The ridge

"Watch the flank!" I was shouting. "Watch the right flank!"

"Captain! The line!" someone hollered in my ear.

I spun my head wildly around. A bullet zipped past my temple and buried into the ground behind me. There! The line was breaking to my left. "Central line, fall in to the left! To the left!"

But it was too late. The right flank was folding, the left line was already a gaping hole and large, ox-like Amanto were breaking through with eager grimaces on their ugly faces.

"Retreat! Formation, formation, quickly," I screamed. I snaked my arm around one man, I had no idea who he was, and jerked him backwards. The front line started to implode in a more or less orderly fashion, fighting off the offensive while skipping backwards thought the knee-deep mud. We were being pelted by bullets. The ground exploded into flowers of dust and shrapnel on all sides of us. They were aiming too low, merely herding us rather than hitting us, but they would get a better lock on in a moment, I knew as much. We needed to get away. I looked around wildly. I was missing the right flank. The whole right flank was cut off. At least twenty men. Who was in charge of the right flank? I couldn't remember.

"Captain, take us to the ridge!"

"What?" We were retreating upwards and to the right, towards the forest.

"The ridge, captain!"

I finally realized who was talking to me. Katsura's young face was soiled and his hair matted to his forehead. His armour was slick with dirt, and his overcoat splattered with all the juices of the battlefield. His voice was the same as always, however, even and cultured.

"Are you mad?" my other lieutenant, Kuramoto, shouted back. "They'll drive us downhill in seconds!"

"Grenade!" the scream disturbed our conversation.

All of us hit the ground rolling blindly in different directions. There was a zip when the projectile buried into the earth, followed by a smack of thunder. My hearing was hollowed out by it, echoes of the world spinning somewhere at the centre of my head. The man I had been dragging on my shoulder was lying halved next to me. They'd fixed their aim, the bastards.

"Shit," I hiccoughed, and got to my feet. "Formation! We need to get out of range now!"

"Go to the forest!" Kuramoto, still alive, was shouting, "Now, Captain!"

I ignored him. "To me! All to me!"

We regrouped in the nick of time, moving upwards as quickly as possible. The oxen clashed against us. Kuramoto was on my left, slashing and hacking without grace or form. Katsura was three men down, dripping blood from his ear and doing the same.

I wished for a moment to think. I wished I could see the right flank. Who had been leading them? If we went to the forest, the standing order was to disperse. The right flank would be as good as dead. And we had done so well! We had managed to blow up the enemy's depot, a whole shipment of weapons and supplies! The main forces under Itou had provided a diversion several miles to the East while we punched a back door, letting Takasugi blaze through the building with his commandos.

My blade caught one Amanto right along the neck. He gurgled with a stunned expression on his unhandsome face, and fell onto me. I stumbled backwards. One of my men supported me, and together we shook the ox off and over to his comrades. I felt pain in my side. Someone had caught me across the ribs.

"Fuck!" I hissed and pushed out my arm in vengeance. It was decision time! We couldn't engage the enemy any longer. Either they will break our line here, or they will retreat and let the artillery pelt us. Our only hope was to push them off long enough to make for the forest. It was a slight incline downwards. We would be quick.

But if they caught us there, we would be dead. Quickly.

I looked at the ridge, weighing out options. It was the highest point on our side of the battlefield and for the moment shielded from their long guns. It was a better place to push them off, but if the Amanto wrestled us from it, they would have taken the higher ground, and we would be dead. Even more quickly.

These were both bad options. I had learned early on that command was all about choosing between bad options.

Katsura was in my ear all of a sudden, as though he had read my mind. "Captain, please. Trust me, take us to the ridge."

I nodded, and hollered, "UP! Up, you bastards, let's go!" The shout broke over my men's heads like the crack of the whip and they began moving immediately.

I don't know why I had listened to Katsura. It must have been the hope that I would see my right flank from there. If nothing else, the Amanto were at least as surprised by my decision as I was myself, and this allowed us to take out another half a dozen of their big bruisers in the general shuffle. We heard them screaming out commands in that ugly, harrumphing language. I stretched my sword arm out left and right. My ribs gave a painful yelp and I had to force down a sudden urge to vomit, but at least my blade had connected to the underbelly of one ugly fucker. Alien guts spilled over my feet. While his friends stared in horror, Katsura took their heads off in a blitzing move.

"Captain," he pulled me up by my arm. Unfortunately, it was on the same side as my wounded ribs. I shuddered, head spinning from pain, and felt a spurt of blood warm my belly.

"Let's go! Go, go, go!" I insisted, as though these were the only words I knew.

