Jack dived back into the bunkhouse to rescue the girl. He forced his way against the tide of bandits, all of whom were more concerned with their own lives than the stranger in their midst. Finding the girl, he yanked her to her feet and shoved her towards the door. She had just got out when Jack was seized from behind.

‘Who the hell are you?’ snarled Nakamura, his scarred face appearing out of the smoke haze.

Without hesitation, Jack spun round, wrapped his arm beneath his assailant’s forearm and drove it upwards in a taijutsu breaking technique. He wrenched hard enough to snap the elbow the opposite way.

But rather than crumple to the floor in agony, Nakamura merely laughed. ‘You’ll have to do better than that!’ he said as he punched Jack in the gut with a hammer-like fist.

Jack dropped to his knees, gasping. Nakamura then threw him across the room. Jack crashed into a supporting pillar. Before he could rise, Nakamura launched a stomping front kick at his chest. On instinct, Jack managed a double forearm block and rolled away. But Nakamura kept up the attack, snatching a smouldering branch from the hearth and using it to force Jack into the centre of the room.

The bunkhouse roof was now an inferno, flaming sections of thatch raining down on them. Jack knew his chances of surviving were fading by the second. Unless he regained the advantage and escaped, he’d either succumb to the smoke, be burnt alive or killed by Nakamura.

Ducking as the bandit wielded the red-hot branch like a club, Jack went to draw his swords. But he’d barely got his hands to the handles, when his head was wrenched back and a knife held to his throat.

‘Are you the cause of all this, gaijin?’ asked Sayomi, the female bandit’s eyes red with smoke.

Jack didn’t answer. His mind was focused on dealing with the cold steel at his neck.

‘We don’t have time to play games, boy,’ said Nakamura, glancing round at the spreading blaze. ‘Who sent you?’

Nakamura drove the tip of the glowing branch into Jack’s right thigh. Jack cried out as the red-hot wood burnt straight through his kimono and scorched his bare skin.

‘Tell us before we leave you here to burn alive!’ croaked Sayomi.

Jack spluttered in pain, his throat hoarse from the smoke he’d inhaled.

Impatient for an answer, Nakamura reapplied the blazing wood. There was a sizzling sound as it seared into Jack’s flesh. Gritting his teeth against the agony, Jack tried to break from Sayomi’s grip, but she pressed the knife closer to his throat.