Death Before Dishonor Read online

  Yuri and Saki charged for the next cover, staying low.

  THWACK! An arrow hit near Saki. Terry and Yuri were on the move the second they heard it and were into cover again a split second before the next one hit.

  The Fujibayashi staggered their movement across the field, leapfrogging from cover to cover, barely escaping the bite of the sniper's arrows as they closed on his position. They taxed the sniper’s aim as they got nearer; downrange, they appeared closer together, but they forced him to increase his azimuth as their relative distanced changed.

  Yuri and Saki skidded into new cover, flinging snow and grass, Yuri on his stomach and Saki on his side. Yuri whipped out his ninjatō and flashed it at Terry and Saki to say that he was okay. Saki responded by drawing his ninjatō.

  Yuri checked the left flank for movement—the sniper’s right. THWACK! He heard an arrow strike on his left. He checked it. The arrow was lodged in a tree three feet away. He rolled out of cover and dug in with his feet, sprinting for the next point. He managed a glance uprange before he went airborne into cover ten feet ahead of his last position. He could make out the archer, perched on a limb, nocking another arrow. Then Yuri was heads down as he collapsed into cover, skidding through the snow again. He slumped against the new tree trunk, absorbing the impact with a forceful exhale. He lifted his head to see what progress his brother and Saki were making.

  Terry was already in a new position, with his back against a tree and looking over his left shoulder towards the sniper. The sniper loosed an arrow at Saki, who was in mid-dive for new cover. THWACK! The arrow struck Saki’s side. He hit the ground and skidded into the tree.

  Terry and Yuri’s heads snapped in Saki’s direction. They held their breaths. They could feel their heartbeats in their heads.

  Saki, leaving his ninjatō in the snow, scrambled to his knees behind the tree, using it for support with one arm and checking his side with the other. He drew the arrow from where it was lodged in between his backplate and his bag. He didn’t feel any pain, nor was there blood.

  He looked at Terry and Yuri, whose eyes were full moons with anticipation encircled by balaclavas. Saki raised a hand that said he was okay. Terry exhaled finally. Yuri was instantly out of cover, rushing forward.

  THWACK! THWACK! THWACK! Downrange, the sniper was unable to land a clean shot; now the sniper was firing repeatedly, trying to increase his chances of hitting the Fujibayashi when the distance between him and them had become desperate. He was sacrificing his accuracy to increase his rate of fire, firing as quickly as possible to pin one of his targets down so he could flush out the other two and hopefully catch one as he was running for cover.

  The sniper swung wide to get a shot off, and then he saw Terry leave cover for the next tree. Terry threw his naginata and dove as the arrow came loose and zipped beneath him, missing him by a hair's length—so close, in fact, that Terry felt the shaft graze his thigh. Terry crumbled into a ball and rolled end over end to the next tree, getting snow in his mouth, ears, and tunic. Terry hugged the tree and checked the right and left flank, waiting for Yuri and Saki to move before exposing a body part to grab the naginata. This close, the sniper's slant angle was much steeper, giving him an improved vantage even if his ability to hit arrayed targets had been diminished.

  Saki hustled out of cover with his ninjatō in hand and slid to his next position like a baseball player sliding into home. Two successive arrows landed around him. He too scanned his flank.

  Nothing.

  Something wasn't right.

  The other Momochi weren’t pressing the flanks while their sniper had the range advantage. And with the Fujibayashi closing on the sniper’s position, now was the time. Where were they? Were they waiting further uprange? Were they planning to snipe the Fujibayashi from even further away when they closed and flushed out the sniper, using one of their own as bait? Were they in cover near the sniper, waiting for the Fujibayashi to come close so they could launch a trap?

  One question rang inside Saki’s head louder than the others: how had the Momochi arrived on this side of the temple before the Fujibayashi had? The Momochi's approach to the temple was far more treacherous and shear, which nearly doubled their transit time. How was it then that they had covered the distance up their side of the peaks and the field of trees to set their ambush on this side of the temple before the Fujibayashi could even cross the boundary? Suspicion sloshed in Saki's stomach as he rolled over to see what progress Terry and Yuri were making in the seconds that his attention was elsewhere.

