The Harsh Cry of the Heron

by Lian Hearn

  There were several thousand of them, the archers arranged in two ranks, for Kahei had drilled them in the art of alternating shots so that the hail of arrows was almost continuous. If it had not been wet, they would have done the same with their firearms.

  “Saga expects us to concentrate only on firepower,” Gemba said. “He does not expect us to be equally formidable with bows. He was surprised at the dog contest, but he learned nothing from it. He will be equally surprised now.

  “We are to remain here,” he added, “even when the troops move around and forward. Your father wants us to aim with care and take out their captains and other leaders. Make every arrow count.”

  Shigeko’s mouth was dry. “Lord Gemba,” she said, “How did it come to this? How did we fail to solve things peacefully?”

  “When the balance is lost and the male force dominates, war is inevitable,” Gemba replied. “Some wound has been dealt to the feminine force, but I don’t know what it is. It is our fate to be here at this time, our fate to have to kill or be killed. We must embrace it with all our resolve, wholeheartedly, knowing that we did not desire it or seek it.”

  She heard his words but hardly took them in, her attention focused on the scene before her as the light strengthened—the scarlet and gold of armor and harness, the impatient horses tossing their heads, the banners of Otori, Maruyama, Miyoshi, and all the other clans of the Three Countries, the cascading rain, the darkened trees of the forest, the white splash of waterfalls against the mountain rocks.

  Then, impossibly numerous, like ants disturbed from their nest, the first wave of Saga’s army came pouring through the pass.

  46

  The battle of Takahara was fought over three days during severe thunderstorms. The fighting continued from dawn to sunset; at night the combatants tended their wounded and scoured the battlefield for spent arrows. Saga Hideki’s forces outnumbered Otori Takeo’s army three to one, but the Emperor’s general was hampered by the narrow pass that gave onto the plain, and by the Otori command of the vantage points. As each wave of Saga’s men thrust into the plain, they were assailed by the arrows from their right; those that survived the arrows were repelled by the main Otori army, fighting first on horseback with swords, and then on foot.

  It was by far the most brutal battle Takeo had ever fought, the one he had done his utmost to avoid. Saga’s troops were disciplined and superbly trained. They had already subdued vast areas to the north. They hoped to be rewarded with the spoils of the Three Countries, and they fought with the blessing of the Emperor. On the other hand, Takeo’s men were not only fighting for their lives, they were fighting for their country, for their homes, their wives and children, their land.

  Miyoshi Kahei had been with the Otori army at the battle of Yaegahara when he was fourteen years old, nearly thirty years earlier. The Otori had suffered a crushing defeat, partly due to the treachery of their own vassals. Kahei never forgot the years that followed: the humiliation of the warriors, the suffering of the people under Iida Sadamu. He was determined not to live through such a defeat again. His conviction that Saga would never prevail strengthened the will of his men.

  Equally important, his preparations had been meticulous and imaginative. He had been planning this campaign since spring, and organizing the transport of supplies and weapons from Inuyama. He had been impatient for months, wanting to deal decisively with the threats to Takeo’s rule, chafing at the endless negotiations and delays. Now the battle had finally begun, his mood was ebullient. The rain was unfortunate, as he would have liked to have seen his troops use the firearms in action, but there was something magnificent about the traditional weapons: bow and sword, pike and halberd, spears.

  The banners of the clan were streaked with moisture; the ground underfoot was quickly churned to mud. Kahei watched from the slopes, his chestnut horse ready beside him. Minoru, the scribe, sat near him under an umbrella, trying in vain to keep his writing dry and to record the events. When the first attack from Saga’s men was repulsed and the men driven back toward the pass, Kahei leaped on the horse’s back and joined the pursuit, his sword hacking and slashing at the backs of the fleeing men.

  ON THE MORNING of the second day, Saga’s horsemen came back through the pass before daylight, fanning out to try to outflank the archers to their north and to come around the southern side of Kahei’s main army. Takeo had not slept but had kept watch all night, listening for the first sound of activity from the enemy. He heard the pad of horses’ hooves, even though they were wrapped in straw, the creak and jingle of harness and weaponry. The northern archers were shooting blind, and the rain of arrows was less effective than the previous day. Everything was soaked—food, weapons, clothes.

