"When Lord n.o.bunaga banished you, didn't you think about serving another clan?"

"No, my loyalty has always been undivided. Even after I was banished, I felt that Lord n.o.bunaga's punishment made me more human, and I'm thankful for it."

Tears filled Tokichiro's eyes. Inuchiyo knew that the battle today was going to be the glorious death of the entire Oda clan, and it made Tokichiro unbearably happy that his friend had come here, wanting to die with his former lord.

"I understand. Look, Inuchiyo, this is the first time Lord n.o.bunaga has rested today. Now's the time. Come on."

"Wait, Tokichiro. I won't go into Lord n.o.bunaga's presence."

"Why not?"

"It wasn't my intention to come here at a time when Lord n.o.bunaga might withhold his anger from any soldier, and I would hate his retainers to see me in that light."

"What are you saying? Everybody here is going to die. Didn't you come here wanting to die in front of your lord's standard?"

"That's right."

"Then don't worry. Gossip is for the living."

"No, it's better if I die without saying anything. And that is my deepest ambition, whether Lord n.o.bunaga forgives me or not. Tokichiro?"

"Yes?"

"Will you hide me in your group for a little while?"

'That's no trouble at all, but my command is only thirty men in the foot soldiers. Youre going to stand out."

"I'll go like this." He covered his helmet with something that looked like a horse blanket, and slipped into Tokichiro's group of soldiers. If he stood on tiptoe, he could see n.o.bunaga clearly. And he could hear his high-pitched voice come and go with the wind.

Like a low-flying bird, a lone rider was coming toward n.o.bunaga from an unexpected direction. n.o.bunaga saw the man before anyone else did, and watched him in silence. As the entire army looked in his direction, the man rode closer and closer.

'What is it? Do you have news?"

'The main body of the Imagawa, the troops under Yoshimoto and his generals, has just now changed its direction and is headed for Okehazama!"

What?" n.o.bunaga asked with glittering eyes. "Well, then, Yoshimoto has taken the road to Okehazama without turning toward Odaka?"

Before he could finish, a shout rose: "Look! There's another!"

One rider, then two-scouts for n.o.bunaga's forces. The men held their breaths as the riders whipped their horses toward the camp. Adding to the previous report, the scouts informed n.o.bunaga of the continuing turn of events.

"The main force of the Imagawa turned on the road to Okehazama, but they've just now spread out over an area slightly above Dengakuhazama, a little to the south of Okehazama. They've moved their headquarters, and it seems as though they're resting their troops with Lord Yoshimoto right in the center."

n.o.bunaga fell silent for an instant, his eyes as clear as the blade of a sword. Death. He had only thought of death. With intensity, in the absolute dark, in self-abandonment. His only desire had been to die in a manly way. He had ridden furiously from dawn until the sun was high in the sky. Now, suddenly, like a single ray of light breaking through the clouds, the possibility of victory flashed across his mind.

If things went well...

The truth was that, up to that point, he had not believed in victory, and victory was the only thing a warrior fought for.

Fragments of thoughts appear and disappear in the human mind, like an endless stream of tiny bubbles, so that one's life is carved out instant by instant. Right up to the point of his death, a man's words and actions are decided by this chain of fragments. Ideas that can destroy a man. A day in a man's life is constructed according to whether he accepts or rejects these flashes of inspiration.

In ordinary situations, there is time for a mature deliberation over choices, but a man's moment of destiny comes without warning. When the crisis breaks, should he go to the right or to the left? n.o.bunaga was now at that fork in the road and unconsciously drew the straw of fate.

Clearly his character and training played their part at the crucial moment and kept him from taking the wrong direction. His lips were tightly shut. Yet there was something he wanted to say.

Suddenly a retainer shouted, "My lord, now is the time! Yoshimoto thinks he knows our strength after capturing Washizu and Marune. He's probably filled with pride about his army's early success. He's glorying in his victory and letting his fighting spirit slide. This is the right moment. If we launch a surprise attack on Yoshimoto's headquarters, our victory is certain."

n.o.bunaga joined in the man's high-strung voice. "That's it!" he said, slapping his saddle. "That's exactly what we're going to do. I'm going to have Yoshimoto's head. Dengakuhazama is straight to the east."

The generals, however, were confused and filled with misgivings when they heard the scouts' reports, and they tried to check n.o.bunaga's instinctive dash forward.

