by Steve Bein
“Your reward,” Shichio said, snapping himself back to the present. “Yes. You’re sure he’ll come?”
“Heh heh. You tell me. How much does he want to kill you?”
Shichio nodded, granting the point. Nezumi smacked a mosquito, squashing it against his forearm and leaving a bloody smudge where it died. The sight of blood usually sickened Shichio, but today it titillated. The mask was unusually hungry—perhaps because triumph was so close at hand? No. This was something else. Something familiar. But he could not place it.
Nezumi stopped the horse some six or seven paces away, and when the girl in lilac tried to dismount, she slipped out of the saddle. Shichio caught only a glimpse as the veil fluttered away from her face, her mouth open in a dumbstruck O. He imagined her embarrassed blush under that white face paint. A delicate courtier like this one had probably never ventured so deep into the wild. Shichio knew everyone thought of him as effete, but at least he knew how to step in and out of the saddle.
No doubt Nezumi also thought of him as effeminate, and saw Oda as the only threat here. So much the better. Shichio glanced up to the falls, verifying that all of his bowmen remained invisible, but something drew his attention back to Nene’s errand boy—or rather, to his sword. It was the mask that called to him. It seemed to writhe in his hand, waking a lust that crawled through Shichio’s body like a nest of snakes. He’d never felt its need so acutely before, but—no. He had. Once. At the Okuma compound.
Only Inazuma steel could arouse the mask this way. Glorious Victory Unsought was nearby. That meant the whelp was too. But where?
The mask made him acutely aware of Nezumi’s swords, and Oda’s, and his own. Even the samurai in the teahouse seemed to resonate to him, like a bell’s lingering tone long after it was struck. But there was Inazuma steel too. Where? He scanned the pool, the rocks, the bamboo clinging to the valley walls. There was no sign.
Where was the Bear Cub? And what was that hanging in the air? It looked like smoke, a faint blue ribbon of it, rising up from the ledge where his archers lay in ambush. No—not rising up from, but falling down to. Now there came another, fluttering down from the very crest of the cliff. Shichio could just make out the little iron ball sputtering flame.
45
When people told the story of Prince Yamato, they never mentioned what a difficult time the prince must have had moving around in women’s clothing.
Daigoro found the lilac kimono terribly confining, not because it was too small for him but because a courtly woman wore her garments so tight that she could hardly breathe. Daigoro didn’t suffer that particular problem—his Sora breastplate gave him adequate breathing room—but the silken kimono still made it hard to move. As difficult as it had been getting up into the saddle, somehow he’d given no thought to what would happen when he tried to get back down.
The moment he fell off the horse, he was certain the ruse would fall apart. Shichio looked him right in the eye. But with the makeup, and with his hair down, and with the veil and head ornaments and everything else, Daigoro supposed Shichio must have seen only what he expected to see. And if there was one benefit to wearing such tightly constricting clothes, it was that they made his limp invisible. Since he was confined to small, shuffling steps, it was as if he limped from both legs.
He’d hoped to walk right up to Shichio before the first explosion. Now he could only hope Katsushima would understand what it meant for him to fall from the saddle. They had prearranged the signal yesterday afternoon: when Daigoro dismounted, light the first grenade. That was the last time they’d spoken. Katsushima had spent the whole night hiking up the neighboring dell. Some time early this morning, he would have looped back down to reach the cliff top overlooking Obyo Falls. Daigoro had allowed him plenty of time, because they had no way to communicate—nor any way to discuss whether tumbling out of the saddle counted as dismounting.
Looking up, he saw Katsushima had arrived at the top of the cliff after all. Right on cue, he’d lit the first grenade. Even now, Daigoro saw the second one fall, trailing a string of blue smoke behind it. It was clear from his bewildered look that Shichio saw it too.
Daigoro jerked his tanto from a sheath inside his obi and cut away the lilac kimono. As he reached for the fallen parasol, a thunderclap punched him in the ear. It was the loudest noise he’d ever heard in his life.
*
Smoke consumed the ledge where Shichio’s archers were hiding. In the same instant, a shuddering bang almost knocked Shichio flat. A lightning bolt could not have been louder. Then came a second bang, and this one did knock him down. Behind him, a horse screamed and reared. He turned, hoping to see the horse running away instead of trampling toward him. Instead he saw the Bear Cub.
