Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [444]
All eyes strained to see.
“Who’s there?” roared one bandit.
The silent shadow walking toward them carried a white blade. The bandits, trained to be sensitive to odors, instantly recognized the on€ they smelled now—blood, dripping from the sword.
As the men in front fell back clumsily, Musashi sized up the enemy force. He counted twelve men, all hard-muscled and brutish-looking. Recovering from the initial shock, they readied their weapons and took defensive stances. One ran forward with an ax. Another, carrying a hunter’s spear, approached diagonally, keeping his body low and aiming at Musashi’s ribs. The man with the ax was the first to go.
“A-w-w-k!” Sounding as though he’d bitten his own tongue off, he weaved crazily and collapsed in a heap.
“Don’t you know me?” Musashi’s voice rang out sharply. “I am the protector of the people, a messenger from the god who watches over this village.” In the same breath, he seized the spear pointed at him, wrested it from its owner’s hands and threw it violently to the ground.
Moving swiftly into the band of ruffians, he was kept busy countering thrusts from all sides. But after the first surge, made while they still fought with confidence, he had a good idea of what lay ahead. It was a matter not of numbers but of the opposition’s cohesiveness and self-control.
Seeing one man after another turned into a blood-spurting missile, the bandits were soon falling back to ever greater distances, until finally they panicked and lost all semblance of organization.
Musashi was learning even as he fought, acquiring experience that would lead him to specific methods to be used by a smaller force against a larger one. This was a valuable lesson and couldn’t be learned in a fight with a single enemy.
His two swords were in their scabbards. For years, he’d practiced to master the art of seizing his opponent’s weapon and turning it against him. Now he’d put study into practice, taking the sword away from the first man he’d encountered. His reason wasn’t that his own sword, which he thought of as his soul, was too pure to be sullied by the blood of common brigands. He was being practical; against such a motley array of weapons, a blade might get chipped, or even broken.
When the five or six survivors fled toward the village, Musashi took a minute or two to relax and catch his breath, fully expecting them to return with reinforcements. Then he freed the women and ordered those who could stand to take care of the others.
After some words of comfort and encouragement, he told them it was up to them to save their parents and children and husbands.
“You’d be miserable if you survived and they perished, wouldn’t you?” he asked.
There was a murmur of agreement.
“You yourselves have the strength to protect yourselves and save the others. But you don’t know how to use that strength. That’s why you’re at the mercy of outlaws. We’re going to change that. I’m going to help you by showing you how to use the power you have. The first thing to do is arm yourselves.”
He had them collect the weapons lying about and distributed one to each of the women.
“Now follow me and do just as I say. You mustn’t be afraid. Try to believe that the god of this district is on your side.”
As he led the women toward the burning village, other victims emerged from the shadows and joined them. Soon the group had grown into a small army of nearly a hundred people. Women tearfully hugged loved ones: daughters were reunited with parents, wives with husbands, mothers with children.
At first, as the women described how Musashi had dealt with the bandits, the men listened with shocked expressions on their faces, not believing that this could be the idiot rōnin of Hōtengahara. When they did accept it, their gratitude was obvious, despite the barrier imposed by their dialect.
Turning to the men, Musashi told them to find weapons. “Anything’ll do, even a good, heavy stick or a length of fresh bamboo.”
No one disobeyed, or even questioned his orders.
Musashi asked, “How many bandits are