Chapter 14 - The Living

“The Way of the Samurai is found in death.”

- Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Hagakure.

The first Grey Feeder reached the courtyard and raised its blood-slicked face toward the fighting platform, while behind it the dead harvest of the previous day appeared to be crawling home. Shimon drew his katana as the orange notification disappeared from his vision. 

Then the evil thing lunged toward the nearest soldiers, and the courtyard below dissolved into such complete confusion that Shimon no longer possessed the attention necessary to resent the System, or whatever it was, that seemed to be controlling his life.

A Satomi spearman thrust from behind a rain barrel and struck the creature through the chest deeply enough that the yari point emerged beside its shoulder. The wound would have killed a man almost instantly, but the yōma barely acknowledged it before seizing the shaft in both elongated hands and dragging itself to the soldier. An archer upon the fighting platform opposite loosed an arrow that disappeared almost to the fletching beneath the creature’s collarbone, yet the Grey Feeder merely turned toward him with the irritated twitch of something struck by an insect.

The lower enclosure had become a confusion of firelight, frightened men, loose animals, and things that should never have existed. Flames climbed from the western storehouses and had spread to the roof of a nearby barracks, illuminating the compound. Enemy arrows crossed the light from beyond the lower gate, while Satomi and Imagawa archers upon the battlements fired both outward and inward. Some of the archers shot at the attackers beyond the fortifications, while others loosed hastily whenever they caught sight of something grey and unnatural moving among their own soldiers.

The result was disastrous. Arrows struck yōma without reliably stopping them, while men already struggling against creatures that ignored mortal wounds were forced to avoid friendly shafts coming down from above.

A saddled fukuiraptor tore loose from the animal lines, its reins dragging beneath its neck as it shouldered one soldier aside and nearly overturned a brazier. Three handlers pursued it, but the frightened predator vanished between two burning buildings before any of them could catch the bridle. Somewhere farther below, something considerably larger gave an enraged bellow that rolled across the enclosure and briefly rose above the din of the fighting. Shimon looked over the castle and finally understood the shape of the disaster.

The army that had captured Kawamori-jō in organized companies had separated into four rough concentrations. A large body of infantry remained at the lower gate, where the constricted approach prevented the Hōjō outside from using their numbers properly and allowed the defenders to hold, at least for the moment. Other soldiers remained upon the walls. The largest surviving concentration was gathering around Lord Imagawa, Nagai, and the command standards, while knots of men fought yōma wherever the creatures had appeared among the buildings. The monsters wreaked havoc among the common rank-and-file troops who had to use their numbers to cut them down. Added to this, the monsters themselves seemed to be emerging everywhere.

One Grey Feeder climbed from behind an overturned wagon, another appeared between two storehouses, and a third seemed to rise directly from the ground beside a cookhouse before falling upon the nearest soldier. The last sight was sufficiently strange that Shimon stared for several moments before his chip enlarged the movement and identified the rectangular edge beneath the creature.

The yōma had not risen through the earth itself. It had climbed through an opening concealed beneath it.

[VISUAL ANALYSIS]

Ground disturbance detected.Timber-framed opening identified.Estimated dimensions: 1.4 m × 0.9 m.

The creature pushed aside a heavy timber panel that had been covered with packed dirt, rushes, and scraps of old matting. Beneath it opened a black passage broad enough for a Grey Feeder to crawl through on hands and knees, and twenty paces away another section of apparently undisturbed ground shifted as something pressed against it from underneath.

“Tunnels,” Shimon breathed.

Nagai turned toward him. “What?”

“They are coming from beneath the castle,” the young man explained slowly.

The senior retainer followed his pointing hand just as another concealed hatch rose near the southern wall and a long grey arm appeared through it. The realization hardened Nagai’s expression, while Lord Imagawa nodded in understanding.

“Hōjō passages,” the grey-haired lord concluded bitterly.

“Perhaps,” Nagai replied. “Or passages prepared by whoever held the castle before we took it. Either way, someone knew they were here.”

The implication required little elaboration. Hōjō infiltrators had entered during the night, set fires, attacked the command quarters, and attempted to kill Imagawa and Nagai, while an army struck the gate and concealed passages released yōma into the captured fortress at almost exactly the same time. These could not be coincidences.

Below them, a group of perhaps twenty spearmen attempted to surround another Grey Feeder, although they attacked as individuals rather than a formation. Two thrust too early, another hesitated, and the creature slipped between their points before seizing one soldier around the waist and throwing him against a plaster wall with enough force to break bones.

“The standard,” Nagai remarked, his attention moving away from the fight. “They need to see their lord.”

Imagawa understood immediately.

His command standard had survived the assassination attempt because its bearer had been sleeping in another structure, and the frightened man now stood near the inner gate surrounded by several household guards. At Imagawa’s gesture, he hurried forward and raised the pole until the lord’s device opened above the platform.

“Higher,” Imagawa ordered. “If they cannot see it through the smoke, it is nothing but expensive cloth.”

The bearer obeyed, lifting the standard until it could be seen from much of the lower enclosure. Imagawa stepped directly beneath it, drew his sword, and waited while Nagai instructed the guards around them to strike the butts of their spears against the wooden platform.

The first blows sounded unevenly, but more men joined until the pounding developed into a heavy rhythm that carried across the compound.

Imagawa raised his blade.

“IMAGAWA LIVES! YOUR LORD IS HERE, SO HOLD FAST!”

His voice travelled remarkably well.

Men below looked upward, and the household guards immediately repeated the cry while pointing toward the standard. Nagai moved beside the lord and raised his own sword toward the Satomi banners still flying above the captured walls.

“YOUR LORDS LIVE! CLOSE YOUR RANKS AND REMEMBER WHAT YOU ARE!”

The effect was not magical, but in that very moment he understood immediately why armies had carried standards and banners for thousands of years. Soldiers who had started retreating slowed because the men beside them slowed as well. Officers found their voices again and began to rally and direct their men.

Fear remained, as did the Hōjō outside and the yōma within, but now that fear had been given a modicum of purpose.

Lord Imagawa lowered his sword only after the shouting spread beyond the inner enclosure. “Morichika, what do you see?”

Nagai studied the castle before answering. “The lower gate is holding because the Hōjō cannot bring enough men through the approach at once, although it will not hold indefinitely. The men on the walls are wasting arrows inside the castle, while the main body is gathering here because they can see your standard. The scattered companies are losing men because most have never been taught how to fight these creatures.”

Imagawa nodded. “My retainers?”

Messengers began calling names through the crowd, and the surviving household officers gathered beneath the raised banner one by one. Two were already fighting yōma in different quarters of the castle, another commanded the lower gate, and the remainder arrived with armor stained by unnatural blood, their expressions ranging from controlled anger to poorly concealed fear.

While they gathered, Shimon found himself standing near the priests.

Chief Priest Noritsuna and Abbot Ryōzen had not stopped chanting. Noritsuna held the haraegushi before him while the white paper streamers trembled through repeated movements of purification, and Aya stood close beside her father with her naginata still in hand. Ryōzen worked steadily through a strand of prayer beads, his voice low enough that much of the chant disappeared beneath the clash of weapons and the shouting from the lower enclosure.

