2 cobra 14

 

Chapter 14

 

The cold was excruciating. And I do mean at the level of torture. There was a foot or more of snow on the silent forest floor, whilst the pine trees around were starkly black and silent where they had not shed their load of snow. I needed to do something to keep warm in very short order.

I kept moving.

That was important, keep moving fast enough to keep the muscles warmed, not so fast as to cause the body to sweat. Sweat could be fatal.

No likelihood of being an animal I could kill and skin when there had been a helicopter. I took out one bootlace and pulled two saplings together the side the wind came from most and tied their tops as a windbreak.  Then I piled snow up behind them to fill the cracks. There were branches, and those I balanced on the top of the two young trees; I had permitted enough spring to them to make a curve. I also needed  some branches to put on the ground. Off the ground, I had a chance. On the ground, not a hope.

There was a crash in the bushes, and I hefted a good stick about four feet long as a club.

The crash resolved into a pink and blue shivering human body, named Dave.

“Don’t run about, you’ll sweat, and then you’ll need the bleeper not to be deep frozen long pig,” I said.

He managed a grin.

“I knew you’d know what to do.”

I took a handful of snow and rubbed him down roughly. Yes, I know snow is frozen water, but it removed the actual fluid of the sweat from him and the rubbing was rough enough to make him feel a bit warmer. Though I needed to warm him up properly.

“Gather pine cones,” I told him. “Build them up in front of the shelter.”

It was something he could manage, and I continued building, pulling off live branches of needles to weave in and out of the top of the shelter.  I put a layer of those on top of the branches as well. Pine needles in the fundament may not be much fun, but better than freezing.

I used a stick which had blown off something forcibly, having a wide torn end which would make a spade of sorts. I dug away to the ground. I didn’t want to set the forest floor ablaze.

When I’d cleared a kind of trench in front of the shelter, and threw the snow to make a berm behind it, I set to making fire.

“Bootlace,” I said, to Dave.

He gave me a bootlace.

I tied it to each end of a green stick to make a bow.

I then needed an oldish piece of soft, partly rotted wood and a hard stick; not difficult to come by. I thrust a handful of dry old pine needles into Dave’s hand; I had found them inside a cleft in a tree.

“When you see wisps of smoke, feed them in gently; don’t force it and don’t put it out,” I said.

He nodded seriously. I put a bight of his shoelace round the hardwood, and held the softwood between my knees, squatting, which is a damned painful position. The bow pulled the hardwood in rotation faster than it is possible by rubbing between the hands, and so made it heat up the quicker. We started to get a tendril of smoke.

“Wait,” I said to Dave. “A little more....”

I could smell charring now, and smell the smoke.

“OK,” I said.

He managed to be gentle without being too tentative, and the sere needles crackled into sudden flame which died to embers almost immediately.

“Keep feeding it,” I said. He did so, as I continued bowing.  Soon there were quite a lot of crackles of not quite flame, and I lifted the burning mass to put inside a hole I had made at the base of the trench with small sticks, broken pine cones, and dead leaves from a bush around it. I blew on it and was rewarded with a tiny flame.

Now I could start to feed it.

“I have no idea how to make a fire,” said Dave. “It’s almost like magic.”

“The trick is now to feed it fast enough but not too fast,” I said. “Ok, that’s enough for now,” as he wanted to feed it too fast. “We can’t afford to lose all our fuel.  I saw a fallen log over there, if you help me bring it, we can sit on it by the fire to get warm.  And then take turns at foraging for wood when we’ve warmed up a little.”

“It’s amazing!” said Dave. “The difference having this scrape of a shelter behind us makes.”

I smiled enigmatically.

It was probably something he assumed came naturally to a First Nation man like Jay Silverheels. It was something I had learned from my Sensei, who made me read books on survival so that I could survive wherever I ended up.

We sat on our log until I regretfully left the warmth to get more fuel.

Then Dave went.

I had put two long branches to hold our fuel wood off the ground; green branches went over them as a roof, more important overnight.  I found a stream whilst foraging for wood, and brought back a number of smooth river stones, better to contain the fire, and if wrapped in moss when heated in the fire, a good hand warmer. I also found a piece of flint which I broke to have sharp edges, and stripped some bark of a birch tree on the stream’s edge.  I folded it to make a cup, and drank my fill, then took it back full for Dave.

“Not good to eat snow,” I said. “It cools you down. This is a bit too cold but at least not frozen.”

He drank, gratefully. We had worked quite hard, after all, and it was pretty smoky.

“You’re amazing,” he said.

“I read the right books,” I said.  I was hoping to find some cat tails if we followed the stream; you can make a sort of porridge with them.  I’d have to make a bigger cup and heat it by dropping hot stones in it, but it would work.

