Chapter Forty-One Sen #2
Sen’s horse huffed. They were caught in a trap.
If they engaged Akiyo here, it would mean stopping the push west – exactly what Akiyo planned.
Her horsemen would have been hindered by the close quarters of the bridge, or fighting in the temple halls, the canal courtyards and village streets, so she kept them in the open.
They came now from the higher northern wood, which provided vantage over both the river and its temple, and the empty field that Tokuon would have to cross.
“Damn it,” Sen hissed.
“Hoshiakari, to your troops!” Tokuon ripped off, barking orders. But even as Sen left, he could see the Kaga and Hara riders coming down the hills, into the open grassland at their right.
“They’ve caught us from behind,” he called. “If we go further, we’ll be surrounded – we must stop Akiyo here.”
“We’ll punch through and move on to the river.” Daijin gave Sen a quick nod, thundered off to his Akazonae.
“Hold steady!” Tokuon shouted. “Form up!”
Sen felt too exposed. Too far from his riders, from Saito and the guard, from his place at the north end of the line. A wave of fear passed through him: his breath caught in his chest. He felt it in his eyes. He felt it at the back of his ears. Somewhere, the conch moaned.
Tokuon raised a signal fan. “Kiie. Watch my son.”
Kiie made his way back up the hill behind them. Sen tried to calm his breath as Tokuon turned his gray horse about, trotting back and forth as the red-devil Akazonae gathered around him, preparing for a charge.
“I’ve found my cousin,” he shouted, rallying them. “We’ve come from the far winds of the east and the mountains of the north, to free our capital from corruption! The retired-emperor is a captive! His eldest living son is under attack! We must save him!”
“Eiii!” the riders cheered.
“The gods are gone!” Tokuon’s voice rang shrill and clear over the snow.
“Sora’in gave her life to let us rule our own lands.
For a thousand years the Ten’in told us they were gods incarnate: I say we are gods!
Gods of the arrow and bow! The gods beyond the barrier look upon us, they bless our fields and houses!
They live inside us all! And they” – he pointed toward the enemy – “they, those nobles with their hats, they look at us with scorn. They spit upon our feet, they turn their noses because we do what they cannot. They seek enlightenment by giving sins to us – and we have killed for them! We have slaughtered for them. We are kijin-tai! We are killing-gods! And if the Ten’in there are truly children of the Ones Above, then we are their ghosts! ”
“Ghosts!” his army shouted in response.
“Fight for duty, fight for vengeance, fight for love!” Tokuon cried. “The mighty will fall!”
The blood-red Akazonae screamed his cry back at him, working themselves into a frenzy. Repeating his words. “The mighty will fall!”
“Signal!” he shouted.
A horseman pulled forward, fitting a special arrow to his bow. A rounded whistling-bulb.
“Get on with it!”
The archer let loose.
“Hoshiakari!” Ohori was shouting at him. “Form your hunt.”
“Come on,” Sen whispered to his horse, Kaminari, and together they raced back to his position on the line as Tokuon and his wife shouted orders and the kill-squads began grouping up, in clusters of two and three and five.
“First spear!” Ohori’s guard was forming around her. “Ride! Ride like lightning!”
The leaders thundered down the slope, heading west toward the river.
Tokuon had begun his charge. They blew the conch horn.
They beat the drums. In the field, the enemy began to turn, rotating toward them like a wheel.
Sen’s heart pounded. His throat felt tight.
He gripped his reins. The air felt thin.
The arrows screamed. And still, white snow continued to fall.
A shriek caught his attention. Signal arrows, in a high arc toward the river.
“Saito,” he called, approaching his line. “You will be my first spear.” Then, when he came close, his voice caught, and he whispered: “When we meet them, I need you to shoot the opening arrows for me.”
“Lord?”
“I’m not a good shot on horseback,” Sen said, burning with embarrassment. “I don’t want them to see.”
Saito’s eyes widened, but he nodded. “I understand.” He placed a hand on Sen’s shoulder. “I will be with you.” Then, with a roar to the troops:
“Are you ready? Are you ready?” They shouted back at him. “What are you?” he bellowed. “What are you!”
They screamed their names and allegiances to the sky, to the gods, to their enemy. Sen rose to speak. “Now…”
Someone shouted. “Lord! Lord!”
Whistling arrows screamed overhead.
“Hoshiakari!”
It was Ohori Tsuruhime, mask off, face grim as she charged back up the hill. What is she doing?
“Look!”
She pointed west, where Tokuon’s riders were attempting to cross the field, ignoring the Musha’in’s army on his right.
Treacherous paddies and barley plants on all sides, small plots and low hedges that were dangerous to horse and rider both.
Still Tokuon charged, trying to get to the temple as fast as he could.
Sen saw why. At the end of the road, where the river met the land and the fields stopped at the edge of a gate, the temple nestled at a bend in the riverbanks. And beyond it…
Smoke rose from the Temple of the Far Earth, crossing the River Onji and the fog of morning sky.
The wide expanse of the field and the slope gave truth to the fear in Ohori’s voice.
Clear eyes could see all the way across the flatland before the fields, and there, the fighting had already begun.
Keishi troops had entered the outvillage by the temple, cutting through the footpaths and through the barley stalks and fallow fields.
“They’re surrounded.” Ohori coughed, breathless. “Keishi in the temple grounds… The Poet doesn’t have a chance.”
“We need to move now, ame’in.” Saito was at his side, speaking softly. “Now.”
Sen gave a trembling nod. Saito roared out to the troops again. They screamed death in the frozen air. He rallied them better than Sen ever could; he was the leader they needed, he knew how to command them.
Now. They were waiting. Saito was looking at him.
Sen raised his hand, said, simply, “Go.”
The foot-soldiers lanced forward, breaking left and right and opening the field for his horsemen, arrows nocked. They rode standing on their stirrups, guiding with their legs, both hands free to work the bows.
They flew, zigzagging, in a dance like willow leaves, horses flowing out across the fields.
Saito nocked a signal arrow, loosed at full tilt.
Whistling in air, announcing death, it screamed, a hawk’s cry, telling Tokuon their group had begun.
Now. Sen’s warriors charged, racing to be the first to reach their enemy.
Now. Saito: shouting by his side, his face a mask of death.
Now. Rising in his stirrups, Sen drew an arrow, nocked it to his bow.