Ranger's Apprentice 10: The Emperor of Nihon-Ja (21 page)

‘There’s nothing wrong,’ he said. ‘He’s planning something.’

In the small cabin she shared with Alyss, Evanlyn was hunched over a map drawn on a sheet of linen paper, chewing distractedly on one of the fine brushes that the Nihon-Jan used as pens. It was late. The single lantern on the table left dark shadows in the corners of the room, and was really inadequate to allow her to read the finer details of the map. She had contemplated lighting another lantern but Alyss was curled up on her mattress against one wall and Evanlyn didn’t want to disturb her.

The two girls had spent more time in each other’s company since arriving at Ran-Koshi. They were the only two females in their group, and now that they were surrounded by an even wider group of warriors and timber workers they tended to be thrown together. There were women in the Kikori settlement, of course, but they treated the two foreigners with awed respect, and the language differences, along with the heavy regional accent of the Kikori, made it difficult to become close to them.

It couldn’t be said that Alyss and Evanlyn had become good friends. But they were both making an effort to get along with each other – aside from the occasional moment of friction. Had they been close friends, Evanlyn probably would have lit another lantern. But, because they tended to tiptoe round each other, she didn’t want to give Alyss any cause for complaint.

She rubbed her eyes and leaned closer to the map. She wished she had a normal-height table and a comfortable chair. These low Nihon-Jan tables and benches were hard on the knees and the back. She heard a rustle of bedclothes as Alyss turned over.

‘What are you doing?’ the tall girl said. Her voice was thick with sleep.

‘Sorry,’ Evanlyn said instantly. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you.’

‘You didn’t wake me,’ Alyss replied. ‘The light did.’ Then, realising that Evanlyn might take this as a sign that she was annoyed, she added quickly, ‘That was a joke.’

‘Oh…well, sorry, anyway,’ Evanlyn told her. ‘Go back to sleep.’

But Alyss was sitting up. She shivered in the chill mountain night and hastily draped a Kikori sheepskin coat around her shoulders. Then, disdaining to rise, she moved on all fours across the room to sit beside Evanlyn.

‘Light another lantern,’ she said. ‘We’ll go blind trying to read that in the dark.’

Evanlyn hesitated, but Alyss gestured impatiently for her to do as she suggested.

‘You might as well,’ she said. ‘I’ll never get back to sleep wondering what you’re doing.’

Evanlyn nodded and lit a second lantern, pulling it close to the first so that the light was doubled. Alyss moved a little closer and studied the map with her.

‘Where did this come from?’ she asked. She could see it was a chart of Ran-Koshi and the country to the north.

‘Shigeru and I drew it up, with advice from Toru and some of the other Kikori. Of course, the general lie of the land here was no secret. The only unknown factor was the exact location of Ran-Koshi.’ She tapped a finger on the section of the map that showed the valley and its steep surrounding walls.

Alyss nodded thoughtfully, then she pointed to a broad, featureless expanse directly to the north of the valley.

‘What’s this?’ She read the name lettered on it. ‘Mizu-Umi Bakudai?’

‘It’s a huge lake. And round here, on the far side, is the province where the Hasanu live.’

‘I’ve heard people mention them several times. Who are the Hasanu?’

There was a teapot on the table and Evanlyn reached for it to pour herself a cup of green tea. ‘Like some? It’s still quite hot.’

Alyss shook her head. ‘I’m fine.’

‘The Hasanu are a wild mountain tribe that live in this remote area on the other side of the lake. Some people think they’re monsters. There are apparently a lot of legends about weird mountain creatures, trolls and demons and such. But Shigeru thinks that’s superstition. He believes the Hasanu are human. They’re simple folk. They’re said to be much taller than the average Nihon-Jan and covered in long, reddish body hair.’

‘How attractive,’ Alyss commented.

Evanlyn allowed herself a brief smile. ‘Yes. But they are apparently amazingly loyal to their lord, a Senshi noble called Nimatsu, and he’s loyal to Shigeru. And they’re quite formidable warriors,’ she added meaningfully.

‘Hmmm. So if Shigeru could recruit them, he might have a reasonable force to engage Arisaka,’ Alyss said. Like all of the Araluans, she was aware of the shortcomings of the Kikori as warriors. ‘Are there many of them?’

