“But I’m hoping you’ll help him choose better,” Yoshi said. “Better than I did, anyway.”
He stopped at the threshold, not looking back. The rats left the cooling meat untouched, turned and flowed out the door like blackened surf.
“No hero, me.”
And soon, there was nothing to mark their passing but bloody footprints on the floor.
28
SIGIL
Akihito beat one massive fist on his breastplate, shrugged expansively to test the fit. A stocky Kitsune blacksmith watched him, face covered by a breather of dirty brass. The forges inside Five Flowers Palace had been burning twenty-four hours a day since news of the gaijin landing at Kawa, and the master and his dozen apprentices were run off their feet.
“Fits good,” Akihito nodded, thumping the iron again. “Nice work.”
“From a Phoenix, I take that as high praise.” The blacksmith bowed low. “But with your pardon, I have about a thousand more to make…”
The man trudged back into the steam and coalsmoke, barking orders at three apprentices working the smelter. Akihito flexed again, unused to the weight. He limped from the smithy, leaning on his studded warclub, surveying the muddy courtyard. Samurai shouting orders, bushimen running training drills, boys carrying weaponry. Hammers on anvils, the hiss of hot steel tempered in greasy river water, Michi’s voice rising above it all.
“Akihito!”
The big man turned, saw the girl pushing through the mob. Hair tied in a long braid, chaindaishō strapped to her back, a hundred hungry warriors watching her pass.
“Akihito!” She caught his arm, breathless.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Hana.”
“What about her?”
“She’s gone.”
“Gone?” Whispering fear uncurling in his gut. “Gone where?”
“She and Kaiah flew out early this morning. A guard said they headed east.”
“East?” The whisper became a shout, cold as winter winds. “Toward the gaijin?”
Michi nodded. “And she took Piotr with her.”
* * *
Kaiah had been named for the clouds, but in truth, she flew like the wind. Hana was hunched against her spine, face swathed in scarves, three cloaks pulled tight about her. Growling chill chewed any exposed skin red raw in seconds, and the girl thanked Lord Izanagi for the goggles over her face—without them she was certain her eye would have frozen solid.
Piotr was huddled against Hana’s back, doing his best not to touch her, clinging to the thunder tiger’s hindquarters with his thighs. Every now and then, Kaiah would bank or dive sharply, and Piotr would be forced to grab Hana for balance, apologizing profusely in his broken Shiman. Hana would smile at Kaiah’s laughter in her head.
You shouldn’t tease him.
- WHY NOT? -
He’s obviously terrified of touching me.
- WOULD BE WISER TO FEAR RETURNING TO THE PEOPLE HE BETRAYED, I THINK. -
“Won’t the gaijin punish you for deserting the lightning farm?” Hana spoke over her shoulder, shouting above the wind. “Won’t they be angry with you?”
“I promise.” Piotr was shivering, teeth chattering. “Blood promise. Find his love. Bring her word. Takeo.”
“The Guildsman who saved your life?”
“Da. In Morcheba, promising is most important thing. Blood promise mostly of all. Is the one that holds together many. Like black between brick, da? Is word. They know. My word. Must be for the holding. Must be for the true or else for the nothing. Blood in blood.”
Gods above. I can only understand every second word he says …
- AND HE WILL BE TRANSLATING FOR YOU? -
Let’s hope.
- LET’S PRAY. -
Hana pushed a smile into the thunder tiger’s mind, felt warmth radiating in return. She rested her cheek against the sleek feathers at the arashitora’s neck, watching the smooth movements of her wings from the corner of her eye. A perfect motion, precise and beautiful—a poetry of feather and bone and flesh.
I’m glad you’re with me, Kaiah. I’m really glad you’re here.
Howling stormsong filled the leaden pause.
… Although part of me thinks you should be with Yukiko and—
- SPEAK NOT HIS NAME. -
A flare of aggression in the arashitora’s mind, turning warmth to bright heat.
I know you have your differences. But you know he’s trying to do what’s right, don’t you? He and Yukiko are doing what they think is best.
- I LOST EVERYTHING BECAUSE OF HIM. MY MATE. MY CHILDREN. -
I know what it is to lose someone. I know what it’s like to hate. But anyone can change. Grow. Look at me. Where I was three months ago. Where I am now.
