“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.
“I’m glad to see there’s something left of you to see,” said Katsushima. “But talk later. We’ve work to do yet.”
He nodded toward the gate, where the surviving Toyotomi swordsmen had formed a line to deny access to the keep. Heedless of the dead, deaf to the moans and cries of the wounded, they stared Daigoro down with grim determination.
Determined or not, footmen were no match for Glorious Victory Unsought. She was a cavalry sword, at her deadliest when she struck with the weight of a warhorse behind her. Katsushima charged the line. Daigoro, effectively a human outrigger, stretched Glorious Victory out long. Inazuma steel mowed down the right flank. Katsushima claimed one on the left. Their horse crushed two in the center.
Then the blood work was done. Daigoro would not honor the wounded with a clean death. Any man who bowed to a lickspittle like Shichio wasn’t worthy of such a gift. Moreover, Daigoro didn’t want killing them to burden his conscience. He hadn’t asked for this fight. Had their positions been reversed, Daigoro would never have resorted to using Shichio’s family allies as playing pieces in their private war. He chose to let his defeated foes explain why they still lived, and let Shichio bear the burden of sending them on to join their ancestors.