by Clint Dohmen
Taro willed his voice not to crack. The weariness of combat helped calm his nerves, but he knew that all the men around him might have doubts about his next decision. He looked in their eyes with an expression that he hoped would convey confidence. “We go to our daimyo!” Taro shouted to his samurai cavalry and the sword and spear-wielding peasants alike. “Arai!” he shouted, in a close likeness to the deep baritone his father had in his youth.
The warriors returned the battle cry. “Arai!”
Taro turned his mount and started toward the valley floor, hoping he had made the right decision.
The first Kono cavalryman that Lord Arai reached was trying to extract his lance from the rib cage of a Hosokawa archer when Lord Arai cleaved open the back of his skull. His next opponent stabbed purposefully at Lord Arai’s midsection, which Inotogo deftly dodged. He then moved in tight to the other rider and slashed three times quickly across the man’s face.
The man reached for his face in agony and wheeled his horse to escape the onslaught. This left the back of his neck exposed, so Lord Arai sliced quickly across it, severing his spine and causing his head to flop forward. Lord Arai spurred his horse towards another Kono samurai, but by then his bodyguard had surged past him to cut a bloody swath through the spearhead of the enemy cavalry.
Near the cannons, Lord Kono fought like a possessed demon; his horse equaled him in intensity. The Arai soldiers tried to torment the black beast and bring it to its knees as they stabbed or slashed, to no avail. Lord Kono wielded his spear like a virtuoso, and the Arai soldiers fell as so many had fallen before them.
Kuro and his master no longer fought alone. Kuro’s charge through the center of the enemy line, coupled with the silencing of the enemy cannon in the center, had opened the floodgates. The remainder of the bodyguard had rejoined his master, and Kuro fought next to familiar horses.
Kuro dodged left and swung his hips into an enemy from behind, knocking him to the ground where Kuro stomped into his ribs. Kuro did not see a long, scythelike naginata swing at him, but he shifted right based on the subtle foot commands of his master, which saved him from taking the naginata across the backs of his rear legs. His master punished the foot soldier who had the audacity to attack his horse by chopping his hand off at the wrist.
As Lord Arai and his bodyguard crashed into the Kono cavalry, a shout went up across the Arai lines announcing that their leader had joined the battle, injecting renewed energy into samurai and peasants alike. Simon heard the unified cry out of the mouths of the Arai samurai and did not know what it meant, but he watched the tired, injured, and outnumbered Arai near him redouble their efforts and actually push the enemy back to the edge of the rice fields. Simon joined in their surge, battering an enemy peasant into unconsciousness with the hilt of his sword.
Kojiro knew that if Lord Arai fell, the battle would be lost. It would turn into a massacre; a circumstance he was all too familiar with. He hesitated to leave Simon’s side, but from all appearances, Simon could more than care for himself. Kojiro struck out towards Inotogo Arai.
Lord Arai’s initial charge had blunted the Kono surge, but now his bodyguard was enveloped, and he was fighting for his life. His blade danced back and forth, unhorsing and killing enemy samurai less than half his age, but still the enemy came. Around him, his skilled but outnumbered bodyguard fought and died bravely.
“You twatting, sniveling, pissing gits!” Simon shouted at his attackers who continued to multiply. More and more Kono peasants were catching up to the Kono samurai and joining them in battle.
As the numbers became overwhelming, a mounted Kono samurai singled Simon out. His blade came down swiftly and Simon raised his own English battle sword to deflect it; Simon’s sword shattered. Well, that’s never happened before. Bollocks. As his world turned into a slow-motion nightmare, Simon briefly contemplated his own mortality.
Battling his way towards the father of his friend, Kojiro whirled his two swords in flurries so swift they were invisible to the naked eye. The only thing visible was the result; a grim path of dead and dying Kono warriors behind him.
Lord Kono looked out upon the sea of his samurai, some still mounted, some not, and saw an opening of daylight where an enemy samurai was cutting a swath of carnage through his men. Only the man did not wear the Arai kamon, instead his armor bore the mark of a black on blue crane.
