Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro v02 Bundori.pdf

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Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro Samurai Detective 02 - Bundori
EDO
GENROKU PERIOD, YEAR 2, MONTH 3
(Tokyo, April 1689)
PROLOGUE
As the hour of the boar approached, the great city of Edo lay shrouded in
a heavy mist that blurred the darkness and muffled sound. A thin spring
rain pattered onto the tile roofs of the Nihonbashi merchant quarter,
puddling the narrow streets. Yellow lamplight glowed faintly behind the
wooden lattices and paper panes of only a few windows; smoke from
charcoal braziers rose to mingle with the mist and thicken the air still
more. Although the city's many gates had not yet closed, blocking off
passage from each section to the next, the streets were already as
deserted as if midnight-nearly three hours away-had already arrived.
The lone stalker emerged from the shelter of a recessed doorway in a
row of shopfronts whose sliding wooden shutters were closed tight against
the hostile weather. The dank chill penetrated his cloak and seeped
between the plates of the armor tunic beneath it. Cold moisture gathered
under his wide-brimmed hat and inside the iron mask that covered his
face. His body, already tense with anticipation, began to shiver. With each
shallow breath, he inhaled and exhaled air that smelled of damp wood and
earth and the fishy taint of the Sumida River. Keeping to the shadows
beneath the roofs' overhanging eaves, he moved sideways, stealthily, until
he reached the next doorway. There he paused, all his senses alert for the
first sign of his prey.
Moments passed. The night noises-voices from inside nearby houses,
distant hoofbeats, the clatter of the night-soil carts making their way
toward the fields outside town-gradually ceased as Edo prepared for the
closing of the gates and the captivity it would endure until dawn.
Quivering with impatience, the stalker peered down the street. His fingers
traced the flat guards, shaped like human skulls, of his swords. Would the
enemy appear tonight? Would he at last achieve the goal postponed for so
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many years?
The mist allowed him to see no farther than ten paces in any direction. To
his right, he could barely discern the murky glow of a torch that lit the gate
at the street's end. The night seemed empty of all movement and
presence save his own. Frustration mounted; blood lust consumed him in
waves of hot desire. As he waited, his fevered mind projected images at
first vague, then more distinct, against the mist's dense blankness. If he
squinted-there, just so- he could imagine himself back through the years to
that time about which he'd heard so much that he knew it almost as well
as his own. The time of constant and glorious civil war, before the village
of Edo had burgeoned into a city of one million inhabitants; before the first
Tokugawa shogun, Ieyasu, had subjugated his rivals and imposed peace
upon the land.
The time of the greatest warlord who had ever lived.
Kiyosu Fortress, one hundred and twenty-nine years ago. A merciless
summer sun blazed down upon the two thousand samurai sheltered within
the wooden walls of the stockade. The stalker, though among the
humblest of the foot soldiers, felt the unease that permeated their pitifully
small army. This day could mean victory and life-or defeat and death-for
them all.
"He's coming!"
The words, whispered from one man to the next, passed through the
ranks. Along with his comrades, the stalker knelt and bowed, arms
extended, forehead to the ground. But he couldn't resist a quick glance
upward as their feared and beloved lord passed.
Oda Nobunaga, lord of Owari Province, with ambitions of someday ruling
the entire land, was resplendent in a suit of armor made from hundreds of
metal and leather plates tied together with blue silk cord and lacquered in
brilliant colors, and wearing a black iron helmet crowned with a pair of
carved golden horns. He rode a magnificent black steed. His expression
grave, he dismounted to confer with the three generals who accompanied
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him into the whitewashed wooden fort.
Another whisper swept the ranks: "Marune has fallen!" Dread paralyzed
the stalker. He gasped with the others. With the capture of Lord Oda's
frontier fortress, nothing stood between them and the enemy Lord
Imagawa's troops, twenty-five thousand strong, who were advancing on
them even now. They were doomed. But his fear for Lord Oda
overshadowed that which he felt for himself.
The sound of footsteps jolted him back to the present. Relinquishing his
lingering terror and the image of the imperiled fortress, he looked into the
street. Out of the mist to his left shuffled an elderly samurai, with the
customary swords, one long and one short, at his waist.
The stalker savored the heady rise of excitement as he grasped the hilt of
his own long sword. Trembling, he waited for the man to draw nearer. He
focused his thoughts on the confrontation ahead. But a part of his mind
leapt backward to that morning long past.
The fortress gates opened to admit two panting scouts. "Imagawa's army
is in the gorge outside Okehazama village!" they cried, hurrying to convey
the news to Lord Oda.
Almost before the stalker or his comrades could comprehend the
significance of this information, they were on the march. All two thousand
of them, so few compared to the massive force that awaited them,
mounted and on foot; first banner-bearers, gunners, and archers, then the
swordsmen and spear-carriers, with Lord Oda and the generals bringing
up the rear. They sweltered in the heat that baked the hills and rice fields.
Midday came. At last they stopped behind a hill just short of the gorge and
waited for the command to act. From inside the gorge, the stalker could
hear voices raised in drunken laughter and song. Imagawa's troops were
celebrating their earlier victory. He listened and waited some more. A
tense hush gripped the hillside and held him motionless, afraid to breathe.
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Suddenly a mass of dark storm clouds boiled up out of the west, hiding the
sun. Lightning split the sky; thunder shook the earth like the beat of a
great war drum. The first raindrops pelted the earth. As if on this signal
from the heavens, Lord Oda raised his great gold war fan and brought it
down again, cleaving the air in a decisive motion. The conch trumpet
blared the order:
Charge!
In one movement, they rose and ran toward the gorge. Great sheets of
rain lashed the stalker as he struggled against the wind. Ahead of him, the
first rank had disappeared into the gorge. He heard the boom of gunfire
and the startled cries of Imagawa's army. Then, his heart pounding louder
than the thunder, he skidded down the slope and into the swirling chaos
that filled the gorge.
The storm had driven Imagawa's men to seek shelter under trees. Now
they scrambled to load drenched and useless arquebuses, groped for
bows, spears, and swords lost in the mud. But it was too late. Oda's
troops fell upon them, slaughtering them by the hundreds. The clash of
steel blades echoed up and down the gorge. Guns roared, emitting clouds
of black smoke. Arrows sang through the air to strike flesh with meaty
thumps. Screams of death agony echoed the attackers' murderous shouts.
The metallic scent of blood overpowered the summer smells of sweat and
rain. Into the raging battle rode Lord Oda. Sword raised high, he made
straight for Lord Imagawa, who stood alone and unprotected. One expert
slash of Oda's sword, one triumphant yell, and Imagawa lay dead.
Wild with ardor and admiration, the stalker drew his sword and plunged
into the melee. "Lord Oda, I offer my life in your service!"
Now the old man had almost reached the doorway. The stalker could hear
his wheezy breaths. His sword, already drawn for that battle long past,
was in his hand. A fierce eagerness burned inside him as he slipped from
the shadows to block his prey's path. The man uttered a whimper of
surprise and stood still, one hand lifted in a gesture of greeting, or entreaty.
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