Year of the Demon fb-2

by Steve Bein

  He was the first to reach the fallen scout, who still attempted to crawl, dragging his legs uselessly behind him. The man seemed so small. “Easy,” the lieutenant said. “Easy, soldier.” He crouched beside the scout and sent the rest of his platoon around the bend in the road. “Report. What are you doing out here alone?”

  “Not alone,” grunted the scout, his head hanging heavily between his shoulders. He clutched the lieutenant’s sword belt as if trying to pull himself upright. “My patrol. All killed. Ran us down outside the Okuma compound. Killed us all.”

  A prayer for mercy escaped the lieutenant’s lips unbidden. He did not want to believe in boys with magic swords and cat’s eyes, but what else could explain what he’d seen tonight? There, twenty paces ahead, he spied another corpse along the roadway, lying facedown in the weeds and clad in Toyotomi colors. How many more littered this road? Could the Bear Cub have felled an entire patrol?

  “You men, up here!” barked the lieutenant, his voice echoing off the Green Cliff. The remainder of his force came running, save the eight men reassigned to guard the door. “Our quarry is out there in these hills,” he said when they reached him. “Watch yourselves; this one is as dangerous as they come. Half of you, over the hill. The rest, take the road.”

  The limp-legged scout still clung to the lieutenant’s belt, trying to pull himself up though he lacked even the strength to raise his own head. He seemed to weigh nothing at all. The lieutenant hadn’t even seen the scout’s face yet, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to. He felt a pang of guilt for wanting to leave this man to die on his own, a warrior who had served his daimyo well. He felt even worse for not charging out to meet the enemy with the rest of his troops, who vanished over the hillcrest or around the bend in the road even as he watched them. He should have been at their head, facing the same danger, running the same risks as the two who now lay in the road, one dead and the other dying.

  “Easy, son,” the lieutenant said, not knowing what else to say.

  “Much easier than I thought,” the scout said, and he thrust a knife into the lieutenant’s chin.

  • • •

  Daigoro did not let go of the knife because he wasn’t sure the lieutenant was dead.

  He’d expected to feel a great swell of shame and self-loathing after such skullduggery, but the sad and simple truth was that Daigoro was exhausted, and stabbing a defenseless man was much easier than facing him sword to sword. Later, he thought, he’d try to convince himself that deceit on the battlefield was no stain on one’s honor, and that his ruse with this lieutenant was no different than his father’s ruse with the “ghost army” that defeated Shichio and Hideyoshi. For now, it was enough that he was still alive, and that his enemy was either dead or dying, depending on how far the knife had gone up into his brain.

  He gave a quick, low whistle. Twenty paces up the road, a dead body in Toyotomi colors got to its feet and picked its way out of the weeds. It was the shinobi, who moments before had made this lieutenant believe he was the infamous Bear Cub, then batted a volley of arrows aside, then transformed himself into a Toyotomi corpse, all without effort. He’d even draped his lifeless form over Glorious Victory Unsought, concealing it from all the troops that dashed past him in pursuit of a Bear Cub they would not find.

  “I don’t know how you managed that trick with the arrows,” Daigoro told him, “but that was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen.”

  The shinobi ignored the compliment. “Your sword. Too big for you.”

  Daigoro nodded and shrugged. “That sword is too big for anyone.”

  “Stronger than you look. Impressive.”

  For a fleeting moment, Daigoro’s fear and fatigue lifted from him. An exchange of mutual respect, between himself and the deadliest man he’d ever encountered. Daigoro had to stop and think for a moment just to be sure it had happened. Then the moment passed, and Daigoro remembered the weight of what he needed to do.

  He and the shinobi made a show of caring for the lieutenant, for the benefit of the Toyotomis still manning the gate. At this distance they would need eagle’s eyes to notice their lieutenant was now the wounded one and their fallen scout had sprung miraculously to life. They would see only three men, one of them hanging between the other two like a field-dressed deer. With that disguise in place, Daigoro made the long walk to the Green Cliff.

