Yamada Monogatari: The War God's Son

by Richard Parks

  “Certainly I knew about it,” he said. “It was built so the fortress can be resupplied from the river. Assuming the craft could evade the enemy, a boat could easily enter there, once the defenders unbarred the water gate. I don’t know what you are thinking, Lord Yamada, but it was well designed. Its position makes it easy to cover from the walls, and even if we could get men to it, even if they could get the water gate open, we wouldn’t be able to bring any sufficient force to bear from the river—it would be a useless attack.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of an attack. I was thinking of sabotage.”

  Akimasa frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “I need a little more time to see if what I have in mind is even possible. Give me until tomorrow. Surely we can delay that long.”

  “Well . . . ” he hesitated. “All right—tomorrow morning. It’s likely Lord Abe will try to relieve at least one of his fortresses, and Lord Yoshiie cannot be everywhere. The longer we sit here, the more likely we’ll be inviting a flank attack, which we may not have the strength to repel. Once the garrison joins in—and they will—our force would be caught between them. We have to begin our main assault tomorrow. I don’t dare wait any longer, Lord Yamada.”

  “Understood.”

  I went to fetch Kenji and Taro. When I told Taro what I wanted of him, he turned a little pale. Kenji’s reaction was a bit more explicit. “Lord Yamada, are you trying to get the boy killed?”

  “I will do my best to prevent it. But yes, Taro-san, what I am asking of you is very dangerous, and I doubt Prince Kanemore would approve. If we succeed, however, the Emperor’s will is carried out, the war ends sooner, and fewer people die in the process. I do know I am asking a great deal, and you have the right to refuse.”

  Taro blinked. “I do?”

  “I have more than enough to answer for already,” I said, “and will likely have more sins on my head before the day is over. I have the power to force you, but I do not have the right. Nor will I think less of you if you were to refuse. In your place, I might do the same.”

  “I will do it,” he said, finally. “But I have one request.”

  “Name it,” I said.

  “Apologize on my behalf to Prince Kanemore if I do not return to the capital. I would not want him to think I had sought to escape my obligations to him.”

  “I promise,” I said. “Now, then—let us go over again what you need to do, so perhaps such an apology may not be necessary.”

  We chose a spot where the undergrowth was thick and ran nearly to the water’s edge. We were too far from the fortress to worry about arrows but also too far from the river ford. The shallows there were no wider than my own height before they dropped off into deep water well over a man’s head, and doubly so for someone of Taro’s stature. Kenji and I took cover in the undergrowth as Taro stripped down to his loincloth and waded slowly into the river.

  That’s it, Taro. Well in, but not too far. Make it come to you.

  There was a roil on the surface of the deeper water, and as we watched, we could see an arrowhead-shaped wake quickly moving closer. Taro almost took a step back, but he stopped himself. Kenji was fingering his prayer beads, and I breathed a silent prayer to whatever gods of the river might be listening.

  The creature was quick. It emerged from the deep water onto the sand bar by shore and headed straight for Taro. The boy did take a step backward then and almost died for it, but he remembered his instructions and bowed low.

  The creature stopped in its tracks. I could see it a little better now and saw that my original inference was correct—a kappa. The thing was ugly, as one might expect—beaked mouth, scraggly hair, scaly green skin, and what appeared to be a turtle’s shell on its back. It stood perhaps a head shorter than Taro did, but I had no doubt the creature had several times my own strength, and Taro would not have had a chance, except for the weapon of knowledge I had given to him.

  Kappas were monsters. But they were polite monsters.

  Faced with the courtesy of Taro’s bowed greeting, the kappa had no choice but return it, and when he bowed, we could see the bowl-shaped indentation on the top of his head, and the river water that gave the creature its strength spilled out. Before Kenji and I could even move, Taro reached out, grabbed one of the creature’s scaly arms, and pulled.