My men started at a dead run and we were at the top with enough time to reform the line. Kuramoto and Katsura shouted out the standard commands while I continued to stretch my neck, looking for my other survivors. It was impossible to spot anybody. The wind had turned and thick smoke was enveloping us. It stunk of burning plastic, melting polymers, scorched gasoline. I smirked happily, observing our handiwork – the patchwork of destruction we had left in our wake. A giant pillar, one of the huge vertical harbours for their airships, was smouldering rubble. Takasugi had done well.

Eat that, you alien cunts, I thought. If I die here, it would have been a good death.

Off to the East, I could just see the dust of Itou's troops. They were on the retreat, their duties done. The forest boiled here and there from stray projectiles, encircling the battlefield like a receding hairline. Our forces were disappearing into it. Within moments, they would be gone, untraceable to the alien's technology, and hidden in the mountains.

All except the dead.

All except us.

Katsura was next to me, straining his neck. It finally occurred to me who had been commanding the right flank.

"Katsura," I began but words failed me. I wanted to tell him that it was all going to be alright. Then I wanted to tell him that if he had brought us here on some wild hope that his friend would see us on the ridge and rejoin us, he was a god damned fool. But Katsura hadn't brought us here, I had. I swallowed. "Fall in line."

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Everyone, fall in line! We will break the pursuers here and make for the forest as planned. They won't have the long guns on us for a while more!"

There was a grunt of acquiescence and grim determination. Kuramoto looked at me doubtfully, but his sword was steady in his hand. On my right side, Katsura was focused, young face serious.

"We have the high ground!" an encouraging scream rang out from my left.

"We have the cover of smoke!" I supplied. The men replied with a low "Ooh!" A resigned "Ooh!" I frowned.

"We are demons in the mist," someone else harrumphed.

The answer was louder this time, and closer to a jeer. I chuckled, but it was a hollow laugh. We could not see the oxen pursuing us and it was making us all nervous. They should have been on us already. We were losing momentum. I looked at Katsura. His eyebrows were drawn low onto his eyes. I had never noticed that they had a little bit of green in them. I wondered what would become of them by the time we were done here. Fuck!

"We are the rancheros, hoarding cattle!" another jeer came in. We laughed harder. "Out to make burgers!"

"Hellfire, I could do with a burger."

"A samurai does not eat burgers, you arse."

I missed Sakata. He would have immediately asked whether samurai eat pussy. His eyes were a weird burgundy. Where were they now? We could hear a thudding of footsteps but they were slow and deliberate, not the onslaught I was expecting and hoping for.

"Fucking hell," I hissed. The Amanto were smart and stopped to reorganize their troops before coming for us. They too understood the lay of the land. They understood that we had the high ground but that we were also cornered. They could take their time. The main forces had escaped them, but they would take out the hard-core guerrillas instead. We were a consolation prize.

And I had made a terrible mistake.

Kuramoto's eyes ran from me to Katsura. His defeated anger scalded me bitterly. The footsteps approached us securely, their rhythmic stomp telling me all I could not see. Smart, methodical sons of bitches!

"We have the moment," the shouts continued. We didn't, not really, but I joined in the "Ooh!" just for the sake of it.

"We have the mouth of hell at our backs!"

We so did. "Ooh!"

"We have the cock of hell up our asses!" a third shout sounded out, but I heard defiance in it.

"Whatever floats your boat!" someone heckled him.

"To each their own, Sakai!" another put in and my front line laughed.

Bullets started zipping past us. They struck some men on the far left. I could hear their screams. The Amanto could still not make us out completely but they were close, and the smoke was thinning.

"Formation! Shields together, shoulder to shoulder!" I bellowed.

The reply was another unison "OOH!" and this time it was loud and powerful. The way it was when we trained together.

A bullet passed by my right leg, scorching through a centimetre of skin, fat and muscle. I barely felt it. I gazed at Katsura and he was smiling serenely. The smoke was receding, and we could see the horns of our enemies. For a moment, the reminded me of the ancient helmets – the beautiful lacquered masks the samurai had worn in days of old. A peace came over me, and I realized something I had forgotten in this endless tag-game we were playing for our lives.

"We won today," I whispered. Then I said it more loudly. "We won today."

Kuramoto looked at me. His bitterness lifted and I saw him smile as well. "We won today," he repeated. "We won today!"

"We won!" the shout spread through the line like wildfire. "We won today! WE WON TODAY!"

"NOW FIGHT! Forward!"

At my command, the front line dove downwards a few metres from the top of the ridge to where the oxen had been joined by other Amanto races. They were ready for us, and we clashed over their shields like a wave did against the rock. They outnumbered us at least three to one, but I could not think about that. All I could think was the movement of the man to my left and the man to my right. My whole world was the music of our whistling blades, the meaty thuds of our shields, the lustful sighs of our breaths. My purpose was to find harmony in it, like a conductor did in an orchestra, so that I may kill.

