"It's a difficult task," Igisaka started apologizing again, getting on Stas's nerves. Ordyntsev didn't know who he was taken for, but the young craftsman was trembling before him no less than before Kensei.
And if the lanky one-eyed ronin in rags with a huge two-handed sword still warranted such caution, Ordyntsev would have preferred to do without it.
The situation was exacerbated by the prince's vague instructions.
As Stas understood, such secret cells of the Sumada clan were located in many major cities. Consequently, if a combat unit of the clan accidentally wandered into one of these cities, they couldn't know for sure how to find their spy comrades.
For this purpose, the Sumada had developed a small system of secret signs and passwords, meant to maintain secrecy and simultaneously identify friends from foes.
The first rule of such spy games was to determine the point from which to start the search.
Here's where the first problems began.
To avoid attracting undue attention, these cells preferred to choose the poorest and most criminal districts. In such places, people tended to disappear, die, or just as quickly show up as wandering vagrants or runaway peasants. Controlling everyone in such a "melting pot" would be difficult.
This rabble scraped by on rare earnings, crafting something or working for traders.
It was much easier to disappear in such an anthill than in the wealthy districts where everyone knew each other.
Having figured out where to search for warmasters, the next step was to understand how to find them. This was where a special sign came into play, marking the shops or houses where people were ready to organize a meeting.
To put it simply, liaisons.
Their duty was to determine whether the guest was trustworthy and, if so, to lead them to the real spy den.
The problem was that the slums of a large city like Akaru had quite a few such poor districts. And finding the right secret sign there turned out to be not so simple.
Fortunately, they knew that this symbol would most likely be drawn on one of the establishments' signs or something similar.
Now, they had been walking for the second hour, causing Igisaka to become anxious, taking the failure personally.
Stas was also a bit worried. By evening, he was supposed to return, and every passing hour played against them. It was unclear when they would next be lucky, and a new opening in the guard would appear.
Nevertheless, unlike the craftsman, Ordyntsev kept his emotions in check.
Kensei was the very embodiment of grim serenity. His two-handed sword was slung across his back. However, Stas noticed that he could remove the sheath at any moment. Due to the sword's length, drawing it while it remained on his back was out of the question.
Their bodyguard confidently pushed forward, prompting people to clear their path in advance. The ronin's hands lay meaningfully on his belt, dangerously close to two other swords.
In general, Stas was somewhat amused by the number of swords some samurai carried. Sometimes, the number of blades could reach up to four! Ordyntsev had seen such madness back in Nobunoro's military camp.
As it turned out, either the local iron was poor, or they used subpar technology, but the blades of the samurai were of terrible quality.
If against bare flesh, or in other words, against ordinary ashigaru, such swords were still acceptable, then in clashes with armor and other swords, they broke pretty often.
In the end, to continue fighting, warriors had to replace broken blades on the go.
In this regard, swords like odachi had a significant advantage – due to their thickness, they were much sturdier than their smaller counterparts. Not to mention the length and the ability to crush spears and shields.
In a sense, they served as sharp steel clubs, as strange as that might sound.
Igisaka, growing more flustered, led them deeper into the slums. The more-or-less sturdy houses soon gave way to half-collapsed wooden shacks, their roofs covered with rotten straw.
Even though the locals tried to maintain cleanliness, the smell of various bodily fluids became quite noticeable in these places.
Obviously, in the poorer but otherwise normal areas, seeing three travelers was not remarkable, yet here they stood out like sore thumbs.
And unsurprisingly, trouble found them at that very moment.
Stas realized too late that something was wrong. By the look on Kensei's face, this situation was a surprise for him too.
"What fine people have graced us with their presence!" At some point, the filthy street emptied, and their way was blocked by a dozen poorly dressed men. However, despite their poverty, they swayed with genuine weapons in their hands - knives, clubs, and axes.
Stas glanced back, hearing noise behind him, and clenched his teeth. There were bandits in the back too, blocking their retreat. Thankfully, there were relatively few of them, only three.
An ambush.
However, the sight of Kensei somewhat calmed Stas. The ronin looked at the people standing before him as if a mistress looked at a vile spit on the floor of her house. It wouldn't be difficult to clean up, but why the hell did it even appear?!
"So it's the famous One-Eyed Kensei, the ronin who became the faithful cur of the cursed yoriki![1] Now it's time for payback. This time, you're here alone!" the shaggy bandit, acting as the leader, bellowed. "You shouldn't have tampered with the business of such respected people. This time, we'll gouge out your second eye!"
"If you know who I am, you should know that to me, you're just dust underfoot," Kensei's voice didn't change one iota as he leisurely removed his terrifying odachi from his back.
