6th Day of Ki-rin, 50th Year of the 20th Heavenly Cycle
The Haka Plain, Negacha Province, Nippon
The Hojo army, three thousand strong, its component forces already split into its predetermined groups, covered the light green grass with a sea of dark green banners.
The cavalry covered the sounds of nature with the hoofbeats of eight hundred charging steeds.
And thousands of ashigaru- footsoldiers- covered what might have been missed with their battle cries as they rushed into battle with a waiting Ikeda army of equal size. An equal sea of yellow banners that awaited them.
The battle ebbed and flowed. Anyone who might have watched it from the hills surrounding the Haka valley might have thought a green and yellow ooze a half-mile wide was throbbing across the plain.
The ashigaru on both sides attempted to keep their long naginatas set against the charge of the horsemen. The horsemen, meanwhile, attempted to flank the footsoldiers and reach the archers behind them, who had brought a deadly horizontal rain to the valley today. The bowmen concentrated their fire on the slower-moving ashigaru while moving as necessary to avoid the cavalry. Wedges, squares and lines formed and dissolved on the orders of screaming officers.
And everywhere that green and yellow clashed, they made red.
Yanigasawa Tsugo looked around in frustration.
The battle was not going well.
That in itself was bad news, but what most upset the samurai was that there was no logical reason for it. The Hojo had not been outmaneuvered, or outflanked, or outnumbered. They were simply being outfought.
That spelled worse than defeat. It spelled dishonor.
The former budoka frowned. His violet eyes glanced to the northeast, towards one of the only two entrances to the valley. The fighting seemed thickest there, but that was not unexpected. Although he couldn't see either of them, Tsugo knew that both his daimyo and the Ikeda daimyo were in the midst of that carnage, slowly and brutally making their way towards each other, while the respective minions of their enemy hurled their lives away in an attempt to prevent just that.
An occasional gout of flame or large boulder hurled itself through the air at the enemy lines. Both sides employed minor wu jen or shamans, but there was still no sign of the accursed Goboro the Lame. That was not very surprising. The wu jen had an infamous aversion to melee combat and was probably invisible or shapechanged somewhere about. All Tsugo could do was to keep Goboro in mind without obsessing about him. The Hojo officer had his own priorities right now, first among them finding his Ikeda counterpart.
He soon spotted him in a swirl of yellow about thirty yards away to the southeast.
The Ikeda was no samurai- that was clear. Instead of a katana, the man wielded a latajang- a polearm capped at both ends by a semicircle of sharpened steel, both horns pointing outward. Now that Tsugo had spotted him, he wondered why he hadn't earlier. The man was fairly large- about halfway to seven feet at a guess and clad in brilliant yellow splint mail. He was already heading in Tsugo's direction, his thoughts no doubt the same as Yanigasawa's.
Kill the enemy daimyo's second-in-command.
Tsugo yelled encouragement at the men around him, and then charged forward towards his foe. Inspired by him, his men did their job- attacking the enemy officer's retainers and trying to clear a path for Tsugo to reach his foe. Unfortunately, the Ikeda bushi had more retainers than Tsugo did. An Ikeda samurai leapt into Tsugo's path and attacked for all he was worth.
Yanigasawa Tsugo had not reached his old age by underestimating opponents in battle. Nor could he fail to be aware of the advantages that the suppleness of youth granted this particular one. Nevertheless, Tsugo's combat experience was a gift that could only be earned- not granted.
Tsugo's katana never ceased moving as the samurai's shoulders rolled up and down. He maneuvered his sword in a two-handed grip through a never-ending cycle of slashes, thrusts, feints and parries. At times, the pattern seemed instinctive to the aged samurai. It had served him well his entire fighting career, and he had taught it to his children, with instructions that they were to pass it on to their children in turn.
The younger Ikeda, it had to be said, fought well. He even managed to land one strike past Tsugo's parries- but the sharp edge of his katana was turned aside by the green lacquered plate that it struck.
Your armor is strong.
Tsugo moved in close. His opponent readied a parry, but the elder samurai hooked his katana upwards and behind the Ikeda's weapon, and then pulled straight back against it, pulling the younger warrior towards him, and off-balance.
It was all over in the next moment.
