by David Kirk
On they marched, and soon the trees began to thin before they vanished entirely, leaving a wide and gentle slope before them. Kumagai held his hand up, and his men followed him, fanning outward to march ten abreast. They happened across a line of archers without a shielding unit in front of them, and so they halted there and stood waiting in a loose square, their spears bristling.
It took time for the thousands of others to emerge from the forest and to find their places, but slowly they did and silence began to fall. The air was still, the banners held in hands or born upon backs motionless. Bennosuke realized that the mist was thinning, or perhaps the light was waxing stronger with the rising of the hidden sun, and that gradually the distance he could see was growing.
Ranks and ranks of warriors behind him, faces as gray as the fog, but he was not interested in them. A conch blew high and undulating, and then what he sought revealed itself: out of the forest came the lords.
There was a gaggle of them and their bodyguards, all on horseback. They were beautiful in a way, befitting of sunlight proper and not the dank vista that awaited them. The armor they wore were things of master craftsmanship that had been marveled at by unknown thousands, adorned and covered by overjackets and capes of finest silk that held patterns within patterns. Above them jostled the right angles of banners bearing clan insignia and prayers written a thousand years ago, these prominent above the crests of their helmets that were shaped like crescent moons or the antlers of stags or hung with brilliant white horsehair.
Ukita was at the head, resplendent in a saddle like a throne, with five banners proclaiming his lineage arrayed behind him like a peacock’s tail. The others formed themselves around him—Lord Akaza, whose livery was black; Lord Uemura, whose livery might have been a dark green but was obscured in the low light; Lord Shinmen, who wore that familiar shade of blue; and there, at the edges, the Nakata.
Bennosuke could see nothing else, and some part of him that had long lain dormant was suddenly rapt and trying to see if Hayato rode among them. But the mass of lords were armored, distant, obscured by fog and bodyguards, and there was no way to tell where one burgundy man began and another ended, let alone if one lacked an arm. The boy peered on as Ukita in turn scanned his forces, and then sent a handful of his adjutants to ride up and down the lines to ensure things were in order, the formation suitable.
The riders returned shortly, shouting readiness. With a flourish Ukita produced a large war fan made of iron plates nailed to bamboo spokes that, when unfurled, became as large as his torso. Of course it too was a beautiful thing, painted intricately with a flight of cranes dashing between the beams of a rising sun. It was an ornament that commanded thousands, a lovely and tyrannical fetish, and slowly Ukita raised it above his head and then brought his arm down to point with it toward where the enemy must lie.
“Well, boys,” said Kumagai, “here we go. I trust you all.”
He gave them a last grin, and then snapped the faceplate of his helmet into place, that snarling demon’s visage that dripped with auburn mustaches. His spear in one hand, he drew his longsword with the other and leveled it at the unknown fog ahead.
“U! Ki! Ta!” howled a distant, familiar voice.
“Hwa!” barked thousands for a final time, and then the armies of the West sallied forth.
They went at somewhere between a march and a jogging pace, eager for combat but hesitating because they could not see what exactly was waiting to fight them. Bennosuke scanned the mists, wondering if the minutest darker shade of gray was the first sight of Tokugawa’s men or the simple curling of vapor.
The farther they went, the more he felt the knot in his stomach was ready to burst. This great thing that had swallowed him had no head, no mind, no thought. Ukita waved his fan up and down, up and down as he ushered his army onward, as content as a child swatting at a fly. But then, he had bodyguards waiting to throw themselves over him should the slightest danger come his way, didn’t he?
Why had he stayed with Kumagai? Bennosuke asked himself. Why had he not left a week after the Gathering, gone home to Miyamoto and Dorinbo? His uncle would have forgiven him any shame. But he knew that Munisai’s armor would have still been there, ever ready to taunt him.
Why was he asking these questions now, and not once over the last two years?
Bennosuke knew why, deep down. It was riding behind him at a measured, comfortable pace, and he was torn between looking ahead and looking back. Within that mass of lords and bodyguards and banner and horseflesh, that myriad of colors and pomp, the Nakata burgundy was still there.
