The Initiate Brother Duology (106 page)

It was only a matter of time now. Sentries would certainly hear them even if they had been staring at a fire and ruined their night sight.

Even as this thought passed through the lord’s mind, a shout sounded in the camp and was quickly taken up by others. Komawara heard his voice screaming, as bloodcurdling as any dream he’d had of barbarians attacking, and his company joined in the cry, trying to make nine hundred sound like thousands.

Aiming for the southern end of the barbarian position, the lord could see men milling around, though what they did was not discernible. Few will be armored, he found himself thinking. His company began to split as the bowmen who would stay outside the camp and send their arrows into the enemy ahead of Komawara’s attack moved left. A third group would try to fire or otherwise destroy the supply rafts.

Although there was some attempt at a low wall of logs and dirt on the perimeter of the barbarian position, it was sparsely manned and Lord Komawara’s mount cleared this as though not carrying a rider in full armor.

His personal guard had come abreast of him now, determined not to let their lord be the first to throw himself against the barbarian defense. The light was growing rapidly, and Komawara could see barbarian warriors struggling to push rafts away from the bank while others prepared to defend them. Almost none had made it to horse and those that had were without saddles.

Picking a swordsman on foot, Komawara spurred his horse to ride the
man down. The barbarian stood his ground and raised his sword and just as Komawara was about to turn aside to spare his mount and engage the man, the barbarian’s nerve broke and he turned and ran. A single stroke brought the man down and Komawara rode on.

It was the lord’s intention to push into the barbarian camp until resistance stopped them, creating as much panic as possible among the greatest numbers. If the gods smiled on them, the separate attacks on the encampment would roll the ends of the barbarian position up before them until they met in the middle, sending the panicked tribesmen running toward the cover of the ginkyo wood.

An arrow lodged in the lacing of Komawara’s shoulder piece and he found himself hoping it was not from his own men. Although some stood and fought, the raid was having its desired effect—many more were running, abandoning the rafts as they headed away from the river, nonswimmers to a man.

Whistling-arrows were falling among the barbarians ahead of Komawara now, adding their eerie screams to the din. A half-dressed rider made for the lord suddenly, sword and helmet glinting in the dim light. The darkness on the man’s hand and arm turned to red as he came closer.

They clashed with an impact that shocked the lord, but his larger horse sent the other staggering. The barbarian’s blade had severed Komawara’s reins, but he had been born in Seh and his horse responded to pressure from his knees as quickly as to its bit. Before the other could collect his horse under him, Komawara struck, aiming at the man’s wrist and then watching the horror on the barbarian’s face as he realized this was a feint. The sword Toshaki had given him cut true to its reputation and severed the man’s leg above the knee, the point cutting into the horse’s side. The man’s mount jumped sideways and threw him half off, so that he clung to the mane. It was an ugly stroke, aimed only to maim, for Komawara would not risk ruining his edge on the man’s helmet. The barbarian fell under the hooves of his own horse and the lord of Seh passed by toward another, a foot-soldier with a lance. One of the Hajiwara men took this man before Komawara had time to raise his sword.

Fighting went on everywhere around him, but the lord found himself, for the moment, unopposed. He stood up in his stirrups, surveying the scene. Rafts burned behind him and on others he could see the supplies going into the water. It was a rout of some proportion, he realized with satisfaction.
Clouds of smoke billowed up to the north and he thought he could see black-armored riders in the melee ahead.

Quickly collecting the riders around him, Komawara threw himself against the barbarians again. Daylight was full when he realized that beyond the knot of barbarian warriors before them Imperial Guards did their work.

Behind his face-mask, Jaku Katta was grinning broadly when Lord Komawara appeared before him, the stump of an arrow in his shoulder piece. The two commanders pulled up their mounts in the midst of chaos. A riderless horse galloped between them and disappeared into the melee. Resistance had been broken.

Komawara waved his sword toward the base of the hill behind which they had hidden that morning. “They will collect their forces there,” he shouted over the noise. “The barbarians will soon realize how few we are. Gather every man you can and we’ll carry the fight to them once more.” He gestured now to the rafts that his men swarmed over. The barbarians had managed to cut loose more rafts than he had hoped and these floated slowly in the current. Others had simply been abandoned at their moorings and not yet dealt with by his men. “We need more time to complete this.”

A shout went up then and Komawara realized it came from the barbarians gathering under the ginkyos.

“There, Sire.” One of Komawara’s guard pointed to the south. A host of mounted barbarians were rounding the base of the hill, banners waving.

Komawara looked back at the work progressing on the rafts.

“It is a patrol only,” Jaku said quickly, “no more than a hundred men.” He pointed his sword toward the barbarians at the hill’s base. “They hope it is reinforcements.”

“Sound the call,” Komawara shouted to his guard. He looked back at Jaku. “What have your losses been?”

Jaku waited as three long notes from a conch echoed across the field. “I cannot say, Lord Komawara.”

The lord looked around the field, strewn with both barbarians and men of Wa. “Nor can I, General.”

Men began to ride to Komawara’s banner, and the lord wheeled his horse to face them. “Corporal, your company will join General Jaku in an assault on the forces gathering there.” He pointed toward the men at the base of the hill.

“General Jaku…”A shout from the barbarian horse patrol, echoed by
the men who were forming ranks, cut off the lord’s words. The sound of galloping horses came to them. Komawara shouted as he turned his horse. “General Jaku, engage the barbarians who are reforming their ranks. My company will prevent these horsemen from joining them.”

