The Hand of Death

Chapter VII

"

War of the Wolf

"

~

by Shotoku Yoshio

~

After a little bit of conversation it seemed that Yoshio finally had enough of the Wajima House. He had spent the last year getting his people into position for war and was ready to commit.

All of us forgot about our dinner, except Daiki. He ate and took breaks from filling us in by finishing a very fine dinner of rice and fish. After emptying his bowl, again, he said,

"Yoshio has infiltrated every courier pigeon service in all five castles of the Wajima. He has also infiltrated the samurai of all five. And he has all of his ninja, with Onmyoji support, performing scouting duties throughout the entire Wajima peninsula. He plans to take their lands and make it a vassal of his in payment for their insult... The kid is my idol!"

He then reached for the dumplings.

I asked, "With all of that my lord, what was it he wanted from you?" He looked at me while he ate a dumpling. "You were there for almost three weeks. I assume there must have been some pretty important details he wanted your assistance with."

He nodded as he finished his latest bite. "Yes. Yoshio has plenty of samurai, around 100,000, and the Wajima only have access to about 30,000 so that is not the issue. But all of his ninja are in the field so he is requesting those from Daimyo Masao, Hiroki and myself. So you can see, Hiro san, why making, Li, look foolish earlier was a very poor idea." He smiled. "What with you going into battle together in just a few days." He ate another dumpling.

I quickly looked at Li. He was smiling at me. I picked up my bowl and tried to finish my meal.

No one in town knew anything about any of this, or if they did, they kept it to themselves.

Grandfather and I collected what things we would need and loaded them into large packs. Then one night we met up with Shogun Li and his 200 shinobi outside of town. He had been promoted to General for this operation. We traveled by night and in the deep woods all the way back to Shiro no Shotoku. We were to resupply discreetly and await orders once we were there.

I was surprised that Li took us with him once we arrived. We were dressed in our normal work clothes with no weapons showing, so we could just walk the road into the castle without drawing too much attention to ourselves. We were just three heimin coming in from the fields as far as anyone could tell. Once we were at the castle, Li asked for one of the guards he knew personally and we were escorted into a secret portion of the castle's cellars.

There were many familiar faces in the room from my time at court here. Grandfather took Li and myself around and made introductions for us to the other Shogun of Yoshio's army. The

conversation was light but serious and it wasn't long before Yoshio showed up. He was dressed in an exceptional Kimono, green and black with laughing Buddhas patterned on it. He made greetings to the majority of the room and stopped to see Daimyo Hiroki's Shogun, Fujibayashi Jito. He saved us for last.

"Shogun Li." He smiled and bowed. "Grandfather." He smiled and bowed. "Hiro san." He smiled and bowed. "I apologize for the accommodations gentlemen but I hear they are better than some you have had."

Li spoke. "They are quite appropriate my lord." He smiled.

We spoke for a few moments and then it was time to get to work. There was a large colored sand map in the middle of the room that we all gathered around while Yoshio called for our silence. The map displayed the peninsula of the Wajima and the portion of the Shotoku lands and Honshu lands just past their border. There were colored pins stuck in the sand across the entire map. Yoshio began to explain what we were looking at.

"The Wajima have stationed the bulk of their army just north of their border. Our forces will begin intercepting their resupply caravans tonight and will continue until it is time to attack. Our attack on this main force will come dead last. I fully intend to hold all five castles of the Wajima before we ever face this main force."

He looked around to make sure we all understood before he continued.

"For ease of communication I am assigning the castles by units. Shogun Jito for instance I would like you and your force to handle Shiro Yutaka here just across the border, while Shogun Li will capture Shiro Toyama."

Toyama was on the far side of the peninsula at its base, about 20 miles from where we were. It would take us a couple of days to get into position. Yoshio went on to assign castles to his forces while saving the honor of taking the House capital of Toshi no Wajima for Shogun Ryu and his force of 300 ninja from Goemon Toshi.

I remembered Ryu caught me stalking our former Daimyo. My arm hurt just thinking about it. Anyway, Yoshio would travel with Ryu and command the attack. The rest of us were to get into position and wait until the fifth night from now.

