The peace lasted until mid-morning.
Hayato watched the sun climb through the trees, dappling the forest floor with shifting patterns of light and shadow. Kei slept fitfully, her breathing sometimes catching in her throat as if she were dreaming of the dungeon. Hayato's own body ached with a deep weariness, not from the bite, but from the constant, coiled tension of the watch. His mind replayed the images of the night: Goro's final moments, the unnatural strength in the guard-thing's arms, the taste of freedom that was more bitter than sweet.
He was examining the edges of his wound, the skin was pink and healing with impossible speed, when a sound on the road made him freeze.
It wasn't the groan. It was the sound of wheels. Of hooves. Of many people moving together.
He moved silently to the shrine's broken doorway, peering through the foliage. A procession was coming down the Tokaido from the north, moving toward the disaster they had fled. It was a lord's caravan. He could see the moon, the family crest, on the banners: three oak leaves. The Oda clan. A dozen ashigaru foot soldiers marched in front, their spears a ragged forest. In the middle were two palanquins, carried by straining porters. Behind them came supply carts and more soldiers. A samurai on a horse rode at the rear, his armor gleaming dully in the hazy light.
Hope, sharp and dangerous, stabbed through Hayato. A disciplined force. They could secure the area, fight the infected, restore order. They could provide safe passage to Edo.
Then he saw the faces of the foot soldiers. They were not marching with the bored resolve of men on a routine patrol. They were terrified. Their eyes darted to the woods on either side of the road. They held their spears too tightly. The samurai at the back kept turning in his saddle, looking behind them.
And the second palanquin's curtains were drawn tight, but a dark, wet stain was spreading across its bamboo base.
Hayato's hope curdled into dread. This was not a relief column. This was a retreat.
He slipped back into the shrine and knelt beside Kei, placing a hand over her mouth. Her eyes flew open, wide with panic.
"Quiet," he breathed. "People on the road. Soldiers. Something is wrong."
He removed his hand. She sat up, pushing her glasses back onto her nose, and crawled to the doorway to look.
The caravan was closer now. The lead soldiers were almost abreast of their hiding spot. Hayato could hear their voices, tight with fear.
"…said it was just a peasant riot…"
"…not a riot, you fool! Did you see his eyes? White as boiled eggs!"
"Keep moving! The captain said to make for Lord Kiyomori's walls. They'll have answers…"
At that moment, a scream tore from the second palanquin. It was a woman's scream, high and full of agony. The procession stumbled to a halt. The porters dropped the litter with a thud, scrambling back.
The samurai on horseback cursed and rode forward. "You dogs! Pick it up!"
The curtains of the palanquin were thrown open. A young woman in a rich, torn kimono tumbled out. She clawed at her own neck, where a bandage was soaked through with fresh, almost black blood. Her eyes rolled wildly.
"It burns! Mother, it burns inside me!" she wailed.
The samurai dismounted, drawing his sword. "Lady Sayuri! You must get back inside!"
The woman looked at him, and her screaming stopped. Her head tilted. A low, familiar gurgle rose in her throat. The samurai took a step back, his sword wavering.
"No… not you too…"
Lady Sayuri's body stiffened. She stood up, her movements jerky. The gurgle became a hungry groan. She lunged at the nearest porter, her pretty mouth opening far too wide.
The samurai's sword flashed. It was a clean, professional stroke. It took her head from her shoulders in a single swing. The body collapsed. The head rolled into the dirt, the white eyes still blinking.
A terrible silence fell over the caravan. Then, from the woods to the west, a groan answered. Then another. And another.
"Form a line!" the samurai bellowed, his voice cracking. "Spears out! Protect the lord's palanquin!"
But it was too late. Shapes emerged from the tree line. Peasants in torn rags, a woodcutter still clutching his hatchet, two more ashigaru soldiers with the same milky eyes. They moved with that terrible, shambling speed. Ten of them. Twenty.
Chaos erupted.
Hayato pulled Kei back from the doorway. "Do not look."
But she had to look. Her profession demanded it. She watched, her hand clamped over her own mouth, as the Oda clan's caravan was torn apart. The soldiers fought bravely at first, but their spears were clumsy against foes that did not fear being stabbed. A soldier would run a peasant through, and the thing would simply push itself further up the spear shaft to sink its teeth into his arm. The samurai was a whirlwind of skill, cutting down three infected, but a child-sized Gaki crawled under his horse and bit the animal's leg. The horse screamed and threw him. He disappeared under a pile of hungry bodies.
The lord's primary palanquin was set down. The lord himself, an old man in fine silks, stumbled out, holding a short tanto dagger. He looked at the carnage, at his decapitated daughter, at his dying men. He put the dagger to his own belly.
Before he could push, a former servant, her face half-eaten, grabbed him from behind. Her teeth found his neck.
It was over in minutes. The groans of the infected mixed with the wet sounds of feeding. Then, slowly, the Gaki began to wander away, sated for now, leaving the road littered with the dead and the newly transformed.
