“Little Acorn. You have never called me that before.”
“Haven’t I?” The bird winked. As the Raggedy Man had winked.
The thought of Kiosé lying down with Kaa stoked Ken’ishi’s heart to anger. “Were you looking in on me when I was starving? Were you protecting me when I was imprisoned? No!”
“Petulance! You have grown too big for your trousers. Perhaps I owe you a lesson in swordsmanship. But not today. Of course, I saw you when you were starving! There was a day when you were trudging through the rain, and you came upon a woman taking shelter in a shrine.”
“I remember. She gave me a rice ball.”
“She was there because I guided her there.”
“What happened to her?” Ken’ishi asked. That was long ago, but he still thought about her sometimes.
“She was strangled to death six months after that by a jealous man.”
Fresh grief squeezed his stomach. “She was so kind …”
“That is the cruelty your race inflicts upon itself, no matter what land you come from. Someday you will all be dead, and we tengu will still be around to reclaim our places in the world, but alas that is many, many lifetimes away. In any case, mostly I have left you alone to find your own way, even when you lost your precious toy, even when you were Green Tiger’s prisoner. Too much help from me, and you would not be as strong as you are today.”
“You knew I was there and did nothing to help me!”
“For a time, even I could not find you. You were lost in the underworld. There are things driving your destiny that are beyond me, deft little touches shaping the events all around us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that there are forces beyond you that are shaping your destiny. And not just yours. But never mind about that. I have told you what I came here to tell you. Your trials this day are not yet over. And you would do well to forget that woman. Your tangled-up mind is the cause for forgetting most of what I taught you in the first place!” Kaa shifted on his perch, unfurled his wings, and leaped off his branch.
Ken’ishi could only watch him wing off through the canopy.
Moments later the sound of marching caught his attention. The others heard it, too, and prepared their bows.
He breathed a sigh of relief when a line of shadows emerged from the forest road, marching from the south. Horsemen. Behind them marched a column of spearmen and naginata samurai. As the column of troops neared, he recognized one of the lead horsemen.
Ken’ishi jumped down from his hiding place into the road. “Otomo-sama!” he called.
Startled, the horsemen reined up and stopped the column. The order to halt echoed and repeated back.
Otomo no Tsunemori rode up before Ken’ishi. “Master Ken’ishi.”
Ken’ishi bowed deeply. “Did the messengers arrive safely?”
“They did,” Tsunemori said. “Have you seen the enemy since then?”
“No, Lord.” Ken’ishi pointed down the fork to the west, then reported the day’s events in full. When he finished, he said, “Otomo-sama, we have two wounded men.”
“They’ll be taken care of. Ken’ishi, take your scouts in the direction you last saw the enemy. Find and observe the larger force, and report back. We will be following you.”
Ken’ishi bowed again. “Yes, Otomo-sama.” He couldn’t help swelling with pride at finding himself in command.
From dark windy hills
Voices driving weary horses …
Shouting of the storm
— Kyokusui
Tsunemori ordered Ken’ishi’s band of scouts reinforced to a total of twenty, and then he led them back toward Hakozaki.
As the scouts neared the bayside town, the forested roads and valleys spread out into rice fields and rocky meadows, and the incessant wind tore at the ribbons of smoke rising from it. The sky looked as if it were about to clear. Perhaps there would be no storm after all.
Countless hooves had pounded the roads and once-golden stubble of the rice fields into oblivion. But where had the enemy gone?
Ken’ishi scanned the tree lines and hilltops but saw no sign of the invaders. Hakozaki lay ahead, perhaps one ri distant.
An arrow took the man beside him out of the saddle.
Like a coming rainstorm, the arrows fell faster and faster. Ken’ishi whipped out Silver Crane and slashed an inbound arrow from the air.
Then he saw them, as if an entire tree line three hundred paces long had come to life. Hundreds of hairy, armored horsebowmen emerged from the trees and loosed another swarm of arrows as they advanced.
For less than a heartbeat, Ken’ishi watched the arc of the incoming swarm. “Ride!”