The whelp had cut himself free of that ludicrous lilac kimono, and now he was scrambling for the parasol. No, not a parasol. Glorious Victory Unsought, in the thinnest disguise imaginable. Shichio could not believe he’d fallen for the ruse. “Loose, damn you, loose!” he shouted. “Kill them! Kill them all!”
*
The world fell into chaos. The peacock shrieked like a frightened maid, shouting at his hidden archers. Nene’s horse nearly stove Daigoro’s skull in. It bucked and jumped, spinning with a dexterity Daigoro wouldn’t have believed possible. Then it fled for its life.
A third Mongol grenade exploded, filling the valley with thunder. Still Shichio screamed for his archers, not realizing in his panic that all of them were dead. Tatters of the damned kimono still clung to Daigoro’s knees, hobbling him as he struggled to reach Glorious Victory. He wasted a precious moment cutting the last of the kimono asunder, then looked up to see the teahouse erupt with armored samurai.
Scrambling on his hands and knees, he reached his father’s sword. Over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of Nezumi drawing a blade—too late. Oda Tomonosuke lunged for him, slow but with peerless form. Nezumi fell, clutching the red gash where his eyes used to be.
Shichio’s samurai advanced in unison—warned, perhaps, that they stood no chance against Daigoro if they faced him one-on-one. Daigoro drew Glorious Victory and struggled to his feet. This would not be like the Green Cliff. There he’d taken his enemies by surprise. These ones were waiting for him.
But not for the smoking iron ball that fell in their midst. A trail of thin blue smoke arced behind it, all the way back up to Katsushima. The explosion was deafening. Men flew in every direction. Daigoro caught a faceful of shards, both metal and bone.
He could not let it slow him. Half blind with blood, he lashed out and took a man’s leg at the knee. Something chopped him right under the arm, ringing off his Sora yoroi. He chopped back. Someone screamed and died.
His sudden onslaught bought him a moment’s reprieve, just long enough to wipe the blood from his eyes. There was no sign of Shichio. Four samurai lay dead; Daigoro only remembered felling two of them. Two others still stood, spreading out to flank him. Nezumi rolled on the ground, howling and clutching his face. Daigoro glanced over his shoulder and saw exactly what he did not want to see: Oda Tomonosuke, a broken and vengeful man, a man with nothing to live for, yet one who had made his name as an expert swordsman.
Daigoro was alone, surrounded on three sides. He could not see Shichio anywhere.
*
Everything had gone to hell. Shichio had no idea what happened on that rock shelf, but all of his archers were dead. Dead before loosing a single arrow. The air tasted of mud and burnt gunpowder. Half of his samurai were dead, maybe more. He didn’t dare look. Nezumi screamed piteously. His cries echoed off the cliff, even louder than the waterfall.
Shichio cursed himself for a craven. He hadn’t even managed to draw his sword. He cowered behind the teahouse, the water just ankle-deep, but since he was crouching he was in to his balls. Cold and dripping, safe but humiliated.
Only his mask could restore his courage. As he tied it in place, the huge Inazuma blade sang out to him. It was visible even through the wooden walls of the teahouse, glow
ing like the sun through closed eyelids. The mask saw the other swords too, and one thing more: a little globe sailing through the air.
Shichio looked up and saw the thing. It smoked and sparked as it flew. Totally without thought, acting solely by reflex, he swung at the flying orb. He couldn’t even say how his sword came to be in his hand. Guided by the mask, the flat of his blade hit the globe and sent it right back where it came from.
Halfway there, it vanished. Smoke and fury took its place. The noise was enough to buckle Shichio’s knees. A thousand fragments pierced the surface of the pool. A thousand more hit the cliff, the teahouse, the mask. Some flew upward too. Shichio heard a grunt from above, and for the first time he noticed the shabby ronin.
The explosion sent some of its deadly claws into the ronin’s face, and since he’d shielded his eyes, the claws tore up his hands too. Now he bled freely. Either the wounds did not pain him or he was too much the samurai to cry out, but Shichio could hear him curse.
Good, he thought. The son of a bitch would have a front row seat to the Bear Cub’s demise.
