The meeting within the command tent erupted into an intense back-and-forth discussion as the varied generals and shinobi adjusted to the new situation, their plans changing at the eleventh hour following Katuki’s report. Passionate appeals from the water country officers and fervent declarations by their underlings were met with cold logic from Kirigakure’s finest, and Naratame Heizō lent ears to both sides without outward preference. He was a good listener, known as a good strategist and good leader; but he was here now because he was a general who had, time and time again during the long years of his career, proved unafraid to do what
needed to be done. And with his own two hands if necessary. Precious minutes were lost to what-ifs and maybes, to postulation and caution, but in the end there was only one obvious course of action before them. Heizō’s aides, reading the room and knowing their general too well, scurried from the tent and returned with his blade and plate before he even rose and announced his decision to bring forward the attack. They were to engage the enemy immediately, ideally before the mouth of the pass could be reinforced, but most importantly before the Heart Empire host before them could escape and reposition somewhere more advantageous. Or, worse yet, be reinforced. They were still far from the only band of enemy soldiers in Water Country. Thanks to his careful prior planning, the varied divisions arrayed in ordered lines on the plateau outside of the command tent obeyed swiftly, orders being swiftly passed down the chain of command to ensure every man knew his place and instruction. And the army began to move within the hour. Indeed, it was no small coincidence that the time it’d taken for the departure, encounter, and the reporting back of the forward scout unit was similar to the staging time of the main army host, and with the situation demanding immediate action, boots were soon stamping in ordered squads up the rise towards the Shōgai Pass.
They arrived in short order, the first lines of spearmen, archers, and sword-armed samurai approaching the contested entrance to the pass in a steady wave of blue-bannered steel. They had made good speed despite the incline, pushing slightly ahead of the main body of soldiers to increase pressure on the enemy and draw them into an engagement, even while their fellows caught up and took their own positions. The earlier skirmish between the two scouting groups had long since resolved, and the ground ahead of the marching lines was torn up, littered with fallen horses, unmoving bodies, and red-washed swathes of rocky ground. Water Country’s first reconnaissance company had not fared well in the engagement, losing far more than just the Lieutenant Watabe Jun’ichi, their commanding officer. The enemy, unfortunately, had endured. The remnants of the enemy cavalry stood visible on the ridge of the entrance to the Shōgai Pass as the Water Country samurai approached. A little battered, perhaps bruised, but very much still in fighting order. But they didn’t charge. Instead their soldiers stood in the saddles, obviously examining the approaching forces with open shock, before milling about in frantic re-ordering before eventually pulling back, into the pass and out of sight. Even the simplest soldier could see that their numbers were too few to make a difference, even with their good positioning, when faced with the entirety of Naratame’s gathered and battle-ready divisions.
Naratame himself nudged his warhorse forward steadily from the head of the fourth line of companies. Looking sideways along the ranks to his standard bearers, he raised a small signal of his own which they mirrored by switching and mixing different flags, and within moments the army increased their pace, pulling their flanks inwards slightly as they pressed onward up the hill and towards the pass. The spearmen led, forming a two-company deep curved front line that bent backwards at its edges as a protective measure against any sudden flanking charges. Close behind them were ranks of archers, lightly armed and swift-footed, all skilled with the skirmishing tactic of falling back deeper into the formation once an enemy grew too close. Then the heavy and shock infantry, the higher class samurai like himself with blades and heavy armour, who could surge forward to reinforce a buckling line or hammer home a strike into any available opening, themselves flanked by the majority of his horse. A simple, yet effective and versatile formation. He wished he knew more of the enemy ahead to better optimise, but such was the price of the earlier failure of his reconnaissance company.
Eventually, after precious minutes of slow cautious climbing, the Water Country army crested the rise at the mouth of the pass. Their officers pushed them onwards a little further, giving the entire force room to muster on the better ground at its top, and Naratame moved up to ride nearer the front. Finally he had sight across and down into the pass beyond. There, spears and helmets glinting in the sun perhaps two miles distant, assembled a similarly sized host of the Heart Empire’s invasion force. Their lines were rapidly reforming, the shouts and clatter of hurried movement cutting across the empty plain between the two forces, mixing with the stamping din of his own side. Naratame and his men had arrived first, perhaps earlier than their foe had expected, and prevented the Heart soldiery from reaching and blocking the pass entrance itself; but they were still on good ground, and rapidly preparing for the engagement. There would be no surprise ambushes or carefully picked out ground today, despite all his earlier efforts. His own officers were just as busy as theirs, and he quickly turned and sought some out, amending his earlier orders. Soon enough both sides were arrayed ready for battle, their formations set and steady. Then flags were raised and horns called into the clear sky, and both armies began creeping forwards, each intent on holding their formations while luring the enemy.
Given the Empire’s relative newness to the world stage, Naratame had maintained some small hope that their command staff would be similarly inexperienced, perhaps young and brash, and filled with the fervour of a successful start to their campaign. But, as he watched the two armies crawl closer, he quickly corrected any such misgivings; their soldiers seemed every bit as disciplined as his own. An early ploy to lure an enemy charge, by leaving one flank falsely exposed, drew no reaction, and he scrambled to order it corrected before the two sides grew too close. When that happened, and the missile fire began, each side slowed as the first testing shots were exchanged. Flights of arrows sent waves of shade rolling across the plain before hammering down towards their targets, some landing harmlessly short or wide, others punching into armour and mail and horses and sending up cries of pain or alarm. The rhythmic volley-and-clatter increased in pace as the two sides continued to edge nearer, until the arcs of the arrowflight grew almost flat. Spears were lowered, shields adjusted downwards, and each side seemed to hold its breath. He drew his own sword and held it aloft, paused, then swung it forwards in a vicious arc. Horns echoed the command and, as one rolling mass of steel, his front ranks charged towards the enemy.