Yanigasawa Tsugo looked up suddenly from the body of the enemy samurai, the screams of horror erupting from all around him directing his eyes instantly to where they needed to be.
The Ikeda bushi was growing. He was growing to half again his height.
His skin was turning a lustrous black, and a wild mane of long black hair was sprouting suddenly all over his head. A wispy length of beard appeared.
His legs were bending backwards at the knees. His pupils were turning into vertical slits, the irises turning from brown to red. His teeth were sharpening, the incisors especially growing as long as Tsugo's fingers.
"Wang-liang," Tsugo whispered.
While he did not cry out, the Hojo warrior was not immune to the fear trying to paralyze his body. He shook it off a second later, but the spirit giant was already in motion, hurling what looked like a ceramic wide-mouthed pot far over the heads of enemy and ally alike.
The pot landed a good hundred feet behind Yanigasawa Tsugo, squarely in the midst of the Hojo lines. Although Tsugo had watched the missile's flight path, he averted his eyes just before impact, assuming that it might be a flash bomb of some type.
It was worse. Much worse.
There was a flash (although not a blinding one) and suddenly there was a colossal version of the ceramic pot, almost twelve feet in height and eight feet across at the top, spinning like a top on the grass. It was glowing a dim red, as if it had just come out of some gigantic kiln.
The Hojo forces that were nearest stepped cautiously away from the gigantic vessel, weapons at the ready.
The pot's rotation slowed, then stopped. Flames shot out the top from within.
Tsugo couldn't help but notice that there was something wrong about the fire. Although the flames shifted and flickered just as in any fire, two high spikes, like twin mountain peaks, remained more-or-less constant. And at the very tips of each of those peaks were blue flames, like icepacks on their summits.
They looked like eyes.
Suddenly, a tentacle of fire shot out from the flames, snaked down and grabbed the closest person; a Hojo archer. The warrior was lifted high into the air and then downwards. The man began to scream, but the sound was cut off with a terrible suddenness as he vanished out of sight inside the pot.
There was a splashing sound, and a small amount of molten lava sloshed out of the pot. It fell to the ground, splattering, and the grass around the spots where it landed began to smolder.
The blue eyes of flame eyed the other humans around the pot hungrily. More ropes of flame emerged from the pot, but the Hojo forces were by now bolting in panic away from the giant vessel. The fire tentacles extended out to about twenty feet from the pot's base in search of prey, but that seemed to be the upper limit of their reach. They whirled around in apparent frustration, making a loud hissing and whooshing noise. They pounded into the ground, small flames and smoke erupting from where they hit, and then the fiery filaments retreated back into the pot.
Yanigasawa Tsugo pondered. This stank of Goboro's sorcery all right, but what was its purpose? If the volcano pot was unable to harm anyone further than twenty feet or so away from it, why-
The scream from behind him jolted Tsugo back into action. The samurai cursed himself aloud as he spun around. He'd spent too long staring at the pot when he knew the wang-liang was nearby.
The giant had speared a Hojo bushi with his latajang and had lifted the man into the air. The wound was not mortal- the fighter had been hooked by one of the weapon's crescent points and was hanging more by his ashigaru armor than by his flesh. However, as Tsugo watched in horror, the wang-liang suddenly spun around several times, dizzyingly fast despite his huge size, and with a mighty roar sent the unlucky warrior flying- right towards the volcano pot.
The man landed with a sickening thump about ten feet from the pot's edge. A tentacle of fire showed no hesitation about picking up the bushi's broken body and depositing him inside the vessel. The flames flickered a little higher.
Yanigasawa Tsugo let out his battle cry and charged the wang-liang.
The giant roared back, an evil grin on its black face. The latajang came into position, ready to impale the samurai before he could even close to within melee range.
Tsugo's katana swept up, batting aside the wang-liang's stabbing attack. The samurai never slowed, but continued on, feinting to the right and then tumbling right between the monster's legs, slashing all the while. Ignoring the huge spirit's roar of pain, Tsugo tumbled gracefully to his feet at the end of his tumble, pivoting around to face the giant's back.
Your armor is light.
