by David Kirk
All here to fight were samurai, and so all carried swords, but they were the secondary weapons today. Men bore further armaments, be it spear or halberd or bow, ready to fall into formation and play the desperate game of counteracting; spears taking cavalry, cavalry taking missile troops, and missile troops taking spears.
There were great warriors present, some dripping with armor so fine it put Munisai’s set in Miyamoto to shame, painting them as angular demons, but most men could afford only the basics of protection: a simple cuirass, an iron conical helmet tied under the chin, and then toughened underkimonos of leather and cloth to protect their arms and legs. Some did not even have that, the armories of clans having been entirely depleted.
Though it was overwhelming, Bennosuke wove his way through all of it, having made careful note of his path to the ridgetop the day before. Eventually he came to men he recognized, the first of the eighty whom Kumagai commanded. These samurai gave Bennosuke nothing but curt nods of respect as he passed, and he in turn gave nothing more back.
Even after two years, they were fellow soldiers only.
The fort that Bennosuke, Kumagai, and his men had been stationed to hold was set upon a bleak and barren stretch of land, nestled at the narrowest point between two rocky slopes so steep they were practically cliff faces. Though a garrison had been maintained there for centuries, what buildings and fortifications there were had not been designed to withstand the firepower of modern cannon and musketry. That would need to be remedied, and when they arrived the first tentative steps of cladding the frail wooden walls in stone had been made.
Craftsmen would come to finish the job, they were told, but none did. Every man in the land who knew how to cut or shape stone suddenly found himself diverted to the great cities and set to the task of adding extra ramparts and buttresses to the castles there. They took the best quality stone with them, adding armor upon armor upon armor while those on the outskirts and boundaries were left vulnerable.
A limb could be sacrificed, the heart could not—the logic was sound but hard to swallow for those of them in that limb. Kumagai had clucked his tongue, but rather than wait for Tokugawa to come knocking with a rain of fire, he eventually decided they would persevere and try to learn the ways of architecture themselves. He ordered his men to take from the walls around them, chipping away malformed, fractured lumps of rock and stone, which they would pile around the wooden beams as best they could.
It was tiring work, muscles forming on all of them, but Bennosuke liked it. When he had a pickax in his hands he did not have to think, he could just do. There was a purity in it; nothing more than the next swing, nothing to acknowledge but hard stone. But they could not dig forever, and when work was done for the day there was always the uncomfortable closeness of the others.
When he had first joined them, they had wanted him to be the surrogate little brother. They had joked with him, called him friendly diminutives, roughhoused with him as they tried to coax some form of light or mirth from him, all to no avail.
They had started to realize this only on the night that they had made him drink for the first time. He had coughed and spluttered and forced the sake and the stronger spirits down because they expected him to, and then the next thing he knew he was crying, and he could not stop himself. The world was spinning, and he was blubbering hot, wet tears of shame, and the other samurai were sitting staring stonily, embarrassed for and by him. He knew this and he was ashamed, but still the racking sobs had come because inside he knew he was alive when he should be dead, and he couldn’t explain that to them.
They stopped inviting him eventually. He became a pariah again, and though he knew he deserved it—these men were samurai, after all—the sensation of being alone among them made him feel hollow in his bones. When they were not working or sleeping and when the other men had gathered to talk of nothing in the long hours while waiting for an enemy that never came, Bennosuke sidled away to practice the sword.
The men left him to his strange ways, no one interested enough to unravel whatever it was that made him act so. He obeyed them, and that was enough. But time dragged on, and in the way of idle groups of men they began to search for entertainment wherever it could be had.
Early one evening, with the stone around the wall standing as high and as broad as a man and with the heavy sun just beginning to set, the boy had headed off to the corner of the fort he used in place of a dojo. He was not out of sight, for there was nowhere to hide here, but far enough away that people could pretend not to see him—if they wanted to.
He was running through a defensive technique meant to ward away pole arms when he became aware of being watched. Two samurai were standing a short distance away, chewing balls of salted, hot rice.
“A strange form you’re using,” said one, a narrow-eyed man of minor rank named Goto. “You never told us where you studied, Musashi.”
“My father taught me, sir,” said Bennosuke. He made as if to continue, but Goto strode forward, pushing the last of the rice ball into his mouth and wiping his hands on his clothes already dirty from labor.
“Looks pretty in and of itself, but is it functional?” he said. It was not a challenge, but genuine curiosity.
“I’ve never fought a duel, sir,” said Bennosuke.
“Looks like you’re spoiling for one, the way you’re practicing.”
“We’re at war. Swordsmanship will be useful, sir.”
“Indeed. How about some real practice?” Goto said. “You against me, wooden swords, traditional rules?”
“I cannot dig if I am injured,” said Bennosuke, feigning modesty, and growing more uncomfortable the closer the man got. “For now, digging is my duty, sir.”
“Don’t be so pious your whole life—forget all that. Everyone else has certainly forgotten us up here,” said Goto, nodding at the ragged wall. “Come on, lad. A wager change your mind?”
