Year of the Demon (56 page)

He could not keep the shame from his face. It was enough to make Daigoro want to weep, seeing his family’s strongest ally so vulnerable. Taking Yasuda’s frail, cold hand in his own, he said, “I had not looked to your elder sons. They serve Izu best where they are. Please, indulge me in a flight of fancy, my lord. If your son Kenbei spoke with House Okuma’s voice—
if
—then he could bring stability to the region,
neh
?”

The old man conceded the point with a nod. “Do you suggest he take on a concubine? He cannot—not a woman of your mother’s stature.”

“No.”

“Then I’ve told you already: I would not have those wild stallions I call my grandsons see the Lady Okuma as a broodmare.”

“No, Yasuda-sama, but suppose we take a longer view—”

A shout from outside made Daigoro break off in midthought. Daigoro turned to see one of Yasuda’s sentries hit the floor on his back, his armor clacking like a metal hailstorm. Another samurai fell beside the first, struck by something invisible outside the doorway. Daigoro’s first thoughts ran to musket fire, but there was no report. Next he thought of Toyotomi arrows, but neither of the fallen men was pierced. Daigoro had no opportunity to look out into the courtyard to see the attacker, for Yasuda spearmen instantly blockaded the doorway, their myriad spears stabbing out into the darkness.

“Daigoro-sama!” a lupine voice shouted outside. “Come out!”

Daigoro hurried through the door, pushing Yasuda spearmen aside with an armored forearm. The courtyard sprawled before him, its white gravel glowing as if the moon itself had rained down in a million tiny pieces. The
shinobi
crouched at the base of the stairs leading down from the veranda, his gaze flicking between the main gate and the green-clad samurai jabbing spears at him from the doorway to Lord Yasuda’s chamber.

Daigoro glanced over his shoulder at the two men lying on their backs—door guards, no doubt. His
shinobi
must have kicked them, punched them, thrown them somehow, and that meant he’d only acted in self-defense. If he’d had a mind to kill them, Daigoro had no doubt both men would be dead.

And if he’d acted in self-defense, then they must have reacted poorly when the
shinobi
had tried to enter. That meant the
shinobi
must have come up too quickly for their liking, and Daigoro could think of only one thing that could make him hurry. The Toyotomis were coming back.

“How many?” Daigoro asked, drawing Glorious Victory Unsought.

“Twenty,” said the
shinobi
. “More on the way.”

Daigoro didn’t know whether to be disappointed with Lord Yasuda’s bodyguard or to be awed by how easily his
shinobi
companion had felled two of them despite being unarmed and unarmored. In any case, the lord of their house was in no condition to be giving orders. “You there,” Daigoro shouted at one of the spearmen, “rouse every man House Yasuda can put in the Green Cliff’s defense. The rest of you, hold this doorway. No one gets through. And put a line of armored bodies surrounding Lord Yasuda. There will be archers.”

Armor clattered behind him; feet rustled against tatami mats; battle formations took shape. “And now,” Daigoro muttered under his breath, “what in hell do
we
do?”

57

O
n the opposite side of the courtyard, the gate thundered like a
taiko
drum. It seemed the Toyotomis had found a battering ram.

“Lord Yasuda!” a voice bellowed from beyond the wall. “Send out the fugitive! Do not force us to put your house to the torch.”

An empty threat, Daigoro thought. He’d seen no sign that the garrison was equipped with fire arrows, and there wasn’t enough wood on the entire island to burn down the Green Cliff’s outer wall. Nevertheless, Daigoro could not allow the ultimatum to go unanswered. The Yasudas were among his family’s oldest allies. He would not risk turning the might of Hideyoshi against them. The Toyotomi captain had no need to level the Green Cliff
tonight
. He had only to dictate a letter declaring the Yasudas an enemy of the throne. Then he would have as many reinforcements and as much time as he liked to raze House Yasuda to the ground.

Again the gate strained against its hinges, struck by some heavy thing wielded by many men. Daigoro couldn’t recall seeing an iron-shod battering ram among the garrison’s equipment; then again, he’d had other things on his mind during his hasty pass through their encampment. In any case, straight, stalwart ironwoods stood in rank and file in the forest outside the Yasuda compound. A makeshift ram was easy to come by.

