Having failed to outflank them by the forest entry, Akuma had focused all his forces on the southern moat. His first assault had been quickly repelled. Despite the bandits’ savage charge, the farmers had kept them at bay, the combination of spears, thorns and ditch proving effective. But Jack soon realized that Akuma had been merely testing the farmers’ nerve – the bandit leader withdrew his forces before losing a single man. Then with calculated precision, Akuma selected different sections of the moat and sent groups of bandits to attack in turn, probing for weaknesses in the farmers’ defence.

Shouting broke out from Jack’s far right. The farmers under Saburo’s command rushed to defend their quarter. The detachment of bandits on the other side of the moat clashed violently against the spears. Some deflected the thrusts, while others attempted to cut their way through the thorn bushes.

A farmer stepped forward to drive his spear into the nearest bandit when an arrow lanced his neck. Choking as blood gushed forth, he toppled into the moat.

‘Father!’ cried a farmboy, dropping his spear and rushing to pull him out.

The ominous crack of a musket echoed across the fields. The farmboy was blown backwards as the deadly shot ripped through him.

Saburo’s unit began to break up, their courage crumbling in the face of such destructive force.

‘Keep your lines!’ ordered Saburo, having to battle a bandit who’d breached the moat. Blocking the man’s sword thrust with his katana, he kicked the bandit squarely in the chest and sent him flying back into the thorn bushes. Flailing like a fish caught in a net, the bandit struggled to escape. A woman, howling with rage, ran from behind the ranks and grabbed a spear.

‘This is for my husband!’ she cried, harpooning the man. She pulled out the spear and thrust again. ‘And that’s for my son!’

Then she fell to her knees, sobbing beside her murdered family.

Saburo dragged the woman away before she too suffered the same fate.

The farmers fought on, but their resolve was weakening as an arrow brought down another farmer.

Hayato ran up to Jack and Yori. ‘Akuma’s waging a war of attrition,’ he said gravely. ‘He’s got Kurochi and Sayomi picking us off one by one.’

‘We must keep up morale,’ insisted Jack. ‘Our only chance is to keep fighting.’

‘But if we continue to lose men like this, they’ll soon be too scared to even approach the moat.’

‘I don’t see that we have any other choice.’

Hayato bit his lip in frustration, lost for an alternative too.

‘To kill a snake, you have to cut off its head,’ observed Yori.

Jack and Hayato exchanged glances, both appreciating the danger such a tactic entailed and both a little surprised that Yori had been the one to come up with it.