Something beside the Buddhist priest caught Shimon’s attention. There appeared to be nothing there, yet the tightly packed soldiers had somehow left a large empty space beside the abbot. Men forced themselves shoulder to shoulder everywhere else, squeezing through openings barely wide enough for armor, but whenever someone approached that particular patch of ground he hesitated for no obvious reason and changed direction.

Shimon studied the darkness more carefully. The fire behind them should have illuminated the place, but a large patch of shadow remained beside Ryōzen and seemed to shift in a manner that did not quite agree with the surrounding flames.

“Heita.”

The scar-chinned warrior stood several paces away with his wounded arm bound tightly across his chest. Aya’s original dressing had been added to after their return to Imagawa’s quarters, but fresh blood had already soaked through the cloth around his shoulder.

Heita followed Shimon’s gaze and became completely still.

The young man looked at his companion and whispered, “What do you see?”

The spiritually sensitive warrior swallowed before answering. “A dog… or the shadow of one.”

Shimon glanced again toward the empty space. “A dog? How big?”

The other man shrugged. “Large enough to be a monster.”

“Tell me of it,” the young man insisted.

Matsunaga gave him an expression suggesting that the middle of a siege was a peculiar time for another supernatural inquiry. “Its shoulder reaches almost to Ryōzen-sama’s waist. It is black, although not black in the way hair is black. It is hard to explain, but the tail is important. It has not one, but two.”

Shimon instructed his chip to construct an overlay using Heita’s description and anchor it beside the abbot.

[REQUEST RECEIVED]

Constructing speculative augmented overlay.Source reliability: Human verbal description.Confidence: Low.Rendering as non-physical annotation.

A crude canine shaped thing appeared at the edge of Shimon’s vision, little more than translucent thing occupying the space the soldiers refused to enter. He adjusted it while Heita continued describing what he saw.

Shimon added texture based upon Heita’s description, allowing the chip to render the surface as moving shadow rather than ordinary fur, and the result was disturbing enough even though he knew perfectly well that he was looking at an approximation assembled from another man’s testimony.

Heita stared between Shimon and the empty ground. “Is that thing in your head showing it to you?”

“An approximation of it,” Shimon concurred.

Ryōzen continued chanting, entirely unaware that Heita believed a monstrous black dog stood beside him.

A soldier moved toward the space, shivered suddenly, then took a longer route around the priest without understanding why. Shimon instructed the chip to record the location and model, but nothing further appeared. There was no identification, no supernatural classification, and certainly no explanation for why the presence apparently followed the Buddhist cleric.

Under the circumstances, another unexplained invisible creature felt almost routine. Today felt very much like a Tuesday now for Ayanokouji.

Lord Imagawa’s voice cut across the command group.

“You,” he ordered, pointing toward a hard-faced retainer whose helmet crest had been split during the fighting. “Take command of the walls. I want no more arrows fired into this enclosure unless a man can clearly see a human enemy. These creatures do not die properly from arrows, and I will not have our own men shot in the back while fighting them.”

The warrior bowed and departed with several messengers.

Imagawa turned toward another officer. “Half the men gathering here will reinforce the lower gate and the approaches to the walls. Keep the Hōjō outside, and protect the backs of the archers above so they can concern themselves with enemies beyond the castle rather than those inside it.”

Another bow followed.

“A quarter remains around the command standard as reserve, and they move only on my order,” he added.

Finally, the grey-haired lord looked toward Nagai. “The rest are yours, Morichika. You have spent enough of my ally’s money teaching men to kill monsters, so tonight you may demonstrate whether any of it was worthwhile.”

Nagai regarded the yōma fighting across the castle. “I would have preferred several weeks to instruct them.”

“Do it,” the lord insisted simply.

The senior retainer’s expression moved by perhaps half a degree before he called the hunters together.

“Those capable of standing, here.”

They gathered beneath him. Fujita was absent, and Shimon felt the missing place in the formation immediately. The younger castle retainer should have been beside Seki, but instead his body lay outside Nagai’s chamber where he had died fighting.

Perhaps he was happy; after all death and honor were what the samurai of old lived for and died for. They had an obsession with death.

However, Kagawa remained alive. Two guards had carried him down after wrapping thick cloth around his ruined face, and the previously one-eyed warrior now sat against a wall while furiously resisting everyone who attempted to examine what remained of his sight. The original hunting unit had numbered ten men divided into two cells of five. Fujita’s death left nine alive, although Heita’s shoulder meant there were fewer in any condition to fight.

Nagai looked across those who remained and allowed his gaze to rest briefly upon the place Fujita should have occupied before continuing, “You know how these things die, while the soldiers around you do not. Each of you will take men and teach them the simplest version of what Ishikawa drilled into you until you were sick of hearing it.”

He pointed toward a Grey Feeder struggling against several spearmen below. “Do not chase individual creatures, and do not become heroes. Build a wall of yari, keep the enemy at distance, and once it is fixed in place, the cutting weapons go to work. Three spears can hold a creature if the men behind them possess discipline, five are better, and ten leave considerably less room for disaster.”

His gaze moved toward Shimon’s ōdachi. “The blades remove limbs if the head cannot be reached, and they take the head as soon as an opening appears. The men around you will be frightened, which means they will forget complicated instructions. Give them simple ones and make them obey.”

Nagai divided the hunters by direction. Seki received a western detachment, while members of the second cell were sent north and south. Heita protested when he was assigned the eastern quarter as a leader rather than a fighter, but the senior retainer cut him off before the argument developed.

“You cannot brace a spear with one arm, nor can you swing a naginata properly while bleeding through your bandages,” Nagai reminded him. “You can, however, tell twenty frightened men what they are looking at and stop them from doing something stupid. Tonight that is more useful.”

Heita plainly disliked the conclusion, although after a moment he bowed.

Shimon and Tarō received the southwestern enclosure, where the fires were spreading around the storehouses. Tarō’s mouth tightened slightly when Nagai gave the instruction, and Shimon suspected the older Kume had not forgotten that during the assassination attempt Shimon had begun issuing orders as though command had been assigned to him by divine mandate.

Before the detachments departed, the priests moved among them and offered what protection they could. Noritsuna passed the haraegushi before each group while murmuring a brief prayer, and Ryōzen’s deeper chanting continued behind him as the outline of Heita’s black dog followed his movements.

***

Pages came forth while the warriors waited, armoring them quickly in the garb of war even as the fighting continued. Battles, however, were not short affairs, and a castle assault against resisting and now prepared defenders even less so.

Aya approached after her father finished with Shimon’s detachment. Her eyes moved across the blood on his armor before returning to his face. 

“Come back alive,” she said softly.

The young man gave her a wry grin. “That is the current plan.”

The miko regarded him with enough severity that he immediately recognized the inadequacy of the answer. “Then make it a better plan.”

Tarō turned his face away, but the movement of his shoulders suggested that he was suppressing laughter.