When the hour of the Ox was struck by the temples, then we would begin our attack. The hour of the Ox is from 1 am to 3 am. Yoshio had 80,000 samurai he could spare for the attack but these would be used to clean up what was left of the Wajima army along the border after 5 days of living off the land. Half of his samurai had orders to slip, by boat, around the enemy and form into lines just north of the Wajima forces. When we began our assault, they would in turn begin a march towards one another to press the Wajima forces into a vise.

Questions about details came up and were discussed. That night I learned about the dreaded 'what if's' that follow a war plan. We were there for hours. Come morning we ate breakfast and discussed some more before all of us went to get some sleep. The taking of Toyama was completely up to Li in regards to how it should be executed, but on our walk back to camp it sounded like he was looking forward to input from Sensei and his Taisa.

After a few hours rest we all woke and began our planning for the movement and the attack. There were several men in our unit who had worked in and around the castle as spies who helped immensely in planning everything.

The town sat in a small gulf. Because of this we all thought the best way to get there was to walk the Honshu territory to the far side of Wajima and float by board from the far point of the gulf back to the peninsula. This would help us to avoid the army in place along the border and hopefully approach the town from the one direction it felt safe. There were sparse woods throughout the peninsula that we could use for shelter and as a hideout from which to conduct scouting work on the castle. It would take us three days to get into position, which would leave us one day to scout the area and attack on the last.

Five days was not as much time as it sounded when I started looking at what we would have to do. We ate quickly and spent the day resupplying ourselves. We would only work at night so all of us slept that day in shifts to ensure we had guards ready to warn us. This wasn't really necessary here but you never knew when a Wajima commander might be bright enough to spy on Yoshio, and we would look very pathetic if that happened. Can you imagine? The great Shinobi of the Koga House discovered by some day loving Wajima scout?

Some of the men who had been there said there was a small Honshu village called Uozu. It was near our launch point for the float across the gulf. That night we began our quiet walk through the woods towards that village. The walk to Uozu was uneventful and we found a good hideout for the day in which to rest and eat. This was a fishing village so finding boats to steal was easy. We took two four- man boats to row while the rest of us were towed behind in a series of ropes and small logs. Being the great Shotoku Hiro I found myself floating with my pack holding onto a log for five miles worth of sea water.

Once we landed everything was taken and hidden so there was no trace of us coming ashore. We then walked two miles towards the town of Toyama until Shogun Li found the spot he wanted for us. Honestly, 200 ninja is still a lot to hide. Once we found our spot we rested and ate cold fish. Since we left Shiro no Shotoku there had been no talking of any kind. Everyone knew what they had to do so there was no need. Li would just point to someone and a direction and they knew what he meant. That's when It hit me. Right in the middle of my fish. I wouldn't be able to talk for another two days.

I should have brought a book.

The next night we separated into groups of two and slipped around the town to eavesdrop and spy on what the inhabitants were doing. So I was a little wrong. We did get to talk, when it was time to report. We found that the heimin were pretty much living as if nothing had changed. Many of the samurai had left but that was the only difference to them.

The Machi-bugyo and his men seemed a little more concerned about the coming battle or if there would be one. Many agreed with their Daimyo, that Yoshio lacked the courage for war, while the samurai who manned the wall all agreed nothing would come of this latest maneuver. Yoshio had simpered for over a year so it was obvious to them that he was not going to find the courage to fight now.

The 'Castle' was not much of a castle to speak of. It was a very large home with a privacy wall about 6 feet high. They had built a ledge to raise a man on the inside just high enough to shoot a bow over it, but it would not stop a legitimate attack and it certainly wouldn't prove to be a barrier to us.

The last part of that night we scouted deeper into the castle and found that the Yoriki had six Komono and four Goyokiki to protect the town. The Goyokiki were heimin policemen of a lower station. All of the Yoriki's Doshin and the rest had been drafted by the army. In the castle we found that instead of the 5000 samurai they normally housed we instead faced 500. Overall the attitude of the people of Toyama was one of boredom.

