Spirit of the Ronin

by Travis Heermann

  Shokichi grabbed the bowl with a clinking rattle, glanced at the contents, and handed it back. “You’re short.”

  Norikage laughed nervously again. “No, I’m sure I counted thirty.”

  “Sixty.” Shokichi smiled, revealing a mouth fill of blackened, splintered teeth. His breath smelled like rancid fish.

  The fist in Norikage’s innards twisted tighter. “Sixty! But—”

  “Perhaps you didn’t hear the news. Barbarians are coming. How do you expect us to protect you from them for thirty?”

  These scoundrels would use their mothers as shields when the Mongols came. “Please, Master Shokichi, if I give you sixty, I won’t have enough to buy ingredients. I’ll be out of business.”

  “Shut up, before I double it again,” Shokichi growled, thrusting his hilt forward.

  Norikage’s fingers trembled as he counted thirty more coins into the bowl. How would he buy fish and rice tomorrow?

  Shokichi scooped out the coins, dumped them into a black-and-white striped drawstring pouch, and tossed the bowl back onto the counter. “You’re safe and sound for now, Noodle Man.”

  The two thugs laughed and sauntered off.

  Hana threw herself into Norikage’s arms, whispering, “What are we going to do?”

  Norikage just petted her hair gently.

  The woman at the counter said, “Who were those men?”

  Norikage cleared his throat of a lump. “Just some local characters.”

  A spark appeared in the woman’s eyes. “Who do they work for?”

  “I had best not say. It’s not wise to—”

  “Tell me.”

  The force in her voice drew the whispered answer out of him. “Green Tiger.”

  The corner of her mouth twitched once. “You said you have children. Where are they?”

  “Playing in the back,” Norikage said, suddenly fearful without knowing why.

  “My son has not played with other children in too long. Would you...allow this, while I perform an errand? I will be back before my noodles are cold.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  She smiled again, a vision so sparkling that it disarmed him. “I won’t be long.”

  He swallowed hard. “Very well.”

  The woman ushered the boy to the side door, whispered something to him as she handed him over to Hana, then she put on her hat. He noticed that she carried a straight wooden staff in the fashion of a pilgrim. Hana took the boy’s hand and led him into the back of the house where their children were playing. She gave Norikage a puzzled expression, but he could only shrug. The woman was already gone.

  Norikage finished preparing a bowl of noodles for the woman and placed it on the counter. He leaned out and searched for her up and down both streets.

  Suddenly she was sliding back onto the bench before her bowl of noodles. She took up her chopsticks and began to eat. Even when she ate, her movements were meticulous, immensely graceful, as if every mouthful were a choreographed dance.

  Norikage wanted to ask her where she had gone, but he could not peel his gaze away from the single spot of blood on her cheek, a ruby on porcelain.

  When she was finished, she said, “I hope Ishimaru behaved himself. We should be moving along now.”

  Norikage called for Hana to bring out the boy.

  The woman bowed and pressed her son’s head into a bow as well. “Thank you for the delicious meal. It was a feast,” she said.

  The boy said, “It was a feast.”

  Then she placed her hat upon her head, took her staff in one hand and her son’s hand in the other, and led him away.

  It was not until she had disappeared that he noticed a drawstring pouch beside her empty bowl. He picked up the pouch and thought to call after her until he recognized the striped pattern. It was much heavier than sixty coins.

  He tucked the pouch away and scratched his head.

  “Fundamentally, a man’s mind is not without good. It is simply that from the moment he has life, he is always being brought up with perversity. Thus, having no idea that he has gotten used to being soaked in it, he harms his self-nature and falls into evil. Human desire is the root of this perversity.”

  —Issai Chozanshi, The Demon’s Sermon on the Martial Arts

  Lord Tsunetomo was true to his word. At dawn, his army marched for Hakozaki. Ken’ishi took command of his former unit.

  Michizane’s first glance at Ken’ishi when he arrived at the tent had been a strange mix of surprise and consternation. Michizane had assumed command on Ken’ishi’s departure, and now he would be expected to relinquish it and serve as a second. Because Ken’ishi had not been formally demoted, he still outranked Michizane.

