The Man Who Went Alone⁠

The first stone scraped away above them.

Mud fell through the entrance.

Jubei pressed one finger to his lips and pointed deeper into the trench.

Kiku shook her head.

"No other way."

The second stone moved.

A man's voice came through the gap.

"Old smoke."

"Everything here smells like smoke."

"Captain said check it."

Taro was still half under the sagging cedar beam.

Going backward would make the timber creak. Going forward carried them toward the opening being uncovered.

Jubei put a hand in the shallow water flowing past their knees.

Then he reached into his coat and emptied a pinch of charcoal dust into the current.

The black cloud drifted toward the entrance.

Outside, a soldier cursed.

"Fresh ash."

His companion leaned closer.

Jubei picked up a loose pebble and threw it behind them.

It struck the trench wall near the shrine.

The sound travelled strangely through the hollow earth.

"Farther in," one soldier whispered.

A hand appeared between the stones.

Jubei waited.

The fingers reached deeper.

He drove the wooden hilt of his knife down.

Bone cracked.

The man screamed and pulled back.

"Move."

Kiku went first.

Taro followed beneath the beam. The cedar groaned against his shoulder.

Behind them, the uninjured searcher tore stones away faster.

"Someone's inside! Get Nao!"

Jubei crossed last.

An arrow entered the trench and struck the mud where his calf had been.

They crawled toward the shrine.

"Where?" Taro asked.

Kiku's breath came quickly.

"Vent after the water stone."

"You climbed it?"

"No."

Another arrow scraped along the wall.

The searcher had entered.

Jubei stopped at a bend and turned with his knife.

"Keep going."

Taro heard the decision beneath the words.

"No."

"This ground gives us one narrow place. Use it."

"We don't know where the vent opens."

"Then learn quickly."

Kiku caught Taro's sleeve.

"Bell tree."

"What?"

"I remember roots. The old bell tree behind the cemetery."

Taro pictured the slope from the ridge.

A steep bank behind the shrine. Two sentries nearby.

A bad exit.

Better than a knife fight in a tunnel.

The searcher's breathing came closer.

Taro looked at the blackened supports along the trench wall.

"All three of us."

Jubei's eyes narrowed.

"How?"

"Roof behind the bend. Burned cedar on the left. Living roots on the right."

"You want to drop the trench?"

"Only the bend."

"Mountains don't fall where boys point."

"Then don't trust me. Look."

Jubei looked.

That mattered more than agreement.

He saw the left support split near its base.

He sheathed the knife and kicked it.

Nothing.

The searcher came around the far bend.

Jubei kicked again.

The cedar cracked.

Earth shifted overhead.

The soldier stopped.

Jubei drove his heel into the base.

The support folded.

Mud, roots and black timber dropped into the passage.

The collapse struck Jubei's shoulder and threw him forward. Taro caught his coat.

The searcher shouted once behind the falling earth.

Then the bend disappeared.

Taro pulled Jubei upright.

"Can you move?"

"My shoulder has opinions. My legs don't."

They reached the water stone.

Kiku found the vertical shaft by touch. Roots formed a crooked ladder.

She climbed.

Taro followed.

Halfway up, his injured arm began shaking.

His fingers slipped.

Jubei caught the heel of his sandal.

"Legs."

Taro pressed his back to one wall and his feet to the other.

Slowly, he climbed.

The shaft opened beneath thorn bushes.

Kiku pushed through first.

Cold air struck Taro's face.

A sentry stood twenty paces downhill.

Another watched the shrine road beneath a cedar.

Jubei emerged and saw both.

He did not reach for his bow.

An arrow might kill one man and summon two hundred.

They crawled beneath the thorns.

Kiku's sleeve caught.

The cloth tore.

The downhill sentry turned.

"Who's there?"

Jubei pressed them flat.

Sandals approached.

One more step and the man would see Kiku's pale sleeve against the soil.

The shrine bell rang.

Three fast strikes.

Pause.

Two.

The sentry looked back.

Taro recognised the pattern.

Koji.

The man cursed and ran toward the shrine.

Taro did not know how his father had reached the bell rope or convinced someone else to strike it.

It did not matter.

They moved uphill.

By the time Genta's men reached the collapsed trench, Taro, Kiku and Jubei were inside the cedar forest.

Nobody spoke until the village disappeared behind a slope.

Then Jubei stopped.

"You dropped a roof while we were underneath it."

"Yes."

"Do that again without warning me and I may help the roof."

Taro almost answered that Jubei would not.

The words reached his mouth.

He stopped them.

That was Ken speaking to men who had known him for years.

Jubei had known this version of Taro for two days.

"I'm sorry."

Jubei rolled his shoulder.

"Was the left support weaker?"

"Yes."

"Did you know the fall would stop at the bend?"

"No."

"Good."

Taro frowned.

"Good?"

"You know which part was thought and which part was luck."

