Chapter 10
Asami Eiko
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.
The oyumi released 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 second hit 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, her naginata spinning 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 her naginata through 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, infuriating daughter—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 of Go, if Go pieces 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.
Through it all, I caught glimpses of Katsumi, always at the front, always pressing forward. She had inherited my hunger for victory and my refusal to yield even an inch once taken.
I forced my attention back to the wider battle.
A commander who watched only one soldier, even her own blood, lost sight of the greater battle.
“The western assault is in position, Daimyo.” Another messenger, this one a boy who couldn’t have been older than fourteen, his voice steady despite the arrow shaft protruding from his shoulder. “General Saito awaits your signal.”
I raised my fan, its red silk catching the morning light, held it high so Saito could see from his position. Then I snapped it down.
The western gate erupted in flame as my engineers detonated hidden charges they’d placed during the night. The massive doors, reinforced with iron and blessed by priests, vanished in a cloud of splinters and smoke. Through the gap, defenders staggered, deafened and blinded by the explosion.
“Second and third battalions, western gate! Fourth battalion, maintain pressure on the south!” My generals relayed the orders, flags and drums communicating across the battlefield in a language of war I’d spent a lifetime perfecting.
The city was being eaten alive from three directions.
An hour passed.
Then another.
The sun climbed higher, turning the battlefield into a furnace. My armor, lacquered in dark red, absorbed the heat until it felt like wearing an oven. Sweat poured down my back, pooling at my waist, but I didn’t dare move from my position.
A commander who showed discomfort showed weakness.
“Daimyo!” General Kitano pointed toward the southern wall. “Look!”
A group of defenders were fleeing—not toward the keep for a last stand, but toward the northern gate, the only gate we hadn’t attacked.
They were abandoning the city.
“So, Daiki’s famous loyalty inspires men to run.” I smiled. “Let them go. Terrified refugees spread fear better than any army.”
But even as some fled, others fought with incredible fury.
Through my looking glass, I watched as individual combats played out on the walls.
A Toshi Samurai, his armor half melted from oil, still swung his naginata in great arcs that kept three of my soldiers at bay.
A young boy struggled to load and fire a crossbow, each bolt seeking a gap in armor.
An old woman pushed a ladder away from the wall with a boat hook, sending five of my men tumbling to their deaths.
And there, now inside the city, was Katsumi again, her unit forming a spear point that drove deeper into the Toshi defenses.
A massive Samurai, easily twice her size, charged with his tetsubo raised high.
She flowed aside, her naginata taking his leg at the knee.
As he fell, she reversed the weapon and drove the butt spike through his throat.
That’s my girl.
Efficient. Brutal. Perfect.
The thought came with pride this time, not fear. She was proving herself, showing all these men that Asami women were worth any three of their warriors.
“The inner wall has been breached!” A messenger, this one missing an eye, the socket a weeping red ruin. “General Yamada is pushing toward the central square!”
“And the granaries?”
“Secured, Daimyo. Minor fire damage to the eastern warehouse, but the grain stores are intact.”
Good. Burned grain feeds no army, and I had many more cities to take.
The cacophony from within the walls had changed. It sounded of less organized resistance and more chaotic slaughter. The disciplined clash of shields had given way to the scattered violence of street fighting. I could hear it even from here—doors being kicked in, pottery smashing, women screaming.
They were the sounds of a city dying.
My generals clustered around me like carrion, each competing for my attention.
“Daimyo, should we reinforce the eastern assault?”
“The southern approach needs additional archers to—”
“Artillery should target the inner keep before—”
“If we redirect the fifth battalion through—”
“Quiet.” I didn’t raise my voice, but they all fell silent. “The city is ours. They simply haven’t accepted it yet.”
As if the gods wished to prove my point, a new sound rose from within the walls. It wasn’t the screaming of steel, but cheering, triumphant voices raised in celebration.
Every head on the hill turned toward the sound.
On the ramparts, visible even from this distance, the Toshi banner wavered. The elegant swan on its blue silk, a symbol of grace and beauty, trembled like a living thing in its death throes.
For a moment it held, defiant against the wind.
Then it fell.
The swan tumbled from the wall, its silk catching air and floating like the bird it represented, trying one last time to fly. The banner crumpled as it hit the ground, lost among the bodies and blood and rubble.
Another cheer, louder, from a different section of wall.
Another swan fell.
Then another.
Like dominoes, every Toshi banner along the walls dropped or was torn down. Some were cast into the fires. Others were ripped apart by eager hands. One soldier used a fallen banner bearing a bloody swan to wipe his blade.
Then, starting from the eastern breach where my forces had first entered, crimson bloomed along the walls. The open fan of the Asami—my symbol, my declaration—rose where the swans had fallen.
One banner, then five, then a dozen.
My soldiers scrambled up the battlements, pushing bodies aside to make room for more flags. Within minutes, the city wore my colors like a conquered bride forced into a new dress.
And there, raising one of the largest banners from the central tower, Katsumi had claimed the highest point in the city, marking our victory for all to see.
The roar from my army was primal.
Thousands of throats opened in victory, the sound rolling across the valley like thunder.
Soldiers raised whatever they held—katana still dripping blood, pikes with heads impaled on their points, bows with no arrows left to shoot.
Even the wounded cheered, those who could still draw breath adding their voices to the chorus.