Last of the blood
CL Werner


 	Toshimichi felt a chill crawl through the hair on his arms as he stared up at the castle of Baron Eiji Nagashiro. The caprices of wind and sun had worn down the ancient walls, gnawing away at them like vultures picking at carrion. The outer battlements had crumbled away, lying in broken heaps around the foundations. Exterior towers were hollow shells, blank windows staring out across the desert, roofs reduced to skeletal beams and ragged patches of tile. The central courtyard was heaped with sand, great mounds that had drifted up against the inner walls. Only the central keep had managed to resist the elements, rearing up from the desolation in a series of tiered platforms with sharply angled overhangs and flared roofs. A narrow spire rose from its highest point and from its balcony a light shone, gibbous and forlorn.
 	The scholar clutched his robes more tightly, drawing them close about his body. The driving heat of the desert, intense even in twilight, could not offset the cold that gripped Toshimichi. His agitation was sensed by the demigryph that bore him across the sands. The half-bird clacked its tongue against the inside of its beak and stamped its feet in a display of uneasiness.
 	‘There is no harm for you there,’ Toshimichi told the animal. He stroked its feathered neck and tried to calm its anxiety. The demigryphs of Arlk were renowned for their endurance, but also for their obedience. The most prized had an almost empathetic bond with their masters, sensing the intent of their riders without the need for command. Toshimichi’s steed had picked up on his own reluctance to proceed. The animal, however, could not understand that sometimes a man must go where he did not want to go.
 	Sho Castle. Toshimichi had read much about this place… even before the deaths began. None of what he had read was to its favour. This, after all, was where the curse had started so long ago. His mother had had dreams of this place before she died. His brother had spoken of it that last night before he too…
 	Toshimichi focused on the beckoning light. He prodded the demigryph with his spurs and urged it onwards despite the feeling of dread that gripped him. ‘I am expected,’ he said. ‘Baron Eiji has sent for me. It is unseemly to keep a baron waiting.’
 	The demigryph slowly advanced towards the ruined castle. Each step made Toshimichi’s pulse quicken. The atmosphere of danger was palpable, but there was something else as well. The promise that had accompanied Baron Eiji’s summons.
 	The promise of answers.
 	The promise that the curse could be undone.
 	Few improvements had been made to Sho Castle since Baron Eiji had reclaimed the fortress. The keep was largely barren, entire sections closed off and unused. The great hall in which Toshimichi was conducted by the baron’s taciturn retainers seemed even more gigantic by dint of its scant furnishings. The long table that stretched across the middle of the room was its dominating feature, an opulent piece with ornate carvings of writhing dragons and fiery phoenixes adorning every inch of its surface. The chairs arrayed around it were similarly adorned, though their condition varied wildly from one to the next. Some gleamed with the lustre of care and polish while others were faded and scarred, pitted by worm-holes and worn down by neglect. 
 	Though there were many niches in the walls for statues and trophies, only that directly behind the head of the table was filled. A suit of armour bearing the symbol of the Nagashiro clan squatted on a teakwood platform while a pair of crossed swords rested in the rack behind it. Toshimichi gave them only a brief glance. He knew what these pieces were meant to represent. He also knew that the real ones had been destroyed centuries ago.
 	That fact was clearly not lost upon the others who were gathered around the table. A hefty, sallow-faced man dressed in the extravagance of a cosmopolitan shook his head as he squinted at the armour and swords. ‘I know artisans who could make more convincing copies in their sleep,’ he chuckled. ‘Eiji should have spoken to me if he wanted some fakes.’
 	‘Perhaps the baron wished to have a less garrulous man handle so delicate a matter,’ opined a white-haired man seated near the end of the table. Pale and thin, dressed in the robes of a priest, he was almost the antithesis of the rich merchant. ‘You are quite boastful, cousin Masanori. Sometimes discretion is preferable to ostentation.’
