Tojo deserved to die. Here and now. Head twisted until his neck snapped through, his last sensation the severance of his spinal cord and the slow choke that followed.
He deserved it. And if everything he said was true, there was no escaping it.
“Death is too good for you,” Daichi hissed.
“Death does not think. Merely takes. Good has nothing to do with it.”
Daichi coughed. Once. Twice. Holding his belly as a fit started, gods no, not now …
“If it did, you would not be dying. For are you not a … good man?”
“No…” Daichi wiped his lips, breathing hard and spitting dark. “I am a murderer. Ten years of rebellion won’t atone … for a lifetime of service to a regime built on butchery and lies.”
“Feel no shame. You are what was intended. All you have done is what you were meant to. Accepting this brings freedom. Freedom to do whatever it is in your nature to do.”
“And you would have me kill you,” Daichi wheezed. “For such is my nature. I’ve devoted my life to stamping out your kind … Here you are, within my reach, and I have no reason not to do it. For though you think Kin will rise in your remains, I tell you now I know that boy better than any smoke dream … He will never rule this place.”
“What Will Be, Will—”
“Spare me.” Daichi glared up at the chattering throne. “You say all this is foretold—this room, your tomb, and I, your killer. But your dreams have no power over me, old man. Mine is the world I build … My triumphs, my mistakes, my loves, my losses. I choose what I am. Every day. I rise, and I stand. And the world you describe is one where I only kneel.”
Daichi straightened, shoulders set, fists clenched.
“And so while I have every reason to kill you … I stay my hand. This, I decide. Your What Will Be will only be if I choose it. And I choose to defy it.” He spit on the ground. “So much for your predetermination. So much for what you know to be true.”
Tojo stared down at Daichi for a long, silent moment, distant thunder the only sound. And then he began clapping, metal striking metal, the sound of hammer hitting anvil underscored with a hollow sibilance Daichi finally recognized as laughter.
“You skinless,” he said. “How you love your delusions.”
“Speak your lies all you wish.” Daichi spat again. “I will die as I have lived this past decade. Free. I will not give you the death you desire.”
“I never said you would give me death, Daichi-san. I said only you would bring it to me.”
Tojo tilted his head to the sky.
“I think…”
A shadow, falling like an arrow from the clouds. A gleaming blade in an outstretched hand, golden cranes in flight across black lacquer. Folded steel piercing burnished brass, in through the join between shoulder and throat, out through the chest, crimson-drenched.
The First Bloom gasped as Kaori tore her wakizashi free.
“At last…”
“Daughter, no!”
And raising the blade, face twisted in hate, Kaori struck off the First Bloom’s head.
43
BRIGHT AS THE SUN
Kin lay in a puddle of blood, ruby-slick hands pressed to his thigh. A Shatei had rendered some rudimentary first aid—hurried sutures and a wad of bandages; just enough to stop him bleeding out. He was propped against a railing, staring out the viewports at the carnage below.
The Earthcrusher seemed unstoppable, plowing through houses, temples and tenements on its torturous plod toward Kitsune-jō. Commander Rei was merciless, pausing every few steps to clear great swathes of concrete and timber and soldiers with sweeps of the massive arms, fire spewing from flame-spitters on the Earthcrusher’s belly, setting the rubble around them ablaze.
“Commander, lookouts report four arashitora incoming from the southeast.”
“Air batteries are armed?”
Kin heard a deep metallic whine, slowly building in intensity.
“Hai.”
“Then let them come.”
Dread gripped Kin’s insides, eyes wide as the Earthcrusher turned its head to watch the incoming thunder tigers. He could see four shapes: two black, two white, headed right into the Earthcrusher’s fire zone. He looked for a flash of metal wings, a rider amidst the mob, and was ashamed to feel a flood of relief as he realized Yukiko wasn’t among them.
“Those creatures are almost extinct,” he said. “There’s probably only a handful alive anywhere in this world.”
“Now the handful will be easier to hold,” Kensai rasped. “Fire.”
