Toshimichi had to regard Komatsu with respect. Had his foe been mortal, the swordsman would surely have beaten him. The two weapons parried one another in a fierce display. The stairway echoed with the ring of battle. Twice, Komatsu slipped past Yorozuya’s guard and slashed at the wraith’s shadowy essence. A living man would have died from either of those blows, but instead all Komatsu accomplished was to send a few shadowy grubs and maggots spilling from the ghost’s shrouded bones.
Panic seized Komatsu, and in that panic his skill faltered. His parries became sloppy and now it was Yorozuya’s blade that prevailed. At first, there were only glancing cuts that nicked shoulder or arm, but then there came the grisly moment that had become inevitable. Weakened by fear and injury, Komatsu failed to block the killing stroke. Yorozuya’s murderous sword came whipping around at him, hewing through his throat in a mighty stroke that cut clear through the spine.
During the fray, Emiko and Hirao rushed the gate. No arrows greeted the pair. Hearing the conflict within, aware of the monster which was coming for the Nagashiro, the retainers had fled. Now it was the courtesan and demigryph breeder who sought to escape. Squirming through the holes, the two deserted Sho Castle.
Otami would have run after them, but Toshimichi held her back. He was looking at Komatsu’s body and at the gory mess of Masanori. ‘Wait,’ he urged her. ‘There is something wrong here!’ Even if his observation meant nothing, there was no salvation by simply running. As it rose from the swordsman, Yorozuya turned to the gate. The wraith’s spectral essence needed no hole to squeeze through as it pursued Emiko and Hirao, it simply passed through the barrier as though it did not exist.
‘We can escape now!’ Otami pleaded, but Toshimichi would not let her go.
‘Yorozuya would find us,’ he said. ‘Wherever we went, he would find us.’ He shook his head. ‘Baron Eiji had a purpose in bringing us all here. I think this is all by design, exactly as he wanted it to be.’ He pointed to the bodies of Masanori and Komatsu. ‘Look at them,’ he ordered when Otami would have turned from the grisly sight. ‘When Masanori was decapitated there was blood everywhere, but Komatsu’s wound did not bleed.’ He glanced up the steps at Gunichi. ‘We saw no blood when the priest died.’
Otami shuddered at the ghastly realisation. ‘But there was blood when Baron Eiji was killed.’
Toshimichi led her up the stairway. ‘Was he killed? We have to go back and see. We have to make sure.’ He glanced back at the gate. ‘Hurry! There is not much time. When Yorozuya is finished with them, he will come back for us!’
The great hall in which the séance had been conducted was still veiled in darkness when Toshimichi and Otami stepped inside. The crawling cold that had impressed the scholar before was absent, so too was that musky stench of the grave. Yet there was still a sense of hideous evil here. Human evil.
‘Be ready,’ Toshimichi warned Otami. ‘He may not wait for Yorozuya to kill us.’
Otami shook her head. ‘His own mother…’
‘The Dowager must have realised what he was doing,’ Toshimichi said. ‘That is why she gave him the pendant. It was her way of telling him she accepted her fate.’ He remembered the corpse of the old woman and how different her visage looked from those of Gunichi, Masanori and Komatsu. There had been a composure there, almost as though the Dowager were pleased to die.
Toshimichi’s fingers tightened around Otami’s arm. He stared into the darkness where the arcane circle had been. ‘The baron is here,’ he stated. He gestured with his hand, calling upon one of the cantrips he had learned in his studies. The candles, extinguished earlier in the séance, flared back into life. Brighter than before, their light dispelled the darkness.
Baron Eiji sat within the circle, a cold smile on his face as he stared at Toshimichi and Otami. The scholar noted that the nobleman had kept within the octagon shape he had drawn earlier.
‘That is the only real protective barrier, isn’t it?’ Toshimichi challenged him.
Eiji nodded, his head quite secure upon his neck. ‘The rest of the circle is an illusion. A bit more tangible than the vision of my murder, perhaps, but no less of a trick.’ His smile broadened. ‘The séance wasn’t, though. You really did help me summon Yorozuya to this castle. He could not resist such a concentration of Nagashiro blood.’
‘Why?’ Toshimichi demanded. ‘Why help the curse along? Why bring us here to simply kill us?’
‘Your own mother!’ Otami snapped at the smirking baron. ‘You did not spare even her.’
Baron Eiji’s visage flushed with colour, his eyes smouldering with fury. ‘I could not spare anyone! I even brought you here because I could not risk that my brother might have consummated your marriage despite himself! If even one drop of Nagashiro blood was not here, I could never be sure…’
‘Sure of what?’ Toshimichi asked. If he knew why Eiji had done all of this, he might figure out a way to stop him.