“Archers!” came the sudden cry, a frantic flurry of arrows being notched as the line stumbled to a halt.
The Tokugawa were there before them, rows of men dark gray on silver mist, so many that the rear of them could not be seen. They stood waiting silently. Ukita’s archers drew their bowstrings back, the arquebusiers sighting their guns, but no order to fire was given.
Before the Tokugawa stood one man, awaiting. A champion.
Of course there would be one. If this was to be a battle for the country, it needed to be blooded in the proper ways. To shoot him or to loose a volley at Tokugawa’s army while he stood there would be to admit cowardice. Slowly, unbidden, bows were relaxed, the barrels of arquebuses lowered.
The lone samurai between the armies calmly drew his sword and bowed to them. He was a big man, his armor both magnifying his size and making his bare head seem small in the wide expanse of his shoulder guards. His voice was confident, a deep tone that carried easily across the mist.
“My name is Seibei Matsumoto,” he called. “I am of the Yoshioka school. Send me your best.”
His challenge was issued, and so the battle could not start until the clash of champions was over. This was etiquette, as proper as seppuku, and so Ukita’s army was honor-bound to respond. Even Bennosuke had heard of the Yoshioka school, a renowned sect from Kyoto, and so when Seibei offered his challenge there was a few seconds’ pause as men gauged their chances.
A samurai eventually marched forth. Bennosuke could not see the man’s face, and when he made his introduction to Seibei he spoke so quietly his name was lost. His attack was fierce, quick slashes that had no doubt claimed enough lives over the years, but Seibei merely stepped around them, never raising his sword from his side, not even to try to parry. He waited for an opening, and when it came his sword lanced out and took Ukita’s man’s throat in one quick motion.
Seibei bowed to his corpse, bowed to his men as they cheered his name once, and then he gestured to Ukita’s army.
“Again,” he said.
A man carrying a spear walked forward. He bowed to Seibei, and asked whether he would accept a duel against the weapon. The Yoshioka samurai nodded curtly, bowed back, and then the fight began. The spearman came so close to winning; Bennosuke was certain he had impaled Seibei at one point. A feint and a lunge brought the spear down into Seibei’s groin, but the Yoshioka man must have had fine armor, for he merely pushed the blade downward, stepped over it, and then the fight was his.
Once more Seibei bowed, once more his men called his name, and once more he spoke to Ukita’s men.
“Again,” he said.
There was a protracted pause this time. Seibei was good. Bennosuke had found himself peering over his shoulder in the interim. The lords had pushed forward to get a better view of the duels, and he in turn now had a better chance to look for Hayato. It was still too hard to identify anyone.
“Musashi,” said someone close by. “You can take him.”
“What?” he said.
“Aye,” said someone else. “Aye, you can. Go on.”
It took a moment for him to realize they were talking about Seibei. Before he could protest, every man near him was speaking. The words they said were those of encouragement, but in the tone of them he could tell that he was being offered up as a sacrifice. He turned to Kumagai, expecting him not to cast his bodyguard aside, but behind that red demon’s m
ask his eyes were glinting his special shade of amusement.
“Do it, Musashi,” he said. “Take that Yoshioka bastard to pieces.”
Winter in the fort. Bennosuke had been on watch, up in the wooden tower with his breath frosting in the air. The night was still and clear, the stars above the color of ice. Beneath him, away from him as they always were, the other men were clustered around a firepit. The boredom and isolation had truly set in; what had started as a game of Go had degenerated into one man betting the others he could spit the stones into a cup from ten paces.
His first attempt was too short, his second attempt much too long. The white chip caught an edge and rolled in a long curve to fall into the pit. It nestled among the coals at the bottom.
“Well, get it out, then,” said Kumagai, smiling. He was squatting on his haunches on the edge of the fire’s light, his face orange.
“It’s just a stone,” said the man who had spat. “I’ll get it in the morning.”
