Chương 28: Book 1: Chapter 10 - The Bell [Part 1]

"Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee" - John Donne, 1624. In daylight, Kuroha behaved as though nothing had happened. She ate her rice, complained that it was too soft, and rebuked her attendant for letting the tea cool. When Shimon entered the council chamber, the old woman regarded him with vague disinterest. Only the smile betrayed her. It appeared as he bowed, thin and hungry, then vanished. Shimon told no one about the divination. Tarō would ask questions he could not answer.

Nagai would ask better ones, with dire consequences attached. The priests might prescribe purification, confinement, or execution, depending on how alarmed they became. The System, as usual, offered nothing useful. By the following morning, Kuroha and her attendant had left the castle. Training for the new yōma-hunting unit began at once. Abe Chikanori presented the scholars' first conclusions in the yard below the inner wall.

Illustrated sheets had been fixed to boards behind him: warped limbs, divided jaws, and bodies drawn from the testimony of those who had survived seeing them. The ten hunters selected for the unit stood in light practice armor. Nagai Morichika watched from the shade of a storehouse veranda with two clerks beside him. Chief Priest Noritsuna, Abbot Ryōzen, and the elder scholar Kuze Sōtei sat nearby. Abe tapped one drawing with a bamboo pointer.

"Arrows wound them. They may even slow them. That is not the same as stopping them." The page showed a long-limbed yōma with five arrows buried in its chest and belly. Beside it, the same creature had reached the archer.

"Of the eighteen accounts we judged reliable, eleven involved bows. In seven, the creature continued attacking after wounds that should have killed a man. In one account, a yōma pulled an arrow from its own eye and stabbed the archer with it," he added grimly. Tarō muttered under his breath. Abe looked at him.

"Would Kume Tarō care to share his conclusion?"

"No."

"Then keep it until requested," Chikanori chided. Abe indicated another sheet. Arms, legs, and heads had been drawn apart from their bodies.

"We do not know whether every yōma possesses a heart. If they do, it may not be where a man's heart should be. Blood loss weakens some of them, but seldom quickly enough. Complete severing is more reliable. A yōma without a leg cannot run well. None of the surviving accounts describes a decapitated creature fighting for more than a few breaths." The scholar Kuze Sōtei cleared his throat.

"Distance and a cutting edge. Those are the common factors." Abe nodded.

"Yari hold or redirect. Naginata and long swords remove limbs and heads. Archers may slow the creature before contact, but no one is to trust an arrow to finish the work." Kagawa Hachirō, assigned to support the cells from the saddle, stood with the instructors.

"Any competent warrior could have reached that conclusion." Abe bowed with such care that the gesture became an insult.

"A competent warrior reached it by losing an eye. We hope the written account will let others learn more cheaply." Several men lowered their faces to hide smiles. Kagawa's remaining eye narrowed. Nagai spoke before pride became a duel.

"The scholars have given you the answer. Matsuda and Ishikawa will teach you to use it." The grizzled instructor Ishikawa divided the hunters into two cells of five. Each received three yari, one naginata, and one long sword that Ishikawa called an ōdachi and Kagawa insisted was a nodachi. The distinction mattered greatly to both men and not at all to Shimon. When Ishikawa called the names for Shimon's cell, Tarō stepped to his right and Matsunaga Heita to his left.

The next man answered with a curt "Here" and tested the flex of his yari shaft before taking his place. Seki Jūzō was broad through the shoulders, perhaps thirty-five, with a square face and the top of his left ear missing. During the interviews he had spoken only when questioned, and even then as if words cost money. The fifth man, Fujita Kenzaburō, was a younger castle retainer whose spear drill was cleaner than his confidence. Seki glanced along the line.

"At least three of us know which end of the yari goes forward." Fujita stiffened. Tarō looked pleased to have found another man who insulted people conversationally. Ishikawa placed the weighted practice ōdachi in Shimon's hands. It was made from dense oak with iron set into the core, far longer than his katana and considerably heavier. It was, without a weighted pommel, also poorly balanced.

"You are the tallest," Ishikawa said.

"You are quick, stronger than you look, and complain less after being struck than most." Shimon looked away.

"I am not sure the last part is true." Ishikawa studied him like a carpenter judging timber.

"It will become true." A live blade waited in the rack nearby. Its lacquered scabbard was too long to wear through a belt, and the hilt reached nearly to Shimon's shoulder. He would have to carry it in one hand, over a shoulder, or across his back. The scabbard opened partway along its length. A locking catch secured the hilt and blade during travel, while the hinged section allowed the weapon to be drawn from behind the shoulder. The design belonged to this world rather than any history Shimon remembered.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Despite the modification, it still looked inconvenient. The weapon also looked capable of dividing a man from shoulder to hip, which was probably the stronger consideration. Their first target was built from wicker and rice straw around a flexible frame of split bamboo. Its arms hung almost to its knees, and a carved jaw divided its face nearly to the throat, based upon Shimon and Tarō's descriptions.

The target stood on a timber sledge. Behind it waited an aetosaur, low and broad beneath a padded harness. Mud had dried between the ridges of its armored back. A handler stood near its head with a bucket of sliced turnips and spoke to it with the patience normally reserved for stubborn children. At his whistle, the animal leaned into the traces. The target lurched forward.

"Points!" Ishikawa shouted. Tarō, Seki, and Fujita advanced together. Their yari struck the straw body at chest, shoulder, and hip height. The sledge kept coming, driven by the aetosaur's weight, and forced all three men backward.