But n.o.bunaga would not listen. "You decrepit old men! What are you dithering about now? All you have to do is follow me. If I walk into the fire, you walk into it too. If I'm ready to walk into the water, then you'll follow me there. If you won't, stay on the sidelines and watch me." Leaving them with a single, cold laugh, n.o.bunaga gracefully raised his horse's head and galloped to the front line of his army.

Noon. Not a single bird could be heard in the hushed mountains. The wind had died, and the burning sun seemed to scorch everything under the sky. The leaves were either tightly closed or withered like dried tobacco.

"Over there!" Leading a small group of men, a warrior was running up a gra.s.sy slope.

"Put up the curtain."

In one area, soldiers were clearing away the undergrowth with scythes; others unfurled curtains and tied them to the branches of the nearby pines and silk trees. In moments they had put together a curtained enclosure that would serve as Yoshimoto's temporary headquarters.

"Whew! It's scorching!" said one of the men.

"They say it doesn't often get this hot!"

The men wiped away their sweat.

'Look, the sweat's pouring off me. Even the leather and metal of my armor are too hot to touch."

'If I took off my armor and let a little breeze in I'd feel better. But I think the general staff will be here soon."

'Well, let's take just a little rest." There were few trees on the gra.s.s-covered hill, so the soldiers sat down together under the shade of a large camphor tree. After a short rest, they felt cooler.

The hill of Dengakuhazama was lower than the surrounding mountains, no more than a knoll in the center of a circular valley. From time to time, the white undersides of the leaves all over the hill would suddenly be rustled by a cool summer breeze descending from Taishigadake.

One of the soldiers looked up to the sky while applying ointment to his blistered toes, and muttered something to himself.

"What's the matter?" asked another soldier.

"Look."

"At what?"

'Storm clouds are gathering. It'll probably rain in the evening."

"A good rain would be nice. But I tell you, for those of us who do nothing but repair roads and carry the baggage, rain can be worse than an attack by the enemy. I hope it'll just be a light shower."

The wind incessantly ruffled the curtained enclosure they had just set up. The officer in charge looked around and told his men, "Well, let's get up. His Lordship will be staying at Odaka Castle tonight. He's deliberately led the enemy into thinking that he'll be advancing from Kutsukake to Odaka, but with this shortcut through Okehazama, he plans to arrive this evening. It's our job to go on ahead and look for problems with the bridges, cliffs, and gullies along the way. Well, let's go!"

The voices and men were gone, and the mountain returned to its former peace. The gra.s.shoppers were making their shrill cries. But not long afterward, horses were heard in the distance. No conches were blown, no drums beaten, and they pa.s.sed between the mountain peaks as quietly as possible. Yet despite their efforts, there was no way to conceal the dust and clatter of so many horses. The sound of the horses' hooves on the stones and roots quickly filled the air, and the main forces of the great Imagawa Yoshimoto soon buried the gra.s.sy knoll and the surroundings of Dengakuhazama in soldiers, horses, banners, and curtained enclosures.

Yoshimoto was sweating more than anyone else. He had grown accustomed to the good life and, after pa.s.sing the age of forty, had become grotesquely fat. It was obvious that he found these maneuvers a trial. Over his corpulent body with its long torso he wore a red brocade kimono and a white breastplate. His outsized helmet had five neckplates and was crowned with eight dragons. In addition, he wore the long sword called Matsukurago that had been in the Imagawa family for generations, a short sword-also the work of a famous swordsmith-gloves, shin guards, and boots. The entire outfit probably weighed more than eighty pounds, and lacked the smallest vent where the breeze might enter.

Covered with sweat, Yoshimoto rode on through the blazing heat, as the sun scorched even the leather and the lacquered feathering on his armor. Finally he arrived at Dengakuhazama.

"What is this place called?" Yoshimoto asked as soon as he was seated behind his headquarters' curtain. All around him were the men charged with his protection: attendants, generals, senior retainers, physicians, and others.

One of the generals replied, "This is Dengakuhazama. It's about half a league from Okehazama."

Yoshimoto nodded and handed his helmet to an attendant. After a page unlaced his armor, he stepped out of his sweat-soaked undergarments and into a spotlessly clean white robe. A gentle breeze filtered in. How refreshing, Yoshimoto thought.

When the waistband of his armor had been retied, his camp stool was moved to a leopard-skin mat spread out on the gra.s.sy knoll. The extravagant camp supplies that followed him everywhere were now unpacked.

