He couldn’t see him. His hand was numb. He looked at it, dazed, bloody to the quick of his nails. His knuckles raw. Something pricking in his leg. A sharp pain, wrenched knee. Lungs burning. He couldn’t see. He heard the thunder of their horses, heard the screams, couldn’t see Saito at all.
“Saito!” Screamed again. Voice rough as rocks.
He fell to one knee, rose, met another Keishi soldier, grappled with him. Falling to hard earth, eating dirt, hands on his throat, sword shoving at his gut, but Sen twisted away; fingers clawing at him through his mask, iron and cold, into his eyes. Hand glancing on sharp metal. Grab it, cutting his thumb through the gauntlet. Short-sword beside him, he shifted, brought it through the man’s throat. Rolling off the corpse. Revulsion. A groan. A cry. A voiceless scream. He couldn’t feel his fingers, couldn’t feel at all. Blood everywhere. He fell.
I’m gone, he thought.I’m gone.
“Hoshiakari!”
Saito’s voice came back. The field came back. His vision blurred, cleared again. His heart bloomed; he saw him.
“Saito! Help!”
Saito and Ise Tadanobu thundered along the ridge beside the paddy, pursuing Makoto like hawks on waterfowl. Tadanobu loosed arrow after arrow at Makoto’s retreating back. But now Keishi footmen arrived, and they knew exactly who Sen was.
His feet gave way; he slid to dirt again. Scrambled, pulled his long-sword from where it fell. Deflected a blow, jarring him, numbing his arm. It was luck: the other warrior dropped his weapon – Sen cut at him, off-balance, his blade struck metal at an angle, and it snapped halfway from the hilt. The force of it sent him sprawling. Bit his tongue, pain everywhere.
He stabbed the man in the neck. He swung. He cut a last man down with the notched blade, killing him, but the twisting motion locked them both together and Sen tripped, sword broken.
He slipped on wet ground, tried to stand, fell. Nothing worked. His legs buckled. There was no sky. Everything was dirt. Saito leaped from his horse, hit the earth with the force of a quake, longblade in his arms, swinging in wide arcs to protect him. Sen drifted. Mind far away. The world tilted under him. He couldn’t keep his balance.
Saito, where are you?
Above him. Hewing down two more mounted warriors before the battle was done, and when Saito screamed in victory, Sen rose again, seething, spitting fury, and he leaped at the first body he saw, mad and raging at the world.
He hacked at the body again and again with his broken sword, trying to cut off the warrior’s head in sloppy chops. Screaming all the while.
A voice behind him. “Sen! He’s already dead!”
“Where’s my horse?” he shouted, horror spiking through his bones. “Where’s my horse?” He tripped; he couldn’t make sense of what was happening. Saito called out. “Sen!”
When it ended, it ended all at once.
Between one breath and the next, it was over.
The Keishi remnants fled. Sen’s ears rang, a high-pitched whine, and everything seemed muffled. There were Keishi flags under his feet. Corpses so fresh they bled and stained the bitter earth.
Beside him, Saito gave a cry. “Is that all they had for us? Is that all they had!”
His men gave a shout. Victory.
“Where are they!” Sen cried. “Where are they!”
Saito held him, trying to calm him down. The broken sword still in his hand. “They’re gone, Sen.”
He staggered. “I just, I need a moment.” Pitched to his knees. Pulled away his faceguard, vomited into the grass. It stung his bleeding tongue. Rib cracked. Hands like shreds.
Saito said, “Let’s get you up.”
“I… I think,” he began, and pitched down again.
“Take it easy, Sen. You’re hurt.”
“No…” But when Saito pulled him to his feet again, pain lanced through his right side. Saito pried the armor apart, feeling along the edge of his belly guard. His hands came away bloody.
Sen wheezed, spitting blood to the ground. “Oh.” He stumbled, suddenly woozy. “Shit.”
“You’ll live,” Saito said. Even managed a grin: “But if you take this armor off, your ribs might fall apart. You did well.”