Heita approached while the soldiers assigned to him were gathering. The wounded warrior used a borrowed yari more as a walking staff than a weapon, and the blood showing through his bandage made Shimon wonder how long stubbornness alone could keep him upright.

“Good fortune, Ayanokouji,” he nodded grimly.

They exchanged a final nod before moving toward different quarters of the burning castle.

***

The route toward the western storehouses revealed how much damage had been caused. A dead archer lay across a water trough with his bow trapped beneath him, while two saddled fukuiraptors had backed themselves into the corner of an animal pen and snapped at anyone approaching. An overturned arrow cart had scattered shafts across the road.

Nagai had given Shimon and Tarō thirty-two men, most of them ashigaru carrying yari. Four had loan-swords suitable for finishing work once the spears fixed a creature in place, while two possessed naginata, although one admitted that he had never used the weapon before. Still, a blade on the end of a stick was a blade on the end of the stick.

“Spears forward, three ranks where the road allows it, and leave enough room that the man ahead of you can recover without colliding with everyone behind him,” he instructed. “When something reaches the line, you are not trying to kill it yourselves. Your task is to stop it moving long enough for someone with a blade to do that.”

Several men understood immediately, while others hesitated until Tarō pushed through their ranks and began correcting positions physically.

“You heard him. Yari forward and points where you can see them,” the experienced spearman growled. “If the spearhead is behind another man’s backside, it will contribute very little to either your survival or his.”

At this forceful instruction, the formation improved rapidly.

The fire around the storehouses was considerably worse than it had appeared from the platform. A group of perhaps forty soldiers had become trapped between two burning buildings, where three Grey Feeders attacked from different directions. One of Imagawa’s lesser retainers stood among them, recognizable by better armor and the remains of a personal standard, and he was attempting to restore discipline while simultaneously defending himself.

Unfortunately, his men had reached the point where fear screamed louder than rank.

A Grey Feeder seized one spearman and dragged him out of line, causing the men nearest him to fall backward and opening a gap that another creature immediately began approaching. Shimon shouted for them to form upon his detachment, but the noise swallowed the first attempt.

Tarō drew breath and demonstrated that professional gaming had never exposed Shimon to the true upper limits of human vocal volume.

“SPEAR WALL! FALL BACK TO US AND FORM BEHIND THE LINE!”

Several soldiers turned immediately.

“Open the center,” Shimon ordered. “Two lanes, and close them once the survivors are through.”

The front ranks divided sufficiently to create narrow channels. Frightened men ran toward them, followed closely by one of the Grey Feeders, and the moment the final soldier crossed the line Tarō struck the ground with the butt of his spear.

“Close and set!”

The yari came down.

The yōma struck before the formation had settled completely, and three points entered its body at different angles. The impact forced the front rank backward, but the second leaned into them and braced the shafts, while a fourth soldier drove his yari through the creature’s open jaw.

One shaft snapped when the Grey Feeder seized it and twisted, but the others held long enough for Tarō to enter from the side and drive his own spear through the creature’s thigh.

Shimon moved as soon as the leg was pinned, bringing the his large sword down in a heavy diagonal cut that began through his feet and hips rather than his arms, exactly as Matsuda had forced him to practice hundreds of times. The blade entered the neck but failed to sever it completely, so he recovered, adjusted the angle, and struck again before the creature could pull itself free. The head fell.

You have slain a Grey Feeder.

7 experience gained.

Several soldiers stared at the body until Tarō’s voice returned their attention to the battle. “There are two more, so admire your work after they are dead!”

The second yōma arrived from behind the burning storehouse, although this time the spear wall had already formed. The first rank absorbed the charge while the second reinforced it, and once the creature became trapped among the points, one of the naginata men reached across the shafts and cut deeply into its forearm.

The Grey Feeder screamed, which frightened the soldiers badly, but Shimon shouted for the man to strike again and the next cut opened the neck. Two swordsmen joined him, hacking into the trapped creature until it dropped beneath the spear points.

You have slain a Grey Feeder.

5 experience gained.

The third attempted to climb across the formation rather than pass through it. A soldier thrust upward and caught it through the abdomen, after which more spears joined until the creature hung across a thicket of shafts. Shimon removed one arm, Tarō drove his weapon through the hip, and the remaining men attacked the neck until the yōma stopped moving.

A trickle of experience flowed into Shimon.

The entire fight had occupied perhaps a minute, yet the surviving soldiers looked as though they had endured an afternoon.

The Imagawa retainer forced his way toward them with blood running from beneath the edge of his helmet. “Ayanokouji?”

Shimon bowed quickly. “Yes.”

The warrior looked from him to the dismembered yōma. “That was… well done.”

Shimon glanced toward the burning structure. “Where did the creatures come from?”

The retainer’s expression darkened. “The storehouse. We heard movement beneath the floor, and then one of the boards lifted. There are steps below, or so one of my men shouted before the first creature killed him.”

The young man’s brow furrowed. “You burned it deliberately?”

“I ordered oil poured through the opening before we withdrew. Whatever passage they used can burn with the building.”

The decision was brutal, but Shimon could not find much fault with it under the circumstances. Except, of course, possibly burning down the entire fort with him and his companions in it.

Tarō studied the storehouse for several moments before looking toward him. “Someone should remain here. If the fire fails to close the passage, those things can come through behind everyone we just sent away.”

“We were ordered to stay together,” contradicted Shimon.

The other man shook his head. “We were ordered to clear this quarter.”

The older Kume’s expression remained stubborn, and Shimon understood that the disagreement contained more than immediate tactics.

Shimon, undiplomatically, gasped in exasperation. “I am not trying to command you.”

“You do not seem to be putting much effort into that.”

There was neither time nor safety enough to resolve the larger issue. Shimon looked toward the wounded soldiers who were beginning to withdraw toward the command group and then toward the blazing storehouse.

“Keep fifteen men here and hold this passage. I will take the others toward the animal quarter.”

Tarō raised an eyebrow. “That sounded remarkably like another order,” he stated obnoxiously.

Shimon just looked at him as if he were an alien. A stupid alien.

The surviving Kume turned away, then looked back before Shimon could leave. “Ayanokouji, do not get yourself killed while I am elsewhere.”

“You too.”

Tarō grunted and began arranging his men.

***

Shimon heard the triceratops before he saw it.

A deep bellow rolled between the animal sheds, followed by the crash of timber and a human scream. His reduced detachment reached the opening between two storage buildings and stopped at the sight of the enclosure beyond where the enormous herbivore occupied most of the available space.

One of the ropes from its harness still trailed behind it and had become tangled around the shattered remains of a feeding rack. An arrow protruded from the thick scales high upon its flank, while another had lodged in one shoulder. Neither wound appeared immediately dangerous, or even harmful, but the animal seemed rather put out by something.

Shimon would soon get his answer.

As if in slow motion, a Grey Feeder moved in front of it, and the triceratops lowered its head and charged. The young man’s biochip captured everything in exquisite detail.

Unlike every rational animal Shimon had ever encountered, the yōma made no attempt to avoid several tons of angry prehistoric reptile. The horns struck it and carried the creature across the enclosure before crushing it against an earthen wall. When the triceratops backed away, the yōma fell in two pieces.

