30
Early in the fifth month, Shigeru left the city of Hagi with close to five thousand men. His father came with him. Lord Shigemori had his armor prepared and his warhorse brought in from pasture. The decision seemed to strengthen him, and he rode erect in the saddle, Jato at his side.
Shigeru had gone to Akane the day before to say good-bye to her. She had been strongly moved, had clung to him and wept, her usual self-control abandoned. His leave-taking of his wife had been much colder. He felt Moe was glad to see him go and would be relieved if he did not return, though her father and brothers would be fighting alongside him, and if he fell, they probably would too. He wished he was leaving children behind but then recalled that if he was defeated, they also would die, and he was relieved that he was to be spared that sorrow. At least Takeshi was safe at Terayama.
He rode alongside his father across the stone bridge a little before midday. Akane stood by her father’s grave, among the townspeople who had gathered to bid the army farewell. Shigeru’s eyes met hers, and on the far bank he turned to look back at her, as he had once before.
He had received messages from Mori Kiyoshige at Chigawa, saying the Tohan were amassing just over the border, as he had expected. There was no element of surprise in the attack. Everyone knew the battle was inevitable. The villagers along the road from Hagi were digging earthworks and mounds to protect themselves. Along the way, the army was joined by more retainers with their own armed forces. Others, such as Otori Eijiro, had traveled south of the ranges and through the pass known as White Pine Pass and they met up a week later on the western edge of the Yaegahara plain. A small range of hills extended into the plain, and on top of the most easterly one stood a wooden fort. The range curved around to the southwest road, and here Shigeru expected to find the Otori vassals from the South: the Yanagi and the Noguchi. He sent Irie with a troop of men to make contact with them and set up camp along the western bank of the small river that flowed north from the plain.
Messengers were also sent to Chigawa, where Kiyoshige was under instructions not to attempt to defend the town but to retreat to the plain, bringing the Tohan army into the encirclement of the Otori forces. The messengers returned with Harada, who informed Shigeru that all the indications were that the Tohan would advance as soon as dawn broke the following day. Their forces were estimated at around twelve thousand-outnumbering Shigeru and his vassals by three or four thousand. But the advantages of the terrain lay with the Otori: from midday on, the light would favor them, and they would be defending their own land against invaders.
The foot soldiers had all carried long wooden spikes with them, and these were now erected in lines of palisades to slow the attack and give cover to bowmen. As the sun set, the smoke from hundreds of small fires rose in the still air. The hum of the army, the noise of men and horses, drowned out the evening song of birds, but when night fell and the soldiers snatched a few hours of sleep, owls could be heard hooting from the mountain. The stars were brilliant, but there was no moon; toward dawn a mist rose from the river, and when day broke, the sky had become overcast.
Irie returned as Shigeru was eating, to tell him that Kitano had taken up position on the far east of the plain, concealing his men on the slopes of a wooded hill, and Noguchi was a little to the west of him, covering the road to the South. Yanagi and his sons were between Noguchi and Otori Eijiro, who was within sight of Shigeru’s main force. Shigeru remained in the center and sent his father with Irie to the eastern flank, beneath the protection of the wooden fort.
The men readied themselves: rows of bowmen and foot soldiers behind the palisades and along the banks of the river; horsemen with drawn swords, the horses restless and sweating in the still, warm morning; bannermen holding aloft the crested banners, the Otori heron seen everywhere, white against the deep blue background, together with the family crests of the vassals: the twin carp of the Noguchi, the chestnut leaf of Kitano, the galloping horse of the Mori, the willow leaves of the Yanagi, the peach blossom of the Miyoshi: here and there the scarlet and gold of decorated armor; helmets topped with ancient moons, stag antlers, or stars; and the flash of steel swords, knives, and lance tips. The grass was shooting new bright green, and flowers dotted it-white, pink, and pale blue.
Shigeru felt his heart swell with pride and confidence. He could not conceive that this magnificent army could be defeated. On the contrary, the day had come when the Otori would defeat the Tohan once and for all and drive them back beyond Inuyama.
In the distance, across the plain, a cloud of dust signaled horsemen approaching, and before long, Kiyoshige, Miyoshi Kahei, and most of their men rode up to the stockades. They had already had a taste of battle; the Tohan had taken Chigawa, and though Kiyoshige had retreated immediately as planned, the advance had been so swift and brutal they had had to fight their way through.
“The town is on fire,” Kiyoshige said. “Many of the townspeople were massacred. The Tohan are right behind us.”
His face was somber beneath the dust and blood. “We will win this battle,” he said to Shigeru, “but it will not be easy, or short.”
They clasped hands briefly, then turned their horses toward the East, as the conch shells sounded and the Tohan warriors came pouring across the dusty plain.
It was around the Hour of the Horse, and the sun had broken through the clouds and shone from the southeastern corner of the sky, making it difficult to see the Kitano and Noguchi forces clearly. Since the Tohan were passing in front of their position, Shigeru expected the attack of arrows from moment to moment. From the northwest he could see Irie’s men preparing to loose their arrows on the Tohan horsemen’s right flank.
“Why are they delaying?” he said to Kiyoshige. “They must move now. Ride to Noguchi and tell him to attack at once.”
Kiyoshige urged his gray black-maned horse, Kamome, into a gallop across the plain toward the South. The Tohan horsemen were still beyond bow’s range. The arrow that hit Kamome in the chest could not have come from one of them. It came instead from Noguchi’s archers and was followed by several more. The horse went down. Shigeru saw Kiyoshige leap from its back, landing on one knee and steadying himself before rising immediately, drawn sword in his hand. He did not have the chance to use it. A second burst of arrows came like a wave of the sea, dragging him under; as he struggled to get to his feet, one of Noguchi’s warriors ran forward, severed his head with a single stroke, lifted it up by its topknot and displayed it to the soldiers behind him. An ugly shout rose from their throats, and the Noguchi surged forward, trampling over the headless body and the dying horse, racing not down the slope in the direction of the advancing Tohan force but up the slope, along the side of the plain, outflanking Shigeru’s main force, pushing them up against the northern range, rendering the palisades useless.
Shigeru hardly had time to register anything-not the realization of betrayal, not grief at Kiyoshige’s death-before he found himself fighting for his life against his own clansmen, rendered desperate and vicious by their treachery. Afterward, scenes were engraved on his memory that would never be erased: Kiyoshige’s head separated from his body yet still in some way living, eyes wide in shock; the gut-aching moment when he had to believe his own eyes and realize he had been betrayed; the first man he killed in a pure reflex of self-defense; the Noguchi crest; then the replacement of his own shock by a fury unlike anything he had ever experienced, a blood-lusting rage in which all emotions left him, save the desire to kill the whole traitorous horde himself.