 	‘He’ll fool nobody with those fakes,’ Masanori scoffed. ‘Even shut away in that temple of yours, Gunichi, you could tell they aren’t real.’
 	The dark-haired woman seated across from Masanori gestured to the armour with a delicate wave of her powdered hand. ‘Perhaps the only person Eiji is trying to fool is himself,’ she suggested.
 	Toshimichi nodded in agreement. ‘An interesting supposition,’ he said. He gave the woman an apologetic smile. ‘Do you know the baron well?’
 	The woman fingered the tassels on her silken tunic. ‘No,’ she confessed. ‘I have never met him. I only know what his brother told me of his eccentricities.’
 	‘That would make you Otami, Mikawa’s wife.’ The statement came from the head of the table. Seated in a high-backed seat was an elderly woman in white robes. Her silver hair was pulled back tight, held in place by a pearl-tipped pin. Her fingers were heavy with jewelled rings, the nails of her small fingers grown out to a length of several inches and sheathed in gold. About her neck she wore a simple chain from which depended an ivory carving of the Nagashiro clan symbol.
 	‘You are Mikawa’s mother,’ Otami said, a note of uncertainty in her voice.
 	‘I am the Dowager Nagashiro,’ the elder replied, pressing a finger to the ivory talisman she wore. ‘Mikawa was my youngest. He did not have a chance to introduce you to any of us before he was… taken.’ The last word fell from the matriarch’s lips as little more than a whisper. A haunted look entered her eyes and she looked anxiously at the shadowy niches all around them.
 	Toshimichi interposed himself into the awkward silence. ‘If you have never met the baron then I doubt you have met any of us. I am Toshimichi, a student of the sage Baram in the lamasery of Khult. The sombre fellow at the end of the table is Gunichi, a lay priest in the temple of Dracothion.’ One after the other, Toshimichi introduced the people gathered at the table. Masanori the wheat-trader. Hirao the demigryph breeder. Chihaya the brewer. Emiko the courtesan. Komatsu the swordsman.
 	‘Except for the baron himself, we who are gathered about this table are all that remains of the Nagashiro clan,’ Toshimichi announced when he was finished.
 	Komatsu stood up with such alarm that his chair went skidding across the bare floor. ‘What do you mean? What is this?’ The man’s hand closed around the grip of his sword as he glared at Toshimichi.
 	‘Anger will not change truth,’ the Dowager stated. She motioned for Komatsu to sit down, then turned her attention on Toshimichi. ‘You are certain of this? We have not yet seen Sugihara or his daughter.’
 	‘They are dead,’ Toshimichi said. ‘Sugihara took his own life after… after the curse took his daughter.’
 	Gunichi crossed his hands in front of him in the sign of the celestial dragon while Masanori drew a small bottle from his belt and took a swig of its contents. Komatsu was more voluble in his reaction.
 	‘Curse? What curse?’ the swordsman demanded.
 	‘The curse that haunts all the Nagashiro clan,’ the Dowager explained. ‘The curse that rises once a century to visit death upon this family.’
 	Komatsu shook his head in denial. ‘I am not of your blood! I married Masanori’s daughter!’ He looked at Otami. ‘We are not of the Nagashiro. We have nothing to do with this!’
 	‘But you do.’ The words echoed through the desolate hall. The speaker came striding out from the doorway just beside the niche with the imposter armour and swords. He was a middle-aged man, his hair still a lustrous black, although traces of silver infiltrated his beard. The tunic he wore was a deep scarlet with the emblem of the Nagashiro clan embroidered in green thread. From the centre finger of his left hand, a huge ivory ring repeated that emblem and pronounced his rank and title. Baron Eiji Nagashiro.
 	The baron strode into the great hall, his sharp features drawn back in a reproving expression. Two burly retainers dressed in Eiji’s livery flanked him as he approached the table. ‘When you married into this family, you merged your blood with ours. The prosperity of Nagashiro, which you coveted, is yours. And so too is our curse.’
