Walking their horses through town was much harder than it might have seemed. It took real discipline to give the appearance of a group of travellers peacefully moving through town when every nerve was jumping. The prince was wearing the robes of a mendicant kumoso. The sect was known for wearing a deep wicker hat that hid their faces. Although it was a little unusual to have one such riding a horse, the samurai hoped that was not so strange as to attract notice.
As they passed the bridge leading across the river and up towards the castle of the Somo clan, the samurai noticed a plume of black smoke start rising from the castle.
"I wonder what that is about," Junzo asked rhetorically.
"I don't know, but I bet it is not good," Kitsune responded.
Yabu noticed a pair of townspeople looking at the plume and talking, and he stopped by them.
"What does that signal mean?"
The townspeople bowed deeply. "I don't know, Samurai."
Trotting his horse back to the group, Yabu shook his head. "This isn't a good sign. There is a guardpost at the end of the road, as it leaves town. I'm going to go ahead at a trot and see what they're doing. The rest of you keep coming at a normal pace."
Yabu was a few hundred paces from the guardpost when he saw a couple of samurai wearing the Somo mon come out into the street from a sidestreet. One was tall, one had a pot belly. They looked around, then one of them pointed at him and they walked towards him to intercept.
They bowed prefunctorily as he rode up.
"Excuse me, Samurai, but we need to see your papers."
This close to the center of government, anyone travelling from one fief to another had to carry papers giving them permission to do so. Yabu reached inside his sleeve and pulled his out slowly, handing them to the samurai who had spoken, a surly-looking fellow with a pot belly.
"Is there some problem, Samurai?"
The samurai examined Yabu's papers closely and handed them back. "Ah, we are trying to find a thief." The taller samurai glanced at him, surprised, and then schooled his expression. It was clear that they were lying.
"A thief? And you thought I might be such a person?" Over their shoulders, Yabu saw the rest of the party approaching. They were the only ones on horseback in the light morning traffic. And Prince Heihachiro had no papers.
The taller samurai had seen them also, and tapped his fellow on the shoulder. The surly looking one glanced that way and nodded, then turned back to Yabu with a slightly irritated expression.
"We are under orders, Samurai. Excuse me," he said, turning to leave.
Yabu pulled his spear and dismounted. "I find that an insult, Samurai! You have blotted my honour, and so I challenge you to a duel!"
The surly samurai turned back, clearly irritated. "Very well. Tomorrow morning."
Yabu cursed inwardly. These fellows were not being distracted, and things were going to pot. "No," he said, flicking the sheath off his spear. "I intend to be out of this cesspool by then. Draw your sword!"
The two samurai both started to draw their swords, glancing at Yabu and the party coming up on horse. They had clearly seen through his pretext of a duel. Yabu cursed his ill fortune, and whipped his spear into a slicing blow. He caught the surly samurai in the face, sending up a spray of blood. The taller man threw up his arm in time to protect his face, but the spearblade cut deeply into his forearm, and he shouted in pain. Yabu thrust at his belly, trying to end the fight quickly, but the tall man drew his sword and parried the blade away. He blew a piercing blast on his bamboo whistle.
Down the sidestreet came a horde of samurai -- a dozen at least. They must have been already coming down to the street on the same mission as the first two, and the clash of weapons had drawn their attention. Yabu glanced to his left, where the rest of his friends were riding around a stopped woodcutter's cart. They couldn't see the oncoming squad of samurai. But neither would the new samurai realize the connection between this strange samurai who had attacked their comrade and the small horsed group.
Yabu leaped into action. If he could hold these men for a few seconds, a minute at most, the prince would be past. And to die so would be a most honorable death.
Yabu sped up his spear, spinning it like a baton, the blade whistling through the air. He moved in a deadly dance, striking down the tall samurai as he passed him, running to block the side street. The astonished Somo samurai initially gave way. One fell without a sound to a blindingly-fast thrust; another cried and gave ground as his leg was gashed by Yabu's slashing blade; a third had his arm laid open.
