The Warring Provinces

Lord of Kai, the Tiger of the Eastern Mountains

Patient to the edge of cruelty; would rather starve a province out over a winter than storm it in a morning. Reads men the way he reads a river — for where they will give.

Wants: Hold the Shinano road and the crossings that feed it, so Kai stops being a pocket in the mountains and becomes a way through.

Sworn Retainer, Master of the Sand Table

Lame, half-blind, taken into the house on nothing but the quality of his advice, and spending himself ever since to prove the decision was sound. Cannot listen to a man describe ground he has not walked.

Wants: Make the plan work; and if it does not work, be the first man on the field to pay for it.

Wall-Captain of the West

Forty years in the field and not one wound to show for it, which he treats as a fact about caution rather than about luck. Throws up an earthwork before he lights a fire.

Wants: Keep the western approach shut so the house never has to fight on two banks in the same afternoon.

Wall-Captain of Kaizu, Keeper of the House Record

Writes down what happened the same night it happened, including the parts that read badly against him. Slow to speak in council and impossible to argue with a year later.

Wants: Hold Kaizu, and get this campaign written down before the men who were there begin improving it.

Abbot of Erin-ji, the Lord's Teacher

Treats a battle plan and a koan as the same species of problem, since both fail on the same word. Has no opinion about who should win and a great many about how.

Wants: Keep the house from mistaking its appetite for its duty.

The Lord's Younger Brother, Writer of the Precepts

Writes rules for other men's conduct and keeps them harder than any of them. The only man in Kai who can contradict his brother in front of the retainers and be thanked for it.

Wants: Leave the house something in writing that will outlast the men now holding it.

Captain of the Red Company

Short, loud, and lacquered red from helmet to shin so that the far bank can find him without trying. Considers being visible a tactic and not a vanity.

Wants: Break something open before the day settles into a siege.

Captain of Horse, the Unclaiming

Reports the position, the losses and the hour, and nothing he personally did; the omission is so consistent it has become the thing he is known for. Rides off the field last.

Wants: Bring back more men than the day should have allowed.

Lord of Echigo, Vowed to Bishamonten

Took the vows and kept the army. Drinks alone, campaigns in the same month every year, and will not take a province he has not been invited into. Believes the account is kept somewhere he is not permitted to audit.

Wants: Answer the appeals of the Shinano houses Kai has swallowed, and be seen by everyone to have answered them.

Chief Retainer, Reader of the Other Man's Plan

Assumes every quiet night is a trick, and is right often enough that the house tolerates the rest. Counts the far bank's cook-fires twice and trusts the second count.

Wants: Get the army down off the mountain and over the water before the mountain house learns it has been read.

Wall-Captain of Kasugayama, Keeper of the Stores

Runs a province the way another man runs a household — by knowing exactly what is in it. Will not release rice he does not believe is going to be eaten.

Wants: Bring the army home with enough left in the stores to get Echigo through the snow.

Wall-Captain of the Rearguard

Given the crossing to hold and given no reason, which suits him; he asks only how long. Sleeps standing, leaning on a horse.

Wants: Hold the ford until the last file is over, then be the last file.

Abbot of Rinsen-ji, the Lord's First Teacher

Taught the lord his characters at seven and has never entirely stopped correcting him. Says less every year and is listened to more.

Wants: Keep the vow the lord took from decaying into something he merely wears.

Retainer of the Written Remonstrance

Puts his objections on paper and signs them, on the grounds that a spoken objection can be forgotten by both parties. Has been right and unpopular in the same week many times.

Wants: Keep the lord in the field by writing down what nobody else will say to his face.

First Spear of Echigo

Goes in first by arrangement and by temperament, and is quietly furious on the rare days he is held back.

Wants: Reach the mountain house's field curtain before anyone else in Echigo does.

Captain of Horse, the Unflinching

Turned a bursting shell aside with his bare hand, or so the print-sellers have it; he stopped correcting the story once he noticed it rides ahead of him and clears the road.

Wants: Keep the story true enough to be worth the trouble it saves him.