Chapter 820: The Battle of Minami-Kyoto (2)

Captain Jiro stood at the front of Minami Kyoto’s defenders with his sword drawn, his armor scratched and streaked with blood that did not all belong to him.

Beyond the broken outer gate, Urakami’s army filled the snow-covered road.

Men in layered armor pressed forward in dense ranks, their banners snapping in the bitter wind. Horsemen waited behind the first formation, reins pulled tight while their mounts stamped and snorted clouds of steam into the night. More soldiers kept appearing from the darkness beyond the gate, carrying ladders, shields, spears, bows, and talismans that flickered with hostile magic.

The earlier clash had not stopped them.

It had only slowed them down.

"Hold the line!" Jiro shouted.

His voice carried over the screaming wounded and the sound of weapons striking shields.

"Do not break formation! Spears forward! Archers, aim beyond the first rank! Do not waste arrows on their shields!"

The Minami Kyoto soldiers answered him with strained shouts.

Some were shaking. Some had blood on their hands from holding their spears too tightly. A young soldier near the center of the line kept glancing toward the bodies lying in the snow, his face pale beneath his helmet.

Jiro saw it.

"Look forward!" he barked. "They are coming again!"

The soldier snapped his eyes back toward the enemy.

Hanzo stood several steps behind the soldiers, surrounded by the remaining shinobi. Her black clothes had already become damp around the sleeves from snow and blood. She could feel the tension running through every person around her.

The defense was thinning.

They had lost too many people at the gate. The wounded who could still move had been dragged behind the line, but there were not enough hands to treat them properly. Every few seconds, someone cried out for water, a bandage, a brother, a commander who was already dead.

Hanzo looked through the gaps between the soldiers.

Urakami was still there.

He stood farther back from the front, mounted on a dark horse and surrounded by his personal guard. His armor looked untouched. Snow clung to the shoulders of his cloak, but he did not appear bothered by the cold, the fighting, or the bodies gathering at the entrance to Minami Kyoto.

He watched the defenders the way a man might watch a wall he intended to tear down.

Hanzo’s fingers tightened around the handle of her blade.

"Ryo, hurry."

She hated that the thought came so easily.

She had not wanted to depend on anyone. Not him, not Norihiro, not some miracle arriving at the right time. But the situation had already gone beyond what Minami Kyoto could endure alone.

If Nathan did not return soon, they would be buried beneath Urakami’s army.

Across the field, Urakami smiled.

He could see it in their formation.

The hesitation. The exhausted shoulders. The small gaps forming between soldiers who had been fighting too long and watching too many comrades fall.

"They are finished," Urakami said.

One of his commanders lowered his head. "My lord?"

"Move forward."

The commander hesitated only long enough to understand the command.

Then he raised his sword.

"Advance!"

The horns sounded.

Urakami’s front line surged toward the gate.

Horsemen rushed first, their hooves hammering against frozen earth as they charged through the snow. Behind them came armored infantry, shields locked together and spears lowered. The ground shook beneath their numbers.

Jiro lifted his sword.

"Brace!"

The defenders prepared for impact.

Then the sky above the battlefield flashed white.

A sharp crack split the air.

The front line of Urakami’s horsemen disappeared beneath an eruption of ice.

Snow burst upward in a violent wave. Jagged pillars tore through the ground beneath the charging horses, throwing men from their saddles. One rider vanished beneath a collapsing wall of frozen earth. Another was hurled sideways, crashing into two soldiers behind him. Horses screamed as sheets of ice spread beneath their hooves, making them fall and slide into one another.

The charge broke apart in seconds.

Urakami’s soldiers stopped.

So did Minami Kyoto’s defenders.

For a moment, the battlefield went quiet except for the wounded horses and the wind moving through the ruined gate.

Then everyone looked up.

A woman floated above the field.

Long silver hair streamed behind her against the dark sky. Her black eyes looked down over Urakami’s army without fear, cold and clear beneath the falling snow. She wore pale clothing that moved around her as if she stood beneath water rather than in the night air.

In one hand, she held a spear of ice.

Yukihime.

Hanzo’s breath caught.

Even Jiro stared for a second before he caught himself.

"Do not stand there gawking!" he shouted. "Keep your positions!"

But there was relief in his voice.

Real relief.

He thought inwardly that she was one of Norihiro’s hired mercenary or some.

Urakami narrowed his eyes.

The smile had disappeared from his face.

"So Norihiro managed to gather useful people around himself after all," he said.

