The supply convoy creaked along the merchant road like a mechanical beast. Jin counted twelve wagons, forty guards, enough supplies to feed a garrison for months. From his position in the oak branches, he could see Katsuo crouched behind a boulder fifty yards ahead, perfectly positioned for the ambush they'd planned.
The plan was simple: disable the lead guards, capture the convoy captain for interrogation, secure the supplies without excessive bloodshed. Jin had sketched it out the night before while Katsuo listened with that calculating expression he'd grown to recognize.
"Too many variables," Katsuo had said. "Too many things that can go wrong."
"It'll work," Jin had insisted. "We take the captain alive, learn their supply routes, maybe turn some of the guards."
Katsuo hadn't argued further. He'd simply nodded and begun sharpening his blade.
Now Jin watched the convoy approach the kill zone. The captain rode third in line—a weathered Mongol with commander's markings on his armor. Perfect for interrogation. The information he carried could cripple enemy logistics for weeks.
Jin fitted an arrow to his bowstring. The shot was clean—sixty yards to the lead rider's shoulder. Disable, don't kill. Create chaos without massacre.
He drew, aimed, released.
The arrow took the scout in the meat of his arm, spinning him from his saddle. Shouts erupted from the convoy. Horses reared. Drivers fought their reins as the column bunched together.
Jin nocked another arrow, sighted on a guard reaching for his horn. Another shoulder shot, another man down but breathing.
Then Katsuo moved.
He flowed from behind the boulder like water turned lethal. His blade found the convoy captain's throat before the man could draw steel. Not a cut—a thrust, angled upward through the soft tissue. The captain died with a wet gurgle, blood spraying across his horse's mane.
"Wait!" Jin shouted from his perch.
But Katsuo was already among the guards. His sword wove patterns of death between the panicking horses. A backhand cut opened one soldier's neck to the bone. A quick thrust found another's heart. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Professional slaughter.
Jin dropped from the tree, drawing his katana as he landed. A Mongol soldier charged him, curved sword raised high. Jin parried, riposted, drove his point through the man's shoulder. The soldier screamed, dropped his weapon, clutched the wound.
"Yield!" Jin commanded in broken Mongol.
The soldier fell to his knees, hands raised.
Twenty yards away, Katsuo killed two more guards with economical precision. A diagonal cut severed spine. A thrust found lung. Bodies dropped around him like wheat before the scythe.
"Katsuo, enough!"
But the scarred rōnin was already moving toward the wagons. A young driver cowered on his bench, hands empty, clearly no threat. Katsuo's blade punched through his ribs anyway.
Jin caught the falling body. The driver couldn't have been more than sixteen, his face still soft with youth. Dark eyes stared sightlessly at the afternoon sky.
"He wasn't armed," Jin said.
Katsuo cleaned his blade on the dead boy's shirt. "He had eyes. A tongue. He could have identified us."
"He was surrendering."
"He was a witness." Katsuo sheathed his sword, began examining the wagon contents. "Witnesses become problems."
Jin looked around the killing ground. Fifteen bodies scattered across the road. His prisoner knelt in the dust, clutching his wounded shoulder. The only survivor among the enemy force.
"The captain," Jin said. "We needed him alive for intelligence."
"I got intelligence." Katsuo held up a leather satchel taken from the dead commander's belt. "Orders, supply manifests, troop dispositions. Everything we need."
"But we could have learned more through interrogation. Found out about other convoys, troop movements—"
"Could have." Katsuo cut the straps securing a rice barrel. "Could have also learned nothing. Could have had him escape. Could have had him feed us false information." The barrel lid popped free, revealing good white rice. "This way, we know exactly what we got."
Jin's prisoner moaned, swaying on his knees. Blood seeped between his fingers where he pressed against the shoulder wound.
"What about him?" Jin nodded toward the wounded soldier.
Katsuo glanced over. His hand drifted to his sword hilt. "What about him?"
"He could provide intelligence. Confirm what's in those documents."
"He's a common soldier. Knows nothing useful." Katsuo's grip tightened on his weapon. "But he knows our faces now."
Jin stepped between Katsuo and the prisoner. "No."
"He'll report this attack. Describe us. Make future operations harder."
"Then we blindfold him. Leave him tied up somewhere remote." Jin's hand found his own sword hilt. "We don't murder prisoners."
Katsuo stared at him for a long moment. Something cold moved behind the scarred rōnin's eyes—calculation, assessment, the weighing of options.
"Your mercy will cost lives," he said finally.
"So will your cruelty."
They faced each other across the corpse-strewn road. Flies were already gathering on the blood. The surviving prisoner whimpered between them, caught in a philosophical divide that might get him killed.
Katsuo released his sword hilt. "Your choice. Your consequences."
Jin nodded, turned to the wounded soldier. In careful Mongol, he said, "You will live. But you saw nothing here. Understand?"
The man nodded frantically, eyes wide with pain and fear.
Jin used strips torn from a dead guard's clothing to bind the prisoner's eyes and hands. Then he helped the man onto a surviving horse, led it a mile back down the road before setting it free. The soldier would live. Probably find his way back to friendly forces. Probably report the attack.
When Jin returned, Katsuo had finished looting the convoy. Supplies were sorted, anything useful loaded onto two captured horses. The bodies lay where they'd fallen—no attempt made to hide the slaughter.
"Efficient work," Jin said, looking over the organized plunder.
"Necessary work." Katsuo mounted one of the horses. "The boy driver wasn't personal. The quick deaths weren't cruel. Just practical."
Jin swung up onto his own mount. The surviving supplies would feed a village for weeks. The captured documents contained valuable intelligence. By any tactical measure, the mission was a complete success.
So why did his stomach turn every time he looked at the dead boy's face?
They rode toward the mountains in silence. Behind them, carrion birds began circling. Ahead lay difficult terrain and careful distribution of their stolen goods. But Jin found himself thinking about the prisoner he'd spared—wondering if the man would keep his word, or if Katsuo was right about witnesses becoming problems.
"The next convoy," Katsuo said as they entered the tree line. "Same tactics?"
Jin considered this. The same systematic slaughter. The same efficient brutality. The same pile of bodies left for the crows.
"We'll see," he said.
Katsuo's smile held no warmth. "Yes. We will."
They disappeared into the forest, two samurai who'd chosen different paths to the same destination. Success measured in blood and rice, victory purchased with compromise neither man was ready to name.
Jin's hand remained steady on his sword. But his sleep that night was full of dead boys' faces.