*
Daigoro heard a metallic clang from the pool. An instant later a Mongol grenade exploded in midair.
It took everyone by surprise. It was also just the distraction Daigoro needed to cut his way free of his fate. But by the time he realized that, the others did too, and they were all right back where they started—with one crucial difference: Katsushima was out of the fight.
Daigoro didn’t need to see him to know his friend was hurt. Hearing Katsushima’s curses, he knew they came through gritted teeth. That was all the attention he could spare for his closest friend, for he had enemies encroaching on three sides.
“Oda-sama,” he called, “this is not your fight. I killed your son; don’t make me kill you too.”
A cold, cruel light filled Oda’s eyes. “You forget: I asked you to kill me.”
He was right: Daigoro had forgotten. Now Daigoro reassessed that look in Oda’s eye. It wasn’t cruelty: it was total detachment. Oda no longer cared whether he lived or died. It was a fearless, deadly state of mind.
“You could marry again,” Daigoro said. “Have more sons. Continue your family name. Don’t be the last of the Odas.”
Oda lowered his blade. It was still a fighting stance—upward cuts were best for slipping underneath armor—but it was not especially aggressive. For a moment, Daigoro thought he meant to stay clear of the fray. But then, in a soft, calm voice, Oda said, “I will press the attack. You two, cut for the hamstrings. And beware his reach.”
Daigoro took a deep, centering breath. His fingers tightened on Glorious Victory’s grip. Time slowed to a crawl. His enemies settled deeper into their stances, coiling to spring. Daigoro feinted and all three leaped back. That was good. They were afraid of him.
But that would only work once. Even now they crept closer, one slow footstep at a time. Daigoro understood how a wounded deer must feel when the wolves circled in.
Then he remembered Katsushima’s watchdog, Kane, and the moral that came with that story: Arrogance in the face of impossible odds. That’s the way to win a fight.
To hell with it, he thought.
He threw himself at the closest samurai. Inazuma steel cleaved helmet, bone, and brain. Behind him, Oda shouted a kiai. Daigoro spun, his odachi reaching long and low. Glorious Victory sheared off Oda’s katana at the hilt.
Oda pressed on, heedless of death. Daigoro sidestepped, let him pass, cut for the spine. The second samurai spoiled his cut. Steel flashed at Daigoro’s face. He parried and counterstruck. Glorious Victory cut deep but did not kill.
Now Oda was on him again, wakizashi in hand. Daigoro chopped at Oda’s hand. He missed, but he cut the wakizashi in two. Weaponless, Oda was no threat. Daigoro rounded on Shichio’s last remaining samurai and pressed a furious assault.
Sword-song echoed in the valley. Daigoro stumbled on wet rock. The samurai moved in for the kill. Daigoro’s knee buckled completely. He fell, but Glorious Victory did not. Daigoro held it fast, like a spear set to meet a cavalry charge. The Inazuma blade caught the samurai under his breastplate and punched out below the shoulder blade.
Then Oda kicked Daigoro in the back of the head. The world went dark.
46
Daigoro woke to crushing pain. His hands were tingling, almost numb. Something bit down on his wrists with the malice of a dragon.
His eyes fluttered open. A devil stood before him, and Daigoro wondered if he was in hell. Blinking hard, he cleared the spots from his vision. It was not a devil after all, but rather a devil mask. Solid iron, pitted with rust and age, too small to conceal Shichio’s triumphant smile.
“Ah, at last he wakes,” Shichio said. “But let’s wait for Oda-san before we get started, shall we? He’s earned his place at the table. Yes, he has.”
Daigoro had to blink again to drive the spots away. Gradually he took in his surroundings. He was in the teahouse, bound hand and foot to something vertical. Craning his head, he could just make out what it was: a support beam. The waterfall thundered endlessly behind him. The wall was open, the fusuma pushed apart to either side, but no sunlight came in. Crickets and frogs sang to each other in the night. A cold breeze made Daigoro realize he was naked to the waist.
He looked down to find his body wrapped in coils of hempen rope. The same rope crushed his wrists, which were stretched so high above his head that Daigoro’s shoulders felt they might twist out of their sockets. He could not move his wrists at all, and his ankles were held just as fast, but the rest of his body was free to twist and squirm. The rope coiled randomly up and down his arms and torso, crossing itself many times over. There were many knots, all of them tied artfully, and the coils were pulled so tight that Daigoro’s flesh bulged up between them. But why? They wrapped only around his body; they did not hold him fast to the beam. What use were bonds that did not bind?