Yukihime descended slowly from the air.

Her feet touched the snow beyond the gate, and frost spread outward in a wide circle beneath her. She raised her spear and pointed it toward Urakami’s army.

Urakami looked at his commanders.

"Prepare the contingency barriers," he ordered. "Bring the magic users forward."

"Yes, my lord!"

"Half of you focus on her," Urakami continued. "Keep that woman occupied. The rest move into Minami Kyoto. Do not let one enemy stop the assault."

His commanders obeyed immediately.

A group of soldiers peeled away from the army and formed a circle around several robed magic users. They began placing talismans into the snow and raising barriers of pale light around themselves. Others lifted enchanted shields, their surfaces covered in red markings.

The rest rushed forward.

Hundreds of men poured toward Yukihime.

She did not retreat.

The first soldier reached her with his sword raised.

Yukihime moved.

Her spear swept across the snow.

A line of ice erupted beneath the man’s feet and threw him backward. Before he hit the ground, she stepped forward and drove the spear through his chest. She pulled it free, turned, and struck the next attacker across the throat with the weapon’s shaft.

Three soldiers came from her left.

Yukihime spun once.

The air around her burst with frozen needles.

They pierced armor, skin, and eyes. The men collapsed into the snow, clutching at their faces as blood ran between their fingers.

Another group tried to surround her.

She raised one hand.

The snow around them hardened.

Ice climbed their boots, locking their feet to the ground. They hacked at it with their swords, shouting for help, but Yukihime crossed the distance in a blur and drove her spear through one man after another.

Her movements were almost too clean for the chaos around her.

She did not waste strikes.

She did not panic.

Every motion took a life or forced another enemy back.

Hanzo watched her cut through the first wave and felt a little of the pressure in her chest ease.

At least Yukihime was on their side.

"Shinobi!" Hanzo shouted. "Move along the roofs! Take their archers and magic users when you find openings! Do not get trapped in their main force!"

The shinobi scattered.

Some disappeared into shadows along the walls. Others used hooks and ropes to reach the rooftops above the street, moving between buildings while the soldiers below began fighting again.

Urakami’s forces pushed past Yukihime’s position.

The woman had stopped their charge, but there were too many of them. Her ice killed dozens, then more soldiers replaced them. The enemy’s magic users erected barriers around their formation, breaking apart some of her frozen attacks before they reached the next line.

Minami Kyoto’s defenders met them at the gate.

The battle became worse.

Jiro’s soldiers fought with spears and swords in the narrow opening where the broken gate forced Urakami’s army to funnel through. Bodies piled near the entrance, making the ground slick. A Minami Kyoto soldier stabbed an enemy through the chest, only for a second man to drive a blade into his side.

The soldier screamed.

Jiro cut down the attacker before he could pull the weapon free.

"Push them back!" Jiro roared.

Hanzo saw a gap form near the left side of the line.

Three Urakami soldiers had broken through. One raised his sword toward the wounded men behind the defenders.

She moved before she could think.

Hanzo slipped into the shadows beside a fallen cart, emerged behind the first soldier, and drew her blade across the gap beneath his helmet. He fell without a sound.

The second turned.

Her knife entered beneath his ribs.

The third swung wildly, but Hanzo ducked under the strike and drove her short sword up through his chin.

Blood sprayed across the snow.

She pulled the blade free and stepped back just as another enemy rushed her.

Hanzo blocked his sword, felt the force run through her arm, then kicked the back of his knee. He dropped low. She cut across the side of his neck and let him fall.

There was no time to breathe.

More soldiers came through the gate.

Hanzo fought like a shadow moving between bodies.

She struck from behind walls, beneath shields, from gaps between soldiers. Her blades found throats, wrists, the soft places beneath armor. She used smoke bombs to blind groups of enemies, then moved through the confusion before they could understand where she was.

But the enemy kept coming.

A shinobi fell from a rooftop to her right.

Hanzo looked up just in time to see arrows sticking out of his back. He hit the ground hard and did not move again.

"Keita!" someone shouted.

The voice cut off when an Urakami soldier drove a spear through the speaker’s stomach.

Hanzo’s teeth pressed together.

She wanted to stop.

She wanted to look at every face. To make sure they were dead, to make sure they had not been left alone in the snow, to remember every person who had followed her into this fight.

But the line was breaking.

She could not stop.

"Hanzo!"

Jiro’s voice came from her left.

She turned and saw him fighting beside a collapsed section of the gate. His sword was red to the handle. He had lost his helmet, and blood ran down one side of his face from a cut near his temple.