The whole crowd gave back, even though Yabu was alone against the whole squad of them. Another fell, and another, and Yabu barely dodged the blades of a pair that managed to get inside his circle of whirling death.
Then the thunder of hooves came down the street. Saburo could not let Yabu stand alone, and he rode in, blade swinging. One alert samurai avoided his rush, but Saburo's blade cut another's shoulder deep in passing, and he charged his horse straight at a third. The luckless wight turned to run rather than dodging to the side, and he was trampled into the dirt screaming. Saburo galloped halfway up the sidestreet before he pulled his horse into a rear and turned it around for another pass.
Yabu glanced behind him at the main street. As he had hoped, the rest of his companions were passing by now. There was some chance that they would ride right by undetected. Even though their expressions were strained, there was no reason that the Somo samurai would make a connection; it looked like they had not seen that Saburo had ridden with them earlier. Only the first two samurai had been suspicious.
Yabu turned back, whipping his Yari through a figure-eight, slashing another samurai across the belly and spilling his intestines into the street. Saburo started another charge. For a brief instant it seemed as though they might prevail, even against such tremendous odds.
Burning fiery agony sliced deep across Yabu's back! Shouting in pain he staggered to one knee, nearly dropping his yari. Behind him the surly samurai he had struck down first stood, face dripping blood, snarling. He had sliced deep into Yabu's back; a terrible wound.
Kitsune had been watching the desperate battle, her face getting more and more grim as she saw Yabu face off the Somo samurai. Now her face firmed up and she swung her horse abruptly, spurring it towards the fight. The horse shied, but she leaped from its back with a flip, whipping out her blades. The surly samurai barely had time to turn his head before she stabbed him; his snarl of victory turned to shock as his eyes rolled up.
"The game is up anyway" she shouted. "We have lost surprise now, and will have to fight our way out."
Jiro followed Kitsune in, striking down another samurai, and Saburo charged through them again, knocking one into a wall to fall in a heap and cutting down a second with a quick slash across the neck.
The one remaining Somo samurai sprinted for his life up the side street.
Yabu gasped with pain. His hakema were already soaked with blood. He nearly fainted, propping himself up with his yari. "My horse. Get. My. Horse." Jiro rode over. Yabu's horse had a nasty gash in its leg where his whirlwind spear kata had slashed it by accident.
Yabu finished taking off his obi. He bound it tightly around the wound and knotted it, hissing with agony and again nearly falling. "Help. Me. Up."
Jiro swiftly dismounted and helped Yabu up. The older man's face was grey and he swayed in the saddle, but he grabbed the reins and his spear.
"We must go now," Junzo said. "The damage has been done. Ride, ride like the wind for the gate before they can stop us!"
The five samurai spurred their horses towards the gate a few hundred yards down the road. The way was clear -- all the foot traffic had fled when the battle broke out.
The road was blocked. When they had ridden in earlier that week the small constriction in the road at the edge of the town had not been remarkable -- a small sturdy post building on the river side, and a larger garrison building with several floors opposite it. But even though the road was tight there, there was still room enough for a dozen horses to ride slowly through abreast. It didn't look like a gate at all.
It did now, though. The garrison building had hidden several stout barricades, tree-trunks with their branches cut off three or four feet from the trunk. The barriers thus formed were nasty for horses. Half a dozen ashigaru stood behind them, with as many again on the side facing the oncoming samurai. The ashigaru were armed with simple spears and unarmoured.
The larger building on the hill side of the barrier had balconies on it at two levels. As the samurai rode up, two archers came running out onto the lower balcony with strung bows. In a moment they loosed arrows at the two closest samurai to their side, Saburo and Yabu.
Kitsune kicked her horse into a gallop and broke to the right, cutting down one ashigaru of a pair. Junzo rode up to the center and dismounted, trusting his feet over a fractious horse. Although all the samurai were adept horsemen, their horses were not wartrained, and it was risky to fight on such a horse. Leaping forward, Junzo's blade clashed with those of another pair of ashigaru.
