Yaeko at the lead.
To the north, sounds of rage and terror echoed from the bridge. Keishi foot-soldiers were still trapped in the bottleneck, and the narrow space ofthe bridge made them easy fodder for his bows. The last of Nioh’s guards were loosing shafts into them from the edges of the temple wall, like a battlement.
And on their side of the bridge, three river monks stood alone. Gochi-no-Tai stood with legs planted. Hundreds of arrows raining down, yet none seemed to touch him.
“Let’s go!” Aiichi, the youngest of the river monks, held his longblade in one hand, the other raised before him, facing the coming tide of Keishi soldiers. He swung in an arc, and it was as if a hurricane had hit them, as if a thousand stones lifted off the ground and smashed into the Keishi forces harder than a thousand arrows ever could.
Once a path had been cleared, Aiichi vanished.
No, not vanished; he leaped so high and so fast it almost seemed he had. He leaped clear over the heads of a dozen Keishi soldiers and landed with one foot along the balustrade fifteen paces away. Ran across the thin handrail before he leaped again and sailed across the gaps, into the mass of enemy soldiers.
The other two – Gochi-no-Tai and Joji – remained on the bridge, moving inhumanly fast, leaping in the air, cutting arrows as they came down.
“Demons,” someone muttered beside Yora. He urged them on. Back up the hill. Back to the gate.
But there were too many. The two monks were surrounded, fighting off hundreds of Keishi troops who swarmed the bridge. The narrow crossing made it perilous; the Keishi could only stand five or six abreast, and the river monks blocked their way.
Behind them, the young noble girl Atsu held the gate open at the top of the slope. A barrage of arrows from the far side scattered into the dirt around her, needling her armor. Yora himself now had at least six or seven shafts sticking from his pauldrons. Atsu fell, arrows flickering into the dirt.
Yora pulled her up. “Fall back! Into the temples!”
The river monks still held the bridge. But despite the vast numbers of men cut down by their swords and longblades, falling into the water or trampled under wave after wave of Keishi troops who’d come after them, the two monks could not hold strong for ever. Aiichi had now gone from sight, no doubt already killed. They’d been pushed back, step by step, and now they were at the very edge, holding the last few paces before it opened onto the wide palisade below the temple, a mere hundred strides from the gate where Yora now held Atsu by the arms. Still the river monks,Gochi-no-Tai and Joji Hideaki, fought on, blocking what remained of the bridge, alone. Soon the riders who had forded the river would come about, cutting the two monks off from behind.
“Gochi!” Yora shouted, loud as he could over the din. “River monk! Fall back! Fall back to the temple!”
The two monks swung their longblades, arrows sticking from their armor in a dozen places, as the Keishi surged across the bridge like the breaking of a dam. Yora lost sight of them in the chaos that followed. The last he saw was the two monks shouting and attacking as though they had the power of the gods, but soon they were overrun by hordes of Keishi soldiers and vanished from his sight.
The sun hung higher now, pale and cold. It cast sharp blades of light through patchy cloud, across the water, the roar of the current, of the battle, of men falling and making little waves.
“Kouzeon protect them,” Yora murmured.
An arrow hit his shoulder, knocking him off his feet and smashing his face into cold earth. Another sliced into him, piercing the armor at his back and throwing him to the earth again.
He struggled to get up, head pounding. He had no arrows left. He drew his sword, the great Falling Star, and prepared to guard the retreat.
“Fall back! To the temple!” He looked one last time to see if the monks had made it out, but they were overrun. A mass of Keishi troops, a hundred at least, were now crossing the bridge unimpeded.
The monks were nowhere to be seen.
“Fall back!” Yora shouted. “Back!”
They regrouped in the great courtyard. High walls protected them there, though arrows rained in from above. Inside the gate, Nioh and the others were getting on their horses. Yora hurried to him, ignoring the calls of concern at his arrow-riddled state, and shouted for the mirror prince to flee to the east gate as planned, where he could escape the temple and reach Tokuon on the fields. Kai and his daughters were there; Kai had a dozen minor wounds. Myorin pulled an arrow from her armor.
“Lord!” Nioh’s men cried. “The Kaga are coming from the east!”
Fighting in the temple grounds, someone shouted: Onoe Rokuro and Kaga Makoto – Akiyo’s lieutenants – were swarming from the rear.
A trap.
Curse the serpent, he thought, kneeling, sword in hand.I am too old for this. I cannot hold the retreat in good order while my forces are being sealed in from behind.
“The east is closed, lord!” Kaji Getoh ran up, face covered in blood. “We have to find another way.”
“Yora!” Kai’s eyes widened at the sight of his wounds. “They’re—”
“I know. You have to hurry now. Follow Myorin, she’ll lead you to the horses and get you out. Ride, fast as you can, there’s a footpath along the hills. It will take you to the other side of the fields and you’ll find Tokuon there. Go!”
“Uncle,” she said, hesitating.
