Chapter 16

Manzo, Master Akira, the young Raven Ariana, and the fisherman’s daughter from the island, Eva Fallon, ate the rest of the trout with some biscuits and water. Kara and I sat quietly to Master’s left as Manzo and the rest sat to his right. I kept my blade close. Kara did the same.

“Now that I am full, Manzo will talk,” Master Akira said.

Manzo stood. He came to the front of Master Akira. As he did on the island, he went to his knees, bowed to Master then sat cross-legged to face me. “There is much to tell. Not everything is as it seems.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

Manzo motioned for Eva to come to him. She interlocked her arm with his. They stared at me.

“We beg of you to not kill the Minister,” Eva said.

“The Minister has held my daughter captive for three years.” Tears streamed down Manzo’s face. “I confess to you now that I have lived many lies to get to this point. I have killed many so that only one can be saved. If you kill the Minister, his men will kill my daughter Kira.”

My mind raced. This had to be a lie. How could I trust Manzo? I looked to Master Akira.

Master shook his head. “No, Eric. I can’t tell you what choice to make. I can only tell you that what Manzo speaks of is the truth.”

Manzo continued his plea. “When you came with me on my transport ship, I wanted so much to tell you the truth. It was too risky. Spies were everywhere. I had to stay in disguise as a slave trader and mercenary. I made deals with Sanctum Village and Commerce City. It was a dangerous balance that I had to achieve to keep my daughter alive.”

I took a deep breath. “What would you have told me? That you would exchange me for your daughter and send me to my death? That was your intention. Correct?”

Manzo shook his head in disagreement. “I needed time to come up with a plan. We would have worked together.”

“Worked together? I watched you side with those that would kill me.” My heart raced. Anger filled my body. “You let so many innocent people die. You killed for the Minister.”

Manzo bowed. His head fell to the ground. It touched the brown dirt and orange leaves. I watched as tears fell from his eyes onto the leaves below his face. “Without my actions, many more innocent would have died.”

I moved away from Manzo. I focused on Master Akira, who watched both of us. “Master, you never told me.”

Master Akira shook his head. “At the time, you didn’t need to know. It served no purpose.”

“And now, Master?”

“Now is the time for you to know. You have many choices before you. All of them affect many lives, yet only one is the right choice.”

“Master, now is not the time for riddles. What do I do?”

“If you do as you’ve always done, we may have a chance.”

Manzo bowed to me as he did to Master Akira. His wife did the same.

“Eric, what I ask of you, I have no right to ask for. We beg you to listen to Master Akira.”

I looked over to Master Akira.

“There is a way,” Master said. He chewed on more trout and then spit out the bones. Master stared at me for a long time. “There is a way. There is always a way for justice.”

As Manzo had done, I walked in front of Master Akira and then bowed in the old way. I remained bent, sword behind me, with my palms open.

Silence gave way to Master’s whispering. So soft were his words, as if Master savored the air. He spoke yet remained speechless except to himself.

I waited, bent and vulnerable.

“For now, you rest,” Master said. “Others arrive this evening. I’ll take counsel with them. There is a way.”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

For many, rest meant to sleep. Over the years, Master taught me a different type of rest that involved hours of meditation and breathing. The resting techniques never failed to refresh me. I bowed once more to him then walked to a quiet, secluded spot, near a boulder, beneath tight rows of old pine trees.

Kara sat at my side.

“What are you going to do, Eric?”

“Rest.”

“No. What are you going to do about Manzo? He needs your help.”

An overwhelming sense of peace came over me with Master Akira present. It was as if I knew my place again. I looked deeply into Kara’s eyes. “For now, I rest.”

Kara nodded. She moved a little to my right to give me room then lay down to sleep. I sat with my legs crossed. The pain from my wounds had diminished yet remained dull and achy. The large scab on my leg reminded me of how close I came to death. I closed my eyes, began my meditation, and drifted into silence and acceptance of the task at hand.

It may have been minutes or even hours of rest when Master tapped me on the shoulder. He whispered to me. “Come.”

I followed Master to his horse where he pulled out a small cage filled with three red cardinals. He tied yellow ribbons to three of the birds then released them into the air. They flew high above the tree tops, circled a few times over our camp, then disappeared to the north.

The Sun crossed its midday point and faded into cloud cover. It broke out moments later then disappeared again behind clouds against a bright blue sky. A soft, cool wind pushed through the forest. Kara slept soundly. I took my sword and followed Master deep into the forest.

Every few steps, Master looked into the trees then on the ground. He was searching for something. He kept a moderate pace for nearly two hours as I trailed behind him.

We stopped in a small clearing. The grass had been eaten away. Only leaves and small stones remained on the ground. Master motioned for me to walk over to him but to be silent. I did as he advised.

“What do you see?” he said.

