Death, the Maiden and War

"The forest is burning," murmured Ankoku. "What sort of engines of war do those bastards have to be able to set the very trees on fire?"

Now a multitude of varied, piercing gun-shots could be heard under the steady roaring of the cannons, all growing into an ever more nastier hiss, an impossibly wicked war cry.

"The rifles! Ten thousand of them at least!"

New tongues of fire leaped above the trees, hanging in the sky, sparks at first momentary, then dancing, then in showers of millions. Smoke drifted toward the house, assailing those at the window until their eyes prickled. The strange, nauseous odor -- a mingled reek of blood, dust, powder, sweat and terror -- grew heavier, ever more sickening as it approached.

"Listen!" cried Ankoku. "Don't you hear that? It is the thunder of horses! The cavalry is charging!"

Nearer rolled the battle. Sayomi began to hear, under all the dissonance, those of human voices: screaming, crying, shouting out commands. Dark figures began to appear against the background of pale smoke and blood-red flame; distorted, shapeless, without any logic to their movement. For a moment there were no humans left who struggled between the flames, only demons made of smoke with voices that sounded like the wild screams of the dying horses.

The heat of the afternoon wore on, gathered in their room, penetrating into everything. The floor, the walls, their bodies, everything grew sticky and damp; yet the three did not notice, even as the sword cuts on both Ankoku's arms reopened and stained the ends of her kimono. Already the world outside the window was strewn with the hideous dead. Unrecognizable, broken into a thousand pieces, bodies lost in the weeds that had once been warriors.

"The battle is dubious," muttered Ankoku at last.

"What do you mean, sister?"

"See how it goes this way and that? If one side was winning, well then, there would be no give and take."

Over in the north the scarlet steeples and pillars of fire united into one great sheet of flame that moved, with terrible speed, leaping from tree to tree, exploding into a wall of a million sparks. The lethal, loathsome stench increased all about them. A wind rose up, a fine dust of metal ashes and human bones sweeping into every possible crevice of the old house. It powdered the three women at the window, hung in the air as a thin mist, like a calculating, self-aware presence.

"They are all around us," Lady Anei declared.

Sayomi looked up. The battle had now made a complete circle about the house, from every point came the flashes of cannonades, rifles, the incessant spurt of heat lightning. The black trunks of the maples disappeared; silver guns sending off heat waves in the dark; the charging of battle lines; the fallen horses scattered in the undergrowth; sparks flying up in vast volumes. Bits of charred bodies from the burning forest, caught up by hot ash cyclones, began to fall on the roof of the old house, kept up a steady, droning pitter-patter like rain that crackled in the heat.

Hours had passed, suddenly Ankoku uttered a low cry. She could detect now the color of the uniforms. There on the right were samurai wearing the red chrysanthemums of the Emperor and Ankoku's hopes crumbled. The red chrysanthemums, reeling drunkenly about at every rifle crack, at every dying scream, were slowly being driven back. The blue-clad Tokugawa soldiers poured down upon them, forcing them to yield. Ankoku glanced at the others in the room. They, too, saw what she saw. She read it in the luridness of their faces, their cracked parted lips, the hopeless look in their eyes.

Hours passed. The battle shifted once more, hovering in the distance, fading against the black background as the day darkened. Twilight approached. The Tokugawa troops were thrust back, now the rebels gained the upper hand; for only a few feet, yet it was still a gain. nevertheless. Rebel commanders pushed forward. At the window the dense fine ash crept down the three watcher's throats, all coughed repeatedly. They were powdered with it, it lay upon their faces, hair and shoulders, a veil from the great fires. Not one of the three moved to brush it away.

"A shell passed near us," said Ankoku, then another screaming shell passed by, then others, all with malevolent rage. "And another. The battle is closing back upon us."

With the coming of the twilight the light in the forest from so many shrapnel shells assumed a surreal, unearthly color, all tinged at the edges with a burning white, ripped through here and there with violet, bluish streaks. It seemed now to contract its coils then spring upon the watchers from all sides.

Suddenly riders shot out from the heart of the battle fog, standing for a moment in a huddled group, as if not knowing which way they should turn. They were outlined vividly against the glow, their uniforms were of the red chrysanthemum. Riderless horses galloped out of the smoke behind them, their empty saddles a testament to the great numbers the cavalry had just lost.

A groan burst from Ankoku and she pointed with her good hand, "they are going to retreat!"

Then Ankoku saw something that struck her with dread and she fell silent for a moment. She knew those soldiers. Even at the distance many of the figures were familiar.

"My soldiers!" she cried. "Those are my soldiers!"

The riders in the twilight were still in doubt, although they seemed to be drifting away from the battlefield. A fierce passion lay hold of Ankoku, she saw her own troops retreating when the fate of the rebellion hang before them. She thought neither of her wounds nor of the two women beside her. Springing to her feet Ankoku cried, "they need their leader!"

Ankoku ran to the door, her armor forgotten, her hair undone, blood from her own wounds streaking her clothes. Lady Anei and Sayomi saw her rush across the open ground toward the edge of the forest where the cavalry lingered, seizing one of the riderless horses. Painfully climbing into the saddle, turning her face toward the battle, they could hear her shout to her troops: "Follow me! Long live the Emperor! Banzai!"

The night was thick, hot, rank with mists, mists, odors that oppressed throat, nostrils. The wind seemed to have died, yet the fine dust of ashes still fell, the banks of loathsome smoke aimlessly floated about. The horse that Ankoku had seized was that of a slain banner carrier, the banner of the rebel House of Satsuma still tied by a string to the horn of the saddle. Ankoku lifted it above her head with her one good hand and then, at the head of her riders, rode into the heart of the battle.