The arrows went up.
He kicked the stallion hard, and the horse sprang into a gallop, turning perpendicular to the arrows’ path.
At their apex, the arrows seemed to pause with dreadful slowness, then arced down again. The scouts barreled forward to clear the incoming volley.
The fringes of the swarm sleeted over the rearmost two scouts, turning horses and men into a tumbling, skidding mass.
Ken’ishi spun his horse to retreat, but he heard the thunder of hoofbeats coming up the road behind them. Moments later, they came into view. Another pack of ravening Mongol wolves.
The remaining seventeen scouts galloped for Hakozaki, and the masses of horsemen fell into pursuit. The ambush had been well-executed, herding them toward the town and the bay, where more of the invading forces would be concentrated. He and his meager band were back between the pincers of the crab. They could not hope to stand against endless swarms of arrows. They must get behind walls, find some sort of fortification, or else be shredded with nothing to mark their passing but the screams of the dying.
An arrow hissed past his ear and embedded itself in the foundation of the house just ahead, where the road became a town street.
The scouts flew into the abandoned, smoking town, flying hooves trampling scattered corpses and wreckage as they went.
Rounding a corner at a crossing street took them out of immediate archery range. Just ahead lay the shattered remnants of a makeshift barricade, bristling with arrows and manned by six samurai corpses.
Ken’ishi hauled on the reins, and the stallion skidded to a halt. “Here! We fight here!” The others plowed into a disarrayed halt around him, horses snorting and whinnying.
The barricade consisted of overturned carts, barrels, crates, and livestock fences.
He swept a gesture over eight of his men. “Rebuild the barricade and take cover!” To the others, he said, “We will hold them off.”
“They could come from the rear!” said one.
He whirled Silver Crane, and its glint flashed in their eyes. “Perhaps, but that will take time. This way we will have a fighting chance! Do it!”
Eight of the men jumped down and scrambled to reconstruct the barricade.
Ken’ishi sheathed Silver Crane and unslung his bow. He had never shot from horseback before, but there would likely never be a more pressing time to learn. He nocked an arrow. The other scouts lined up around him, bows readied. Moments later, the pursuers hove into view around the corner perhaps fifty paces distant.
The stallion’s remaining ear lay flat against his head.
“Loose!” Ken’ishi drew and released.
The meager handful of arrows hissed across the distance, and five Mongols fell from the saddle, setting their charge into momentary disarray.
“Hold position!” Ken’ishi nocked another arrow, and the line of samurai drew their bows. “Loose!”
Two more Mongols fell, and the rest leaped over their fallen comrades and drew their bows.
The clatter and drag of the barricade reconstruction intensified behind Ken’ishi.
“Hold position!” he shouted, looking down a Mongol arrow shaft into the hard, cold eyes of his enemy directly before him. “Loose!”
His arrow speared through the Mongol’s cheek and nose, and the barbar
ian tumbled from the saddle.
But he had not been aware of the enemy’s return volley. Only he and three of his men were still on horseback.
A voice from behind him, “Captain! Take cover!”
The barricade stood once again. His archers spurred their horses back through the narrow gap that remained. He fired one last arrow, then followed, and others rolled a cart into the gap behind him. Still others drew their bows and sent more arrows at the knot of remaining enemy horsemen gathering itself to charge.
The street was narrow, perhaps wide enough for four horsemen abreast, with close-packed, single-story houses on both sides, walls of wood and rice paper, thatched roofs, bare earthen street between.
Arrows thudded into their barricade. A samurai hissed in pain as one enemy arrow found a chink and pierced his thigh.
Four of the men snatched up spears from the dead samurai who had once defended here. Their faces were grim, frightened, and steadfast. This would be their day to die, and they would ride a torrent of enemy blood into the afterworld.
At a guttural command, the Mongols charged, ponies deftly leaping over the bodies of the arrow-pierced fallen, picking up speed as they came. Gray steel against a gray sky.