The wang-liang was not to be underestimated, however. Without even turning around, it kicked backward with one goat-like leg. The samurai's dodge was only partially successful, and the hoof slammed into Tsugo's side, spinning the samurai around and causing him to lose his balance. The latajang was already coming down at the Yanigasawa samurai as Tsugo was pushing off from the ground with his left hand, his katana now held only in his right.
Seeking to take advantage of Tsugo's weakened grip on his weapon, the wang-liang swept hard back-and-forth with his polearm, attempting to disarm the samurai. However, falling back on training learned as much in the budoka shrine as in Yama no Tsyoi, the Hojo officer bent with his opponent's attack, his wrist bending more than his opponent would have thought possible, until the latajang slid off the katana and passed harmlessly over Tsugo's head. The samurai was back in a combat-ready stance instantly, but the wang-liang was on him again, using fierce but measured attacks, attempting to find a spot on the samurai's armor to latch his weapon onto.
The spirit giant was powerful, but not reckless. It would take cunning to defeat him. Yanigasawa Tsugo fought defensively while looking for the most vulnerable spot on the wang-liang's body for his next fusillade of blows. Perhaps if he could enlarge on the wounds he had already made on the giant's legs-
Tsugo's eyes widened. The thin gashes his sword had made in the yellow splint mail's leg guards were still there, but there was no sign of any wounds.
The samurai gritted his teeth. When the wang-liang thrust the latajang at him again, Tsugo grabbed the shaft of the weapon with his left hand and pulled hard, just enough for his one-handed katana strike to be able to reach across the back of the giant's right hand. The spirit didn't even cry out as the blade sliced across his flesh. It was a minor wound, but for Yanigasawa Tsugo, it served his purpose. As the samurai watched the cut heal instantly, his suspicions were confirmed.
Tsugo had never fought a wang-liang before, but he had heard several tales of them. Somehow though, they had all managed to leave out the part about their healing abilities.
The samurai growled in anger. That would have been nice to know.
Screams from far off drew only as much attention as Tsugo could spare. The Ikeda forces were now slowly but inexorably forcing the Hojo inwards- towards the volcano pot.
What was he going to do now?
The wang-liang, apparently sensing the samurai's hesitation, attacked swiftly with a deafening roar. Tsugo parried the spirit giant's probing attack, realizing a split-second too late that the weapon stab was merely a feint. The creature's leg shot out, the hoof connecting solidly with Tsugo's chest plate.
The samurai flew backwards through the air and managed to land on one of the few rocks that littered the Haka plain. It was perhaps five feet square, its flat surface protruding only an inch or so above the soil, but it was just where Tsugo didn't want to land.
Lights flashed and a dull roar thundered as the samurai's helm slammed back into the stone. A cry of pain escaped Tsugo despite his best efforts, and the pain of impact temporarily rendered his muscles useless. Their hands involuntarily loosened their grip, and his katana dropped to the ground beside him.
Another roar filled Tsugo's ears, this one that of the charging wang-liang. Its hooves sank deep into the soil as it came, the latajang poised to spear its target. With his bare hands, Tsugo made a desperate attempt to shove aside the polearm as it came down and managed to adjust its trajectory by an inch or so- just enough so that the samurai's body was pinned beneath the steel crescent instead of impaled on one of its horns.
Tsugo was trapped, but he was alive- for the moment.
The wang-liang's face split in a dreadful snarl. It began to lean forward, adjusting its grip on the latajang as it did so, keeping its opponent pinned down on the rock. The giant's left hand reached out for the human, drawing closer.
Tsugo suddenly had a glimpse of the larger battle. He could see little but yellow banners, as the Ikeda continued to slowly compress the Hojo into a smaller circle, with the dreaded vessel at the center. Tsugo saw two tentacles of fire lift a Hojo bushi and an Ikeda who had gotten too close, and deposit both without prejudice into the molten lava within the pot. Apparently, the elemental flame inside didn't care as to which side its victims came from.
The wang-liang was pushing harder now, trying to slice into the samurai with the sharpened inner crescent of the latajang blade. Tsugo's right hand frantically scrabbled for the hilt of his katana, but it lay just out of his reach. He began struggling frantically as unfamiliar feeling came over him. Fear. It swiftly grew stronger as the black, grinning face of the wang-liang blotted out more and more of his vision. Tsugo couldn't breathe. He was going to-
Things move at their own pace, whether you are ready for them or not. Why not be ready?