- YOU ARE NOTHING LIKE THE KINSLAYER.—
More than you know. Everyone here wants the same thing. The Rebels. The Kagé. You. Me. Yukiko. Buruu. Gods, even the gaijin. We just want a moment’s peace. A place to be happy. An ordinary life. So why the hells are we all fighting each other?
- THE THINGS YOU SPEAK. PEACE. HAPPY. HOW MANY YOU KNOW WHO ACTUALLY OWNS THEM? HOW MANY NOT TOUCHED BY HURT OR DEATH? -
Hana thought of her mother crumpled on the floor. Broken glass, blood-slicked, as clubbing became stabbing. Her brother lunging for her father’s throat, murder in his eyes.
She could still hear the sound of her own screaming.
- FAMILY. LOVE. NOT ORDINARY THINGS. NOT IN THIS WORLD. SPECIAL. WORTH FIGHTING FOR. AND SO WE DO. -
And in doing so, we make sure nobody has them. Everybody loses except the man selling funeralwear.
- IT IS EITHER FIGHT, OR WATCH AS EVERYTHING IS TAKEN AWAY. YOU KNOW THIS. LIVING IN DREGS. WARRING FOR EVERY SCRAP. THEY TOOK YOUR MOTHER, YET YOU REMAIN. THEY TOOK YOUR EYE, YET YOU SEE. -
Hana turned her gaze to the horizon. The storm building between the edge of land and sky. The Tora army that even now must be stomping closer.
I wish it could be another way. That we didn’t have to fight. Hurt. Kill.
- YOU KNOW YOU MUST. -
A sigh.
Yes. I do.
The clouds parted, and far below, she saw them. A long, twisting line marching east, near ten thousand strong, ironclad, drenched and grim beneath black drizzle. Her mother’s people. The blood in her veins. She touched the amulet around her neck, trying to gather her strength, still the butterflies tumbling about her gut.
- I AM WITH YOU. -
I know that too.
- YOU ARE READY? -
A nod.
I’m ready.
- THEN WE BEGIN. -
* * *
Aleksandar stood shin-deep in black mud, commiserating with another officer when the cry went up from the line. The Kapitán glanced up, shielding bloodshot eyes from the black rain, cursing the storm and this Goddessforsaken country for the hundredth time that day.
At least 10 percent of their number had fallen out from rain poisoning, another 20 percent were walking wounded, eyes and tongues swollen, skin peeling. He’d proposed they bivouac in the Dragon capital until winter deepened and the accursed rain turned to snow, but Marshal Ostrovska would hear none of it. The Kitsune lay east, and vengeance would not wait. The Zryachniye had concurred, eyes glowing bright, and all discussion abruptly ceased. They’d slogged on through this poison for days, shin-deep in filth, until the rains grew so heavy they were forced to halt, hunkered down beneath oilskin sheets until the storm spent itself.
What the hell are they yelling about?
More men crying out, pointing. Aleksandar followed their eyeline, breath catching in his lungs as he spied the silhouette above. Though its kind had not been seen in his homeland for decades, though it was snow-white, not black as the sigil of House Ostrovska was, he knew the shape instantly.
A gryfon.
Twenty-foot wingspan, pale as the deep snows of his homeland, fur torn with long stripes of velvet black. Eyes shining like fireside amber, roaring
as it circled above, dipping its wing to reveal the riders on its back and the white flag held high in the toxic wind.
Riders.
Men emerging from tents, eyes narrowed against the rain, archers scrambling for their bows, lightning cannon crews arcing generators despite the fact the weapons would be useless against a foe with no ground. Hammers pounding shields, alarm rolling throughout the encampment. And the beast continued circling, just out of bowshot, the tiny riders waving that strip of white cloth back and forth. An overture any warrior would understand.
Parlay. Peace.
But this was war. Against a nation of slavers and butchers. Could they be trusted? Aleksandar could hear the rotor-thopter engines being started, the Majór obviously keen to cut this beast from the skies. What a prize. What strength it would bring to the one who wore it. Greater than a mere wolfpelt—even the pelt of the Blackwood’s Alpha …
He heard muddy footsteps, splashing thick, turned toward the scrawny girl sprinting toward him. She stopped before Aleksandar, gave a salute, palms marked with painted eyes, the girl’s own so bloodshot from the rain they were almost solid red.
“Kapitán,” the girl gasped. “Word from the Zryachniye.”
Aleksandar’s eyes flickered to the command tent.