‘Thousands,’ Evanlyn told her. ‘That’s the beauty of it. There are plenty of clans loyal to Shigeru who would oppose Arisaka, but they’re all small in numbers and they’re not organised. Arisaka’s supported by his own clan, the Shimonseki, and one other, the Umaki clan. Numerically, they’re the two largest clans in the country, so he has a strong, co-ordinated power base.

‘But if we could call on the Hasanu for help, we’d have Arisaka badly outnumbered. Which might encourage the other clans to stand up for Shigeru. Only problem is…’

She paused and Alyss finished for her. ‘The Hasanu are on the far side of this huge lake.’

‘That’s right. And the path around the lake goes through mountains even wilder than the ones here. Shigeru says it would take at least two months to get there and another two back.’

‘By which time, things will probably be all over here,’ Alyss said and Evanlyn nodded, wordlessly.

The two of them studied the map in silence for a few minutes. Then Alyss said slowly, ‘Why not take a leaf out of Halt’s book? Go across the lake, not around it.’

She was referring to Halt’s tactic of sailing north along the coast from Iwanai, and cutting out weeks of hard travel over the mountains. But now Evanlyn pointed out the obvious fault in her plan.

‘We could do that if we had a ship,’ she said, but Alyss shook her head, her excitement mounting as the idea grew.

‘We don’t need a ship. We need a kayak.’

‘A what?’ Evanlyn asked. The word was unfamiliar to her.

Alyss took the brush from her and began sketching quickly on the margin of the map, laying out a rough design of a long, narrow boat.

‘A kayak. It’s a small, light boat – with a timber frame and an oiled linen or canvas covering. The Skandians use them for fishing. I’ve actually got one back at Redmont. I use it on the river and lakes there. It’s great exercise,’ she added.

Evanlyn studied the rough drawing critically.

‘Could you build one?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Alyss told her and Evanlyn’s spirits sank, only to rise again when Alyss continued, ‘But I’ll bet the Kikori could, if I showed them the rough idea.’ She pulled the map around so she could see it more clearly and traced a path across the lake with her forefinger. ‘We could do it in easy stages,’ she said. ‘There are plenty of islands where we could camp at night.’

‘We?’ Evanlyn asked and Alyss looked up to meet her gaze.

‘Well, of course “we”. They’re going to need every available man they have here once Arisaka’s army arrives. There’s not really a lot we can achieve here.’ She saw Evanlyn was about to protest and went on quickly, ‘Oh, I’m sure you could knock a few of them over with that sling of yours. But if we did this, we’d be doing something much more valuable! Come on,’ she said, after a brief pause, ‘in the back of your mind, you always intended to do this, didn’t you?’

‘I suppose so,’ Evanlyn said.

‘Then let’s do it together! I’ll come with you. You might need an interpreter and I can handle a kayak. Plus we won’t need an escort if we do it this way. We’ll be perfectly safe on the lake and that means we won’t leave Halt and the others short-handed.’

Evanlyn thought for a few seconds, then squared her shoulders, reaching a decision.

‘Why not?’ Then she thought further. ‘I wonder what Halt will say when we put it to him?’

Alyss shrugged. ‘Well, it’s such a logical idea, he can hardly say no, can he?’

‘No!’ said Halt. ‘No, no, no – and, just in case you missed it the first time, no.’

‘Why not?’ Evanlyn said, her voice rising in pitch to indicate her anger. ‘It’s a perfectly logical solution.’

Halt regarded her as if she’d lost her senses. ‘Can you imagine what your father would say to me if he heard I’d let you go haring off on this half-baked expedition?’

Evanlyn shrugged. ‘Well, for a start it’s not half-baked. We’ve planned it pretty well.’ In fact, she and Alyss had sat up for most of the rest of the previous night noting down details and equipment they would need for the trip.

‘And secondly,’ she continued, ‘if we don’t do it, my father will never hear about it anyway because we’ll all be dead.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Halt snorted.

‘Halt, you’ve got to face facts,’ Alyss put in. ‘Evanlyn is right. If we don’t get help Arisaka will overrun this place in the summer. Oh, we’ll hold out for a while, of course. But sooner or later, his men will break through. This is our only chance.’

‘I expected more sense from you, Alyss,’ he said coldly. ‘I know Evanlyn tends to go off on wild ideas, but I’m surprised at you. What do you think Pauline would say about this?’

Colour flared in Alyss’s cheeks as he spoke. Then she replied, measuring her words carefully so that anger would not get the best of her.

‘What would you say to Pauline if it was
her
idea?’ she replied.

