by Lian Hearn
I was gazing at the river, wondering if we could swim across, reconstruct the bridge, or what in heaven’s name, when above the steady roar of the water I heard the sounds of human activity. Focusing my attention, I thought I could recognize voices, the chink of an ax, then unmistakably the sudden crash of falling timber.
To my right, upstream, the river curved away around a bend, the forest growing closer to the banks. I could see the remnants of what might have been a jetty or loading dock, presumably for taking lumber from the forest to the town. I turned my horse’s head and at once began to ride through the fields toward the bend.
“What is it?” Makoto called, following me.
“There’s someone there.” I grabbed at Aoi’s mane as he slipped and almost lost his footing.
“Come back!” he shouted. “It’s not safe. You can’t go alone.”
I heard him unsling his bow and fit an arrow to the cord. The horses plunged and splashed through the shallow water. Some memory was stringing itself together in my mind, of another river, impassable for different reasons. I knew what—whom—I would find.
Jo-An was there, half-naked, soaking wet, with his thirty or more outcasts. They had taken lumber from the jetty, where it had been stranded by the flood, and had felled more trees and cut enough reeds to build one of their floating bridges.
They stopped work when they saw me, and began to kneel in the mud. I thought I recognized some of them from the tannery. They were as thin and wretched as ever, and their eyes burned with the same hungry light. I tried to imagine what it had cost them to abscond with Jo-An out of their own territory, to break all the laws against the felling of trees, on the faint promise that I would bring justice and peace. I did not want to think about the ways they would be made to suffer if I failed them.
“Jo-An!” I called, and he came to the horse’s side. It snorted at him and tried to rear, but he took the bridle and calmed it. “Tell them to keep working,” I said, adding, “So I am even further in your debt.”
“You owe me nothing,” he replied. “You owe God everything.”
Makoto rode up alongside, and I found myself hoping he had not heard Jo-An’s words. Our horses touched noses and the black stallion squealed and tried to bite the other. Jo-An smacked it on the neck.
Makoto’s glance fell on him. “Outcasts?” he said, disbelieving. “What are they doing here?”
“Saving our lives. They’re building a floating bridge.”
He pulled his horse back a few steps. Beneath his helmet I could see the curl of his lips. “No one will use it—” he began, but I cut him off.
“They will, because I command it. This is our only way of escape.”
“We could fight our way back to the bridge at Yamagata.”
“And lose all our advantage of speed? Anyway, we would be outnumbered five to one. And we’d have no retreat route. I won’t do that. We’ll cross the river by the bridge. Go back to the men and bring many of them to work with the outcasts. Let the rest prepare for the crossing.”
“No one will cross this bridge if it is built by outcasts,” he said, and something in his voice, as if he were speaking to a child, enraged me. It was the same feeling I’d had months ago when Shigeru’s guards had let Kenji into the garden at Hagi, fooled by his tricks, unaware that he was a master assassin from the Tribe. I could only protect my men if they obeyed me. I forgot Makoto was older, wiser, and more experienced than I was. I let the fury sweep over me.
“Do as I command you at once. You must persuade them, or you’ll answer to me for it. Let the warriors act as guards while the packhorses and foot soldiers cross. Bring bowmen to cover the bridge. We will cross before nightfall.”
“Lord Otori.” He bowed his head and his horse plunged and splashed away over the rice fields and up the slope beyond. I watched him disappear between the shafts of bamboo, then turned my attention to the outcasts’ work.
They were lashing together the lumber they had collected and the trunks they had felled into rafts, each one supported on piles of reeds tied into bundles with cords plaited from tree bark and hemp. As each raft was finished they floated it out into the water and lashed it to the ones already moored in place. But the force of the current kept the rafts pushed into the bank.
“It needs to be anchored to the farther side,” I said to Jo-An.
“Someone will swim across,” he replied.