“Do you hear that?” shouted the Toyotomi captain. “Sooner or later, your gates will yield. If it is later, it will not go well for you. Deliver the traitor and we will leave you in peace.”

The gate was huge—or so Daigoro had thought before his ride to Kyoto. Each of its two doors was broader than a wagon, all stout timbers and iron bands. Centipede motifs had been beaten into the metal, with a heavy ring dangling from the center of each door in the shape of a centipede devouring its own tail. The gate to the Okuma compound was a barn door by comparison.

But Kyoto had temples with doors this big. Daigoro’s long journey had taught him what real fortifications looked like. The great gate at Hideyoshi’s Jurakudai dwarfed that of the Green Cliff: twice as high, four times as broad, and so heavy that only a team of horses could draw it open. The battering ram that rattled the rings on House Yasuda’s doors would not be enough to wake a sleeping guard at the Jurakudai.

Even so, the Toyotomi captain had spoken the truth: whether it took an hour or a month, there wasn’t a gate in the world that would not yield. The soldiers outside had neither siege engines nor the training to use them, but they had manpower and time, and those were more than enough.

The gate boomed. Yasuda samurai shifted nervously; Daigoro could hear their gauntlets click against their spears. A warm and sluggish breeze carried the scent of horse feed. The moment he smelled it, Daigoro had an idea.

“I’m approaching the gate,” he yelled, slowly descending the steps to the courtyard. In a low voice he explained his plan to the
shinobi
, who nodded once and loped off silently toward the stables. “Do you know who I am?”

“If you are anyone other than Daigoro the traitor, the Bear Cub of Izu, then I do not care who you are,” the captain shouted. Again the ram thundered against steel and wood.

“I am the Bear Cub. Now stop that damned hammering. I told you already, I’m coming.”

“Lord Okuma, no,” said a voice behind him. He turned to see the captain of the Yasuda spearmen stepping forward from the formation. “You are an ally to this house. Please, stay here with us.”

“I cannot.”

“Then at least let us go out to fight at your side.”

“I thank you, but no. I will not have Toyotomi blood on your blades. I’ve brought trouble enough to my own family; I won’t bring it here too.”

Daigoro took his time crossing the courtyard, certain that his crunching footfalls could be heard on the other side of the wall. Clicks and clacks came from the other side, hundreds of pieces of armor rubbing against each other like chattering bugs at dusk. Daigoro imagined men readying swords and spears. At least they’d set down the ram, but Daigoro wondered how many had picked up bows instead. A lone swordsman stood little chance against archers.

“I have no interest in fighting you,” he shouted. “How am I to know you won’t cut me down as soon as I open this gate?”

“You don’t.” There was a decidedly defiant edge to the captain’s voice. “We will kill you if General Shichio wishes it. It is not for you to question his orders.”

“And how can I know you won’t assault the Yasudas once I give myself over? They have no part in this.”

“You have my word as a samurai. Lord Yasuda and his kin will not come to harm. Give yourself over and they may go back to sleep.”

Slow hoofbeats behind him told Daigoro that the
shinobi
had finished harnessing the horses. As soon as he saw the animals, Daigoro recalled his wedding present. These two could have been sisters to the horses he and Akiko had received along with Lord Yasuda’s blessing. They were majestic animals. They didn’t deserve to be harnessed so sloppily, but Daigoro was short on time.

He took the lines from one of the mares and tied her to the left-hand gate, hitching her to the big iron ring as if to a wagon. She was not stupid; she could sense the tension in the air and it had her spooked. Only the
shinobi’
s grip on her bridle kept her from bolting.

“I hear horses,” the captain bellowed. “Do not attempt to mount a charge against us. You will only doom innocent animals along with yourself.”

“How very noble of you,” Daigoro said. He hitched the second mare to the right-hand gate while the
shinobi
held both animals steady. Then, slowly, silently, Daigoro put his shoulder to the heavy wooden beam that barred the gates.

“My patience wanes. Come out now and no Yasuda will be harmed.”

“You gave me your word as a samurai,” Daigoro shouted, setting his feet to take the weight of the bar. “How can I be certain that you are samurai at all, and not some shit-stained farmer’s son like your master?”

“Enough! Break it down!”