Unfortunately, the great animal then stepped upon a wounded Satomi soldier who had been unable to crawl clear, and Shimon heard the bones break from across the enclosure. The young man found his modern sensibilities and winced.

Another Grey Feeder had climbed onto the side of the dinosaur and clung to the harness while slashing repeatedly at its neck. The triceratops spun, tossing its head and shoulders until the creature lost its grip and flew into the plaster wall of an animal shed. The yōma struck hard enough to break part of the structure and it did not rise.

Shimon watched with growing disbelief. The creatures did not behave like predators interested in survival. They attacked men, animals, and anything else that moved regardless of the danger involved. A rational predator should have avoided the triceratops entirely, yet the yōma seemed almost drawn to the violence the creature held.

Across the enclosure, perhaps thirty soldiers were trapped behind an overturned cart and several broken sections of palisade. Two Grey Feeders moved between them and the nearest exit, while the angry dinosaur made any direct attempt to reach them suicidal.

Shimon studied the ground and realized that the safest solution was not to approach them at all. “We form three ranks, and leave two lanes through the center.”

The soldiers began arranging themselves, but one man stepped forward before Shimon could correct the uneven spacing. He was perhaps forty, broad through the chest, with a narrow moustache and a faded jingasa tied securely beneath his chin. His equipment was ordinary ashigaru gear, although every cord had been repaired properly.

More importantly, one glance at the formation appeared sufficient for him to understand what Shimon wanted.

“You heard Ayanokouji-sama,” he called. “First and second files shift left, third file right, and leave two passages wide enough for running men to pass without tangling our spears.”

The soldiers responded immediately.

Shimon looked toward him. “Your name?”

“Okabe Genpachi, kumi-gashira under Matsui-sama,” the other man replied curtly.

A squad leader. That explained the voice.

“Can you make them hold when the creatures reach us?”

Okabe looked toward the approaching yōma before answering. “I can make the first man hold. The second will usually dislike being embarrassed in front of him, and after that shame mixed with discipline becomes the glue.”

Shimon almost smiled. “That will have to do.”

He stepped forward far enough that the trapped soldiers could see him and raised the ōdachi over one shoulder.

“RUN TO US! PASS THROUGH THE GAPS AND KEEP MOVING!”

The trapped group hesitated until one of the Grey Feeders reached the overturned cart. The soldiers broke toward Shimon’s formation, dragging their wounded wherever they could and abandoning those they could not carry quickly enough.

The first survivors forced themselves through the prepared lanes while Okabe controlled the waiting ranks. “Hold the gaps until the last men pass, and do not close early because you are frightened!”

The final soldier reached them with a yōma several paces behind.

“Close left!”

Men shifted.

“Close right, then set!”

The spear butts struck the ground.

The Grey Feeder collided with the formation and drove four points into its body. One spear slid aside, while another shaft snapped when the creature caught it and twisted, but the second rank moved forward without instruction and added their points to the challenge.

“Good!” Okabe shouted. “If it wants you, make it climb steel!”

More spears entered the creature.

Shimon attacked from the side, cutting through one leg below the knee, and two swordsmen descended upon the neck as soon as the yōma collapsed. By the time the second monster reached them, the men had already begun learning the rhythm.

A trickle of experience flowed into Shimon. So tiny that he barely noticed the orange screen, his mind focused completely on the busy work of killing.

That creature came behind the last group of survivors and struck an armored retainer who was helping a wounded soldier toward safety. Shimon saw the arm move, a killing blow, but was too far away to intervene.

Okabe had already begun turning the formation. “Front rank around, second rank brace behind them!”

The yōma struck at an angle before the line had completely settled. Two men went down, and another died when the creature’s claws opened his throat, causing the soldiers behind him to waver as blood struck their faces.

“Stand where you are!” Okabe roared, catching a retreating soldier across the back with the shaft of his yari. “If you run, the man behind you dies in your place.”

The frightened ashigaru stopped, and thankfully the men beside him stopped as well.

Shimon reached the trapped creature and put the ōdachi down. The blade cut deeply but caught against bone when the yōma twisted, spoiling his aim. This left the weapon lodged in its shoulder while one elongated arm reached toward him.

A spear entered beneath the creature’s jaw.

Okabe leaned his weight against the shaft. “Again, Ayanokouji-sama!”

Shimon wrenched his blade free, and brought the next cut through the neck. He did not need to be told twice.

You have slain a Grey Feeder.

You have gained 8 experience points.

By then the third creature had recovered from its collision with the wall and started moving toward them, just as the triceratops turned.

The yōma happened to stand directly in the animal’s path. The great herbivore lowered its horns, and Shimon experienced the brief and deeply irrational impulse to feel sorry for the smaller monster.

The triceratops charged and struck beneath its ribs with enough force to throw the Grey Feeder completely over the roof of a low animal shed. The creature vanished beyond the building, while the dinosaur continued forward until it managed to stop itself.

A handler emerged cautiously from behind another structure. “Shizuka!”

Shimon looked toward him, briefly surprised that something capable of demolishing walls and turning men into paste had been given such a gentle name.

The handler approached with both hands raised while repeating the animal’s name in the low, patient tone used for frightened beasts. A second handler emerged from the opposite side and another followed, and between them they slowly the creature without presenting themselves directly in front of the horns.

The triceratops continued breathing heavily, but its head gradually rose while the horns stopped sweeping from side to side. Within several minutes the handlers had recovered enough control that the animal no longer threatened everyone in the enclosure.

Okabe wiped blood from his cheek and watched them work. “Useful beast.”

“It has killed our men as well.”

“It has still killed more yōma than most soldiers tonight,” came the other man’s sardonic reply, and that observation was difficult to dispute.

As the surviving infantry began moving toward the main body, Shimon looked back at the triceratops and found an idea forming. The animal had battered open Kawamori-jō’s gate during the assault.

The Hōjō now held that same approach from the outside.

Perhaps the solution to getting out of the castle was the same one that had allowed them to enter.

***

By the time Shimon returned to Lord Imagawa, Kawamori-jō had not become safe, but enough order had been restored that a good natured liar could avoid calling it a death trap.

The reserve had formed around the command standard in a broad circle three ranks deep, with yari directed outward and wounded men, priests, messengers, and officers protected within. The archers upon the walls now fired almost exclusively beyond the fortifications, while the lower gate had been reinforced heavily enough that the Hōjō remained confined to the narrow approach.

Nagai’s hunter-led detachments had also begun producing visible results. Dismembered yōma lay across several sections of the enclosure, some pinned beneath broken spear shafts and others reduced to pieces by frightened soldiers.

Unfortunately, however, soldiers lay among them. The method worked, but teaching men how to fight monsters during the battle itself required payment in blood.

Seki returned from the western quarter with perhaps half the men he had taken. One member of the second cell arrived limping between two soldiers, and Heita stood beside Nagai looking considerably paler than when he had departed. His assigned detachment had apparently cleared the eastern approach without much casualties.