He hated watching it. Man crushed against man, spears finding faceplates and bellies as often as shields and air. Wood splintered and steel clanged, almost drowned under the roar of the struggle rising from thousands of throats. He still saw himself as a soldier at heart, and wished to be down there among his men more than he cared to admit. To feel the weight and momentum of the charge, to meet the enemy head on and test their mettle, then overcome it with swift strikes and a steady core. He
could still do it. But then someone else, someone without his experience, would be sat where he was, and he’d seen too many mistakes made by commanders in his youth to trust another in his place. So instead he inhaled sharply and spun his head towards every turn of the field, constantly watching, weighing, and countering the moves of his opponent. The initial charge was met solidly and quickly devolved into a bitter push back-and-forth, a no-mans-land of spear and pike forming as the two sides gave and took ground in tandem. When his side showed signs of buckling he sent orders for the rest to pull back to keep the line firm, or sent reinforcements to add weight to the push. Where the enemy cavalry tried to tease their way around his left flank, he sent his own to counter, and ordered volleys of harrowing fire until the opposing horse lost their taste for the charge. His command sent one unit of heavy nodachi-armed samurai charging into a wavering enemy unit, and for a few minutes the enemy lines were split and the spears overcome, before a swift counter charge reset the line and his men were driven back again.
So it continued for the next two hours. Careful play and counter-play, each general moving, learning, and adapting to his foe. Naratame quickly surmised that the Imperial commander must be a veteran from the original Tea Country, given the easy expertise of his movements on the field. Both sides flowed and pushed, charged and braced, searching and pressing for opportunity. Cavalry on both sides charged, retreated, and reset, inflicting losses but always taking some of their own, too, until both sides grew too wary to press further. Many of his archers, their bows useless now as the press of the melee grew closer and closer, took up spears and swords of their own and became mobile light infantry which he moved to threaten the thinner parts of the enemy line, forcing them to reposition and reinforce, whereupon he could press their centre or threaten the opposite flank. But no side found the advantage, and all the while men tired and died where the armies met. Unfortunately, the Heart armies were better rested. The rapid muster and march to force this battle had wearied his men, and as the battle stretched on and on, their flagging presented the opportunity the Empire needed. A small buckle in his line turned into two, spreading out. Within minutes the lines on either side were bulging outwards, turning into a disorganised pocket of fighting, and men began losing their cohesion. Naratame grit his teeth and whispered a hoarse prayer as he watched, sweat beading on his forehead. He had one last card to play, and if he didn’t show it now, he’d never get to. He turned to the small group of Kirigakure ninja waiting nearby, each watching the battle eagle-eyed. They saw it, too, and were already drawing blades and checking equipment. Their leader, the pale-skinned Aisu with the long hair, began to glow with a nimbus of crackling blue chakra even before Naratame gave him the command.
A spear of white light shot out from that shinobi, splitting the air before him and growing in a wall of white energy just as it had done earlier in the day, though this was on a notably smaller scale. Naratame squinted through the dust and rolling movements of the two armies, and saw the far side of the portal burst open far across the field, behind the enemy lines.
Quick, now, he ordered, knowing the moment of surprise to be the most critical. Give the enemy time to react and the ploy would fail and cost him everything. The group of ninja ducked through the gateway and appeared on the far side, followed by a surging wall of heavy infantry pouring through the gateway. He smiled grimly as panic visibly gripped the enemy, even before the new strike force had formed their own line or met with their foe. It turned sour as he watched enemy cavalry adapt to the new threat and turn back from where they’d initially been moving, reforming and quickening their pace.
Too soon. His strike force would be splintered by that charge, no doubt about it. He had to buy them time. But how? The ninja were already committed, sparks of chakra flying from hands and bodies and burning up lines of the purple-marked samurai. Water, fire, and swirling torrents of air tore through lines, but there weren’t enough shinobi to stop the charge of half a company of cavalry. He tensed, feeling a chill run through his body as his hand moved to find the hilt of his own sword once again. One more signal and he was moving, spurring his eager horse to a gallop and flying down the small slope towards the gateway. Behind him, his honour guard shouted and yelped, following his lead and fully knowing his intent.
Their own charge burst from the gateway seconds before the enemy cavalry, and the shock of their arrival scattered the incoming charge. He wove through their splitting lines, expertly guiding his mount with his knees and laying about him with his sword. Something clanged off the side of his helmet, turning it awkwardly upon his head until he clawed it back into place, then he had to duck as his horse ran him at full speed below a thrusting spear. An instinctual flick of his wrist sent its wielder toppling backwards, then out of sight as Naratame kept moving on and on. When the enemy horsemen had passed he regrouped his own unit and turned to chase them down. His own horses were fresh and eager, allowing him to keep the pressure on and never giving his foe the opportunity to reform themselves, opening the way for his heavy foot to get to their bloody task.
Another hour passed before the battle was fully resolved. For all his momentary advantage, it was hardly decisive. The enemy commander had expertly adapted to the shifting battle lines and, though he had suffered many losses in the initial confusion, had been able to manoeuvre with spectacular anticipation and reform the majority of his army, organising a fighting retreat further back into the pass. There, keeping the river to protect one flank and their remaining cavalry to ward off pursuit, they got away from the exhausted masses of Naratame’s assault. Both sides reluctantly disengaged, and Water Country staked their claim once again to the heights of the Shōgai Pass. It was a victory, but barely, and only in the positional sense. Despite the intense fighting and striking, neither side had incapacitated the other or gained a decisive advantage. But the heights were secure, and the Imperial army displaced back towards the south side of the mountains. One step in the right direction. But the war continued.
