She cast off her helmet, for the giant wore none, and inside it was a length of cloth folded into a square as padding. She unravelled it, tied it about her face, and said,
“Now, my foe, we may fight!”
Thus it was engaged.
Between the clash of yamabushi with samurai, and the ruffling of fires, it was impossible to judge the subtleties of movement. The ear was not enough defense. She could hear Ieoshi’s feet digging on the ground, but could not be sure how he held his arms; she could hear a rapid motion of his sword, but a slow attack was nearly soundless; she could hear his breath but not his heartbeat. But her foe’s handicap was the same; he could follow her no better.
With only a general idea of body placement and approach, they fought awkwardly. They would nearly stumble into a fire or almost fail to block the other’s stroke. Each recovery was ungraceful. Though Tomoe was quickest, the giant’s strength was phenomenal. When Tomoe blocked tremendous blows, she could not easily hold her place, and so staggered back and back.
Exceedingly long blades were often badly tempered; but this one would not break against hers. Perhaps only her retired Sword of Okio could have matched a sword forged by Uchida Ieoshi’s clan. It was no use lamenting about that.
They moved away from one another, she cocking her head left and right to hear his every motion. His thunder-drum voice began to recite an old poem or prayer, and the sound of it was unnerving. “I have wandered from the dark world upon a darker path. Shine on me, Brother Moon! Shine on me, O bright celestial river! Show me the way to the True Eternal Dark, and let me bring my foe!”
He struck her sword so well that, to keep her sword in hand, it was necessary to fall with it, roll across a burning coal which made the lacquer of her armor stink. She regained her feet, stood silently, listening. He tried a subtler attack, aware that such was harder to detect. She countered with the same, so neither gained advantage. Tomoe answered his threatening prayer with a promise: “When I kill you, I will give your armor to a shoki devil who is big enough to wear it!” He did not take the insult literally, knowing nothing of General Kono, but he was insulted no less, and hardened himself still further to the test.
Both were reliant on their sense of hearing, but Tomoe slowly came to realize there was another sense to use: that which distinguishes heat from cold. When Uchida Ieoshi moved against a burning tent, he was like a huge black shadow cooling her flesh. She could detect the shape of him, down to the placement of his arms. As his extra long sword went up above his head, she turned her own sword straight toward the center of the shadow she perceived, and charged with such force that she rammed the point of her sword through his armor and into his heart. In the same space of time, his sword had merely reached its upward apex, and now he dropped it behind himself. Tomoe Gozen jerked her blade out, snatched the blindfold from her face, and saw the giant tumble like a cedar.
The din at the bottom of the hill had died away. Of the thousand yamabushi, three hundred were left standing. Of the samurai, not one.
At that moment, the voice of Kiji-san whispered in the ears and minds and hearts of the surviving yamabushi. That same voice was heard by Tomoe Gozen not as a mountain’s soul, but as the femininely urgent voice of the holy kirin. And perhaps the kirin was the spirit of the distant mountain after all; perhaps it was true that in placating that spirit with daily sutras, the yamabushi kept the volcanic peak at peace. The voice within each of them said:
Now have I served you as you, for generations, have served me.
The rosy streak against the starry heaven began to pull itself together in a rounder shape, then to funnel down toward the top of the hill.
“Don’t look up there!” warned Tomoe. “Like this!”
She cleaned the blood from her sword, breathed a white breath upon it, and held the steel in such a way that she could see Inazuma-hime’s reflection. The yamabushi observed her method and did likewise, three hundred mirror-surfaced blades held aloft. So doing, the yamabushi collapsed upon their knees in religious ecstacy, for they saw their god coalesce beside the weapon, its furred but serpentine neck turning in such a way as to look once upon them all. Was there something of tutelar concern in the monster’s huge, moist eyes?
As it took Inazuma-hime’s handle in its jaws, the kirin once more became a rosy mist; the weapon became golden sparkle; then both of them were gone. In the aftermath, Priest Kakumei approached Tomoe Gozen, his generally fierce features softened and seemingly aglow, and he said,
“Kiji-san has watched over us this while. Now the spirit of the mountain has gone home, as must we.”
Tomoe Gozen bowed to the priest and thanked him with utmost sincerity for the aid of the sohei.