 	‘I want no part of any curse,’ Komatsu stated. He turned from the baron and gave Masanori a withering look. ‘You said nothing about any curse when I courted your daughter.’ 
 	‘It is a burden all the Nagashiro clan shares,’ the Dowager said. ‘For centuries its shadow has hung over us.’ She wagged a bony finger at Masanori. ‘You should have warned Komatsu. When he hears what is in store for him, he may decide to take your head before Yorozuya comes for it.’
 	Komatsu drew his sword, the sharp blade shining in the hall’s dim light. ‘Let this Yorozuya try to take my head! I am the best blade in all the Khanate! I have fought forty-seven duels and never suffered a scratch! Just let this Yorozuya dare show his face.’
 	The swordsman’s boasts brought grisly laughter from many at the table. Toshimichi did not share in the morbid humour. He turned towards Komatsu. ‘I have delved deeply into the history of our family and the curse that haunts us. Perhaps there was a time when you could have crossed swords with Yorozuya and emerged the victor, but that day is long past. Yorozuya died almost four hundred years ago.’
 	‘You see, Komatsu,’ Gunichi proclaimed, ‘it is no mortal foe that threatens you, but a vengeful wraith from the underworld.’
 	The swordsman sat back down, his face almost ashen in colour. He laid his weapon across the table but kept a ready hand upon its grip. ‘A ghost,’ he muttered. ‘A murdering ghost.’
 	‘A ghost that seeks to murder us all,’ Toshimichi said. He gave Otami a grave smile. ‘When you married into this clan, you became part of our blood as far as Yorozuya is concerned. He will seek your heads as viciously as ours.’
 	Otami could not control the tremble in her voice. ‘But why? Who is… or was… this Yorozuya?’
 	Baron Eiji took it upon himself to answer that question. ‘Yorozuya was the Lord Executioner of King Ashikaga Hidenaga at the time of the Five Princes. One by one, King Ashikaga brought battle to each of the princes and one by one their castles fell.’ He paused and gestured at the room in which they sat. ‘This was one of those castles, and Jubei Nagashiro was one of those princes. The king was determined to solidify his rule and leave no spark of dissent to trouble his legacy. So when he defeated a prince and captured a castle, he called upon Yorozuya to execute the entire family. Down to the least trace of noble blood.’
 	Toshimichi pointed to the ring the baron wore and the pendant around his mother’s neck. ‘One of the Nagashiro escaped the massacre. Now, once a century, Yorozuya’s spirit returns to try to complete his duty to King Ashikaga. When he begins to kill, he continues, relentlessly. Once a month, he seeks out a victim. For years he hunts us down, until whatever infernal force drives him is spent. At least for another century.’
 	Baron Eiji stepped away from the table and slowly paced the hall. ‘When the wraith is loosed from the underworld, the descendants of Jubei die. It does not matter how far they run, or where they hide, Yorozuya finds them. He raises his great two-handed sword, the executioner’s blade he wielded in life, and with a single stroke he removes…’
 	‘Did you summon us here simply to remind us of the horror that hangs over us?’ Masanori demanded.
 	Baron Eiji smiled at the merchant’s outburst. ‘No. I called you all here because this is where it all started.’ He let his words linger in the air, watching his audience as they waited for him to continue. 
 	‘This is where the curse started,’ Baron Eiji declared. ‘And this is also where it can be brought to an end.’
 	Gunichi gave a sour look at the markings which Baron Eiji’s retainers had scrawled across the floor. The priest of Dracothion did not care for this occult display and made that disdain obvious to the others. ‘No good can come from dabbling in the profane arts,’ he warned. ‘This smacks of necromancy, the dark magic of Nagash.’
 	‘If you are so opposed, you do not have to join the circle,’ Baron Eiji told him. ‘Of course, being outside the circle would mean forsaking its protection. Are you so certain your god values you enough to safeguard you against the wraith we would conjure?’
