Dororo: Part Two
Nakamura Masaru
Part 3: Kagemitsu
Chapter 22
A young girl stood in the shadow of a cave, looking down the slope of the mountain. Since the previous day, she'd been obsessed with an ornate hairpin patterned with stylized plum blossoms. The blossoms on the hairp appeared to be only just blooming. She and her older brother had first seen the hairpin in the nearby fortress city at a festival. The hairpin had caught her eye because of its uniqueness--most flower hairpins featured the flowers in full bloom. The young girl loved how the light gleamed on the hairpin, its buds shining like stars. Never before had she seen an object that melded her dearest loves together: that of the night sky, and that of the flowers that grew in spring in summer in the mountains. Her first sight of the hairpin stole away her heart, but she didn't show it. She didn't want her brother to know how badly she wanted it.
The girl was accustomed to being denied what she wanted. If she told him of her desire, he would tell her that they couldn't buy it—that it was too expensive, or that they didn't need it. After returning from the festival, the girl had dreamed of wearing the hairpin; she often dreamed of what she couldn't have.
Usually, after dreaming of what she wanted, the image of the object faded from her memory, but it was the morning after a dream and she still wanted that hairpin desperately. "It was so lovely," she said to herself, sighing. She recalled the festival and all the men scattered around in dark clothes decorated in gold thread, moving through the crowds swiftly and disappearing, like shooting stars.
Someone else had bought the hairpin. That memory pained the girl, even though the woman who'd purchased it had been beautiful, with glossy black hair and a kind smile. That woman was worthy of the hairpin, yes, but the girl still wanted it for herself.
I wish I knew the woman's name. The girl scuffed the slanted ground under her feet, then heard something strange from the woods below.
There was someone outside the cave. The girl retreated, going inside to speak to a woman who had once cut down Hyakkimaru: Kaneyama Sae, the sister of Kaneyama Takeshige, who was a murderer of women and children.
"Lady Sae?" the girl asked timidly. "We need to call the lord."
"My brother? Why? What is it?" Sae replied.
Trees grew wild around the cave, but a small section of woods had been cleared for a garden. The forest and the steep slope of the mountain granted the men and women who lived here some privacy, but it was a hardscrabble life with few amenities. Kaneyama Clan survivors trickled over the border to join their number in twos and threes. In addition to the garden and the cave, there was a hollowed-out room made of ice that the Kaneyama Clan survivors used to preserve food. In summer, the ice room was hard to use since bats and flying squirrels liked to frequent it; guards stood at the entrance to the man-made room, huddling in front of watch fires as they shivered.
Five people sat in front of the watch fire before the ice cave: three men, two women. Seven more people patrolled the garden below. Six of them were dressed in civilian clothing to make it easier to infiltrate the nearby fortress city of the Daigo Clan. They blended in well with other poor survivors in the city: their clothing was old, torn, and dirty and their hair was chopped raggedly short. Only their eyes still showed pride and defiance; these people still remembered who they used to be. They had been beaten down by circumstances, but they didn't consider themselves conquered. Not yet.
"Lord!" Sae called out to the people in the garden. Long ago, she might have addressed her brother Takeshige by his full title, or by one of his childhood nicknames, but their situation was too precarious to shout out names now.
"Sister? What do you want?" Takeshige answered flippantly, sounding drunk—or perhaps only despairing.
"Lady?" one of the other men whispered. "Please join us here. There are a few things we'd like to ask you, if you're of a mind."
"About what?"
There was no reply, so Sae went to join the others who were sitting in the garden, including Takeshige. "Is this about the Daigo Clan's fortress?" she asked.
"Yes," Takeshige said. "We know that their army is going to depart in a few days to go to war against the Isobe and Kabei Clan insurgents. Should we wait for them to leave to occupy the fortress, or should we try to sneak in now and kill the Daigo Clan?"
The Kaneyama Clan had chosen to camp in these inhospitable mountains because it was so close to the Daigo Clan's fortress. Their original plan had been to wait for the Daigo Clan to march to war, but allowing them to do that would put the clan itself out of reach and delay the Kaneyama Clan's victory. Killing the Daigo Clan in their fortress would hasten the Kaneyama Clan's return to power, but that was a much riskier plan.
The Daigo Clan had to exhaust themselves with their wars eventually. No one could wage war forever, and Daigo Kagemitsu had been actively fighting for twenty years. If the Kaneyama Clan didn't seize the chance afforded to them by this new war, it would be the end of them. There were only two members of the clan left—all the rest in the camp were retainers.
All the Kaneyama Clan had left to cling to was legitimacy. The Daigo Clan had conquered their lands and ruled them unlawfully, by force. The only way for the Kaneyama Clan to return to power was for them to depose the Daigo Clan—preferably by killing them all—and restoring their ancient claim to rule.