  I think the kappa was more startled than we were, but in the next moment, two things happened: Taro and the creature fell onto the riverbank in a tangle of arms and legs, and Kenji and I tore through the underbrush. Before it could wrestle itself away from Taro, we grabbed the creature by both arms. Now I could see the thing’s wicked-looking claws, each the length of one of my fingers.

  I think they will serve nicely, I thought. Still, I was careful to hold him by the forearm so he didn’t have room to use the claws on me, and Kenji quickly followed my example.

  “Let me go! Humans will suffer if you do not release me!”

  Its voice was raspy and harsh, the words tentative as if the creature didn’t have a lot of chance to practice speaking.

  “Actually,” I said, “Kappa will suffer if it does not behave itself. You were going to devour our friend here, but now you have lost your strength and the vital essence of the river that gives you life. You know what is about to happen, don’t you?”

  Fear was in the creature’s large eyes now, but I knew it wasn’t us he was afraid of. The change had already begun. I could see wrinkles appearing on the creature’s face, soon spreading to its arms and legs. It was literally drying out before our eyes.”

  “Have you ever seen a dried fish? That is what you are about to look like,” Kenji said. Taro had simply withdrawn out of the kappa’s reach and was staring at the creature, fascinated.

  “A river goblin. They’re real,” he said. “I mean, I believed you, but—”

  I almost laughed. “But you weren’t certain. No matter, you did what you needed to do, and I am grateful. Now then, monster—I’m going to ask you for a favor. You can refuse, but if you do, you will turn into a dried-up husk that we will probably use to fuel our campfire. What say you?”

  “Let me go!” The thing was practically begging, but I had come too far and risked a boy’s life to capture the creature, and it was going to help us whether it wanted to do so or not.

  “You don’t have a lot of time, so I would save your breath for the oath you’re about to swear to us. Kenji?”

  Kenji took a set of prayer beads from around his own neck and muttered a prayer before he placed it around that of the river goblin. “You will swear by the Buddha to do as we ask. You will be compelled to keep your oath, so do not swear lightly.” Kenji touched the beads one more time and spoke a word I didn’t understand.

  “The time has come,” I said. “Do you swear to do as we shall instruct, to the limits of your strength and life? Once this is accomplished, you will be free of the oath, but not until then.”

  The wrinkles stopped spreading and were now deepening. We could feel the thing shrinking as we held it. If the creature proved too stubborn, all would be for naught, but it finally opened the beak not really suited for human speech and rasped out the words. “Kappa swears!”

  “Excellent,” I said, and we tossed the creature back into the river like an unwanted fish. As might be expected, the first thing it did once it surfaced, was try to remove the prayer beads, most likely hoping to throw them at our heads and laugh at us for fools. The beads would not come off. As the river goblin struggled against them, they began to tighten.

  “Being strangled to death is really not much better than drying out,” Kenji pointed out. “But it’s your choice.”

  The thing finally gave up, and we could hear its sigh across the water. “Had to try,” the creature muttered. “What is kappa to do?”

  The simple beauty of my plan was that it required no alterations at all to Akimasa’s. By mid-morning he had our forces arrayed. There was some grumbling, as a large contingent of our archers were being forced to dismount
and fight on foot, but I could see the advantage from Akimasa’s point of view—the archers, rather than racing about the fortress firing at random, would be firing in formation. While it was true they would also be in range of the archers on the wall, our archers would be shooting from behind a barrier of large bamboo shields arranged in front of them, which at least gave them equivalent protection to the men on the walls.

  “The goal is not necessarily to kill their opponents,” Akimasa said. “But rather to limit the Abe archers’ ability to shoot at will while we attack the gate.”

  We were both mounted and in place with a large force of spearmen and archers just out of bowshot. I had kept the spear Lord Yoshiie had given to me at that first skirmish, and I was grateful for it now. We watched as the ram approached the gate, advancing slowly under the cover of another line of the bamboo shields. At one point the defenders opened a smaller door in the overhang around the gate and attempted a sortie against the ram, but our archers were easily able to drive them back, killing several. One of the men carrying the ram fell, but the remainder pressed on.

