Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [351]
Leaving the shouts behind him, Musashi reached the crossroads and plunged immediately into the narrowest of the three paths of exit, the one leading toward the Shugakuin. Coming helter-skelter from the opposite direction were the men who had been stationed along the path. Before he had gone forty paces, Musashi saw the first man in this contingent. By the ordinary laws of physics, he would soon be trapped between these men and those pursuing him. In fact, when the two forces collided, he was no longer there.
“Musashi! Where are you?”
“He came this way. I saw him!”
“He must have!”
“He’s not here!”
Musashi’s voice broke through the confused babble. “Here I am!”
He jumped from the shadow of a rock to the middle of the road behind the returning samurai, so that he had them all to one side. Dumbfounded by this lightning change of position, the Yoshioka men moved on him as rapidly as they could, but in the narrow path they could not concentrate their strength. Considering the space needed to swing a sword, it would have been dangerous for even two of them to try to move forward abreast.
The man nearest Musashi stumbled backward, pushing the man behind him back into the oncoming group. For a time, they all floundered about helplessly, legs clumsily entwined. But mobs do not give up easily. Though frightened by Musashi’s speed and ferocity, the men soon gained confidence in their collective strength. With a stirring roar, they moved forward, again convinced that no single swordsman was a match for all of them.
Musashi fought like a swimmer battling giant waves. Striking once, then retreating a step or two, he had to give more attention to his defense than to his attack. He even refrained from cutting down men who stumbled into range and were easy prey, both because their loss would only result in meager gains and because, if he missed, he would have been exposed to the thrusts of the enemy’s lances. It was possible to judge the range of a sword accurately, but not that of a lance.
As he continued his slow retreat, his attackers pressed on relentlessly. His face was bluish-white; it seemed inconceivable that he was breathing adequately. The Yoshioka men hoped that he would eventually stumble on a tree root or trip on a rock. At the same time, none of them was eager to get too close to a man fighting desperately for his life. The nearest of the swords and lances pressing in on him were always two or three inches short of their target.
The tumult was punctuated by the whinnying of a packhorse; people were up and about in the nearby hamlet. This was the hour when early-rising priests passed by on their way to and from the top of Mount Hiei, clopping along on raised wooden sandals, their shoulders proudly squared. As the battle progressed, woodcutters and farmers joined the priests on the road to witness the spectacle, and then excited cries set up an answering response from every chicken and horse in the village. A crowd of bystanders collected around the shrine where Musashi had prepared for battle. The wind had dropped and the mist descended again like a thick white veil. Then all of a sudden it lifted, giving the spectators a clear view.
During the few minutes of fighting, Musashi’s appearance had changed completely. His hair was matted and gory; blood mixed with sweat had dyed his headband pink. He looked like the devil incarnate, charging up from hell. He was breathing with his whole body, his shieldlike chest heaving like a volcano. A rip in his hakama exposed a wound on his left knee; the white ligaments visible at the bottom of the gash were like seeds in a split pomegranate. There was also a cut on his forearm, which, though not serious, had spattered blood from his chest to the small sword in his obi. His whole kimono appeared to have