“Be prepared to obey!” called Cabot.
I thought the enemy before us, on the whole, had been directed rationally, its forces distributed intelligently, and applied judiciously, in such a way as not to crowd its attacks, or impede its own movements. In this way, one applies one’s resources in a measured manner, conserving them as much as possible and maximizing their effectiveness. Similarly, timing the engagements of elements is important. On the other hand, I had the sense that the commander of the opposing forces had now come to the end of his patience, such as it might have been, and, contemptuous of care and delay, finished with military sobriety, and conscious of his numbers, intended to conclude matters with one crude, costly, irresistible, massive blow.
Men began to run toward us, some falling, stumbling, pushed from behind, jostled, some weapons down, some not lowered. In the torchlight I could see the almost random thicket of glaives, like bunched tem wood in the wind. In the darkness and torches it was almost like a flood of darkness on darkness, a storm of bodies. Some, from the sound, and cries, were trampled by others. The drum struck, again and again, wildly. I think many fell, thrust from behind, and many may have been the wounds inflicted by exposed weapons, edges run against, points buffeted, blades fallen upon. This mad, rushing wall of darkness, squandering men, swept forward.
“Tragic,” said Lord Nishida.
“All tall,” exclaimed Cabot. “Brace yourself for the impact!”
How could one brace oneself for such an impact? More easily might the talender resist the stamping boot. More easily might the stand of delicate Sa-Tarna turn back the scythe.
But is not deception the key to war?
Our standing masked what lay behind us, and our charging foes prepared to meet us, as we stood, tumultuous crowd to man.
The great flood of darkness, confused, proximate, rushing, pounding, imminent, was some five yards from our steel when Cabot cried out, “Down!”
We all crouched down, instantly, and, from behind us, over our heads, into the confused, rushing mass of men before us there poured a rain of arrows sped from the small, saddle-clearing Tuchuk bow. The leading, confused ranks of our foes probably did not understand what killed them, but they fell, and succeeding rows, four or five, stumbled over them, fell, rose, climbed over them, and met death. A mound of darkness began to form, hills of men. And as succeeding ranks surmounted their fellows, they, too, encountered the rapid fire of the small, powerful, swift bows, developed over generations of warfare amongst the Wagon Peoples of the Southern Plains. It was perhaps only the sixth or seventh ranks of the enemies, impelled by their fellows, who, in the light of the torches, some flung amongst us, realized they were facing archers, and of a sort with which they were unfamiliar. Some cried out, some turned, some stood, as they were, and died. They had no return fire. They had no cover. They could not reach the enemy with their glaives, or swords. Some, escaping arrows, rushed upon us, to fall amongst our blades. Many stood, confused, suddenly realizing they were defenseless, and doomed. The strike of the Tuchuk bow, short, of curved horn, requiring much strength to draw, is heavy, and, at close range, terrible, capable, like the thrust spear, of penetrating the typical four-layered shield. So hapless might be a shieldless swordsman viewing the crossbow, the ready quarrel leveled, set in its guide.
The flood stopped, and, like startled, turned verr, the enemy began to mill, and fearful words were carried to farther ranks, and men who could not even see us received reports so magnified that they must exceed the horror of reality. “Demons!” “Dragons!” we heard.
Had we had stakes and trenches before us, the trenches would have been filled, the stakes heavy with the impaled meat of death.
The enemy turned, and began to flee.
Some enemy officers struck about themselves with swords, trying to stop the rout, but these, too, were as often struck by terrified men who, in the darkness, were unclear as to their foe, his power, or even his nature.
Some of our bowmen climbed over bodies, and from the grisly height of such hills, formed of inert or bleeding men, plied their craft, playing, as it is said, tunes on the lyre of death.
I thought there would be much feasting here for Thassa’s gulls.
Tor-tu-Gor, Light-upon-the-Home-Stone, began to rise in the east.
I looked back toward the water. There were now three galleys at the beach, and several small boats. Men stood about them, waiting.
“Honorable friends,” said Lord Nishida, “let us return to the ship.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“It is there,” said Tarl Cabot. “See?”
He pointed high, toward the mountains, their peaks soft with fog, off the port bow.
“No,” I said.
“Higher,” he said.
“No,” I said.
“A moment,” he said. “Wait.”
“Yes!” I said, suddenly.
It seemed tiny in the distance, suddenly visible in the parted fog, and, then again, it was obscured. Small as it seemed now, I knew, given the proportion of the mountains, and the high cliff it dominated, it would be mighty in closer prospect.
“I am told,” said Tarl Cabot, “that is the castle of Temmu, the holding, the fortress, of the shogun, Temmu.”
Lords Nishida and Okimoto, each a lesser lord, or daimyo, had eaten of the rice of Temmu.
We had been coasting north for four days, perhaps a pasang offshore, this following the altercation attendant on the ill-advised landing.
It was, accordingly, now the seventh day of the Sixth Month.
I was now in attendance on Tarl Cabot, commander of the tarn cavalry. Though he did not so speak it, I think this may have had to do with the fate of the oarsman, Aeson, but more of that anon. In any event, in his service, I was entitled to be legitimately armed on board. None could then gainsay me a blade. I was pleased, though my swordsmanship was not unusual, to have steel at my hip. That endows one with a modicum of comfort, however modest might be one’s powers. Surely, to have the chance of defending oneself is to be preferred to the lack of such a chance. Vulnerability is no virtue; it is peril for the vulnerable, and a fault for fools. Who will deny to the tiny ost the shield and threat of its venom, who convince the tarsk boar to put aside his short, curved tusks? How will the unarmed larl defend his territory, or life; how would the unarmed sleen defend its burrow, its brood, its life? Who most desires you to be disarmed? He who will himself be armed, secretly, or by means of another. Who, unarmed, is wise to dispute the will of the armed? Who wishes you to be most vulnerable, most helpless? He who will not make himself so.
Let slaves and beasts be disarmed, helplessly, and totally. That is fitting for them, as their collars and tethers. It is fitting for them, and perfectly, as they are slaves and beasts.
Let the slave, collared, and scarcely clad, know that she is at the mercy of men, at the mercy of masters-totally, and without recourse.
“There is a cove,” said Cabot, “a harbor of sorts, protected from the sea, at the foot of a walled trail, leading upward, to the castle.”
“You have not been there,” I said.
“No,” he said, “but others have.”
“I have never seen such a castle, such a fortress,” I said.
“I have seen representations of such structures, pictures of such structures,” said Cabot, “but it was long ago, and faraway.”
To me the slopes, the curves, the peaks, of roofs, and such, were profoundly unfamiliar, but, in their way, awesome, and beautiful. It was hard for me to imagine that so different and beautiful, so artistic, a structure, might be, in effect, a fortress, a place of harrowing might, a holding of formidable power, a housing for a hundred companies, a resister of sieges, a coign of vantage, from which might issue dragons of war, and a closed portal behind which they might, in security, withdraw.