Halt hesitated. They all knew he would never dare to tell Pauline she was reckless or hare-brained.

Seeing his hesitation, Alyss continued quickly. ‘Tell me, Halt, aside from the simple fact that you’d be worried about us, what’s the flaw in this plan?’

He opened his mouth to reply, then paused again. Truth be told, there was no flaw, other than the fact that he hated to see the girls place themselves in danger. He looked at them for a few seconds and realised that that fact was not a sufficiently good reason to reject the plan. Both girls had been in dangerous situations before. Both would be in dangerous situations again. Neither of them were shrinking violets. And Evanlyn was right. If she and Alyss went, they wouldn’t be taking any fighting men away from the valley. They’d need help scaling the sheer cliffs that led down to the lake. But once that was done, the Kikori who helped them could return.

‘I just…I…I don’t like it,’ he said.

Evanlyn stepped closer to him and placed her hand over his. ‘We don’t ask you to like it,’ she said. ‘I don’t like the idea that we’ll be leaving you and Will and Horace to fight Arisaka with a bunch of half-trained lumberjacks as an army. These are hard times and we have to make tough decisions.’

He let go a deep sigh. The girls were right and he knew it.

‘All right,’ he said. The two faces before him were suddenly wreathed in excited smiles and he added heavily, ‘But God help me when Will and Horace find out about it.’

Whatever answer the girls might have made was cut off by the sound of shouting outside Halt’s cabin. Then the door flew open and young Mikeru burst in, too excited to exhibit the normally impeccable manners of the Nihon-Jan.

‘Halto-san! Come quickly! Arisaka’s men are here!’

Mikeru’s excited warning was a little premature. Arisaka’s army were not actually charging up the valley, as he implied. But the first elements had been sighted, just a day away.

As Horace had surmised, Arisaka had repeated his earlier tactic and sent a fast-travelling advance party ahead of his main force. The Kikori scouts had counted a hundred armed Senshi, carrying minimal baggage and moving towards the valley at a steady jog.

‘How did they know we’re here?’ Horace asked.

Halt shrugged. ‘They may not know your exact location. They’re probably just tracking you. After all, a party as large as this one would leave plenty of signs for a halfway decent tracker.’

‘So what is our best move now, Halto-san?’ Shigeru asked. They were gathered in his cabin to discuss this latest eventuality. Shigeru, observing how Horace deferred to the bearded Ranger, and knowing Reito’s limitations as a combat commander, had questioned Horace at length about Halt’s background and experience. Horace had left him in no doubt that they were lucky to have such an experienced tactician at their disposal and Shigeru had appointed the Ranger in command of the defence of Ran-Koshi.

‘The palisade is repaired,’ Halt said. ‘And the trap at the western end is just about complete. Another half day should see that done. I suggest we sit tight behind the palisade, wait for them to attack and then bring down our avalanche on top of them.’

‘Will they attack?’ Shigeru asked. ‘Perhaps they will wait for Arisaka’s main force to catch up.’

Halt shook his head. ‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘It makes no sense to come racing across country after us only to sit down and wait when they eventually catch up. Arisaka knows that the snow is coming.’ They all glanced at the open doorway. It was snowing outside. With each day, the flakes became bigger and heavier and the snowfalls longer. Already the cover on the ground was eight to ten centimetres deep. ‘He’ll want his men to hit us before the real storms come. After all, he knows you only have thirty or forty warriors with you.’

‘There are around two hundred Kikori men as well,’ Will said but Halt made a dismissive gesture.

‘From everything the Emperor and Reito-san have told us, Arisaka won’t be expecting them to fight. That could give us a big advantage.’

‘If they
will
fight,’ Horace said gloomily. He worried that when the time came, the Kikori might be affected by centuries of tradition and history. They had rarely rebelled against the Senshi in the past and when they did, the results had been catastrophic. He felt the chances were high that they would, at the last minute, be overwhelmed by their sense of assumed inferiority. Assisting the Emperor to escape and standing up against the highly trained Senshi warriors of Arisaka’s army were two entirely different matters.

‘They’ll fight,’ Will said firmly and Halt turned a questioning eye on him.

‘You seem sure of that. What have you and Selethen been up to? You’ve been spending a lot of time with the Kikori.’

Will and the Arridi leader exchanged a quick glance. Then Will shook his head.

‘Early days yet,’ he said. ‘Just an idea we’re working on. We’ll tell you when the time is right.’

