Musashi: Bushido Code (103 page)

Picking one of the healthier-looking animals, which were all heavily loaded with booty, they tied the rope to it and gave it a sharp slap on the rump. The slack in the rope was snapped up suddenly and fresh shrieks rent the air as the women were yanked forward again. Those who fell were dragged along, with their faces scraping the ground.

"Stop!" screamed one. "My arms're coming off!"

A wave of raucous laughter swept through the brigands.

At that moment, horse and women came to a dead halt.

"What's going on? ... Somebody's up ahead!"

All eyes strained to see.

"Who's there?" roared one bandit.

The silent shadow walking toward them carried a white blade. The bandits, trained to be sensitive to odors, instantly recognized the on€ they smelled now—blood, dripping from the sword.

As the men in front fell back clumsily, Musashi sized up the enemy force. He counted twelve men, all hard-muscled and brutish-looking. Recovering from the initial shock, they readied their weapons and took defensive stances. One ran forward with an ax. Another, carrying a hunter's spear, approached diagonally, keeping his body low and aiming at Musashi's ribs. The man with the ax was the first to go.

"A-w-w-k!" Sounding as though he'd bitten his own tongue off, he weaved crazily and collapsed in a heap.

"Don't you know me?" Musashi's voice rang out sharply. "I am the protector of the people, a messenger from the god who watches over this village." In the same breath, he seized the spear pointed at him, wrested it from its owner's hands and threw it violently to the ground.

Moving swiftly into the band of ruffians, he was kept busy countering thrusts from all sides. But after the first surge, made while they still fought with confidence, he had a good idea of what lay ahead. It was a matter not of numbers but of the opposition's cohesiveness and self-control.

Seeing one man after another turned into a blood-spurting missile, the bandits were soon falling back to ever greater distances, until finally they panicked and lost all semblance of organization.

Musashi was learning even as he fought, acquiring experience that would lead him to specific methods to be used by a smaller force against a larger one. This was a valuable lesson and couldn't be learned in a fight with a single enemy.

His two swords were in their scabbards. For years, he'd practiced to master the art of seizing his opponent's weapon and turning it against him. Now he'd put study into practice, taking the sword away from the first man he'd encountered. His reason wasn't that his own sword, which he thought of as his soul, was too pure to be sullied by the blood of common brigands. He was being practical; against such a motley array of weapons, a blade might get chipped, or even broken.

When the five or six survivors fled toward the village, Musashi took a minute or two to relax and catch his breath, fully expecting them to return with reinforcements. Then he freed the women and ordered those who could stand to take care of the others.

After some words of comfort and encouragement, he told them it was up to them to save their parents and children and husbands.

"You'd be miserable if you survived and they perished, wouldn't you?" he asked.

There was a murmur of agreement.

"You yourselves have the strength to protect yourselves and save the others. But you don't know how to use that strength. That's why you're at the mercy of outlaws. We're going to change that. I'm going to help you by showing you how to use the power you have. The first thing to do is arm yourselves."

He had them collect the weapons lying about and distributed one to each of the women.

"Now follow me and do just as I say. You mustn't be afraid. Try to believe that the god of this district is on your side."

As he led the women toward the burning village, other victims emerged from the shadows and joined them. Soon the group had grown into a small army of nearly a hundred people. Women tearfully hugged loved ones: daughters were reunited with parents, wives with husbands, mothers with children.

At first, as the women described how Musashi had dealt with the bandits, the men listened with shocked expressions on their faces, not believing that this could be the idiot rōnin of Hōtengahara. When they did accept it, their gratitude was obvious, despite the barrier imposed by their dialect.

Turning to the men, Musashi told them to find weapons. "Anything'll do, even a good, heavy stick or a length of fresh bamboo."

No one disobeyed, or even questioned his orders.

Musashi asked, "How many bandits are there in all?"

"About fifty."

"How many houses in the village?"

"Seventy."

Musashi calculated that there was probably a total of seven or eight hundred people. Even allowing for old people and children, the brigands would still be outnumbered by as much as ten to one.

He smiled grimly at the thought that these peaceful villagers had believed they had no recourse but to throw up their hands in despair. He knew that if something was not done, the atrocity would be repeated. Tonight he wanted to accomplish two things: show the villagers how to protect themselves and see that the brigands were banished forever.

"Sir," cried a man who had just come from the village. "They're on their way here."

Though the villagers were armed now, the news made them uneasy. They showed signs of breaking and running.

To restore confidence, Musashi said loudly, "There's nothing to be alarmed about. I was expecting this. I want you to hide on both sides of the road, but first listen to my instructions." He talked rapidly but calmly, briefly repeating points for emphasis. "When they get here, I'll let them attack me. Then I'll pretend to run away. They'll follow me. You—all of you— stay where you are. I won't need any help.

"After a time, they'll come back. When they do, attack. Make lots of noise; take them by surprise. Strike at their sides, legs, chests—any area that's unguarded. When you've taken care of the first bunch, hide again and wait for the next one. Keep doing this until they're all dead."

He barely had time to finish and the peasants to disperse before the marauders appeared. From their dress and lack of coordination, Musashi guessed that theirs was a primitive fighting force, of a sort that might have been common long ago, when men hunted and fished for sustenance. The name Tokugawa meant nothing to them, no more than did Toyotomi. The mountains were their tribal home; the villagers existed to provide them with food and supplies.

"Stop!" ordered the man at the head of the pack. There were about twenty of them, some with crude swords, some with lances, one with a battle-ax, another with a rusty spear. Silhouetted against the glow of the fire, their bodies looked like demonic, jet-black shadows.

"Is he the one?"

"Yeah, that's him, all right."