“Speak.”
“Mother Natassja says she is to be allowed to land.”
“She?”
The girl pointed to the gryfon circling overheard. “The Mother says you must bring the girl to her with all haste. That when you see, you will understand. It must be you. You alone.”
Aleksandar sighed, ran one hand over the long stubble on his cracking cheeks. He watched the beast, sweeping in a broad spiral overhead, a murmuring dread in his gut. And finally, giving orders to each column commander that his men were not to engage the gryfon, no matter the promise of its skin, he set about finding a white flag to wave.
* * *
“Kapitán,” Piotr whispered. “Leader. Soldier leader.”
Hana sat on Kaiah’s back beneath her oilskin, eye hidden behind polarized glass, watching the man approaching over muddy ground. They’d landed far from the gaijin line, Kaiah ready to take flight again if trouble reared. The arashitora growled as the gaijin slogged closer.
“We can talk to him?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I will for the speaking.”
Piotr grunted with effort, slinging his bad leg over Kaiah’s back and slithering down into the mud. He limped a dozen yards closer and performed some kind of salute; fist to chest and then to the air.
The Kapitán returned the gesture.
Hana squinted behind her goggles, looking the man up and down. Early thirties, long blond hair, covered in filth and old blood. He carried a massive warhammer connected to some kind of generator on his back, oilskin wrapped over a night-black animal pelt—a wolf or bear that might have been as big as Kaiah when it was alive. There was something about his gait, the set of his shoulders. Something about him reminded her of Yoshi. The way he moved. Like a man born to be a dancer who’d never been shown the steps.
The Kapitán stopped twenty yards from Piotr, pulled down the swathes of cloth he’d wrapped his face inside, and Hana’s heart almost stopped beating. Gods, his face. Square jawed, certainly, dirty and crusted with stubble. But still, it was a face that haunted her dreams, Mother lying on the kitchen floor, Father looming over her with the saké bottle in hand, screaming.
“Look what they took from me!” Face purpling, skin taut and blood-flushed. “Look at it! And all I have to show for it is you!”
“You pig.” Mother’s words were slurred around her broken jaw. “You drunken slaver pig. Do you know who I am? Do you have any idea what I was?”
Hana put her fingers to her lips. Trembling.
Mother …
The gaijin began talking in their alien language, thick and harsh as winter snow. A cold gust of wind caught the Kapitán’s pelt, whipped it away from his chest, exposing the standard embossed on his iron breastplate. And Hana was sliding off Kaiah’s back, the beast roaring warning as she sank ankle-deep in the mud, stumbling and scrambling, calling Piotr’s name. The men turned toward her as she clawed at the leather thong about her neck, snapping it loose, tearing the scarves from her face. And as she stumbled closer, she held it up: the amulet her mother had given her on her tenth birthday, the little golden stag with his three crescent horns.
The same sigil adorning the gaijin’s breastplate.
The Kapitán looked at her, sapphire eyes widening as she pulled the scarves from her head, jagged blond tresses flowing loose. His gaze flickered from the amulet to her face, his own turning pale as old starlight as he snatched the medallion from her hand, anger turning him hard and cold.
“Where did you get this?” He spoke in perfect Shiman, his accent dragging the words down into the earth. “Where did you get this?”
He grabbed Hana’s shoulders. Kaiah’s roar echoed across the ruined plain, wings spread, thundering through the mud toward them both. But the man’s eyes were locked on Hana, heedless of the death approaching on crackling, silvered wings, the warning cries from the men behind him, the whine of motors, the ring of steel on steel.
“Where?” he shouted.
“My mother.” Hana winced in his iron grip. “My mother gave it to me.”
The Kapitán looked like someone had scooped out his insides.
“… Your mother?”
“Anya.” Hana pulled down her goggles, exposing her glowing eye. “Her name was Anya.”
It lasted a moment more. The disbelief. The rage. He reached up to her face—that pointed, impish face with its too-round eye and the high cheekbones so like his own. And as Kaiah arrived in a hail of mud and wind, roaring as if the sky were falling, he pulled her close, kissed her brow, her cheeks, and holding her so tight she thought she might break, he began laughing, laughing even as the tears streamed down his face, as the storm rolled and roared, sinking to his knees in the mud, bringing her with him and rocking her back and forth like her mother had when she was a child, and all the hurt and dark in the world could be chased away by the sound of her voice.