 	Toshimichi could see the doubt in Gunichi’s eyes. A moment more and he walked forwards and took his place within the strange design that stretched across the floor. The flickering light from the seventeen black candles arrayed about the circle did strange things to the dragon embroidered on the priest’s robes, making it seem as though the wyrm were writhing in protest and trying to pull Gunichi away.
 	Toshimichi fought to suppress his own misgivings. He wondered if the priest truly knew how deeply Baron Eiji had delved into the black arts to perform this seance. The scholar’s own studies had touched upon these occult practices. The seventeen candles, for instance, had to be rendered from the fat of murdered men in order to evoke their arcane potency. The chalk that marked the floor drew its ghostly colour from the crushed bones mixed in with the powder. At the four cardinal directions, a tiny brazier smouldered and filled the hall with a sweet incense – an odour derived from the slivers of coffins exhumed under the full moon. All these things, and many other macabre preparations, were designed to draw into the room the magic of Shyish and the grisly energies of the dead.
 	With Gunichi’s entry into the circle, the balance was complete. The priest took his place in the triangle where the stars of the celestial dragon had been drawn. Each member of the family stood within a geometric shape that contained a constellation peculiar to their nature. Masanori was in a rhombus with the stars of the weasel while Otami reposed in a hexagon with the lights of the dove. Toshimichi noted that his own place was a pentagram with the owl. Baron Eiji, at the centre of the complex intricacies of the circle, was bound by a chalk octagon and the constellation of the wolf.
 	The dour retainers were quick to act once Gunichi was inside the circle. Keeping outside the shape, they moved to cast down powder and seal the design, creating an unbroken perimeter around the Nagashiro survivors. Their task completed, the men bowed towards Baron Eiji. A gesture from their master sent the men scurrying away. Toshimichi could hear their hasty footfalls as they withdrew through the castle’s desolate halls.
 	‘Each of you has, in a way, attempted to defy the curse of Nagashiro,’ Baron Eiji stated. ‘Be it stealing away to the protection of a temple or trying to trick a renowned swordsman into serving as your champion. All of you have tried some way to escape the revenge of Yorozuya.’
 	‘And you have promised a better way,’ Masanori growled. ‘A way that is certain to work.’
 	Baron Eiji nodded. ‘It was not pride that caused me to restore this keep or fabricate the lost relics of our clan.’ He turned and looked to the Dowager. ‘You made a study of the arcane sciences in an effort to break the curse.’
 	The Dowager grasped the ivory pendant with a bony hand. ‘It was my dream that I should be able to protect my children. I have failed in that ambition and now I find my last son to be rushing headlong into calamity.’
 	‘There is an old adage, mother, that the man who would escape danger must first embrace it,’ Baron Eiji stated.
 	Toshimichi felt a chill rush through his body. ‘You mean to call up the spirit of Yorozuya,’ he said. There was no question in the scholar’s mind. He could read the intention in the baron’s eyes.
 	Baron Eiji made a placating motion with his hand. ‘Do not be afraid. What is there to fear except the thing that already menaces each of us? Would you go back, run away to wait and tremble until the Lord Executioner finds you? Or will you stand here and help me to break this curse?’
 	‘Yorozuya will kill us all!’ objected Masanori and his argument was taken up by many of the others.
 	‘Not if you stand with me,’ Baron Eiji said. ‘The courage of a moment and you will save your lives.’
 	‘What is it you intend with this rite?’ Toshimichi asked. ‘What do you hope to accomplish when you call Yorozuya?’
 	‘I intend to deceive the ghost,’ Baron Eiji stated. ‘That is why it was necessary for all of you to come here, for all of you to enter the circle. Every living drop of Nagashiro blood is within this circle. When Yorozuya is called, he will seek a head to claim, but he will not be able to take any who stand in the circle. We will be invisible to him.’