What?
Yanigasawa Tsugo tried to divvy up a small portion of his mind to concentrate on this new thought, leaving the rest to struggle against the giant.
This was an old saying of the Way of Enlightenment. Tsugo had known it since childhood, although it had seemed more relevant in the recent teachings of the abbot at his monastery. It was that voice, though, that aroused the samurai's curiosity.
This was the third time he had heard it today. Tsugo had at first thought the voice was his own, a reflection of his own observations about his new oroyoi. This philosophical comment though, had seemed to come out of nowhere- almost as if a friendly spirit of some kind was communicating with him.
Communicating from an impossible distance.
And Yanigasawa Tsugo, for the first time this day, smiled.
He exhaled suddenly, as forcefully as possible. His infinitesimally smaller frame gave him an extra inch to maneuver inside his crescent prison- just enough to roll that extra inch to the right. His oroyoi had compressed along with him.
Your armor is supple.
Tsugo's hands closed about the hilt of his katana.
The position was all wrong for any kind of a swing, let alone an attack, but Tsugo knew that's just what the wang-liang would think, as well.
The katana bit into the wooden shaft of the latajang. It almost cut right through the polearm, but Tsugo just hadn't been able to get the leverage. The giant roared with anger and yanked his arm back and away. Both weapons, locked in an embrace, went sailing off.
The wang-liang's left hand slammed into the samurai's chest. Tsugo cried out again as he felt his ribs start to crack under the pressure. The giant was shouting something at him now, but Tsugo wasn't listening. All the Enlightenment philosophy and samurai training in Nippon couldn't hide the fact that he was being crushed to death.
The monster leaned further over his prey now, steadying himself with his right hand on the rock next to Tsugo, while his left pushed harder and harder against the samurai's chest plate. Any moment now the armor, strong as it was, would cave in and he would be crushed.
And then the spirit voice spoke again.
It didn't tell him anything he hadn't already known, but it was still a gift. Tsugo's own wisdom, being fed back to him from someplace where there was no battle, no injury, nor even time as he knew it. Somewhere where a spirit could observe the scene at leisure, and then gently remind Tsugo of what he needed to do.
Your enemy's strength. Use it against him.
With blinding speed and a battle shout, Yanigasawa Tsugo drew his wakizashi and plunged it with all his might into the wang-liang's right hand. The wound instantly healed, pinning the creature's hand to the stone beneath.
The giant screamed in agony, the pressure on Tsugo's chest lessening just enough for the samurai to roll away to his left. On his feet in a flash, Tsugo ran towards where his katana and the latajang lay. By the time he reached them, the wang-liang's screams were louder than ever as the giant attempted to yank the samurai's short sword out of its own flesh.
Tsugo yanked his weapon free, spun around at blazing speed and rammed the blade through an Ikeda bushi who had been about to take that prized weapon for himself. Paying him no further heed, Tsugo looked back at the wang-liang just as the spirit giant freed his hand with a final shriek of pain. The creature's black hair swirled around its head like smoke as it glared at the samurai with an unholy fury.
Tsugo didn't need the voice anymore. As he held his sacred weapon in his hands, staring at his monstrous, nigh-invulnerable opponent, he knew what to do.
He knew exactly what to do.
Tsugo turned and ran.
It seemed as if a thousand people had paused in mid-battle, observing in a hushed awe as one of the bravest samurai ever known to them ran for his life.
The effect had not been quite that dramatic of course, but it seemed that way to Tsugo as he ran in seemingly random patterns. First left and then right, all the while dodging, ducking and weaving to avoid a collision with anyone. From the delay before he had heard the bellow of the wang-liang again, even the spirit giant had paused briefly in astonishment before setting off after him.
Tsugo knew the wang-liang was faster. He knew he'd be caught eventually.
For now though, the samurai ducked low as he ran, ignoring the cries of "Coward!" and "Traitor!" that were beginning to fill the air around him.
Left, right. Straight now, then left again.
He glanced back. The wang-liang had grabbed a naginata from somewhere and was following him, gaining slowly as Tsugo expected. The giant's face held a mixture of disdain for his adversary's inexcusable cowardice, and glee that soon revenge would be his. The monster's red eyes were focused only on his quarry.