Saburo and Jiro charged the left flank, slashing down from their saddles at the disconcerted ashigaru; riding into them with their horses. Saburo attempted to ride one down, but he backed up against the wall and Saburo could not bring the horse to crash against the wall of the building. Blades rang in cacophony.
Yabu rode up to the balcony where the archers were reloading. With a grunt of pain he stood on his saddle and leapt up onto the balcony, holding his deadly spear in one hand. The archers looked shocked. One managed to jump off the balcony in time to avoid Yabu's strike, although he had to abandon his bow to do it. The other was less lucky; Yabu thrust him through the shoulder; he went over the edge with a cry like a fish tossed back by a spearfisherman, landing with a sodden thump on the dirt street below.
Bloody fighting ensued. The street was filled with the sound of blades clashing. The ashigaru were quite overmatched, but their commander was a seasoned samurai, and he held the rest at the barriers. The mounted samurais' success in the open street would not work fighting over the spiky barriers, where the more than half-dozen spearmen would have a large advantage. And the Somo forces did not have to fight to win -- reinforcements would be coming soon, and the town was full of their soldiers.
"Stand firm! Do not let them pass! And do not harm the priest!" It was clear that the Somu samurai had figured out Heihachiro's disguise. The ashigaru watched as their last allies fought desperately on the other side of the barrier; their spears poked through to supplement the tree trunk's cloven limbs.
Kitsune had finished her pair of ashigaru. Leaving them down in the bloody, dusty street, she rode over to the prince and grabbed his horse's reins. There was one place in the line of barriers where a horse might pass in single file. Junzo had likewise downed his pair, and he ran to his horse and remounted.
The ashigaru commander was distracted by the fighting in the street, and did not see Yabu drop from the roof-edge on silent feet. The landing caused him a grimace of pain, but the old spearman did not speak. He had clambered up the balconies to the roof of the building, and now gripped his deadly yari as he approached the defensive line of spear-bearers from their blind side.
With a blood-curdling yell Yabu leaped to the attack. The ashigaru screamed as they were cut from behind; Yabu's spear slashed like a bladed whirlwind. Five ashigaru were struck in his first pass; one was nearly decapitated, and the rest were stunned by their wounds and the ferocity of the unexpected attack.
Kitsune spurred her horse to a gallop. She and the prince rode through the hole in the barrier at breakneck speed One spearman attempted to stop them. Kitsune batted his blade aside and rode him. Saburo rode at the gap also, but his horse shied at the wrong moment, and he lost his grip on the reins and fell forward. He rolled, taking the impact on his shoulder as he hit the ground. Behind him Jiro cut down the last ashigaru in the open street and looked over to the barrier. Saburo cursed foully, scrabbling on the ground for his fallen sword.
The ashigaru commander leaped forward, aiming a vicious cut at Yabu, but the grey-haired samurai slid to the side of the cut. With a shout Yabu whirled his yari again, cutting down the four wounded ashigaru like bloody rice stalks at harvest time. His spear crashed into their commander's sodei, half severing the armour. Only one ashigaru remained alive now standing behind his commander at the far end of the barrier. He was shaking.
Junzo and Jiro rode through the gap as Yabu sliced deep into the commander's thigh, right below the protection of his armour. The vicious blow nearly severed both his legs, sending a spray of blood into the street. Yabu snarled at the remaining ashigaru, who was backing up, clearly terrified. Two kago bearers were also there, crouched behind the building at the riverside end of the barrier. Yabu flicked his spear at them, spattering them with the blood of their friends.
There was a horse tethered there too, obviously that of the dead ashigaru commander. Yabu ran over to it and mounted with a hiss of pain. His own horse had a wounded leg; this one would do better.
Saburo came through the barrier, having remounted his horse. The ronin looked back at the town. There was a cloud of dust coming from the castle; because of the curve of the river they could see that it was a squad of samurai on horse.
"Two dozen or more horsemen are coming! Let us ride!"
Yabu followed Saburo's gesture and nodded. "Ride! Ride like madmen!"
They turned their horses and galloped down the road away from the town, riding like the wind.