  At the gate all eyes were on the grisly form of the lieutenant. The cloying stench of his blood tainted the smoke and ash from the cookfires. Together they stank of hell. Hinges wailed like tortured spirits as the Toyotomis put their shoulders into the gates. Then the lieutenant wailed too, giving Daigoro such a start that he nearly dropped the man. Somehow the lieutenant still clung to life, and also to his duty. He tried in vain to warn his garrison of the ruse, but with the knife pinning his jaws shut, he could only moan loud and long. It sounded like his ghost leaving his body, and between that, the wailing gates, and the smells of blood and fire, to Daigoro’s weary mind the gate to House Yasuda had become the gates of hell.

  He kept his head low and tried to take an accurate count of the enemy. Crunching on the gravel were eight pairs of booted feet. His own shadow stretched before him, bound to that of the lieutenant and the shinobi, as if the whole concatenous mass were the shadow of some hideous six-legged demon. Somehow the vision gave him strength: if this was hell, then at least he was the demon.

  “Bar the gate,” he said. “We can’t let that Bear Cub get inside.”

  He waited until he heard the bar drop before he drew steel. He killed the first of the eight with his wakizashi, then drew Glorious Victory from the lieutenant’s back. Together, Daigoro and the shinobi made short work of the rest.

  56

  Yasuda Jinbei had never been a large man, and illness had withered him even further. His cheeks were sharper than Daigoro remembered, as if the bones pushed through his skin with a mind of their own. His thin hands lay folded across his blanket, and there too the sallow skin sagged between the hollows of the bones. His white hair splayed limply across his pillow like a fan. The sight of it made Daigoro think of General Mio, and his mind reeled away from the memory of Mio’s terrible wounds, fixating instead on the image of the giant man gleaming in his black armor, his hair as white as the snow atop Mount Fuji. By comparison, Lord Yasuda’s hair seemed yellow, faded, brittle. His pale eyebrows were in the grips of a permanent, pain-ridden scowl.

  “Lord Yasuda,” Daigoro said, kneeling gingerly at the edge of the aging daimyo’s bed. “Can you hear me?”

  Yasuda opened his rheumy eyes. “Hehh,” he said, forcing a chuckle that sounded more like a cough. “I must be doing worse than I thought. You look at me as if I’m already a corpse, Okuma-dono.”

  “It’s just Daigoro now.”

  “So I’ve heard. A bold thing, that. Unorthodox too. Reminds me of your father.”

  “You honor me.”

  “Then it’s time you honored him. He was bold, not reckless. And his every breath was in service to his clan and his code. Is this the best way to serve your family?”

  Daigoro felt his face flush and changed the subject. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better than I look, if that face you make is any indication. Just wait and see, Okuma-dono. I’ll lick this yet.”

  Daigoro tried to smile. “I don’t doubt it, Yasuda-sama.”

  “Oh yes, you do. And don’t you sama me. As far as I’m concerned, you’re still Lord Protector of Izu, the same as your father.”

  “That honor belongs to my son,” said Daigoro.

  “Assuming you have a son.” He laughed and coughed. “Who’s to say that lovely wife of yours doesn’t bear a daughter? What will you do then, eh? Steal into her bedchamber every nine months? And who’s to mind Izu when you’re away? Those Soras and Inoues are back to squabbling like old hens. Don’t look to me to shut them up. I’m too old for that nonsense, and even if I weren’t, their houses outrank mine.”

  He was right. Worse yet, eve
n on his deathbed he could summon more vigor than Daigoro could manage at the moment. An aging tiger was still a tiger. All Daigoro wanted was to lie down and sleep.

  “I saw no other choice,” he said at last. “Yasuda-sama, you must understand: if I hadn’t relinquished my name, my whole family might already be dead.”

  “So what is it you prefer? To see your name dishonored? To see your mother saddled with more responsibility than she can bear?”

  Daigoro smiled—a sad smile, but it was genuine, the first one in many days. “You never were one for small talk, were you, Yasuda-sama?”

  “You stop it with that sama nonsense. She’s not well, Okuma-dono. You know that better than anyone.”

  Daigoro nodded. “In fact, she’s the reason I came here to speak with you.”

  “There’s talk of some general from Kyoto wanting to marry her. Is that true?”

  “That’s what I’ve come to prevent.”

  “Then go back to your family. Reclaim your title.”

  “If I do that, the general doesn’t need to marry her; he’ll just kill her, and the rest of my house too. You don’t know this man, Yasuda-sama. He isn’t bound to the code as we are. He’s mad.”

