Odawara Castle.
Afternoon.
The banners atop the walls snapped and cracked in the sea wind, the Mitsu Uroko crest standing out sharp against the sunlight.
Hōjō Ujiyasu stood on the highest tier of the castle keep, her silver-white hair blown into disarray by the wind, light armor buckled over a deep-purple kimono.
She was watching the north.
That Echigo army's main camp still lay hundreds of miles off in Musashi Province, and her scouts galloped back with a report every half-day. Hundreds of miles separated north from south, and even the fastest horse needed more than half a day to cross it.
The latest report had come last night—there had been no movement at all on that side.
Everything was normal.
Normal enough to fray her nerves.
"What are those people even doing? Just standing there?"
She muttered to herself, brows knotting.
After the Takeda had sent her back, she'd set at once to reinforcing the northern line. The Echigo banner bearing the character for Bishamonten stood planted just a hundred miles off at the border, and she didn't dare let her guard down.
But these past few days—nothing had happened.
The Echigo camp to the north neither advanced nor withdrew, as though it had taken root.
Normal.
Too normal.
She hated normal.
Because normal usually meant that somewhere she couldn't see, something abnormal was already underway.
"My lord!"
A messenger came scrambling up into the castle keep, half-falling over himself. "A great mass of figures has appeared outside the walls!"
Hōjō Ujiyasu whipped around.
She strode to the keep's window.
And then she saw it.
On the distant hills, dust boiled up, and a great tide of figures poured out from the mountain road. At a rough glance, at least two or three thousand of them.
At the very forefront of the column—
a banner of white ground and blue letters unfurled in the wind.
"Bi."
The color drained from Hōjō Ujiyasu's face.
"Impossible… the camp to the north—?"
"According to the latest word, which came a day ago, the northern camp is still there! No movement at all!"
The messenger's report confirmed it.
This was not the force to the north. This was another one.
Another Echigo army, come from a direction she had never anticipated.
"That madwoman—she actually split her forces in two?!"
Hōjō Ujiyasu slammed a fist against the window frame.
The wooden frame gave a sharp crack as it splintered.
Her hand was shaking.
Rage.
And the humiliation of being toyed with like a plaything in someone's palm.
How many days had it been since the Takeda sent her home? Her wounds hadn't healed, her defensive line wasn't fully steady—and Uesugi Kenshin had turned up right at her back door?
Where had the Uesugi clan found so many soldiers to mobilize?
The lands the Uesugi ruled were not small, straddling both Echigo and Kōzuke. But though those two provinces were larger in area than the usual domain, they were not truly fertile, and their population was thin. After setting aside the men needed to guard the homeland, their mobile forces amounted to only three or four thousand.
In this age—when the eastern isles had shattered into fragments, when a single castle or province could count itself a realm, when nearly a century of war and slaughter had left households and heads scarce—that was no small number.
And yet now Uesugi Kenshin had conjured up another two or three thousand troops besides.
Where had she gotten them?
No matter the answer, Hōjō Ujiyasu could only face what stood before her.
"The whole castle to arms! Pull the patrols and guards from within and send them to the south wall!"
Her orders came fast and urgent.
But she knew the truth in her bones—Odawara Castle's main strength was in the north, and fewer than five hundred defenders remained inside.
Five hundred men to hold a castle.
Against an assault of two or three thousand.
Odawara Castle was famed as the strongest fortress in the Kantō, but that was on the premise of a full garrison—at least a thousand men, filling out all four quarters.
And now—
"Someone! Send word at once to the Musashi line in the north—recall half our forces to relieve us!"
"But my lord, the Echigo camp in Musashi Province—"
"That one's a feint! This—this is the real one! Go, now!"
Yes—since the troops before her eyes were real, then the Uesugi army corps to the north had to be the false one.
The messenger went tumbling out.
Hōjō Ujiyasu braced herself against the window frame, watching that "Bi" banner draw nearer and nearer, her teeth grinding until they creaked.
And then—the earth shook again.
This time not from the north, but from the west.
A heavy, rhythmic tremor, like the heartbeat of some vast beast.
It was a sound she had heard twice before.
Iron hooves.
The iron hooves of heavy cavalry.
A great banner, red as blood, rose from behind the western hills.
Fūrinkazan.
The Takeda Red Guard.
Here again.
The appearance of the Takeda Red Guard flipped the situation on its head once more.
Just as Uesugi Kenshin had known it would.
Takeda Shingen too had been watching the fighting here all along, ready to strike the instant anything went awry.
