's expression changed.

"That's not what I asked."