  Yasuda nodded weakly. “Then come at him from a position of strength. Your own position, the position of your birthright. Let a widow mourn the passing of her husband. Let a mother mourn the death of her eldest son. And if death comes, then such is a samurai’s lot. Die in your rightful stead, Okuma-dono.”

  “No. I was no good at governance even while I had name and station. Let the other lords protector manage Izu’s affairs while my mother grieves. Surely they owe my family that much.”

  Yasuda coughed, snorted, and spat a wad of mucus into a red-lacquered bowl held by a serving girl. “What they owe is one thing,” he said. “How little they can get away with repaying is something else again. Someone has got to mind the difference between the two, and doing that will demand more vigilance than your mother can spare.”

  “Yes. I was rather hoping I might ask a Yasuda to hold things together.”

  Lord Yasuda had another coughing fit. His face flushed, and the little veins visibly bulged in his temples. Whether it was from the coughing or emotional agitation, Daigoro couldn’t say.

  “I told you already,” Yasuda said, “it’s beyond my reach. Too old. Too many other things to worry about. This devil besetting my lungs isn’t the least of my problems, but it isn’t the greatest either.”

  “I did not presume to saddle you with this burden, Yasuda-sama. I had your youngest son in mind.”

  “Kenbei? He’s responsible enough, I’ll grant you, but none of the other lords will listen to him. Izu looks to House Yasuda for strength and defense, not for fair minds and level heads. And we don’t look to the Inoues or Soras either, that’s for damned certain. We look to House Okuma.”

  The devil, as Yasuda called it, possessed his lungs again, and he had to spit five times into the serving girl’s bowl before he could rest his heavy head back on his pillow.

  “Izu looks to House Okuma,” Daigoro said, “and now House Okuma looks to the house of Yasuda Kenbei. I have surrendered my title as lord protector; I can only ask you as a friend. Will you help me? Will you speak to your son for me?”

  “Nothing would please me more. If my Kenbei were to marry your mother, your enemy would have no recourse but to accept it. But Kenbei is already married, and his wife is at least as dangerous as this madman in Kyoto. They called your father the Red Bear of Izu, but let me tell you, they should have given that nickname to her instead. That woman is a bear if ever there was one.”

  Daigoro grinned. “Direct as ever, Yasuda-sama.”

  “Wait until you’re my age and then see how much time you have for dithering.” Lord Yasuda hacked and spat. “You’re a clever boy, Okuma-dono. And this fever addles an old man’s brain. You did not have Kenbei in mind, neh? You spoke of his house, not Kenbei himself.”

  “Yes, sir. Perhaps someone younger—and someone not married to a bear.”

  “Inventive thinking. Just like your father.”

  Daigoro felt his face flush. On any other day he would have enjoyed the compliment to his father. On any other day being likened to his father would have filled him with the warm glow of pride. On this night he could enjoy neither. He could only wonder if his father would have condoned his wife’s marriage to another house, or whether he would approve of his son pawning her off as a political ploy.

  Daigoro had neither the time nor the inclination to seriously pursue such questions. Shichio’s soldiers were bound to return, and Daigoro had already tarried too long. “I don’t wish to press you,” he said, “but I’m afraid time is of the essence, Lord Yasuda.”

  “Then my answer to your request must be no,” said Yasuda. “I would not see your mother wedded to any one of Kenbei’s sons. The eldest got himself killed in a drunken brawl, and the younger ones are bound on the same path. Mountain monkeys, all of them. Would you set them loose in your mother’s bedchamber?”

  Daigoro tried to speak, but a spate of coughs and wheezes interrupted him, making him bide his tongue. This time the fit left Lord Yasuda struggling for breath, so his voice came out hoarse and ghostly, like wind rattling through a long, thin slit in a rice-paper window. “I am sorry, Okuma-dono, but House Yasuda has no men of marriageable age to offer you. Kenbei is too old for your mother, even if that she-bear of his were to keel over dead. I have groomed him to take my seat when I die—which will not be tonight, so you can remove that pitying look from your face.”

  Daigoro blushed, bowed, and regained his composure. “My apologies, Yasuda-sama.”

