Page 44 of Night of the Dragon

The sphere shimmered into the figure of a girl, who then shook her head. “Not exactly,” she whispered. “I came through these caves once...in a vision. But the path is clear. The person who sent me to fetch you showed me the way. I...know where we’re going.”

“Pretty convenient, this passage,” came the ronin’s gruff voice. “I find it hard to believe no one knows about it. Especially if it goes right to the place we’re trying to get to.”

“It was...hidden,” replied the hitodama. “Only recently has the way been opened. No one, not even the daimyo...knew of this passage.” She shivered, losing form for a moment, before flickering into sight again, gazing around nervously. “This is...a dead place. The kami avoid this mountain. They fear...what lives in the tunnels.”

“Oh, good. And here we are, marching right into the jaws of...whatever it is. Sure sounds like us.”

“Did anyone hear that?” Yumeko suddenly whispered.

We stopped, and silence descended, closing around us like the stillness of a tomb. Overhead, the ghost girl floated nervously back and forth, making the shadows on the walls sway. The quiet throbbed in my ears, broken only by the faint thump of my own heart.

And then, I heard it, drifting through the tunnels: a low, shuddering noise, like something gasping for breath. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck and caused the hitodama to lose form, shivering once more into a ball of light.

“What is that?” Yumeko whispered. She cocked her head, ears twitching, and a frown crossed her face. “It almost sounds like...someone crying.”

“Right, because that’s not alarming at all,” the ronin muttered. “I can think of several things that live in dark, lonely, horribly depressing caves, and all of them are things I’d rather not meet, crying or not.”

The sound faded away, and there was only silence again. Yumeko shivered and looked up at the hitodama. “Suki-san, do you know what could be down here?”

The ball of light floated toward her, rippling into the image of the girl again before shaking her head. “No,” she whispered. “I just know...that it is dangerous, and we should try to avoid it if we can. But...this is the only way...through the valley. If we want to reach the Summoning site, we must keep going.”

“Do not worry about us, Suki-san,” the noble said. “Whatever is down here, we will meet it with honor. And we will not let it stop us from completing our mission. So please...lead on.”

We continued, following the glow of the hitodama as it drifted silently through dark, narrow passages. For a time, all was quiet, but then the sound of sobbing arose once more, chilling and faint, echoing all around us. It didn’t seem to be coming from any one direction, and the sound rose and fell in waves, growing in volume before fading to barely audible whispers. As if the entire cavern and cave system was suffused with some terrible grief that pulsed from the very walls.

The deeper we went, the louder the sobbing became. Eventually, it was impossible not to hear the shuddering gasps of pain, the low, continuous moans of sorrow. Whatever was down here, we were getting steadily closer.

Yumeko suddenly paused, twitching her ears forward as if something had caught her attention. She blinked, then stepped off the path and crouched down, her gaze on the ground in front of her. Curious and wary, I stepped forward as well, and saw something small and fragile-looking in the shadow of a stone. A moment later, I realized it was a flower. An iris, the petals so dark a purple they were almost black.

“How is this growing here?” Yumeko wondered softly. Her hand hovered over it, glowing softly with foxfire, casting the tiny plant in a hazy, flickering light. “It looks...almost sad.”

“I don’t know, but maybe you shouldn’t touch the weird flower in the creepy moaning cave,” Okame suggested. “It probably drinks blood and spits out poison spores or centipedes. Something nasty like that. I say we leave it alone.”

“Whatever it is,” I muttered as Yumeko rose, and the foxfire in her hand winked out, “it means we’re close to whatever is living down here. If it’s living at all.”

“You just had to add that last part, didn’t you, Kage-san?” The ronin groaned and unshouldered his bow. “Not sure how much help I’m going to be if we meet a sobbing ghost with a penchant for man-eating flowers, but I’ll do my best. Anyone bring any exorcism slips?”

He caught himself at the last moment, wincing, but it was already too late. Yumeko sniffed, her eyes going glassy for a moment. “I wish Reika was here.”

“Yeah.” Okame sighed and put a hand on her shoulder, making a small part of me bristle. “Me, too, Yumeko-chan. But we can’t dishonor her memory by forgetting what she did. As Taiyo-san would say, she died in the noblest way possible, protecting the ones she loved. We have to follow her example and do the same. So...” He squeezed her shoulder and lifted a hand, pointing down the tunnel. “Onward! To victory, or our most glorious death.”

The shout echoed through the cave, cheerfully insolent and defiant. As if he was challenging whatever entity lurked in the darkness to do its worst. The rest of us winced or, in Yumeko’s case, flattened her ears, and continued.

As soon as the ronin stepped away, I caught up to Yumeko, touching her arm as we moved into the tunnels. “Yumeko?”

“It’s all right, Tatsumi.” She took a deep breath, swiping at her eyes. “Okame is right. Reika-san knew what she was doing. She’d accepted that she could die protecting Kiyomi-sama, and she never faltered.” She blinked, and a tear traced its way down her cheek. “I can’t falter, either. No matter what happens and no matter what it takes, I can’t let Genno summon the Dragon. I won’t let her sacrifice be for nothing.”

As the hitodama led us deeper, the darkness ahead was broken by the orange flicker of torch or candle flame. As we continued, the sobbing, which had been growing steadily louder, both in noise and intensity, now came from a clear direction: straight ahead toward the light.

The passage opened into a vast cavern surrounded by flickering torches, the ceiling soaring so high that the torchlight couldn’t penetrate the darkness overhead. The floor of the cavern was carpeted in flowers, the same black irises Yumeko had found earlier. A terrible, sickly smell wafted from them: blood and rot and dying flowers, even though the plants looked healthy. The air was cold, damp and tasted wrong. Almost like...tears.

Looking up, a chill went through me. I drew my sword, and the purple light of Kamigoroshi joined the hazy luminescence of the hitodama.

Something massive crouched in the shadows of the far wall, an enormous hulking shape that was a good twelve feet tall, even bent over as it was. Its back was to us, huge shoulders shaking with sobs, the low, anguished cries emanating from its hulking form. It wore what might once have been an elegant, many-layered kimono, but that was now torn and filthy, with a wide obi sash tied into a bow at its waist. Long, jet-black hair fell down its back and shoulders, pooling over the floor; unlike the wild, tangled manes of the oni, it was straight and fine and looked almost human, which seemed even more disturbing on the huge creature it was attached to.

“Gone.”

Its voice echoed through the cavern, deep and throaty, and shockingly female. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck, confirming what I already knew. What we had stumbled onto.

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