“There is one thing more before we go,” said Priest Kakumei; and he pointed toward the dimly glowing remains of a burnt tent. Beyond the cinders, outlined in the darkness, sat Kono the shoki devil. He had found a large gourd of saké and, apparently, spent the entire battle drinking. Tomoe was incensed.
“Kono Kasa!” she shouted, anger in her voice, denying him his unofficial but much beloved title. “Strong boy though you are, you were no help to us at all!”
She still held her sword to hand, and approached the devil with a meaningful expression. He crawled away, dragging the saké gourd with him. Priest Kakumei stopped her, saying,
“He is our responsibility, who conjured him by our bad manners in Kyoto. Since he has converted to our faith, we will take him to the monastery. Perhaps there we can yet teach him to fight!”
The shoki bowed before Tomoe’s wrath, begging her pardon. Priest Kakumei helped the pitiful devil stand. Tomoe Gozen only turned her back, went to retrieve her discarded helmet. Then she returned to the side of Uchida Ieoshi and said to his corpse, “You can keep your armor after all. But I will take your head to my husband who you have harried for so long!” She bent down and placed her shortsword behind the dead giant’s neck, and pulled upward, cutting flesh and bone. She cast a pin through the head’s topknot and carried it away, leaving the yamabushi behind to deal with their dead.
On the highway at dawn, where Tomoe rode toward Kyoto, someone waited. This someone sat astride a chestnut horse, its iron mask the color of dried blood. The rider was likewise clad in ruddy colors, the armor being lacquered the shade of rust, and an umber arrow-deflecting cape hanging loose at one shoulder. The warrior wore an iron mask the same hue as that worn by the horse. The helmet fitted to this mask was unornamented, and designed to hang low at the back of the neck. A most practical helmet. The weapons of the warrior were these: hoko (a spear of foreign design, with a secondary point extending from one edge), an ono axe strapped to one thigh, and the long and shortswords mounted from the armor. Attached to the back of this impressive samurai was a high pole with flag, and on the flag was the family seal of Uchida Ieoshi.
The iron-masked face of the samurai tipped down enough to see the trophy Tomoe had tied by its hair to her saddle: the head of a giant. An angry breath issued from the mask, and the warrior spurred the chestnut steed into action. Tomoe drew her longsword and began the long gallop to close the distance between herself and Uchida Ieoshi’s avenging masked vassal. At that moment, a heavy-set priest in black garb and wild mane of hair stepped out from the shadowed woods and onto the road. He stood between the charging pair, facing the masked vassal, and raised his shakubo or shaku-headed staff to make a religious or magical sign in the air. The rings of the shakubo rattled. The vassal lowered the hoko, veered into the trees, and kept going along some path without breaking speed.
“Sohei!” Tomoe shouted to the priest, reining her horse up short. “Why this interference?”
The huge, almost corpulent figure in black hemp robes turned about, and Tomoe saw that it was Makine Hei, self-proclaimed her worst enemy. She corrected the previous title of sohei to,
“Shugenza!”
Birds greeted the morning with pleasant songs, incongruous with the shadow of the sorcerer-priest so near. The severity o
f Makine Hei’s expression was suddenly broken by a smile, but the smile did not look comfortable on that face.
“I only happened along this way,” said Makine Hei, as though such a coincidence were the least likely, especially in his own case of sorcerous machinations. He continued in a cordial fashion: “You may be pleased to learn the yamahoshi cast me from their order for sealing you in Hell and for singly deciding the yamahoshi would not ride with Kiso Yoshinake. So I have not been made their abbot after all, but am only a wandering sohei doing penitence.”
“Or a wandering shugenza,” she amended. “Since you have avoided the high office of Zasu, it leaves you free to pursue me. Is that so?”
“You misjudge my intentions! Did I not just now save you from the masked vassal?”
“I would hardly think so,” said Tomoe.
“You do not believe my sorcery caused your attacker to continue through the forest with no thought of turning back?”
“I have no idea about that. I only know you bring nothing beyond mischief for me. Such a man have you become.”
“Perhaps so,” Makine Hei admitted, and his strained smile was gone in an instant. “I have practiced my occult kiaijutsu since last we met. May I demonstrate?”
