At first they went at a walk to spare him extra pain, but he moaned in frustration and beat his hands against the chest of the man carrying him, so they urged the horses into a canter: it was as if the colts sensed the new gravity of their riders, and they went forward sweetly and smoothly, as gently as mares with foals.
A stream flowed from the spring, and for a little while they followed the slight depression it made between the rounded slopes. The sun was lowering toward the west and their shadows rode before them, long and deep. The stream widened and flowed more slowly, and suddenly they were in cultivated land, small fields cut from the limestone, diked and filled with the river’s silt, where the young seedlings glowed green. The horses splashed through the shallow water, but no one came out to grumble at the damage to the plants. The air smelled of smoke and something else-charred flesh and hair and bone. The horses flung up their heads, eyes huge and nostrils flared.
Shigeru drew his sword and all of them followed, the steel blades sighing from the scabbards in unison. Harada turned his horse in response to his guide’s bloodied hands and rode to the left along the dike.
The fields were the outermost of a small village. Hens were scratching on the banks, and a wandering dog barked at the horses, but otherwise there were none of the usual sounds of village life. The horses’ splashing sounded astonishingly loud, and when Kiyoshige’s gray whinnied and Shigeru’s black replied, their neighs echoed like a child crying.
At the far end of the dike a small hill, hardly more than a mound, rose abruptly among the flooded fields. Its lower half was covered in trees, making it look like a shaggy animal, and craggy gray rocks crowned it. Their guide signaled to them to stop, and by his contortions indicated to Harada to dismount. He gesticulated toward the other side of the mound, holding his hands to his ruined mouth to tell them to be silent. They could hear nothing except the hens, the birds, and a sudden crackling sound like branches breaking. Shigeru held up one hand and beckoned to Kiyoshige. Together they rode around the side of the hill. Here they saw steps cut in its side, leading up into the dark shade of oaks and cedars. At the foot of the steps, several horses were tethered to a line between two trees; one of them was trying to tear leaves from a maple. A guard stood near them, armed with both sword and bow.
The horses saw one another and neighed. The guard immediately took aim with the bow and let the arrow fly. He shouted loudly, drew his sword. The arrow fell short, splashing into the water near the horses’ feet. Shigeru urged the black into a gallop. He had no idea who this sudden enemy was but thought he could only be from the Tohan. Their own Otori crests were clearly visible: only the Tohan would attack them so boldly. Kiyoshige had his bow in his hand, and as his horse broke into a gallop alongside Shigeru’s, he turned his body sideways in the saddle and let the arrow fly. It hit the other man in the side of the neck, finding the gap in his armor. He staggered and fell to his knees, clutching vainly at the shaft. Kiyoshige passed Shigeru and cut the horses’ lines, shouting and flailing at them to scare them away. As they splashed off through the fields, kicking and squealing, their riders appeared, leaping down the steps, armed with swords, knives, and poles.
There was no exchange of words, no challenge or declaration, just the immediate grappling in battle. They were equal in numbers. The Tohan had the advantage of the slope, but the Otori were mounted, could withdraw and attack with speed, and in the end the horsemen prevailed. Shigeru killed at least five men himself, wondering as he did so why he should end the lives of men whose names he did not know, and what fate had led them to his sword, late in the afternoon of the fifth month. None asked for mercy when the outcome became clear, though the last few remaining alive threw down their swords and tried to run through the shallow water, stumbling and slipping, until the pursuing horsemen brought them down, and their blood drifted across the sky’s peaceful reflection in the fields’ mirror.
Shigeru dismounted and tethered Karasu to the maple. Ordering some of the men to gather the bodies and take the heads, he called to Kiyoshige to come with him and began to climb the steps, sword still in his hand, alert to every sound.
After the clashing and screaming of the short battle, the hillside’s usual sounds were returning. A thrush was calling from the bushes, and wood pigeons cooed in the huge oaks. Cicadas droned plaintively, but beneath all these everyday noises, beneath the rustle of leaves in the breeze, something else could be heard-a dull moaning, hardly human.
“Where’s the man we brought?” Shigeru asked, stopping on the step and turning to look back.
Kiyoshige called to Harada and the soldier came running. The tortured man had been removed from his back, but his clothes and armor, even the skin of his neck, were soaked in his blood.
“Lord Shigeru, he died during the battle. We laid him down out of harm’s way, and when we returned, his life had left him.”
“He was very brave,” Kiyoshige murmured. “When we find out who he was, we will bury him with honor.”
“He will surely be reborn as a warrior,” Harada said.
Shigeru did not reply but went on up the steps to discover who it was the man had sought so desperately to help.
Just as the sound had been hardly human, so the bodies that hung from the trees were barely recognizable as men and women-and, he saw with a searing mixture of disgust and pity, children. They hung head down, slowly circling in the smoke of the fires lit below them, the skin swollen and roasted, eyes bulging from reddened sockets, pouring useless tears that the heat dried instantly. He was ashamed of their suffering, that they could be treated worse than beasts, that such humiliation and pain could be inflicted on them and they still remained human. He thought with a strange longing of the swift and merciful death brought by the sword and prayed that such a death would be his.
“Cut them down,” he said. “We will see if any can be saved.”
There were fifteen in all-seven men, four women, and four children. Three of the children and all the women were already dead. The fourth child, a boy, died immediately when they lifted him down, as the blood flowed back into his body. Five men still lived, two because their skulls had been opened to stop the brain swelling. One of these had had his tongue torn out and died from loss of blood, but the other could speak and was still conscious. Once he had been strong and agile. His muscles stood out like cords. Shigeru could see in his eyes the same gleam of intelligence and strength of will as he had seen in their rescuer. He was determined this man should live, that the other man’s fortitude should not have been in vain. The remaining three were so near death it seemed kindest to give them water and end their suffering, and Kiyoshige did so with his knife, while the conscious man knelt with joined hands and spoke a prayer that Shigeru had never heard before.
“These are Hidden,” Irie said behind him. “That is the prayer they use at the moment of death.”
When the dead were buried, while it was still light, Shigeru went with Irie to the top of the hill where the Tohan heads were laid out before the entrance to the shrine. The place was deserted, but signs of their enemies’ encampment were still evident-stores of food, rice and vegetables, cooking utensils, weapons, ropes, and other more sinister instruments. He gazed impassively on the dead, while Irie named those he recognized from their features or from the crests taken from their clothes and armor.
Two were, surprisingly to Shigeru, warriors of high rank: one, Maeda, closely related to the Iida family through marriage, the other, Honda. He wondered why such men should defile their reputation and honor by participating in torture. Had they been acting on Iida Sadayoshi’s orders? And what were the Hidden that they aroused this vindictiveness and cruelty? His mood was somber as he descended the steps again. He did not want to sleep near the shrine, tainted as it was with torture and death, and he sent Harada and some other men to look for alternative shelter. The one survivor of the atrocity was being looked after in the shade of a camphor laurel that grew on the bank. Shigeru went to him; fireflies were beginning to glitter in the blueness of twilight.