The beasts soared closer, peeling off into four different directions. Rei waited until all were in range, then engaged the firing studs. With a deafening crackling, as if a thousand kindling wheels had been set off simultaneously, the air around the Earthcrusher was filled with iron-thrower shot—a hail of tiny metal balls shredding feathers, meat and bones, the magnificent creatures reduced to shapeless pulp, smashing to the ground in bleeding ruin.
“Godsdamn you!” Kin cried, trying to get to his feet. “When will you be happy, Uncle? When there’s nothing left but ashes?”
A Lotusman slammed one brass-soaked fist into Kin’s gut, dropping the boy to his knees. Kin rolled onto his side, gasping for breath.
“March on,” Kensai said.
* * *
Daimyo Isamu stood on the Lucky Fox, watching the battle unfold about him. Kitsune Iron Samurai were clearing the decks of the Guild ship Lotus Wind, moving amongst the remaining cloudwalkers and cutting them to pieces. It was nearly impossible to tell how the battle was faring through the ash, exhaust, and smoke, but the Kitsune seemed to be holding their own in the air.
The ground was another matter entirely.
The old clanlord watched through a telescoping spyglass as the Earthcrusher stomped closer to Kitsune-jō, obliterating everything in its path. His heart had soared for a brief moment when he saw the four arashitora swooping to attack, but as the Earthcrusher blasted the magnificent beasts from the skies, the Daimyo’s heart had sunk to his toes.
More thunder tigers streaked past the stern, barely half a dozen, black and white, Isamu crying aloud when he saw riders on two of the arashitoras’ backs.
“Stormdancer!”
The crew took up the call, the shapes wheeling about and circling the Fox, flashing eyes and bloody claws. The thunder tigers alighted on the deck, tearing the planking to splinters. The one called Buruu roared, and the other arashitora found perches on the bow, the inflatable, the railings—creatures of impossible grace and beauty, even amidst this godsless slaughter.
Yukiko slipped off Buruu’s back, Hana beside her. The girls were both blood-spattered, pale as hungry ghosts. Yukiko tore her goggles down around her throat, bloodshot eyes beneath, tear tracks cutting along ash and smoke-stained skin.
“It is good to see you, girl,” Isamu nodded. “We feared you were among those arashitora who fell to the Earthcrusher.”
“I lost track of them.” Yukiko’s voice trembled, barely audible over the engines’ roar. “We cut off the gaijin assault, then destroyed a group of shreddermen near the breach in the walls. I didn’t know they were going to attack it … They should have waited…”
Hana was breathing hard, lips pulling back from her teeth. “Guild bastards…”
“The fault is not yours,” Isamu shook his head. “The machine is unstoppable.”
“If I could see where the pilot sits, I could turn his brain to soup,” Yukiko said. “But we can’t get near enough. The ’throwers will cut us to shreds.”
“The rebels must have failed,” Hana said. “Without them, we have nothing to throw against it.”
Isamu gripped the railing, looked at his city. He felt tired in his bones. Tired in his heart. Five sons buried. Wife gone. His line broken. A war built on lies and a nation on blood.
All for nothing?
“No, Stormdancer.” He turned to Hana. “We have something to throw.”
The old clanlord
stepped to the edge of the pilot’s deck, called in a booming voice. “Soldiers of the Fox clan! Kitsune-jō stands in peril! We head for the Earthcrusher!”
Grapple lines were cut, the Lotus Wind set adrift on the choking skies, crewed now by ghosts and dead men. The Fox’s helmsman brought her about, redlined the throttle, smearing their wake with spattered blue-black fingerprints. The arashitora clinging to her flanks peeled away, dismantling any Tora corvettes foolish enough to cross their path.
“Daimyo.” Yukiko’s eyes widened. “You can’t intend to—”
“There are no weapons in this fleet that can dent that thing’s hide, girl.”
“You mean to ram it.” Her voice incredulous. “Use the fleet itself as a weapon.”
“That is what I mean, Stormdancer.”
“This is madness…” Hana said.
“To wield the long and the short swords and then to die, girl.”
“Gods, not again!” Yukiko cried. “Honor and glory? What the hells is wrong with you people? Why are you all so eager to kill yourselves?”