Left, straight aways, now right.
With a scream, a bushi suddenly leapt out at Tsugo from the crowd. The Yanigasawa samurai paused only for as long as it took to parry aside the attacking spear and take off his opponent's head with a sweep of his katana.
It wasn't until after he had started running again that he realized he had just slain a fellow Hojo warrior.
Tsugo shook his head sadly. It couldn't be helped. He did not stop running.
Just as the crowd thinned out, Tsugo stopped dead and whirled around, his bloody katana held out for battle.
He was where he wanted to be.
As the mob of warriors melted away from them both, the wang-liang slowed, out of breath just as Tsugo was. The two warriors glared at each other.
Into each other.
Tsugo's smirk was so minute, someone standing right next to him might not have even seen it.
It was unknown whether the wang-liang did, or whether it was simply impatient for the kill. With a scream of anger and triumph, it came charging at the human, its weapon poised for the kill.
Yanigasawa Tsugo stood his ground.
He sheathed his sword.
And at the last moment, he sprang forward, tucking himself into a ball as he rolled. He came out of the somersault directly in front of the giant's left leg even as the point of the naginata pierced the back of his armor. Tsugo paid no attention as to how deeply it might have penetrated. He concerned himself only with his hands, one clamping on above the wang-liang's knee, the other below, pushing with one while pulling with the other.
In a fraction of a second, Tsugo's knowledge of anatomy and his knowledge of the laws of momentum came together.
The giant cried out in surprise as it went pitching forward. No stranger to unarmed combat itself, the wang-liang relinquished its grip on the naginata and rolled gracefully forward, somersaulting unhurt back into a standing position, and then whirled around again to face the samurai.
Now many people actually had stopped fighting. Hojo and Ikeda alike stared in wonderment at the scene before them. No one wanted to miss this.
The wang-liang, breathing hard, a contemptuous sneer upon its face.
Yanigasawa Tsugo, reaching around and tugging the naginata free from his back. The samurai's violet eyes surveyed the weapon's tip casually, as if trying to determine whose blood that might be coating the tip. He then tossed the spear to the ground. Tsugo made no attempt to draw his katana. He merely stood there, arms crossed, gazing at the wang-liang with an oddly serene expression.
The giant drew himself up to his full height as he prepared to advance. "Baka!" he roared. "Stupid human! Your fear has lost you the respect of your men! What did all that gain you, coward?"
Tsugo raised an eyebrow, the way he always did when he felt a question had an absurdly simple answer.
"About twenty feet."
A tentacle of fire encircled the wang-liang from behind.
The giant shrieked and roared. He turned invisible and then reappeared, shrinking back to human height. Nothing made a difference. The fiery rope implacably lifted him high into the air and then down. The wang-liang's roars did not cease immediately. One lava-covered hand, once again giant-sized, even managed to grasp the top of the pot before the flesh melted off of it and it slid back and out of sight.
An Ikeda archer, staring slack-jawed at this sight, was the first casualty of the battle's second half as Yanigasawa Tsugo suddenly appeared beside him and slid his katana through both of the warrior's lungs. That sent the Hojo side into a frenzied explosion of aggression as, their faith in Tsugo restored, they tore into the Ikeda.
The battle was still far from over, but it was at least equal again. Tsugo spared no more than a glance for the volcano pot suddenly shattering into pieces behind him or for the small, horse-shaped black cloud he could now see galloping away in the sky, no doubt carrying Goboro the Lame.
He spied a fellow Hojo samurai galloping nearby. Tsugo, who had been "dehorsed" early in the battle, merely had to bark out a command. The samurai nodded and dismounted, swinging off to the horse's right even as Tsugo grabbed the reins and leapt into the saddle from the left.
Yanigasawa Tsugo plunged back into the thick of battle, heading towards the northeast. He grinned. For the moment, all was as it should be again. The Hojo were with him. They knew now that he was no traitor.
No traitor.
Traitor.
"Traitor!"
The others recoiled again.
Yanigasawa Tojo, that terrible expression still locked on his face, stared into the past.
"Traitor!" he shouted. "Uragirimono! Traitor!"
With a visible effort, Tojo managed to wrench himself back into the present, but his body was still trembling violently.
