Kenji moved like a ghost through the ruined hallway, the lantern casting frantic, jumping shadows. Hayato followed close behind, his bare feet silent on the cold stone. Every sense was sharp, honed by years of training and the fresh, animal fear of what he'd just seen. He could smell his own blood, the coppery tang sharp in the foul air.
They passed Goro's cell. Hayato did not look inside. The wet, red sounds were enough for a lifetime.
"Where are we going?" Hayato asked, his voice low.
"Up. Out," Kenji whispered back, not turning. "The main garrison is between us and the postern gate. But with that… noise… the guards may be distracted."
"Or they may be part of it."
Kenji glanced back, the fear returning to those intelligent eyes. "Yes."
They reached the broken iron door. Kenji paused, holding the lantern out to peer into the guard room beyond. Hayato gently pushed past, taking the lead. He had no sword, but his hands were free. That was something.
The guard room was a small, square chamber with a table, two stools, and a rack for weapons that was now empty. The scene was one of sudden violence. A lantern lay smashed on the floor, its oil still burning in a small, dying pool of flame. One guard was slumped against the far wall, his neck bent at an impossible angle. The other was gone, but a dark, glistening trail led out the door to the stairs.
"He was the one who bit you," Kenji said, pointing to the trail. "He came back here, attacked his partner, then left."
Hayato looked at the dead guard. No bite marks. Just a broken neck. "It learns. It remembers how to kill quickly."
A groan echoed down the stone staircase to their right. The sound was answered by another, from above.
"We cannot go up the main stairs," Hayato said.
"There is no other way!"
Hayato's eyes scanned the room. He saw it then, a low, wooden door, almost hidden in the shadows behind the weapon rack. A cellar door, or a supply closet. "There."
He crossed the room and pulled the door open. It led not to a closet, but to a narrow, steep staircase heading upward. The air from it was colder, carrying the scent of night and damp earth.
"The old coal chute," Kenji breathed, a flicker of hope in the voice. "It comes out behind the kitchen yard."
"Lead the way."
Kenji ducked into the darkness. Hayato followed, pulling the door closed behind them. The blackness was absolute. Kenji's lantern was the only light, revealing rough-hewn stone walls slick with moisture. They climbed single file, the stairs so steep they were almost a ladder.
"Who are you?" Hayato asked as they climbed. The question hung in the damp air. "A physician's assistant who carries keys to prisoner manacles. Who knows secret passages."
Ahead of him, Kenji's shoulders tightened. "I am someone who wants to live. As are you."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one you will get right now, ronin. Keep climbing."
They reached the top. A heavy wooden hatch was above them, held shut by a simple iron latch. Hayato put a hand on Kenji's shoulder, feeling the person flinch at the touch. "Let me."
He shifted past Kenji in the tight space, his back against the cold stone. He listened. He heard only the distant, chaotic sounds of the compound: shouts, a bell ringing in alarm, a scream that was cut short. Nothing immediately on the other side of this door.
He pushed the latch. It opened with a rusty shriek that made them both freeze.
No response came.
Hayato pushed the hatch open a crack. Night air, fresh and cold, washed over them. He saw a sliver of dark sky, a few stars. He opened it wider and pulled himself up and out.
He was in a narrow, filthy alley between two high wooden walls. One wall was the back of the kitchen. The other was the outer palisade of Lord Kiyomori's compound. Piles of rubbish and empty barrels filled the space. The main compound was to their left; the sounds of chaos were louder there.
Kenji scrambled out beside him, pulling the heavy medical box. The physician quickly shut the hatch, covering it with a torn mat of straw that lay nearby. "This way," Kenji whispered, pointing right, down the alley toward the outer wall.
They moved quickly, Hayato's eyes scanning every shadow. The alley ended at the tall wooden palisade. There was no gate.
"A dead end," Hayato said.
"No. Look." Kenji knelt by the base of the wall, where the wood met the earth. Several planks were loose. Kenji pulled at one, and it came away, revealing a hole just large enough for a person to crawl through. "The cooks use it to sneak their friends in after curfew."
"You know a lot about the servants' secrets for a physician's assistant."
"I listen." Kenji shoved the medical box through the hole, then dropped to hands and knees. "Are you coming or not?"
Hayato looked back down the alley toward the roar of the main compound. A sudden wave of orange light flared, and the sound of crackling wood joined the screams. They had started the fires.
He dropped and crawled after Kenji.
The hole emerged behind a thicket of wild bamboo at the base of a hill. They were outside the compound walls. Below them, the town of Lord Kiyomori's fiefdom spread out, a pattern of dark thatched roofs under the moon. But it was not peaceful. Several houses were on fire. Tiny figures ran through the streets. Even from here, they could hear the screams, punctuated by those low, hungry groans that were now etched into Hayato's mind.
Kenji stood, brushing dirt from the grey robes. The physician looked down at the town, then at the burning compound, then at Hayato. In the moonlight, the fear was plain. "What do we do?"
"You said my blood might hold an answer," Hayato said. He held up his bitten arm. The wound was already scabbed over, a dark line in the moonlight. "Where do we find that answer?"
"In a proper laboratory. With books. With equipment. Not here. The closest place with the tools I need is Edo. The Shogun's medical college."
"Edo is weeks away on foot."