Eiji laughed at the question. ‘Of them all, Toshimichi, I was the most worried that you would have learned the truth as I did. Let me tell you, then.’ He leaned forwards, to the very edge of the octagon that defended him. ‘There is no curse on the Nagashiro family.’
The statement struck Toshimichi almost like a physical blow. ‘But, the murders! The near extermination of our family…’
‘Yet always the Nagashiro endure,’ Eiji pointed out. ‘That is because the curse is not upon us. It is Yorozuya that is cursed. Condemned to spend eternity striving towards an unreachable goal!
‘I will tell you how it happened,’ the baron continued. ‘When King Ashikaga ordered Yorozuya to massacre our ancestors, the Lord Executioner betrayed his master. The captured Jubei had hidden away enough wealth to buy the life of his youngest son from Yorozuya. In exchange for the money, Yorozuya let the child escape. His treachery was discovered, however.’
Baron Eiji laughed, a grisly chuckle that echoed through the hall. ‘Oh yes, the king’s anger was great. No honourable death for Yorozuya! The executioner was bound in his own coffin and coated in honey to draw insects to his trapped flesh. Spells sustained his life while the worms and beetles fed off him. Even when there was no flesh left and even his bones were eaten away, his spirit endured.’
‘Condemned to haunt the Nagashiro,’ Otami said.
Eiji corrected her. ‘Condemned to complete his task. Condemned to never rest until our family is wiped out. But he can never complete his mission. Always the last member of the clan is safe from him, just as Jubei’s son was safe from him long ago. Yorozuya can never escape the taint of his treachery, so he can never strike down the last of our blood.’
Toshimichi felt sick as he appreciated Eiji’s plan. ‘That is why you did this. Why even the Dowager had to die. You can only be sure of escaping Yorozuya if you are the last Nagashiro.’
‘Too late, you understand,’ Eiji said. ‘Tell me, if you knew what I know, how could you do anything else? It is the only way.’
Toshimichi glared at the nobleman. ‘You forget one thing. Now that I know, I can do the same thing. I can wipe out that circle which hides you from Yorozuya. You can take the same chance the rest of us have.’ He reached into the sleeve of his robe and drew out a long knife. ‘Or I can mimic Komatsu and offer your head to the wraith.’
‘You could,’ Eiji conceded. ‘If you had the time.’
Otami screamed. Toshimichi spun around, his gaze locked upon the dark shadow that loomed in the entryway. Baron Eiji had been so forthcoming with the details of his scheme because he had been playing for time. Waiting for Yorozuya to come.
Toshimichi shoved Otami aside. It was an even chance whether the wraith would go after her or him. Though he felt it would be a futile gesture, he tried to draw the ghost’s attention. He let the knife fall from his hand and instead produced a bag of coins.
‘Yorozuya!’ Toshimichi shouted at the wraith. ‘Once you sold your honour for gold! Once you cast aside your duty for a bribe! Here, murdering wretch! Here is your chance to do so again!’
The Lord Executioner swept towards him, its eyes leaping with angry flickers of ghostly light. The immense sword was raised, ready to deliver the killing blow to this mortal who dared to mock its curse.
Before the wraith could strike, an anguished shriek filled the hall. Toshimichi looked aside, following the source of the sound. He saw Otami standing over Baron Eiji, one of the heavy braziers clenched in her hands. Blood dripped from the implement, the same sanguinary fluid that now leaked in earnest from the nobleman’s body. Eiji crawled across the circle, gasping for mercy.
Otami brought the brazier down again, smashing Eiji’s skull.
An enraged roar rippled from Yorozuya. The grubs and maggots dripping from the wraith became a cascade, swiftly diminishing its shadowy essence. The Lord Executioner brought its sword flashing down. Toshimichi felt an icy cold sear through his body, slicing through him from neck to shoulder. But the cut was only a shadow itself, unable to truly harm his flesh. Unable to take his head.
Yorozuya raised the blade for another blow. The angry glow had fled from its eyes and now there was something akin to despair in the wraith’s gaze. Toshimichi felt the same cold pass through him as the sword came slashing down, incapable now of harming him.
The worm-eaten bones were visible now, so much of the wraith’s shroud and mask had evaporated with the crawling vermin. Toshimichi stared back at the leering skull as the last of the gravelight faded from its sockets. A moment more, and then the bones crashed to the floor in a confused jumble. Soon even this residue was gone, vanishing in a greasy fume.