‘In any event,’ Halt said, dismissing the matter for the time being and returning to the point Horace had raised, ‘the Kikori will be fighting from behind a defensive position, not facing the Senshi in open combat. That’ll make a difference. All they’ll have to do is keep shoving them back down off the wall.’

‘As easy as that?’ Horace said, grinning in spite of his earlier misgivings. But he thought Halt had a point: fighting from behind a defensive position was less daunting than facing an enemy on an open battlefield. With any luck, not many of Arisaka’s warriors would get close enough for individual combat.

‘When do you think they’ll attack, Halt?’ Selethen asked.

‘Our scouts say they should be here late tomorrow. I would assume they’ll size up the situation, rest for the night, then hit us first thing the following morning.’

Selethen nodded agreement with the estimate, but Shigeru was a little surprised at the speed things were moving.

‘So soon?’ he said. ‘Won’t they have…preparations to make?’ he asked vaguely.

‘They don’t have any heavy weapons or siege equipment with them,’ Halt said. ‘After all, they had no real idea that we would find us in a ready-made fortress like this one. My guess is they’ll spend the night getting a few scaling ladders ready then try and rush us. After all, they have nothing to gain by waiting.’

The sky was overcast and heavy with clouds. In the east, through a gap between mountain peaks, the sun could be made out as a red, watery ball rising into the sky. A cold wind blew up the valley, bringing snowflakes with it.

Above the soft keening of the wind, Halt could hear the rapid tread of feet, crunching on the rocky ground before them.

‘Here they come,’ he muttered, as Arisaka’s advance party, moving in three uneven columns, rounded the last bend before the palisade. He turned to Will.

‘Don’t waste arrows on the ones at the foot of the wall. Rocks and spears will do for them. Save your shots for any who make it to the top. They’re the ones we need to stop, before they get a real foothold.’

Will nodded. They were pacing the timber walkway on the inner side of the palisade. Shigeru’s few Senshi warriors were in defensive positions. Beside them and behind them, the Kikori crouched, out of sight. Some had their heavy axes ready, but most were armed with spears or long poles they had cut to use as pikes. The tips were carved into points which had been hardened in fires the night before. Every five metres, piles of large, jagged rocks stood ready for use against the attackers.

‘Stay down, Kikori,’ Halt said quietly, as he passed the crouching timber workers. They grinned nervously up at him and he added, ‘We’ll soon be giving Arisaka a very unwelcome surprise.’

They reached the decrepit western end of the palisade. Here ten Senshi and the same number of Kikori were stationed on the planked walkway behind the badly patched, dilapidated wall.

‘They’ll concentrate here once they realise,’ Halt called. ‘Be ready to get off the wall as soon as you feel it’s going.’

The mixed group of defenders nodded, their faces serious, their thoughts focused on the coming fight. Halt surveyed the new inner wall with satisfaction. It was lower, but much sturdier than the old palisade – altogether a much more defensible position. He glanced up to the piled rocks, earth and timber balanced precariously above on the rock wall. The Kikori had contrived to cover the rocks with branches and bushes, even leaving one small sapling springing out from the mound so that it appeared more natural. Looking carefully, he could just make out the ropes trailing away from the deadfall.

‘Get ready!’ It was Horace’s voice. He was at the midpoint of the palisade. He had his shield on his left arm. The unfamiliar shape of a Nihon-Jan
katana
was in his right hand. Behind them, they heard and felt feet on the ladder that led up to the walkway from below. They both turned to see Shigeru, in lacquered leather armour, stepping onto the walkway, closely followed by Reito.

‘Your highness, I’d really prefer it if you’d stay back from the fighting,’ Halt told him. He knew Shigeru was no expert with the sword. Capable, perhaps, but expert? Never.

‘Your preference is noted, Halto-san,’ said Shigeru, making no move to retire back down the ladder. Halt met his gaze for a few seconds, then shrugged.

‘Well, I tried,’ he said.

At a shouted order, the attacking force suddenly broke into a run. They had no particular formation. They spread out in a rough line as far as the narrow valley walls would allow. The line was three or four men deep. Halt made out five rudimentary scaling ladders – each one nothing more than a single thick sapling trunk, notched to accept crosspieces, which were then bound in place to act as rungs. At least another ten men were carrying ropes and grapnels. The plan was obviously to assault the wall at fifteen or sixteen different points at once to overextend the thirty-odd Senshi who could be seen defending the palisade.