“I have no money to gamble, sir.”
“Then what do you have?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“What about your armor? You’re still wearing the old scrap Sir Kumagai gave you, right?”
“Yes. But it is not scrap. It is perfectly serviceable, sir,” said Bennosuke.
“So is your hand when you can’t find a woman, but you’d rather have one over the other, wouldn’t you?” Goto laughed. “So how about my gauntlets against yours? Mine are much finer, nothing for you to lose.”
“I’d rather practice alone, sir.”
“Come on,” said the man, and a small crowd was gathering now. Bennosuke felt his throat seizing up and thought about simply walking away—running away, his shame taunted him—but then from the crowd came Kumagai. The man was stripped to the waist and caked in dust from the day’s work.
“How about I order you to duel?” he said, slurping from a mug of water. There was no malice or command in his voice, but he had that glimmer in his eyes that he had worn in the Gathering.
The man loved his sport, and orders were orders.
His hand forced, Bennosuke nodded silently. Goto took a wooden sword, and as he did Kumagai and the other samurai backed off. They became silent in complete respect for the duel, and in that quiet Bennosuke and the man bowed to each other. They readied their swords, and at the slightest of nods from Kumagai the duel began.
Bennosuke let Goto lead the fight. He had no intention of engaging him properly; if the other men saw nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps they would not bother him again and would leave him alone to his shame. There was nothing original in Goto’s attacks, and Bennosuke dodged or parried them easily and then offered predictable counters to them. After he had judged a length of time had passed that would earn him neither humiliation nor praise, he braced himself to let the man strike him. Goto saw his chance and whipped his sword up ready to strike.
Bennosuke found his body snapping toward Goto’s in a wickedly quick motion, and then the blunt point of his sword lanced up and connected with the base of the other man’
s throat. There was a hollow, meaty impact, and for a moment the man looked angry and surprised before his body realized what had happened and he dropped to one knee, wheezing.
It was a moment of shock everyone shared, not least Bennosuke himself, so quick had been the thrust. Something he had thought had perished forever within him had seized control of his body for that instant—pride. It would not let him lose, not even a meaningless thing like this, not even when he wanted to. The boy cursed himself inwardly.
“Throat—valid strike,” said Kumagai, and he took another loud gulp of his water. “Looks like you’re down a pair of gauntlets, Goto.”
Bennosuke tried to keep his face still as the men dispersed. Kumagai remained, looking at him for a long while. The samurai said nothing, and Bennosuke tried not to look at him, but he could not help but be aware the glimmer in the man’s eyes had grown. Eventually the samurai nodded at the boy, his cheek dimpled slightly, and then he too was gone.
It had carried on through the months, bravado and wounded pride and simple boredom driving people to challenge him. Piece by piece he had upgraded his armor until he had cobbled together the suit he wore today—hanging oblongs of shoulder and thigh guards, a proper helmet with a neck and face guard, much finer than those of most men of his age.
The others glowered, of course, stripped of cuirass or greaves, but they could not deny his skill. They resented and admired him. He was their champion stranger, the best among and apart from them.
There in the Sekigahara morning they nodded and he nodded, and that was all the comradeship between them; without a word Bennosuke followed them to where they were starting to congregate around Kumagai. The boy fell in toward the back, letting men sidle past and around him, for he could see well enough over their heads.
Kumagai was oblivious to them for the moment. He was perched on top of a platform, a construction of bamboo and wood that was supposed to function as a guard post, squatting as he held a burning length of match cord to a dark metal tube. A few moments later a single rocket shot upward out of it. It vanished almost instantly, swallowed into the gray void above them, and through the cloud eventually came the sad little pop of the explosion.
“Agh … Do you reckon anyone saw it?” Kumagai asked the man he shared the platform with. The samurai could only shrug in response, and Kumagai rubbed the back of his neck pensively. “This is going to be interesting to organize.”
He rose, turning, and as he did so he seemingly became aware of the men assembling before him. The samurai grinned at them, spread his arms wide.
“Well,” he said, “I trust you’ve heard?”
“They couldn’t have come yesterday, could they?” called someone from the crowd, mirth in his voice. “This bloody fog.”
“We are not in command here,” said Kumagai, playing along. “We can see to the end of our spears—what more do we need to concern ourselves with?”
“Are we really advancing?” came another voice, a little more somber though far from grim. “We’re fortified here—should we not let Tokugawa come to us?”
“That would be sound if we were united, but you know it as well as I—treachery looms,” Kumagai said, quite freely. “I believe our most noble Lord Ukita is trying to force the issue, engage battle before any further deceit can worm its way into the hearts of lesser men.”
“Which lord is false?”
“Who knows? All of them perhaps.” Kumagai shrugged. “In any case, we go forward as an example to others. Even if we are surrounded the light of our courage will shine for generations. Our most noble Lord Ukita has always been a man of logic, has he not?”