“There’s how to do this in books?” he was amazed.

“You may have to go looking,” I said. “But yes.”

Hey, I might write one myself when this is over. That would keep me busy. And in a few years, our kid could help daddy with extreme camping.

“Rick!” Willow’s voice came in my ear. “One of those big lugs deliberately broke the drone on him. He didn’t know I have a second one. He met someone who gave him clothes and a shotgun; pump action. And he’s heading your way.”

“Oh bugger,” I said.

“What?” said Dave.

“Get in the shelter, and pull some branches over you,” I said. “We’re going to have company, and it isn’t going to be friendly.”

I pulled down a large branch to lie on, myself, and pulled another over me, pretending to be part of the woodpile.

I had my club with me; not much of a weapon against a firearm.

However, a pump action shotgun needed dry lubricant in this level of cold. I wondered if chummer knew that?

I wondered if whoever had given it to him knew that.

One way to find out.

I could hear the crunch of his boots on the snow.

I took the risk of throwing a stone into a bush.

He fired at the sound. I hoped he might. Then he was coming forward.

I stood up. He swung the gun round to point at me, and worked the action.

It stuck.

The look of incredulity on his face was hilarious. But I did not have time to laugh.

“You saw that,” I said to the drone.

Chummer now had a big, expensive club; the spent cartridge was jammed in, and he could not get another into the chamber.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.

Most people who die young, die of ignorance.

I fended off his new club, and hit him with  mine.  I was better with archaic weapons, or possibly me heap big caveman.

He went down.

I stripped off his clothes.

“Here, Dave, you put these on; you need them more than I do,” I said.

He made token protest, but accepted a shirt and pants. I took the fellow’s undershirt and jacket. I wasn’t going near his longjohns unless things got desperate. I stripped them off, though, to put on our sleeping platform in the shelter.

“You may fart on them,” I said to Dave.

He laughed.

I also took off his boots and socks and put them in the shelter; now we had a spare pair in case ours got wet. By common consent we each replaced our missing laces.

The chummer?  I left him where he was. If he came too, I had left him his squawkbox.

Of course, Oppenheimer turned up with cas-evac for my assailant.

“Have you killed him?” he demanded.

“I think having a shotgun pointed at me justifies anything I might do,” I said. “He did try to hit me with it as well.”

“You’ll have to give up your clothes.”

“Not according to the rules,” I said. “We are at liberty to use anything which presents itself for our survival.  He presented himself. If he’d been a bear, we’d have had the skin. This just smells less bad. Moreover, he has delayed our wood gathering, and therefore our time is running down to get enough by nightfall. As are you,” I added, pointedly. “I hope he is forfeiting any prize and is going straight to the calaboose.”

“I... yes, of course,” said Oppenheimer.

He left hastily in case I had a case of debagging in mind to relieve him of his pants.

I would have done if he hadn’t made himself scarce.

A bit of imagination and a bit of growling and he could easily represent a bear.

 

Well, they had tried their hand at bribing a fellow contestant. I rather fancied I might be seeing a family member next.

Meantime, I planned to unfreeze the shotgun by the fire. He had fired one, leaving seven rounds.

I could have one in the chamber which would work, as his first shot had worked. I just couldn’t work the action without warming it between.

However, I now had six shells worth of gunpowder. I wiped the oil off the gun with the cuff of his longjohns, to prevent it re-freezing. We would sleep with it, loaded, to keep it warm, in case trouble came overnight.

Paranoia.

It keeps me alive.

And with the safety on, we would be in no danger of the gun going off overnight.

 

I wondered if Willow was following the other contestants, but I didn’t want to give up my ace in the hole.  Getting Dave out of sight and making ready could be explained by preternaturally sharp hearing. However, Willow knows me well. She knew I’d want to know.

“The girls met up,” she told me. “They found a cave in the side of the river, under the roots of a big old oak tree. It’s given them plenty of firewood, too, and they have a fire. You might want to shift camp to join them tomorrow. Lamborghini decided that being seeded in the top eight was enough, and bleeped. The other two tough guys are working together; they’ve done this before. They used trees like you, but more of them in a dome and have essentially used it as the frame of an igloo. They’re going to get a nasty shock, though, as they have a fire inside their shelter, and from outside, I can see the snow on top of their branches shifting as it melts.”

You need to have blocks of ice to make an igloo in which you can have a fire, and then you really need a stove pipe to carry away the heat and smoke. A hole in the roof isn’t enough. They must be pretty well kippered, too. Though if they cut turfs after making the fire to lay over it, they should be ok, and have some charcoal to use to more swiftly start a cookfire. I suspected, however, they just planned to sit it out as long as they could and hope to win or place high by default. Dave was lucky to have found me.