Aya saw Shimon before he reached the inner formation. Relief crossed her face for only an instant before she mastered it, yet the expression was obvious enough even for Shimon.

Nagai met him near the command standard. “Report.”

“The southwestern storehouse passage is burning and guarded. We cleared the animal quarter, although there are more concealed entrances beneath it and probably elsewhere.”

“How many losses?”

“Eleven dead that I saw and considerably more wounded,” Shimon replied

“Kume?”

The young man grunted. “Holding the storehouse passage in case anything comes through behind us.”

Nagai accepted the answer with a short nod.

Shimon looked around the defensive ring before continuing. “We cannot keep doing this until morning.”

Lord Imagawa had moved close enough to hear him and turned toward the statement. “You recommend abandoning the castle we spent men taking yesterday?”

Several nearby retainers looked toward Shimon at once.

“I recommend refusing to let the Hōjō to kill us all in here,” he replied. “The hunter groups are working, but every engagement costs men, and we do not know how many tunnels there are or how many yōma remain beneath us. The fires are spreading, while the Hōjō are keeping us confined inside the walls.”

The grey-haired lord studied him for several moments. “The lower gate remains blocked.”

“The Mitsuzuno is under control again,” an officer stated.

Nagai understood first. “It broke the gate when we entered.”

Silence followed this pronouncement. Shimon quickly translated from the context; They could only be talking about the triceratops.

Shimon nodded. “It can break whatever the Hōjō have put in front of it now.”

Imagawa looked vaguely toward the animal quarter. 

Nagai folded his arms. “The larger baggage animals?”

“Some are loose, although several appear to remain in their pens,” Shimon replied, entering gaming mode despite himself.

The lord immediately summoned the officer responsible for the animal train. “How many heavy beasts can be made to move?”

The man hesitated. “The three-horns certainly, my lord. Two armored iron-tails from the engineer train may still be usable. One of the long-necks survived the first attack, although I cannot promise that it can be brought through the lower approach quickly enough.”

“How soon can the others move?” the senior retainer demanded.

“If the handlers can reach them, immediately,” the officer supplied, doing his best to project confidence.

Imagawa nodded once. “Then reach them.”

The plan developed rapidly because there were very few alternatives worth discussing. The heavy animals would strike the lower gate first, with the triceratops leading and the armored engineer beasts following behind. Once the Hōjō formation broke, the mounted troops would charge through before the enemy could close the opening, after which the infantry would follow by company. Lord Imagawa, Nagai, the priests, wounded officers, and the essential retainers would withdraw inside the protected center of the column.

No one spoke openly about the animals surviving, because everyone understood that they probably would not. The beasts themselves represented wealth on a scale that made ordinary livestock trivial. Years of feeding, breeding, training, handlers, specialized harnesses and equipment, and military preparation had been invested in them, while the triceratops alone was probably worth more than many of the soldiers surrounding Shimon would earn in their entire lives.

Tonight it would be expended like a battering ram.

The calculation was unpleasant, although it was also impossible to dispute. Several enormously valuable animals could be sacrificed to save hundreds of men, their commanders, and perhaps the army itself. Shimon noticed how quickly he accepted the conclusion and wondered, not for the first time, whether his adaptation to this world was something that should be nurtured.

Mounted dinosaur troops assembled behind the lower enclosure while the handlers prepared the heavy animals. Fukuiraptors stamped and hissed beneath their riders, responding to the smoke and fear around them, and several bore cuts or arrows from the fighting.

Kurobane was absent. Kagawa remained blinded, while his black-feathered mount had reportedly attempted to maul two men who tried to saddle it without its usual rider and had eventually been secured under heavy guard.

The infantry companies began forming behind the cavalry.

Nagai found Shimon while the final preparations were underway. “The hunters remain behind.”

Shimon looked at him. “How long?”

“Until the army clears the gate,” Nagai pronounced with an air of finality.

The meaning settled heavily between them.

Tarō had returned by then with smoke darkening one side of his face, while Seki and the surviving members of the second training cell gathered nearby. Heita also stepped forward, although Nagai spared a look toward the blood-soaked bandages around his shoulder.

“The special unit forms the rear guard,” the senior retainer continued. “The yōma will follow the withdrawing companies, and someone must keep them away from the column until the last formations reach the gate. You have been trained specifically to fight these creatures, which means the duty belongs to you.”

No one spoke for several moments. 

Nagai looked over them with an expression so controlled that Shimon understood how much the order cost him. “If I remain, Imagawa-sama loses the man currently organizing the withdrawal. If Lord Imagawa remains, the army loses the reason it recovered its discipline. If the priests remain, we risk knowledge we cannot easily replace. I will not pretend that any of this is fair, because fairness has very little to do with war, but I will tell you that I would take your place if duty permitted it.”

The naive part of Shimon actually believed him.

Heita stepped forward. “Then I remain.”

“No,” ordered their commander.

“I am one of the hunters.”

“You are wounded badly enough that another man would have to protect you while you attempted to fight with one arm,” Nagai explained. “Your knowledge remains useful, but your body does not. You leave with the priests and continue giving advice if the yōma reach the column.”

The scar-chinned warrior’s expression tightened.

Shimon attempted to summon the kind of fatalism that men in this world appeared to carry as casually as swords. “A samurai is supposed to consider himself already dead.”

Heita turned toward him with surprising anger.

“You are not dead, Ayanokouji. You are alive, and it is better to remain alive than to become like those things attacking us.”

He glanced toward the dismembered yōma scattered around the enclosure before looking back at Shimon.

“I do not know how this night will end, but I hope very much that I see you again before you cross the river.”

They bowed to one another. A small promise between two men who had fought horrors together.

Aya had heard the exchange, and her face had gone pale by the time she approached. “Ayanokouji-sama.”

Shimon looked toward her, and for once the young miko seemed unable to decide what propriety permitted her to say.

Finally she lowered her eyes. “Do not make me regret telling you to return alive.”

“That seems increasingly difficult to promise,” he responded with a grin.

Her gaze came up sharply enough to inform him that humor had been a choice.

Chief Priest Noritsuna placed one hand against his daughter’s shoulder. “We must go.”

Aya hesitated another moment before bowing. Shimon returned it, and when she turned away he watched her until the gathering troops hid her from view.

Tarō stepped beside him. “You are terrible with women.”

Shimon stared at him. “We have just been ordered to hold a castle full of monsters while everyone else retreats, and this is what you choose to discuss?”

“It may be your final opportunity to improve.”

Shimon almost struck him.

***

The signal for the breakout came from three heavy drumbeats followed by a horn. The Shizuka, the triceratops, moved first, leading the charge.

Its handlers ran beside it along the final approach until remaining any closer became suicidal, then released the guide ropes and scattered behind timber barriers. The enormous animal thundered toward the lower gate while the Hōjō outside recognized the threat and began shooting.

Arrows descended across its shoulders and back, only serving to annoy the creature. Then it struck the Hōjō barricade.

