Child of Vengeance (48 page)

They could not enter those trees, though, and in them Bennosuke saw his escape. In the broad landscape before them was a mass of short, steep hills like the backs of great turtles in water, and when they reached the bottom of the valley they would have to find their way around or over these. To the right, heading inland to the mountains, the forest became much thicker, and in that cover he knew he could ghost away from the body of the men and go wherever it was that the forest led, safe from horsemen and whoever else might follow him.

But first he had to get there, and the distance shrank so very slowly. His body truly aching now, his ankles numb and bleeding from the chafing of his greaves, he felt phantom arrows pierce his back again and again, but none materialized and slowly the outcrops grew larger and larger and the safety of the forest proper grew closer.

It took his senses from him the closer he got, tantalizing him. He dreamed of finding a stream within that forest, his mouth dry and his throat raw from his skull to his sternum. He saw the trees, straight trunks that stood the height of fifteen men bare of foliage until the very top, no more than an arm’s width between each of them, and they called to him, forty paces, thirty, twenty …

Passing a copse, the trees revealed to him a lone Tokugawa horseman. The man was a scout perhaps, a single outrider ahead of the main body of men, and the rider was wheeling his steed around a body run through with one of his arrows. There were two other men cowering on their asses in front of him, and as they looked at Bennosuke’s sudden arrival the horseman too turned his head.

There was a moment of shock that both he and Bennosuke shared, and in that moment the boy realized that he was entirely exposed. No tree or bush to throw himself behind, he was at the mercy entirely of the bow in the rider’s hand. There was no arrow notched to that bow,
though, and those next instants as the rider reached to his quiver were everything.

Bennosuke moved for his weapons too. He drew his shortsword, took a staggering run, and then hurled the blade at the rider with such force that he almost tumbled over. But he was exhausted and the target was at a distance, and Bennosuke knew it was a bad throw as soon as it left his hand. The boy despaired as the wildly spinning sword veered hopelessly toward the ground.

The rider drew the string of his weapon back, and Bennosuke’s eyes locked upon the rising arrowhead, body freezing with dread of the blow to come. He barely saw the sword bouncing off the turf. Wild though the throw had been, such was the strength behind it that it rebounded and shot upward, whipping around twice as ferociously. Caught in a fresh, chaotic arc, it rose to smash the rider’s horse in the mouth. The beast screamed and began to buck and kick and the rider swore as his arrow loosed into the ground, and then the man was grabbing at the reins and fighting to regain control.

Bennosuke took the gift for what it was. He drew his longsword and charged, and the rider saw him coming with alarm in his eyes. The man dropped his bow and started reaching for something at his side, but he was too slow. The boy leapt like a savage hunter, holding the sword inverted above his head point-first, and his two-handed thrust pierced the light armor easily and stabbed through the man’s rib cage.

The rider gave a cry and his horse bolted. Bennosuke’s sword was torn from his grasp as he was knocked off his feet. The man managed to hang on for some distance, but from his knees Bennosuke watched his body go limp and fall from the saddle face-first. He did not get up, and as the boy scrambled for both of his swords where they lay, elation filled him.

The forest was his. Freedom.

“Thank you!” said one of the men. Bennosuke had forgotten they were there, and he turned to wave them away. But when he looked at them more closely, he found his body grew tense. The pair of them stared back awkwardly for a moment at the sudden change in him, before the second one grabbed at the first.

“Let’s go!” he said, for all around them were screams and hoof fall. “No time! To the rally point!”

“To the hells with that! The lords’re all dead!” said the first man. “Let’s just go!”

“The heir lives! We have to protect him!” said the second, and he began to pull his companion away. They ran, the first man bowing to Bennosuke one last time in thanks, and he watched them go.

The forest was there, the safety that he had earned was there, and part of him begged to vanish into it. The pair of samurai were running farther and farther and he watched them, watched them, watched them, trying to convince himself that he could forget what they had said.

But he couldn’t, because filthy though the pair were, beneath the dirt their armor was burgundy.

HE CURSED HIMSELF
as he ran back up the slope through the same outcrops of trees he had just dashed through. They could be lying, the pair of them, or just wrong. This was battle—who knew the state of things? Yet still he followed. The two burgundy samurai did not look back, and up the valley slope he was aware of the shapes of horsemen through the trunks of trees, the mass of them ever present and scouring all before them like an avalanche.

The fleeing army ran their different ways, and the horsemen duly diverged to follow them. The chase had become separate contests, separate hawks swooping for separate mice through the weaving pathways between trees, sometimes intersecting like a wicker basket coming together. Men who thought themselves free would round a corner to find themselves suddenly beset by Tokugawa’s men, and that was that.

A group of horsemen emerged ahead of Bennosuke, four of them cantering on some other trail, and they passed between him and Nakata’s men for a few moments. Only the rearmost saw him, and on instinct the man lurched in his saddle and launched an arrow at him half drawn. The arrow flew too short, and it bounced off the ground before him, the length of it quivering in the air. It caught in his legs and he almost stumbled over it, but he managed to clatter onward, leaving it snapped beneath his feet.