No, not quite true; Dave was determined to find me, and he had been dropped right after me, so he had some idea of my direction.  And to my mind, finding a survival expert was a survival skill in itself.

He grinned happily.

“Want to take a turn wearing the pants?” he asked.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I don’t wear the pants in my own home, so why should I worry when shacking up with you?”

Dave laughed heartily.

“Consider yourself poked,” said Willow.

We turned in, hungry but not dehydrated, having also melted snow in the cups – I made a second – by the fire. I was hoping for some small animals to be around at dawn.

It was cold, but warm enough to be safe to doze without risking hypothermia, and just by being there together, the temperature rose. I got up from time to time, Dave having fallen asleep with exhaustion.

False dawn was in the sky when I thought I heard an aero engine. Which might have been anyone on legitimate business; or it might not. I had seen the gleam of a lake to the north.

If it was a flying boat full of yakuza...

There was a stag stepping delicately through the forest at the edge of our clearing; and he was useful calories.

I could not afford not to shoot, even if the enemy heard it. Shots in forests ring out all the time, there were probably cabins somewhere. And the echoes mean direction is hard to gauge.

I shot him.

He was a fine fellow, and I wished I did not have to; but on the balance of things, deer left to their own devices breed like rabbits and take the food of other denizens of the forest. I ran across to collect him, which was a chore in itself, but I wanted warmth to work on skinning and jointing him.

And I wanted that shotgun kept warm in the shelter and yet, to hand. Since I was almost certain the plane had come down, and had not gone off again.

 

2 cobra 13

 sorry, sorry, I was plunging into writing.... this might end up needing another story to make enough length but at least it will carry on. 

 

Chapter 13

 

 

There was a big funeral for Daichi of course. I did not attend.

I’d be as welcome as a fire in an ice cream factory.

The security was huge, and a number of the Black Roses were arrested for assaulting anyone they thought was of First Nation descent. As this included a most offended Muscovite trader whose family was Siberian, it was a bit of a diplomatic incident. I managed to extricate the aggrieved Muscovite, and took him for vodka and sticky things with cream in the Russian cafe, ‘Rodina.’ No, I don’t trust any Muscovite, but it never harms to have contacts.

I stuck to tea, which the Russians drink very strong and sweet. I like it well enough and I am always a sucker for sticky things with cream.

And I was thinking of comestibles if anyone was having smutty thoughts about my wife.

Willow would probably be happy to take a job in here washing up for a couple of weeks so she could figure out the recipes. You never know when being able to cook for a particular culture might come in. She could cook Chinese food to die for, and Japanese food which was actually edible.

I left Gospodin Vladimir Vasiliyevitch Ponamarenko feeling happier, with a likelihood of being hospitable to citizens of Seattle and a friend of Jay’s. Called Rick.

I had to leave him teaching Willow how to make Russian tea, however, as I was called up for the last task; strictly no wives.

Willow would quietly find her way to the test site, but another day giving hospitality to a convivial contact who would be returning with a contract from Consolidated Boeing – or as we locals call it, Reconstituted Boeing from when it had to be heaved out of trouble and nationalised by the guvmint – and a happy future for his special safety equipment.

No wonder he had to come to America to sell it; the phrase, ‘health and safety’ to the average Muscovite means whether he remembered to pack his cigarettes and vodka.

 

oOoOo

 

I arrived at the big hotel in Canada. We’d had our first snow in Seattle so it wasn’t such a shock to me getting off the plane as it was to some people. The place was white.

The hotel was white, too, but that was because the facade was white marble. Inside was more marble  than I could have imagine existed. For starters the floor was cream marble save for a circle of black marble surrounding the bottom of the staircase. The staircase had curved treads of black marble diminishing slightly in size up to a kind of half-landing, which would have been second floor height – or do they count, like in England in Canada to be the first floor? – anywhere else. The balustrade was white marble carved in a baroque filigree. The staircase then split to rise further, following the circular atrium to open on the next floor [however it was numbered] which was on a gallery encircling the atrium completely with a balcony between marble pillars, the balcony of the same intricately carved marble. There was another floor above that, equally looking down into the atrium, and above that, carved semi-circular plaster scenes, big enough to hint at servants’ quarters hidden behind them. Above all, a glass roof let in the daylight which was almost superfluous with the number of chandeliers. There were rooms off the atrium, presumably lounges, smoking rooms, card rooms, dining rooms and so on. Here in the atrium, several comfortable looking sofas lurked in niches, presumably for people waiting for vehicular transport, or meeting people, potted plants, provided with discreet low tables for coffee with magazines on a lower shelf and so on.