“If you have another suggestion, Stormdancer, I am willing to hear it.”
Yukiko grit her teeth, looked to her thunder tiger. Isamu watched her scowl deepen, but she stayed silent as graves.
“I thought not,” he said.
“There must be another way…”
“Not all sacrifice is in vain. Not all who give their lives do it for glory, or honor. Some do it for love. Of clan, or future, or family. Something greater than ourselves.”
“… My father said something like that to me. A lifetime ago.”
“A wise man.” Isamu looked at his empty hands and sighed. “Wiser than most fathers.”
The city of Yama blurred beneath them, the flaming trail of destruction in the Earthcrusher’s wake visible through the veil of smoke and fumes. Shreddermen suits stomped through the rubble, thick knots of fighting raging in the sky-harbor, the market district, the refinery ruins. The behemoth’s footsteps had cracked the ground like broken glass.
The Lucky Fox was soon joined in its charge by four Kitsune corvettes, all converging on the Earthcrusher’s position. The helmsman adjusted altitude, bringing the Fox level with the Earthcrusher’s head, pouring every drop of chi into the shrieking engines.
The cloudwalkers, bushimen and Iron Samurai gathered on the pilot’s deck, every eye locked on the goliath. Isamu turned to them, a smile on his ash-streaked face.
“You men have fought bravely this day, but the battle is not yet done. Take the escape pod and continue the struggle against the Tora below.”
A bushiman not even old enough to shave stepped forward, covered his fist. “We stand with you, Daimyo! We stay to the end!”
“Your duty is to your families. This battle is far from won. Go now. See to our city.”
Isamu was met with defiant stares, mute disobedience, shuffling feet. His lips peeled back from his teeth, five decades of command turning his words to steel.
“This is a direct order!” he barked. “Go! Now!”
The Kitsune soldiers reluctantly covered their fists, bowed slow and deep, sorrow in their eyes. As the men began filing into the escape pod, the clanlord turned to Yukiko, placed a gentle hand on her belly. The girl tensed at his touch, but didn’t move away.
“Do good by them,” he said. “Never let them go.”
Yukiko swallowed hard, said nothing. Hana threw a hasty embrace around the old man’s shoulders, kissed him on his cheek.
“Maker bless you, most Handsome Worshipfulness.”
The pair trudged down the stairs toward Kaiah and Buruu. The male thunder tiger watched him with glittering eyes, tail lashing like a slow whip. Isamu held up a hand, signaling farewell. And with a rush of wind, the pulse of the storm, the beasts took to the skies.
Isamu turned back to the Earthcrusher, took position at the wheel, tossed his helmet to the deck. White hair streamed out behind him in the burning wind, flailing at his eyes; the pepper gray his lady had so loved to tease him about. He thought of Morcheba, the horrors he’d witnessed and helped inflict. He thought of his sons, his lady. But mostly he thought of the time he’d lost to war. The things he’d missed out on, fighting other men missing out on the same. Love. Family. And for what? Glory or greed? A soldier or a tool? A warrior or a weapon?
Too late to wonder now.
The Earthcrusher loomed out of the blinding smoke, its turrets whining, spitting a storm of iron-thrower shot. He could see two corvettes diving through the hail of fire, shredding and bursting aflame, colliding with the Earthcrusher’s belly and glancing off its shoulder. A great scything chainblade arm tore another corvette from the skies, painting the clouds inferno-red. The Lucky Fox bore down, Isamu wrenching the wheel to avoid one lumbering swing of the goliath’s arm, just as a corvette collided with the Earthcrusher’s back.
The ship burst into flames, a blinding flash of blue-white, curling into sunburned orange and up into coal-black smoke. Isamu roared, the Fox’s engines screaming with him, the Earthcrusher’s arm tearing the keel away in a shower of splinters just as the other arm came down atop the inflatable, cleaving it in two.
The war cry catching in his throat.
The sensation of flying, weightless.
A fireball above, bright as the sun.
Impact.
