by David Kirk
Bennosuke took the gift for what it was. He drew his longsword and charged, and the rider saw him coming with alarm in his eyes. The man dropped his bow and started reaching for something at his side, but he was too slow. The boy leapt like a savage hunter, holding the sword inverted above his head point-first, and his two-handed thrust pierced the light armor easily and stabbed through the man’s rib cage.
The rider gave a cry and his horse bolted. Bennosuke’s sword was torn from his grasp as he was knocked off his feet. The man managed to hang on for some distance, but from his knees Bennosuke watched his body go limp and fall from the saddle face-first. He did not get up, and as the boy scrambled for both of his swords where they lay, elation filled him.
The forest was his. Freedom.
“Thank you!” said one of the men. Bennosuke had forgotten they were there, and he turned to wave them away. But when he looked at them more closely, he found his body grew tense. The pair of them stared back awkwardly for a moment at the sudden change in him, before the second one grabbed at the first.
“Let’s go!” he said, for all around them were screams and hoof fall. “No time! To the rally point!”
“To the hells with that! The lords’re all dead!” said the first man. “Let’s just go!”
“The heir lives! We have to protect him!” said the second, and he began to pull his companion away. They ran, the first man bowing to Bennosuke one last time in thanks, and he watched them go.
The forest was there, the safety that he had earned was there, and part of him begged to vanish into it. The pair of samurai were running farther and farther and he watched them, watched them, watched them, trying to convince himself that he could forget what they had said.
But he couldn’t, because filthy though the pair were, beneath the dirt their armor was burgundy.
HE CURSED HIMSELF as he ran back up the slope through the same outcrops of trees he had just dashed through. They could be lying, the pair of them, or just wrong. This was battle—who knew the state of things? Yet still he followed. The two burgundy samurai did not look back, and up the valley slope he was aware of the shapes of horsemen through the trunks of trees, the mass of them ever present and scouring all before them like an avalanche.
The fleeing army ran their different ways, and the horsemen duly diverged to follow them. The chase had become separate contests, separate hawks swooping for separate mice through the weaving pathways between trees, sometimes intersecting like a wicker basket coming together. Men who thought themselves free would round a corner to find themselves suddenly beset by Tokugawa’s men, and that was that.
A group of horsemen emerged ahead of Bennosuke, four of them cantering on some other trail, and they passed between him and Nakata’s men for a few moments. Only the rearmost saw him, and on instinct the man lurched in his saddle and launched an arrow at him half drawn. The arrow flew too short, and it bounced off the ground before him, the length of it quivering in the air. It caught in his legs and he almost stumbled over it, but he managed to clatter onward, leaving it snapped beneath his feet.
Instead of notching another arrow the mounted samurai merely grinned and held his thumb and his forefinger a sliver apart at Bennosuke before he vanished between the trees once more. The horsemen did not stop, continuing down whatever path they were headed. Someone else would get him eventually—why bother with the minor inconvenience of turning when there was easier prey ahead of them?
The two burgundy samurai ran on, and their path twisted once more, leading downhill slightly. Ahead of them a grand burgundy banner fluttering above a small clearing soon became visible. Of course the Nakata would have a retreat planned. But it was a sad cluster of men beneath that standard, and even from a distance Bennosuke could see they were in total disarray.
There were no more than forty of them, and they were frantically scrambling around. As he and the burgundy samurai reached them, some were making a disjointed effort to place barricades of bamboo stakes facing uphill, but there were nowhere near enough to make a solid line. Rocks in a river, nothing more. Men held spears weakly, looking up at the coming horsemen. Not a single voice was giving commands.
Not a single man was checking friend from foe either; Bennosuke was let into their little encampment without hindrance. Men swarmed around him, and though most of them were fresh, enough had escaped the fight in the valley that he did not look out of place, covered in blood as he was. Each heaving breath a burn, Bennosuke put his hands on his knees as he looked around quickly, and there he was.
