The Golden Naginata (38 page)

She sat astride her charger, looking upon her army, and her sorrow did not escape them, though they could not know its varied sources. She asked, “Where is General Kono?” The red-haired shoki hopped to the front of the ranks. He wore his recently acquired yamabushi robe, which was too short to cover his shins, and a bronze pot for helmet. He carried a spear and had a longsword in his obi. He was proud and warlike in appearance, but a bit too happy in demeanor. Tomoe told him, “You are strong as ten, but frankly very clumsy. There is no armor big enough to wrap around you, and you will be vulnerable to enemy swords. Will you leave my army and go back to where shoki devils come from?”

“It is not so easy to get rid of me!” said the shoki.

“Big as you are,” said Tomoe, “I think you are young, devils growing faster than men. If a child like you were slain in this, I would feel burdened.”

“I am less a baby than you think!” It was no use trying to dissuade him.

“Then fight well!” said Tomoe.

“I will!” said the shoki, looking more serious now. Tomoe said, “It is time.” This is how it went:

Tomoe Gozen, a shoki devil, and one thousand sohei crept silently to a hilltop and peered down upon a camp where not even a campfire was lit and no sound was made. Directly, at three points simultaneously, fires erupted in the camp, shouts rose up, and half-dressed samurai went running helter-skelter for a nearby stream and back. More fires sprang up, and the enemy became more confused in their efforts to stop the blazes, unable to find who started them, a shadow in their midst. Unseen atop the hill, Tomoe Gozen strode to the highest place and planted the butt of the Golden Naginata where it would stand on its own. Then, she took a bow and set a whistling arrow to it, announcing the attack to the enemy when the shaft sang forth. The yamabushi burst from the top of the hill, shouting Buddha's wrath, their weapons raised high. The samurai below scurried about more and more frenetically, trying to douse the fires and simultaneously don armor as fast as they might, snatching weapons, coming to the edge of the camp to meet the yamabushi.

When her men were near the foe, Tomoe Gozen reached up with eyes shut and removed the wooden sheath from Inazuma-hime and placed this sheath in the back of her obi where it would not be in her way. Then she stepped in front of the shining weapon, a black shadow against incredible light, and she drew forth her longsword to descend into the mass of battle.

The shogunate forces were unprepared for a night attack, and less prepared for the night to be made brighter than any day. They watched the avalanche of bonzes and priests, and then the light appeared, and the bulk of the samurai were instantly blind. The yamabushi carved crazily into the ranks of startled, blinded warriors. Of the six thousand, perhaps a sixth had caught on it time to protect their eyes, or had been busy fighting the fires in the camp; but even these dared not face toward yambushi with open eyes without suffering the fate of their fellows.

The yamabushi showed no mercy. Samurai sometimes cut their own numbers, since they could not see. The yamabushi were hindered to a lesser degree, for they dared not turn to protect their backs from samurai who slipped by; and samurai, already blind, could fight in any direction. Many of Tomoe's men died because of this; yet none doubted the yamabushi would win. If fights elsewhere went as well, under the leadership of Imai, Higuchi, Nenoi, Tade, and Lord Kiso himself … the cost might be tremendous, but Kamakura would remain their ultimate prize.

Tomoe Gozen had a personal mission and scarcely watched the slaughter. She recognized the family emblem on the burning tents and flags, and went searching through the camp for Uchida Ieoshi. She stood among the flaming tents, her back to the shining hill, and shouted, “Tomoe Gozen of Heida, wife and vassal to the Rising Sun General, challenges Uchida Ieoshi to meet me in armed combat!”

There was no reply. She heard only the din of battle behind herself, the roaring fires to each side. Irritated to be ignored, Tomoe shouted,

“The sword-thieving shogunate general is a coward as I thought!”

Then there was reply. Uchida Ieoshi stepped out from the side of the one unburning tent, the flames and the Golden Naginata playing light on him, making him seem a supernatural presence. He was two heads taller than Tomoe Gozen, the tallest man she had ever seen, and wide enough to match his height. His armor was glistening black; the length of his sword would dwarf another. Such a monster he appeared to be! But his eyes were black from having seen Inazuma-hime, and he seemed uncertain where his foe might stand. He said, “You dare to call me coward?” His voice was a thunder-drum. “It was you arranged to fight blind men. Very well, come and meet a sword of Uchida-clan make!”

