Red Snow
Sakamoto Tadayoshi shivered. He shivered in the crisp mornings when he woke up and donned his armor, as he did every morning for the day's march. He also shivered through the march. And he shivered at night around the cooking fires every night, and in his bedroll. He longed for the warmth of another, perhaps Hirio, perhaps one of the girls from his town's pleasure house, small as it was, but Hirio was dead and those girls far, far away.
Hirio was dead, and so was Hiro, though they had looked nothing alike. And Terada. So many of the young men he had marched out with during the summer were dead. Even his lord Rukasa Terunari was dead, despite his men's best efforts; nearly forty of the hundred men he had summoned to his banners had fallen trying to protect him, another twenty in trying to protect his body and head. They had, at least, succeeded. Tadayoshi had waded through the blood and corpses with the survivors and had taken many heads. It did not make up for the loss of so many comrades, no, but it was something. They had died worthy deaths and the heads taken in that field honored them.
Tadayoshi had warm clothes, but the wind readily found the great gashes in them. The edges of the holes were crusty with dried blood, even more so than the rest of his garments. He focused on placing one foot in front of the other. He had come to a sort of agreement with Muto Ittetsu wherein they would slap the other awake if he looked to be falling asleep on his feet.