  When day came, the battle was already an hour old, and the light dawned on its pitiful spectacle. The easternmost of the archery divisions were locked in hand-to-hand combat with Saga’s men. Takeo could not make out any individuals in the fray, though the emblems of each group of foot soldiers could be seen dimly through the rain. He saw immediately that his own right-hand side was equally under threat, and unable to render any help. He himself rode at once to their aid, Jato in hand, Tenba quivering in excitement but steady beneath him. He thought he had ceased to feel any soul-searching or regret, that he had moved into the ruthlessness of battle madness, as all his old skills returned to him. He noted half-consciously the Okuda crest close on his right-hand side, remembered Saga’s retainer who had come to meet him in Sanda, sent Tenba sideways to evade a sword thrust to his leg, turned the horse to face the attacker, and looked down into the eyes of Okuda’s son, Tadayoshi.

  The boy had fallen from his horse and lost his helmet, and, surrounded as he was, defended himself bravely. He recognized Takeo and called out to him. Takeo heard him clearly through the din of battle: “Lord Otori!”

  He did not know if it was a challenge or a call for help, and would never find out, for Jato had already descended onto the skull and split it. Tadayoshi died at his feet.

  Now Takeo heard a scream of rage and grief, and saw the boy’s father riding toward him, sword in both hands. Takeo was unsettled by Tadayoshi’s death, and unprepared. Tenba stumbled at that moment, and Takeo slipped slightly in the saddle, falling forward, grasping for the mane with his damaged right hand. The stumble deflected Okuda’s blow slightly, but Takeo still felt the impact as the tip of the sword caught him on top of the arm and across the shoulder. Okuda’s horse galloped on, giving Takeo and Tenba time to recover. He felt no pain and thought he had escaped injury. Okuda turned his horse and came back toward Takeo, his path impeded by the milling soldiers. He ignored them all, intent only on Takeo. His rage ignited a reciprocal primitive fury in Takeo, and he surrendered to it, for it obliterated regret. Jato responded, and found the unprotected point in Okuda’s neck. The man’s own impetus took the sword deep into his flesh and veins.

  LATER ON THE second day, Hiroshi and his men were pushing Saga’s troops back toward the pass in a counterattack. Kahei had initiated a pincer movement that would trap the retreating men, already exhausted after hours of hand-to-hand fighting. Hiroshi’s cousin Sakai Masaki was close behind him, and in sudden flashes of memory Hiroshi recalled a mad journey, in rain like this, with Sakai, when he had been a boy of ten. At that age battle was what he longed for, yet the path he had followed had been one of peace, the Way of the Houou. Now he felt all the blood of his ancestors rise in his veins. He threw off all other thoughts and concentrated on fighting, on killing, on winning, for his whole future now depended on victory. If the battle was lost, he would either die in it or kill himself. He fought with a fury he did not know he possessed, inspiring the men around him, driving the opposing forces back toward the pass, where they were trapped in the bottleneck.

  With nowhere to go, Saga’s men defended themselves more desperately. In one of their counter-surges Keri went down, blood spurting from his neck and shoulder. Hiroshi found himself fighting two unhorsed warriors. He lost his footing i
n the mud and fell to one knee, turned as the sword came on him and thrust upward, parrying it. The second sword descended toward him. He saw Sakai throw himself beneath the blow—blood, his own or Sakai’s, was blinding him. The weight of Sakai’s body held him down in the mud as the fray trampled across them. For a moment he felt only disbelief that this was how it was to end, and then pain washed over him, drowning him.

  Gemba found him at nightfall, near death from loss of blood from slashes to head and legs, the wounds already suppurating in the dirt and humidity. Gemba staunched and cleaned them as best he could, then carried Hiroshi back behind the lines to join the rest of the wounded. Takeo was among them, his shoulder and arm cut deeply but not dangerously, already washed and wrapped in paper bandages.

  Shigeko was unhurt, pale with exhaustion.

  Gemba said, “I found him. He is alive, but barely. Sakai lay dead on top of him. He must have saved his life.”