Then, it was the sheath's turn. It was so long that the warrior had to grip them several times to remove it entirely.
It fell to the ground with a soft thump, raising a grayish dust. Stas could visibly count the dozens of notches and chips covering the blade. It had clearly been through more than one skirmish.
"You should be well aware that I'll chop you to pieces before you get a chance to open your filthy mouths again."
"Oh no, ronin!" the leader retreated by a couple of steps in fear, followed by his subordinates. "We're small fry and had no intention of fighting you. We just alerted those who have a bigger grudge against you than we do."
As soon as his words sounded, two men landed between the bandits and the ronin with a thud. The impact of their arrival sent a wave of air and dust in all directions, trying to blind the eyes.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Ordyntsev grimaced; he had an irresistible urge to swear, preferably in Russian, as the local language still didn't compare to the quality and variety of colorful Russian curses.
By the look of the newcomers, it was easy to tell they were warmasters.
"Renegades," Kensei said, almost as if swearing. "Just what we needed." Stas fully agreed with the last statement.
Defectors, traitors, or renegades – that's what those warmasters who, for one reason or another, abandoned their clans and fled were called.
Life in the warmaster clans was far from sweet. Often, the impunity granted by the strength and lineage of the higher-ups drove them to terrible deeds against those who were weaker.
Of course, theoretically, everyone in the clan was supposed to be related. However, in practice, many clans, especially the largest ones, practiced buying children with high levels of prana from peasants.
This was a perfectly normal and mundane practice, both for this world and for medieval Earth. It was profitable for peasants to sell, say, one of five children so that there would definitely be enough food for the remaining four.
Sometimes, such practice took on such monstrous forms that it chills the skin even centuries later.
For example, circus managers or "child buyers" would purchase and then maim children, breaking their arms and legs or stuffing them into tight boxes so their bodies would irreparably warp.
Then, these deformed children were shown in cities to amuse the public or to beg for alms.
But let's return to this world.
If a child's prana core was very large and the parents didn't want to sell, the warmasters didn't bother buying and simply took the children, killing the entire family as witnesses along the way.
Especially strong warmasters might not bother at all, covering an entire village with one powerful technique.
Say, where once stood tens of houses, soon a picturesque lake forms, with a few fragments floating in it.
That's why warmasters without any clan symbols were feared the most - because that's how they went on "child hunts" and other especially illegal enterprises.
From all of this, it's clear that renegades were another reason for the locals' fiery "love" for warmasters.
Evil as demons, deprived of everything, traitors didn't particularly value human lives, trying to live life to the fullest. Some clans put bounties on their heads, which led to terrible devastation when bounty hunters eventually found the renegades.
Some of them, taking advantage of the fragmentation and weakness of small countries, would claim villages or small towns, declaring themselves masters. If the strength of such traitors was great, weak countries could be forced to endure the presence of these killers for a long time.
However, most deserters tried to hide or flee to other countries, far from their original clans.
The deserters they met didn't look particularly imposing. The lack of armor and the plainness of their clothes immediately allowed one to assess their low rank. However, even a low rank might be enough to slaughter everyone present except for the ronin.
"Kensei Uramasa. We've been looking for you for a long time. It was you who cowardly killed two of our comrades during the yoriki raid. Don't you samurai always talk about honor? So why did you kill them fighting with the support of a couple dozen yoriki? Now you'll feel on your own skin what it's like. You're alone, and we are two…"
The deserters drew their swords, and to Stas's great surprise, the more talkative one continued to angrily proclaim something.
'Why aren't they attacking?' Ordyntsev thought puzzledly, 'Is this some kind of local tradition? Talk your opponent to death?'
"Here," Kensei thrust the sheath with his katana into Stas's chest, forcing him to instinctively grab it. To Ordyntsev's puzzled look, Kensei briefly explained, "I can only take on the warmasters and those in front. You'll have to deal with the ones behind on your own. This one," he gave a contemptuous glance at the craftsman, who had turned as pale as a sheet, "is hopeless."
Stas had a lot to say to the ronin, starting with his inexperience in using a damn katana, ending with the fact that he would be alone against three at once!
But the earthling understood perfectly that his complaints would change nothing. Moreover, judging by the warrior's grim face, he himself was far from certain that he would emerge victorious from his own fight.
Therefore, Stas silently accepted the katana and gave a solemn nod to the ronin, who was watching him expectantly.
Satisfied, Kensei nodded back and turned to the warmaster, who had finished his rant, leaving Stas to watch his back.
The deadly quiet street, two warmasters armed with swords on one side, and a former samurai holding an odachi parallel to the ground on the other. Each attentively watched the other side's movements.