I would never have thought Lord Arai would enlist mercenary help, Lord Kono thought to himself. The fool has always been blinded by ideals. No matter, this black crane will pay for hiring to the wrong side in this fight. Lord Kono lowered his lance and spurred his great horse towards the oncoming threat.
Maeda speared the Kono rider in the neck, halting Simon’s review of all the misdeeds in his life. Boy, was I a little gobshite, he silently summarized his findings. No time to dwell on the past now, but I sure do owe a few apologies if ever I get the chance.
Simon wheeled around searching for a weapon, any weapon. While he combed the ground and spider-crawled his fingers over dead bodies, Maeda held the enemy at bay with skilled and aggressive use of his long spear.
Then, as Simon’s gauntlet-clad fingers finally grasped the hilt of one of the peculiar, single-edged foreign swords, the unthinkable happened. An enemy samurai wielding a long-bladed, two-handed sword ducked underneath Maeda’s occupied spear and drove his blade into Maeda’s chest. Maeda fell to the ground, and Simon watched as the peasant line collapsed. Maeda had been their leader in spirit as well as in might, and being neither born nor trained to fight, the villagers’ instincts took over: they ran. Simon regained his feet, wielding his new weapon, but he had little time to marvel at its light weight and balance as he, like the remaining Arai samurai holding the line without the villagers, became an island in a sea of Kono attackers.
Without warning, Simon’s island grew. A tall, lean boy, with a hard-set grimace that belied his tender age, appeared from nowhere and lifted the spear from Maeda’s dying grasp. With the butt end of the spear, he effortlessly deflected a blow from the long sword that had killed Maeda, and followed that with a stunning blow to the attacking samurai’s chin.
While the Kono samurai stumbled backwards, momentarily stunned, the boy drove his spear into the warrior’s side, under his chest plate. The boy impaled the samurai who had killed Maeda and raised him a good five feet off the ground. Then, in a booming voice that rose above the maelstrom of battle, the boy declared his proud heritage, “Maeda!” Without a glance at Simon, the boy took up the position in line that his fallen father had held. Though untrained, the Arai peasants were hardworking men of stout heart, and when the son of their village leader returned to battle, so did they.
Taro and his cavalry contingent streamed from the woods and headed straight for the rear of the Kono left cavalry wing, which had begun rolling up the Arai right flank.
The enemy didn’t see him coming. As Taro’s small detachment hit the enemy’s rear, the element of surprise and the Arai samurais’ superior sword skills stopped the Kono flanking force in its tracks.
Kojiro, tied up with a mounted rider on his left, and an unhorsed samurai on his right, did not see the charging horse until it was too late. Lord Kono’s lance tip only missed its mark due to pure luck. Another Kono horse’s rear bumped into him at the last second, and Lord Kono’s lance had glanced off the top of his shoulder armor. Kojiro killed the unhorsed samurai, killed the man on the horse who had probably saved his life, and turned to face Lord Kono himself.
Simon, with Maeda’s son, a small remnant of the peasants, and even fewer remaining samurai, were being pushed back into the village.
It was clear the fight was nearly over. Since he had witnessed these barbarians kill themselves over poor performances and other such trivialities, they did not strike Simon as the kind of people who would have an overabundance of mercy were he to attempt surrender. He would die in a rice field in a country that wasn’t even on the map.
Neno did not know if the crewman who h
ad been kicked in the head would live or die, but he was determined to hold the offender accountable. With the Arai peasants still holding firm around his gun crews, Neno saw an opportunity to approach his nemesis on the black horse.
Kojiro had nearly cut his way through to the rider, and most of the Kono samurai were focused on this threat, including the rider himself.
The rider’s charge at Kojiro, though, had left him just outside Neno’s circle of spears. Neno took two giant strides outside the protection of the spear wall and chopped down savagely with the dagger blade of his poleaxe, burying it squarely into the rider’s collarbone. He then used the purchase that his stuck blade offered him to pull the rider off his mount. Once the rider fell to the ground, Neno, in a practiced motion, removed the dagger side of the poleaxe from the rider’s collarbone, adjusted his grip, and raised the poleaxe straight up, perpendicular to the ground. Then, with all of his ridiculous strength, he plunged the spear tip of the poleaxe through the rider’s leather throat armor. The blade traveled through Lord Kono’s windpipe and into the ground beneath his head.