The defenders had erected carts, sharpened stakes, shields, and heavy timber across the damaged entrance, but the triceratops hit the obstruction with enough force that the front section seemed to explode. Men disappeared beneath horns and shattered wood, while others were thrown aside as the beast pushed forward through the wreckage.

The first armored ankylosaur followed, and another came behind it dragging part of an engineer’s mantlet that swept broken stakes and fallen men from the approach. Hōjō spearmen thrust desperately into the animals wherever they could, but the mass behind them continued forward and turned the entrance into a crush of bodies, timber, armor, and rampaging beasts.

Once the heavy animals entered the Hōjō formation, the cavalry charged. Fukuiraptors raced through the opening with their riders leaning low beneath raised swords and spears. One mount leaped across a broken cart before disappearing among the fighting outside, while another went down when a Hōjō spear entered through the chest and sent its rider tumbling beneath the animals following him.

Then the infantry moved. Companies surged toward the gate while officers shouted continuously for men to keep moving. Lord Imagawa passed within the protected central formation, Banken remaining close beside his leg despite the surrounding chaos, while Nagai rode nearby directing the movement of the troops.

The priests went with them. Heita walked near Ryōzen, and Shimon’s biochip still displayed the approximate black dog shape constructed from his description beside the Buddhist cleric whenever Shimon looked in that direction.

Then Shimon saw Aya. She had turned in the moving crowd and was looking backward toward him. Shimon raised one hand unconsciously toward her.

The withdrawing soldiers carried her toward the gate, and a moment later she disappeared among them.

The rear guard turned away from the retreat. Nagai had left roughly eighty ordinary soldiers under the surviving hunters, most of them men whose companies had suffered too badly to withdraw quickly or those who had “volunteered”.

Shimon found that Okabe Genpachi stood among them. 

He shook his head. “You could have left with your company.”

The squad leader checked the grip upon his yari. “My company has wounded men, and someone must give them enough time to reach the road.”

“That does not explain why it must be you.”

Okabe considered the question. “There appear to be many questions tonight without satisfying answers.”

Tarō gave a brittle laugh, while Seki gave a grunt that sounded vaguely approving. Then, the first Grey Feeders entered the enclosure before the infantry column had fully cleared the gate.

Shimon raised his ōdachi and called for the men to form the wall. Spears came down in practiced sequence as the creatures emerged from the eastern passage and two open tunnel mouths, while the cutters remained several steps behind the points where they could move toward whichever target became pinned.

The first yōma struck the front rank hard enough to drive several men backward, but the second rank reinforced them and prevented the formation from breaking. A spear passed through the creature’s neck while two more entered the torso, and once it became trapped against the shafts Seki stepped forward with his sword and opened the jaw.

Another swordsman attacked the knee. Shimon took the neck, and the creature collapsed before the second reached them.

Their movements were brutally simple because simplicity survived fear better than cleverness. The spearmen fixed the enemy, the cutters attacked, and everyone recovered before the next creature reached the line.

A Grey Feeder climbed across one of its own dismembered kind and struck the formation. Tarō caught it through the mouth, but the creature seized his yari and began pulling him forward until Shimon warned him to release it. Tarō immediately let go, Seki removed the offending wrist, and Shimon opened the neck before the yōma could recover.

Another came against the left flank, where Okabe shifted ten men without waiting for instruction and formed a second face to the wall before the creature arrived.

Still, men died despite the method. One spearman lost his footing and disappeared beneath a Grey Feeder before the second rank could replace him, and another had his face opened by claws. A swordsman attempted to reach a trapped creature before the spearmen had fully controlled it and lost an arm for his impatience. Nonetheless, the formation held because every man understood that the army was still passing behind them.

As long as soldiers remained between the rear guard and the gate, the men in the courtyard were purchasing time for someone else.

The currency was the currency of combat. It was blood and death.

***

Shimon eventually lost track of how many yōma they killed. The System occasionally displayed experience, but he stopped reading the messages because the numbers had become irrelevant beside the bodies accumulating around them. His long sword seemed to alternate between unbearable weight and unnatural lightness as exhaustion moved through different stages.

Somewhere along the way, even his attributes increased.

Tarō remained near him throughout the fighting. The surviving Kume had taken another yari from a dead soldier after losing his first, and blood covered much of the replacement shaft.

“Left!” he warned.

Shimon moved before the word fully registered. A Grey Feeder’s claws to pass through the place where his head had been, the talons scraping across his helmet, before answering with a cut through the elbow. Tarō drove his spear beneath the exposed arm, while Seki finished the creature from the opposite side.

For a brief moment the three men looked toward one another, sharing the exhausted recognition of something practiced successfully. Then shouting rose from the left flank.

Five yōma had emerged almost together from a tunnel near the burning barracks. The soldiers facing them gave ground. Okabe ordered them to hold, but one frightened man turned before the others could settle, and fear spread through the formation with the speed of fire through dry grass.

The line began folding, and Tarō moved toward the breach before Shimon could call him. Seki followed, and Shimon went after them.

One Grey Feeder slipped through before they restored the formation and seized a fleeing soldier from behind, while another creature came immediately after it and forced Shimon to intercept.

The ōdachi struck the first yōma across the shoulder. The blade caught against bone. Shimon pulled as the creature twisted, and the opposing forces travelled through the sword in a way that instantly felt wrong. Steel bent. Then steel broke.

The upper third of the ōdachi snapped away and disappeared beneath the struggling men.

For several moments Shimon stared at the ruined weapon with unreasonable disbelief. The enormous sword had once seemed inconvenient and faintly ridiculous, but after weeks of carrying and training with it, the blade had become a familiar presence. For a moment, he almost believed that they could hold a warrior’s soul.

The yōma possessed no interest in sentiment. No maudlin confusion. It lunged.

Shimon brought the shortened weapon across defensively and absorbed enough of the strike to remain standing, although the impact forced him several steps backward. Tarō appeared from the side and drove his spear through the creature’s neck, which allowed Shimon to hack into the jaw before Seki severed one leg.

Together they brought it down.

Tarō glanced toward the ruined blade while pulling his spear free. “Your sword appears shorter.”

Shimon did not dignify that with a response; wit had no place on the battlefield.

Now the gate behind them had begun to clear, and the greater part of the army was outside.

That should have meant a modicum of relief, yet the yōma only seemed to gather more densely around the shrinking concentration of living men. Perhaps the foul creatures understood that prey was escaping, perhaps blood and death drew them naturally, or perhaps something beneath Kawamori-jō continued directing them toward the surface. Shimon, however, was not in much of a position to care.

One of the hunters from the second cell fell near the eastern wall. Another received a wound severe enough that two soldiers dragged him toward the gate, while Seki took a cut across the back of his leg, almost hamstringing him. He continued fighting only through the raw grit that comes to men when life pushes them too far.

The ordinary soldiers began drifting toward the exit once the final large infantry company passed. No officer gave them permission. One man simply stepped backward, saw the open road beyond the gate, and continued. Another followed him, and then several more began moving.

Shimon could not blame them. They had remained long enough. They had done their duty. Longer, perhaps, than anyone possessed the right to demand.

