Brilliance of the Moon Read Online Free PDF

mountain.
    Once under cover of the trees, we caught up with Kahei where he
had stopped to give the vanguard a rest. We now did the same, allowing the men
to relieve themselves in small groups and then eat. The damp air filled with
the acrid smell of their piss. We had been marching for five or six hours, but
I was pleased to see warriors and farmers alike had held up well.
    During our halt, the rain grew heavier. I was worried about
Kaede, after her months of ill health, but even though she seemed very cold,
she did not complain. She ate a little, but we had nothing warm and could not
waste time making fires. Manami was uncharacteristically silent, watching Kaede
closely and nervously starting at any sound. We pressed on as soon as possible.
By my reckoning it was after noon, sometime between the Hour of the Goat and
that of the Monkey. The slope became less steep and soon the track widened a
little, enough so that I could ride along it. Leaving Kaede with Amano, I urged
my horse on and cantered down the slope to the head of the army, where I found
Makoto and Kahei.
    Makoto, who knew the area better than any of us, told me there
was a small town, Kibi, not far ahead, on the other side of the river, where we
should stop overnight.
    “Will it be defended?”
    “If at all, only by a small garrison. There’s no castle, and the
town itself is barely fortified.”
    “Whose land is it?”
    “Arai put one of his constables in,” Kahei said. “The former lord
and his sons sided with the Tohan at Kushimoto. They all died there. Some of
the retainers joined Arai; the rest became masterless and took to the mountains
as brigands.”
    “Send men ahead to say we require shelter for the night. Let them
explain that we do not seek battle; we are only passing through. We’ll see what
the response is.”
    Kahei nodded, called to three of his men, and sent them on at a
gallop while we continued more slowly. Barely an hour later they were back. The
horses’ flanks were heaving, covered in mud to the stifle, their nostrils red
and flared.
    “The river is in full flood and the bridge is down,” their leader
reported. “We tried to swim across, but the current is too strong. Even if we
had made it, the foot soldiers and packhorses never would.”
    “What about roads along the river? Where’s the next bridge?”
    “The eastern road leads through the valley back to Yamagata, straight back to the Otori,” Makoto said. “The southern one leads away from the
river over the range toward Inuyama, but the pass will not be open at this time
of year.”
    Unless we could cross the river, we were trapped.
    “Ride forward with me,” I said to Makoto. “Let’s take a look for
ourselves.”
    I told Kahei to bring the rest of the army forward slowly, except
for a rear guard of one hundred men, who were to strike out to the East in case
we were already being pursued by that route.
    Makoto and I had hardly gone half a mile before I could hear it,
the steady sullen groan of a river in flood. Swollen by the melting snow, as
inexorable as the season, the spring river poured its yellow-green water across
the landscape. As we rode out of the forest through the bamboo groves and into
the reed beds, I thought we had come to the sea itself. Water stretched before
us as far as the eye could see, dappled by rain, the same color as the sky. I
must have gasped, because Makoto said, “It’s not as bad as it looks. Most of it
is irrigated fields.”
    I saw then the squared pattern of dikes and paths. The rice
fields would be boggy but shallow; however, through the middle of them ran the
river itself. It was about one hundred feet wide, and had risen over the
protective dikes, making it at least twelve feet deep. I could see the remains
of the wooden bridge: two piers just showing their dark tops against the
swirling water. They looked unspeakably forlorn beneath the drifting rain, like
all men’s dreams and ambitions laid waste by nature and time.
    I was