and had an arm around Kinjiro and a knife at his throat. A trickle of blood from a fresh cut was seeping into the boy’s shirt. Kinjiro stared at Tora with wide, frightened eyes.
“Let him go!” growled Tora.
To his surprise, the thin man obeyed. He flung the boy aside and started toward Tora. The room was small, but Tora thought that he might be able to disarm the other man before he could do any harm with that knife: It was fortunate that the Scarecrow was alone.
But no, he heard the scraping of a boot behind him. Swinging around, he saw the ill-featured thug who had guarded the front door on his last visit. He, too, had a knife and a grin on his face.
The Scarecrow snapped, “What’re you waiting for, Genzo? Get him!”
When confronted by two men with knives, it is best to use delaying tactics until one of the opponents makes a mistake, but in this case Tora was given no time. The man behind him jumped and slashed at Tora’s back.
Tora flung himself aside, heard the hiss of the knife slicing through the fabric of his shirt and jacket, and then felt pain sear from his shoulder to his waist. He ignored it. There was no time. His evasive move had trapped him with his back against the kitchen wall. His attackers were now in front and moving in from two sides. Tora thought fleetingly of the whirlwind move he had demonstrated to Kinjiro, but the kitchen was too small for such acrobatic tricks, and fending off two knives with nothing but a broom handle was pretty hopeless. He steeled himself for the inevitable-at the very least some bad knife wounds. Of the two, the Scarecrow was the more dangerous, being in an excellent position to slash and stab at Tora; his companion was hampered by the fact that he was on Tora’s left and had to reach across his own body to score a hit. Tora kept his attention on the Scarecrow.
When the Scarecrow lunged, his knife aimed at Tora’s belly. From the corner of his eye, Tora saw Genzo closing in and preparing to strike also. Tora swung up the broom handle, felt it make contact, heard the Scarecrow’s curse as his knife arm came up. Tora snatched for the knife, but the Scarecrow jerked away sharply. There was a hiss and something clattered on the floor. The Scarecrow started forward again.
At that moment the odds changed. Tora became aware of strange choking and gurgling sounds, and the Scarecrow took his eyes off Tora to glance toward his companion. Tora saw his eyes widen and instantly twisted toward what he thought was an attack. But Genzo just stood there, eyes bulging strangely, mouth gulping for air like a fish, and both hands clasped tightly to his neck.
Then Tora saw the blood. It seeped from between the man’s fingers; more and more of it welled forth until it ran down his body in great gouts, covering his chest with glistening, steaming gore, and dripping to the ground. The hot, sweet smell hung sickeningly in the air, and time seemed to stand still. Tora wondered how a man could lose so much blood so quickly, yet still keep to his feet, still move his lips and roll his eyes. Genzo tried to speak, but only a smacking sound emerged, along with a great gush of blood. And then finally his knees buckled and he fell to the ground.
The Scarecrow stared stupidly down at the body. “What-?”
Tora snatched up the dead man’s knife from the floor and said, “Thanks, stupid. That evens things up a bit.”
The Scarecrow finally realized that it had been his own knife that had slashed his companion’s throat and came at Tora with a roar of fury.
He was no trouble after that, and Tora felt no compunction about killing him. He slammed the knife into the man’s chest, watched him fall, wiped the bloody blade on the Scarecrow’s jacket, and looked around for Kinjiro. The boy was vomiting into a corner. Tora went to the wine barrel and dipped out a large helping. “Here,” he said. “Drink that and pull yourself together. We’ve got work to do. The others may be on their way.”
Kinjiro’s face was white in the gloom, and he shook a little, but he nodded and drank. Some color seeped back into his cheeks. Tora dipped out more wine, watched him drink this also, then helped himself to some.
“Very well, let’s get on with it,” he said. “We need a metal tool to break open the lock. The keys don’t fit.”
The boy nodded, stepped over the Scarecrow with a shudder, and reached into a box of kitchen tools. He pulled out a set of iron tongs. Tora nodded.
As they left the kitchen, they had to step around the large puddle of blood forming around Genzo’s corpse. The boy was still shaking badly.
Outside, the broken wall had not yet attracted notice, and Tora began to work on the lock. The nails were set deeply and had rusted, but they were no match for the sturdy tongs. In time they loosened, and the lock swung down.
Tora flung back the door. A nauseating stench greeted him. At first Tora thought the pile of clothing was too small to contain a body. He looked beyond, saw an empty bowl and the skeletal arm and hand that grasped it. He cursed with pity and anger at the inhuman monster who had confined an old man here without food or water. He was afraid to touch the body because it looked so lifeless, the arm and hand as frail as some ancient mummified limb, but Kinjiro pushed him aside and knelt on the floor.
“Old man? Are you awake? It’s Kinjiro,” he said-his first words since the fight in the kitchen. He put his hand gently on the clothes. Miraculously, the fingers on the bowl twitched a little.
“He’s alive,” Kinjiro said. “Help me get him out of here. The place stinks like an outhouse.”
Tora knew all about the smell of a close prison and much preferred it to the stench of decomposing flesh or fresh blood. He stepped in and scooped up the small body, which weighed little more than a bundle of dirty laundry.
They brought the old man to the main room of the house, where Kinjiro spread some of the bedding on the floor. In the sparse light that came from outside, Tora saw the old man more clearly. His flesh had shrunk from his bones with age or suffering. Where it was not covered by thin white hair or stubble, his skin resembled yellowed paper, and his eyes lay deep in their sockets. They were closed, but his mouth gaped on a few yellow teeth.
“He’s in bad shape,” said Tora, shaking his head. “Fetch some of that wine.”
There was no answer.
Tora started to curse the boy’s laziness, then remembered the scene in the kitchen and went himself.
The Scarecrow and Genzo were as he had left them. A few lazy flies buzzed up from the blood. As he filled a pitcher with wine from the barrel he wondered what the old man would make of his nephew’s death. When he came back into the main room, the boy was bending over the old man.
“How is he?”
“Coming around. He’s trying to say something.”
Tora knelt. The old man’s eyes were open now and moving around. A grating sound came from his throat. Tora said, “I brought you something to drink. Don’t try to talk.”
The old man drank a little of the wine, then shook his head and croaked, “Water.”
Kinjiro rushed away. Tora brushed a few thin strands of white hair from the old man’s face. His skin felt hot and dry. “I’m sorry they locked you up, grandfather,” he told him. “The boy and I will look after you now. My name’s Tora, by the way.”
The skeletal hand crept from the bedding and seized his. It also was hot and dry, the bones like those of a small bird. “Chi… Chikamura,” the bloodless lips mumbled. As if that had been too much of an effort, he closed his eyes with a sigh.
Kinjiro came back with the water. Putting his arm under the slight shoulders again, Tora lifted the old man while Kinjiro helped him drink. He drank for quite a long time, and Tora laid him back down. He seemed to go to sleep.
“Poor old man,” Tora muttered.
“What will we do with him?” Kinjiro looked nervously down the dark corridor. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“We’ll take him with us. It’s getting dark, and that’s good. Go and light those oil lamps over there. I want to have a look at the trunk in Matsue’s room before we leave.”
“There’s no time,” the boy squealed. “They’ll come and kill us. Haven’t you spilled enough blood?”
Tora almost felt sorry for the kid, but there were more important things at stake. “You should’ve thought of your aversion to blood before you joined a gang,” he said coldly, then went to light the lamps himself. “What did you do with those tongs?”
“M… me? Nothing. I guess they’re still outside. You want me to get them?”
“Never mind. Just keep an eye on old Chikamura and give him some more water from time to time. He’s