I am not sure what the other clientele though of us scruffy herberts. I went and lurked on one of the lurking sofas whilst waiting to be shown my room.

I was right. It was leather-covered and real leather at that, you could smell it, even without my expensive nose, the gorgeous smell of polish on leather.  It was just as comfortable as it looked.

I parked my feet over the arm, being careful not to put them on the leather. I may be a pleb, but I’m not a barbarian.

A woman coming down the stairs gave a little moan of dismay.

She half looked as if she was going to flee back up rather than pass my fellows.

Raymond Lamborghini saved the day. He swept her a bow.

“Ma’am!” he said. “Don’t be intimidated by us, I pray you. We don’t bite.”

“I do,” I said.

“Most of us don’t bite,” said Ray. “Ignore my friend; he had his sense of humour operated on and something went wrong on the table and it ended up pickled.”

I grinned at him.

“As a consequence of which, cold white marble frightens me,” I said, rising to bow.

I can be a gentleman.

When I choose.

The dowager-type was more or less giggling by now at our repartee.

“Oh, dear me, I do hope you will all be all right in that terrible competition,” she said.

“Why, surely you will watch and cheer us on?” said Ray.

“Ray! You haven’t been introduced, most improper of you to call the lady ‘Shirley,’” I admonished.

She was laughing, and blushing a little, possibly from the thought of so many handsome fellows in their skivvies.

“And my name is Rose Markham,” she said.

“Ah, a good name for a true flower of womanhood,” said Ray. It sounds ghastly but the way he said it was plain he was teasing as well as complimenting; I have no idea how he managed to make such cheesy lines sound reasonable.

“They’re planning to bottle Ray, and sell him by the ounce to men with no charm,” I said.

“So long as I get a fair cut,” said Ray.

Mrs. Markham passed on to, she said, the restaurant, where she was meeting her attorney.

“May all law suits suit, and be as sweet as the suite in which you dine,” I said.

I kissed her hand with a flourish, as Ray worked on figuring that piece of wordplay out.

At least we knew now where the restaurant was.

“You two are incredible,” said Elizabeth.

“It’s why you love us,” I said, wondering whether to mosey back to my sofa.  But then Mr. Oppenheimer turned up with someone who looked so like an old world duke that he had to be the manager.

“I’m sure they have not been harassing the guests,” said Oppenheimer, hoping that we had not.

“Depends what you call ‘harassment,’” I drawled. “We were polite to a lady.”

“Surely you didn’t initiate conversation?” he yapped.

“Ray did, and will you people stop calling everyone Shirley,” I said.

“C’est terrible, eh bien, vraiment, c’est terrible,” muttered the manager.

“M’sier le chef, on se moque le présentateur; au fond, on n’aime pas ce petit casse-cul,” I said.

He beamed at me, and I found myself besieged with a torrent of French and a gallic kiss on each cheek. I bore it stoically, and sorted out that I had named the little asshole quite accurately, and that it was understandable that anyone should have a desire to mock him and that it was intolerable for the upstart to be throwing his weight around, and that it was delightful to meet someone who spoke a civilised language.

You’d have thought I was his long lost brother.

Anyway, we had no more trouble from the management, and were installed in our suites without further ado.

Apart from the bathrooms they were not too infested with marble. Warm wood enclosed us and ensconced us, cradling us in its inviting embrace.  And I was going to find the even more inviting embrace of the deep feather bed very enticing on the way back, no doubt.

The bed had a canopy, and brocade curtains and bed back. Better yet, it had a bookcase included in the panelled side to the bed, a locking cupboard in one panel for small valuables not worth putting in the hotel safe, and a recharge and internet point for one’s phone. On investigating, I discovered a table which popped out, and another cupboard with a couple of pillows and blankets.

I went investigating to find out what else was in the thickness of the walls, and discovered that between the suites a panel swung out to reveal a storage space which was like the wedge of a cake, the floor being circular, but the apartments squared off.

On the other side in the bathroom were spare towels opening onto the suite, and more towels in the cupboard between suites.

You never know when such things might be useful.

I bribed the bellhop outrageously to go and get me certain power tools.

I spent most of the rest of the evening installing a bolt hole through the bed panelling into the cupboard between; and one which was not an obvious cupboard at that.  And having eaten in the excellent private room we had been allotted for dining, I did the same in the bathroom.

I hid the power tool on top of the ornate bed canopy. It was dusty enough to suggest that the maids did not clean often enough; and people don’t look up.