An enemy lunged at him.

Hanzo threw a knife.

It buried itself in the man’s neck before his blade reached Jiro.

Jiro looked over, breathing hard.

"I never thought I would fight alongside a shinobi," he said.

Hanzo cut down another soldier who came too close.

"Focus on the enemy."

"I am trying."

He blocked a spear thrust, twisted his wrist, and sliced through the attacker’s forearm. The man dropped his weapon screaming. Jiro finished him with one clean stroke.

"I also never thought I might die beside one," he added.

Hanzo stepped around a body and struck at another enemy’s exposed side.

"I have no intention of dying here."

Jiro smiled despite the blood on his face.

"Good. If we survive, the soldiers and shinobi should drink sake together."

Hanzo looked at him.

"Are you inviting us?"

"I am."

"You would not complain when we drink more than your men?"

"I will complain. But I will still pour the sake."

Hanzo smiled.

A brief, tired smile.

"Then survive."

The next wave crashed into them.

The moment disappeared.

Urakami stood beyond the fighting and raised his sword.

"Destroy them!" he shouted.

His army answered with a roar.

More soldiers forced their way through the gate. The defenders had no space left to fall back without giving up the street behind them. Arrows struck the walls. Magic exploded against the stone, shattering windows and sending pieces of wood and brick across the road.

Hanzo took a cut across her upper arm.

Pain burned through her sleeve.

She turned and stabbed the man who had hit her, but another blade struck her side before she could move away. The cut was shallow, caught by the reinforced cloth beneath her clothes, yet blood still began soaking through.

She did not slow down.

A sword came for her head.

She ducked.

The blade cut through a strand of her hair. Hanzo drove her shoulder into the attacker’s chest, slammed her forehead into his face, and cut his throat when he stumbled back.

A spear grazed her leg.

She nearly fell.

Her boot slid in the blood-covered snow, and an enemy soldier raised his sword over her.

"Hanzo-sama!"

She heard the warning too late.

The sword came down.

A blur crossed her vision.

Steel struck steel.

Hanzo opened her eyes.

A man stood between her and the enemy.

His sword had caught the blow above her head. With one hard movement, he shoved the enemy’s weapon aside and sliced across the man’s chest. The soldier collapsed into the snow.

Hanzo stared at the back of the man who had saved her.

A man stood between her and the enemy, his sword locked against the attacker’s descending blade. He shoved the weapon away with both hands, stepped inside the soldier’s guard, and drove his blade through the man’s chest.

The soldier sagged forward.

He kicked the body away and turned toward her.

"Hanzo," he said.

For a second, she could only stare at him.

"Shigeru?"

His clothes were stained with snow and blood, and a deep cut had split the fabric near his shoulder, but he stood firmly in front of her. His eyes swept over the injuries on her arm and side before he looked back at the enemy ranks.

Yuwa appeared next, her blade already drawn. Sana followed close behind their whole group, all of them carrying the tired, battered look of people who had fought their way through half the city to get there.

"Hanzo!" Yuwa called.

She rushed forward, stopped beside Shigeru, and looked Hanzo over from head to toe.

"You are bleeding everywhere."

"I am fine."

"You don’t look so much," Sana said.

Hanzo looked at them, then at the shinobi gathering behind them.

They had come.

Not only Shigeru. Not only Yuwa and Sana. Shigeru’s whole group was there.

For the first time since the battle had begun, Hanzo felt the line behind her become stronger instead of weaker.

Yuwa smiled at her.

"You really are the leader of the shinobi now, huh?" she said. "I never thought I would see it."

Sana nodded, though her expression stayed serious.

"Neither did I. You always acted like you wanted to disappear into the shadows."

Hanzo let out a tired breath.

"This is not the time for that."

"It is exactly the time," Yuwa replied. "You have all of us following your orders now. You should get used to it."

Another wave of Urakami’s soldiers pushed toward them through the broken gate.

Shigeru raised his sword.

"Talk later," he said. "We still have enemies."

Hanzo tightened her grip on her blade.

The pain in her arm and side had not disappeared. The bodies of fallen shinobi were still scattered across the snow. Urakami’s army still poured into Minami Kyoto with enough numbers to bury them all.

But Shigeru stood on one side of her.

Yuwa and Sana stood on the other.

Behind them, the remaining shinobi readied themselves for the next charge.

Hanzo looked toward the enemy.

"Shinobi," she called. "With me."

They moved forward together.