The peddler shielded his face with his hands.
“Do you understand me?” Hiro asked.
The peddler nodded and gestured toward the empty sack.
Hiro picked it up and shook it open. “I will help, but hurry. You need to leave this place at once.”
And so do I.
The peddler grasped the nearest wooden bowl.
Hiro and the peddler gathered up the scattered wares. When they finished, the poor man bowed, making sounds that indicated gratitude.
“Go,” Hiro said, “and from now on, make sure you’re home by nightfall.”
The peddler nodded, bowed, and hurried off. Hiro noted with approval that the poor man stuck to the shadows near the edge of the river road.
Busy listening to the patter of the peddler’s feet on the earthen path, Hiro almost missed the hiss of steel behind his back.
Almost.
The shinobi ducked. A swish of wind brushed past his head. The attacker’s blade had missed by only inches.
Hiro drew his shortsword as he spun to face his foe—the samurai guard who kicked the peddler and fled when the explosion shook the street.
He must have recovered his courage and returned.
“Shinobi,” the samurai hissed as he advanced and struck again.
Hiro blocked the attack with his wakizashi and backed away to the shadows of the trees. He didn’t want the people up the street to see the fight and raise an alarm.
The samurai followed, slashing the air with strikes that made up in force what they lacked in accuracy. Hiro continued to back away, dodging the body-level strikes and ducking when the samurai aimed for his neck.
Without a katana, Hiro lacked the samurai’s reach. He couldn’t get in range to attack. He could only defend himself and wait for an opening.
When they reached the shadow of the trees, the samurai paused, sword high. “You are a disgrace,” he said, “you honorless, beggar-loving shinobi dog. You and all your kind deserve to die.”
Hiro gripped his wakizashi. “The only dog I see in this street is you.”
With a growl of rage, the samurai raised his katana, lunged … and impaled himself on the blade of Hiro’s shortsword.
Hiro grasped the samurai’s shoulder with his free hand as he shoved his sword into the samurai’s stomach. He had dodged beneath the guard’s attack and angled his wakizashi upward, piercing the guard beneath his ribs and thrusting the point toward his heart.
The samurai gasped and dropped his sword.
Hiro shoved the blade even deeper, feeling the warmth and wetness of the samurai’s blood flow over his hand. He stopped when the hilt stuck fast.
The guard coughed and choked on the liquid flooding his lungs. He sputtered, coughed again, and sent a spray of bloody spittle down his chin.
Hiro stepped away, withdrew his sword, and pressed the blade against the samurai’s neck.
“You’re a dead man,” Hiro said. “The question is, do I end this fast or let you bleed to death on the river bank?”
This time, there was no priest to stay his hand.
The samurai spit a mouthful of blood in Hiro’s face and reached for his wakizashi. Hiro wrenched the weapon from his hand.
The samurai fell to his knees, struggling to breathe as his lungs filled up with blood.
“Enough.” Hiro dropped the samurai’s shortsword in the road and wiped his own sword clean on the dying man’s robe. He grasped the man’s topknot and pulled it back.
He bent to look the guard in the eye. “Unlike you, I do not want a man to suffer.”
Hiro sheathed his sword, grasped the samurai’s chin with his free hand, and snapped the man’s neck.
He felt the samurai go limp, life ended with merciful speed.
Hiro released his grip, and the body crumpled forward on the road.
He wiped the blood from his face and hands as best he could and looked around. No one had seen him. The trees along the river path were out of sight of Sanjō Road, and no one walked the path that night—most likely to avoid the samurai guards. Even the peddler had disappeared, though Hiro doubted the mute would turn him in.
Hiro needed to vacate the scene but didn’t want to leave a body lying in the road. He had an errand to complete and didn’t need the shogun’s guards discovering a samurai corpse before he finished his mission. In truth, he would rather they never found it at all.
Without a witness, no one could tie Hiro to the crime, but he still preferred to dispose of the body.
He looked at the river. The current near the banks ran slow, but farther out the water flowed with better speed. He hoped it was enough to move a corpse.
Hiro sheathed his sword and raised the samurai’s limp arm. Slinging the arm around his shoulders, Hiro grasped the dead man’s waist and lifted the samurai to his side. With one arm around the samurai’s waist and the other holding the dead man’s lifeless arm around his shoulders, Hiro started toward the bridge. From a distance, they looked like a poorly dressed samurai helping a friend stagger home after too much sake.
When they reached the bridge, Hiro risked a glance up Sanjō Road toward the ruined lanterns. A cluster of people stood in the road, faces lit by the flickering glow of a handheld lantern carried by a woman who might—or might not—have been Mayuri. Angry voices pierced the night. The words didn’t carry as far as the bridge, but Hiro didn’t care what they said. They hadn’t noticed him or the corpse.
Hiro started across the bridge, carrying the samurai at his side. When they reached the middle of the river, Hiro checked to make sure that no one was looking and swung the samurai over the railing.
The body hit the water with a muffled splash.
As Hiro hoped, the current carried the dead man’s body away, the corpse already starting to sink as water soaked his heavy silk kimono.
Hiro glanced in both directions. The bridge was empty. No one had seen him dump the body. Sooner or later, the samurai’s corpse would wash up on the bank or catch on a bridge, but at least no one would discover it here tonight.
After retrieving the samurai’s fallen swords and tossing them into the river, Hiro hurried across the bridge and continued west, though not on Sanjō Road. He wove through narrow side streets to avoid patrolling guards. Not only was he dressed as a shinobi, but his clothes were now stained with samurai blood.