Some sixty feet ahead of them, Musashi stood his ground, blocking the road. Disconcerted, they began to doubt their own strength, and for a short time none of them moved.

But only for a moment. Then Musashi's blazing eyes started to pull them inexorably toward him.

"You the son of a bitch trying to get in our way?"

"Right!" roared Musashi, raising his sword and tearing into them. There was a loud reverberation, followed by a whirlwind fray in which it was impossible to make out individual movements. It was like a spinning swarm of winged ants.

The rice fields on one side of the road and the embankment lined with trees and bushes on the other were ideal for Musashi, since they provided a measure of cover, but after the first skirmish, he executed a strategic withdrawal.

"See that?"

"The bastard's running away!"

"After him!"

They pursued him to a far corner of the nearest field, where he turned and faced them. With nothing behind him, his position seemed worse, but he kept his opponents at bay by moving swiftly to right and left. Then the moment one of them made a false move, Musashi struck.

His dark form seemed to flit from place to place, a geyser of blood rising before him each time he paused. The bandits who were not killed were soon too dazed to fight, while Musashi grew sharper with every strike. It was a different sort of battle from the one at Ichijōji. He did not have the feeling of standing on the border between life and death, but he had reached a plane of selflessness, body and sword performing without the need of conscious thought. His attackers fled in complete disarray.

A whisper went along the line of villagers. "They're coming." Then a group of them jumped out of hiding and fell upon the first two or three bandits, killing them almost effortlessly. The farmers melted into the darkness again, and the process was repeated until all the bandits had been ambushed and slain.

Counting the corpses bolstered the villagers' confidence.

"They're not so strong after all," gloated one man.

"Wait! Here comes another one."

"Get him!"

"No, don't attack. It's the rōnin."

With a minimum of confusion, they lined up along the road like soldiers being reviewed by their general. All eyes were fixed on Musashi's bloody clothing and dripping sword, whose blade was chipped in a dozen places. He threw it away and picked up a lance.

"Our work's not done," he said. "Get yourselves some weapons and follow me. By combining your strength, you can drive the marauders out of the village and rescue your families."

Not one man hesitated. The women and children also found weapons and followed along.

The damage to the village was not as extensive as they had feared, because the dwellings were set well apart. But the terrified farm animals were raising a great ruckus, and somewhere a baby was crying its lungs out. Loud popping noises came from the roadside, where the fire had spread to a grove of green bamboo.

The bandits were nowhere in sight.

"Where are they?" asked Musashi. "I seem to smell sake. Where would there be a lot of sake in one place?"

The villagers were so absorbed in gaping at the fires that nobody had noticed the smell, but one of them said, "Must be the village headman's house. He's got barrels of sake."

"Then that's where we'll find them," said Musashi.

As they advanced, more men came out of hiding and joined their ranks. Musashi was gratified by the growing spirit of unity.

"That's it, there," said one man, pointing out a large house surrounded by an earthen wall.

While the peasants were getting themselves organized, Musashi scaled the wall and invaded the bandits' stronghold. The leader and his chief lieutenants were ensconced in a large dirt-floored room, swilling sake and forcing their attentions on young girls they were holding captive.

"Don't get excited!" the leader shouted angrily in a rough, mountain dialect. "He's only one man. I shouldn't have to do anything myself. The rest of you take care of him." He was upbraiding an underling who had rushed in with the news of the defeat outside the village.

As their chief fell silent, the others became aware of the hum of angry voices beyond the wall and stirred uneasily. Dropping half-eaten chickens and sake cups, they jumped to their feet and instinctively reached for their weapons. Then they stood there, staring at the entrance to the room.

Musashi, using his lance as a pole, vaulted through a high side window, landing directly behind the chief. The man whirled around, only to be impaled on the lance. Letting out a fearsome "A-w-r-g," he grabbed with both hands the lance lodged in his chest. Musashi calmly let go of the lance, and the man toppled face down on the ground, the blade and most of the shaft projecting from his back.

The second man to attack Musashi was relieved of his sword. Musashi sliced him through, brought the blade down on the head of a third man, and thrust it into the chest of a fourth. The others made helter-skelter for the door. Musashi hurled the sword at them and in a continuation of the same motion extricated the lance from the chief's body.

"Don't move!" he bellowed. He charged with the lance held horizontally, parting the bandits like water struck with a pole. This gave him enough room to make effective use of the long weapon, which he now swung with a deftness that tested the very resiliency of its black oak shaft, striking sideways, slicing downward, thrusting viciously forward.

The bandits attempting to get out the gate found their way blocked by the armed villagers. Some climbed the wall. When they hit the ground, most were slaughtered on the spot. Of the few who succeeded in escaping, nearly all received crippling wounds.

For a time the air was filled with shouts of triumph from young and old, male and female, and as the first flush of victory subsided, man and wife, parents and children, hugged each other and shed tears of joy.

In the midst of this ecstatic scene, someone asked, "What if they come back?"

There was a moment of sudden, anxious stillness.

"They won't be back," Musashi said firmly. "Not to this village. But don't be overconfident. Your business is using plows, not swords. If you grow too proud of your fighting ability, the punishment heaven will mete out to you will be worse than any raid by mountain devils."

"Did you find out what happened?" Nagaoka Sado asked his two samurai when they got back to the Tokuganji. In the distance, across field and swamp, he could see that the light of the fires in the village was fading.

"Everything's quieted down now."

"Did you chase the bandits away? How much damage was done in the village?"

"The villagers killed all but a few of them before we got there. The others got away."

"Well, that's odd." He looked surprised, for if this was true, he had some thinking to do about the way of governing in his own lord's district.