Komawara spurred his horse and waved his men to a gallop, aiming to intercept the horsemen before they reached the others. Banners waved and pipes shrilled. The shout from the men of Wa caused a visible hesitation on the part of the barbarians struggling to prepare an assault of their own. Most were without horse and armor, though they outnumbered the riders of Wa almost three times.

Jaku Katta quickly marshaled his own men and the company given him by Komawara and sounded the charge. It was his intention to drive directly through the center of the enemy, thwarting any attempts to fight in an organized fashion. If the barbarian formed solid ranks, the advantage of being on horseback would be seriously reduced.

The initial charge broke the front of the barbarian warriors, but in the ensuing fighting the tribesmen showed greater resolve and their superior numbers began to tell.

A sword blow to a foreleg brought Jaku’s horse down and the kick boxer jumped clear. On his feet immediately, Jaku found himself surrounded by barbarians. He jumped over a stroke aimed at his leg by the same man who had taken down his horse and dispatched the man as he spun toward the attackers at his back. This display of skill caused a second of hesitation and Jaku used this to cut down two near-boys and jump clear of the circle.

Without men on all sides the fight would be different though Jaku was not sure how long he could maintain this situation. He parried a blow and kicked the man under the chin, engaging another as he did so, but each time a barbarian fell another took his place. An Imperial Guard on horseback was desperately cutting his way toward his commander, but just when Jaku was convinced he would win through, an arrow took the guard through the face-mask. He slumped over the neck of his mount which bolted into the fray.

It is an honorable end, Jaku told himself, deserving of a song. Pressed on all sides again, Jaku knew he was fighting to stay alive from minute to minute. A rider in darkest blue drove his horse into the barbarian warriors at Jaku’s back sending them sprawling, and before the barbarian could recover the Guard Commander vaulted onto the rider’s horse. The two men fought
their way toward a group of Imperial Guards on horseback, hard pressed on all sides.

Komawara spotted an officer and gestured to him as he continued to fight. A moment later the clear note of a conch lifted over the battle. It was the men of Wa who would retreat now.

Joining the Imperial Guards, Jaku grabbed the reins of a riderless horse and managed to calm it enough that he could mount, barely touching the ground as he moved from one horse to the other. The men of Wa began to fight their way free of the battle, one knot of riders joining another, then another until they gathered enough force to push toward clear ground.

Once free of the fighting, Komawara turned his mount to assess the situation. Most of the barbarians still fought on foot. In their midst a few riders swung their last sword strokes. An urge to attempt a rescue was swallowed down quickly—Komawara had an entire company to consider.

The men of Wa who destroyed the supply rafts had been caught by the barbarian assault and boarded rafts, pushing out into the canal where they tried to protect themselves from arrows while poling the rafts toward the dam. There is nothing to be done for them, Komawara realized. Their situation is probably better than ours.

Jaku stopped beside him. Komawara opened his face-mask and let it hang, conserving the energy it took to hold it. “We ride north and west, General. If we can make the hills, we may be able to rejoin the main army. Our work is done here.” He pointed with his sword. Perhaps a third of the barbarian supply rafts had been fired or their cargo turned into the canal.

Jaku looked at Komawara, his gray eyes striking behind the black lacquered face-mask. It appeared he was about to speak, but Komawara nodded to him. “Gather your company, General. We must be far ahead when these barbarians recapture their horses.”

Calling over an officer, Komawara turned and spoke to him. The conch sounded again and the banner of the Komawara House was raised aloft on a lance where it fluttered in the breeze.

“We must ride, General. Any wounded who cannot keep the pace are to be left behind without horse.” The young lord wheeled his mount and set off at a slow canter. To the west the ginkyo wood was already alive with crows and blackbirds.

C
OLONEL JAKU TADAMOTO considered the idea of
fortune
as his sampan swept through the Imperial Capital. Fortune, both
good
and
ill,
seemed to be holding sway in his life just when he thought he had taken control of it. Were he a more devout Botahist, Tadamoto would never view his life in such terms. Rather than
fortune
he would believe in
karma,
and would think the sense that one was in control of one’s life was merely part of the illusion. But he had not been a devout follower of the Perfect Master since his childhood, so he was beginning to believe in fortune, both good and ill.

The young guard officer pulled aside the curtain and contemplated the world beyond. The city lay silent in the darkness, almost peaceful—although, as acting Commander of the Imperial Guard, he knew that was without question an illusion.

He let the curtain fall back into place. It would be foolish to risk being seen; for all he knew Lady Fortune might not be smiling on him at that moment and some informer of the Emperor’s, returning home after an evening of drink, might chance to see him. That would be ill fortune indeed.

One could never be sure of the favor of Lady Fortune. She was more fickle than any woman, more volatile than the Emperor. Tadamoto believed it unwise to rely on her.

Fortune had certainly favored Tadamoto that evening but, at the same time, it had been the worst possible fortune for the man he journeyed to meet. No, perhaps that was untrue. The guards who found the man could
have reported their discovery through official channels and the Son of Heaven would have been informed. That would have been much worse.

As a retainer of Lord Shonto, this man was the object of an Imperial search—Shonto himself had defied Imperial orders and betrayed his duty as Governor of Seh. He was a declared rebel now, a general in charge of a growing and illegal army. All of the rebel lord’s senior retainers had disappeared like phantoms before the Emperor’s guard could reach them. Only one had been apprehended, and that was due to fortune only: misfortune. This unfortunate man had his river junk go aground on a shifting sand bar outside the capital. A boat bearing Imperial Guards had stopped to offer assistance and the response of the crew had raised suspicions. A subsequent search led to the man’s discovery. Good fortune for Tadamoto, ill for Shonto’s retainer.