Hayato Nakata.
His armor was clean and fine, his missing arm artfully hidden. The lord’s thin face was agape, his mouth flapping loosely. A horse was half saddled behind him, abandoned now in the face of what was coming. Bodyguards stood around him, but they were that in name only, staring helplessly at the horsemen who flowed down the slope and drew ever closer.
No time, no time, no time.
His mind was working quickly, deviously. Only one man stopped Bennosuke as he approached Hayato, the only one fit to be called a guard. He was a fierce man, and he looked familiar—his face was marked with a spattering of scars, the white flesh of old circular burns daubed scattershot across his cheek and neck. He halted Bennosuke with a hand on the shoulder, and for a heartbeat Bennosuke thought he had been recognized. Instead, the man leaned his ear in close and expectantly.
“I’m here for Lord Hayato, sir,” whispered Bennosuke between pants. “I have an escape planned. There’s no time to argue. We must go now.”
The burned man nodded, and he looked relieved as he removed his hand and let Bennosuke approach Hayato. The boy dropped to one knee by the young lord’s side, and kept his face down.
“My lord,” he said, “we have to get you out of here. I have a route planned back to safety.”
“We’re going to die,” said Hayato, hearing nothing but his own frantic heartbeat, his jaw quivering, his eyes locked on the approaching horsemen. “We’re going to die.”
“Listen to me, my lord. I can save you. I can get you out of here alone, secretly, but you must come with me now, through the forest,” said Bennosuke. He gestured downhill toward the same trees through which he had planned to escape. “No horse can pass through that, my lord.”
“Who—” Hayato began, his eyes flicking to Bennosuke for but an instant, but whatever he might have said was cut off by a scream and a crash nearby.
Horsemen had appeared from another direction, hidden through the winding of the trees, and now their beasts were rearing up against the bamboo stakes and their riders were cheering at their sudden discovery while launching arrows into the little Nakata encampment. The one-armed lord took a step back, horrified.
“We must go, Lord!” snapped Bennosuke. “Your father is dead! You are the clan Nakata now! Let your men serve you and lay down their lives in distraction, and come with me! You must live! That is all that matters!”
“He speaks sense, Lord,” said the bodyguard.
Hayato said nothing more; he just turned and ran down into the thick forest. The only hesitation had been his terror-numbed mind comprehending the word escape. He went and he did not look back. Bennosuke and the bodyguard nodded at each other, and then they followed him down into the trees, becoming nothing but indistinct splashes of color darting between trunks, and then they were gone. The remaining Nakata, too stupefied by their impending doom, did not notice.
Five minutes later, nothing in burgundy moved in the encampment. Corpses lay twisted clutching at arrows, and the hooves of Tokugawa warhorses picked their way between them. The main body of the cavalry had gone on, plenty more fleeing men and lords to hunt, but a few of them had been left behind to scour the area for anything of value. Two men were looking up at Nakata’s banner from their saddles.
“That’s nice,” said one, eyeing the workmanship of the golden crest atop the frame appreciatively. He pulled his hand free of his riding glove and rubbed the material of the banner itself betw
een his thumb and his finger. “Very nice. What are we supposed to do with it?”
“The command is to burn it,” said the other. “Hills have to run with blood, the skies with smoke and all that.”
“Shame,” said the first, and replaced his glove. “Daughter’s getting married soon. Wife needs a new gown. That’s yards of good silk, that.”
“You’d let your wife wear something you found on a battlefield?”
“I wouldn’t tell her where I got it from.”
“Savagery,” said the second, shaking his head scornfully. “Such savagery.”
A fire was struck, a lantern held to the banner until it ignited, and then when they were certain it was inextinguishably ablaze the riders left. The standard burned on for a few minutes until it collapsed unseen by any but the dead who had been left behind, and thus, in the eyes of the world, ended the clan Nakata.