  He laid the wounded man down. Lamps had been lit, but they smoked and smoldered in the rain. Takeo knelt beside Hiroshi, taking his hand and calling to him. “Hiroshi! Dear friend! Do not leave us. Fight! Fight!”

  Hiroshi’s eyes flickered. His breath came in shallow panting; his skin held a damp sheen of sweat and rain.

  Shigeko knelt next to her father. “He cannot be dying! He must not die!”

  “He has survived this far,” Gemba said. “You can see how strong he is.”

  “If he makes it through tonight, there is hope,” Takeo agreed. “Don’t despair yet.”

  “How terrible it all is,” Shigeko whispered. “What an unforgivable thing it is to kill a man.”

  “It is the way of the warrior,” Gemba said. “Warriors fight and they die.”

  Shigeko did not reply, but tears dripped steadily from her eyes.

  “HOW MUCH MORE of this can Saga take?” Kahei said to Takeo later that night, before they snatched a short respite of sleep. “It is madness. He is sacrificing his men to no purpose.”

  “He is a man of immense pride,” Takeo replied. “He has never been defeated. He will not acknowledge the idea of it.”

  “How can we persuade him? We can resist him indefinitely—I hope you are impressed by your soldiers; they are superb in my opinion—but we cannot avoid huge loss of life. The sooner we can put an end to the fighting, the more chance we have to save the wounded.

  “Like poor Sugita,” he added. “And yourself, of course. Wound fever is inevitable in these vile conditions, with no sunlight to dry and heal. You should rest tomorrow; stay out of the fray.”

  “It’s not serious,” Takeo replied, though the pain had been increasing steadily all day. “Luckily, I am accustomed to using my left hand now. I have no intention of staying out of the fight—not until Saga is dead, or in flight back to the capital!”

  SHIGEKO STAYED WITH Hiroshi all night, bathing him with cold water to try to reduce the fever. He was still alive in the morning, but shivering violently, and she could find nothing dry with which to warm him. She brewed tea and tried to get him to drink. She was torn between staying with him and returning to her position alongside Gemba to counter Saga’s next onslaught. The bark shelters that had been erected for the wounded dripped constantly; the ground beneath them was saturated. Mai had spent day and night here, and Shigeko called to her.

  “What should I do?”

  Mai squatted beside Hiroshi and felt his brow. “Ah, he’s freezing,” she said. “This is how we warm the sick in the Tribe.” She lay down alongside him, pressing her body gently against him. “Lie down on the other side,” she instructed Shigeko, and Shigeko did so, feeling her warmth spread into him. The girls held him between them without speaking until his temperature began to rise again.

  “And this is how we heal wounds,” Mai said quietly, and moving aside Gemba’s bandages licked the raw edges of cut flesh with her tongue and spat saliva onto them. Shigeko copied her, tasting the man’s blood, giving him moisture from her mouth as if exchanging kisses.

  Mai said, “He is going to die.”

  “No!” Shigeko replied. “How dare you say it?”

  “He needs looking after properly. We can’t do that day and night. You should be fighting, and I’ve got others to look after who’ve got more chance.”

  “How can we bring the fighting to an end?”

  “Men love to fight,” Mai said. “But even the fiercest of them tire of it, especially if they’re hurt.” She looked across Hiroshi at Shigeko. “Hurt this Saga, and he’ll lose his appetite. Hurt him as bad as Lord Hiroshi is hurt and he’ll want to scurry back to the doctors in Miyako.”

  Shigeko said, “How do I get to him? He does not appear on the battlefield, but directs his men from afar.”

  “I’ll find him for you,” Mai said. “Put on some drab clothing and prepare your most powerful bow and arrows. There’s not much you can do for Lord Hiroshi,” she added when Shigeko hesitated. “He’s in the hands of the gods now.”

  Shigeko followed these instructions, wrapping a length of cloth around her head and neck and smearing mud across brow and cheeks so that she was unrecognizable. She took up the bow she had been fighting with, restrung it, and found ten new arrows, iron-barbed with single points, fletched with eagles’ feathers. These she placed in the quiver. While she waited for Mai to return she sat next to Hiroshi, and between bathing his face and giving him water, for he was now burning again, she tried to calm her thoughts as she had been taught at Terayama, by Hiroshi and the other Masters.