He drew forth an astonishingly long blade and Tomoe Gozen stepped back from the rush of the blind man. She did not back away from fright, but because he had stung her with his accusation, and she could not deny it. But for Lord Kiso's order to be clever, she would never have used that trick.

“Uchida!” Tomoe shouted, thereby telling him where she had moved. He turned his sightless gaze on her, raised the overlong sword. “Uchida! I am binding my eyes so that our fight is even!”

She cast off her helmet, for the giant wore none, and inside it was a length of cloth folded into a square as padding. She unravelled it, tied it about her face, and said,

“Now, my foe, we may fight!”

Thus it was engaged.

Between the clash of yamabushi with samurai, and the ruffling of fires, it was impossible to judge the subtleties of movement. The ear was not enough defense. She could hear Ieoshi's feet digging on the ground, but could not be sure how he held his arms; she could hear a rapid motion of his sword, but a slow attack was nearly soundless; she could hear his breath but not his heartbeat. But her foe's handicap was the same; he could follow her no better.

With only a general idea of body placement and approach, they fought awkwardly. They would nearly stumble into a fire or almost fail to block the other's stroke. Each recovery was ungraceful. Though Tomoe was quickest, the giant's strength was phenomenal. When Tomoe blocked tremendous blows, she could not easily hold her place, and so staggered back and back.

Exceedingly long blades were often badly tempered; but this one would not break against hers. Perhaps only her retired Sword of Okio could have matched a sword forged by Uchida Ieoshi's clan. It was no use lamenting about that.

They moved away from one another, she cocking her head left and right to hear his every motion. His thunder-drum voice began to recite an old poem or prayer, and the sound of it was unnerving. “I have wandered from the dark world upon a darker path. Shine on me, Brother Moon! Shine on me, O bright celestial river! Show me the way to the True Eternal Dark, and let me bring my foe!”

He struck her sword so well that, to keep her sword in hand, it was necessary to fall with it, roll across a burning coal which made the lacquer of her armor stink. She regained her feet, stood silently, listening. He tried a subtler attack, aware that such was harder to detect. She countered with the same, so neither gained advantage. Tomoe answered his threatening prayer with a promise: “When I kill you, I will give your armor to a shoki devil who is big enough to wear it!” He did not take the insult literally, knowing nothing of General Kono, but he was insulted no less, and hardened himself still further to the test.

Both were reliant on their sense of hearing, but Tomoe slowly came to realize there was another sense to use: that which distinguishes heat from cold. When Uchida Ieoshi moved against a burning tent, he was like a huge black shadow cooling her flesh. She could detect the shape of him, down to the placement of his arms. As his extra long sword went up above his head, she turned her own sword straight toward the center of the shadow she perceived, and charged with such force that she rammed the point of her sword through his armor and into his heart. In the same space of time, his sword had merely reached its upward apex, and now he dropped it behind himself. Tomoe Gozen jerked her blade out, snatched the blindfold from her face, and saw the giant tumble like a cedar.

The din at the bottom of the hill had died away. Of the thousand yamabushi, three hundred were left standing. Of the samurai, not one.

At that moment, the voice of Kiji-san whispered in the ears and minds and hearts of the surviving yamabushi. That same voice was heard by Tomoe Gozen not as a mountain's soul, but as the femininely urgent voice of the holy kirin. And perhaps the kirin was the spirit of the distant mountain after all; perhaps it was true that in placating that spirit with daily sutras, the yamabushi kept the volcanic peak at peace. The voice within each of them said:

Now have I served you as you, for generations, have served me.

The rosy streak against the starry heaven began to pull itself together in a rounder shape, then to funnel down toward the top of the hill.

“Don't look up there!” warned Tomoe. “Like this!”

She cleaned the blood from her sword, breathed a white breath upon it, and held the steel in such a way that she could see Inazuma-hime's reflection. The yamabushi observed her method and did likewise, three hundred mirror-surfaced blades held aloft. So doing, the yamabushi collapsed upon their knees in religious ecstacy, for they saw their god coalesce beside the weapon, its furred but serpentine neck turning in such a way as to look once upon them all. Was there something of tutelar concern in the monster's huge, moist eyes?