One of the younger men took a roll of cord, tied it round his waist, and plunged into the river. But the current was far too strong for him. We saw his arms flailing above the surface, then he disappeared under the yellow water. He was hauled back, half-drowned.
“Give the rope to me,” I said.
Jo-An looked anxiously down the bank. “No, lord, wait,” he begged me. “When the men come, one of them can swim across.”
“When the men come, the bridge must be ready,” I retorted. “Give me the rope.”
Jo-An untied it from the young man, who was sitting up now, spitting out water, and handed it up to me. I made it fast around my waist and urged my horse forward. The rope slid over his haunches, making him leap; he was in the water almost before he realized it.
I shouted at him to encourage him, and he put one ear back to listen to me. For the first few paces his feet were on the bottom. Then the water came up to his shoulder and he began to swim. I tried to keep his head turned toward where I hoped we would land, but strong and willing as he was, the current was stronger, and we were carried by it downstream toward the remains of the old bridge.
I glanced toward it and did not like what I saw. The current was hurling branches and other debris against the piles, and if my horse were to be caught among them, he would panic and drown us both. I felt and feared the power of the river. So did he. Both ears lay flat against his head, and his eyes rolled. Luckily his terror gave him extra strength. He put in one great exertion, striking out with all four feet. We cleared the piles by a couple of arm spans and suddenly the current slackened. We were past the middle. A few moments later the horse found his footing and began to plunge up and down, taking huge steps to try and clear the water. He scrambled up onto firm ground and stood, head lowered, sides heaving, his former exuberance completely extinguished. I slipped from his back and patted his neck, telling him his father must have been a water spirit for him to swim so well. We were both saturated, more like fish or frogs than land animals.
I could feel the pull of the cord around my waist and dreaded it taking me back into the water. I half crawled, half scrambled to a small grove of trees at the edge of the river. They stood around a tiny shrine dedicated to the fox god, judging by the white statues, and were submerged to their lower branches by the flood. It lapped at the feet of the statues, making the foxes look as if they floated. I passed the cord around the trunk of the nearest tree, a small maple just beginning to burst into leaf, and started to haul on it. It was attached to a much stronger rope; I could feel its sodden weight as it came reluctantly up out of the river. Once I had enough length on it, I secured it to another, larger tree. It occurred to me that I was probably going to pollute the shrine in some way, but at that moment I did not care what god, spirit, or demon I offended as long as I got my men safely across the river.
All the time I was listening. Despite the rain I couldn’t believe this place was as deserted as it seemed; it was at the site of a bridge on what appeared to be a well-used road. Through the hiss of the rain and the roar of the river I could hear the mewing of kites, the croaking of hundreds of frogs, enthusiastic about the wet, and crows calling harshly from the forest. But where were all the people?
Once the rope was secure, about ten of the outcasts crossed the river holding on to it. Far more skilled than I, they redid all my knots and set up a pulley system using the smooth branches of the maple. Slowly, laboriously, they hauled on the rafts, their chests heaving, their muscles standing out like cords. The river tore at the rafts, resenting their intrusion into its domain, but the men p
ersisted and the rafts, made buoyant and stable by their reed mattresses, responded like oxen and came inch by inch toward us.
One side of the floating bridge was jammed by the current against the existing piles. Otherwise I think the river would have defeated us. I could see the bridge was close to being finished, but there was no sign of Makoto returning with the warriors. I had lost all sense of time, and the clouds were too low and dark to be able to discern the position of the sun, but I thought at least an hour must have passed. Had Makoto not been able to persuade them? Had they turned back to Yamagata as he had suggested? Closest friend or not, I would kill him with my own hands if they had. I strained my ears but could hear nothing except the river, the rain, and the frogs.
Beyond the shrine, where I stood, the road emerged from the water. I could see the mountains behind it, white mist hanging like streamers to their slopes. My horse was shivering. I thought I should move him around a little to keep him warm, since I had no idea how I would ever get him dry. I mounted and went a little way along the road, thinking also that I might get a better view across the river from the higher ground.