I looked around the small clearing. Nothing moved. Dry leaves covered the ground. I searched the trees. Again, nothing moved. No birds or squirrels could be found. “I see nothing, Master.”

“Now close your eyes, tell me what you see?”

I did as he asked. My mind’s eye filled with sounds and images of chirping, scratching, and scraping noises under the leaves. I focused on the noise. It came from some kind of insect. It came from something large. “It’s an insect of some kind.”

“Good. Come.”

I followed Master to the edge of the clearing. He picked up a twig. After picking through some leaves he pushed the twig through the leaves with enough force to lift them into the air. Grasshoppers, by the thousands, followed the leaves into the air then disappeared back into the leaves, not to be seen again.

Master smiled. He grabbed one of the grasshoppers, pulled the head off, and ate the rest of it. He chewed for a long time, savoring the grasshopper in his mouth. He pulled four canvases from drawstring sacks from his side.

I recognized these bags as sacks merchants used at the market for carrying potatoes, pumpkins, and apples. I took them from his extended hand.

“On our way back, when the Sun falls behind the west, stay here and fill these sacks. Fill these sacks with grasshoppers—dead and alive, it matters not—but fill them until they are ready to burst.”

“Yes, Master,” I said. I knew from my past to not question his logic, or in this case his choice of food.

“We have one more stop.”

We walked another hour. The forest thinned out. We left the cover of the forest behind us and then stood in front of a red clay hill with boulders, rocks, and pebbles littering its surface. No plant, shrub, or tree existed on this hill.

We crawled, tight to the surface of the hill until we reached its peak. Master peered over. He scanned the lands below. He nudged me to do the same.

The view from the top of the barren hill revealed a desert valley below. The thinning forest surrounded it. Straight ahead of us a thin row of trees separated the desert valley from a lush green valley to its south. It was a strange sight to see such a barren place next to the lush forest around it.

“Stay low to the ground,” Master said. He pointed to the southwest. “We came this way by night. Unseen by either side.”

Zetec warriors camped on the edge of the forest. I looked over to the opposite side. Deeper and in more cover, the Commerce City militia spread along nearly the entire landscape of the southeastern forest. In the middle of the desert valley, a fortress of sand and clay stood silent. I looked back to the Zetec camp. Sanctum Village soldiers joined their ranks just north of where the main body of the Zetec warriors waited.

“This is war,” I said.

“Yet, they say it’s a meeting for a truce,” Master said with a smile.

I pointed to the Commerce City soldiers. “Their cover is stronger. The forest is thicker.”

“Look at the top of the trees, what do you see?” Master said.

My eyes peered into the pine and oak trees above the Commerce City soldiers. Thousands and thousands of blackbirds, crows, and brown gulls sat nestled in the branches. They made no sounds at all. “Even the birds sense the death to come.”

“Those birds feed on the living and the dead,” Master said. “Like us, they wait for the right moment to strike. The old Vicar fortress is where the Minister and Sanctum politicians will have their truce meeting.” Master pointed to the old fortress below.

“Out in the open where both sides can see the other,” I said.

“Even those that see are blind.” Master chuckled to himself. “Eric, I have found a way. A way for you to achieve what you want. A way for you to do what must be done to rid this world of the Minister.”

We crawled back down, walked back into the forest, and then sat down to talk by a shallow stream.

“Master, please show me the way.”

“The way is through balance.”

“Balance? Tell me of the Ravens. Is it true that you lead them?”

Master took a deep breath. “Lead them? Where have I led them? After all these years the Minister still lives.”

“But, you are the leader,” I said.

“I am a leader of the Ravens. There are others. They come tonight.”

I shook my head. It struck me as strange that he never mentioned his organization to me in all those years. “Let me guess, it was not for me to know, right?”

“That’s right,” Master said. “It matters not. We have all come to this moment. We are here. The fate of this land falls upon our hands. Nothing else matters.”

“If I kill the Minister, will his men kill Manzo’s daughter?”

“The Minister controls Manzo like a dog. He uses the threat on Manzo’s daughter as the leash. His men will not only kill the daughter, they will do it in front of Manzo. That is their way. That is the Minister’s way.”

I stood up and paced. His words angered me. “Then how can you trust Manzo? He’s a threat to all of us. What keeps him from killing you or me?”

“Balance.”

“I don’t understand. Why do you always talk of balance?”

“It’s the cycle of life. The balance of life,” Master said. “What does Manzo gain by killing me? He needs you alive. He must deliver you to the Minister alive. The Minister needs you to regain his credibility. He can only do that publicly in Commerce City. His people have lost faith in him thanks to you. I promise you, Eric. He will not kill you quickly.”

My blood boiled. My head ached. “I welcome the chance to meet him.” “Your death wish may be our greatest advantage.”

