It had seemed too calm at first. The damp predawn air, the muffled sounds of an army that they knew lay on the other bank but couldn’t see. Then arrows began to fall. The Keishi force had swelled along the western side, spilling out over the temple and the bridge and on the sandy shore.
On the eastern side, Yora’s retainers released a withering rain of arrows from their steep embankment. Then the Keishi footmen charged headlong across the narrow bridge, and didn’t see the gap. Screams, cries of pain and terror as men fell into the current far below. The rest were trapped by the mass of spearmen behind them; barred by the empty framework of the bridge. Yora was right. The bottleneck had worked.
“Arrows!” Tsuna called. “Arrows!”
Countless shafts cut air. The sound of bowstrings. Bodies piled high on the death-zone on the bridge.
“The river! Father!” She’d seen the Keishi homeguard ride into thecurrent. Yora crossed toward the line of Nioh’s loyalists on the banks. He saw it too.
She ran up beside him. “Who is that?” Staring out at the single rider who crossed, first into the shallows, and then the deeper currents, small waves eddying around her with unsteady speed. A woman with long hair flung out in a caress of wind over the foam, armor of sea-green and silver inlay, with crossed hawk-feathers, the House Eiga emblem, on a flag.
Yora’s gaze darkened when he saw her. “Side up along the banks. Don’t let them form up! Don’t give them any time! We cut them at the waterfront!” A line of archers began loosing at the slow-moving horsemen, neck-deep in water. “Hold your formation!” Yora craned his neck to see that the Keishi army on the far side had started pulling planks and wooden floorboards from the buildings at the western temple. Carrying them to the crossing over their heads. Toward the front. Toward the bridge.
They meant to close the gaps.
So he pulled himself up, pushed his hands against the muddy earth, and clawed his way along the embankment as arrows fletched the ground around him and his men raged forward, long spears in a line to stop the riders in the river. Finally, he climbed to a seated position against a tree, and breathed.
He’d forgotten how loud the fight would be.
The sky, it’s burning, he thought,it’s smeared with snow like ash.Swathes of cloud, white on bloody ground. But the temples had not been burned, not yet. Yora ducked across the embankment, straining to see. Hurried to the awning beside the bridge. Snow fell. The mass of his warriors, on the embankment with him. Spears and polearms, flying arrows. Kijin waiting for their enemy to come.
Yaeko had forded the river.
Her forces would soon rise up sputtering from the wash and meet the longbows and the glinting blades of his kin on the shore.
Pull the arrow out. Strike back. You know you’re dead.
They’re more than halfway across.
He found an arrow of his own. Tugged it from his quiver, his last. He had no time to think about it. Set it to the bow. The great draw with more pull-force than a man’s weight. Loose the shaft and slice a thin line across the air. A horse screams as it is struck; the rider drowns.
Such are we, he thought.All of us. Drowning.
Arrows whistled as they fell. Sand scattered, tainted, dark and slick and red.
Kai was stumbling up the hill.
Dressed in a foot-soldier’s light armor and an anonymous helm for disguise, she ran back to the safety of the temple with her guard. He couldn’t see the prince; Nioh must have already made it through the gates and into the inner temple. Good.
“Kai!” Tsuna scrambled to pull Kai up. The sisters had led their people with the prince across the bridge first, into the defenses of the inner temple. Yora would stay to hold back the tide. The entire Keishi cavalry now delved into the rushing waters of the Onji, using Yaeko’s hidden ford. He saw a wave of spears and frightened horses. He saw chaos on the bridge, but still, he knew, there were too many.
At the top of the slope, Tsuna grabbed Kai by the arms and hauled her over, shouting for the Jibashiri to cover them as they made their way to the temple gate.
While, in the water, Yaeko’s horsemen had arrived.
“Back!” Yora had a signal fan in his left hand, his sword in his right. He waved to the monks at the top of the embankment; their response could hardly be seen over the press of the infantry coming across. He braced himself. His archers came in, sending a barrage of arrows into the horsemen in the water, a hundred silent hornets from the nest. His men re-formed around him. Falling back step by step, but holding the line.
Another arrow stitched itself into his armored shoulder. A third clanged off in a ricochet but he stumbled from the force. He bore the traditional red and gold of the Gensei, decorated with a white fern design, his helm adorned with the visage of a flying beast.
“Pull back!” he shouted. “They’re going to cover the gaps!” They were already surging forward, putting heavy planks across the holes in the bridge. “Pull back!”
Once the Keishi reached this side, he would have to hold a fighting defense, and wouldn’t be able to see the full lie of battle anymore. He would have to hope.
At first it worked. His men bled them at the crossing, then fell back in good order to the fortified temple grounds. They’d constructed a series of obstacles at the riverside and were prepared to retreat to the main temple hall for defense, hoping to hold the Keishi until Tokuon arrived.
Above, more arrows fell.
Ahead, his former students crossed the river.