Neno did not know that he had killed Lord Kono, because Neno did not know who Lord Kono was, but the Kono samurai around them certainly did. A cry of anguish swept the Kono line and spread quickly across the entire battlefield. Although they still held superior numbers, the fight quickly drained from the host.
Simon knew something big had happened because the enemy soldiers paused their fearsome onslaught. And whatever happened seemed to have encouraged the indefatigable Arai samurai, because all around him they went on the attack; once again beating the Kono all the way back into the mud and water of the rice fields.
After surprising the enemy from the rear, Taro was battling forward towards his father when he heard the cry erupt along the Kono lines. Lord Kono was dead. The enemy fought on valiantly, but they were no match for the Arai swords once their morale was sapped. He and his small contingent rolled the Kono left flank and sent them reeling across the rice fields. By the time he reached his father, all the Kono were dead, dying, or fleeing.
The Kono samurai fought to reclaim the body of their leader, but the demoralized samurai could not force the combination of Neno and Kojiro to budge. The Kono peasants had already dropped their weapons and fled.
Simon, so exhausted that he had to lean on his newly acquired Japanese sword, turned to see Aldo brandishing his crossbow and cheering wildly along with the victorious samurai. No doubt the future holds many stories of Aldo’s prowess on this battlefield, one or two of which may actually be true, Simon thought.
He noticed that, next to him, Maeda’s son did not lean on his spear, but instead stood erect and focused on the retreating Kono army. Bloody showoff; I could stand like that, too, if I wanted to, he lied to himself.
Only one member of the Kono clan still stood firm and unbowed: the jet-black horse. He could not be settled and would not leave the side of his dead master. Three men had already been hurt trying to grab his bridle, and now an uneasy stalemate had been reached. The horse stood next to his master, while everyone else gave the horse a twenty-foot berth.
Neno approached the nervous circle that surrounded the black horse, which included several of his sailors. Giacomo Aversa, a normally fearless man who leapt about a ship’s rigging with the agility of a monkey, warned Neno by looking at the horse, crossing himself, and saying “Il diavolo” in a hushed voice.
“Idiota,” Neno replied as he strode straight up to the horse, grabbed its bridle, and looked into the horse’s eyes. “If you defy me, I will butcher you and eat you raw, which I understand is quite a delicacy here. And you seem quite the well-cared-for beauty; I bet you’d taste extra special.”
Kuro felt something he had never felt before as he stared into the eyes of the tremendously sized, pale-skinned murderer: a twinge of doubt. His master had never even been unhorsed, but this man had not only done that, he’d killed him in the blink of an eye. Now the human was talking to him; he did not like the menace in the man’s voice.
Neno meant his threat full well, and he was pretty sure the horse understood him. In any event, the horse came willingly as Neno pulled it forcefully by the reins. He led it into a corral on the western edge of the village where the Arai clan kept their mounts. Before removing the horse’s bridle, he pointed his blood-stained poleaxe straight at the horse’s eye and cautioned it once again. “If I hear of any trouble from you, I’ll come back and remove those pretty black eyes of yours.”
Kuro decided not to test the large human.
Kojiro walked slowly through the rice fields. Scattered around him was the detritus of war: cleaved helmets, broken swords, horse carcasses, discarded flags, thousands of scattered arrows and bodies, hundreds dead. Samurai and peasants, friendly and hostile, lay side by side. Many of the dead were floating in the waterlogged rice fields. Others lay contorted in odd shapes on the footpaths and road.
Wading through the knee-high, muddy water, fatigued and suffering from his own wounds, Kojiro could smell dead flesh baking in the sun. A sudden movement caught his attention; a soldier was trying to drag his body out of the swampy fields. Kojiro moved to him quickly, planted his feet firmly in the soft mud, and heaved the soldier onto the bank.