  Terry was ahead of Saki, standing sideways against a tree, trying to draw the sniper's fire with his naginata. Yuri, overflowing with adrenaline, was even further ahead, situated at the far-left corner—the sniper’s right—of the lazy rectangle the Fujibayashi had transcribed in the snow as they’d leapfrogged in and out of concealment. Yuri was perpendicular to the sniper, waiting for him to commit to firing at Terry. When the sniper did, Yuri hoped to rush the twenty yards to the sniper's position.

  The sniper, with a ready arrow, swung his head back and forth to all three of the Fujibayashi, trying not to let them get the drop on him,

  Terry glanced at Yuri, who was dug in like a sprinter. Terry intended to throw his naginata at the sniper, and he signaled Saki with his chin. Saki acknowledged and then check the flank again.

  Terry wasn’t certain that he could land the weapon, trying to throw from a defensive position, but it would at least give Yuri time to close in. Terry wasn’t certain he could avoid getting shot either. It was the best chance they had, though.

  Terry snapped the naginata to his shoulder, readying it. The sniper saw the weapon move and committed to firing a near-point-blank-range shot. THWACK! Terry winced as the arrow struck the tree trunk; the arrowhead created a steeple with the bark as it punched through the other side with a crunch.

  Saki and Yuri held their position.

  Terry tried again, but the sniper shut Terry down again with another near hit.

  Yuri didn’t wait any longer. He was out of cover, accelerating despite the snow’s protest.

  The sniper threaded his bow around a branch, struggling to nock another arrow whilst attempting to settle into a firing position—the nock was unsuccessful the first time, and he had to retry. Yuri was bearing down on him, and the sniper was desperate. He fired, but the arrow tumbled through the air when the sniper fired it without a proper nock. He hustled to reload.

  Yuri yanked the grappling hook from his belt and hurled it into the tree at the sniper. One of the hook’s flukes impacted the bow, causing the arrow to go wide and setting the sniper off balance.

  The sniper caught himself and, realizing that he no longer had the high-ground advantage, drew his ninjatō and dismounted. Yuri rushed in, trying to catch the sniper as he came down, but Yuri was too late. The sniper landed, raised his sword, and swung it in a J-shape from above his head to waist level. Yuri slid beneath the blade as it hummed past his face, and turned to block the sniper’s recovery slash; there was an angry metal-on-metal clank.

  The sniper bounded backward, checking for the other two Fujibayashi—just in time too; the blade of Terry's naginata plunged for his ribcage. The sniper managed to deflect Terry’s stab over his shoulder and then swapped feet to slash at Terry's waist. Terry, exposed from the sniper’s parry, leaped backward to avoid being cleaved in half. The sniper pressed his attack, immediately turning the strike into a combination of blinding slashes, ending with a thrust that was meant to impale Terry. Terry gave ground and parried the slashes with both ends of his whirling naginata, driving the sniper’s final thrust up and left.

  Having the reach advantage by three feet, Terry used the distance to keep himself outside the lethal arcs of the sniper's ninjatō. Terry drove the blunt end of the naginata in a semi-circle at the sniper's shins. The sniper leaped backward. Terry finished the low swing and then changed course, bringing the blade around at shoulder level. The sniper continued to retreat backward, trying desperat
ely not to slip in the snow nor get caught in between the Fujibayashi.

  Terry reset and leveled the naginata at his waist as Saki came abreast with his ninjatō held in a high guard. Yuri was on his feet, pacing on the sniper's right flank. The sniper backed away cautiously, ensuring not to cross his feet as he stepped. All four men puffed steam into the twilight from beneath their masks.

  Yuri kicked snow, and the sniper flinched. Terry took the opening and drove in with his blade. The sniper retreated at an angle, with Terry following and slicing a figure eight through the air. Saki moved left behind Terry, trying to corral the sniper.

  Yuri rushed in. His ninjatō swung high, and the sniper met him with a parry. Yuri swung, changed direction, and swung again. His blade crashed into the sniper’s sword repeatedly, driving him back. The sniper—his attention divided between the Fujibayashi, their weapons, the snow, and the trees—intercepted Yuri's strikes a fraction of a second later each time; it was beginning to add up. Yuri didn't let up, sensing that the sniper was falling behind.

