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But Jack remained where he was. ‘What did you just say about Kunitome-san?’

‘You’re not from here, are you, boy?’ the hag spat. She sniffed the air, then seemed to gag on the smell. ‘You’re gaijin!’

Jack ignored the insult. ‘Did you say the swordmaker did not commit suicide?’

‘No. He didn’t.’

‘Then what happened?’

The old woman stretched forth a bony hand, its skin dead as a corpse. She remained silent, but the message was clear. Akiko reached inside the folds of her kimono, pulled out a small string of coins, removed one and dropped it into the woman’s waiting palm. The hag snatched her prizeaway.

‘He didn’t commit suicide, but he was killed by his own sword.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Jack.

‘Kunitome-san had been commissioned to make a special sword for a very special client,’ she explained, letting her fingers run down the splintered edge of an effigy’s carved wooden blade. ‘The sword was called Kuro Kumo, Black Cloud, on account that it was finished on the night of a great storm. It was his finest sword yet, sharper and deadlier than any blade in existence. It turned out to be the last sword he ever made.’

The hag shuffled closer to Jack.

‘That night the client came and demanded a cutting test to prove the quality of the blade. Kunitome-san arranged for four criminals to be bound over a sand mound. Black Cloud went through all four bodies like a ripe plum cleft in two. You should have heard their screams.’

She extended a talon of a finger and ran it across Jack’s neck. He shuddered at her touch.

‘The client was so impressed he beheaded Kunitome-san there and then with his own creation.’

‘Why did he do that?’ asked Jack, swallowing back his revulsion.

‘He wanted to ensure Kunitome-san never made another blade that could defeat Black Cloud. But when Kunitomesan was murdered, a fragment of his maddened soul entered the sword. As if possessed, the storm then raged all night long, ripping the heart out of the village, ravaging all the crops, destroying the temple. Little was left standing by the morning.’

‘Who was the client?’ asked Akiko.

The old woman looked up, and though Jack couldn’t see her face within the cowl, he swore she was smiling.

‘Dokugan Ryu, of course. The one you seek.’

The hag leant forward and whispered into Jack’s ear, ‘You wish to know where he is?’

‘Yes,’ breathed Jack.

The old woman put out her skeletal hand again. Akiko dropped another coin into the grimy palm.

‘Where is he?’ demanded Jack, impatient for the answer.

She beckoned Jack closer, then croaked, ‘Behind you!’

All three of them spun round to be confronted by a huge green eye.

The old woman cackled at their gasps of shock. But the eye only belonged to a large dragon carving hanging over the doorway, its head turned to one side, its forked tongue flicking out of its red-painted mouth.

‘Very funny,’ snarled Yamato, lowering his guard. ‘There’s no one there.’

‘Oh… but there is,’ corrected the woman. ‘Dokugan Ryu will always be behind you, sneaking up on you like a poisonous shadow.’

‘Let’s go,’ Yamato insisted. ‘This witch is mad.’

Jack had to agree and turned to leave.

‘But it would help if you knew who Dokugan Ryu really is, wouldn’t it?’ whispered the old hag.

Jack stopped in his tracks.

‘Don’t you want to know?’ she taunted, her palm already outstretched, fingers beckoning like an upturned crab.

Jack looked to Akiko. Yamato shook his head in dismay as Akiko begrudgingly handed over another coin.

‘You’re very eager for knowledge, young ones. And I won’t disappoint,’ the hag cackled, slipping the coin into her filthy robes. ‘Dokugan Ryu is the exiled samurai lord, Hattori Tatsuo.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ scoffed Yamato. ‘That warlord was killed in the Great Battle of Nakasendo.’

‘Listen, you little rat!’ she hissed, cutting him off. ‘You paid for a story and I will tell it. Hattori Tatsuo was born in Yamagata Castle in the summer of the Year of the Snake. As a child his eye became infected with the smallpox. He pulled the diseased organ out of his skull himself!’

Akiko recoiled at the thought.

‘Because