"What's that sound?" Yoshimoto took a gulp of tea, startled by something that sounded like a cannon's roar.

His attendants also p.r.i.c.ked up their ears. One of them raised an edge of the curtain and looked around outside. He was struck by a sight of awesome beauty: the scorching sun toyed with the shredded clouds and painted a maelstrom of light in the sky.

"Distant thunder. Just the sound of distant thunder," the retainer reported.

"Thunder?" Yoshimoto forced a smile, lightly patting his lower back with his left hand. His attendants noticed this but purposely refrained from asking the reason. That morning, when they had departed from the castle at Kutsukake, Yoshimoto had fallen off his horse. To inquire about his injury yet again would only have embarra.s.sed Yoshimoto further.

Something was stirring. Suddenly there seemed to be a clamorous rush of horses and men from the foot of the hill, coming in the direction of the enclosure. Yoshimoto immediately turned to one of his retainers, asking anxiously, "What is it?"

Without waiting for his order to go and look, two or three men dashed outside the curtain, letting in the wind. This time it was not the sound of distant thunder. The clatter of horses' hooves and men's footsteps had already reached the top of the hill. It was a corps of about two hundred men, carrying in an enormous number of enemy heads taken at Narumi-graphic demonstration of how the war was going.

The heads were now brought in for Yoshimoto's inspection.

"The heads of the Oda samurai from Narumi. Line them up! Let's take a look!" Yoshimoto was in good spirits. "Set up my camp stool!"

Adjusting his position and holding his fan over his face, he examined the seventy-odd heads being submitted to him one after another. When Yoshimoto had finished his inspection, he exclaimed, "What a b.l.o.o.d.y mess!" and turned away, ordering the curtain to be closed. Scattered rain clouds filled the clear noon sky. "Well, well. A cool breeze is coming up the ravine. It'll soon be noon, won't it?"

"No, my lord, it's already past the Hour of the Horse," answered an attendant.

"No wonder I'm hungry. Get lunch ready, and let the troops eat and rest."

An attendant went outside to transmit his orders. Inside the enclosure, his generals, pages, and cooks moved about, but the atmosphere was one of calm. Now and again, the representatives from local shrines, temples, and villages came to present sake and local delicacies.

Yoshimoto studied these people from afar, and decided, "We'll reward them when we reurn from the capital."

When the local people had gone, Yoshimoto ordered sake and made himself comfotable on the leopard-skin mat. The commanders outside the curtain each presented themselves, congratulating him on his victory at Narumi, which had followed the capture Marune and Washizu.

"You're probably all unhappy with the little bit of resistance we've encountered so far," Yoshimoto said with a playful look on his face as he offered cups of sake to all his retainers and attendants. He was becoming progressively more and more expansive.

"It's Your Lordship's power that has brought us to this happy situation. But as Your Lordship has said, if we continue on like this, with no enemy to fight, our soldiers will complain that all our discipline and training were for nothing."

"Have patience. Tomorrow night we'll take Kiyosu Castle, and no matter how badly beaten these Oda are, I imagine they have some fight left in them yet. Each of you will have his share of daring exploits."

"Well then, Your Lordship can stay in Kiyosu for two or three days, and will be able to enjoy both moon-viewing and entertainment."

At some point the sun vanished behind the clouds, but with all the sake, no one noticed the darkening of the sky. As a gust of wind lifted the edge of the curtain, rain started fall in big drops, and intermittent thunder rumbled in the distance. But Yoshimoto and his generals were laughing and talking, arguing about who would be first to reach Kiyosu Castle the next day, and making fun of n.o.bunaga.

While Yoshimoto was deriding his enemy in his headquarters, n.o.bunaga was charging up the pathless slopes of Taishigadake. He was already nearing Yoshimoto's headdquarters.

Taishigadake was neither particularly high nor steep, but its slopes were covered with oaks, zelkovas, maples, and sumacs. It was ordinarily frequented only by woodcutters, so to get a number of horses and men through quickly now, they had to cut down trees, trample down the undergrowth, leap over precipices, and splash through streams.

n.o.bunaga shouted to his men, "If you fall off your horse, leave it! If your banners get caught in the branches, let them go! Just hurry! The essential thing is to get to Yoshimoto's headquarters and to take his head. It's best to travel light. Carry no baggage at all! Just get into the enemy ranks and run them through. Don't take the time to cut every head you've taken. Cut them down and go on to the next, while there is life in your body. You don't have to perform heroic deeds. Showy exploits have no value at all. Fight selflessly before me today, and you will be a true Oda warrior!"

