Yabu slid the door closed all but a crack and checked the street outside. All looked normal enough, although the architecture was strange -- gilded demon-scaring monsters on the eaves of the buildings, stone construction on the ground floor and overhanging painted balconies. Still, nobody seemed to be following them, although it was hard to tell in the crowds of the city. Naeip'o was a large city -- as large as Kyoto.
Yabu slid the teahouse door shut and glanced at the rest of the group. They were laughing and joking, a good sign. Saburo in particular was smiling and happy. Benesato was more reserved, but very polite and well-mannered now that the fighting was long over.
The fight had been strange indeed. One moment they were sitting on the docks, waiting for young master T'ai to return, watching as a squad of soldiers wearing absurd hats unloaded the ship they had come on. Suddenly a commotion had broken out at the small gate in the wall surrounding dockside courtyard, and the overseer of the soldiers had barked some commands, causing all the soldiers to drop their bundles and run into the warehouse, closing the doors tightly.
More than a half-dozen dockside toughs had come through the wall, fingering various weapons and looking like trouble. They were lead by a very strange-looking man, a powerful figure with a shaven head and a bristly forked beard. The big man was taller than Yabu, and probably twice as heavy. He looked as strong as a bull.
"Hey", the big man called brusquely out to the samurai, "did you just get off that ship?"
All the samurai looked at the ship, then back at the strongman, before Yabu answered, "Yes."
"Did you get attacked by a bunch of guys with tattoos recently?"
The samurai looked at each other, surprised by the question, before Benesato answered "Yes, we were."
The strongman laughed. "Red banner goons -- they can't do anything right! OK, guys," he yelled at the squad of thugs with him, "get them!"
As the samurai pulled out their weapons and moved into a loose formation Benesato called out something, trying to appeal to reason, but the bald man just laughed and was echoed by his flunkies.
Then chaos reigned. The huge man leaped, a phenomenal jump over the heads of Yabu and Junzo, to crash into Benesato. Yabu's eyes nearly bugged out of his head at the sight -- he had seen something similar once or twice before, but it was astonishing from this huge, powerful man. Benesato was smashed back into a barrel of rice wine, breaking it to flinders. Yabu spun, whipping his spear in an arc and slashing the big man's back with his yari. A normal man would have died from the single blow, but the man was wearing chainmail under his shirt. Even so, the spearblade slashed the mail open, splattering the docks with blood. But the bald man just grunted.
The rest of the melee was confused. The dockyard toughs were badly outmatched by the samurai, and soon the dock was strewn with their bodies. The huge bald bearded man was a totally different story. His allies had called him Iron Ox, and he proved to be as tough as his name. Blades seemed to hardly cut his body, and only mighty cuts and slashes left more than a line of blood on his skin. His blows were dreadfully powerful, smashing wooden barrels and boxes. Luckily, he was neither tremendously fast nor subtle. Dodging, weaving, and parrying, Saburo was able to avoid his attacks and irritate the huge man while the other samurai disposed of the wharf rats.
Then the samurai closed on Iron Ox. A flurry of weapon-blows descended on him, many connecting. After a few seconds it was clear that even the bald man's vitality was waning, and he was bleeding from a dozen wounds. He took a powerful defensive stance, and for a few moments it looked like he could block everything the samurai could throw at him. But Benesato joined in, staggering from the mighty blow which had briefly taken him out of the fight, and his lightning fast strike laced a line of blood down Iron Ox's arm.
Cursing, the big man jumped straight up, out of the ring of samurai, reaching the roof of the warehouse they fought under. But Yabu followed, gaining the lip with a scrabble from a stack of boxes.
Iron Ox snarled, but was fooled by Yabu's high feint. Whipping in, Yabu's yari caught his back leg and threw him off-balance down off the roof, back where the blades of the other samurai awaited. Again the blades descended, splattering the dock with Iron Ox's blood as he dodged and blocked.
Now Iron Ox seemed desperate to escape, and he leaped over the heads of the samurai and ran down the dock. Saburo's blade cut deeply into his leg and he fell.
Suddenly a glass globe hit the dock, exploding in a cloud of smoke, completely hiding Iron Ox from sight. On the roof of the central warehouse stood a thin man with a weaselly face and a drooping moustache. With amazing climbing ability Rinzo flowed up the wall after the new enemy, but by the time he reached the roof the man had disappeared.
Below, Yabu and Saburo looked at the swirling water where Iron Ox had leaped, his escape covered by the smoke cloud. No head showed.
Yabu spat into the water. "I do not like to leave that one alive," he said.