The Daigo Clan was fighting a war on two fronts, which would make them split their forces into three. One army would head to the Kabei Clan border, one wold move for the Isobe Clan border, and the third would stay behind to guard the fortress. It was still dangerous for the Kaneyama Clan to attack it, but it would never be safer than in the next few days, when the fortress’ defenses would be weakened. It was common knowledge that the Kabei Clan and Isobe Clan had formed a military alliance. The Kaneyama Clan expected the Daigo Clan to be beaten back to their fortress by the force of that alliance, and when that happened, the Kaneyama Clan would be there to threaten them. If all went well, the Daigo Clan would be utterly destroyed in a three-way pincer attack.
The only real danger was how swiftly alliances could change. Daiga Kagemitsu had only agreed to an alliance with the Kabei Clan and Isobe Clan in the past because of his wife. His alliance with the Kabei Clan had been particularly advantageous, since their support helped defend his fortress and lands from attacks across the border. However, the Kabei Clan had proved fair-weather friends, waiting for the Daigo Clan to be fresh from another war before breaking their alliance and attacking from behind.
All through the long winter, the Kaneyama rebels had decided to wait. There had to be a reason why Daigo Kagemitsu hadn’t budged from his impregnable fortress. Some said that the power backing him was weakening; many said that power came from demons. Until Daigo Kagemitsu moved and made himself vulnerable, the Kaneyama Clan remnants would dig in their heels as hard as they could until spring.
There was a river nearby, but fish weren’t plentiful; the Isobe Clan had fled their lands and gone to the sea along this route and had over-fished the streams. The Isobe Clan had always been a bit odd about the ocean, claiming to read omens in it. Just before the Daigo Clan had invaded their lands, they had told all their neighbors that the sea was strange, and that this meant war was on the horizon.
And war did come. Enemies spread over the Isobe Clan’s lands in a swarm. The Daigo Clan had not been able to conquer them completely; they’d fought tooth and nail for their independence and kept it. That was evidenced by Daigo Kagemitsu having a wife from the Isobe Clan. A marriage alliance was a concession by both sides, and had ended hostilities.
The remnants of the Kaneyama Clan weren’t capable of fighting the Daigo Clan as strongly as the Isobe Clan had done. There was little hope of them winning against the Daigo Clan at all, at this point. They continued eking out a meager existence from the mountain, but that couldn’t last forever.
“I know we should wait, but…” Sae said quietly.
“But… what?” Takeshige asked.
“I can’t wait any longer.”
***
An old woman, Akane, sat in the cave where the rebels dwelt, rubbing her hands together for warmth. She was the grandmother of Takeshige and Sae, and had been present when the rebels came upon the small settlement where Hyakkimaru and Mio had lived with the children. Though past fifty, she was strong of will and of body, and long years spent in the wilderness had made her hardy, fierce--and hideous. A demonic air clung to her shoulders as she moved, wringing her hands and cursing, “Idiots! Worthless! Bring me Daigo Kagemitsu’s head!” Her eyes rolled up in her head, the whites matching the white of her hair. Her voice was as hoarse and hoary as the winter trees, tough and abused from overuse.
Takeshige and Sae heard their grandmother cursing in the cave and exchanged grimaces. It seemed that she was in her right mind again, though that might not last for long. They loved their grandmother, but not her madness.
The next few days at the Kaneyama Clan’s camp passed much the same as previous ones, but after that evening’s meeting, there was finally a plan to move.
***
The once-prosperous Kaneyama Clan’s fortunes had changed unexpectedly on a battlefield twenty years before when half their line was struck by lightning in what appeared to be a concerted attack from the heavens.
It was impossible. The Kaneyama Clan’s army had the Muroto Clan on the run. The Muroto Clan’s line was broken; the Kaneyama Clan’s forces outnumbered theirs ten to one. Only Takeshige survived the lightning attack. Sae, by good luck, hadn’t fought in that battle, but many of the other Kaneyama Clan’s lords and retainers had, and lost their lives that day. The Kaneyama Clan had a long, proud history, and it was almost snuffed out on that battlefield as if history meant nothing. Only the future mattered.
In the immediate aftermath of the battle, Takeshige and the rest of the clan concealed the fact that his father had died from arrow wounds on the battlefield. They pretended that he was gravely injured for a few months in order to maintain order in the ranks and give Takeshige time to acclimate to his new role as the head of the clan.
After some months, Takeshige built up enough support to take the fight to the Muroto Clan and the Daigo Clan again. He believed that this time, the heavens would work in his clan’s favor--but he was wrong.
Oh, the Kaneyama Clan made headway. They fought the Daigo Clan inch by inch and tore holes in Banmon, the blight on the landscape that served as a border between nations that didn’t have much meaning anymore.