The samurai was barely human. He was covered in mud, blood, and his own entrails. Kojiro took his eyes off the ashen face and looked around. The villagers had begun to venture into the fields to look for their loved ones.
“Come here!” Kojiro shouted. Four nervous-looking villagers came rushing over to the samurai and bowed. “Take him to the village immediately.”
“But he is a Kono,” one man said, pointing to the family crest on the armor. “And he will die soon anyway.”
“He is samurai. And he will not die in the mud. Now, take him carefully,” Kojiro commanded.
The villagers picked up the lame, dying soldier. Sweating and heaving with exertion, the men carried him back to the village.
Kojiro scanned the field again. He recognized the corpse of an Arai samurai with a snapped-off spear protruding from his stomach. He moved towards it. Hovering over the dead man, Kojiro recited the samurai maxim. “Integrity, respect, courage, honor, compassion, honesty.”
He bowed deeply, paused, and said the last. “Duty.” He picked up the sword near the dead body, cleaned it with a strip of his clothing, and stuck it in his belt. “Your sword will be safe,” he said to the dead man. “It will be returned to your family.” As he walked, he collected the swords of more men he knew, more souls.
Simon observed Kojiro and asked what he was doing, which Kojiro politely explained. “Do you have anything similar in your culture?”
“The Northmen bury their dead with their weapons, we English try to pass them on to our descendants. Apparently mine had been passed on one too many times.”
“Northmen?”
“You don’t want to know. They’re almost worse than the Irish.”
Kojiro didn’t inquire further. The battle was over, but its impact had just begun. It would take days to bury the dead, weeks for the warriors to recover from their wounds, months to restore the rice fields, and generations to rebuild the population. But for tonight, that would all be forgotten. Warriors did what came naturally to them after battle: they got blind drunk.
In the weeks following the battle, the famous Arai forges were unduly busy with requests for their quality arms coming from Hosokawa aligned clans throughout the islands. One spring morning, however, nobody went to work, instead, they joined Kojiro for a short trek to a grove of trees for something Kojiro called “hanami.”
“Bless the good lord!” Aldo said upon arrival.
“Jesus sodding Christ!” Simon said.
“Sakura,” Kojiro informed them with a pleased look. “Cherry blossoms.”
When Simon had seen this grove of trees weeks ago, the branches had been barren; now they were awash in delicate, bright pink flowers. Simon had never seen so much pink in his life. In fact, he didn�
��t know this much pink could exist in one location. It was breathtaking. While he and Aldo gaped in amazement, the villagers laid out blankets under the trees, put casks of sake into the mountain stream, and began grilling vegetables and seafood.
The party lasted until early evening when Inotogo clapped his hands and spoke in his soothing but commanding tone.
He began his speech by commending his samurai, one by one, for their bravery in the battle against the Kono, and followed that by thanking his tradesmen for their technical skills in producing the weapons that aided in their victory. Inotogo moved on to his farmers and fishermen, whom he commended both for their hard labor since the battle, despite the loss of so many, and also for their bravery in the fight. Inotogo also thanked the foreigners profusely for their support and martial skills, making particular note of Neno’s slaying of the Kono Daimyo. Finally, he singled out one boy and asked him to rise. Simon recognized the boy and hoped he wasn’t in any trouble, since that boy’s father had saved his life.
As it turned out, the boy wasn’t in trouble. “Mina-san, kore kara, Maeda wa, Arai no samurai desu!”
“Is that possible?” Simon asked Kojiro in astonishment.
“Rare, but possible, as you can see, it just happened.” Kojiro informed him in a tone that, if Simon hadn’t known better, he would have thought a tad patronizing.
Kojiro continued, “In one action, Arai Sama has strengthened the loyalty of his peasants who lost much in the battle, and he has added a valiant retainer after losing many. Maeda’s father was stout also, and his father before him, so I believe his blood will make an honorable samurai family. Inotogo took all of this into his thinking, of course; he is a wise leader.”
Simon nodded, impressed. “Does the poor bugger get a first name now, or do I have to keep calling him ‘in front of the rice field guy?’”