We would die here today. The Amanto were too smart. They did not go after us immediately; they did not rush us while we had the forward momentum. Instead, they took their time to regroup and then waited for us to realize we would not be able to escape. Our enemy was too many, and too powerful. They must have thought despair would take our determination, and that they would be able to push us over the ridge as though we were little more than clay figurines.

I laughed wildly, plunging a blind sword into the wall of enemy meat. For all the blood they had drunk, they did not understand the first thing about us. They did not understand samurai.

They did not understand humans.

The man next to me stumbled. I pulled him up by the scruff of the neck and he protected my arm from a vicious sabre slash. Behind me, Kuramoto had jumped up, launching himself off of somebody's shield, and he pierced the Amanto line with a scream. I saw him whirl the blade around, cutting three in a single strike. The bullet that went through his chest was an insult to his bravery.

"Aaargh!" I yelled, throat hoarse. "Get him! Get him back!" It was a ridiculous order, but I wanted Kuramoto's body on my side of the line. We were dead anyways, so why not!

Katsura jumped up with me. Shoulders to the enemy shields, we punched a path between two large baboon-looking Amanto. They stumbled and our line swallowed them up behind us. Katsura cut straight through a third alien and slashed the chest of a fourth, while I pulled at Kuramoto and managed to sling him over my back. We stepped back into line. Someone stabbed at me but missed. The serrated blade hacked at Kuramoto's thigh instead. He screamed, still alive.

Well, he won't be for long. We were at the tip of the ridge now, the valley stretching just behind us. The smoke had cleared. I knew that in a few seconds, the Amanto would have recalibrated their long guns and we would be showered by bullets, forced downhill into the kill-zone. With Itou's forces gone, they might have even decided to reposition the heavy artillery and destroy us in one go. Two, three explosions at most and we would be minced meet, buried along with our flattened ridge.

Katsura hissed next to me. That same serrated blade had drawn a deep line down his sword arm.

"Yaaah!" he screamed. He feigned a retreat, drew the Amanto in, and stepped to the side with such speed I could barely follow him. His blade fell onto the alien's back heavily, burying into the spine. I protected his flank from a vengeful strike and then waited for the follow up, but none came.

They were retreating. This was it. Their main forces would begin the slaughter with the long guns now.

"This is it!" I shouted at Katsura. "We should make for the woods. Those who make it, make it."

"No," Katsura said. "Wait."

I shook my head. "Everyone who can walk, everyone who can run. Run for it!"

Even as I had said it, I knew I would not run. Somebody had to guard the rear. I was captain. But the others were soldiers. They did not need to die here. Only I needed to die here.

Nobody moved.

"Run, you stupid cunts!" I shouted. "RUN NOW! That's an order, god damn it!"

"NO!" Katsura screamed. "Captain, please, wait."

I sighed. "Katsura, they're not com-,"

And then I heard it. Screaming. It was not our men screaming, because the skirmishes were dying across the line as the Amanto fell back downhill. Where the screaming was coming from.

The smoke that had covered us had also fallen back downhill, but as it continued to slither further, the scene before me began to reveal itself. I squinted at it. The Amanto were all squinting the same way.

A handful of men – my men, my right flank! – were there, progressing quickly uphill. They were cutting through the Amanto line like a hot knife through butter.

No, they were not cutting through it. One man was cutting through it. The others merely finished off the leftovers, running to keep up with him.

Sakata's white overcoat was red, brown and black, like an abstract flag on his back. His hair was matted and rust-coloured with dried blood. His sword blinked in and out of existence as it cut through bone and metal, flesh and armour, skin and cloth. I stared with my mouth hanging open stupidly. The men following him shouted and grunted in a syncopated rhythm. I could hear them over the Amanto's screams. Sakata, meanwhile, did not make a sound.

More and more of the Amanto turned to try and stop the impossible onslaught. They condensed the line against them, forcing Sakata to slow down and the other men to fan out around him.

"Captain," I heard Katsura say urgently.

I pushed my sword into the air, ribs giving another pang, and shouted, "ATTACK!"

The answering call was so loud I heard nothing else for hours. My hearing only returned to me in the forest, shielded from view by the trees. Still alive.

I have been reading a lot of Bernard Cornwell lately and his Saxon stories set in 9th century Britain (bear with me, this has something to do with Gintama, I promise!), and his descriptions of battles leave me breathless and gasping loudly on the metro. I am already used to people looking at me as though I am one lipstick disaster from becoming the Joker, but Cornwell writes such vivid, accurate, dynamics descriptions that you feel as though you are there, panting in the shield wall. I wanted some of that in the Joui war (there, I told you I would circle back to Gintama eventually).

I took liberties with the way samurai really fought battles, but hey! Sorachi takes liberties with everything else already.

I am uncertain whether to continue this story or not. On the one hand, I feel this is standalone as it is. On the other hand, inspiration might strike, and I could write a third, even fourth chapter. I would very much like to hear your thoughts on the subject. Cheers.