  In the light of the campfire before Michizane’s tent, Ken’ishi bowed.

  After several moments of shock passed, Michizane recovered enough to speak. “You recovered your smile, it seems.”

  The men gathered around.

  Michizane said, “I can see it in your eyes. Are you here to take command?”

  The men stared in amazement.

  “I am,” Ken’ishi said.

  Michizane slumped a bit at that.

  “But I will need the help of a wise and seasoned warrior gentleman to reacquaint me,” Ken’ishi said. “For five years, I have been practically a monk.”

  In truth, being thrust back into command frightened him. He had imagined himself just wading into the enemy without regard to tactics or strategy. It was clear this time, however, that the Wolves of Kyushu had prepared extensively for the barbarians’ return.

  Michizane nodded and scratched his chin, took a deep breath, let it out. “Don’t worry, Captain. We’ll let Ushihara be your warrior gentleman.” He turned to where Ushihara hung back among the men.

  Ushihara blinked and farted with surprise. “Me?”

  The men laughed.

  Michizane stepped closer. “Welcome back, Captain.”

  They spent the rest of the evening together, with Michizane relating the state of affairs. The enemy had taken Ikishima, but any further movements were unknown. Spies had been dispatched to observe the enemy fleet, but none of those ships had returned.

  Now, on the march, Ken’ishi glimpsed in the distant vanguard of Tsunetomo’s army a unit of naginata cavalry that could only be Kazuko’s. He could not discern her, which was just as well. Seeing her would complicate things again. It had been five years, but would his feelings be any less immediate? He hoped so, considering how much time he had spent facing those demons in his soul.

  As the army took up its position near Hakozaki, everyone was nervous that the enemy would arrive before the defenders were assembled. But two days later, Tsunetomo’s army had erected their encampment and taken up their positions, and still no barbarians. Atop the wall, wooden shields were propped up to protect the defenders from incoming arrows. Defenders could shoot from behind them, and horsemen could shoot over them. Great barrels of arrows and spears were placed at intervals along the wall.

  Like the barrels, the beach was dotted by boats as far as the eye could see. These were open-decked and single-masted, almost large rowboats, with room enough for fourteen men rowing shoulder to shoulder and one man on the rudder. Michizane had told him these boats’ purpose, and Ken’ishi remembered Lord Abe telling him of their construction. The paint on all of them was fresh.

  The defenders took shifts through all hours of the night and day. The barbarians would probably not attack at night, as ships were too difficult to maneuver in the dark and were incapable of stealth, but the unexpected horrors of the last invasion created an aura of fear and reverence that reason would not penetrate.

  Ken’ishi thought Kazuko would hear of his return and seek him out, but he did not see her. Perhaps she felt as he did. Better to leave the past buried.

  Early on the morning of the second day, a signal beacon blazed to life north of Imazu, and the signal spread. Horns and drums echoed up and down the lines and across the water.

/>   The first ships appeared on the horizon. The hazy distance obscured their numbers, but the sails just kept appearing.

  Ken’ishi jumped up and shouted, “To me!”

  Michizane next to him waved his naginata. “Go, go, go!”

  Ken’ishi and his fourteen men jumped off the wall and pelted across the beach toward their boat.

  They were taking the fight to the invaders.

  * * *

  Alarm bells rang in a spreading wave across the city of Hakata. Inside his noodle shop, Norikage’s innards clenched. Was today to be the day the barbarians finally came?

  Stepping out into the street, he looked out over the bay. A flaming beacon flared to life around the bay toward Imazu, then another one on Shiga spit.

  He staggered a little. It was happening again. Memories of Aoka village flooded back. The riders. The smoke. The blood. Little Frog’s terrible death. And Kiosé’s. The wild, terrified flight into the forest with Hana.

  He hurried back into the shop and gathered up his family to flee south. They gathered up whatever possessions they could carry on their backs.