“I found you,” he whispered. “My blood.”
She put her arms around him, closed her eye, lost in the sound of his voice.
“Goddess be praised, I found you…”
29
ANEW
Impact.
Yukiko felt it in her head, in her chest, compressing her spine and knocking her back onto the rocks. Roiling skies spat rain as hard and sharp as roofing nails, bottomless black in the moments between lightning strikes, sun-bright as the arcs bit the sky. An inverted landscape, shifting constantly as the Storm God and his children sang their hymn in the heavens.
She stood on an outcropping of stone, warm rock beneath her feet, stench of sulfur filling her lungs. Clawing cold. Shrieking wind. Hair slicked across her skin like black silk, eyes upturned to the tempest, heart in her throat, watching two titans clash.
Buruu stood out like a star against the dark, the iridescent metal of his wings glittering as lightning crackled across the clouds. She could feel the rage in him, the will, iron and blood singing here in the place of his birth. She could feel his pack watching fearful, hopeful, the pulse of blacks and whites intermingling with the enormous heat of the reptiles slumbering beneath the waves, so ancient and frightening her heart stilled whenever she …
No.
Don’t look there.
Instead she focused on Buruu’s opponent. Bigger. Stronger. Eyes burning like green flame. So black he seemed to swallow the light; just a shadow against the backdrop of deeper night. She could feel the pride in him, the grim amusement that this princeling had returned at last to challenge. This shadow of a thunder tiger with feeble metal wings, stooping so low as to allow a monkey-child to ride his back.
A slave who would be Khan.
The pair circled, each seeking altitude, lashing out when the other strayed too close.
Buruu’s wing assembly creaked and groaned, a canvas feather breaking loose and drifting down, down to the blood-flecked ocean, torn instantly to rags by the sea dragons swarming beneath. They were a multitude, already frenzied, awaiting the blood of royalty with serrated grins.
Torr clapped his wings together, giving birth to a peal of Raijin Song; a sonic boom splitting the skies and knocking Buruu aside as if he were a paper kite. The burst was so loud Yukiko covered her ears, Buruu dropping like a stone to escape Torr’s swooping attack. The black spiraled into a dive and followed, snapping at Buruu’s tail, the air trembling beneath their wings. The Khan’s size made him heavier, less maneuverable, but Buruu’s metal pinions were beginning to give under the strain, the months of constant abuse. Torr drew closer, talons outstretched. Fear blossomed in Yukiko’s gut.
She reached out, touched the Khan’s mind, a slight tweak telling him left was right and up was down. Buruu swept over and away as the mighty black reeled himself in, shaking his head and blinking hard. Glittering green eyes found their focus, then their prey, and Torr snarled and circled skyward again.
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
Helping you, what the hells does it look like?
THIS IS MY FIGHT. LEAVE HIM BE.
There is no you and me. There’s only us.
YOU MUST ALLOW ME TO DO THIS.
Godsdammit, I won’t stand here and watch him kill you!
Buruu banked and dropped into a dive, hitting Torr like a falling star. The pair roared and spat, the challenger tearing a bone-deep gash across the Khan’s chest, a riposte from Torr’s hind legs sending him spiraling away in a shower of blood and feathers. They backed off again, wings thrashing the air, both seeking the precious advantage that lay in altitude. Wind screaming. Blinding lightning. Raijin pounding on his drums and shaking the black stone beneath her feet.
IF I CANNOT WIN THIS ALONE, I DO NOT DESERVE TO WIN AT ALL.
I won’t let stupid pride get you killed!
I AM NOT RULED BY PRIDE. YOU MUST TRUST ME.
Buruu, I—
TRUST ME.
Buruu pressed wings to flanks, swooping across the skies and colliding with the Khan again. The pair fell into a snarling, bellowing flurry, foreclaws locked as they kicked, talons like sabers seeking the guts of their foe. Wounds earned on both sides, scarlet rain falling as they descended, down and down and down, ever closer to the blood-drenched waves. Buruu had his wings wrapped against belly and flanks, using the metal pinions as a shield, relying on Torr’s wings to slow their descent. Sparks flew as the Khan tore at the metal, talons ringing bright on Kin’s creation; a razorsong struck on dented, struggling clockwork. Buruu focused again on Torr’s chest, purchasing more blood, more bone-deep gouges.