“Go when you have an opening!” he shouted. “Keep together outside and do not block the gate!”

Some withdrew immediately, while others remained for no true rhyme or reason. Only perhaps that they had decided that this would be where they chose to fall.

The rear guard shrank steadily. Okabe eventually forced Seki toward the gate after the broad warrior’s injured leg gave beneath him. Seki protested, but four soldiers carried him away regardless.

Two other hunters had already fallen during the withdrawal, while another had been taken out with a serious wound. By the time the last organized group of infantry passed through the gate, only five members of the special unit remained in the immediate rear-guard position, including Shimon and Tarō, and the number would not remain five for long.

The yōma kept coming. Tarō saved Shimon’s life without warning, ceremony, or any opportunity for either man to appreciate what was happening.

Shimon was fighting one Grey Feeder with the broken ōdachi, stupidly forgetting to draw the katana at his side, when the biochip marked sudden movement behind him through his auditory senses. 

[HOSTILE MOTION DETECTED]

The warning flashed across Shimon’s vision almost too late to matter. Something struck him hard from the side and sent him rolling across the blood-soaked courtyard, but the impact came from Tarō, who had seen the Grey Feeder closing from behind and thrown himself into Shimon’s path.

The older Kume caught the creature’s claws across his side as he turned. The blow sent him staggering several paces away, crushing a portion of the plates of his armor. Shimon came out of the roll with the shortened ōdachi already moving, drove the damaged blade into the yōma’s shoulder, and recovered quickly enough to take the neck with his second cut.

The last Kume was still standing when Shimon reached him, although blood had spread beneath the broken armor and his knees were beginning to weaken. Shimon caught him by one arm and lowered him beside the remains of a cart. Shimon pulled cloth beneath the damaged armor and pressed it firmly against the wound. Tarō grimaced but kept still while two nearby soldiers came at Shimon’s call.

“You are going through the gate,” Shimon told him.

“When Jirō died, you saved me. I owed you a life,” he coughed.

Shimon glanced at the blood on Tarō’s hand. “Then consider the debt paid.”

Tarō held his gaze for a moment before releasing him. The soldiers took his weight and began carrying him toward the gate, while the older Kume looked back once through the smoke before disappearing among the withdrawing men.

Shimon returned to the line. His work was not yet done.

The rear guard had deteriorated badly during the fighting. Some soldiers withdrew whenever an opening appeared, while others remained because wounds prevented them from moving quickly or because comrades were still beside them. Seki had already been carried away after his injured leg finally failed beneath him, and several members of the second cell were gone as well, wounded or lost around the tunnel mouths.

What remained was a thinning line of exhausted men buying time for those already beyond the gate.

Okabe Genpachi stood near Shimon with perhaps a dozen soldiers, several wounded badly enough that they would need help if they were to escape. Blood ran from a cut above the squad leader’s brow as more Grey Feeders moved through the smoke between the burning buildings.

“The road is still open,” he warned. “If we leave now, we may reach the column.”

Shimon looked toward the gate, where the last wounded were still struggling through the retreat corridor, then back toward the approaching yōma. If the creatures reached the road before those men were clear, the withdrawal would collapse into another fight.

“We hold until they have more distance,” he said, finding iron he did not know he possessed.

Okabe nodded and ordered the remaining soldiers to tighten the spear wall.

Shimon looked down at the ōdachi in his hands. The broken weapon had lost too much length to retain its proper balance, and every movement now required correction from arms already shaking with fatigue. He sheathed it in his back-scabbard, the modified thing still a simply yet ingenious invention, before reaching for the katana at his waist.

His left hand settled around the scabbard while his right rested upon the hilt.

The chip opened another warning.

[PHYSIOLOGICAL STATUS]

Stamina reserve: Critical.Blood loss: Moderate.Muscular fatigue: Severe.Motor tremor increasing.Reaction reliability degrading.Recommendation: Immediate withdrawal.

His orange status screen reinforced the chip’s evaluation as he was down to nineteen out of twenty-seven health points, and fifteen out of twenty-five Stamina points affirmed this.

Shimon dismissed both displays as the Grey Feeders closed upon the surviving men. Okabe called for the first rank to set their yari, and the spear points lowered together.

Then the carrier wave struck. Pressure drove through Shimon’s skull and settled behind his eyes, swallowing the sounds of the courtyard until the cries of men, the din of battle, and the hymn of steel upon steel seemed to recede into a great distance.

[UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL DETECTED]

Signal strength: EXTREME.Neural interaction: ACTIVE.Foreign cognitive pattern detected.Motor-control conflict: Severe.

The castle slipped away, and Shimon stood beneath a colourless sky surrounded by pale reeds that stretched to the horizon. Wind moved through them in broad waves, bending thousands of stalks together, and somewhere beyond the field he retained the faint sensation of a sword hilt beneath his fingers.

He looked down at the dark soil beneath his feet and then across the empty plain.

“What is this?”

Several reeds separated halfway along their length and slid quietly into the grass. The Entity moved with the wind.

Use my seal.

The meaning entered his thoughts directly. Shimon felt his physical hand tighten around the katana somewhere far beyond the field.

“No.”

The wind strengthened, rolling outward until the reeds bent around him.

Do you wish them to die?

Images passed through his mind: wounded soldiers struggling toward the road, Tarō being carried through the gate with blood soaking his side, Aya disappearing among the retreating column, and Okabe standing with the men who had remained. Shimon understood what the Entity wanted.

“No.”

Then open…

Memory returned from the shrine with perfect clarity, bringing back the brush moving beneath another will, the altered pattern, and the hand position Noritsuna had never taught him.

The Closed Gate.

Shimon formed the seal with his hands, and across the field, the very wind ceased. Every reed stood upright beneath the colourless sky, and the sudden stillness seemed to stretch farther than sight.

Then the Entity spoke again, its voice travelling through the grass and through Shimon at the same time. I am the wind that carries the scythe.

He felt a build up of energy in the scabbard, a sense of explosive force. Far away, his sword left its sheath riding the sudden expulsion. Shimon felt the movement without choosing it. His right arm drew across his body in one smooth cut while his feet settled into a balanced stance.

A rush of air followed the blade, and dust lifted across the courtyard in a narrow line.

The nearest Grey Feeder remained several paces beyond the reach of the katana when the pressure struck. Its body opened diagonally from hip to shoulder, and black blood spread across the ground as the two halves separated.

Shimon felt the sword return to the scabbard. A smooth motion that was not his. He remained among the reeds.

“What are you doing?”

The wind passed around him.

Keeping them from what is mine.

“I am not yours.”

You opened the gate.

Somewhere beyond the field, another creature approached. Shimon felt his head turn before his body in the courtyard drew again, the katana travelling upward as a thin shriek of displaced air followed the edge. The Grey Feeder lost both arms before reaching the spear line.

The blade returned to the sheath, and the next draw took its head. Shimon experienced each motion at a distance, receiving only fragments of what his body performed: the pressure of the hilt, the shift of his feet, the whisper of steel leaving lacquered wood, and the sudden recoil of the air as the cutting force travelled beyond the sword. He was both in this strange world and in the castle courtyard near the gates. A strange feeling that was driving his senses mad.