  My armor was not the most comfortable clothing I had ever worn, but as I watched events unfolding before me, I was again grateful for it.

  “You heard the complaints from the archers now on foot,” Akimasa said. “War was different in our fathers’ time—you had two groups of mounted archers who would essentially ride around and shoot at each other. Sometimes I think the goal was as much to return home alive with the most arrows in your armor as win the battle.”

  “This,” I said, “is not like that.”

  Akimasa grunted. “No, it is not. Perhaps our fathers had the right idea . . . stand ready.”

  Despite our archers’ best efforts, the men supporting the ram were taking losses, and this included the men deploying the shields. I knew Akimasa had sent twice as many as would be needed to operate the ram, but now I was beginning to think this might not be enough. Now the ram was at the gate. I held my breath. The sound of the first good strike against the gate would be our signal to charge. And I think this, as much as my eagerness to free my sister’s spirit, was why I had taken my place with Akimasa and the spearmen, rather than taking the proper place of a noble commander, on a campstool out of arrow range, directing the battle with couriers and signal fans as Lord Yoriyoshi quite sensibly was prone to do.

  If the gate isn’t breached quickly, this day will not go well for us.

  The gate to the fortress shuddered, and our line shot forward as one, charging at the gate, which was still standing.

  One more . . .

  The ram struck the gate again, but it still held. At the rate we were covering ground, it looked like we would ride directly into it and smash ourselves like fishing boats driven onto the rocks.

  One more. That’s all you have.

  The gate groaned with a sound that cut through the shouts of the men and the screams of the arrow-bitten horses and then the gate swung inward. By this time I was close enough to see the defenders fall back as the gate swung in unexpectedly on them. They knew the gate should never have failed after three blows, but we knew something they did not know—our kappa had kept his word, slipped over the water gate in cover of darkness, evaded the guards who were watching our camp, not their own compound, and used its great strength and iron-like claws to weaken the beam holding the gate. The first line of defenders were simply ridden down, and then we were within the fortress, our archers now firing on the bushi manning the walls from within and without, our spearmen engaging those bushi pouring into the compound from the surrounding buildings before they could position themselves effectively. I killed two men who were trying to kill me and managed to wound a third severely enough he could not continue to fight. My helmet deflected one arrow, another lodged itself in my saddle not a finger’s breadth from my leg. I kept pressing forward until I had reached the far side of the compound, and only then wheeled Shiroirei for another pass. Our men riding through the breached gates were a tide that could not be stemmed.

  In the end, very few of the defenders were left to surrender to us. The couriers reporting our victory to Lord Yoshiie departed before the last of the garrison was captured. I left it to Akimasa to complete the securing of the fortress and see to the disposition of the prisoners. Lord Yoshiie had instructed him to show mercy where possible, no doubt primarily because he expected to remove the Abe as rulers of the province and not all of the bushi in their employ had ties of blood loyalty, and so were potentially useful to him. I knew Lord Yoshiie was not especially bloodthirsty as war leaders went, but he was, as I’d realized more than once, practical above all else. There would be no revenge killing, I was certain, but it would not stop him from taking Lord Sadato’s head if and when the opportunity came. I was simply grateful any such decisions on this day were Akimasa’s, not mine. Except for one. I dismounted from Shiroirei to look for whatever prisoners the Abe might have been holding, but first I sent two of our bushi to fetch my sister.

  “Still alive, I see.”

  Kenji came through the gate at the head of the contingent of priests and healers assigned to our forces. They all set to work immediately, except for Kenji, who walked over to me first.

  “I was fortunate. Or not, as the day may prove.”

  “Even so, let’s have a look at you.”