The art of war she followed was the four-word creed of Fūrinkazan, brought long ago from the Celestial Court—swift as the wind, quiet as the forest, ravaging as fire, unmoving as the mountain.
And this was the swift-as-the-wind.
What came next would be the ravaging-as-fire.
Three or four hundred heavy horse surged out from the hills west of Odawara Castle, hooves crushing the dry autumn soil, the dust they threw up rolling like a crimson wave.
The great Fūrinkazan banner tossed in the wind, carrying all the coarse, unreasonable ferocity peculiar to Kai.
Leading them, again, was Yamagata Masakage.
Deep-crimson close-fitting armor wrapped that exaggerated figure, red hair bound into a thick tail that whipped wildly behind her. Astride a jet-black giant of a horse, she had already raised the short-hafted stone maul in her hand high overhead.
The Red Guard cavalry did not charge Odawara Castle.
Instead they drove straight at the approaching Uesugi army.
Three or four hundred heavy horse against two or three thousand foot—in a head-on collision, that many heavy riders were enough to tear the enemy's formation to shreds.
Uesugi Kenshin stood at the center of the army's ranks.
White monk's robes, light armor, a white silk veil over her head.
She saw the Red Guard cavalry pouring out of the west, saw that Fūrinkazan banner.
No look of surprise crossed her face—not even tension.
She only lifted her right hand and made a single gesture.
Fall back.
The order was crisp and clean.
Five hundred household guards wheeled at once, the formation contracting rearward without the least confusion.
The fifteen hundred able-bodied laborers following behind were swiftly guided by the guards toward the hills on either side.
The withdrawal came neither hurried nor slow—not the panicked scramble of a routed force, but more like a tactical maneuver rehearsed in advance.
Yamagata Masakage's Red Guard gave chase.
The black giant horse whinnied as it plowed into the Uesugi rear guard, the stone maul sweeping across, Sanskrit flaring with golden light—several ashigaru of the rear guard were flung away by the blast of wind.
But she pursued only a hundred paces before reining her horse to a halt.
She stopped.
It was not that she couldn't catch them. It was that she couldn't pursue.
Yamagata Masakage sat in the saddle, narrowing those naturally upturned eyes, watching the Uesugi army fall back in good order.
She was looking at the things laid along their retreat.
Antler barricades. Wooden palisades.
Crude trenches.
They had appeared on the gentle slopes of the hills—as they closed on Odawara Castle, the Uesugi army had, even while marching, stripped the private stores of every local lord along the road at top speed, and used the spoils to throw up rough defensive works.
Not to besiege the castle, but to guard against pursuit.
And those works had been sited just right—wedged into the narrow passage between two hills, plugging the very route the Red Guard cavalry would have charged.
What did heavy cavalry fear most?
Antler barricades, plus trenches, plus narrow terrain.
All three had appeared at once, right in front of her.
"These people…"
Yamagata Masakage swore under her breath.
But without much surprise she turned her horse's head, gave up the chase, and rode back to the western side of Odawara Castle.
Uesugi and Takeda—Kenshin and Shingen, and those under their command—had crossed swords many times, and had always understood each other's way of war.
Inside Odawara Castle, atop the keep.
Hōjō Ujiyasu watched the direction of the Uesugi army's retreat to the south and let out a breath.
But only half a breath.
Because she had seen those works too.
The Uesugi army had pulled back, but the works remained.
Those antler barricades and wooden palisades stood there on the hills to the south of Odawara Castle, blocking the route for any sortie from within.
"On her way here… she built a wall?"
Hōjō Ujiyasu murmured to herself.
A retainer beside her leaned in for a look, and his expression turned grim as well.
"My lord, the enemy has not gone far—they've merely withdrawn to the high ground three miles off."
"She's making camp there?"
"It appears… yes. And it appears most of them are only laborers—there are even few ashigaru among them."
Hōjō Ujiyasu fell silent.
Uesugi Kenshin had not attacked the castle.
From first to last, those two or three thousand had never once taken the posture of a siege.
She had merely walked to the southern side of Odawara Castle, flashed her banner, and then, once the Takeda Red Guard arrived, withdrawn at her leisure.
And on the way out, she had casually raised a line of defensive works.
This was no siege.
This was—entrenchment.
What in the world was she trying to do?
And the troops she'd brought were mostly… laborers?
Hōjō Ujiyasu's brow furrowed—then all at once, as though something had struck her, her face changed abruptly.
"Quickly!"
She said urgently, "Chase down the scout I just sent to order the northern army back to relieve us—call him back!"
The order to recall half the Hōjō clan's forces.