"Rosuko Jingoshima- uncre of Arihito-sama. He stand there by shoji, pointing at me- shouting."
Tojo's eyes dropped again to the floor.
"I not think there be any magic protecting oroyoi," the samurai said quietly, a bitter grin barely visible on his face. "I think threat of dishonor more powerfur than any magic. I wrong of course. There some type of sirent ararm- arert Jingoshima. He is shaman for Rosuko househord. He just stand there, shouting at me. I can do nothing. I know he is right. I am uragirimono."
Tojo didn't say anything for a while. His face had gone white, his expression slack. When he did finally start speaking again, his voice was dull and devoid of inflection.
"I am in shock. I know what I have done, but I do not say why. They wood not risten if I do. I know this. I do nothing until they reed me away at sunrise, to the mansion of my daimyo, where I wirr face judgement."
And when Yanigasawa Tojo finally raised his head to look again at his friends, it was with as sad and defeated a face as they had ever seen him before.
"I- I never even get to see the oroyoi that Arihito-sama crafted for me."
The samurai's voice shook worse than ever before. One hand clutched the front of his yukata robe.
"I hear rumor, though- that my Oroyoi- be disprayed in speciar prace."
His eyes opened as wide as they could go.
"As warning- as warning to those who wood be disroyar- they say it- so accursed..."
The tears fell freely.
"That no one is arrowed to touch it!"
And Yanigasawa Tojo, for the first time in his life, crumpled to the floor and cried.
The samurai wailed. He cried, he bawled, and it was made worse by the fact that he kept trying to stop himself.
His seven best friends sat or stood as still as statues.
But the tears fell down their faces just the same. Every one of them.
Caroline leaned forward.
"Tojo," she whispered.
Tojo suddenly shot up to his feet.
"What have you done?" he cried.
"Please, Tojo!" Caroline cried out, unable to stop herself. "We didn't mean to-"
"Rook at me! See what I have become! Tears are not for samurai! This is shamefur! I shood not have ristened to you!" he shouted, whirling around to face Aslan now.
"You arone know at reast some of my ways, Asran! Rook at what I have become! I am nothing! I am-"
But Tojo couldn't continue. The samurai staggered backwards, finally grasping onto a table. He slowly lowered himself over its surface until he was clutching the far end with his hands.
He kept himself facing away from the others, but he couldn't hide his sobbing.
Elrohir looked up to Aslan. The paladin looked as he did when he had refused Caroline that trip to Willip. His friend's heart was breaking right in front of him, and nothing- not his Talent, not his faith, nor his skills, could stop it.
"What have I done, Elrohir?" Aslan said softly, turning to face his party leader. "I- I thought this would help. I thought this was his only chance."
Elrohir hesitated a long time before replying.
"It probably was, Aslan. It probably was. We took that chance- and we lost. I never knew," the ranger said, shaking head. "I never knew the burden Tojo carried all these years, and even when we found out, back in the stockade, I didn't know how- different Tojo was from us."
"He's not," Caroline said.
The others looked at her.
Argo smiled but said nothing.
"Tojo is just like us," Caroline repeated as she rose to her feet. "He has a heart, just like us. And it's a good heart. It's- it's noble and pure. Tad saw it, and he was right! No matter what he says, I know Tojo doesn't want to die! He may be ready to die, but he doesn't want to!"
"She's right," Talass added. "Tojo's lived in a bubble all this time. He can't understand our ways, so he's isolated himself from them. It worked because we never tried to get through to him."
They had all come together in a tight knot by now. "We think Tojo is strange sometimes," offered Cygnus soberly, "but he's trapped in a world that's just as strange to him- ours. And he can't go back. He's trapped here forever."
"We're not licked yet," said Argo. "All of you, get back to your places. We're going to see this through. We owe Tojo that much."
The others, seeing that Tojo was at last beginning to compose himself, hurried back to their assigned positions.
And as Tojo, his face a grotesque mockery of his former calm, slowly settled himself back into lotus, Talass shot a quick look over at Argo, on her left.
"What makes you think we even have a prayer at this, Argo?"
This time, Bigfellow's pained smile was genuine.
"We're adventurers, my good lady," the big ranger replied out of the corner of his mouth. "That means we're too damn stupid to know when to quit."