The scene on the other side of Banmon still haunted Takeshige’s nightmares. There were piles of corpses--men young and old--so many that they formed rotting hills on the landscape all the way to the horizon. Regardless of how they’d died, each of the men had arrows through the throat--just like Takeshige’s father had on the day that he died.
Takeshige understood that he was being taunted and baited into acting foolishly. He didn’t care. Seeing all those corpses--their bones bleached clean in the places where wolves or foxes or other scavengers had torn away flesh--incensed him beyond reason.
When Takeshige recovered some measure of composure, he noticed something very strange about the corpses. While a few of them had served the Kaneyama Clan, almost all of them wore the colors and insignia of the Muroto Clan.
How odd. Was there a civil war? Had the Muroto Clan turned against the Daigo Clan, or vice versa?
While Takeshige and the Kaneyama Clan army were frozen with shock, the Daigo Clan’s cannon opened fire, raining down a hail of hot lead and metal on the heads of their enemies.
The cannon were mobile. Takeshige watched the gunners wheel them to a hill above Banmon so that fewer of the projectiles would be stopped by the presence of the old fence. The Kaneyama Clan’s army fell into chaos, running too and fro, shrieking at one another to get out of the way of the Daigo Clan’s fire.
At the time, the battle hadn’t seemed real to Takeshige. He kept thinking that it was some kind of terrible nightmare and that he’d wake up from it soon. He called a retreat, but the Daigo Clan surrounded his army on all sides; there was no way out. It was like he and the army had marched exactly where the Daigo Clan’s army needed them to be.
The Daigo Clan’s victory over the Kaneyama Clan was complete. Daigo Kagemitsu destroyed the Muroto Clan and the Kaneyama Clan and set himself up as the new ruler of these lands. The Kaneyama Clan lacked the warriors to resist. Takeshige and his few remaining allies went underground, running and hiding until the Daigo Clan gave up on hunting them.
It took a long time for the Daigo Clan to give up. Takeshige understood that his army was lost, but he still wanted to try and save his clan’s women and children, along with the old men that could no longer fight. He gathered up all of his people that he could find and fled to the mountains. But no matter how far they fled, the Daigo Clan always found them. They had no mercy in them.
The only good luck that the Kaneyama Clan had recently was the discovery of the mountain valley that they now lived in. It was secluded in the mountains: no one ever came there, and the Daigo Clan didn’t find them when they searched. There was enough flat land to plant crops and enough water to grow them. Over time, they might be able to build a proper village here--though that wouldn’t hold true if they failed to take the Daigo Clan’s fortress.
Building their current habitation wasn’t easy for the Kaneyama Clan. Since they lacked permanent structures for homes, life was difficult, especially in winter. Takeshige hadn’t sugarcoated what their new lives in the mountains would be like, but he’d managed to lead most of his remaining people here with the promise of peace, and a hope for the future. They had peace here, hardscrabble as their daily lives were, and they were close enough to the Daigo Clan’s fortress that there was always the temptation to steal it from under their noses.
Takeshige felt like it was only a matter of time before the Daigo Clan fell to its own hubris and the fickleness of its allies. There were rumors that the clan was propped up by fierce demons and would fall without their support. Takeshige was happy to hasten the clan’s fall, and to pick up the pieces when they were gone. The Kaneyama Clan was much reduced, but it wasn’t quite as destroyed as Daigo Kagemitsu believed. In the absence of the Daigo Clan, they could rebuild.
Takeshige didn’t like to think about just how difficult that would be. Until they’d found this place, every other camp that the Kaneyama Clan had made had either been discovered by the enemy or spurred into movement by some unknown fear. He remembered weeks of squatting in brush, watching and listening, jumping whenever a man whispered, “It’s a deer!” or “It’s a rabbit!”
And when they couldn’t determine if the sounds they were hearing were made by beasts or men, they fled, leaving more and more women and children behind in their wake. Children couldn’t keep up, and their mothers and sisters refused to leave them. Takeshige was grateful for the people he had left, but he hadn’t forgotten losing so many to the wilderness, the winter, and the pursuing Daigo Clan army.
Akane was one of the last of the women to keep going, but the effort of traveling through the mountains while being short on food and water and constantly pursued took a heavy toll on her. Perhaps she should have died of that, like so many others on the journey, but she hadn’t.
Akane lived, but step by slow step, she went irrecoverably insane.
“Bring me Daigo Kagemitsu’s head!” she shouted while they were on the road. Takeshige would have shushed her, but her voice at that time was so sick with hunger and weakness that it didn’t carry.
Other people rallied around Akane. The original reasons why the Kaneyama Clan went to war with the Muroto Clan were forgotten over the course of the long forced march. Months and years beyond the battle, every survivor of the Kaneyama Clan wanted only one thing: the swift and brutal death of Daigo Kagemitsu.