Not far along stood a kind of hovel built from wood and daub and roughly thatched with reeds. A wooden barrier had been placed across the road beside it. I wondered what it was: It did not look like an official fief border post and there did not seem to be any guards.
As I came closer I saw that several human heads were attached to the barrier, some freshly killed, others no more than skulls. I’d barely had time to feel revulsion when, from behind me, my ears caught the sound I’d been waiting for: the tramping of horses and men from the other side of the river. I looked back and saw through the rain the vanguard of my army emerging from the forest and splashing toward the bridge. I recognized Kahei by his helmet. He was riding in the front, Makoto alongside him.
My chest lightened with relief. I turned Aoi back; he saw the distant shapes of his fellows and gave a loud neigh. This was echoed at once by a tremendous shout from inside the hovel. The ground shook as the door was thrown open and the largest man I’d ever seen, larger even than the charcoal burners’ giant, stepped out.
My first thought was that he was an ogre or a demon. He was nearly two arm spans tall and as broad as an ox; yet despite his bulk his head seemed far too large, as if the skull bone had never stopped growing. His hair was long and matted, he had a thick, wiry mustache and beard, and his eyes were not human-shaped but round like an animal’s. He had only one ear, massive and pendulous. Where the other ear had been, a blue-gray scar gleamed through his hair. But his speech when he shouted at me was human enough.
“Hey!” he yelled in his enormous voice. “What d’you think y’doing on my road?”
“I am Otori Takeo,” I replied. “I am bringing my army through. Clear the barrier!”
He laughed; it was like the sound of rocks crashing down the side of a mountain. “No one comes through here unless Jin-emon says they can. Go back and tell your army that!”
The rain was falling more heavily; the day was rapidly losing its light. I was exhausted, hungry, wet, and cold. “Clear the road,” I shouted impatiently. “We are coming through.”
He strode toward me without answering. He was carrying a weapon, but he held it behind his back so I could not see clearly what it was. I heard the sound before I saw his arm move: a sort of metallic clink. With one hand I swung the horse’s head around, with the other I drew Jato. Aoi heard the sound, too, and saw the giant’s arm lunge outward. He shied sideways, and the ogre’s stick and chain went past my ears, howling like a wolf.
The chain was weighted at one end and the stick to which the other end was attached had a sickle set in it. I’d never encountered such a weapon before, and had no idea how to fight him. The chain swung again, catching the horse round the right hind leg. Aoi screamed in pain and fear and lashed out. I kicked my feet from the stirrups, slid down on the opposite side from the ogre, and turned to face him. I’d obviously fallen in with a madman who was going to kill me if I did not kill him first.
He grinned at me. I must have looked to him no larger than the Peach Boy or some other tiny character from a folktale. I caught the beginning of movement in his muscle and split my image, throwing myself to the left. The chain went harmlessly through my second self. Jato leaped through the air between us and sank its blade into his lower arm, just above the wrist. Ordinarily it would have taken off the hand, but this adversary had bones of stone. I felt the reverberations up into my shoulder, and for a moment I feared my sword would lodge in his arm like an ax in a tree.
Jin-emon made a kind of creaking groan, not unlike the sound of the mountain when it freezes, and transferred the stick to his other hand. Blood was now oozing from his right hand, dark blackish-red in color, not splashing as you would expect. I went invisible for a moment as the chain howled again, briefly considered retreating to the river, wondering where on earth all my men were when I needed them. Then I saw an unprotected space and thrust Jato up into it and into the flesh that lay there. The wound left by my sword was huge, but again he hardly bled. A fresh wave of horror swept through me. I was fighting something nonhuman, supernatural. Did I have any chance of overcoming it?
On the next swing the chain wrapped itself round my sword. Giving a shout of triumph, Jin-emon yanked it from my hands. Jato flew through the air and landed several feet away from me. The ogre approached me, making sweeping movements with his arms, wise to my tricks now.
