Silent, he watched, silent he waited; silent, he thought he could hear a whisper of the carnage soon to come. He paused in the wind, imagining he could see the gore that would be spilled, the cries of agony, the dead horses that would litter the grass. Another gust. Soon, it began to snow,soft drifts, floating down over the fallow fields with the hilly woodland to the north.
If not for this fear, he mused,it would be strangely pretty.
To entice them to attack, their opponent Akiyo Musha’in had made herself look weak. Sen saw that now. They’d been feinting through the riverland for the better part of two days, pushing forward, pulling back, dancing with each other’s scouts. Outriders reported her location every night, encamped, they said, across the edge of Awa. Then she moved east, trying to flank them in the hills.
First Akiyo made a dash toward them, cutting across the bridges at the estuary north, but when their outriders engaged, she pulled back. The mountain-wolves, it seemed, did not want to meet in open combat. The closer they got to Onji, the slower, more tentative the enemy became. “She hesitates,” Daijin Kanesuke had bellowed, laughing. “Keishi fox.” Tokuon seemed less convinced.
Akiyo: the greatest general in the Keishi clan. He’d never met her, didn’t know who she was, how she looked – but her name was one that conjured fear. Her movements, based on where she’d camped the previous three nights, made it seem that, though she mounted flanking attacks, she knew the full weight of the Kanden had gathered to the southeast, and grew reluctant to engage. Akiyo led her army deep into the marshland of Onji and stayed there, seemingly indecisive. But this, Sen knew, was the danger.
And now they had come.
Now Sen tried to calm the pounding in his chest. Around him, a dozen armored guardsmen sat shivering on their mounts, facing west toward the distant river. Soft flakes landed, gentle as ash, upon his hand, and he pulled away his helmet to feel them, face lifted to the sky, eyes closed.
So this is how it begins.
Silent, the field lay in wait.
The guards began to shift, their hands anxious, their blades sharp as death. Banners fluttered in the breeze, caressed by its icy touch, crests of Gensei next to ringed crescents of Oshigen, Tokuon’s red mountain beneath the leaves, and the circle-of-dragonscales of Zusho. The snow came down. Tokuon’s red guard, the Akazonae, had armor the color of blood, masks darkened with soot and iron. Their banners, dyed crimson, marked with a three-tiered mountain surrounded by a ring; the Gisan lord himself wore black-and-red, with white cord bound through the plates.
Sen’s heart beat faster. Wind cut him to the bone. Snowfall kissed his face. He held the helm his stewardbrother Nihira had given him, icy nowin the cold, and brought it to his head again. He felt his heartbeat, his silence, the snow as it continued to fall. He took account of his life. What he’d done, and not yet done, who he’d helped, who helped him in turn. He thought of having tried to do good in the world. He thought of Rui.
The watchers beat the drums.
Each unit had a separate task. Tokuon’s kinsmen would comb the woods to their right, on the north side, for a second wave. Kanesuke Daijin would hunt for generals in the center, targeting their leader, Akiyo. Sen would lead a flanking team along the side.
“Follow me at every point, bumpkin,” Daijin growled, “and guard the flanks. Protective wall when we kill her.” His men gave a shout. “First priority is Akiyo. Second, Kaga Makoto, if he dares show his weasel-face.” A hundred riders broke into edgy laughter. Daijin raised his arm.
“Your only objective is to watch those hills,” Tokuon had told him, pointing toward the northern wood. Sen and Ohori would run interference, stopping any counter-attack that got in his way; Tokuon would push west into the temple, crossing the main road that ran east–west through the field, then past the winter barley and the village streets. From there, he’d find Prince Nioh, and get him out.
Tokuon gave a nod as he approached. “Sen,” he said, voice heavy, focused. “Listen now. You’re no match for Akiyo. And no one has better cohesion than her troops. They’re highly trained, they’ve worked together for years. Do not engage them in the open.”
“We’ve gone over this.” Sen hoped he sounded brave. “What’re we waiting for?”
Their horses snorted impatiently. Tokuon offered a hand. “Good hunting.”
Tokuon’s son, young Takayoshi, lingered on the hill to their rear. Kiie, no longer in his spring of life, would lead the rearguard to protect him; they were riding in formation, doing drills to settle the young lord’s mind as his father entered the field. But when Taka looked at him, Sen saw the boy was simply terrified. The firstborn son of Gisan on the central coast, heir to its perilous mountains, its villages that rose upon the hillsides, soaring over clouds and the distant rice fields of the Kanden plains. Looking at him now, Sen saw nothing but a frightened child.
“Keep an eye out for me,” he called, trying to reassure the boy. “I’m sure you’ll see some…”Some what, exactly?“Some great things, on the field.”
The boy nodded, but when Sen left, he left feeling like a liar. He didn’t know what to expect, himself. The wind blew past, sharp and from theeast. He shivered. His hands felt numb. The horses were uneasy; he glanced at Taka again, a child-version of his father, armored in bright red with the pride of his clan and almost frozen with fear. His minders had him surrounded in a group – they would remain far from the fighting, but in the case that something went wrong, they were prepared.
Sen tipped his head once more, in farewell. They were too far to speak. The boy could only raise his hand, then was ushered away to the height of the hill.
Tokuon gave barely a look at his child as he thundered past with his standard-bearers. The lords were gathered; the outriders had left. There was a commotion at the northern edge of the line, closest to the wood; there were shouts. A shiver rippled through him and Sen realized something was happening by the river.
“Yora’s under attack,” Tokuon called. “That’s the Kaga clan. They’re attacking from our side of the river!”
He barked an order; bannermen lifted conch horns to their lips.
“Akiyo,” Kiie spat. “She must have crossed the bridge at Kawaoka. Are you ready?”
Sen gripped his reins. His troops were waiting for him on the slope. Daijin had been out to check the edges of their line, and now he reared back on his stallion, armor painted Akazonae red and woven with black. It made him look a devil.
“Lord!” he called. “She crossed the northern bridge. Hours ago. They’ve been waiting in the woodlands since last night.”
The scouts returned; their news was just as bad.
The Musha’in’s foot-soldiers were crossing the barley fields, cutting through the temple grounds from behind – from theeast, even as Yora retreated from the west.