  Terry feinted with the naginata. The sniper's attention and weapon snapped in the direction from which Terry’s strike never came. At that moment, the sniper knew he'd been had. The sniper buckled as Yuri sliced into the sniper's side. There was some resistance when the blade hit the sniper’s ribs, but otherwise, the cut was clean.

  The sniper retched, lowering his ninjatō, staggering to the side. Yuri swapped feet to change the dynamic of his next strike and brought his ninjatō down on the sniper's arm, severing it just below the elbow. The man howled. Yuri stabbed him through the neck, silencing him. The sniper collapsed onto his face, spraying a fan of blood into the mangled layer of snow.

  "Dammit," Yuri panted, watching the steam rise from the sniper’s blood.

  "What?" Terry asked, taking cover behind a nearby tree.

  Yuri and Saki followed his lead.

  "I wanted to gore that asshole with my grappling hook really bad. Only thing I hit was his bow."

  “Well, you got him out of the tree.”

  “There is that, I suppose.”

  "He is dead; that is all that matters," Saki said, returning his ninjatō to its sheath. "His death was honorable, if not premature."

  "Hey, Saki,” Yuri said bitterly, “any reason why you decided to hang out in the audience while me and Terry fought it out with this douchebag?"

  "Easy there, kemosabe,” said Terry, jumping to Saki's defense. “Someone had to watch our flanks. There are still two other Shinobi out there. Why don't you remember whose team you're on, huh?" It wasn't a question.

  Yuri nodded. "I guess that makes sense."

  "Where are the other two? Why did they not support their sniper?" Saki said, scanning the expanse of trees and gray.

  "That's a good question," Terry replied.

  "Something is not right. Either they are waiting to ambush us somewhere, or they used him as bait, and they plan to attack us here."

  "Yeah." Terry pointed at the bloodied corpse of the sniper. "And by doing so, they wasted a man. If they had flanked us while he was shooting, they'd have had us on the back foot."

  "Agreed.” Saki nodded. “What should we do now?"

  Terry pulled his mask down and wiped his mouth thoughtfully. The Momochi's tactics just didn't quite add up. Why sacrifice a man in vain? Terry looked at his brother.

  "Let's push on to the temple," Yuri said. "It's going to be warmer there than here. If the other two are out here, my bet is they're there waiting for us. And if they're not, we can ambush them there."

  "Sounds effective enough.” Terry turned to his comrade. “Saki?"

  "I support Yuri's rationale."

  "Alright, let's move."

  ***

  The three Fujibayashi came up to the torii. Terry took cover behind one of the stone lanterns—tōrō—and Saki and Yuri stacked up behind the other. In light of the sniper's attack, their minds were racing as they tried to crack the Momochi strategy—granted, asymmetric warfare was the forte of Shinobi, but this went beyond the realm of making sense. In the thirty minutes it had taken them to trek from the sniper's position to the temple, the Fujibayashi hadn't seen so much as a trace of the Momochi—only the sniper’s footprints leading away from the temple.

  Saki poked the air in the direction of the torii with his index finger. Terry came out from behind the lantern and sprinted through the gate, angling right into the thick grouping of trees that sat just inside the temple walls and bordered the steps of the main approach—the sandō—from the torii through the temple grounds.

  Yuri shot out from behind Saki and followed his brother into the pocket of trees. Saki waited a moment to see if the Momochi would make a move. When they didn’t, he sprinted to Terry and Yuri.

  The Fujibayashi crept through the gaunt trees to the wood's edge. They stacked one behind the other and surveyed the snow-covered grounds from the far right of the sandō to the honden. Not being populated by thousands of trees like outside the temple walls, a sliver of the moon was able to splatter silver over the blacks, browns, and grays of the nighttime temple, offering more visibility than they’d had earlier.

  On the other side of the sandō, about twenty yards or more, were three tool-shed-sized structures that had at one time been dedicated to physical purification and worshipful expression. Just inside that were tombs numbering thirty or so that lined either side of the sandō. And directly in front of them, on the same side as the Fujibayashi but across a thirty-yard stretch of undisturbed snow, was the second largest building, known as the shamuso; in the shrine's heyday, the shamuso was its administrative node. Just beyond, and obscured by the shamuso, were the haiden and the honden. The Fujibayashi looked for signs of additional snipers or lookouts on the rooves but saw none. There was a single set of tracks along the sandō, leading through the torii and off the temple grounds toward the sniper’s position. Other than that, the snow was undisturbed and pristine.

