The walls of Yubi had stood for three hundred years. I watched them die in a matter of hours.
From my position on the hill, I could see everything—every ladder thrown against stone, every pot of oil tipped from the battlements, every body that fell screaming or silent to join the growing carpet of dead. The morning sun, which had risen peacefully over the mountains, now illuminated a canvas of orchestrated destruction.
“Artillery, fire!” General Kitano’s voice carried even over the thunder of war.
Theoyumireleased in sequence, their massive ballistae bowstrings snapping forward like the fingers of angry gods. Bolts as thick as ships’ masts arced through the air, seeming to hang for a moment at their peak before plummeting toward the eastern wall. The first struck high, exploding in a shower of stone shards that sent defenders tumbling like dolls. The secondhit lower, exactly where I’d ordered it. The third found the same spot.
A spiderweb of cracks spread across ancient stone.
“Again!” I commanded, and my voice carried the weight of inevitability.
They fired over and over until stone burst apart, sending shrapnel shooting through ranks of defenders lined up to receive our charge. The sound was like the earth itself groaning—stone grinding against stone, mortar turning to dust, centuries of strength crumbling in seconds. A section of wall twenty feet wide simply ceased to exist, replaced by a plume of dust and a slope of rubble that my soldiers began scrambling up, screaming war cries that set my blood ablaze.
“First battalion, through the breach!” General Matsui bellowed, and a thousand men surged forward.
Through my looking glass, I scanned the assault, and my breath caught. There at the front of the third wave, crimson armor gleaming like fresh blood, was Katsumi, hernaginataspinning in deadly arcs as she led her unit up the rubble slope.
I’d told her to coordinate from the rear.
Ordered her to stay with the reserve units.
But there she was, first through the broken wall, her war cry audible even from here.
My chest tightened.
A defender’s arrow passed so close to her head it disturbed her hair. She didn’t so much as flinch, simply drove hernaginatathrough the archer’s chest and kicked him off the wall.
Gods, she was fearless.
Reckless.
Just like I’d been at her age.
But she could die in the next heartbeat.
The thought came unbidden, unwanted.
My rebellious mind saw Katsumi stumbling, a Toshi blade finding the gap beneath her arm where the armor didn’t quite meet, her blood mixing with the thousands of others already spilled. I saw my daughter—my fierce, brilliant,infuriatingdaughter—becoming just another corpse for the crows.
I crushed the thought like an insect.
This was war.
She was Asami.
We did not hide from death; we rode alongside it.
If she died taking this city, she died with honor.
That was better than growing old and weak or begging for mercy in the mud.
Besides, I’d trained her myself. She would not fall to Toshi scum.
“Daimyo!” A messenger arrived, sliding from his horse before it had fully stopped. The boy’s face was a mask of blood and dirt, his left arm hanging useless at his side. “General Yamada reports heavy resistance at the breach. The Toshi have reinforced with their reserves.”
“Tell Yamada if he can’t take a hole in a wall with a thousand men, I’ll find someone who can.” The boy paled beneath the grime but bowed and remounted one-handed, galloping back toward the carnage.
From my vantage point, I could see the battle playing out like a game ofGo, ifGopieces screamed and bled. My crimson forces pushing through the breach in a dark tide were met by defenders in blue and white who fought with the desperation of men protecting their homes.