This was wild country they ran through, picking their way through the trees and slopes, winding their way downward on unsteady ground. Autumn had not fully claimed it yet, patches of green remaining amid the encroaching gold. A deer froze as they passed, its antlers emerging nubs, its black eyes wide, glistening orbs.
Slowly the sound of the rout behind them faded, but never left quite entirely. Hayato did not look back—he was just determined to go, and so he barreled on without any concern for grace and decorum or waiting for his companions. Bennosuke shouted encouragement to him, offering advice and directions as though he knew where they were going.
His head throbbed, the wound there pulsing with every beat of his heart. He felt as though he wanted to vomit, his bowels tight and aching also, but he could not tell if this desire to expel everything was because of injury or exhaustion or because of what he now had within his grasp. Three years of suffering welling within him, and what he felt was terrible confusion and uncertainty.
What had moved him to come seek the lord out? He asked himself that question as they headed onward. Sitting in that horse’s entrails down in the valley of Sekigahara, what he had realized—no, not realized, finally allowed himself to admit, for it had always been with him—was that death should not be cherished.
That was it. That was everything. It sounded so small and so stupid that such a thing should have to be stated. But this was what he had freed himself from. He wanted to ask, Who was the first man to see a corpse and consider it godly? How did he persuade others to feel the same?
Munisai the samurai had chosen it, yet he could not prevent the disgrace that Hayato visited on him, nor avenge it afterward because of his choice. Shuntaro the peasant had chosen it, but could not prevent his son and his friends from spurning his sacrifice by making exactly the same choice. No, death defined not samurai, but all men—and defined them only in that they could never define themselves again.
But Bennosuke had seen all that carnage and slaughter, and he had vowed that he was done with it all; from now he would define himself, by and for himself. The quest that Munisai had set him, the shame that followed—he no longer cared. He had thought it all obscene.
And yet, so quickly had he forgotten that. This opportunity had presented itself, and he had taken it.
Why?
If death should not be cherished, then surely neither should it be inflicted on others. That seemed logical.
Was it the instinct of years, driving his hand? He still wore armor, still carried Munisai’s swords—did the man’s ghost have some kind of hold of him?
No, he had chosen. To deny that was cowardly—he had chosen to leave the battlefield and he had chosen not to flee into the forest, and now he was here.
But you can still choose to let him go. Leave this all behind, return to Dorinbo and Miyamoto at last, just live for yourself …
The bodyguard was struggling, trailing red-faced behind Hayato and Bennosuke. He was not an agile man, and he was slipping and stumbling on hidden roots and mossy stone and earth. Bennosuke waited for him on top of a fallen log, and offered a hand down to help the man over.
The man took it, but rather than haul himself up he held it and looked Bennosuke squarely in the face, examining him. Recognition crept across his features, turning quickly to surprise, and he began to open his mouth. Before any sound escaped him the boy’s hand lanced out and stabbed him in the side of the neck with the throwing dagger Tasumi had given him years ago.
The samurai made a desperate gurgling noise, and as the man died Bennosuke realized that the burns that marked him were each about the size of a lump of coal.
“What is it? What?” called Hayato, so far ahead he was almost out of sight.
“Arrows, my lord! An arrow has taken him! Go! Run!” shouted Bennosuke. “They’re close!”
Hayato gave a yelp and ran onward, downward, not even bothering to check. The specters of assassins were in his mind already, probably flitting from tree to tree all around him like mountain demons. He grew smaller, his lopsided body weaving between the trunks.
Bennosuke let the lord run as he watched the bodyguard die, and then gently he lowered the corpse onto the log.
He followed Hayato at a measured pace, never letting the lord leave his sight. They soon came to a stream. Ten paces wide and barely calf height, clear, fresh water streaming over ocher stones. They followed it—easier to walk over wet rocks than scramble over brush—and gradually Hayato calmed down. His loping canter slowed into a walk. They went on silently for some time, the lord first and the boy a short distance behind.