The men barked an assent; Bennosuke kept his mouth shut. Something in his stomach was twisting. War, he had thought, was supposed to be as considered as a poem. The general made his commands carefully, knowing the full extent and risk involved. This was how it had been since the days of ancient China. You could not play a game of shogi if you did not know the pieces … or the layout of the board, or even the other players.
From behind the lot of them there came a great cry to make way; a band of cavalrymen scores deep cantered by in single file, riders bent forward so that the banners strapped to their backs did not get entangled in the branches of trees. Kumagai looked at the mass of them wistfully for a moment—there had been no time to retrieve their horses—and then his thin face twisted into a bitter grin as he screamed at their backs.
“Enjoy it!” he howled, and his eyes were glimmering as his voice broke into laughter. “Enjoy it, you lucky bags of shit!”
Bennosuke watched the samurai, this leader of men, as he capered above them all and the knot in his stomach grew further. It had been with him since he had seen the scale of things, and it had grown like a tumor as he realized how seemingly chaotic this all was and how inconsequential he was in it. It was a strange and arrogant dread, but he could not deny it.
Overcome, the boy told himself, ignore it. That was a human fear, and he had sworn to be a soldier, and soldiers obeyed.
In the wake of the cavalry came another messenger on foot, bereft of any armor and seeming small following the warhorses. He scrambled to a halt before Kumagai’s platform. The man bowed, and then kept his hands on his knees as he snatched words between the heaving of his lungs.
“Apologies, Sir Kumagai,” he gasped. “Orders … No time for written command, no chance for the proper signaling.”
“There is nothing to apologize for—I am already all too aware of that,” said Kumagai, still grinning, and he tapped the tube the rocket had launched from with his foot.
“Our most noble Lord Ukita comes himself, such is his bravery,” said the messenger. “He asks that you lead your men downward and form up in squares at the foot of the slope below the forest. Await further instruction there.”
“We go alone?” asked Kumagai.
“No, no,” said the messenger, and he grinned in savage anticipation. “We all go. A great day beckons, does it not? Our most noble lord and his closest allies, the Akaza, the Uemura, the Shinmen, and the Nakata, side by side. Tokugawa will drown in his own dead.”
Kumagai snarled an affirmative, and then the messenger hurtled off once more to find the next officer. Somewhere drums had started beating, deep blows struck on tanned cow skins splayed as wide as the spread arms of a man, counting out the time to thousands of warriors as the orders filtered through. A host shook itself into life, and the ground itself seemed to shake.
Seemed to shake. Bennosuke could not tell for certain if it was from actual footfalls, or if hearing one name had simply made him feel as though his bones were vibrating.
The Nakata were here.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They marched downward three abreast, each clutching a spear before him. Bennosuke was alongside Kumagai, as he had been for over a year—the boy had become the man’s foremost bodyguard. Since perhaps even that first duel with Goto in the fort, Kumagai had understood Bennosuke’s ability with the sword, and it was a matter of duty and expectation for the superior to be guarded by the best. A mute protector, a dog with its tongue cut out; Bennosuke played the part well.
Onward, downward, all of them trying to keep time to the drums that pounded. The incessant sound came like a distant heartbeat through the fog, but the ground was churned and slick with dew and men stumbled and slipped and rattled the straight-edged blades of their spears against one another. The boughs of the trees above formed a gray tunnel of sorts, and to battle they went like an eel burrowing into the seabed.
At one point the tunnel revealed to them a samurai hanging from the boughs of a tree like a monkey wrapped in metal and lacquer, and he howled at them as they passed, a crazed look in his eyes and a mad grin across his lips.
“U! Ki! Ta!” he shouted, gesticulating in time with his fist.
“Hwa!” spat every samurai in response.
“U! Ki! Ta!”
“Hwa!”
“U! Ki! Ta!”
“Hwa!”
Such was the noise that Bennosuke could feel his helmet vibrating on his head. It hummed into his skull and made his skin tingle, and the sound only grew and grew as more and more men took up the cry all across the slope. Dozens of tunnels, dozens of columns of men and horses grim or terrified or exultant.
One such column appeared to their side for a few moments, samurai trooping forward at an angle to that of Kumagai’s men. The color was murky in the foggy gloom, but their livery and their armor were burgundy. Bennosuke’s heart leapt, and his hands fumbled to put the mask of his helmet up and across his face, as though at that distance the Nakata might suddenly recognize him out of all the men here.
Beside him Kumagai turned at the boy’s sudden motion, and then grinned as he saw the sliver of Bennosuke’s face that was left visible between the brow of the helmet and the dull, curved iron of the faceplate.
“Ought to keep your mask off, Musashi,” he said. “Air will start to stink during the battle, you should enjoy it while it’s fresh.”
The boy barely heard him. He watched the Nakata samurai until their pathways diverged and they were gone, obscured by tree and fog once more.
He didn’t know why he was so shocked. Of course the Nakata would be here. Every lord was here. But that he would see them had not occurred to him until now. That shade of burgundy, as dulled as it was in the mist, awoke things in him. Shame, of course, was paramount, but something else was beneath that; something hard.