  Dear teacher, dear friend, she called silently to him. Don’t leave me!

  The battle had resumed with even greater ferocity, bringing the noise of crazed shouts, the screams of the wounded, the clash of steel, the pounding of horses’ hooves, but a kind of silence had descended on the two of them, and she felt their souls entwine.

  He will not leave me, she thought, and on a sudden impulse went to her hut and unpacked the tiny bow and the houou-feather–fletched arrows. She tucked these inside her jacket, while she slung the larger bow on her left shoulder, the quiver of arrows on her right.

  When she went back to the wounded, Mai had returned.

  “Where were you?” the girl said. “I thought you’d gone back to the fighting. Come on, let’s hurry.”

  Shigeko wondered if she should inform Gemba where she was going, but when she came over the top of the slope and saw the battle scene, she realized she would never find him in the confusion. Saga’s strategy now seemed to be to overwhelm the Otori positions by ever greater force of numbers. His new troops were fresh and rested; the Otori army had been fighting for two days.

  How long can they resist? she asked herself as she followed Mai around the southern side of the plain, her feelings already dulled by the sight of so many dead. The Otori had taken their dead and wounded behind the lines, but Saga’s men lay where they had fallen, the corpses one more element in the horror and confusion. Wounded horses tried to struggle to their feet; a small bunch of them trotted, halting and lame, away to the southwest, their broken reins dangling in the mud. Looking briefly after them, Shigeko saw them come to a halt just before the Otori camp. They put their heads down and began to graze, as though they were in a meadow, removed and distant from the battlefield. A little beyond them was the kirin. She had hardly thought of it for two days. No one had had time to build an enclosure for it; it was tethered by neck ropes to the horse lines. It looked forlorn and diminished in the pouring rain. Could it survive this ordeal and then the long journey back to the Middle Country? She felt a pang of terrible pity for it, so alone and far from its home.

  The two girls made their way behind the rocks and crags that surrounded the plain. Here the noise of battle abated a little. Around them in every direction rose the peaks of the High Cloud Range, disappearing into the mist that hung like hanks of unspun silk. The ground was stony and slippery; often they had to crawl on all fours over huge rocks. Sometimes Mai went ahead, making a sign to Shigeko to wait for her, and Shigeko crouched in
the shelter of some dripping boulder for what seemed like half her lifetime, wondering if she had not perhaps died in battle and was now a ghost, hovering between the worlds.

  Mai returned out of the mist like a wraith herself, completely silent, and led the way onward again. Finally they came to a huge rock, which they scaled, scrabbling like monkeys up its southern side. Two stunted pine trees clung to its top, their hooped, misshapen roots making a kind of natural railing.

  “Keep down,” Mai whispered. Shigeko wriggled into a position where she could see through the roots across to the east, and the entrance to the pass. She gasped and flattened herself against the rock. Saga was directly in front of them, perched on a similar crag, from which he had a hawk’s-eye view of the battlefield beneath him. He sat beneath a large umbrella on an elegantly lacquered camp stool, fully armed in black and gold, his helmet decorated with twin gold peaks, like the mountains of his crest that fluttered beside him on black and white banners. Several of his officers, all equally resplendent, and clean despite the rain, stood around him, along with a conch shell player and runners ready to take messages. Just beyond him, a series of fallen boulders made natural steps down to the pass. She saw agile men leap up and down them, reporting on the progress of the battle. She could even hear Saga’s voice, noted its timbre of fury; she peeped again and saw him stand, shouting and gesticulating with the iron war fan in his hand. His officers took a step back from the force of the rage, and several of them immediately rushed down the rocky stairway to hurl themselves into the battle.

  Mai breathed in her ear, “Now, while he is standing. You will only have one chance.”

  Shigeko took a deep breath and thought through each movement. She would use the nearest pine tree to pull herself to her feet. She would step beneath the trunks. The rock’s surface would be slippery, so she would need to maintain her balance as she pulled the bow from her shoulder and the arrow from the quiver. It was a move she had practiced a thousand times in the last two days, and had not missed her target yet.