The samurai cheered and hurled taunts at the thundering mob. Voices rose, summoning courage, focusing strength, gathering fortitude as the oncoming mob gathered momentum. Shaggy manes of horses and men flew. Eyes bulged. Nostrils flared. Steel edges poised. Hooves pounded up clouds of gritty, moist earth.
Spear points met the onslaught, and the bodies of horses and men impaled themselves, plowing into the makeshift barricade, shoving it back against the defenders. The samurai thrust and stabbed. Horses screamed and fell.
Over the heads of the spearmen, Ken’ishi and the others loosed arrow after arrow. The wall of enemy flesh stood so thick that they had no chance of missing either horse or Mongol.
The meager line of four spearmen could not stand for long against the overwhelming numbers pushing against the barricade. The air filled with the stench of blood and punctured guts. Dying horses and men fell into the barricade, tangling with it, crushing it, hooves shattering wood in their death spasms. Ken’ishi fired his last arrow, and another Mongol fell.
Break them! The voice of Silver Crane pealed through his mind.
“What?” he whispered, conscious that a one-sided conversation might cause more confusion around him.
Destroy their will, and the man will be victorious. Strike from the rear.
His glance trailed along the close-packed rooftops.
The man was born for this day.
An easy leap from horseback to rooftops.
Destiny.
Silver Crane hummed in its scabbard, yearning for release.
Ken’ishi dropped his bow, leaned forward and said into the stallion’s remaining ear. “Be careful. You have been a brave and noble steed.” Before the horse could reply, he jumped up with both feet on the saddle and leaped onto the nearest roof, snatching and clawing for purchase at the thatch, dragging himself to the crown of the roof.
Eyes trained upon him; bows swiveled toward him.
He ran, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Silver Crane leaped into his hand. He became the Void, the No-Mind, the Nothingness between instants.
Arrows sliced toward him, and he slashed aside any that came near.
Strength and celerity such as he had never felt flooded his body. His blood roared in his ears, and his voice roared its defiance. He leaped off the last house, into the intersection, amid the ranks of enemy horsemen. Silver Crane came down, and a helmeted head soared free of its shoulders.
Cut them all!
Silver Crane swept a cold arc of death. Men roared and horses screamed. Men and beasts fell, cut deep, spewing hot gore.
Elation surged through him. Power surged through him. He severed limbs of man and horse alike, and in the chaos of death and thrashing hooves and brandished steel, men and horses injured themselves trying to escape his deadly reach.
Awash in a rain of blood, Ken’ishi slashed and cut and thrust, through forests of wet bone, mountains of straining muscle, rivers of putrid entrails. Blood dripped from his hair, slicked his palms, filled his nose, wet his lips.
The air grew dark.
He vaguely sensed blades coming near, lances thrusting toward him, the feather-soft brush of razor-edges against his flesh, but tiny cuts were as nothing against the monstrous, roiling thundercloud of power that rose through him and turned his body to steel. He became a single edge, cleaving, slicing.
Drinking.
The ring of slain men and horses grew. His toes squelched deep through crimson mud.
A droplet of rain licked through the blood on his cheek.
He leaped to the top of the chest-high ring, toward the barricade. Pale faces watched from behind the barricade. Fear took root in the Mongol faces.
His vision became a black-fringed scarlet haze.
A river of blood unto the end of the world.
Ken’ishi heard a guttural howl of assault that resembled his voice, and the droplet of rain became two, which became four, which became a pattering, plopping, spattering, mixing with the rain of blood falling to the earth.
Wind rose into a sudden howl across the rooftops. The sky darkened.
Forward and back, he slashed, he slew. Heads and arms and shoulders flew, and a long, savage cry wrawled from his throat. Another distant roar of defiance rose from somewhere beyond his enemies, the distant clash of blades and spears.
Drinking.
For infinite eternities, he fought, and the rain came down in thickening sheets. Lightning crackled overhead. The wind snarled and whistled, driving the rain nearly sideways, so hard it stung his face. He waded through oceans of adversaries, and the crash of surf pounded harder and harder on the distant shore like the fists of the gods. The enemies nearby sought only to flee, a chorus of screams.