The next day was as dull as the last. Come nightfall when everyone went inside we became a little antsy. Nothing overt. As I looked around, people checked and double checked their equipment. They sort of fiddled with things as they waited. Or maybe that was just me. I tried to nap. A lot.

As the hour approached we got ready. Checked equipment one last time. Woke anyone sleeping and slid into position around the town. Some of us had been tasked with keeping the town under control while handling the Yoriki and his men. I was with Grandfather and the main force taking the castle.

When we heard the temple in town ring the hour we began to move forward. The wall guard were removed quicker than we had anticipated. When Yoshio's men in the castle saw us moving they used their own fukiya blow guns to eliminate the others with their poison darts. It was very quiet as we slipped over the wall. Once inside Yoshio's ninja removed their helms and put on hoods like us.

The majority of the mononofu in the town were sleeping at this hour either in rooms of the castle or with their families in the town. By this point all of the pigeons in the messenger service had been killed and replaced with animals trained to go to Shiro no Shotoku. Once that was completed we knew those ninja would don their hoods as well and begin to kill everything on the top floor of the castle with them. Including the Daimyo and his family. We quickly worked our way through a bloody gore on the first floor where the samurai had been sleeping.

We would enter the rooms and murder everything in it without exception. Yoshio wanted the entire family wiped from the face of Giapan and I did my share to help with that. I do not remember how many men and women I killed that night... but I remember every one of the children.

I did my best not to wake them or cause them any pain but they were still dead when I left the room. Whatever delusions about the glory of war that I may have humored before this night were gone by the time the quarter hour mark was tolled. We had slaughtered our way to the second floor where we met with Yoshio's spies. No stopping to talk. We just nodded to one another and began to clear the last remnants of Wajima in this castle.

I slid open the first shoji screen on that floor and went in. The suite housed an older samurai who was still asleep. Just after I slid a tanto into his head I heard a ruckus across the Castle from me. There were plenty of assassins between me and that room so I ignored it for now and moved on to my next target.

As I entered, the disturbance became greater over there. More than enough to rouse the samurai and his wife. He had just enough time to reach for his katana and retrieve it from its stand, but I was faster than he was and had sliced his head off before he had his drawn. On my return strike I decapitated his wife before she could scream.

The noise and screaming from across the castle became louder. It sounded like a woman yelling obscenities and the clash of steel. This couple before me had a son. He was very young and still asleep. I killed him.

That was the last one I had in me for this night. I cleaned my blade and put it away. There were more than enough ninja in the building to handle the rest so I went to investigate the noise. It took a few moments to move silent as a whisper over to the noise. What I saw was impressive.

One samurai-ko stood behind a small table that had been tipped onto one end. She had used it as a shield from weapons thrown at her. Meanwhile the katana in her hands had killed the four shinobi who had been brave enough to face her sword. She was glorious in that moment but she was currently facing Grandfather and Shogun Li. She did not notice me as I entered. They did.

"Hiro." Grandfather said in the same tone he used when we faced three bandits one day.

I walked towards the girl. She was only a few years older than I. I could see in her eyes the confusion as to why these two would send forward a boy in their place. I unsheathed my sword and pulled a dagger. They say the eyes tell you all you need to know about a man. All I saw in her eyes was determination. We were just about to begin when I heard the child behind her stir, an infant who had been sleeping until now... I removed my hood with my sword hand and looked at her.

"Put it down or I will have to kill the child." I said.

I'm not sure why she listened to me but after a moment of hesitation she turned her katana

upside down and stuck it into the floor. She must have been sure I was going to kill her as she did not look up for several moments. When she did, I motioned for her to retrieve the child who seemed to be hungry. She began to feed him. He was only a few months old. Li came over to me with Sensei.

"Hiro, Yoshio wanted all of them dead." he whispered.

I looked at him and said, "What is the point of being in the man's favor if I cannot abuse it a little."