As it took Inazuma-hime's handle in its jaws, the kirin once more became a rosy mist; the weapon became golden sparkle; then both of them were gone. In the aftermath, Priest Kakumei approached Tomoe Gozen, his generally fierce features softened and seemingly aglow, and he said,

“Kiji-san has watched over us this while. Now the spirit of the mountain has gone home, as must we.”

Tomoe Gozen bowed to the priest and thanked him with utmost sincerity for the aid of the sohei.

“There is one thing more before we go,” said Priest Kakumei; and he pointed toward the dimly glowing remains of a burnt tent. Beyond the cinders, outlined in the darkness, sat Kono the shoki devil. He had found a large gourd of saké and, apparently, spent the entire battle drinking. Tomoe was incensed.

“Kono Kasa!” she shouted, anger in her voice, denying him his unofficial but much beloved title. “Strong boy though you are, you were no help to us at all!”

She still held her sword to hand, and approached the devil with a meaningful expression. He crawled away, dragging the saké gourd with him. Priest Kakumei stopped her, saying,

“He is our responsibility, who conjured him by our bad manners in Kyoto. Since he has converted to our faith, we will take him to the monastery. Perhaps there we can yet teach him to fight!”

The shoki bowed before Tomoe's wrath, begging her pardon. Priest Kakumei helped the pitiful devil stand. Tomoe Gozen only turned her back, went to retrieve her discarded helmet. Then she returned to the side of Uchida Ieoshi and said to his corpse, “You can keep your armor after all. But I will take your head to my husband who you have harried for so long!” She bent down and placed her shortsword behind the dead giant's neck, and pulled upward, cutting flesh and bone. She cast a pin through the head's topknot and carried it away, leaving the yamabushi behind to deal with their dead.

On the highway at dawn, where Tomoe rode toward Kyoto, someone waited. This someone sat astride a chestnut horse, its iron mask the color of dried blood. The rider was likewise clad in ruddy colors, the armor being lacquered the shade of rust, and an umber arrow-deflecting cape hanging loose at one shoulder. The warrior wore an iron mask the same hue as that worn by the horse. The helmet fitted to this mask was unornamented, and designed to hang low at the back of the neck. A most practical helmet. The weapons of the warrior were these:
hoko
(a spear of foreign design, with a secondary point extending from one edge), an
ono
axe strapped to one thigh, and the long and shortswords mounted from the armor. Attached to the back of this impressive samurai was a high pole with flag, and on the flag was the family seal of Uchida Ieoshi.

The iron-masked face of the samurai tipped down enough to see the trophy Tomoe had tied by its hair to her saddle: the head of a giant. An angry breath issued from the mask, and the warrior spurred the chestnut steed into action. Tomoe drew her longsword and began the long gallop to close the distance between herself and Uchida Ieoshi's avenging masked vassal. At that moment, a heavy-set priest in black garb and wild mane of hair stepped out from the shadowed woods and onto the road. He stood between the charging pair, facing the masked vassal, and raised his
shakubo
or shaku-headed staff to make a religious or magical sign in the air. The rings of the shakubo rattled. The vassal lowered the hoko, veered into the trees, and kept going along some path without breaking speed.

“Sohei!” Tomoe shouted to the priest, reining her horse up short. “Why this interference?”

The huge, almost corpulent figure in black hemp robes turned about, and Tomoe saw that it was Makine Hei, self-proclaimed her worst enemy. She corrected the previous title of sohei to,

“Shugenza!”

Birds greeted the morning with pleasant songs, incongruous with the shadow of the sorcerer-priest so near. The severity of Makine Hei's expression was suddenly broken by a smile, but the smile did not look comfortable on that face.

“I only happened along this way,” said Makine Hei, as though such a coincidence were the least likely, especially in his own case of sorcerous machinations. He continued in a cordial fashion: “You may be pleased to learn the yamahoshi cast me from their order for sealing you in Hell and for singly deciding the yamahoshi would not ride with Kiso Yoshinake. So I have not been made their abbot after all, but am only a wandering sohei doing penitence.”