Broken.
Ken’ishi found himself alone. None of the enemy remained.
And the power thrummed through him, waves of fortune crashing over the world.
A lightning bolt struck in the distance, and he felt its white-hot birth.
Dim voices, probing through the roar in his ears.
“Captain!”
“They have fled!”
Distant horns blew commands, borne upon the wind, passed along the rim of the bay, echoing over the dark, huddled rooftops of Hakozaki.
Rain sluiced the blood from his hair, from his arms, cleansing Silver Crane. Watery scarlet dripped from his chin.
The surrounding street was awash in rain and blood, corpses and pieces of corpses piled to window sills, to eaves.
His chest burned. His heart thundered with fierce heat.
He sank to his knees, gasping for breath.
He fell forward onto one arm.
Silver Crane pierced the earth, supporting his other arm.
Lightning and thunder coursed through the clouds, through his blood.
Vast cyclones of wind tore across Hakata Bay, tearing through sails, whipping the brine into frothy mountains. All of it rippled through Silver Crane, into him.
Destiny.
The taste of blood was still in his nose, in his mouth.
“A typhoon, Captain!” someone said.
“It came up so quickly!”
“Let us find shelter!”
He did not know how many of his men were left, but they helped him to his feet, into a nearby house. His right hand ached from its grip on Silver Crane’s hilt, but he could not relinquish his hold.
In the darkness, their unease crowded over him. What had they seen? He began to shiver, kneeling alone, propped on the point of Silver Crane.
They built a fire and watched him, muttering in hushed tones, reverent tones.
“I have never seen anything like that.”
“I have never heard of anything like that.”
“Such courage!”
“Such strength!”
“Such ferocity!”
Ken’ishi let his eyes close, allowing the conversation to ebb and flow around him. The storm outside roared and howled and slashed the rooftops with rain.
“But what about their main forces? All those ships in the bay …”
“Perhaps they took shelter in Hakata, or withdrew to Imazu.”
“Most of their ships were of Korean make. Koryo sailors know the seas, those devils.”
“They would not want to be trapped in the bay with this taifu blowing in. They’ll be dashed to pieces.”
“Perhaps they will flee for the open seas.”
“Perhaps, but will they take the barbarians with them?”
“Would the barbarians want to be trapped on a foreign shore with no means of retreat?”
“They must know that we will eventually outnumber them.”
“It came on so quickly!”
“Fortunately, we are on higher ground here.”
Someone lit a lantern.
Twelve of his men remained, and he felt a moment of satisfaction. He said, “You have all accounted yourselves well.”
“It was you, Captain!” someone said. “A hundred dead barbarians litter the street outside!”
Ken’ishi’s torso still buzzed like the wings of a wasp, vibrations that traveled unknown distances, touched unknown possibilities. He sat up and finally sheathed his sword. His hand throbbed.
The wind moaned in the rafters like a mournful ghost. The entire house shuddered and rattled with each gust.
Ken’ishi tried to move nearer the fire, but collapsed from the fresh wave of weariness. He finally eased himself against a wall, resting his dripping head against the wood. His drenched clothing clung to his skin. Cold rivulets of water trickled down his body, dripped onto the floor, into the tatami …
Both the victor
And the vanquished are
But drops of dew
But bolts of lightning—
Thus should we view the world.
— Ouchi Yoshitaka, death poem
Hugging his knees, the boy without a name squatted beside the mountain lake where the waters were so clear he could see the tiny darting fish, the tadpoles, the insects skipping across the top of the water, far out into the dark depths. His master was far away, on some trickster’s errand. The sky was an empty gray that reached down and obscured the mountaintops and crowns of the pine forest. He knew this lake where he had learned to swim, knew that its currents were fierce and capricious, as kami of the deep earth rose up from beneath and warred with the kami of the water.
Sword of the Ronin (The Ronin Trilogy) Page 35