Lord Oda's Revenge (18 page)

Kenji Kira beckoned his second-in-command. ‘Send the three
lines forward,' he said. ‘Tell them to wait for the monks to move before they fire.'

They didn't have to wait for long – something else that Oda had seen rightly. The monks were aggressive, made bold by hundreds of years of imperviousness. Without even a cry of battle, or an order, they were suddenly moving down the slope, a deadly wave, impossibly vast. From one end of the slope to the other, all Kenji Kira could see was swords, and shaved heads.

Kenji waited. He knew the value of patience.

When he could see the monks' eyes, read the furious anger in their expressions, he smiled. ‘Now,' he said, rather quietly. It was not necessary to shout – the order was awaited, and all that was required was for his second-in-command to swing Lord Oda's banner in an arc above his head.

The first rank of arquebusiers kneeled – this, alone, was five hundred men. Then they fired as one, the sound deafening, like thunder.

 

T
ARO DUCKED
,
NOCKING
another arrow in his bow. The Tendai monks did not believe in guns, but when he'd said that he was a good shot, they had put him with some of the other monks, sheltering behind the pillars of the lower monastery buildings, bows in hand. Below them was the main company of monks, waiting the order to engage. Taro and his fellow bowmen were having to fire over them, aiming high, to rain down arrows on the attackers.

At Taro's feet were two quivers, both full of arrows. Torches had been lit, but none of them near to where the bowmen stood, so that they could fire from the cover of darkness on the front line of the samurai.

Thwock
. An arrow struck the pillar, burying itself deep in the wood, quivering. Taro whipped round, aimed, drew, and fired – the arrow arced up, graceful, then ended its parabola in the stomach of one of Lord Oda's archers. The man dropped to his knees, then was knocked forward and trampled by the men running up the hill behind him. Taro turned himself back so that the pillar covered him, nocked, drew, turned again, and fired.

Nock, draw, fire, over and over again. Once he and the monk
to his left aimed for the same man, and Taro saw two flights sprout from the man's chest.
That's a waste of an arrow
, thought Taro momentarily, then he nocked, drew, and fired once more. The first quiver at his feet was nearly empty, and yet the samurai were still coming, some of them now breaking through the sharp shield of arrows and clashing with the monks before Taro, armed with swords in the Tendai tradition. Yet there were not many of these samurai – Taro almost got the impression that they had broken from the main force of the army through exuberance, or an eagerness to die. Either that or the commanders had sent a small detachment of lunatics forward, to probe at the monastery's defences, to show where the monks were weak.

Where are the guns?
thought Taro. He had seen an overwhelming force of fusiliers, when the army was below him in the valley. Now he saw a glimmering mass in the darkness that could have been the body of the army, and these few dozen death-wishers who were running up towards the monks – one less now, for his arrow found its target and sank into a samurai's groin, felling him.

Another arrow from below hissed past him, disappearing into the darkness of the hall. He withdrew his head, picked up another arrow, and readied it. Then he rotated round the pillar, aimed—

—and stopped his hand. The monks below, the ranks and ranks of monks with their shining swords, were moving even as they uttered their loud battle cry, surging down the hill towards Oda's army, the few remaining samurai of the suicidal foreguard swept up by the mass of men as a landslide consumes village huts, vanishing. Taro had nothing to aim at now except the monks, and they were on his own side, and he loosed his hold on the bowstring, let the arrow fall to the ground. An awful feeling
dug claws into his chest – he had been wondering why Oda didn't send more men forward, and he sensed he was about to find out.

Then the front ranks of Oda's army, the ones that had held still as their foolhardy, brave companions assaulted the monastery, were kneeling – Taro could see them now in the light of the torches the monks carried, and he cried out,
‘Stop, stop!'
to the monks below, but they were too far away now and too many, and they didn't stop. Taro stared, no longer bothering to conceal himself behind his pillar, his breath stopped in his throat – he wouldn't realize it until his vision blackened some moments later, and air rushed into his lungs, hungry to occupy his body.

There was a crashing, rolling, incomprehensibly loud
boom
, like the sound of a thousand thunderclouds, and for a moment the full extent of Oda's army was illuminated, an enormity of armed men, lit by pinpricks of fire in the night.

Oh, gods
, thought Taro, as the first swathe of monks was torn apart by the wave of bullets, their screams filling the night air.
There are too many. It will be a massacre.

He threw down his bow, and he ran.

 

T
HE NEAREST MONKS
fell, screaming, and Kenji Kira smiled. Even as they bled onto the grass, the second rank of his arquebusiers stepped forward, handing their already loaded guns to the first rank, taking in return the spent ones. Freshly armed, the first rank aimed again, fired. More monks went down – the mountainside was beginning to look like a grave, piled high with corpses.