“I usually use a table for this,” Shichio said. “A very special table. Your friend General Mio could have told you all about it, if only I hadn’t cut out his tongue.”
A terrible vision flashed in Daigoro’s mind: Mio Yasumasa quivering on his deathbed. His whole body was coiled with thin purple bruises. Huge ovular cuts festered, as if an animal had taken bites out of him. Before, Daigoro had never understood what could inflict such bizarre ropelike bruises. Now he understood all too well. Yet the bleeding, festering wounds were still a mystery. What could cause bitelike wounds, not ragged but smooth-sided, like the cuts of a razor? He could only imagine, and his imagination terrified him.
“Usually I strip my victims naked too,” Shichio continued. “It makes them wonder how long I’ll allow them to keep their manhood. But you … by the gods, that leg! How can you stomach it? I’d sooner cut it off than wake every morning to the sight of it. How can you let it share your bed?”
He shuddered and unsheathed his wakizashi. “Of course I could cut it off for you, but what would be the fun in that? You’d bleed to death right away, wouldn’t you? Yes, you would.”
In the center of the room, a brazier glowed as red as a demon’s eyes. Now a new source of light drew near, orange, fluttering, crackling. Oda Tomonosuke slipped out of his sandals and stepped into the tearoom, a torch held high in his left hand. He looked at Daigoro with disgust.
“The torch you requested, Lord Kumanai.”
“Yes, yes, bring it closer.” Shichio beckoned with his sword. Then, stepping onto the veranda overlooking the pool, he shouted, “Are you there, ronin? Can you see your friend? Or have you abandoned him like everyone else?”
A quick slice, and a gobbet of flesh hit the floor. Hot blood ran down Daigoro’s back. Shichio’s blade was sharp; there wasn’t much pain—at least not physically. But Daigoro had never been so scared in his life.
“Sharp, isn’t it?” Shichio said, eerily echoing Daigoro’s own thoughts. “It’s Hashiba’s, you know. General Toyotomi’s. He gave it to me when he made me his hatamoto.”
Da
igoro smirked. Arrogance in the face of impossible odds. He would not let Shichio see him afraid. “Yes, I heard. ‘Lord Kumanai,’ is it? The same kuma of Okuma, I think.”
“Yes. Kuma-Nai, ‘No Bears.’ And also ‘No Okumas.’ Do you like it?”
Daigoro threw out a laugh, loud enough to echo off the cliff. “I love it. You want to be rid of me? You named yourself after me!”
Shichio’s grin curled into a snarl. He set his blade against Daigoro’s belly and sliced. This one hurt. Shichio made sure of that. He drew the blade slowly, and left the bleeding slab dangling by a flap so it tugged at the wound.
“Laugh at me again and I will cut out your tongue,” he said. “Just as I did with your friend Mio. Just as I’ll do with your ronin up on the cliff, as soon as I catch him. Now why hasn’t he come for you yet? At sunset he was still up there. I expected him to ride in to your rescue. Yes, I did. Why hasn’t he come?”
Because he’s a full day’s hike from here, Daigoro thought. Or a quick jump, if only the pool weren’t so shallow. Katsushima had brought a length of knotted rope with him, and also a great bow and quiver; the fact that he’d used neither meant he must have injured his hands. If he could have joined the fight, he would have. And since he couldn’t, one thing was certain: he’d stay as close to Daigoro as possible. Daigoro could not turn his head far enough to see atop the cliff, but he knew Katsushima was up there, watching helplessly. The man who had loved him like a father now had to watch on as Daigoro was tortured to death.
That thought wounded Daigoro more sharply than his own pain. He could not do that to Katsushima. “Face me, you coward. Cut me loose and face me.”
“With what? With this?” Shichio picked up Glorious Victory Unsought. The mighty blade had been resting in the corner, along with Daigoro’s wakizashi and the rest of his effects. Now Shichio unsheathed it, and took a nick out of the rafter because he was not used to the odachi’s reach.