 	‘And when he finds none to slay, he will believe his task accomplished,’ Toshimichi mused. ‘At least until the next cycle begins.’
 	‘That would be a century from now,’ Otami said. ‘There will be no menace over any of us.’
 	‘A century from now, our descendants can simply repeat the ritual,’ Masanori suggested. ‘That will put them outside the wraith’s reach.’ He grinned at Baron Eiji. ‘It is a brilliant design. You will save all of us.’
 	‘I will confound the curse,’ Baron Eiji declared. He looked over to the Dowager. ‘The last of our blood will endure,’ he told his mother. The Dowager said nothing, but simply removed the pendant from around her neck and handed it to her son.
 	The gesture brought dampness to Baron Eiji’s eyes. He gripped the ivory tight in his hand and nodded to the others. ‘The hour draws late and I must begin the ritual. Whatever may happen, keep silent and do not leave the circle. The least disruption of my magic could bring disaster to us all.’
 	The baron pointed to each of the candles. As he did so, their flames billowed higher even as the light they gave off became subdued. Toshimichi felt a biting cold fill the room, his breath turning to mist as he exhaled. The smell of the incense became heavier, the sweetness fading into a rank, earthy smell. The reek of graveyard dirt and despoiled tombs.
 	Baron Eiji’s voice rose in the sharp intonations of his ritual. The language was unknown to Toshimichi, but there was a sinister, inhuman cadence to it, evoking images of giant serpents hissing and the scratching of claws against stone. Through it all, there was one name that was distinct in the baron’s invocation. That of the Great Necromancer. The name of Nagash.
 	Toshimichi felt his pulse quickening as the uncanny atmosphere within the circle intensified. A damp clamminess wrapped itself around him, making it difficult to breathe. 
 	Then, with shocking abruptness, the great hall returned to normal. The glow of the candles was again restored, the eerie chill vanished from the air. Toshimichi had heard a cry, a voice raised in terror. He knew it was not Baron Eiji who had shouted, for his invocation could still be heard.
 	Who it was that had cried out, Toshimichi never knew. The question itself was forgotten when he looked towards Baron Eiji. A black mass, thicker than the shadows that filled the great hall, was rapidly gathering around the nobleman. There was just the suggestion of a head and shoulders, the dark outline of a raised sword…
 	Before anyone could move, the baron’s invocation was silenced. Eiji’s head leaped from his shoulders in a welter of gore, spraying blood as it rolled across the arcane circle.
 	‘He’s called Yorozuya!’ Gunichi shrieked. ‘But the Lord Executioner is inside with us!’
 	The seance exploded into a chorus of screams and shouts. Toshimichi fled with the others as they rushed from the circle and out across the gloomy great hall. For the rest of them, he supposed they had no more thought than escape, but Toshimichi cast a parting look at Baron Eiji’s decapitated head, smiling up at him from a pool of Nagashiro blood.
 	Toshimichi ran down the stairs that stretched down to the keep’s main gates. Far from the most robust of physiques, the scholar was well behind the press of panicked humanity that rushed ahead of him. He saw the terrified Masanori and Komatsu push past Otami, flinging the widow aside with callous disregard. He helped her back to her feet. She started to say something, whether of gratitude or protest he never knew, for in that moment her eyes widened with horror. 
 	Otami was gazing at something on the stairway above them, something back in the direction of the great hall. Toshimichi risked a backwards glance and was at once riveted by an awful fascination. The Dowager was descending the steps, not quickly but with the indifference she might have exhibited at a public function. She had a sombre look on her face, almost wistful in its way.
 	Following after her was a dark mass, but far more distinct in its appearance than the shadow that had fallen upon Baron Eiji. It was the shrouded semblance of a man, its head wrapped in the leather folds of a headsman’s hood. Its dimensions were incomplete, fading away into the tatters of its shroud. It did not stride upon legs, but instead drifted in a vaporous state. As it moved, a litter of grubs and worms fell from its body, squirming away into the dark.