“It’s clamshell that, it’ll char,” said Kumagai. “Get it out now.”
The man knew he could not argue with his captain, and so he went and got a poker and tried to press the stone up against the wall and drag it upward and out. He did it at arm’s length, the air shimmering with heat. Five times he tried, and five times the little white disk fell back.
“Looks like you’ll have to use your hand,” said Kumagai.
“What?” said the man.
“Use your hand,” said Kumagai. He was very still, and the fire lit up the spark in his eyes.
“It’s too hot, sir,” said the man after a moment.
“That doesn’t matter,” said Kumagai. “Don’t you understand that you have no choice in this? The world was written long ago, our names chosen, the color of our eyes. You were always meant to spit that stone. You were always meant to put your hand in after it.”
“But …” said the man.
“What are you afraid of? Whatever will happen to you has already happened—how can you be afraid of that?” said Kumagai. “Don’t you understand that your mother bore you burned? Don’t you understand that your mother bore you dead?”
Kumagai stared at the man. The fire crackled. Frost wrote itself in spider’s thread upon the blade of Bennosuke’s spear. Kumagai and the samurai were of an age, but in that moment it did not seem it.
The man’s throat tightened, and as quick as he could he thrust his hand down and grabbed for the stone. A shower of sparks and embers came with his hand as he flicked the white disk up and out, and then he swore and clutched his hand. But it turned to laughter because Kumagai was laughing, and he took the man’s wrist.
“See! See!” he said, and showed the man his own hand. The flesh wasn’t even blistered. “Enlightenment!”
They were all laughing then, save for Bennosuke in his dark tower. The men kept laughing, the spitter showing them his hand, and they did not stop as Kumagai walked away from them, spread his arms wide, rolled his head back, and gave a wordless snarl of a yell.
“My word, I’m bored,” he said to no one in particular, and tottered off aimlessly into the night, clutching at the back of his neck.
Upon the paving slabs, the white stone cooled.
The boy looked into Kumagai’s eyes now, and he knew he would not be allowed to refuse. There was a crushing sense of isolation for a moment, surrounded though he was. Kumagai took his spear from him, still grinning behind his mask, and then the other samurai parted and cleared a way to the front for him. They looked at him expectantly.
Bennosuke saw Seibei too move to stand and wait at the mouth of the tunnel. He cut an imposing figure, perfectly still with his sword bloody, an oily, red sheen across the blade. A man, a proud warrior, a samurai—all the things Bennosuke knew that he was not. The knot was there, obscene and peristaltic and wrapping itself around his spine to the base of his skull. He knew he deserved oblivion, and so now that it was before him he should have been grateful to fate for arranging what he lacked the strength to do himself.
But he wasn’t. He looked back once at the Nakata and the cluster of lords. Every eye there was upon him. There was no escape, nothing he could say or do. The tunnel waited, and so Bennosuke fought the urge to quiver and stepped forward into it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Seibei’s composure was immaculate, his face like stone as Bennosuke approached him there in that little private chasm between two hordes. The boy was wringing the scabbard of his sword without realizing it, and Seibei’s blade was so very still. The Yoshioka samurai bowed respectfully to Bennosuke, and the boy returned it.
“What is your name?” Seibei asked.
Bennosuke said nothing. His heart was pumping so fast with nerves he was worried his voice would crack. The boy kept his silence, drew his sword, and felt thousands of pairs of eyes upon him.
“What is your name?” Seibei asked again, and this time something broke across his face. It was impossible to tell what it was, whether it was pain, or anger, or confusion. His eyes bored into Bennosuke, beseeching, but Seibei saw only the cold metal visage of the facemask. No answer was coming, the Yoshioka samurai realized, and so with resignation he dropped into a fighting stance and moved forward.
Bennosuke began breathing slowly, the long exhalations seething and rattling around his helmet, trying to calm himself. He warily kept his distance, making no move to swing at Seibei. The other two samurai—dead around your feet, stay clear of their corpses, do not trip on them—had gone straight for him, and Seibei had thrived on it. He wanted to be attacked, to counter rather than lead. The boy would not give him such an opportunity again.