Once again, his words confused me. We drank from the stream then made our way back into the forest. Master Akira went ahead of me to the camp. I stayed behind to gather his delicacy of grasshoppers. I did as he instructed and filled the sacks full of live and dead grasshoppers. It took less than an hour to fill the sacks because I got on my knees, held the sacks open with both hands, and then swept them across the leaves. Several sweeps over the ground filled and packed one of the sacks. Master always had strange taste in food. Years ago, when I trained with him in the swamp, he fed me rat. When we trained on the island, and fish was not available, he instructed me to gather seaweed and shells. He cooked the most delicious soup with just those two ingredients. Still, I had no plans of eating grasshopper.

Kara greeted me even before I arrived at the campfire. She hugged me and took two of the bags.

“Eric, what’s in here?”

“Grasshoppers.”

She held the bags away from her body. “Why?”

“Master Akira likes to eat them.”

“Ugh.”

Even in the low light of dusk, I noticed that red clay stained Kara’s hands. “Were you digging with your hands?”

“Your master asked me to gather a type of clay, blue clay, deep in the ground.”

“For what?” I asked.

“Maybe he snacks on that too,” she said with a smile.

It felt good to see her smile. After all we’d been through and after all she did to save me, it felt good to smile with her. Every moment with her drew me closer to knowing her more than the days before. In a way, it scared me to get so close. It scared me because of what I knew I had to do in the days to come. So many around me have died already, I could not let her be another. We walked into the camp.

“Eric!”

An Asian man of tremendous girth, now bald, called out to me.

I left my two sacks of grasshoppers on the ground at Kara’s feet. She knew to stay behind as I moved forward to greet Master Taka. I bowed deeply to him and awaited his command.

“Rise, Eric. Come let me look at you.”

I stood before him as he examined the wounds on my leg, arm, and shoulder. He pulled up my shirt to reveal the scars left by Kim Iron’s metal-tipped whip. I presented to him my katana, the sword he made for me many years before. “So many times this blade has saved me, Master Taka.”

“You are the blade. This is only steel. It is you that cuts, not the sword.”

I bowed again to show my respect for his words.

“You have suffered greatly, my friend. Yet, it warms me to see you alive. Have you brought me something?”

“Master Akira asked me to gather grasshoppers.”

“Ah, a delicacy for all. Come here, girl. You are no stranger to me.”

Kara came forward. “It is so good to see you, Master Taka.”

Master Taka rubbed his belly as he hugged her. “As I told you, I would recover. Have I not?”

Kara laughed. “Yes you have. You have fully recovered.”

“Your mother is safe, Kara?”

“She remains at Sanctum Village.”

“Good for now,” he said.

From behind Master Taka, Sebastian, Paco, Jasper, and Ariana came forward. They bowed to me as a greeting. I returned to them the same.

“Come, let’s sit by the fire. Master Akira has words for us,” Sebastian said.

We gathered around the fire. Kara sat to my left and Paco to my right. Around the rest of the fire sat the Ravens, then Manzo with his wife Eva, and then the two Masters. Master Akira plucked two live grasshoppers from one of my four sacks. He gave one to Master Taka. They crunched on them together.

“These lands are kind to us. They provide food, water, and safety,” Master Akira said. “Only humans fill these lands with hatred, war, and death. We can restore balance to these lands by destroying Minister Taybor. His death will bring forth new lives of peace and harmony. That is the only purpose he can serve –to die.”

Master Taka lifted up a Raven cloak, brown with a shiny coating on the inside. “I’ve worked many months on these. Layers and layers of wax, with flakes of metal, provides for your protection against crossbow arrows.” He passed the cloak around. “The arrows will pierce through, but this cloak will keep the arrows from penetrating deep into your body. At the right angle, the arrows may even bounce off.”

He put a bucket of red clay at his feet then motioned to Kara. She stood up then ran to a boulder. She came back with a small satchel of blue clay.

Master Taka combined a pinch of the blue clay with a pinch of the red clay. The mixture sizzled and put out black smoke. Black smoke filled the air around us. “You’ll have cover.” Master Taka motioned to Paco. Moments later he held a belt up with three pockets. He pulled out small, round, flat objects, no bigger than my palm. He passed the objects around.

I held the round object in my hand. The entire edge, except for a small area for holding it, had been sharpened to a razors edge, yet it weighed at least as heavy as a throwing knife. I touched the edge with my finger. It sliced just enough to start bleeding.

“I call these steel butterflies,” Master Taka said with a smile.

“I have talked to each of you in private. I have asked of you a specific task. Now you will learn what that task is for.” Master Akira stood up. “The only way to kill the Minister is to bring him what he wants.” He told everyone what was at stake with Manzo’s daughter and repeated his reasons for why the Minister must be destroyed.

I listened to Master Akira’s every word.

“Tomorrow, Eric will face Minister Taybor unarmed and bound. He will be exchanged for Manzo’s daughter. The child must not die at the hands of the Minister.”