What did we have for dinner? We opened with Bouillabaisse, Coq au vin to follow and some gateau to finish up with layers of delicious.

Sorry, I can’t be more precise than that.

I left a generous tip for the cook and the waiters who had to put up with a private party.

And at least I knew to ask for a nice Sauvignon Blanc with my fish and chicken, and allowed the wine chef to talk me into a light rosé dessert wine to go with the dessert. He was blenching at those of my fellows who had asked for beer. This was Tom, Dick, and Harry, or whatever their names were.

We finished with cheese and biscuits and ridiculous little savoury tarts and vol-au-vents. It really was light enough pastry to fly with the wind.

“What are all these sticks?” asked Elizabeth, suspiciously.

“Celery, carrot, cucumber, and I think cabbage stalks,” I said. “They’re called crudites.”

“Why?” asked Elizabeth. She watched me dip mine into the sauces provided and copied me.

“It means raw, uncooked,” I said. “In its crude or untampered state. Just enjoy.”

“I don’t normally like carrot,” said Elizabeth, sounding surprised.

“You get the best flavour from the finely cut sticks,” I said, quoting Willow.

Yes, she converted me to eating more vegetables. And Auntie had always expected me to eat up my vegetables, and I was too afraid of offending a good landlady – as she was at first – not to do so, and discovered that cabbage had a taste which was not synonymous with washing up water, and that even sprouts are tolerable cooked with enough butter and bacon.[1] I still prefer my cabbage stir fried to being boiled, but I don’t dislike it when done properly.

And yes, I go on a lot about Willow’s cooking, and Auntie’s too. I spent far too many years institutionalised where the air tasted of overboiled green vegetables, and where eating your vegetables was a thing to do to avoid vindictive and creative punishments. If it hadn’t been for Auntie, I’d be like the other institution kids, whose only veg were fries and fried onions.

And that was something I could do with all that money; give a few other kids a leg up.

However, that’s by the way.

I strongly suspected that this meal was by way of being ‘the condemned man ate a hearty last meal.’ Well, we were due breakfast, but it would likely be very French, and confined to fruit, pastries, and coffee.

I jandered off to see the chef.

Of course, the guests are not supposed to enter his hallowed domain, but a healthy tip gets an interview with the man himself.

“I was wondering what the ‘Extreme’ contestants were going to have for breakfast,” I asked.

“I was going to provide scrambled eggs, some bacon and also pain au chocolate, croissants, fruit, and coffee,” he said.

I brightened.

“Oh, that’ll suit most of us,” I said. “I had been going to ask for an omelette.”

He brightened.

“An omelette shall you have; an omelette to die for.”

I hoped not.

“We’ll be some days without food. Could you make it a Spanish omelette?” I asked, hopefully.

“It shall be so!” he cried. “Pierre! Peel me two dozen potatoes and boil them to just underdone!” he called to some menial.

I thanked him materially.

We might be glad of it.

 

oOoOo

 

Breakfast was greeted with enthusiasm as soon as the first taste had been made.

“This isn’t omelette, it’s divine,” said Dave.

“Omelette is supposed to be divine,” I said. “I’ll teach you how to cook a good bachelor omelette when this is over. Even my wife can’t fault my omelettes and she’s an amazing cook.”

“I suppose you don’t let her have a career,” said Elizabeth.

“What a strange thing to say,” I said. “She’s the clever one of the two of us; she writes code for security systems.”

“Elizabeth is hung up on you being a sexy hunk,” said Julie. “She assumes you have muscles between the ears and in the attitude.”

“We got off to a bad start,” I said, equably. “What she doesn’t realise is that like Dave, I’m henpecked, but unlike Dave, my wife does so lovingly and I adore it. If she forbade me to do this, I’d obey. But this is my first, last, and only foray into ‘Extreme’ because we are hoping to start a family, and it would be irresponsible of a family man to do something that could get him killed.”

Elizabeth was burning.

“I always seem to be apologising to you,” she said.

I shrugged.

“Think nothing of it; you’re proving yourself in a competition which is, by its nature, mostly male, because where you score, in endurance, is not tested as thoroughly. Which is why you and Julie have every chance of placing well in this last one. You don’t need to have the jitters.”

She gave me a slightly bitter smile.

“I do, all the same,” she said.  “I have a little sister; she’s paralysed after a climbing accident we were both involved in. It wasn’t my fault, but I encouraged her to go so I feel that it was my fault. And this is the only way I can hope to get enough for an operation.”

“Right,” I said. “The rest of us who hang out of you, will we all pledge a proportion of our fee for surviving to Elizabeth for her sister? I knew you were driven even though not enjoying it, and now we know why, we can help.”

