The great room was obscured, its entrances, aisles and other features swallowed by the enormous, hungry cloud. Moonshadow’s sharp eyes probed the haze. Where were Heron and Mantis? Back to back on the same spot, or had they been forced to move?

Black smoke from the fires merged with the white smoke cloud of Heron’s torinoko, tinting the cloud with dark, jagged brush strokes. Air currents and breezes from human movement collided, making sections of the battlefield reappear at random, smokeless pockets that bloomed, drifted, then abruptly collapsed.

Moonshadow plunged into a high smoke bank looming before him. The din of combat filled his ears: swords shinged and clanged, unseen shuriken – black, star-shaped iron throwing knives – swished as they flew by. Battle-cries and shouts broke the thick air. Moonshadow could see nothing. Panic snatched at him, but with a snarl he forced it off.

Suddenly he made out the silhouette of Heron inside an air pocket just paces to his left. A ninja burst from the wall of smoke that Heron faced and, with a single lightning stroke of her weapon, she cut him down. As Moonshadow opened his mouth to call her name, he sensed movement in the smoggy air above him. Evade, quickly!

Too late! Feet landed on his shoulders and he staggered to one side, swinging his blade up at whoever was balancing on him. A dull thunk told him his sword was being parried by an iron weapon. The attacker leapt from his shoulders, kicking him in the side of the head on departure. Sent tumbling to the floor, Moonshadow snatched control of his momentum and rolled, desperate to escape his skilful airborne enemy. A vague impression said he was heading for the open shoji that led to the north-south corridor. A far stronger instinct warned that he was also hotly pursued.

Moonshadow tumbled through a thick bank of dirty smog, emerging to crash into the north-south corridor’s shoji doorframe. As he bounded to his feet, a dark shape flashed through the haze behind him. Powerful hands seized his wrist. Twisting his sword arm into a nerve-stretching lock, the opponent elbowed Moonshadow hard in the cheek and tore the blade from his hands. Reversing the weapon with breathtaking speed, the attacker struck with its pommel, hitting Moonshadow between the eyes and driving him into the doorframe. Almost blacking out, he slid to the floor. For an instant, tiny points of light and luminous bubbles popped before his eyes. Fighting off the daze, he looked up.

Kagero stood over him, blood running down her neck from the hastily tied bandage on her ear. The kunoichi’s face glowed with a mix of hatred and fresh satisfaction.

‘A fair trade, don’t you think? My earlobe for your pretty young head.’ Kagero pressed cold steel to his throat. ‘I even get to kill you with your own sword. I like that!’

A heartbeat ahead of her lunge, Kagero tensed her forearm, but at the same instant a powerful figure burst through the smoke wall. Hurtling from the north-south corridor, the mighty form rammed Kagero, hip and shoulder, with a loud thunk. The kunoichi flew sideways through the opposite smoke wall and back into the archive. Moonshadow’s sword spun to the floorboards. He blinked up at his rescuer.

Groundspider loomed over him, a slashed and blood-stained sleeping kimono barely covering his muscular frame. The giant was drenched with sweat, half his bull-neck mottled by dark bruises. A fresh cut on his smooth jawline said he’d survived a very close call. Despite his wrung-out appearance, he grinned and winked flippantly.

‘Thanks!’ Moonshadow smiled. His head was clearing and it was a relief to know that the closest thing he had to a big brother was alive – and had just saved his life.

‘Aw, anytime, kid!’ Groundspider dropped smoothly to one knee, snatching up Moonshadow’s sword. ‘Can I borrow this? Think I left mine sticking in some really slow Fuma back down the corridor. Don’t worry, I’ll return it!’ Without awaiting a response, Groundspider rose, extended the blade and plunged through the smoke bank.

Moonshadow felt a hand touch his shoulder. He flinched and turned.

Snowhawk! She beamed as she gripped his arms and dragged him to his feet.

‘You’re alive!’ He broke into a wide smile. ‘Watch out – it’s you they’re after.’

‘So I gathered,’ she scowled. A gardener’s jacket had been tied over her badly ripped night kimono. A short, straight shinobi sword – not her own – stuck from her belt. Like Groundspider, she’d obviously fought her way here through serious opposition. ‘The Spider and I were pinned down for ages, fighting near our rooms.’ Snowhawk drew her stolen blade, eyeing the wall of smoke across the archive. ‘Now what? Back up Groundspider? Fetch your sword?’

He shook his head. ‘Brother Eagle first. He’s hurt, needs protection.’

Snowhawk huffed with disbelief. ‘Eagle? Hurt? Then take me there!’

Moonshadow led her into the thick, smelly haze. Snowhawk moved at his side, blade outstretched as they crept through the cloud.

‘I stumbled on the surviving boundary guards and household staff – locked in the food cellar. Had to stop and free them!’

Moving in step with her, he frowned. ‘Why? You could have done that later.’

Snowhawk tossed her hair dismissively. ‘Then who’d stop these fires spreading?’

Unseen blades clashed in the fog on either side of them. Together they scrambled low over the last floorboards of the archive, avoiding debris and staying under every nearby combatant’s likely line of sight, desperate to reach the east-west corridor mouth and Eagle without further delays. A strong air current from the corridor split the wall of smog, and there he was, slumped against a doorframe, face ashen, eyes pinpricks. Despite the cruel-looking claw still hanging from his shoulder, Eagle gave them a warm, weak nod. As Moonshadow and Snowhawk huddled protectively around their master, a shuriken thwacked into the doorframe just above Eagle’s head. Snowhawk turned and covered them with her blade while Moonshadow dragged Eagle into the east-west corridor. Several paces in, Moonshadow propped Eagle against the wall, then crouched in front of him, acting as a shield and watching the smoke-filled door to the archives. Snowhawk bobbed down beside Moonshadow to cover another possible angle of attack, her sword raised.

‘I’ll be fine here, Moon-kun,’ Eagle said. ‘Go, fight them. Make me proud.’

‘I’ll make you proud,’ Snowhawk said angrily. ‘By fetching you their heads!’

‘That wouldn’t please Brother Mantis,’ Eagle murmured, his eyelids drooping. ‘Go, children, both of you, support the others, I don’t need pro –’ His eyes flew wide.

Moonshadow’s head snapped round. Like Eagle, he stared in abject horror.

Just inside the archive, the smoke had parted around a hooded figure – and his cannon! The Fuma ninja was down on one knee, hands working at one end of his chisai odutsu. Still strapped to his torso by a wide leather band, the cannon now also rested across his thigh, pointing straight at Brother Eagle. A wisp of grey smoke rose twisting from one end of the wooden gun. The Fuma had just lit his weapon’s fuse!

In seconds it would fire, tearing the three of them apart.