One of the newly transformed was the samurai. He got to his feet, his fine armor now dented and bloody. One of his arms hung useless. He turned his white eyes toward the shrine.
Hayato tensed, ready to run or fight.
But the samurai-Gaki did not approach. It sniffed the air, took a step toward them, then stopped. It made that same confused, pained sound the guard had made. It turned and shambled away down the road, following the others.
Kei let out a shuddering breath. "They… they don't like this place. The shrine."
"Or they don't like me," Hayato said, looking at his arm.
They waited for a long time in the silence that followed. Flies began to buzz around the corpses on the road. The sun climbed higher, beating down.
"We need supplies," Hayato said finally, his voice harsh. "Weapons. Food. That caravan has both."
"You want to loot the dead?" Kei asked, horrified.
"I want us to live. Your medical box will not feed you. My empty hands will not protect you. Stay here."
Hayato left the shrine and approached the road with the cautious stillness of a hunting animal. The scene was worse up close. The smell was overwhelming. He avoided looking at the faces. He focused on the task.
He took a wakizashi short sword from the dead samurai's belt, and a longer katana from a soldier who had been killed before he could draw it. He found a waterskin, still full, and a pouch of hard rice cakes on a supply cart. From another cart, he took a straw rain cloak and a wide-brimmed peasant's hat. He moved quickly, his skin crawling.
He was pulling a small travel pack from a dead porter when a weak groan made him spin, sword raised.
It was the old lord. He was still alive, propped against his palanquin. The bite on his neck was terrible, and the black veins were already spreading up his jaw. His eyes were still clear, though clouded with pain and poison.
"You…" the lord rasped. "Ronin… I see your straw cord." He referred to the simple cord Hayato used to tie his hair, not the silk of a employed samurai.
"My lord," Hayato said, lowering his sword slightly.
"My daughter…"
"She is gone."
The lord closed his eyes. A tear cut through the blood on his cheek. "The sickness… it came from the south. From the coast. They said it was just… fever. Lies." He coughed, and black spittle dotted his chin. "It is a curse. A demon wind. It takes everyone… everything…"
"Where were you coming from?" Hayato asked.
"My… estate. One day ago, it was secure. Then a servant… bit a guard… by nightfall…" His breathing became more labored. "Fool… I thought walls… soldiers… could stop it. Nothing stops it." His eyes opened, fixing on Hayato with sudden intensity. "You are not sick. I see it. You walk among death… and you are clean. How?"
"I do not know."
A ghost of a smile touched the lord's lips. "A mystery. The last mystery… Take what you need, ronin. Then… do me the honor. Do not let me become… one of those things."
Hayato looked at the dying man. He was a lord, and Hayato was nothing. Yet the man was begging for a samurai's mercy. Hayato nodded once. He drew the wakizashi.
"Thank you," the lord whispered.
The stroke was swift and true. Hayato cleaned the blade on the lord's fine silk sleeve. He felt no pride, only a heavy duty. He gathered his scavenged supplies and returned to the shrine.
Kei was waiting, her face pale. She had seen everything.
"You killed him," she said.
"He asked for the gift," Hayato replied, using the old term for mercy-killing. He dropped the pack at her feet. "Here. Food. Water. A cloak and hat for you. To hide who you are."
She stared at the supplies, then at the blood on his new sword. "This is the world now, isn't it? Scavenging from the dead. Mercy killings on the roadside."
"This is the world right now," Hayato corrected her. "Our task is to change it. You said so yourself. For that, we need to reach Edo."
He offered her a rice cake. She took it but didn't eat. Her gaze was drawn back to the road, to the flies, to the future that awaited them.
"We cannot travel by day," Hayato said, sitting against the wall. "We saw what is on the road. We will rest here until dusk. Then we move at night, off the main road, through the woods where we can."
"And when we reach Edo? If things are as bad there…"
"Then we find your laboratory. And we find your answers."
Kei finally took a bite of the rice cake. She chewed slowly, her mind clearly elsewhere. "The lord said it came from the south. From the coast. That matches the rumors I heard in the infirmary. Sick fishermen. Tainted catches."
"What comes from the coast?" Hayato asked.
"Opium," Kei said, her voice grim. "The illegal trade. Smuggled in by Portuguese and Dutch ships. Lord Kiyomori taxed it heavily but never stopped it. If the plague is in the opium… or in something mixed with it…"
"Then it is not just a sickness. It is a poison. Spread by men."
The implication hung between them. This wasn't an act of heaven. It was the work of people. Which meant it might have a source. A person to find. A person to stop.
Hayato slid his new katana partway from its scabbard. The steel was of decent quality. It felt familiar and heavy in his hand. A tool for a new kind of war.
"Sleep if you can, Kei," he said, using her real name for the first time. "The night will be long."
He returned to the doorway to keep watch over the road of the dead, his back to her. After a moment, he heard her settle down again. He listened to her breathing slowly even out.
On the road, the flies buzzed. In the woods, the shadows grew longer. And somewhere to the south, the source of all this rot festered, waiting.