"Do you have a horse?" Kenji snapped, the stress breaking through. "Do you have a better plan? We must warn the Shogunate! They must know what is happening here. They can send soldiers, doctors…"
Hayato looked at the town descending into hell. The fires were spreading. He saw a group of figures, too fast, too stiff to be human, chase down a running man in the main street. "I think they will know soon enough."
A new sound made them both turn. From the main gate of the compound, now glowing with fire, a group of people poured out. Soldiers. But they were not running in formation. They were fleeing. And behind them, shambling through the gate, came a wave of grey, groaning shapes. Dozens of them. The plague was not contained. It was spreading, chasing its food into the town.
"We need to move. Now," Hayato said. "Which way to the main road?"
Kenji pointed a shaky hand to the east, along a path that skirted the hill. "There. It meets the Tokaido road a few miles north."
"Then we go east."
They turned and began to run, not down into the dying town, but along the dark hillside path, putting the firelight and the screams at their backs. Hayato ran easily, his body remembering the rhythm of movement despite his weeks in chains. Kenji struggled, the medical box banging against a thigh, breath coming in ragged gasps.
After ten minutes, they had to slow to a fast walk. The path was rocky and steep. The sounds of the town grew fainter, replaced by the normal sounds of the night: crickets, the wind in the pines, an owl.
Finally, Kenji stopped, hands on knees, sucking in air. "I… I cannot…"
Hayato stopped too, listening. He heard no pursuit. He looked back the way they had come. A dull orange glow lit the sky over Lord Kiyomori's fiefdom. The bell had stopped ringing.
"We rest for a moment," Hayato said. He found a fallen log and sat, watching the path behind them.
Kenji slumped to the ground, putting the medical box down carefully. The physician unwound the cloth from the lower part of the face, gasping for the cool air. In the moonlight, Hayato saw a sharp, intelligent jawline, a mouth set in a grim line. Kenji pulled a small water flask from the robe and drank, then offered it to Hayato.
Hayato took it and drank. The water was clean and cold.
"Thank you," he said, handing it back.
Kenji nodded, re-wrapping the face cloth. The silence stretched, filled only with their breathing and the night insects.
"My name is not Kenji," the physician said suddenly, the voice quiet. "It is Kei. I am… I was a student of the Dutch medical texts in Edo. My father was a doctor to the Shogun's court."
Hayato absorbed this. A woman. A scholar. In disguise. It explained the secrecy, the fear. "Why are you here, in this backwater fiefdom?"
Kei's shoulders slumped. "My father spoke against Lord Kiyomori's harsh taxes. It was… politically inconvenient. We were sent away. 'Posted' to the provinces. Then this sickness began. I have been documenting it. Trying to understand it." She looked at Hayato, her eyes gleaming behind the glasses. "And then I found you. A man who should be dead or turning into one of those things. And you are neither. Do you understand what that means?"
"It means I am hard to kill."
"It means you might be the key to stopping this!" Kei's voice rose with passion before she caught herself, glancing nervously back down the path. "Your body fights the poison. If I can learn how, I might be able to replicate it. Create a treatment. A cure."
Hayato looked at his arm again. A key. A specimen. A cure. An hour ago he was a prisoner. Now he was these things. He was not sure he liked any of them. "First, we need to reach Edo alive. The Tokaido road will be dangerous. Bandits. Deserting soldiers. And now… those things."
"We have no money. No weapons. Just my medical box and your…" She gestured at him. "…your immunity."
"Then we will need to be clever," Hayato said. He stood up. "Can you walk?"
Kei nodded, pushing herself to her feet. "Yes."
"Good. We put more distance between us and that town before dawn. We find a place to hide and rest during the day. We move at night until we are far from here."
"You sound like you have done this before."
"I have been a ronin for five years," Hayato said, starting to walk again. "Moving unseen, finding shelter, staying alive when you have nothing… that is the life of a masterless samurai."
They walked in silence for another hour. The path joined a wider, well-trodden road—the Tokaido, the great highway that connected Edo to Kyoto. It was deserted at this hour, a pale ribbon under the moon, lined with dark pine trees. It should have been busy with travelers, with patrols. Its emptiness was more frightening than any mob.
Just before the first hints of dawn lightened the eastern sky, Hayato spotted a small Shinto shrine off the side of the road, half-hidden by trees. The torii gate was crumbling, and the shrine building itself looked neglected.
"There," he said. "We rest."
They left the road and pushed through the undergrowth to the shrine. It was a simple, small wooden structure. The door was broken. Hayato peered inside. It was empty, save for a thick layer of dust and dead leaves on the floor. A stone altar held a rusty bell and a few withered offerings.
"It will do," he said.
Kei entered wearily, setting her box in a corner. She sat with her back against the wall, exhaustion finally overtaking her. Hayato remained by the doorway, watching the road through the trees.
"You should sleep," he said. "I will keep watch."
"What about you? You were bitten. You must be…"
"I am tired. But I am not sick. Sleep. I will wake you in a few hours."
Kei did not argue. She curled up on the dusty floor, using her robe as a pillow. Within minutes, her breathing became slow and deep.
Hayato watched the grey light of dawn slowly reveal the world. The woods. The empty road. The silent, sleeping woman who saw him as a medical puzzle. He looked at the bite on his arm. He pressed it. It hurt, a normal hurt. He thought of the guard-thing's teeth. He thought of its confused whimper when it tasted his blood.
What am I? he wondered.
The wind blew through the pines, sounding like a distant sea. It carried no screams. No groans. For now, in this forgotten shrine, there was peace.
He knew it would not last.