“What are you?”

I am the wind that carries the scythe.

The phrase caught against something in Shimon’s memory.

“Kamaitachi?”

A current moved through the field with the unmistakable impression of amusement.

Names are nets that fail to catch meaning.

“That does not answer the question.”

I am older than the name.

Another distant draw passed through his awareness. In the courtyard, Shimon advanced at a measured pace while the soldiers nearest him shifted out of his path. His expression had settled into a distant calm, and the fatigue that had shaken his hands moments earlier disappeared beneath movements of exact and economical precision.

A Grey Feeder came from the side, and in response the katana flashed from the sheath. The cut ended short of the creature, but the air between them rippled and dust tore sideways across the ground. Both of the yōma’s legs separated above the knees.

Shimon stepped past it, returned the sword to the scabbard, and drew again. The creature’s head rolled across the earth behind him.

Okabe stared for a moment before forcing himself back to the remaining men.

“Give him room. Keep the road behind us clear.”

The survivors obeyed, their spear wall contracting toward the gate while Shimon continued toward the creatures appearing near the southern buildings.

Within the field, Okabe’s voice reached Shimon as a distant distortion.

“What happens when you are finished?” the ashigaru leader asked, even as the reeds rustled and moved around Shimon.

Three Grey Feeders entered the courtyard together.

Shimon’s body stopped. His right hand rested upon the katana while the left shifted slightly upon the scabbard. Again, there was the buildup of energy in the scabbard, and now the air around him had the actinic energy of the storm.

The creatures rushed him. Against his will, he drew. Such simple words could not truly encompass what truly happened. The movement began at the hips and carried through the shoulders until the blade swept across his front. A broad pressure wave travelled outward in a widening crescent, driving dust, ash, and debris before it.

The first Grey Feeder divided through the chest. The second lost its head and shoulder, while the third managed another two steps before its upper body separated from the lower. The blade of wind continued into the timber wall and split several boards along a narrow line.

Shimon returned the katana to its sheath, and felt a spike of satisfaction that was not truly his.

The yōma still moving through the enclosure began to recoil. One fled toward a tunnel entrance, another scrambled for the inner wall, while two retreated deeper between the burning buildings. The man who should not have been in this world was teaching them otherworldly fear.

Shimon’s body followed the creature moving toward the gate. His sword came free again, and the cutting wind crossed the enclosure before the Grey Feeder reached the road, severing both legs beneath it. The yōma moving deeper into Kawamori-jō continued into the smoke.

Okabe watched Shimon turn toward the road again and understood the pattern. Whatever guided the young swordsman was choosing its targets.

“Ayanokouji-sama,” he shouted, but the young man could not hear him in the place where he was.

Shimon continued toward the gate. His eyes remained open, focused somewhere beyond the men around him, while his breathing stayed slow and controlled.

Okabe approached once the last yōma near the road had fallen. “The way is clear. We are leaving.”

Shimon gave no answer.

The squad leader stepped closer and placed a cautious hand against his shoulder. Shimon shifted beneath the pressure and maintained his balance, but his eyes did not settle upon Okabe. One of the wounded soldiers murmured a prayer.

“A kami has touched him,” Okabe declared as he looked toward the man who was muttering a prayer that no god would listen to. “Help me move him.”

Two soldiers took Shimon beneath the arms and guided him toward the gate. His legs followed their direction with steady, measured steps while the remaining men covered the withdrawal behind them. Shimon walked with them through the shattered entrance and onto the road beyond Kawamori-jō.

The last mounted troops were already pulling away, and the retreating column had opened a considerable distance ahead. Several wounded men had been left on litters near the roadside while soldiers reorganized the final groups moving out of the castle.

Okabe found an abandoned empty litter and brought it forward. Shimon remained upright beside it, his eyes still fixed upon something beyond the road.

“Lower him carefully,” he instructed.

The men guided him down until his weight settled across the litter.

***

Shimon remained in the field, even as the sensations reaching him from the distant body weakened until the pressure of the sword hilt disappeared completely. The pale reeds surrounded him beneath the colourless sky, moving gently now that the violence beyond them had ended.

The Entity remained within the wind.

“Where is my body?”

Moving.

Shimon looked toward the empty, mournful horizon. “Then why am I still here?”

Because you have not returned.

“Return me.”

The wind moved across his face carrying the faint scent of rain.

Shimon looked down at his hands. “What do you want?”

Far across the plain, the reeds began bending in sequence until a long path opened through the field.

To be carried.

“By me?”

Through you.

“What happens if I refuse?” he growled.

The wind moved through the grass without answering. After a time, the colourless sky began to darken.

***

Cool water touched his forehead. Shimon opened his eyes to a blue morning sky and spent several moments watching it while the memory of the pale field slowly receded.

“Ayanokouji-sama?” came a semi-familiar voice.

Okabe walked beside the litter, one arm wrapped in blood-stiffened cloth. Around them, the army moved along a broad road in an exhausted retreat, its companies mixed by the night’s fighting while officers and mounted messengers travelled continuously along the column trying to restore order.

Wounded soldiers limped between baggage animals, while the remaining dinosaurs carried supplies and improvised litters. Somewhere behind them, distant horns continued to sound.

Shimon attempted to raise himself before the protest from his muscles persuaded him to remain where he was. “The breakthrough?”

“Successful,” Okabe replied. “The Hōjō tried to close the road, but the mounted companies kept it open until the last men were through.”

“The triceratops… I mean the Mitsuzuno?”

Okabe hesitated. “It keep on running. Perhaps it has found a fresh field to eat.”

Shimon closed his eyes briefly before continuing. “The other animals?”

“One iron-tail reached the road. I do not know what became of the others. But, they are hard to kill. Even Great Ones do not play with them lightly,” consoled the other man.

Shimon nodded faintly and turned to the people who mattered more. “Nagai-sama?”

“Alive.”

“Lord Imagawa?”

“Alive.”

“Aya?”

“The shrine maiden is alive and travelling with the priests.”

Relief loosened something in his chest. “Heita?”

“Alive.”

“Seki?”

“Wounded, but alive.”

Shimon waited a moment before asking the final name. “Tarō?”

Okabe’s expression eased. “Alive. He lost blood, but the wound missed anything vital. He has already complained about being carried.”

Shimon let out a slow breath and settled more deeply into the litter. For several moments, neither man spoke. Then the orange text intruded upon his vision.

[QUEST COMPLETE]

Knives in the Dark

Primary Objective Complete: Lord Imagawa survived.Optional Objective Complete: Nagai Morichika survived.Bonus Objective Complete: Slay 10 attackers.

[QUEST OBJECTIVE COMPLETE]

SURVIVE THE NIGHT.

Reward calculation complete.

100 experience gained.6 attribute points awarded.

Title Acquired:

SERVANT OF THE ENTITY [Blade and Wind (Air) affinities increased]

Shimon read the final words while the memory of pale reeds moved somewhere behind his thoughts.

The wind that carries the scythe.