Jubei started walking again.

"Men become dangerous when they call both genius."

They reached the split cedar shelter after midday.

Hana went to Kiku first.

Hands. Face. Ribs. Throat.

Only after checking everything did she pull her daughter against her.

Then she turned to Taro and performed the same inspection.

Without the embrace.

"Jubei?"

"Bruised."

"Why?"

"Your son asked a hill to fall."

Hana closed her eyes.

Taro waited.

"Did it?" she asked.

"Part of it."

"The hill listens better than he does."

Hachi laughed.

The sound surprised everyone.

For a few breaths the shelter felt almost ordinary.

Then Goro came through the trees alone.

Jubei looked behind him.

"Senta?"

Goro's face answered first.

"Gone."

Hana stood.

"When?"

"Before dawn."

"Where?"

Goro looked toward the western ridge.

"He said he needed water. I let him go ten steps before I realised he didn't have a container."

Emi's mother covered her mouth.

Jubei asked, "Did he know this shelter?"

"No. He knew the kiln. He saw us move north."

Taro felt no satisfaction at having expected it.

Only a hollow drop in his stomach.

Senta had not betrayed them because he hated them.

He had gone because Miyo was tied beside a road and waiting.

Love did not make a man harder to manipulate.

Sometimes it gave the enemy a handle.

"We move again," Jubei said.

People began gathering bundles.

Hachi lifted the millet bowl. Kiku wrapped it in cloth so it would not knock against stone.

Taro looked toward the ridge.

"We need to know what Senta told them."

"We need distance," Jubei said.

"If Genta knows our direction, distance just makes a longer trail."

Jubei studied him.

"What are you suggesting?"

The wording mattered.

Not What is your plan?

Taro did not deserve that yet.

But the question had changed.

"One watcher at the cedar notch. Everyone else moves north by the deer path. We see whether Genta holds Senta, follows him, or sends him back."

Jubei thought.

Then he nodded at Goro.

"Take them. No fire. Cross stone whenever you can."

Hana caught Taro's sleeve.

"You just came back."

"I know where Senta is going."

"That does not make the road kinder."

"No."

Taro held her eyes.

"It makes waiting here worse."

Hana did not release him immediately.

At last she did.

"Come back before you decide being useful means being alone."

Taro understood the warning.

He nodded.

Jubei and Taro climbed to the cedar notch while the others moved north.

The boy's legs were failing now. Jubei slowed without acknowledging it.

Below, Senta stood in the western path.

His axe lay in the mud.

Two of Genta's men held his arms.

Miyo knelt several paces away with rope around her wrists.

Taro could not hear everything.

He did not need to.

Genta asked something.

Senta pointed uphill.

Genta asked again.

Senta shook his head.

One raider struck him across the mouth.

Miyo cried out.

Senta pointed again.

Toward the abandoned kiln.

Not the split cedar shelter.

He had given Genta the last place he knew.

Jubei let out a breath through his nose.

"He held one thing back."

"For now."

Genta looked toward the hills.

Then he cut the rope around Miyo's wrists.

Senta lunged toward her.

The raiders stopped him.

Miyo stood.

Genta let husband and wife touch foreheads for one brief moment.

Then his men pulled Miyo away.

Senta shouted something.

Genta answered calmly.

He tied a strip of red cord around Senta's wrist.

Then he released him.

Senta began climbing.

Jubei whispered, "He's sending him back."

"Of course."

"With what?"

"Hope."

Jubei looked at him.

Taro kept watching.

A threat made people resist together.

Hope could make them argue about who was willing to risk it.

Genta knew the difference.

Senta reached the first trees and disappeared.

Genta remained in the road.

He turned toward the cedar notch.

The distance was too great for him to see Taro.

Still, Taro felt the man's attention settle on the ridge.

Genta raised one finger.

Then pointed toward the sun.

One hour.

Jubei shifted behind the tree.

"He expected a watcher."

"Yes."

"Then we leave."

Taro stayed for one breath.

Below, soldiers carried rice sacks past Genta. One woven cover had slipped.

A merchant seal showed on the cloth.

Different from House Kaji's three reeds.

Taro did not know the mark.

Jubei did.

His expression changed.

"What?"

"South-country merchant house."

"Why would Kaji soldiers carry their rice?"

"Because men can lie about who they serve. Rice is less disciplined."

Taro looked again.

The army below was no longer one thing in his mind.

Kaji men.

Unknown suppliers.

A hired captain.

An officer worried about secrecy.

Orders travelling through layers of men who did not share the same reasons.

Ken's history books had loved names of commanders.

This road was being held together by rice, fear, money and silence.

Break one of those and the army might still march.

Break enough and perhaps it stopped.

"We go," Jubei said.

They withdrew from the ridge.

Senta would return with Genta's message.

Taro already knew the most dangerous part would not be the threat.

It would be the part everyone wanted to believe.