"Set!" their instructor cried. They lowered their rear hands and drove the butts of the spears into shallow sockets prepared in the ground. The shafts bowed. Sandals tore grooves through the dirt. Seki's spear held straight. Tarō's point twisted as the shaft flexed. Fujita lost half a step, recovered, and leaned back into the pressure, but the target slowed. Matsunaga moved first. His naginata cut across one arm, but the weighted wooden blade failed to carry through.

Shimon entered from the other side and struck the neck. The practice blade buried itself deep enough to leave the straw head hanging by a strip of rope.

"Dead," Ishikawa confirmed. The handler stopped the aetosaur with a turnip. The sledge settled crookedly, one wicker arm bent beneath it.

"The yari held it. Seki's point remained useful. Kume allowed his to turn. Fujita watched the target instead of the men beside him. Matsunaga cut with his arms and left his hips behind." Tarō frowned.

"The target is heavier than a yōma."

"Then the yōma will be easier. Congratulate yourself after it is dead." They reset the frame and the drills continued until sweat soaked the clothing beneath Shimon's practice armor. Sometimes the target came straight. Sometimes the handler pulled a guide rope and made the sledge veer. Later, six laborers drove a second target along a separate track from another angle. Three yari could not hold both equally. Tarō and Seki each took a target while Fujita moved between them, reinforcing whichever line began to give.

Matsunaga and Ayanokouji had to finish one creature quickly, then cross to the other before the spearmen lost their footing or strength. At first, every man watched only his own weapon. By the third day, they had begun to watch one another. The practice weapons were painted along their edges so that each strike left a record. The spearmen stopped thrusting blindly at the center of mass. They attacked shoulders, hips, and mouths, turning or slowing the target long enough for the cutting weapons to work.

Heita learned to reach around the yari shafts without fouling them. Shimon learned to wait until a neck, knee, or elbow opened. The ōdachi could not be corrected easily halfway through a cut. Its weight had to begin in the feet, pass through the hips, and arrive through the hands. When Shimon tried to force it with his arms, the blade dragged him out of position and left him slower to recover. He did, however, notice that the blade was growing lighter, more nimble, as he practiced with it.

The chip in his brain still recorded every attempt. [HEAVY BLADE MOTION DATASET] Completed cuts: 684 Average recovery delay: Improving Friendly-strike probability: 11. 4% Eleven percent remained far too risky a proposition, he thought.

"Again," Ishikawa ordered. The aetosaur leaned into its harness to start the whole training session all over again. By the fourth morning, Shimon could remove the straw head cleanly more often than not. His palms had blistered and hardened. His shoulders still ached at night, but each morning the pain faded with unnatural speed.

The one-eyed Kagawa Hachirō joined the drills on the fourth morning as a mounted auxiliary. He rode into the yard on a black-feathered fukuiraptor larger than any Shimon had seen in the castle pens. The animal stood high at the hip, its long body balanced over powerful hind legs. A leather-and-lacquer saddle sat above the pelvis, secured by broad straps around the breast and belly. Reinforced guards protected the flanks where a spear might glance, and the bridle kept well clear of the teeth.

Kagawa held the reins in his left hand; a long tachi hung at his right side. Black feathers covered the neck and back, fading to rust-red along the arms and tail. Yellow eyes moved over the waiting men with steady predatory interest.

"This is Kurobane," Kagawa announced.

"Do not strike him." Seki looked at the painted wooden weapons.

"We had not planned to kill him." Kagawa gave him a flat stare.

"A poorly aimed practice blade can still break a leg, and I might be forced to return the favor."

"Then the warning was useful and had weight after all," smirked the other warrior. Tarō looked away before his amusement became visible. The mounted drills used a heavier target packed with straw, animal bones, and damp clay. Goat meat and offal had been tied across its shoulders so Kurobane would seize the same area each time. A handler kept a long control line attached to the rear of the harness until the animal settled into the exercise. The carnivorous dinosaur smelled the blood at once.

Its body lowered, hind legs folding beneath it while the sickle claws pressed into the dirt. Kagawa raised one hand.

"Hold until he takes it." Tarō glanced at the animal.

"And if he takes one of us?"

"He has been fed," the one-eyed samurai responded with a chuckle.

"That was not the question." Kagawa smiled.

"Then wash and do not smell like goat." The control line went slack, and the vicious predator crossed the yard in a rush. The target had barely begun moving when one clawed foot struck the sledge, and the jaws closed around its meat-wrapped shoulder. Straw, clay, and bone collapsed with a wet crack. The fukuiraptor twisted its neck and hauled the entire frame sideways.

"Now!" the one-eyed man ordered. Tarō, Seki, and Fujita advanced with their spears. Their task was to pin the target from the opposite side without crossing the animal's body or striking its legs. Heita and Shimon then had to cut whatever remained exposed while accounting for Kurobane's head, tail, rider, and sudden changes of direction. The first attempt left a red streak across the leather protecting Kurobane's flank. The animal pointedly ignored it; its rider did not.

He dismounted before the target stopped moving and inspected the mark.

"Who?" the warrior demanded. No one volunteered, but Kagawa followed the angle back to Tarō's spear.

"Kume," he accused. Tarō examined the streak and shrugged.

"It might have been Seki." Kagawa stepped close enough that their armor touched.

"This beast is worth more than the roof over your head."

"Then perhaps it should learn to avoid spears," the other man replied, not moving an inch and puffing up his chest.