“I’m not going to,” said Tom [or Dick, or Harry, I never specified which was which.]

“You weren’t asked,” I said.

“I think I speak for us all when I say we’re in,” said Dave. “I’ve had an offer to manage a junk shop with an option to buy; so I’ve got a job after this. And cocking a snoot at Norah has been the best thing ever.”

Ray and Julie nodded.

Elizabeth came over all tearful.

“Now then!” I said. “You need to be at your best. And they don’t drop us hugely far apart so we can maybe co-operate if we all find each other.”

She nodded.

“I saw what you did to make a sling, and I’ve been practising.... with another item of clothing. If I’m allowed to keep that.”

“There was a woman last year, and she got to keep her bra,” said Julie. “What a brilliant idea!”

“Remember, this location has been approved by the SPCA, so we don’t have to worry about any bears having helpless cubs; they wouldn’t permit it,” I said. “In case anyone freezes in a fit of conscience before taking down a bear.”

“Jay, mate, none of us was considering being able to take down a bear,” said Dave. “A sling is surely not enough?”

“I was going to make a spear,” I said. “Bear meat is good eating too.”

“Hell, I hope we end up close to Mr. Survival,” said Dave, fervently.

And then we were being collected, and taken to a place where we stripped to our basics and, wrapped for a brief while in blankets, were transported to our destination by helicopter.

 

---

[1] Author’s note; I like sprouts, but Cobra was used to them boiled to death in Juvie Hall.

2 cobra 12

 

Chapter 12

 

“The Black Rose gumi is very resistant to talks,” said Tarquin. “They don’t seem to think that our killer can reach their inner circle.”

“It won’t be easy,” I said. “Old Hikaru rarely comes out of his fortress. And he keeps his sons close to him; Daichi and Isamu are rarely seen. However, Daichi fancies himself as a swordsman. I could issue a challenge, that his kinsman has offended against me, and that I am prepared to settle it sword to sword.”

“Are you good enough?” asked Tarquin.

Being Tarquin, it was a question for clarification, not a slur on my ability.

“Yes,” I said. “When I was an angry little boy, my sensei had used the sword to give me focus, both to fight, and to learn that the best way to win was to be the blade; and that the blade is not angry, or sorrowful, or vengeful, nor does it gloat or take joy. The blade is cold steel which dances in the air and brings whispering death in its path, not because it enjoys it, but because this is the way of the sword.”

“I don’t pretend to understand the mysticism, but if it makes you a better swordsman, I am happy,” said Tarquin.

Willow smiled and fed him another strawberry muffin right out of the oven. She understood the mysticism, and that was enough.

I used the medium of the newscast. Why not?  Jay was a celebrity.

“There was a tragic death in the last task,” I said. “Somehow, Ichiro Fukuhama fell when roof-running. It’s a skill he has always prided himself on; and I have to say, my own opinion is that he has not taken into account that age catches up with us all, and a man of thirty-two is not the man of twenty-seven that he was when he first won ‘Extreme.’ The drone man thought that a bird flew into his face and startled him, which may well have happened. However, it did happen, he is dead, and for some reason, Sanji Fukuhama chose to blame me.  Now, someone has been trying to kill me all through the show, and it’s my belief it was Ichiro. I can’t prove it, but I assume it is because he saw something in me which he had in his prime. I consider that I am the injured party, but Ichiro’s relatives are too cowardly to meet me for a duel or anything like that, being nothing more than stinking criminals, even if they wrap their criminal acts up in beautiful paintings, poetry, and culture. They are filth, and worse than that, they are cowardly filth only capable of acting with remote toys. Not one of them has the courage to meet me mano a mano in the arena in The Rubble at dawn tomorrow.”

I planned to make sure any additions to the party were able to be dealt with by my people in The Rubble.

It would be covered by the trids, so nobody would be likely to try anything untoward, but hey, better safe than sorry.

“That should stir Daichi,” said Willow. “Old Hikaru is too canny to be drawn out by that, but I imagine his sons both want to murder you.”

“Yes, but if they do so in any other way than at the duel I suggested would mark them as the cowards I called them,” I said.

“If you kill one, the other will come for you at the last task,” warned Willow.

“I was hoping so,” I said.

“Rick! You’ll not have anything to counter him,” scolded Willow.

“Only this,” I pointed to my head.

“Be careful, Rick,” said Willow. “We don’t want any little Cobra to grow up without a daddy.”

I stared.

“You mean....”

“It’s a perfectly normal phenomenon when a honey bee loves a flower very much,” said Willow, gravely.

“I... I will try to respect that you know what’s best for you and I promise not to be a nuisance pampering you,” I said, my head spinning.