I stood still. I had my knife in my belt, but I did not want to draw it, in case he swung his chain and ended my life there and then. I wanted this monster to look at me. He came up to me, seized me by the shoulders, and lifted me from the ground. I don’t know what his plan was—maybe to tear out my throat with his huge teeth and drink my blood. I thought, He is not my son, he cannot kill me, and stared into his eyes. They had no more expression than a beast’s, but as they met mine I saw them round with astonishment. I sensed behind them his dull malevolence, his brutal and pitiless nature. I realized the power that lay within me and let it stream from me. His eyes began to cloud. He gave a low moan and his grasp slackened as he wavered and crashed to the ground like a great tree under the woodsman’s ax. I threw myself sideways, not wanting to end up pinned beneath him, and rolled to where Jato lay, making Aoi, who had been circling nervously around us, prance and rear again. Sword in hand, I ran back to where Jin-emon had fallen; he was snoring in the deep Kikuta sleep. I tried to raise the huge head to cut it off, but its weight was too great, and I did not want to risk damaging the blade of my sword. Instead, I thrust Jato into his throat and cut open the artery and windpipe. Even here the blood ran sluggishly. His heels kicked, his back arched, but he did not waken. Eventually his breathing stopped.
I’d thought he was alone, but then a sound came from the hovel and I turned to see a much smaller man scuttling from the door. He shouted something incoherent, bounded across the dike behind the hut, and disappeared into the forest.
I shifted the barrier myself, gazing on the skulls and wondering whose they were. Two of the older ones fell while I was moving the wood, and insects crawled out from their eye sockets. I placed them in the grass and went back to my horse, chilled and nauseated. Aoi’s leg was bruised and bleeding from where the chain had caught it, although it did not appear to be broken. He could walk, but he was very lame. I led him back to the river.
The encounter seemed like a bad dream, yet the more I pondered it, the better I felt. Jin-emon should have killed me—my severed head should now be on the barrier along with the others—but my Tribe powers had delivered me from him. It seemed to confirm the prophecy completely. If such an ogre could not kill me, who could? By the time I got back to the river, new energy was flowing through me. However, what I saw there transformed it into rage.
The bridge was in place, but only the outcasts were on the nearer side. The rest of my army were still on the other bank. The outcasts were huddled in that sullen way of theirs that I
was beginning to understand as their reaction to the irrationality of the world’s contempt for them.
Jo-An was sitting on his haunches, gazing gloomily at the swirling water. He stood when he saw me.
“They won’t cross, lord. You’ll have to go and order them.”
“I will,” I said, my anger mounting. “Take the horse, wash the wound, and walk him round so he doesn’t chill.”
Jo-An took the reins. “What happened?”
“I had an encounter with a demon,” I replied shortly, and stepped onto the bridge.
The men waiting on the opposite side gave a shout when they saw me, but not one of them ventured onto the other end of the bridge. It was not easy to walk on—a swaying mass, partly submerged at times, pulled and rocked by the river. I half-ran, thinking as I did so of the nightingale floor that I had run across so lightly in Hagi. I prayed to Shigeru’s spirit to be with me.
On the other side, Makoto dismounted and grasped my arm. “Where were you? We feared you were dead.”
“I might well have been,” I said in fury. “Where were you?” Before he could answer, Kahei rode up to us.
“What’s the delay for?” I demanded. “Get the men moving.”
Kahei hesitated. “They fear pollution from the outcasts.”
“Get down,” I said, and as he slid from his horse’s back I let them both feel the full force of my rage. “Because of your stupidity I nearly died. If I give an order, it must be obeyed at once, no matter what you think of it. If that doesn’t suit you, then ride back now, to Hagi, to the temple, to wherever, but out of my sight.” I spoke in a low voice, not wanting the whole army to hear me, but I saw how my words shamed them. “Now send those with horses who want to swim into the water first. Move the packhorses onto the bridge while the rear is guarded, then the foot soldiers, no more than thirty at a time.”