Someone outside put a boot to the door, but it did not budge. Daigoro heard stones shifting underfoot, swords returning to their sheaths, men cursing and shuffling and taking up new positions.

Daigoro hefted the bar onto one shoulder. Its weight pressed back painfully against his hands. He retreated from the gates, and not a moment too soon. Outside, he heard big men grunting as they picked up their battering ram.

An instant before the ram’s next strike, Daigoro loosed a deafening
kiai
, startling the mares that were already scared out of their wits. The
shinobi
released the lines. The horses bolted. Hideyoshi’s gates might have required a team of horses to move them, but the Yasudas’ were lighter; they all but burst from their hinges. Both gates flew open, leaving Daigoro in the middle of the gateway with a massive wooden beam in his arms.

He was not alone for long.

Six soldiers lunged for him with the ironwood trunk they’d been using as a makeshift ram. But their target was the gate, not him, and without the gate’s mass to meet their charge, the weight of the ram pitched them forward. They collapsed in front of him in a tangle. They dropped the heavy ram, some tripping over it, others falling beneath. Daigoro heard leg bones breaking.

With almost ceremonious flair, Daigoro tossed the wooden bar onto the heap of men. It broke bones too. Then Glorious Victory was in his hands, and he rushed the first rank of Toyotomi invaders.

None of them were prepared for his onslaught. Many had returned to their tents, knowing hundreds of strokes would fall before the gate yielded to the ram. Glorious Victory claimed three lives with the first stroke.

For the first few seconds, Daigoro thought the battle was going well. He hacked off hands even as they were drawing swords. He let a mighty chop spin him all the way around, just in time to cut the knees out from under a samurai who had him outflanked.

Then the Toyotomis found their footing. In his opening gambit Daigoro had felled ten men, but thirty more now formed a wary circle around him. Most had swords drawn. Here and there an archer took aim.

Unwilling to be shot down where he stood, Daigoro rushed in like a madman. One, misjudging Daigoro’s reach, lost an arm. Two arrows went wide, both hitting kinsmen. A third archer drew a bead on Daigoro’s jugular. Then his bowstring snapped, cut from below by a
shinobi
who appeared out of nowhere. The whip-snapping string lacerated the archer’s eyeball. Then the
shinobi
was gone.

Daigoro had no more luck tracking him than did the Toyotomis. He knew the
shinobi
was there only because now and then a man would have him dead to rights, and in the next instant that man would fall. Then the
shinobi
vanished again into the swirling melee.

Once, twice, a dozen times Daigoro tried to cut himself a channel to open ground. Each time the enemy denied him, closing back around him as inexorably as the sea.

Once, twice, a dozen times the Sora breastplate saved his life. Here it turned aside a
katana
. There it sparked as an arrowhead struck home. One of the Toyotomi commanders managed a clear shot with his matchlock. The ball knocked Daigoro two steps back but could not penetrate the Sora
yoroi
.

At last Toyotomi steel found flesh. Daigoro’s right leg collapsed beneath him, blood spurting from his wasted thigh. Glorious Victory fell in a deadly arc, killing the one who’d struck him and two more as well. Daigoro fought from one knee, desperately parrying the attacks of six, seven, eight men at once.

Someone behind him let out an almighty scream. It was no shriek of pain; this was a war whoop. The ground shook. Either a horse was charging him or else a score of men. Daigoro slashed forward, driving a few assailants back, then turned to meet the new threat.

Katsushima rode through the heart of the Toyotomis, bellowing with a typhoon’s fury. His sword flashed red and silver, claiming limbs every time it fell. His charging bay shattered swordsmen as easily as clay pots. When Katsushima saw Daigoro, he kicked his heels savagely and Daigoro had to throw himself flat or else be decapitated by a hoof.

The Toyotomis scattered in the wake of the leaping horse. Suddenly the field was clear enough that Daigoro could struggle back to his feet.

Katsushima killed two more before wheeling his mount around. “Come on!” he shouted. “This is no time for patience!”

Already the Toyotomis were regrouping—what few remained. Most were dead, dying, or crippled. Daigoro hobbled over a pair of broken men, settled his left foot in Katsushima’s right stirrup, and stepped up to grab the saddlehorn with his left hand. “Good to see you again,” Daigoro said.