“I trust you for that,” said Willow, kissing me tenderly. “I don’t mind a little bit of pampering, though.”

“Right,” I said. “Chocolates and flowers, though, not the skull of Daichi Fukuhama to make into a goblet.”

“It would play merry hell with the dishwasher,” said Willow. “Especially before you cleaned the flesh and brains off. The bill for unclogging the drains would be astronomical.”

I kissed her and we went to bed as soon as Tarquin had hurried off. We didn’t say a lot in bed, but everything we didn’t say was important.

 

 

Have I ever mentioned how much I do not like predawn starts? If I have not done so before, let me do so now.

In two hours either Daichi – I thought it would be Daichi – or I would be dead.

Willow, however, had essentially forbidden me to die. And I had so much to live for.

Of course, it’s a crazy way for any self-respecting assassin to operate, one on one, a fair chance. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be a fair chance, however. I work out against people who put their best into it; and I suspected that Daichi was facing partners who did not dare to be too good. I also studied other forms of swordplay than just katana, because though the fighting form is driven by the shape, reach, and dynamics of the blade, there are also lessons to be had in other styles. And my tsuba or hand-guard was not a standard one, incorporating as it did a thumb ring. I’d learned that one from the Falcon, a Polish assassin.

Being able to perform something called the moulinet – from the French for Windmill – a move where a blade can be swiftly reversed in direction – would give me an edge.

Sorry, no pun intended.

I also hoped that I was right about Daichi’s practice practices.

If he really was a man of iron and pushed himself to the limits, I might just be dead.

 

Willow went with me, of course. She does not stand back and weep her tears at home whilst worrying and watching the clock. She prefers to face whatever happens head on.

 

I was expecting the arena to be deserted.

What was almost more eerie was that it was full of spectators, all of them silent. My people in the Rubble know that Jay Silverheels is their friend, the Cobra; I don’t even try to hide it from them. Being mostly failed attempts to merge human and dog dna, a lot of them can smell who I am. And that is something I can’t change. It’s a flaw; but it’s also a strength. My people know me whatever face I wear.

And Algy and Croc were there as bodyguards for the Neon Flower. Algy, you might recall, was a large feline with a narwhal horn on his nose, which My Little Vetty had cut down and capped to be at least useful. And Croc was a crocodile on horse’s legs. Algy was a telepath.

He looked at me straight.

“All this guff on the news; you don’t do honour fights for your good name. It’s a way to kill someone who never comes out, right?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

He nodded.

“I’ll let you know what he’s thinking,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” I said, hastily, touched, knowing how he hates ugly thoughts.

“The Neon Flower wants you home in one piece,” he said, gruffly.

Willow hugged him and kissed his face.

Algy and Croc adored Willow. She treated them like people.

 

 

It was Daichi. He turned up with his contingent of cutthroats, so sorry, most honourable bodyguard. He sneered at the residents who had come to see the excitement. He and his guard were all armoured.

“What a bunch of eta,” he said, contemptuously, of the locals. Eta is a word for untouchables; those who deal with the dead, and with dead meat and other things below the notice of the majority.

“Greatest warrior in world still buried by eta when he dies.” I said. “”I see you really are a coward to come against me in armour when I wear none.”

He bared his teeth, and stripped off the armour. He was dressed traditionally for his culture; I honoured the real Jay Silverheels by wearing buckskins and warpaint. I doubted that Daichi could read what my warpaint said, as he was sneering at it. I had a black handprint on each cheek to symbolise my experience as a warrior and my success in hand to hand combat; a yellow lightning bolt on my forehead was to call for speed but in a colour which said I was ready to fight to the death. Red on my cheekbones declared me the happy warrior and was another symbol of strength.

Any first nation warrior looking at me should have quailed. And my supporters at least were, many of them, knowledgeable. Seattle has always had a closer relationship with its local tribes than many places.

We went out onto the arena.

“I trust that you at least know some of the amenities of civility as regards to the sword?” asked Daichi.

“More than you, probably,” I said. “I know the civilities in more than one culture after all. But I know to bow before we start, if you were wondering.”

His lip twitched.

We took our places, and bowed.

Each of us watched the other whilst bowing.  He was outraged that I kept an eye on him; I was amused that he kept an eye on me.

He kept eye contact as we circled before even drawing weapons; then he went for the iajutsu draw, the fast draw which culminates in a stroke which is fatal if not countered.

My own iajutsu draw was quite as fast as his, which surprised him when his arms jarred for  his sword meeting my blade going the other way.

There was a spontaneous cheer from the crowd.

Daichi pulled a sneer at me, close as we were.