It seemed as if the world itself had frozen at that moment. Only a gentle breeze rustled the straw on the roofs of the houses and made the natives' clothes flutter slightly.
It lacked nothing but some Western genre film music or, to maintain authenticity, a Japanese samurai action movie soundtrack.
Ordyntsev slowly drew the katana from the sheath, his heart skipping a beat as he heard the metal with a rustle leave its abode.
Finally, the blade was entirely out, flashing in the bright sun. Stas didn't throw the sheath away, planning to use it as a desperate way to block someone's strike.
Ordyntsev wasn't sure he could do it, but he simply had no choice. Either he would manage, or he would die.
The three bandits on the other side of the street were armed with two clubs and an actual axe. The clubs even looked heavy and were studded with metal. If hit by such a thing, bones would break on the spot.
The fight started instantly. Stas didn't look at Kensei standing behind him, but the wave of air hitting his back, followed by the deafening crack of clashing swords, marked the beginning of the bloody work.
Igisaka, coming out of his stupor, collapsed on the ground and screamed desperately.
"Please! I beg you, don't kill me! I have nothing to do with this! I won't tell anyone, just don't kill me!" Judging by the smirks of the brutes moving towards Stas, they enjoyed the show.
'Idiot,' Ordyntsev's thoughts differed, 'As if these jerks would leave witnesses. If you're going to be killed anyway, you might as well try to fight back, rather than lying on the ground and spreading your legs.'
Ordyntsev was literally shaking with an excess of adrenaline. His vision became incredibly clear, focusing on how the three opponents, gradually circling around him, approached.
His hand clutched the sword like a drowning man clings to a straw.
The man understood perfectly that in a fair fight, he had almost no chance of winning. He had never held a sword in his hands before and had never fought with one. But the bandits coming at him didn't look like novices in such fights.
'Alright, crapy local magic, get me out of this mess!'
The earthling's plan was as simple as possible. Right now, he possessed prana acceleration, which allowed him to increase the speed of information processing, and was barely capable of prana strengthening, which would have endowed his strikes with real power.
Now, all he had to do was somehow implement his knowledge.
'Quite the test for professional aptitude, huh, world?' Stas thought sarcastically, feeling the prana flowing within him, 'Kill or be killed. Master the power or be beaten to death with clubs. Even the damn Sith would have been gentler in training!'
Ordyntsev abruptly took up the familiar stance, extending the katana forward.
"Faster!" he coldly threw out, causing the bandits to look at each other in confusion.
"What's up with him?" one of the brutes asked.
"Looks like he's completely lost his head from fear," chuckled the second bandit amiably. "It's okay, we'll crack his head open, and he'll feel better."
Stas, however, with a racing heart, felt his efforts were not in vain. Prana flowed faster and faster through his channels, immersing his body in a warm bliss. His vision sharpened, and the movements around him slowed their smooth run.
Of course, the changes weren't that big, but even so, it was already a significant help!
Suddenly, one of the bandits with a club rushed forward, swinging his formidable weapon. If Stas hadn't activated prana acceleration, he would have definitely been unable to react.
Now, he at least had a chance.
It was too late to think, it was time to act.
To his misfortune, the bandit chose the worst moment for the attack, as the prana acceleration was at its peak. Right now, Stas could see and comprehend all the opponent's movements.
Stas didn't bother to invent anything. With his left hand holding the sheath, he struck the club, which had just appeared from behind the bandit and hadn't yet gained momentum. This allowed him to deflect it to the side, while with his right hand, he thrust the katana directly into the neck with all his might.
Every earthling's movement was utterly awkward and riddled with hundreds of mistakes, but the bandit was no better. And he certainly did not expect such a swift counterattack.
Struggling to stop, the enemy only managed a frightened gasp as the katana, grazing the spine, deeply entered the throat, coming out the other side.
The bandit dropped the club and clutched the sword. Blood, gurgling, began to flood the blade and his hands.
For a second, it seemed to the earthling that through the weapon's hilt, he felt life pulsing out of his opponent.
Unwilling to be left without a weapon, Stas desperately pulled the katana toward himself, simultaneously cutting the carotid artery, as well as muscles and tendons in the bandit's fingers.
With a gurgling groan, the man fell to the ground and, after twitching a couple of times, lay still forever. Beneath him, a dark red puddle grew rapidly, immediately absorbed by the gray-dirty sand.
Stas swung his arm with the sword, showering with droplets of blood the bandit's comrades, who had frozen in shock.
Now, they no longer perceived the earthling as an easy prey. And that was the problem, as the prana acceleration began to wane again!
[1] Yoriki was a kind of city and castle police force in Japan during the Edo period. They were below samurais in status but above craftsmen and servants.