Takeshige spoke against rebellion. Their numbers were too few. He agreed that the Daigo Clan had to be deposed, but they couldn’t do that foolishly. Rushing into battle unprepared had led to their downfall the first time. Akane always urged him to hurry, but until this winter, there was always a reason to delay. The Daigo Clan’s armies grew for a while as they consolidated their power. It was only recently that cracks in the Daigo Clan’s alliances had started to appear.
***
One of the Kaneyama Clan’s warriors shifted closer to the fire, facing Sae. “We must decide. Will we keep waiting? Will we attack? Or should we flee? Our scouts report that the Daigo Clan’s spies come closer to our camp by the day.”
“What do the others say?” Sae asked. “I don’t want to decide against the group.”
“They’re evenly split, my lady. A third want to stay and wait, a third want to run, and a third want to fight.”
Sae sighed. “I suppose we’re the deciding votes, then.” She took a deep breath, considering his words carefully. Her words now had power over life and death. It was safest for him and his people to stay here, but he knew that they’d never agree to stay here forever. The environment was too harsh. If they took over the Daigo Clan’s fortress, their lives would become much easier. This base of operations didn’t allow the Kaneyama Clan to thrive and grow.
That was what made Sae’s decision, in the end. The Daigo Clan was an obstacle to the Kaneyama Clan’s flourishing. Even if Daigo Kagemitsu wasn’t their enemy, Sae would still want him out of the way for the sake of her people’s happiness.
“We’ve waited here long enough,” Sae said. “Tell everyone to get some rest. We march tomorrow.”
***
Akane squatted in the shadows of the cave, coughing so hard that she doubled over. “Daigo Kagemitsu’s head... give it to me!”
Her voice echoed into the cave... and another voice answered hers.
“Woman. Do you wish to destroy your enemies?”
“Who are you? What do you want?” Akane rasped.
“I want to help you,” the disembodied voice replied. “I want to restore these lands to the Kaneyama Clan and deliver you the head of Daigo Kagemitsu.”
Akane’s eyebrows furrowed together. “You do? Why? Who are you?”
“You must find a man. A young man.”
“Who?”
“Daigo Kagemitsu’s oldest son. A son he has concealed from the world. Few know of his existence.”
“What benefit would we get from finding this secret son?” Akane muttered. She was starting to think the voice was all in her imagination, which saddened her.
“This son hates his father as you do,” the voice said. “With his assistance, the Kaneyama Clan can seize control of the fortress legitimately. With Daigo Kagemitsu’s son on your side, no one will stand in your way.”
Akane blinked rapidly. She felt like she’d spent a long time blind and had just regained her sense of sight. “Is that true? Is there really such a man? And would he help us?”
“Not you,” the voice said, laughing. “You encountered him already, near Kajikazawa. The young man with the sword concealed in his left arm. He hates the Kaneyama Clan, but he hates his father more.”
Akane gasped. “That monster is Daigo Kagemitsu’s son?! The man we cut and cut who would not die?”
“The same,” the voice replied. “Your granddaughter encountered him again, after that.”
“Sae?”
“She met him at the border between the Muroto Clan and the Kaneyama Clan’s lands.”
“Banmon...”
“You must find him,” the voice repeated. “Allow him to carve a way into the Daigo Clan’s fortress. Then kill him, before he can cause any more problems to you and your people.”
Akane’s lips trembled. Tears spilled from the corners of her white-blind eyes. “Are you... are you a god?”
A face emerged from the surface of the stone at the back of the cave. The face was hideous, twisted and cruel, but Akane couldn’t see it. This face belonged to one of the Hall of Hell demons. Two horns sprouted from the demon’s forehead, similar to those of a bull. A strong upper body also emerged from the wall. The stone skin of the demon was actually an insect carapace, so tough that it might as well be indestructible.
The demon--shaped like the Centipede of the North Star, only with horns--twisted into the cave, wrapping around the old woman and letting her feel its presence.
“Yes,” hissed the voice of the demon. “I’m a god.” Ominous laughter echoed through the cave.
Akane wasn’t completely blind, but she could make out little of the demon aside from its general shape and size. She was prepared to worship it as the god of her people if it could deliver on its promises.
The demon, Yaomukade, smiled at Akane with a curious fondness. “Do as I say, and I will lead your people to victory.”
Yaomukade faded back into the wall bit by bit. Akane ran her hands over the strange, stone-like skin. When the demon was gone, she bent over double, hacking and coughing from her sickness and the overwhelm of her emotions.
People rushed up to the cave to check on her when her coughing didn’t stop. She cleared her throat and said, “You fools! Don’t concern yourself with me. I’ve had a vision from a god! The god will give us victory over the Daigo Clan!”
“Grandmother, what are you saying?” Sae asked softly.
“We must find Daigo Kagemitsu’s son. The son he hides from the world...”
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