She realized it now—if most of what Uesugi Kenshin had brought were laborers, then the Uesugi army in the north was no decoy.
Which meant they would almost certainly seize the moment to sally out and annihilate the half of the Hōjō clan's forces caught on the road as they marched back to relieve the castle!
Was this Uesugi Kenshin's aim all along?
Was there still time to call them back now?
Hōjō Ujiyasu's face was ashen, and she had no confidence in it at all.
Meanwhile, outside the walls on the other side.
The Takeda Red Guard's temporary encampment.
Yamagata Masakage swung down from her horse, her deep-crimson armor smeared with mud and blades of grass. She walked to a crude tent just pitched and lifted the flap.
One person sat inside the tent.
Not yet twenty, deep-crimson hair spilling like a cascade down her back, her features clean-cut and touched with a heroic edge.
She wore a loose, plain kimono, the collar hanging open, the line of her collarbone and shoulders left entirely bare in the light.
Takeda Shingen. Musan Nobu.
The Tiger of Kai wore no armor.
She leaned against a low camp stool, a bowl of cool water drawn from a nearby brook in her hands, sipping it slowly.
"Did you catch them?"
"No pursuit." Yamagata Masakage stepped in and dropped to one knee.
"Why not?"
"She built antler barricades along the road."
Takeda Shingen set the water bowl down, her gaze drifting to the world outside the tent.
From this angle, she could just make out that row of newly raised wooden palisades and antler barricades on the southern hills.
A stretch of silence.
"Masakage."
"Here."
"Do you think Kenshin came this time to take Odawara Castle?"
Yamagata Masakage thought it over. "…Doesn't seem so."
"How so?"
"Two or three thousand men to storm the strongest fortress in the Kantō—even with the Hōjō main force away, that's not something you take in a few days, let alone when most of that crowd are just laborers. That woman doesn't do things she isn't sure of."
"Then what is she doing?"
Yamagata Masakage looked up at her lord.
Takeda Shingen's eyes were not on her, but on that row of works outside.
Antler barricades, wooden palisades, trenches.
Not for besieging a castle.
More like—for cutting something off.
Cutting off the line of contact between Odawara Castle and the Sagami region to the south.
And add to that the camp of three thousand a hundred miles to the north, plugging the northern part of Musashi Province.
North and south, a wall at either end.
Takeda Shingen's fingers tapped the rim of the water bowl, drawing out a soft, ringing clink.
"She isn't attacking the castle."
Shingen rose to her feet and walked to the tent's entrance, spacing out each word: "She's encircling the land."
Yamagata Masakage went still for a moment.
"A scout came in just now. That fool woman, Hōjō Ujiyasu—frightened by Uesugi Kenshin like this, she's already sent word for half the Hōjō clan's garrison in the north to march back and relieve her."
"She's probably realized her mistake by now, but the order likely can't be called back."
"With only half the Hōjō garrison remaining, the Uesugi army is certain to seize the chance and wipe them out—and then break the other half as well.
"The Hōjō will have no force left to defend the north.
"Yet those three thousand of the Uesugi clan will still be there, plugging the northern gateway of Musashi Province at exactly the right spot.
"And these works before us now cut off the line between Odawara Castle, Sagami Province, and Musashi outright—she's carved Musashi Province clean off the map of the Kantō."
Takeda Shingen's voice was unhurried and even. There was no map before her, yet she laid it all out plainly, reading it as easily as the lines on her own palm:
"She came here only to give the Hōjō a scare. Her target, from beginning to end, was never Sagami, never this castle."
"It's Musashi."
"The whole of Musashi Province."
Yamagata Masakage's face changed.
All Takeda Shingen could do was sigh.
She had seen through it, but the truth was, a little too late.
She could only come to relieve this place; there was no way she'd reach the north in time to stop it—those antler barricades lying across the road made it plain at a single glance that Uesugi Kenshin had prepared them for her Red Guard, that heavy cavalry so rare in this age of warring states it could be called one of a kind.
With those in place—
the Red Guard had no way through, and there was no time to go around.
It seemed that this time, once again, Uesugi Kenshin had beaten her to the move…
Takeda Shingen thought to herself.
But it was in that very moment—a swift horse came galloping, a rider racing in from the northwest with urgent word!
"The Uesugi clan's northern troops—the entire army has been annihilated."
Takeda Shingen: "!?"
Uesugi Kenshin's two walls, north and south… had they just collapsed?!
In this instant, at this turn.
Kōbe Hikaru was already inside Musashi Province.
Waiting for Uesugi Kenshin's return.
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