“You look like something out of Naruto,” I said, cheerfully. It’s a manga tale, told and retold many times over, but to be compared to a populist manga tale irritated him for some reason. Maybe because it’s about Ninja, who are technically eta.

He disengaged and swung at me. I rotated away from the blade and kept going. I caught him a glancing blow across one leg.

That enraged him.

He was putting all his strength into his blows, and I was blocking, or rolling away.  I jumped over his blade more than once, to the polite applause of the audience.

When his tsuba caught me on the pressure point of the thumb and my sword flew out of my hand, I confess I was a trifle concerned. Daichi started laughing at this moment. The crowd had gone quiet.

“It was an accident, friend Cobra, but he plans to hurt you as much as he can before finishing you up,” said Algy, worried. He had been sending me pictures of Daichi’s intent, most of which I had read anyway from his body language.

“I’m not defeated yet,” I reassured Algy. He saw my intent, and chuckled.

I seemed to stumble as I retreated, and as Daichi leaped forward to do his worst, I turned the supposed stumble into a back flip and used its momentum to throw me forward again, kicking Daichi as I went,  and then rolled right past his legs to retrieve my dropped sword.

The applause was thunderous.

Daichi was furious.

Good.

An angry foe is a defeated foe.

There is no fight, there is no enemy, there is only the cutting.

I am the blade, I am the whistle in the wind.

I meet his attack and then disengage whilst he is still pushing, so that his blade falls aside, and so my blade, free, spins on the moulinet and comes up from under, and enters his body just below the ribcage. It keeps going.

That’s a lot of blood.

That really is a lot of blood.

Daichi is screaming, a thin scream which chokes and finishes... I am the blade... I have done my work.

I shake my head to stop the roaring in my ears, and shake the blood off my blade.

I cut him damn near clear in half.

I bow to the defeated.

“Whispering death comes

As the rains fall in winter

Grey as the steel blade,” I said.

The referee, an elderly man, made a note of it.

“You understand the way,” he said.

“I am warrior. I am the blade,” I said.

He nodded.

“I will inform my lord that his son died well and fell to an honourable opponent,” he said.

“It won’t end it,” I said. “Your lord wants me dead, and it will only end when I am dead or his clan destroyed.”

He did not contradict me.

“He will be merciful to one who has observed the niceties meticulously,” he assured me.

“He will be dead if he does not bow to the inevitable,” I said.

“Karma, neh?” he said.

“Hai, so desu; Karma,” I agreed.

Karma nothing; government will allied to government cash. But he was a nice old boy trying to persuade me, in his own way, to run before I was killed.

 

It turned out that the bodyguard were less honourable than the old boy; and had been... restrained by my lads.

That is to say, several of them bore dog bites on the ankles, and all of them were prevented from interfering by being held back by a variety of weapons.

“I am disappointed,” said the old boy.

“Take Daichi’s body back to his father,” I said. “And let it be an end to it.”

I could say that quite safely.

It wouldn’t be.

And we all knew it.

Which meant I could plot against the two who were left with a clear conscience.

 

Were you wondering where the cops were whilst a death duel, declared in the news, was going on? You’ve forgotten that what happens in The Rubble stays in The Rubble.

Anyone who accepts a death duel there and dies is held to have committed suicide.

A few had turned up, off-duty and incognito as you might say; those who were fans of mine, or had money riding on me.

“Jay! Don’t do these things til you’ve won!” said one of them.

“I want a chance to survive to do my winning,” I said. “It was a calculated gamble. One less to try to kill me.”

“Is it true that you won’t have any gear at all for the final?”

That was no cop, there were reporters here.

“Indeed, it is true,” I said. “As if killing Jay not good enough, organisers try to turn Jay into Jaysicle.” I made the joke on popsicle.

There was uneasy laughter.

“Will your ego shrink when you are dropped naked?” asked another reporter.

“We are allowed to retain our underwear and footwear,” I said. “Prime time not ready for the glory of naked Jay Silverheels. Even shrunk to just above average size.”

I had made the character a bit flamboyant. It would make Willow giggle.

It did.

“The bigger they come, the harder they fall,” she murmured to me.

“What a nice word ‘hard’ is,” I murmured back. “I need you.”

I did.

I don’t enjoy killing; I just happen to be good at it.

But I would need a new profession once this damned gumi were out of commission. Not that I needed a profession. My shares from this job were astronomical, and the game paid well too; but I like to keep busy.

Maybe I’d go back to teaching the awkward squad, without having to worry about spies on the staff. I had enjoyed it a surprising amount, and it felt like I was doing real good.

Plus the odd pro bono job, of course.

And first I had to survive the last task, and Hikaru and Isamu.