 	‘Run!’ Toshimichi shouted, but the Dowager only smiled sadly at him. She did not quicken her pace or even turn around. She seemed to know what it was that stalked after her and had resigned herself to her fate.
 	Toshimichi did not wait to see the wraith make use of the gigantic sword clenched in its skeletal talons. Gripping Otami’s arm, he took his own advice and fled down the stairs, hurrying after the others towards the main gate. 
 	‘It was Yorozuya!’ Otami cried, over and again. ‘He has come for us!’
 	‘First he has to catch us,’ Toshimichi told her, hating how empty the words sounded even to himself. Perhaps a great wizard could do something to defy the wraith, but the few spells and cantrips he knew would merely be an annoyance to such a monster. No, they couldn’t fight it. Their only hope was to get beyond the Lord Executioner’s reach. If such a thing was even possible.
 	Toshimichi could see the hulking main gates at the bottom of the steps as he led Otami down the final length of the stairway. The others were there already, but curiously none had made a move to open them or even approach too closely. He soon found the reason why. The brewer Chihaya lay sprawled on the floor, pierced through the breast by an arrow.
 	‘Baron Eiji’s servants,’ Masanori cursed. ‘They’ve barred the gates and will shoot anyone who tries to get past!’
 	The restoration of the keep had been haphazard and there were many gaps in the dilapidated gates. Holes through which a person, or an arrow, might pass. Toshimichi looked over at the torches that lined the stairway. The backlight they provided would expose anyone who tried to squirm through the broken panels. They were caught, trapped between the guarded gate and the ghost.
 	‘We have to get through!’ Otami shouted. ‘Yorozuya is coming! We saw him murder the Dowager!’
 	Komatsu rushed towards the gate, hurling abuse at the men outside. ‘You hear that, you curs! Let us out!’ His only reply was the arrow that hissed past his head, nearly taking off his ear. The swordsman hurriedly drew back.
 	‘They are afraid they will let the wraith out,’ Gunichi said. ‘You cannot reason with frightened men.’
 	Toshimichi glowered at the sealed portals and at the unseen archers beyond. He wondered if it was merely fear. ‘Maybe the baron ordered them to keep us inside,’ he suggested.
 	‘Why?’ Masanori demanded. ‘To what purpose? Besides, he is dead.’ The merchant turned towards the gate and shouted to the retainers outside. ‘Do you hear? Your master is dead!’
 	Masanori’s entreaties only brought more arrows hissing through the gaps in the gate. ‘I can pay you,’ he shouted, his hands fumbling to free the purse strapped to his belt.
 	Toshimichi felt the intense cold that suddenly swept through the air, a chill of soul rather than flesh. He turned and lifted his eyes to the top of the stairway. A dark apparition took shape there, manifesting as a rapidly forming shadow. The hooded Lord Executioner hefted its massive sword. The blaze of its eyes could be seen glowing behind its black mask as it stared down at the Nagashiro.
 	‘It is too late,’ Toshimichi said and pointed up at the wraith.
 	Masanori intensified his efforts at bribery while the others looked on. Toshimichi knew they were debating which death to prefer – Yorozuya’s sword or the arrows. It was the same hideous decision he was trying to decide.
 	Gunichi chose to confront the wraith. Turning from the gate, he ascended the stairs, his steps slow and measured. A religious mantra droned from his lips as he moved upwards and his hands were folded across his chest in the symbol of Dracothion. Toshimichi did not know the priestly language, but he recognised some of the gestures Gunichi used. He was trying to invoke divine protection against evil forces.