The attackers had no idea that a hundred Kikori were crouched below the wooden ramparts. The first three ladders crashed against the wall almost simultaneously at three different points and Shigeru’s men moved to bar the way to the men climbing them. Halt waited until each ladder had several men on it.

‘Kikori! Now!’ he yelled.

The waiting timber workers rose to their feet with a wordless roar of defiance. Rocks showered over the ramparts, hurled down into the mass of Senshi at the bases of the ladders. The first attacker to reach the top of a ladder cut at a Kikori, who ducked the whistling blade just in time. Moka thrust with his sword and the man screamed and plummeted off the ladder.

Elsewhere, Horace blocked another attacker’s sword with his shield. Before he could retaliate, however, a wild-eyed Kikori spearman shoved him aside and buried his spear in the Senshi’s shoulder. With a screech of pain, the man fell back onto his comrades, massed below.

A third ladder was sent toppling as four Kikori pikemen thrust their long poles against it, shoving it sideways until it crashed over. The Senshi closest to the top managed to spring onto the rampart. It was only a momentary respite. He barely regained his balance before a Kikori axe sheared through his armour. He toppled forward, crumpled over the rampart. Another defender shoved a spear handle under his shoulders and levered him back, sending him crashing back to the side he came from.

Grapnels were rattling against the walls now as Arisaka’s men tried to clamber up hand over hand. Halt heard Reito and Moka, the two senior members of the Emperor’s Senshi, shouting instructions to the defenders, and he knew the gist of their words.
Let them get at least halfway up before you cut the ropes!
They had determined this strategy the night before. A man falling from three or four metres stood a good chance of being injured – particularly if his comrades below were brandishing weapons.

At the midpoint of the wall, Halt saw one of Shigeru’s bodyguard engaged in swordplay with an attacker who had made it over the wall. The still forms of two Kikori were at the attacker’s feet. As Halt watched, an arrow slammed into the defender’s chest and sent him staggering back off the rampart.

Before the attacking warrior could take advantage of his momentary respite, Selethen’s tall form moved gracefully to the attack. His curved sabre cut into the gap between the Senshi’s helmet and the neck piece of his armour.

Satisfied that the threat had been taken care of, Halt glanced around and saw another defender, a Kikori axeman this time, fall to the planks with an arrow in his chest. The Ranger searched the valley below the wall. Five Senshi, armed with the long, asymmetrical recurve bows favoured by the Nihon-Jan, had stopped some thirty metres behind their comrades and were picking off the defenders.

‘Will!’ he shouted. His apprentice had moved away to cut through a grapnel rope with his saxe knife. Now he looked, saw Halt’s outstretched arm pointing to the group of archers and slipped the bow off his shoulder.

‘You from the left. Me from the right!’ shouted Halt and Will nodded. Once before, they had made the mistake of shooting at the same enemy in a battle. Now both longbows sang their dreadful song and the Senshi at either end of the line of archers staggered back, staring in horror at the arrows that had punched through their leather armour as if it weren’t there. Before their comrades registered the fact that they were down, the Rangers dropped the next two within a heartbeat of each other. The fifth man searched in vain for the source of these deadly return shots. He had an arrow nocked, ready to draw and shoot as soon as he saw his opponent. He never managed it. Will’s third arrow slammed into him. He dropped his bow, clutching at the terrible shaft, then fell and lay still.

Now a captain among the attackers, realising that the first blind, formless rush had failed, was taking stock of the situation. He saw the patched and sagging western section of the palisade and realised this was an opportunity. He gestured for two men to pick up a fallen ladder and follow him. Along the way, he gathered three more, equipped with grapnels and ropes. The hastily assembled assault party ran along the base of the wall, dodging rocks that showered down from above, to the weakened section. As they went, the captain rallied more men until at least thirty Senshi were following him. He gestured at the single-trunk ladder, then at the rotting beams of the wall.

‘Use it as a battering ram! Smash through the wall!’ he yelled. Half a dozen more men, suddenly seeing what he was about, joined the two Senshi wielding the log. They charged at the wall and, with one of them counting tempo, slammed it again and again into the brittle timbers of the palisade. Two of the old logs shattered and split, a third sagged away at the next strike of the ram. More rocks hailed down on them, but the defenders’ aim was not as accurate as before. Panic, the captain thought. He screamed at the men with grapnels, pointing to the top of the palisade.