  Hana kept calmer than he did. His voice kept rising sharp and shrill, with endless second-guessing about what they should take versus what they could carry for long.

  The children cried.

  Townspeople crowded the streets, but he did not hear any panic. They had known for years this day would come.

  When they finally had filled their carrying racks with food and clothing and a handful of valuables, Norikage and Hana herded the children outside.

  Standing outside their door was a boy, the one with the strange woman from a few days earlier.

  The boy stood there silent, lips pouched, cheeks streaked with tears. He clutched a note in both hands, and held it up to Norikage.

  “Where’s your mother?” Norikage asked. He saw no sign of her in the crowded streets, only a river of flight, channeling south.

  The boy stepped forward, thrusting forward the note.

  “Your name is Ishimaru, yes?” Norikage said.

  The boy grunted insistently, sniffling, thrusting the note higher.

  Norikage took it, already suspecting what it said, a feeling of dread building in his belly.

  You have a good family. Please do me this favor. There is something I must do. If I still live, I will find you and come for him. Ishimaru is a good boy. Better than his mother.

  The note was written in woman’s script, and near the end, the hand trembled in the characters.

  Norikage folded up the note, tucked it into his robe, and looked at the boy. Grimy face, shaved head, and little topknot. The boy’s eyes bore the mark of hardship, and of fearlessness, defiance, and quiet intelligence.

  Ishimaru was slightly older than Little Frog had been when the barbarians came.

  Norikage offered his hand. Ishimaru took it.

  “When facing a situation where you might die ... you should be the first to volunteer and never retreat a single step. There are situations when it’s right to die, though, and situations where you shouldn’t die. To die where you should die is praised as a righteous death. To die where you shouldn’t die is disparaged as a dog’s death.”

  —Izawa Nagahide

  The waters of Hakata Bay were calm, the morning breeze cool as Ken’ishi’s men rowed for all they were worth. A slight breeze in the sail boosted their speed, but it was the beat of the drum that propelled them.

  “One! Two! One! Two!” the men chanted as they rowed.

  Ken’ishi held the rudder, studying the faces of the men who were now following him into battle, most of whom he had not met until two days ago.

  All of them were armored, which meant that if they went into the water, the interlaced steel plates of their do-maru would drag them down like stones and drown them before they could remove it. Best not to go into the water, then. They carried a smattering of weapons—swords, spears, naginata, even a few with bows whose job would be to pick off the enemy from below.

  Their boat ran alongside four others. A flotilla of five boats would board a single incoming ship, slaughter everyone aboard, and then flee before any other enemy ships could close. Hakata Bay swarmed with these small boats.

  Ken’ishi’s boat was third in the flotilla under the command of Shoni no Kagetora. Kagetora was a gruff veteran who looked more at home on the sea than on land, several years older than Ken’ishi. When Kagetora had introduced himself, he thumbed his chest and announced he was the great-grandson of one of the revered sea captains who fought with Minamoto no Yoshitsune, brother of Yoritomo, against the treasonous Taira at Dan-no-Ura.

  Ken’ishi’s boat was just one among hundreds. The boats that had launched from Imazu and Shiga had already engaged the nearest enemy ships. The clamor of butchery drifted across the water, screams and the clash of arms. Smoke and flame bloomed from an incoming ship, then another, as the successful samurai set them afire.

  The further out to sea they went, the higher the waves became. Their course pointed them into the gap between Shiga Island and Genkai Island, the entrance to Hakata Bay, a breadth of about two ri. Invading ships filled that breadth and stretched beyond to the northern horizon. Hundreds of them. He clenched down the memories of that wild, awful, wracking day almost seven years before, when a similar fleet came ashore and disgorged thousands of bloodthirsty Mongol horsemen. The day Kiosé and Little Frog had died.

  The drums beat, and the men chanted, and the enemy ships neared. His flotilla was more than two ri from Hakozaki now, crossing a line between Shiga and the end of the wall north of Imazu, about to cross into open sea.

  The enemy ships were easily four times the size of his small craft, with gunwales above the water half-again the height of a man.