  I unfastened my helmet and attached it to Shiroirei’s saddle, after first determining the arrow that had struck the saddle earlier had not penetrated through to the horseflesh beneath it. I wouldn’t have liked to see the expression on Taro’s face if that had happened. Meanwhile Kenji inspected me.

  “Not so much as an arrow cut, this time. And now?”

  “Now I will do what I really came to do.”

  “Certainly. Storming the fortress and turning Taro into kappa bait was simply a distraction.”

  It didn’t take a great deal of sensitivity to know Kenji was not happy with me at the moment. I cannot even say I blamed him. I wasn’t entirely happy with myself. I even felt a shade of guilt on behalf of the water goblin. Not that this would have changed one thing I had chosen to do. I did hope one day he would pardon me. I was not sure I would be able to do as much for myself.

  “I will not ask you to help me with this,” I said.

  “You could try forbidding me, but that won’t work either. If it must be done, then let us see it done. There is still the matter of settling accounts with Lord Tenshin.”

  Neither of us spoke again until the two men I had sent to bring Lady Rie into the compound appeared, leading the image of my sister on chains. They seemed wary, as if she had resisted, and as they approached, she resisted again, but they held firmly to her chains. I had hoped the shikigami would not force me to bind her, but this was not to be the case. Yet it was soon clear I had been right about the continued degradation of Lord Tenshin’s control—I saw her face change before each and every struggle, and knew it was Lord Tenshin who was blindly fighting, not my sister. I wasn’t sure what difference it would make, but I took careful note.

  Kenji and I took my sister’s chains in our own hands, and I dismissed the bushi.

  “Brother, why have you brought me here?” she said, in one of the times when she was Rie again.

  “To face your tormentor. I believe I owe you that much, sister.”

  “My death is already a fact, brother,” Rie said. “His is not, nor will it change what has happened to me. You must destroy what is left of me, you know this to be true. Where that man is concerned, you still have the choice of mercy, so think carefully on what you do.”

  “As I told you before—I am not as enlightened as you are. What I will do now is on my own head, for you have instructed me better at every opportunity.”

  “I am very fond of you, brother, but you really are a fool.”

  I had no argument with that. We had not even begun our search when one of Akimasa’s subordinates ran up to tell us the garrison’s prisoners had been found, and would I come to pass judgment? I
let the man lead us down to the rooms—or rather pits—cut into the foundation itself. They had no doors but only a grillwork covering the top of each of them. We went by them one at a time, and for the most part we simply saw frightened, miserable faces looking up at us.

  “Please examine the prisoners. Akimasa-san said you would know which fell under Lord Yoshiie’s directive toward the magic workers.”

  “I will need some time,” I said. “Please, check back in a little while, and I will have a proper answer.”

  We watched the man disappear from earshot before Kenji spoke. “These are the onmyoji. I recognize some of them.”

  So did I. Over the years I had been in contact, amiably or less so, with several of them but not all. Judging from the numbers, I rather doubted all or even most of the prisoners fell into that category. There weren’t that many magicians in all of Kyoto.

  “What are you going to do about them?” Kenji asked.

  “At the moment, nothing. Help me find Lord Tenshin. I know he is here.”

  “He is,” Rie said softly. “I remember this place.”

  Kenji gave me a questioning glance then, but I just shook my head. “Later. First, Lord Tenshin.”

  We found him in a cell all his own, whether to honor him with some distinction or for special punishment, I neither knew nor cared. The face looking up at me from the filth of that pit was not the one I had seen in Kuon Temple, in what now seemed a thousand years gone, but I did recognize the man. I fixed Rie’s chain to a supporting post, and together Kenji and I slipped the bolt and hauled the man out of his cell. He could barely stand, so I let him kneel. It was a more appropriate position for what was to follow, regardless.

  Lord Tenshin spoke then. His voice was thready and weak. “Aren’t you going to gloat, even a little? I would.”

  “I would not hold yourself as a proper standard of behavior, my lord,” Kenji said. “You are nothing but a common murderer.”