The soldiers listened to these words as though they were listening to the thunder before the storm. The afternoon sky had been completely transformed, and now looked like dark swirls of ink. The wind rose up from the layers of clouds, from the valley, from the marsh, from the roots of trees, and blew into the darkness.

"We're almost there! Dengakuhazama is on the far side of that mountain and through a marsh. Are you ready to die? If you fall behind, you'll leave only shame to your descendants until the end of time!"

The main body of n.o.bunaga's forces did not advance in formation. Some soldiers were late in arriving, while others advanced in loose ranks. Their hearts, however, were drawn on by his voice.

n.o.bunaga had yelled himself hoa.r.s.e, and it was difficult for the men to catch what he was saying. But that was no longer necessary. It was enough for them to know that he was leading them. Meanwhile, a driving rain had begun to fall like shining spearheads. The raindrops were big enough to hurt when they hit the men's cheeks and noses. This was accompanied by a gale that tore away the leaves, so that they hardly knew what was striking their faces.

Suddenly a thunderbolt nearly rent the mountain in half. For an instant, heaven and earth were one color-smoky white in the downpour. When the rain let up, muddy streams and waterfalls flowed all over the marshes and slopes.

"There it is!" Tokichiro yelled. He turned and pointed past his foot soldiers, who were blinking raindrops off their eyelashes, to the Imagawa camp. The enemy's curtained enclosures seemed innumerable, all of them soaked by the rain. Before them was the marsh. Beyond that, the slope of Dengakuhazama.

When they looked again, Tokichiro's men could see the helmeted and armored figures of their allies already rushing in. They brandished swords, spears, and halberds. n.o.bunaga had said that the advantage was in traveling light, and many of the men had discarded their helmets, and thrown away their banners.

Threading their way through the trees, slipping over the gra.s.sy ridges, they immediately set upon the enemy's enclosures. Now and again, blue-green lightning flashed in the sky, and the white rain and black wind wrapped the world in darkness.

Yelling at his men, Tokichiro dashed through the marsh and started up the hill. They slipped and fell, but kept up with him. Rather than saying that they charged and leaped into the fray, it would be truer to say that Tokichiro's little unit was swallowed whole by the battle.

Laughter reverberated around Yoshimoto's headquarters as the thunder pealed. Even when the wind freshened, the stones that held down the curtains of the enclosure stayed put.

"This should blow away the heat!" they joked, and still they drank. But they were in the field and planned to advance as far as Odaka by evening, so no one exceeded his limit.

About then, it was announced that lunch was ready. The generals ordered the food to be brought to Yoshimoto, and as they emptied their cups, rice containers and large soup pots were placed before them. At the same time, the rain started to fall in noisy drops, striking the pots, rice containers, straw mats, and armor.

Finally noticing the ominous look of the sky, they began to move their mats. In the enclosure stood a large camphor tree with a trunk so huge it would have taken three men To circle it with outstretched arms. Yoshimoto stood under the tree, sheltered from the rain. The others hurried behind him, bringing his mats and bowls.

The swaying of the huge tree shook the ground, and its branches howled in the violent wind. As both brown and green leaves flew up like dust and blew against the men's armor, the smoke from the cooking fires was blown close along the ground, blinding and choking Yoshimoto and his generals.

'Please endure this for just a moment. We're putting up a rain cover now." One of the generals called loudly for soldiers, but there was no response. In the bleached white spray of the rain and the roar of the trees, his voice was carried off into the void, and no reply came. Only the loud snapping of firewood could be heard from the kitchen enclosure, from which smoke spewed out furiously.

"Call the commander of the foot soldiers!" As one of the generals ran out into the piercing rain, a strange sound welled up from the surrounding area. It was a moan that seemed to come from the earth itself-the violent clash of one forged weapon against another. And the storm did not content itself with the surface of Yoshimoto's skin; the confusion now blew fiercely into his mind as well.

"What is it? What's going on?" Yoshimoto and his generals seemed utterly bewildered. Have we been betrayed? Are the men fighting among themselves?" Still not realizing what was going on, the samurai and generals at Yoshimoto's side intantly drew around him like a protective wall.

"What is it?" they yelled. But the Oda forces had already surged into the camp like a tide, and were now running right outside the curtain.

"The enemy!"

"The Oda!"