Jiro's face, already etched with grime and exhaustion, tightened. He instinctively lowered his voice, as if the enemy might overhear them from miles away.
"Half a day's march, my lord. They are camped in the broad meadow by the Ashida River. Their main force is at least five hundred strong, led by Lord Izumo himself."
Five hundred. Takeru did a quick, grim calculation. The Akiyama, after their losses, could muster perhaps one hundred and fifty able-bodied fighters. The odds were still impossible. The miracle at the pass had only bought them time, nothing more.
"Have the men secure the pass with a rotating watch," Takeru ordered, his mind already moving past the immediate victory. "We return to the village. The wounded cannot stay in this cold."
The journey back was a somber, shuffling procession. The elation of the charge had vanished, replaced by the weary reality of its cost. Men carried their dead and wounded on makeshift litters, their faces grim. Takeru walked among them, his own injury a throbbing reminder of their fragility. He saw the way his clansmen watched him. They parted before him, their eyes holding a mixture of reverence and fear. The legend of Takeru who commanded the mountain was already spreading faster than a forest fire.
Their village was nestled in a small, defensible valley, a collection of wood and thatch buildings surrounded by a crude palisade. At its center stood the lord's hall, the largest structure. It was there that Takeru's father, Lord Akiyama Masaru, lay.
Takeru entered the smoky hall to find his father propped up by cushions on his sleeping mat, his face pale and drawn from the wasting sickness that had gripped him for months. It was this illness that had forced the clan's hand, prompting the Izumo to attack what they perceived as a leaderless and weakened clan.
"Father," Takeru said, kneeling.
Lord Masaru's weary eyes scanned his son, taking in the blood-stained armor and the crude bandage on his shoulder. A healer, a wizened old woman named Chiyo, clucked her tongue and immediately came forward to inspect the wound.
"They said... the pass held," Masaru rasped, his voice thin. "They said you..."
"We were fortunate," Takeru said, cutting him off before the myth could be spoken aloud. "The Izumo vanguard is broken. Their commander is dead."
A flicker of fierce pride ignited in the old lord's eyes. He reached out a trembling hand and gripped Takeru's arm. "You have your mother's eyes today, boy. The eyes of a hawk." He coughed, a wracking sound that shook his frail body, and slumped back into the cushions, exhausted by the effort.
As Chiyo worked on his shoulder, cleaning the wound with boiled water and a sharp herbal poultice that made him hiss in pain, Takeru's mind was already at work. He began issuing orders that startled the clan elders gathered in the hall.
"Chiyo-san, I need a list of all our remaining medicinal herbs. Prioritize the gravely wounded, but use clean cloths for everyone. Boil all the water you use."
The old healer blinked at the strange instructions but nodded.
"Jiro," he continued, turning to his retainer. "Conduct a full inventory. I want to know exactly how much rice, millet, and salted fish we have. Count every spear, every bow, and every single arrowhead. I need to know our strength down to the last stone."
"And the prisoners?" Jiro asked.
Takeru's gaze hardened. "Keep them bound and under guard. Give them water, but no food yet. Bring me the highest-ranking one among them."
An hour later, an Izumo warrior, his face bruised and defiant, was thrown to the floor before Takeru. His armor identified him as a squad leader.
"What is your name?" Takeru asked, his voice calm.
"I am Hideo of the Izumo. And I have nothing to say to you, Akiyama dog," the man spat.
Takeru nodded slowly, ignoring the insult. He walked around the kneeling man, his expression unreadable. "You fought bravely, Hideo. Lord Izumo promised you the rice fields of the Tanaka clan for your service, didn't he?"
The man's eyes widened slightly in surprise. Takeru was guessing, a calculated shot in the dark based on scraps of knowledge about regional politics from his inherited memory.
"But," Takeru continued, circling back in front of him, "he made the same promise to the Saito family for their support. A powerful family, the Saito. Who do you think he will truly reward when this is over, assuming he has any lands left to give?"
Hideo's defiance wavered, replaced by a flicker of doubt. Takeru pressed his advantage, his voice dropping to a near whisper.
"Kaito is dead. Your vanguard is gone. Your lord thinks the mountain fell on you by chance. He thinks it was bad luck." Takeru leaned in close. "He doesn't know it was a weapon. He doesn't know I can do it again. But you know. You saw me."
Fear, cold and pure, finally broke through the man's pride.
"What do you want?" Hideo whispered.
"I want to know what your Lord Izumo is doing right now."
The interrogation was short. Hideo, his confidence shattered by the revelation that his lord was ignorant of the true threat, told Takeru everything. The Izumo army, arrogant and secure, was celebrating their "imminent" victory. They believed the Akiyama were all but destroyed and that the rockslide was a one-in-a-million fluke of nature. Tonight, they would be drinking sake and feasting, their guard almost certainly down.
It was the single greatest opportunity Takeru could have imagined. A window of vulnerability born from pure arrogance.
Later that night, Takeru stood before a crude map scratched into the dirt floor of the hall. Jiro and a handful of other senior Akiyama warriors stood around him, their faces grim in the flickering torchlight.
"They outnumber us more than three to one," Jiro stated flatly. "We cannot meet them in the open field. We must fortify the pass and pray our food holds out."
"Praying is not a strategy," Takeru said quietly. He looked up from the map, his eyes gleaming with a light that made the hardened veterans around him uneasy.
"They believe us broken. They believe the kami struck them by chance. Tonight, they will be drunk on sake and arrogance, their bellies full and their senses dull."
He jabbed a finger onto the map, indicating the location of the Izumo camp by the river.
"Their victory celebration," Takeru announced, his voice ringing with chilling purpose, "is the perfect cover for a night raid."
A stunned silence fell over the hall. Jiro stared at him as if he had just proposed they all fly.
"My lord," Jiro stammered. "A night raid? Against their main camp? It is madness."
"No," Takeru replied, a thin, dangerous smile on his lips. "It's the only move they will never see coming."