  Lord Yasuda ignored him. “And Kenbei’s brothers are older still. They are not tigers anymore; they are trees, and their roots have burrowed deep. Their homes are far from here—and well they should be. ‘The sword arm’s strength comes from a strong stance.’ Isn’t that what your father taught you? My house defends Izu from a broad, strong stance, but that means we cannot bend even when we want to—not even to serve our most trusted friends.”

  He could not keep the shame from his face. It was enough to make Daigoro want to weep, seeing his family’s strongest ally so vulnerable. Taking Yasuda’s frail, cold hand in his own, he said, “I had not looked to your elder sons. They serve Izu best where they are. Please, indulge me in a flight of fancy, my lord. If your son Kenbei spoke with House Okuma’s voice—if—then he could bring stability to the region, neh?”

  The old man conceded the point with a nod. “Do you suggest he take on a concubine? He cannot—not a woman of your mother’s stature.”

  “No.”

  “Then I’ve told you already: I would not have those wild stallions I call my grandsons see the Lady Okuma as a broodmare.”

  “No, Yasuda-sama, but suppose we take a longer view—”

  A shout from outside made Daigoro break off in midthought. Daigoro turned to see one of Yasuda’s sentries hit the floor on his back, his armor clacking like a metal hailstorm. Another samurai fell beside the first, struck by something invisible outside the doorway. Daigoro’s first thoughts ran to musket fire, but there was no report. Next he thought of Toyotomi arrows, but neither of the fallen men was pierced. Daigoro had no opportunity to look out into the courtyard to see the attacker, for Yasuda spearmen instantly blockaded the doorway, their myriad spears stabbing out into the darkness.

  “Daigoro-sama!” a lupine voice shouted outside. “Come out!”

  Daigoro hurried through the door, pushing Yasuda spearmen aside with an armored forearm. The courtyard sprawled before him, its white gravel glowing as if the moon itself had rained down in a million tiny pieces. The shinobi crouched at the base of the stairs leading down from the veranda, his gaze flicking between the main gate and the green-clad samurai jabbing spears at him from the doorway to Lord Yasuda’s chamber.

  Daigoro glanced over his shoulder at the two men lying on their backs—door guards, no doubt. His shinobi
must have kicked them, punched them, thrown them somehow, and that meant he’d only acted in self-defense. If he’d had a mind to kill them, Daigoro had no doubt both men would be dead.

  And if he’d acted in self-defense, then they must have reacted poorly when the shinobi had tried to enter. That meant the shinobi must have come up too quickly for their liking, and Daigoro could think of only one thing that could make him hurry. The Toyotomis were coming back.

  “How many?” Daigoro asked, drawing Glorious Victory Unsought.

  “Twenty,” said the shinobi. “More on the way.”

  Daigoro didn’t know whether to be disappointed with Lord Yasuda’s bodyguard or to be awed by how easily his shinobi companion had felled two of them despite being unarmed and unarmored. In any case, the lord of their house was in no condition to be giving orders. “You there,” Daigoro shouted at one of the spearmen, “rouse every man House Yasuda can put in the Green Cliff’s defense. The rest of you, hold this doorway. No one gets through. And put a line of armored bodies surrounding Lord Yasuda. There will be archers.”

  Armor clattered behind him; feet rustled against tatami mats; battle formations took shape. “And now,” Daigoro muttered under his breath, “what in hell do we do?”

  57

  On the opposite side of the courtyard, the gate thundered like a taiko drum. It seemed the Toyotomis had found a battering ram.

  “Lord Yasuda!” a voice bellowed from beyond the wall. “Send out the fugitive! Do not force us to put your house to the torch.”

  An empty threat, Daigoro thought. He’d seen no sign that the garrison was equipped with fire arrows, and there wasn’t enough wood on the entire island to burn down the Green Cliff’s outer wall. Nevertheless, Daigoro could not allow the ultimatum to go unanswered. The Yasudas were among his family’s oldest allies. He would not risk turning the might of Hideyoshi against them. The Toyotomi captain had no need to level the Green Cliff tonight. He had only to dictate a letter declaring the Yasudas an enemy of the throne. Then he would have as many reinforcements and as much time as he liked to raze House Yasuda to the ground.