Instead of notching another arrow the mounted samurai merely grinned and held his thumb and his forefinger a sliver apart at Bennosuke before he vanished between the trees once more. The horsemen did not stop, continuing down whatever path they were headed. Someone else would get him eventually—why bother with the minor inconvenience of turning when there was easier prey ahead of them?

The two burgundy samurai ran on, and their path twisted once more, leading downhill slightly. Ahead of them a grand burgundy banner fluttering above a small clearing soon became visible. Of course the Nakata would have a retreat planned. But it was a sad cluster of men beneath that standard, and even from a distance Bennosuke could see they were in total disarray.

There were no more than forty of them, and they were frantically scrambling around. As he and the burgundy samurai reached them, some were making a disjointed effort to place barricades of bamboo stakes facing uphill, but there were nowhere near enough to make a solid line. Rocks in a river, nothing more. Men held spears weakly, looking up at the coming horsemen. Not a single voice was giving commands.

Not a single man was checking friend from foe either; Bennosuke was let into their little encampment without hindrance. Men swarmed around him, and though most of them were fresh, enough had escaped the fight in the valley that he did not look out of place, covered in blood as he was. Each heaving breath a burn, Bennosuke put his hands on his knees as he looked around quickly, and there he was.

Hayato Nakata.

His armor was clean and fine, his missing arm artfully hidden. The lord’s thin face was agape, his mouth flapping loosely. A horse was half saddled behind him, abandoned now in the face of what was coming. Bodyguards stood around him, but they were that in name only, staring helplessly at the horsemen who flowed down the slope and drew ever closer.

No time, no time, no time.

His mind was working quickly, deviously. Only one man stopped Bennosuke as he approached Hayato, the only one fit to be called a guard. He was a fierce man, and he looked familiar—his face was
marked with a spattering of scars, the white flesh of old circular burns daubed scattershot across his cheek and neck. He halted Bennosuke with a hand on the shoulder, and for a heartbeat Bennosuke thought he had been recognized. Instead, the man leaned his ear in close and expectantly.

“I’m here for Lord Hayato, sir,” whispered Bennosuke between pants. “I have an escape planned. There’s no time to argue. We must go now.”

The burned man nodded, and he looked relieved as he removed his hand and let Bennosuke approach Hayato. The boy dropped to one knee by the young lord’s side, and kept his face down.

“My lord,” he said, “we have to get you out of here. I have a route planned back to safety.”

“We’re going to die,” said Hayato, hearing nothing but his own frantic heartbeat, his jaw quivering, his eyes locked on the approaching horsemen. “We’re going to die.”

“Listen to me, my lord. I can save you. I can get you out of here alone, secretly, but you must come with me now, through the forest,” said Bennosuke. He gestured downhill toward the same trees through which he had planned to escape. “No horse can pass through that, my lord.”

“Who—” Hayato began, his eyes flicking to Bennosuke for but an instant, but whatever he might have said was cut off by a scream and a crash nearby.

Horsemen had appeared from another direction, hidden through the winding of the trees, and now their beasts were rearing up against the bamboo stakes and their riders were cheering at their sudden discovery while launching arrows into the little Nakata encampment. The one-armed lord took a step back, horrified.

“We must go, Lord!” snapped Bennosuke. “Your father is dead! You are the clan Nakata now! Let your men serve you and lay down their lives in distraction, and come with me! You must live! That is all that matters!”

“He speaks sense, Lord,” said the bodyguard.

Hayato said nothing more; he just turned and ran down into the thick forest. The only hesitation had been his terror-numbed mind comprehending the word
escape
. He went and he did not look back.
Bennosuke and the bodyguard nodded at each other, and then they followed him down into the trees, becoming nothing but indistinct splashes of color darting between trunks, and then they were gone. The remaining Nakata, too stupefied by their impending doom, did not notice.

F
ive minutes later, nothing in burgundy moved in the encampment. Corpses lay twisted clutching at arrows, and the hooves of Tokugawa warhorses picked their way between them. The main body of the cavalry had gone on, plenty more fleeing men and lords to hunt, but a few of them had been left behind to scour the area for anything of value. Two men were looking up at Nakata’s banner from their saddles.

“That’s nice,” said one, eyeing the workmanship of the golden crest atop the frame appreciatively. He pulled his hand free of his riding glove and rubbed the material of the banner itself between his thumb and his finger. “Very nice. What are we supposed to do with it?”

“The command is to burn it,” said the other. “Hills have to run with blood, the skies with smoke and all that.”

“Shame,” said the first, and replaced his glove. “Daughter’s getting married soon. Wife needs a new gown. That’s yards of good silk, that.”

“You’d let your wife wear something you found on a battlefield?”

“I wouldn’t tell her where I got it from.”

“Savagery,” said the second, shaking his head scornfully. “Such savagery.”

A fire was struck, a lantern held to the banner until it ignited, and then when they were certain it was inextinguishably ablaze the riders left. The standard burned on for a few minutes until it collapsed unseen by any but the dead who had been left behind, and thus, in the eyes of the world, ended the clan Nakata.

T
his was wild country they ran through, picking their way through the trees and slopes, winding their way downward on unsteady ground. Autumn had not fully claimed it yet, patches of green remaining amid the encroaching gold. A deer froze as they passed, its antlers emerging nubs, its black eyes wide, glistening orbs.