 	Yorozuya remained at the top of the stairs, seemingly paralysed by Gunichi’s prayers. That was, at least, until the priest was midway between the gate and the wraith. ‘Stop!’ Toshimichi called. ‘Go no farther!’ In his occult studies, his efforts to understand and break the curse on the Nagashiro, he had learned something of the black arts. Among the arcane principles that empowered profane magics was that of the crossroads, the midpoint between one thing and another. Dusk and dawn, the moments between day and night. Doorways and gates, neither within nor without. There was peril here as Gunichi closed the distance and put himself both equally near and far from the Lord Executioner.
 	The priest either did not hear or did not heed Toshimichi’s warning. He took that final step, resting himself on the stair that was exactly between the gate and Yorozuya. Whatever power his prayers had to hold back the wraith was undone. In a flash of shifting darkness the ghost vanished from the top of the stair and reappeared before Gunichi. The shadowy form was enveloped in a fiery light, whatever sacred energy was yet gathered around the priest. By that light, the dark shroud was burned away, exposing a ragged skeleton, its bones pitted with the bore-holes of worms and beetles.
 	A moment only, Yorozuya stood thus exposed. Then the spectral shroud and hood flowed back into being, cloaking it in darkness once again. Silently, the apparition raised its executioner’s blade. Gunichi’s mantra faltered. He raised his voice in a scream of protest and threw up his hands to defend against the downward sweep of the razor-edged blade.
 	Toshimichi heard Otami scream and felt her clutch his arm in a terrified grip. They saw Yorozuya’s sword shear through Gunichi’s arms, sending them tumbling down the steps. With the same stroke, the priest’s head was severed at the neck. In uncanny silence, his body slopped to the floor and rolled downwards until it crashed against the wall.
 	‘No!’ The cry rose from Komatsu. ‘I am not a Nagashiro!’ The swordsman spun around and seized Masanori. Before the merchant could react, Komatsu’s blade stabbed into his side. The wounded man collapsed to his knees, his face gripped by shock. ‘Listen to me, ghost! I will help you! I will give you the head of Masanori!’
 	Toshimichi recoiled away from the crazed swordsman, dragging Otami with him. They looked on as Komatsu hacked away at Masanori’s neck. Blood spurted from the merchant’s veins, spattering the walls and the onlookers as the blade slashed into him again and again. It took four blows before Komatsu decapitated his victim. Stooping, he snatched up the head by its hair and held it aloft. 
 	‘My gift to you!’ Komatsu shrieked at Yorozuya. ‘The head of a Nagashiro!’
 	While Komatsu murdered his father-in-law, the wraith had been slowly descending the stairs. Now it came hurtling downwards in a blur of darkness. In a heartbeat, Yorozuya hovered before the red-handed swordsman. He cringed back and waved the head back and forth, as though the ghost had simply failed to see what he had done.
 	The wraith merely raised its executioner’s blade. Komatsu had time enough to react. He threw the severed head at the apparition. It passed harmlessly through the spirit and landed at the foot of the stairs. Yorozuya brought its heavy blade sweeping down. Komatsu met it with his own blood-drenched weapon. There was a crash of steel as the two blades met. 
 	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 seance 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 seance, 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 seance 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.
 	Otami dropped the gory brazier. ‘Is it over?’ she asked.
 	Toshimichi looked over at her. ‘For now,’ he said. ‘Until another hundred years has passed and Yorozuya rises again from his grave.’ He glanced at Baron Eiji’s body. ‘He was right, Yorozuya couldn’t hurt the last Nagashiro.’ Toshimichi returned his gaze to Otami. ‘But I don’t understand. You should have been the last of our blood.’
 	Otami shook her head. ‘No, you were the last,’ she said. ‘You see, Baron Eiji was right about something else.’
 	‘I don’t think his brother really cared for women,’ she said, a sad look in her gaze.
 	Toshimichi thought of all the dead littered throughout the castle. ‘That is for the best. Any family you had would have simply perpetuated the curse.’ He stared at the spot where the wraith’s essence had disintegrated. ‘I am now the last. The Nagashiro line will end with me.’ 
 	‘Then Yorozuya will have no reason to again rise from the underworld.’