“As you wish.”
Makine Hei turned his great bulk to face a certain tree, in which numerous tiny birds of morning chittered, unaware of danger. Makine Hei’s deep voice began to hum a note so low Tomoe Gozen could barely hear it, but she felt its modulation in her chest, and did not like the feel. The birds ceased their songs at once, and fell from the branches of the pine, flapping on the ground, dying in agony. When Makine Hei ceased the barely audible sound, only two of the stricken birds recovered, hopping drunkenly into the underbrush. Then the shugenza turned back to Tomoe Gozen, the depth of his hatred fully realized upon his visage. Tomoe Gozen made her charger walk backward, duly worried about his surprising power.
“I am not yet so good at it that I can kill you with my voice,” said Makine Hei, but he said it with a grim nicety which did not ease her worries. “Soon I will have perfected it. Until then, it is better that you live and suffer more! I have brought news: Your husband has let his hostage go, a virtual confession that holding the Mikado captive was an unjustifiable offense, an admission of defeat. Wada Yoshimora has pursued him to Awazu, where the last battle is taking place at this moment; you will need to hurry or not get there before it’s over. Lord Wada looks forward to meeting you, and is doubtlessly disappointed not to find you at Yoshinake’s side this morning. Not only has Lord Wada set his heart on having your husband’s head, he has also set his heart on you. He has three warrior wives already, and would make it four.”
Tomoe would have cursed, but did not wish to interrupt her informant. He went on. “That masked vassal I turned aside from you is this moment heading to join a force which will cross the river Tai and join Wada Yoshimora at Awazu for the final thrust against Kiso Yoshinake. The end is upon him! Can you reach him in time? Can you turn the tide that has set itself against him? I would like to see you try!”
Tomoe Gozen’s sword was yet to hand. She spurred her horse almost without thought, bearing down upon Makine Hei with her weapon raised, leaning from the saddle. But the shugenza stepped backward into the shadow of a tree, and was gone. Tomoe Gozen did not stop to lament her failure to destroy the sorcerous priest; rather, she forced the white charger to the limit of its endurance, speeding to Taigawa Bridge, hoping to stop the legion of the masked vassal from joining Wada Yoshimora on the further side.
At Taigawa Bridge it went like this: Tomoe Gozen built a fire in the middle of the bridge, then waited on the far side, hoping the wooden structure would burn through before the army against Kiso Yoshinake could put the fire out. The army led by the masked vassal was only minutes behind Tomoe. Soon a hundred horses and riders, along with several hundred samurai on foot, had gathered near the torrential river to survey Tomoe’s handiwork. The vassal gave orders Tomoe could not hear, but their content was soon evident: Samurai scurried to the riverside with hats or anything which would hold water, then scampered back up the banks, running to the center of the bridge, trying to douse the flames. Without buckets and with only a few leaky straw hats and shallow metal helmets, there was not much effect, and the fire grew larger. The masked vassal made a second command, and ten horsemen galloped wildly through the flames, the horses screaming for the pain of it, but obedient to their riders. Tomoe, astride her white horse, met them. Only two could come at her at one time on the narrow bridge, and so she fell them two by two. The horses continued by without riders.
The masked vassal sent ten more, and twice as many additional men on foot. They came at Tomoe, their lacquered bamboo armor blazing, their horses’ fur singed and tails alight, the men themselves badly festering. Tomoe held the bridge’s end against them, her longsword flashing one side then the other of her prancing steed. Then an arrow took the horse and it went down, but Tomoe landed on her feet and fought without any loss of momentum. The masked vassal unleashed a second arrow, which Tomoe did not deflect; it stuck into her armor without penetrating as far as her body. A third arrow did the same, but Tomoe busied herself fighting those attacking her on horses and on foot. The end of the long bridge was soon clogged with corpses, atop which stood Tomoe Gozen, waiting for the next onslaught.
By then the bridge had burnt through enough that to send ten more horses would only cause it to collapse. The masked vassal made a sweeping gesture which sent the troops scattering east and west along the river’s banks, searching for another place to cross. Those who had been uselessly trying to douse the blaze were directed to empty their last helmetfuls of water on the masked vassal and horse. Tomoe saw her drenched foe spur the horse onto the bridge, leap into the flames and come out steaming, just as the bridge began its plunge into the Tai.