They both nodded their consent. Grandfather escorted the girl and her baby to the porch at the front of the castle where our men could keep an eye on her while Shogun Li received the reports from the battle on how we fared. I took a moment to wash the blood from my hands. Once I had taken a moment to breath I retrieved her daisho of swords.

Her son was a hungry boy. He still ate even after the slow walk down from their room. The samurai-ko was trying not to cry after seeing all of the mayhem that had occurred while she was sleeping. Once we stepped out onto the porch I handed her the daisho she left behind.

"I expect you to keep this sheathed until this war is over, out of gratitude for your child's life."

She looked at me furiously but said, "Yes, Koga sama."

The night seemed to drag on. We were able to make a pallet for the girl and her baby on the porch while the rest of us cleaned up the mess that was the castle.

All of the peasants, heimin, hinin and eta were roused from their homes and put to work in the town but mostly in the castle. The town had fared pretty well. The killing had been very little. The Yoriki and his men were dead but most of their families lived as did the peasants. The monks had passed the night unmolested though they knew some kind of attack had transpired. There had been too many ninja passing in the night for there not to have been something going on.

We could see the fires near the border from Toyama and it looked bad. Soon we received

reports that all had gone as planned. The forces near the border were down to 20,000 survivors while the other castles had been completely wiped out. Yoshio had forced Daimyo Wajima Usagi to commit seppuku if he wanted his family and people to live. Usagi had complied. He had left behind two sons, both of which were less than five years old. Yoshio sent them to Shiro no Shotoku under guard.

Yoshio was leaving Shiro Toyama to Daimyo Daiki and Shiro Yutaka to Daimyo Hiroki. These were both main trade routes to and around the Wajima peninsula. As for our Daimyo, Masao, he was getting the Wajima Capitol, Toshi no Wajima.

Dawn found Grandfather and me sitting on the porch eating hot sticky rice and loving it. After the cold and wet and quiet of the last five days this meal was possibly the best damned food I had ever tasted. Soon, Shogun Li joined us. As he began to eat he said, "Hiro san, you look as if this food fell from the heavens."

"You disagree, Li sama?"

They both laughed. "No. It is really good rice." He continued, "You spared this girl and her child last night but what do you think Yoshio will do when he gets here?"

I looked at the two of them sleeping while the peasants continued to put things in order.

"He has won a great victory with little loss and much has been gained." This was true. In one night, Yoshio had almost doubled the land and holdings of the Shotoku family. "I suspect he will be in a very giving mood, Li sama."

He nodded. "I hope you are right. We just got word that he is at the border now speaking to the survivors of last night's battle." We continued to eat while he spoke. "He is giving them a choice of leaving and becoming ronin or staying and becoming Shotoku. That is much more than any other commander would have given."

Grandfather chimed in, "20,000 men is a lot to just let walk away. I can see the wisdom of adding them to his army. Especially with this new territory to cover."

Li said, "Yes. His plan is to spread them around the Shotoku lands and put mostly Shotoku troops here. That should make any future problems, less likely."

We sat there drinking tea for a while until the girl began to stir. She checked her baby and then looked at us when she sat up. The four of us sat there staring at each other for a moment before she spoke.

"You are the three from last night." It was more of a statement than a question.

Grandfather made the introductions. "Yes. I am Sensei Nokizaru Saibankan, this is Shogun Nokizaru Li, and this is my pupil, Shotoku Hiro." We all bowed to each other. "And how is your son this morning?" he asked her.

She looked at the boy as she said, "Sleeping as if nothing has changed."

"That is a blessing, I think." Sensei commented.

She nodded and looked back at us. "Forgive my rudeness. I am Wajima Nihonto."

After a moments silence I asked, "The cook in the kitchen is very good here. Would you like some rice, Nihonto san?"

She thought for a moment before saying, "Yes. Please."

I stood to go get her a bowl when she asked, "You are not sending a servant?"

"It is not beneath me." I bowed and went to the kitchen.

The staff in the kitchen were from the town. The cook was a man who was used to running his own restaurant, which would explain the good quality of the food. They were very polite as they asked for my needs and met them. I brought the rice back to her in time to hear them talking about the state of her House. I offered her the rice.