  "Where are these assholes?" Yuri said out loud to himself.

  "If they are on the grounds, I am willing to bet they are either in the shamuso or the honden," Saki said just a hair above a whisper.

  Terry agreed. The haiden was open to the elements and not large enough to stage an ambush. And with the shamuso and the honden as viable options, staging an ambush from the haiden made no sense.

  "This is their blindspot,” Terry whispered over his shoulder. “There are no windows on the wall across the way. If they're in the shamuso, they won't be able to see us coming. If they are in the honden, the shamuso blocks their view."

  Saki leaned forward and placed his hand on Yuri’s shoulder. "Yuri, you move straight ahead to the shamuso and clear its far-right corner. Disregard those buildings on the other side of the sandō. They are not large enough to be great cover for the Momochi. If the Momochi are hiding in them, we will see them exit to attempt an attack."

  Yuri nodded.

  Saki continued, "Terry, you follow after Yuri is set. I will cover our rear."

  Terry nodded too.

  "Go."

  Yuri crept up beside his brother, scanned the grounds one last time, and then sprinted thirty yards through shin-deep snow to the shamuso. As he neared the building, he went onto his belly and turned sideways so that he slid parallel into the wall. The snow broke his fall, slowed him down, and silenced his impact. Then he was on his feet and creeping toward his assigned corner.

  Yuri kept his left shoulder in contact with the wall as he the neared edge. He pressed himself into the wall and gave a quick check of the space between the shamuso and the perimeter wall; it was clear. Yuri waved his arm.

  Terry looked back at Saki, knowing that as soon as he made a break for the building, Saki would be vulnerable to attack from the rear with twenty yards separating him from the others if the Momochi had been there waiting the whole time. Saki drew his ninjatō just in case and nodded. Terry shot out of the woods and did a replay of Yuri's maneuver, just to the corner closer to the sandō—clear.
He waved his arm.

  Saki shot out of the woods with his ninjatō in a reverse grip, replaying the brothers’ maneuver. The Fujibayashi were arrayed against the eastern wall of the shamuso: Yuri on the right, Terry on the left, and Saki between the two.

  Saki tapped Terry on the shoulder to let him know to back up, without taking his eyes off their left flank, along the wall with Saki until they had reached Yuri. Once Saki and Terry were stacked on Yuri, Saki tapped him on the shoulder. Yuri turned the corner and approached the next one to check it the same way. The route to the honden was clear, and so was the space between the perimeter wall and the honden. Yuri waved his hand.

  Saki tapped Yuri when Saki and Terry were stacked on him again. Yuri shot from behind the shamuso and up to the raised patio of the honden, ducking beneath it. He popped his head up and checked for movement on the other side of the sandō—still nothing. Yuri waved his hand. Saki ran up to him. Then Terry followed.

  Saki tapped Yuri’s shoulder again. Yuri slithered through the rail of the patio and crawled on his hands and feet to the door, pressing his ear against it—again, nothing. He sat up on his knees and glanced back at Saki and Terry, who were now coming through the rails themselves. Yuri indicated the door with his head and then drew his ninjato. Saki and Terry nodded. Yuri slid the door open a crack, tuned out the ambient noise, and listened. He heard what he surmised were birds rustling, dreaming in their nests and beating their wings occasionally in their sleep. He heard the breeze whistling through windows or vents in the structure. Otherwise, nothing, so he slid the door open just enough for him to fit through and rounded the door jamb so that his back was against the wall. After a moment, he rapped his fingers on the jam, and his brother and Saki followed, closing the door behind them.

  The honden was a nearly pitch-black, large, singular room that was populated by kanji-inscribed pillars that supported the massive roof, numbering perhaps twenty. Each pillar had a candleholder on each cardinal side. The far side sported an altar that housed the shrine’s cami, and there were two doors to either side. On the far right and far left of the honden were enormous wooden tablets situated like dominoes along either wall.