* * *
The explosion was deafening, deck shifting beneath Kin’s feet as the Kitsune ironclad collided with the Earthcrusher’s head. Vents exploded, sparks and flame, Guildsmen flung like toys to the floor. Rasping cries, tortured metal shrieks, hissing pipes, crackling flames.
“Damage report!” Rei bellowed from his pilot’s harness. “Report, all stations!”
A brother limped to his console, every mechabacus chittering and clacking, the stuttering percussion of a hundred tiny drums. Kin looked about him, saw Kensai being helped to his feet by two Lotusmen, blood leaking from his skin’s buckled collar.
One side of the Earthcrusher’s head had caved in, the left viewport shattered, consoles toppled and spewing sparks. A ventilation duct had been torn from the wall, a bucktoothed grille hanging from broken screws. Kin grit his teeth against the pain of his wounded thigh, gathered himself for a spring.
“By the First Bloom!” Kensai swore. “Commander, what are you doing?”
“Forgiveness, Shateigashira, there were too many!”
“It was an ironclad, man! A hundred feet long! How did you miss it?”
“Due respect, Shateigashira, but I did hit it. Its momentum carried its—”
“Get out of that chair!”
Kin crawled closer to the ruptured vent, wreathed in smoke and steam as the Commander raised his voice in protest.
“Shateigashira—”
“Out!” Kensai bellowed, slapping aside the hands of his concerned lackeys. “The Earthcrusher is my creation! This plan of my design! No one will jeopardize it! Not you, not the Inquisition, not the First Bloom, no one!”
We’ll see, bastard …
And with a gasp of pain, Kin rose to his feet and dove into the ruptured vent.
* * *
His landing turned out to be a little softer than he’d expected.
Bouncing down the greasy air vent, his cursing rose over the engines’ roar. He fell near forty feet, head over heels, finally crashing to rest at the bottom of the duct. Even though he’d been stripped of his skin, the impact wasn’t quite bone-jarring, but he still cracked his head on the metal, breath leaving his lungs with a sprayed curse. An agonized minute passed as he tried to inhale, finally realized the floor was groaning underneath him.
“Off,” it pleaded. “Get off me.”
Kin blinked, barely recognizing the voice without the suit-distortion.
“Shinji-san?”
“Kin-san? What the hells? Did you fall down the vent shaft?”
“Fall would imply … it was accidental…”
“I think you broke my godsdamned ribs…”
 
; “I think I broke my godsdamned everything,” Kin groaned.
Rolling off the other boy, Kin was astonished to see Shinji had removed his skin, the boy clad only in the skintight membrane every Guildsman wore beneath his outer shell. His skin was pale, hair cropped short, chin sharp and pointed.
“Why are you naked?”
“Look who’s talking, skinny boy.” Shinji was feeling at his rib cage, wincing. “Nice ankles.”
“Shinji, what the hells are you doing in here?”
The boy shrugged. “Maseo managed to warn me as they grabbed him. I figured the vent system was a good place to hide, but my skin was too big to crawl around quietly. So I stripped. Kept my tool belt and mechabacus, but that’s it.” Shinji glanced overhead. “What the hells happened up there?”
“Kitsune suicide attack. Their fleet rammed the Earthcrusher.”
Iron creaked, the vent echoing with the engines’ guttural song. Kin felt the ground shift beneath them as the DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM of the behemoth’s tread began again.
“Not hard enough,” Shinji said.
“Apparently not.”
“So what the hells do we do now?”
“We can’t proceed with the plan,” Kin sighed. “They had me bugged. A transmitter in my mechabacus. They know we intended to overheat the Earthcrusher. They’d have removed the explosives from the coolant clusters by now.”
Shinji scratched his head, looking a little rueful.
“And what about the heat diffuser arrays?”
Kin glanced at the boy. “You didn’t mention any—”
“I confess, I was feeling a little guilty about it too. But I feel better now.”
“Shinji, what the—”
“We didn’t tell you about our redundancies,” Shinji shrugged. “Bo didn’t trust you enough. But we planted secondary charges. Not in the coolant cluster. In the heat diffusers. If Kensai only knows what you knew, the explosives might still be there.”