“We’ll stay on guard,” Kai said.
My friends all walked with their weapons drawn, taking care to avoid the whipping, grasping, creeping plants that were everywhere in the valley now. Their rank tendrils pawed at our feet and ankles with every step. It slowed us down a little, but it didn’t stop us.
The spirits crowded behind us, and now we became aware of a distant noise coming from them, a howling and shrieking. It was a horrible undercurrent to our wary walk through the empty valley.
Just as I began to wonder if the dreadful noise and tension was getting too much for my companions, Cara gave a cry and pointed up ahead of us. “Look! That must be it!”
“You’re right.” Toshiro squinted through the gloom. “It’s the ruin of Miru castle.”
There wasn’t much to see at this distance, just a looming suggestion of tumbledown stone walls rearing up out of the mist from the top of a nearby rise. We headed straight toward it all the same, and the valley spirits crowded around behind us, shrieking and howling in their distant voices.
The land changed as we made our way up toward the ruined fortress. It became bare and muddy rather than thick and grassy, and we started to see vague forms in the mud surrounding us. Nobody asked what they were, but it soon became clear. They were suits of armor, rusted and discolored and half-buried in the dirt. Weapons protruded from the ground around them, broken swords and rusty spears, naginatas and wooden bows all bent and warped with the years. The glint of wet and moldy bones could be seen through the gaps in the armor.
As we advanced up the hill, the broken piles of dead became thicker, and their placement told a story.
“They must have lost many men coming up this hill against the castle walls,” I said quietly, seeing the heaped bodies all around us.
Toshiro shuddered. “I fear you are right. This battle was before my time, and I was not here, but I heard tell of it when I was young from oldsters who were here. It was a terrible fight.”
The spirits fell back, and when I looked around, they were now moving mournfully among the broken suits of armor and the skeletons. The ghostly forms wailed and groaned, stooping every now and then as if they were searching for something. It was a terrible sight, though it was a relief not to have them crowding behind us any more. At least this way we had a clear line of retreat back down the hill if we needed it.
The castle wall loomed up out of the thick brown fog at us. With surprising suddenness, we had come upon the top of the hill. It opened out into a wide flat space, all scattered with fallen stones and wreckage.
In its day, it must have been a big, impressive building, but now it was reduced to heaps of rubble scattered about the hilltop. The outer wall was broken halfway up the middle. Now that we were at the top, I noticed that the looming section we had been approaching was the only part of the outer keep still standing.
In the middle were a few taller bits of wall, and my sense of the Festering was battered by the thrumming waves which emanated from it. It was so thick I almost found it choking my breath.
“Cara,” I whispered, looking at the pale and drawn faces of the others, “I think a little more of your potion might be in order.”
She nodded silently and drew a little vial from her belt. She passed it around, and everyone took a drop. Even I decided that it might do me some good. I did not feel fear, exactly, but I was hammered by the oppressive force of the Festering.
I placed a drop under my tongue, and the sweet taste of the stuff flooded through me. It was very welcome. I handed the bottle back to Cara.
“Does it work?” she asked with an air of professional interest.
“Actually, it does make a difference,” I said, smiling as I realized it was true. I felt less oppressed by my sense of the Festering, less besieged by the horror of the corrupted landscape around us.
I glanced around at my friends. Everyone looked better. Toshiro had the glint of battle in his eyes. Kai stood straight-backed, her sword in her hand, throwing alert glances around the hilltop. Cara looked at me and beamed with pride at her potion’s effect on the morale of our little group.
I smiled back at her.
“Let’s go,” I said. “There is no time to waste. The Festering taint is coming from over there.” I pointed to the few remaining walls which stood in the middle of the hilltop. The tallest one blocked our view, and we approached it warily.
When we reached the edge of the wall, my group lined up against it. Stealth, I thought, would serve me best just at this moment, so I drew on the Kitsune Persona and transformed from the Ironside armor into my shinobi outfit. Silently, I stepped around the corner.
In the middle of a wide flagged courtyard, a man was sitting on a huge block of stone with his back to me. He was cross-legged, his elbows crooked and his hands in his lap as if he was sitting in some kind of formal meditation. He looked, surprisingly enough, to be entirely normal. He wore no armor, just a humble robe of gray. His black hair was tied up into a samurai-style topknot, but there was no sign of any weapon near him. All around his seat, armor was piled and bones were scattered, mixed in with the rusty weapons and tattered banners which were the relics of the long-passed battle.
I had expected a fight, and I had been prepared for any
