The rain in Kyoto fell with a relentless, heavy sorrow, turning the unpaved streets into rivers of thick, brown mud. Inside the dilapidated Golden Carp tea house, the air was thick with the scent of damp wood, cheap sake, and the sweat of desperate men. Kenjiro sat in the darkest corner of the room, his woven sedge hat pulled low over his eyes. At thirty-two, his face was weathered by years of war, marked by a jagged scar that ran from his left cheekbone to his jaw. He was a ronin—a masterless samurai—a ghost wandering through a country that only valued men who had a lord to die for.
He raised a chipped ceramic cup to his lips, letting the fiery liquid burn down his throat. He wore a faded gray kimono, frayed at the edges, but the two swords tucked into his sash—a katana and a wakizashi—were meticulously maintained, their hilts wrapped tightly in black silk. They were the only things tying him to the man he used to be.
The fragile wooden doors of the tea house suddenly slid open, admitting a violent gust of wind and rain. The few patrons in the room stopped murmuring, their eyes drawn to the entrance.
Standing in the doorway was a woman. She wore the dark, utilitarian garb of a traveler, but a heavy woven cloak concealed her figure. Clinging to her side, shivering violently, was a young boy of no more than eight years old. Despite the mud staining his clothes, the boy wore the fine, embroidered silk of high nobility.
The woman scanned the dim room. Her eyes, sharp and dark as obsidian, locked onto Kenjiro. She moved toward him with a strange, gliding grace that made no sound against the creaking floorboards.
“They told me I would find the ghost of the Asano clan drowning himself in cheap wine,” she said, her voice a low, melodic whisper that barely carried over the drumming rain.
Kenjiro didn’t look up. “Ghosts don’t drink. And they don’t take visitors. Go away.”
“My name is Ayame,” she said, stepping closer, pulling the shivering boy behind her. “This is Lord Hiroshi, the sole surviving heir of the Date clan. His father was murdered three nights ago by the warlord Katsumoto. Katsumoto’s assassins are no more than ten minutes behind us. I need your sword, Kenjiro.”
Kenjiro finally looked up, his dark eyes hollow. “The Date clan is ash. Just like the Asano. I fight for no one, woman. Take the boy and run to the mountains.”
“I cannot outrun the Black Hounds of Katsumoto while carrying a child,” Ayame replied, her tone desperate but unbroken. “You swore an oath to your master before he died. An oath to protect the innocent from the warlords’ greed.”
“My master is dead,” Kenjiro growled, his hand resting on his cup. “My oath died with him on the fields of Nagashino.”
Before Ayame could reply, the tea house doors shattered inward. Three men stepped into the room, wearing the dark, lacquered armor of the Black Hounds. They wore iron face masks forged into the terrifying visages of demons. The leader drew a long, curved nodachi sword, the steel gleaming menacingly in the dim lantern light.
“The boy is ours, shinobi,” the leader hissed, his voice muffled by the mask. “Hand him over, and we will grant you a quick death.”
The other patrons of the tea house scrambled over tables, fleeing out the back windows in sheer terror. Ayame pushed the young Lord Hiroshi behind a heavy wooden pillar and drew a pair of short, wicked kunai blades from her sleeves.
Kenjiro sighed, staring at his empty sake cup. He was so tired of the blood. But as he looked at the terrified eyes of the young boy, a painful memory of his own fallen lord flashed in his mind.
The lead assassin lunged toward Ayame.
In a fraction of a second, Kenjiro kicked the heavy wooden table between them, sending it crashing into the assassin’s knees. As the man stumbled, Kenjiro drew his katana in one fluid, blindingly fast motion. The shing of the blade clearing its scabbard was a note of pure, deadly music. He sidestepped the falling table and brought the blade down in a flawless, diagonal arc, cleaving through the assassin’s armor and sending him crashing to the floor.
The remaining two assassins paused, shocked by the ronin’s speed.
“It seems,” Kenjiro said, flicking the blood from his blade with a sharp snap of his wrist, “I haven’t had enough to drink to ignore a slaughter.”
The two Hounds charged. Kenjiro ducked under a lethal horizontal sweep, driving the pommel of his sword into the ribs of the first man, then spun and dragged his blade across the throat of the second. The fight was over in three breaths. The tea house fell dead silent, save for the rain.
Kenjiro sheathed his sword with a sharp click. He looked at Ayame, who was staring at him with a mixture of relief and intense scrutiny. He grabbed his straw hat and a wrapped bundle of provisions from the floor.
“The Hounds travel in packs of twenty,” Kenjiro said, his voice flat. “If three are here, the rest are sealing the city gates. We leave now, or we all die.”