Free Jade Palace Vendetta by Dale Furutani Page B

said.
    “Now listen carefully,” Kaze said to the peasants. “There will be danger.”
    “Why are you telling them—”
    Kaze looked at Hishigawa, silencing the angry merchant. “I’m telling them because they should know. Their lives will be in danger, as ours have been.”
    Returning his attention to the peasants, he said, “That chest tied to the pushcart has gold in it. There are men who want that gold. Perhaps by now there are many men. They’ve already killed the three guards who were assigned to protect that gold, and they will kill us, if they can. We must get that cart to the barrier, where additional guards can be hired to protect us for the rest of the journey to Kamakura. Until then, we will be in great danger. Do you understand that?”
    As Kaze spoke, the eyes of the two peasants grew in size. They looked at each other, then at Kaze, and said, “Hai! Yes!”
    “And do you still want to help?”
    Once again the two peasants looked at each other, then at Kaze. But this time they looked at each other a second time before answering.
    “What do you think, Hanzo?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think these men must be the ones who those other men were looking for. Still, this samurai has been honest with us, and he’s promised us gold. I think we should help.”
    “What other men?” Kaze asked.
    “Last night a group of men came by our hut, looking for a party with a pushcart. I suppose that’s you.”
    “How many men?”
    “I don’t know. A lot.”
    “More than four?”
    “Yes, quite a few more than four.”
    “Yes, they are looking for us,” Kaze said. “They want that gold. We still need your help, and there might be the chance that those men will find us. Will you still help us?”
    Goro looked at Kaze. “We’re not fighters,” he said.
    Kaze smiled. “I don’t expect you to be. We just need men who will push the cart. If there’s any fighting to be done, I’ll handle it.”
    There was a moment’s hesitation as the two peasants looked at each other.
    “Gold for us?” Hanzo asked.
    “Gold,” Kaze confirmed.
    “Then we’ll do it.”
    “Good! There’s no better time than now to start.
Yosh!
Let’s go! Give us a hand getting the cart back on the road.”
    G oro and Hanzo took a position behind the cart to push it, and Kaze took one of the bamboo rails of the cart, with Hishigawa on the other. As they got the cart back on the road, Hishigawa groaned, “It seems even heavier than yesterday.”
    “It’s the mud slowing us down, and you’re tired from yesterday,” Kaze said.
    Hishigawa grunted a reply and the four men moved the cart down the road. Unlike Hishigawa and Kaze, Goro and Hanzo were not silent. They bickered constantly as they pushed. Kaze noticed that they pushed much better when they were arguing with each other, sohe let them. Hishigawa tried to silence them a couple of times, and his harsh words and glowering gaze did silence them for a moment, but within minutes they would find some new cause of dispute between them and the arguments would start again.
    Late in the morning they came to a fork in the road, with paths traveling both left and right.
    “What path do we take?” Kaze asked.
    “We take the left path,” Hanzo replied.
    “No, we should take the right path,” Goro said.
    “The left path is flat and the shortest way to the barrier.”
    “We know bandits are looking for the cart. They’ll surely be waiting along the left path.”
    “But the right path is much longer. You have to circle the entire mountain before you get to the barrier. Along the left path, we’d be at the barrier late today or early tomorrow. The right path will be at least another day of hard travel.”
    “But—”
    “Yakamashii! Shut up!” Hishigawa screamed. “You two bicker like an old married couple. It is intolerable!”
    “Perhaps intolerable, but in this case interesting,” Kaze said. “We have a choice to make.”
    “The faster path,” Hishigawa said. “The