Moments passed as they weighed each other up, and soon Seibei realized Bennosuke’s intention. Grudgingly, he changed his stance, raising his sword to a position to strike rather than to hover defensively by his side.
It became a test of nerves then. They inched slowly toward each other on agile feet shaking with anticipation, prepared to dodge or strike in any direction. Bennosuke heard his breath growing faster in his ears, but gradually he realized he could feel neither the surging of his lungs nor the pumping of his heart.
The more he focused on Seibei’s sword, the more a serene detachment came over him. Closer still he drew, entranced by the blade, the blood upon it, the detail of the hilt’s guard shaped like a dragon chasing its tail, the moment now was all there was and he was alive in that moment, and so death
could
never
find
him
in
this
void
and then Seibei snapped. The Yoshioka samurai lunged forward, swinging his sword down. Bennosuke ghosted to one side, the blade glancing off the armor on his chest, and before the man could raise his sword again Bennosuke grabbed his wrist and barreled into him with a speed free of the burden of thought. His weight and his strength separated man from sword, and Seibei staggered backward.
There was a heartbeat then, when Bennosuke found himself remembering Munisai’s words of the honesty before death. Seibei looked Bennosuke in the eye with a proud dignity, no fear or anger there. Just an instant, though, so quickly gone—Bennosuke brought his longsword up, hands trained for years wielding a weapon refined over centuries, and in one great sweep took his head off.
He was surprised by what a small, sad, easy thing it was to do. Seibei was alive and proud one instant, and then he was two separate things of meat and bone and hair. The man’s head bounced free, and his body crumpled onto the earth. In the silence that followed Bennosuke turned to Tokugawa’s army.
“That’s it?” he said in genuine surprise. “That’s the Yoshioka school?”
As the sensation flowed back into his body, he looked suspiciously down at Seibei’s remains. He felt almost guilty how easy it had been to beat the man. He had his answer quickly: blood was seeping out from under Seibei’s waist, dark and arterial. The second challenger’s spear thrust. The Yoshioka champion had been too proud to admit the wo
und, had chosen to face Bennosuke faint and lamed, and now he was dead.
He wanted to feel regret, but the cheers of Ukita’s men reached him then. It warmed him, kindled something within him: the visceral thrill of victory. It surprised him, the magnitude of it, even though he had known this base pride in his swordsmanship had always been humming insidiously away beneath his higher sensibilities.
Sympathy vanished for Seibei, twisting into contempt for the man’s idiocy. Behind his faceplate a skeletal grin broke across his face, his eyes glimmering far worse than Kumagai’s ever had. He looked back across the army as they worshipped him. He was free of their burden now, the knot within him vanished. He was not some faceless part of it; they were they and he was he, an inferior whole and superior individual.
Bennosuke knew right then that he was worthy of everything, every adulation and glory that fate could bestow upon him. His eyes saw the burgundy banners, and he knew that whatever spirit that loved him had planned things out for him.
IN THE YEARS that would follow, he would think back to what he did next and his stomach would turn with regret, embarrassment, and fear. It was so stupid, and even as he moved to stand before Ukita’s army he could hear the rational part of his mind screaming at him to stop. But his body was in the throes of triumph, and he knew with absolute certainty that at that moment he was invincible.
“Lord Ukita!” he bellowed, holding his sword above his head. The samurai thought Bennosuke’s cry was merely honoring their lord, and so they howled along with him, repeating Ukita’s name over and over.
“Lord Ukita! I have something to ask of you!” Bennosuke shouted over them to where the lord sat upon his horse.
Despite the din Ukita heard. He gave an order for silence, and then he whispered something to an adjutant. It was this man who called to Bennosuke; obscene for a lord to raise his voice.
“Who are you to make demands of your most noble lord?” the man called.
“My name is Musashi Miyamoto,” he said. “But perhaps I am better known as Bennosuke Shinmen, the son of Munisai Shinmen.”