Tomoe went backward, for the pile of corpses she had been standing on were sliding down the tilting length of the collapsing bridge. The masked vassal was determined, as was the horse. The sliding bodies were leapt; the incline was scaled by four sharp thundering hooves; and the fiery bridge was left tumbling behind.
As the masked vassal bore down on Tomoe Gozen, she threw herself onto the ground to avoid the edge of the hoko spear. She rolled to cut through both front legs of the rusthued horse. It went down, the vassal tumbling over the horse’s head, but rolling to a stance. Tomoe stood waiting with sword upraised.
“I am Tomoe Gozen, wife and vassal of Kiso Yoshinake,” she announced, for such formalities were often performed between warriors of equal stature.
“I know,” said the masked vassal, insulting Tomoe by not returning an introduction. But the vassal’s hand moved toward the mask, unhooked it from the helmet’s brim, and let the mask fall away. Beneath: the youthful, smiling face of Azo Hono-o. She said, “The head you bore away from battle, which has fallen with your horse into the Tai, was the head of my paramour. I must have revenge!”
“So it was you!” said Tomoe. “You who provided Uchida Ieoshi with the information he required to topple my Lord Kiso! Only you knew about the revenge-raid for the Imperial swordsmith Okio. Only you could have given the giant what he needed to sway the Shogun from favoring my husband!”
“So you must have vengeance also,” said Azo Hono-o lightly. “There is no evading it now. You and I must fight.”
Azo did not look the least unhappy about events. She had lost her hoko in tumbling from the horse, but presently she unstrapped the axe from her armor, and said,
“This will crack your helmet! You will die!”
Tomoe’s sword blocked the downward blow of the axe before it struck her helmet; but she had not anticipated Azo Hono-o’s fist striking her jaw. Tomoe was dizzied by the expert blow, yet blocked the second swing of the axe well enough, and countered with a swift cut toward the midrift of the other woman, failing the mark as the axe swept down to avert the sword.
“I am unmatched at onojutsu,” said Azo Hono-o, holdi
ng the axe aloft in a boastful way. She backed away to see Tomoe shake her shaggy, dizzy head. “But I am better still with this.” She drew her longsword and attacked with axe and blade. Tomoe blocked the sword, felt the axe smash upon her helmet and glance off.
“You make a lot of noise fighting,” said Tomoe, trying to sound unimpressed by Azo’s style; but with two blows to her head, Tomoe Gozen could not see very well. Azo Hono-o swung both weapons simultaneously: two overhead attacks which left her belly unprotected. Tomoe turned her longsword sideways and up to block both of Azo’s weapons, at the same time raising a swift kick into the woman’s stomach. Azo stumbled. Tomoe pursued, slashed toward Azo’s shoulder. The blow was blocked with the axe’s handle, but Tomoe’s sword cut through that, and Azo went to her knees, dropping axe-handle and sword. She clutched her bloody left arm. Tomoe could have killed her then, but held back.
“I’ve won,” said Tomoe quietly.
“It is only a scratch!” said Azo, but when she let go of her left arm to reach for her longsword, the left arm came loose from its armor and dropped onto the ground. Seeing the depth of her scratch, Azo Hono-o demanded,
“Kill me!”
“I won’t,” said Tomoe. “You are too much like me.”
“Cruel to let me live!” Azo shouted, snatching up her sword and standing erect. Tomoe sidestepped a feeble assault and said to Azo,
“You must live. Grow strong. Try for me again.” As Tomoe strode away toward Awazu, Azo Hono-o watched, pondering this last advice.
Tomoe Gozen went across a field where none but she was standing. It was a garden of twisted arms and raised knees blossoming red. Arrows and swords were the weeds of this garden.
Birds fed. Tomoe’s longsword scattered the evil black crows. Now and then she succeeded in carving one or two of them out of the air as she passed by. The rest of these grim scavengers merely settled back to pecking at bloody wounds and tearing out eyes, as soon as Tomoe had gone by. She found a man still living, if barely, and he was of Yoshinake’s army. She knelt to the man. He looked at her without much recognition, without the least strength, so drained of blood and pale was he.
The Golden Naginata Page 29