Meanwhile, the second rank passed the spent guns back to the third, who passed forward the third and final preloaded gun. As the second man waited to hand this to the first, the third began to load the original weapon. In this way, as Lord Oda had seen, the guns could be made to fire indefinitely – as long as the bullets did not run out.

Kenji Kira felt that tightening in his groin again. It was beautiful, this. The monks, with their training, and their sharp swords and their secrets, were breaking themselves apart on his guns, like futile waves against a rocky beach.

Fire. Pass back. Reload. Fire.

Kenji moved forward, to get a better view. Already, thousands of the monks lay dead, each of their corpses a rebuff to the
hatamoto
who led the arquebusiers, and who had dared to
contradict Kenji's direct orders, saying that he believed it would rain tonight.

Rain! As if Kenji Kira could be stopped by something so ephemeral, something so. . . mundane. An army of
kami
might stop him, or demons. Not rain. It would prevent the guns from firing, yes, but there were other ways to kill monks than with guns. He had ordered the
hatamoto
to kill himself, and then he had himself taken on the command of the guns. He looked up at the sky. A few dark clouds, but it was already almost over. If Susanoo, the
kami
of thunder, wished to stop this massacre, he was too late.

The monks were almost destroyed. Some had made it as far as the ranks of arquebusiers, but there were traditional samurai in his army too, and these were able to move forward, between the rows of gunners, and engage any survivors hand to hand. Some of them might run, of course – try to escape over the other side of the mountain. But Kenji had a surprise for them.

Soon this battle would be over, and he could make his way to the temple. The boy would be there, with his mother.

And cowering with him, hoping the boy could protect her, Hana.

 

T
HE BULLET STRUCK
Taro in the left shoulder, knocking him on his backside, among the men who had already fallen. He touched his back – it had gone right through, which was a mercy, because he would not have to dig it out of his flesh. For just a moment he wished he had run away, instead of going to find Hana and Hiro, instead of thinking that he might do something to help.

Screams. The prayers of the dying. The smell of sulphur in the air, as if the mountain had erupted. His sword – he'd dropped his sword. It didn't matter. There were swords everywhere here, and their owners no longer needed them.

He clutched Hana's calf, pulled her down with him into the melee of limbs and weapons, the detritus of the dead. He squeezed her hand.

‘You're hurt,' she said, and he had to read her lips, because the guns were still firing. How could there be so many, and how could they be always firing? The abbot had assured them that guns took a while to load, and so were impractical for large assaults.

And yet the monks were being annihilated.

Taro pressed his fingers to the wound in his shoulder, wincing
at the pain. It would heal, of course, but not as quickly as he would like.

From down the slope, wisps of smoke rose into the air as the guns continued to fire. Monks poured down the mountain, trying to break through, but so many had already fallen that the ground had become a mat of bodies, and the grass was visible only in small patches here and there.

He pulled Hana nearer to him, putting his lips close to her ear so she could hear what he was saying over the ceaseless, booming roar of the guns. ‘Where's Hiro?'

‘Oh. . . I don't know,' she said, shaken. She began to get up, as if to look for him.

‘No,' Taro said. ‘Don't stand.' He twisted round, looking back up the slope, scanning the bodies for his friend. Then he saw a large shape, crawling towards him.

‘Gods,' said Hiro, pulling himself over the body of a monk who had been shot through the eye. ‘Have they the demons on their side?'

‘I don't know,' said Taro, relief that Hiro was alive coursing through him like fire. ‘But I feel like I'm in the hell realm.' He reached out to embrace his friend – just as a bullet whined over his arm, sounding like an angry wasp. He dropped lower and crawled forward, holding Hana's hand, until the three of them were huddled together among the bodies. A monk to their side turned to look at them, his eyes glassy. He groaned, then closed his eyes again.

‘We have to go back,' shouted Hiro. ‘This is hopeless.'

Taro nodded. ‘All together,' he said. ‘Hana – keep hold of my hand. Hiro – follow close behind.' He began to pull himself up the slope, slithering over the bloody remains of the monastery's defenders, trying to keep his skin from being slashed by the
dropped swords. But his left arm moved only sluggishly, and pain was shooting through his chest. He stopped, gasping.

‘He's hurt,' said Hana to Hiro.

Hiro looked at the blood spreading on Taro's shirt. Concern flooded his face. ‘Oh no. . . Is it bad?' He shuffled forward, touching Taro's arm.

Taro grunted. He was weighing something in his mind – a dilemma he had experienced before. But it didn't take long for him to reach his decision. If he lost his strength now, Hana might die, and so might Hiro. He had to get back to the buildings, see if it was possible to hold out behind the walls, force the shooters to come closer.

Feeling a familiar twinge of nausea, he turned his face from his friends, then lowered it to the man below him – he could see from the open eyes that the monk was dead.