Bennosuke ran his fingers along the wound on his scalp. Dull agony. The boy reached down and scooped handfuls of the water from the stream onto his head. He half hoped it would clear his head as much as it would clear his face of blood.
Hayato did not look back once. Bennosuke could just vanish into the woods, and the lord would be left utterly alone. The water was cold on his brow, an autumn chill in the air. Wake up, he told himself, this is not your world any longer. But still he followed, a gore-streaked somnambulist.
He asked himself, Do you hate this man enough to kill him? How long have you actually spent in his presence? A handful of hours? He made you endure nothing—you forced all this upon yourself.
Go.
Leave.
Be a child of Amaterasu. Go back to Dorinbo, lead a good life helping others.
“How much farther?” Hayato asked, again not turning his head.
“Not much, my lord,” said Bennosuke.
“My father is truly dead?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“How?”
“Surrounded and overwhelmed on the battlefield, my lord.”
“How unfortunate,” said Hayato, and on the side of his face Bennosuke saw the dimple of a malicious, triumphant smile.
So small a gesture, but Bennosuke found clarity within that smile. Something within him hardened.
To Hayato, death was something others offered for his benefit—Arima, the men in Aramaki, the thousands on that battlefield, the bodyguard, even his own father. Death to him was a boon, a convenience, an expedient end to his own betterment. Death should not be cherished, but equally it should be understood. But this lord did not, and never would. Men may all be trapped in that little stratum of corpses between the heavens and the hells, but on the wave of those bodies men like Hayato were borne aloft. Why would they ever look downward?
Let him go, walk away, and how many more would have to throw themselves into oblivion to keep the clan Nakata buoyant, to sate their regal and bloody maw?
Do not hate him as an individual; hate him for all that he represents.
Was Bennosuke to be a child of vengeance, or a child of Amaterasu? He thought, Why not both? Why not use the choice Amaterasu gave him to enact this vengeance because he, as a human, chose to do so?
As right as banishing the dark with fire, as natural as the thaw of rivers in spring, it could be the act of a conscious being thinking for the first time for himself—and that perhaps was as saintly as men could ever be. Bennosuke licked his
lips, tasted the dried blood there.
“You haven’t looked at me once this entire time, have you, my lord?” he said to Hayato’s back.
“What are you talking about?” said Hayato, irritated. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“Are you samurai, my lord?” said Bennosuke.
Hayato stopped and turned at that, and then he saw.
“No,” Hayato breathed. “No.”
He did not go for his sword. Instead he turned and ran. Bennosuke chased after him, kicked his legs out from under him, and then Hayato was on his hands and knees scrabbling in the water.
“No,” said Hayato, his voice breaking. “Oh no no, you’re dead, you’re dead, they said you were dead, they told me they killed you, they showed me your arms, no no no …”
Bennosuke grabbed the lord by his armor, hauling him over so he lay on his back looking up at what stood over him. Water soaked into the fine threads that coated his armor. Bennosuke drew his sword, and Hayato flinched pathetically.
“Do you remember how my father died, my lord?” said Bennosuke.
He began to cut the thick cords that bound Hayato’s armor together, wrenching it away piece by piece. The lord fumbled backward when Bennosuke’s hands left him for an instant here, a heartbeat there, a crab slowly being stripped of its shell. But he hadn’t the wit to bring himself to his feet, and always Bennosuke caught him, always another layer went.
The lord was soon in his underclothes, and Bennosuke slashed them open too so that his torso and the sad stump of his arm were revealed. The boy picked Hayato’s shortsword from where it had fallen beneath the water—never once had the lord gone for it—and tossed it to him in its scabbard. It bounced off his chest and was submerged once more.
“On your knees,” Bennosuke said. “Perform seppuku and I’ll take your head in an instant.”
“Please, let me go,” said Hayato. “I’ll give you—”