  In the boat ahead, Shoni no Kagetora shouted, “Strike the sail!”

  Several of his men leaped to obey, folding up the bamboo-ribbed sail and removing it from the mast altogether, while the others kept rowing.

  Ken’ishi repeated the order to his own craft.

  The approaching ships loomed large, two-masted, with broad ribbed sails, gunwales that swooped to a high forecastle, and even higher terraced poop decks. On those high decks, archers waited for range. Red and gold pennons proclaiming ship designations fluttered high above the sterns.

  Their flotilla passed several vessels already engaged or burning. The sides of the boarded ships ran crimson with gore. They also passed the sinking wreckage of a few defense boats, or boats drifting where all the men lay dead, bristled with arrows. Scents of blood and smoke and sweat drifted on the sea breeze. And horses.

  The men jumped at a sudden peal of thunder across the water. The corner of Ken’ishi’s eye had caught a sudden burst of flame and smoke near a flotilla ahead. The boat nearest the occurrence foundered, the gunwale splintered as if by a tremendous fist, dead men slipping over the side. A puff of smoke and crash of thunder exploded near another defense boat, but too far away to cause damage.

  These must be the Mongols’ “thunder-crash bombs.” They had rained fire and terror onto the defenders at Imazu with these devices during the prior attack, blowing men, horses, and structures to bits.

  Catapults rested upon the upper decks of many of the oncoming ships. Men in fur-trimmed armor and pointed helmets swarmed around them. A catapult jumped, and a little black ball arced toward a defending boat, trailing smoke. Just before it reached the water, the ball exploded, spraying splinters and pieces of men across the water.

  Dense flocks of arrows flew from the invading ships, stretching to impossible ranges.

  “Our bows can’t do that!” said a young man.

  Michizane said, “We like to look glory a little closer in the face!”

  The men laughed and rowed harder.

  Their flotilla passed through the first ranks of engaged ships, into a new wave. Kagetora’s lead boat angled toward the nearest oncoming ship.

  “Prepare mast pins!” Ken’ishi shouted. Two men situated themselv
es with hammers on either side of the mast.

  The approaching ship drew nearer. All around them, flotillas of five swarmed other ships. Thunder-crash bombs arced and burst. Flaming arrows arced. A great machine on the high aft deck cast flaming spears at the incoming boats. One of those spears pinned two men together against the gunwale of their boat. Another punched a hole through the bottom of a boat, which foundered quickly.

  Two other craft of their flotilla swung around to angle for the opposite side, and the last aimed for the bow. Ken’ishi guided his craft next to Kagetora’s. Kagetora had ordered Ken’ishi to stick close until he “got his sea legs.”

  The deck above swarmed with men. Arrows blasted toward them from the upper decks, splashing in the water, piercing wood or flesh or lodging in armor. The drum beat faster. Ken’ishi whipped out Silver Crane to deflect incoming arrows, one hand still on the rudder. The men rowed for all they were worth. Kagetora’s craft took the brunt of the arrows but kept going until it slammed against the side of the ship.

  “Strike the mast!” Kagetora roared. An instant later, the mast toppled against the gunwale of the ship like a felled tree, and the samurai swarmed up it. War cries and clashing blades rang out.

  Ken’ishi shouted orders to ship the oars and prepare weapons. Momentum carried his craft into the side of the ship with a thud. “Strike the mast!”

  The two men hammered pins out of the mast mount and toppled the mast onto the gunwale above. Ken’ishi charged up the wooden bridge, Silver Crane high. Behind him came his men in a roaring fury.

  The bowmen would stay behind to secure the boat to the ship with grappling hooks and then take up their bows.

  The men aboard this ship were not Mongols. Their faces most closely resembled the White Lotus Gang he had faced in Hakata. Their swords were straight and two-edged. Their bronze, bell-shaped helmets were topped by red silken plumes. All of them wore coats, reaching to their ankles, of small steel plates that interlocked like the scales of a lizard. Similar curtains of interlocking plates draped their necks.