Endsinger

  “Surely they would have checked everywhere?”

  “They’re well hidden. Besides, the crew probably have bigger problems, what with Kitsune ironclads dropping from the sky. But even if the charges are still in place, we can’t blow the cooling system. Earthcrusher is inside Yama walls. We’d level the entire city.”

  Kin nodded, wiping at his split brow. The pair sat in the dark, bleeding and bruised, listening to the behemoth’s footsteps, the roar of its motors, the song of its gears.

  Kin blinked in the dark, sudden light gleaming in his eyes. “Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Our chance to take out the Tora army is gone,” Kin said, a slow smile blooming at his lips. “But we can still stop Earthcrusher.”

  “How?”

  “Drop those charges…” Kin winced, rolling to his hands and knees. “… into the transmission. Blow a drive rod, we’ll be immobilized.”

  “The charges are in the cooling system, Kin. Right on the diffuser arrays. That place will be an inferno now.”

  “Let me worry about that. You just worry about keeping up.”

  Shinji sighed, pulled himself onto all fours with a wince.

  “It was always going to be a risk, getting out of bed today.”

  And through the belly of the beast, they crawled.

  44

  INCENDIARY

  The First Bloom’s head hit the floor, severed arteries bathing her in blood, sizzling on the heat sinks rising from the Guild leader’s back. Kaori slashed the cables linking the body to throne and ceiling, gave it a savage kick and sent it tumbling to the ground.

  The other Kagé had rappelled from the chamber’s roof, down behind an Inquisitor on the periphery, the four of them cutting him to pieces before he could cry out. The other Inquisitors made not a sound as they rushed across the vast, bloodstained space. Kaori leaped from atop the Throne of Machines, throwing her arms around Daichi’s neck.

  “Father…” she breathed.

  “Daughter.” Daichi wheezed. “What have you done?”

  Kaori dragged her goggles from her eyes. “It’s wonderful to see you too.”

  “You killed him…” Daichi looked around the room, at the murals of Lady Izanami etched on the walls. “All of this, just as they planned…”

  A cry of pain rang out in the chamber, and Kaori saw Yuu go down in a spray of blood. Three Inquisitors were locked in combat with the Kagé, shifting from one spot to another amidst coiling trails of smoke. With a shout, she charged across the black stone, Daichi beside her, breath rattling in his chest. She saw Eiko get kicked so hard she cracked the wall behind her, bloody vomit spraying from her lips.

  Kaori lunged, took the attacker’s arm off at the elbow, the man turning, utterly soundless, bloodshot eyes aglow. One moment he stood at arm’s length, the next he shifted, and before she could blink he was inside her guard, touching her solar plexus, smashing the wind from her body. Daichi landed a flying kick on the Inquisitor’s chin, knocking his breather loose, his jaw snapped clean and hanging below his broken teeth like a door left ajar. The man stumbled to one knee, exhaled blue-black through bloody gums. Daichi brought a heel down on his head, a sickly crunch resounding in the chamber as the Inquisitor hit the floor.

  Daichi coughed, deflected three punches from a second Inquisitor before the man’s fist turned to smoke. Knuckles coalesced against Daichi’s chest, knocking him back ten feet as if he’d been hit by a motor-rickshaw. Kaori was back on her feet, swinging her wakizashi, collecting four of the Inquisitor’s outstretched fingers and then burying the blade in his ribs.

  The Inquisitor rippled like a heat haze on a summer’s day, her blade moving inside his chest as easily as it would a cloud of smoke. A strike to her throat, a headbutt to her cheek, white stars exploding in her eyes. She drew her sword back, struck blind, felt meat parting like water as a kick took her feet out from under her and she hit the floor, cracking her skull on the stone.

  Blinking hard, she had the vague impression of flashing steel, Maro’s voice fierce and hate-filled, a soft wet thud. Strong hands pulled her to her feet, and she pawed the blood from her eyes. Her cheek was broken, scarlet across her vision. Botan was dead, disemboweled with his own sword. Yuu lay motionless, neck twisted at a ghastly angle. Eiko knelt against the wall, clutching her belly and vomiting. Daichi was on all fours, coughing hard, chin smeared black.

  Four of them, unarmed, did all this. And we had surprise. What would happen if …

  Kaori heard the crisp sound of steel blades scraping together.

  The iris portal into the room began to dilate.

  Maro looked at the door, back at Kaori and Daichi, up at the silk rope still hanging from the lip of the dome above.

  “Go,” he said.

  “Maro…”

  His stare silenced her protest. The shadow of his brother lingering behind his gaze, calling for vengeance. Blood. Death.

  “Go,” he said.

  And then he was running, katana drawn, a war cry on his lips as he charged the Inquisitors stepping through the doorway. No time to wonder, to feel, to think. Just motion. Just action. Thinking by doing. Kaori hauled Daichi up and put his black-slicked hands on the rope.

  “Climb!”

  Pulling Eiko to her feet, she manhandled the girl to the rope and screamed to get up, climb, go, just go. At the doorway, she saw Maro flying backward in a spray of blood as a smoking wheel kick nearly took his head off his shoulders. Kaori ripped her satchel off her back, reaching inside to arm her remaining explosives. With a shapeless cry she hurled them toward the Inquisitors, leaping up the rope as a blossom of seething fire unfurled at her back.

  The blast wave smashed her against the wall and she almost slipped, palms torn as she hauled herself skyward. She could see Eiko climbing slowly, her father coughing and spitting black. Claxons screamed. Running footsteps. Roaring engines.

  She felt tension on the rope below, looked down into a smoldering face; an Inquisitor climbing toward her like a twisted, smoking monkey. Drawing her wakizashi, she slashed the rope below her, and the man fell twenty feet, splashing onto the stone as a cloud of smoke, reforming and glaring up with empty, bloodshot eyes. She heard a distorted voice above, looking up with a sinking heart as Lotusmen landed on the dome’s lip. Silhouetted against the sky, peering down with glowing, bloody eyes, patient as spiders for her to crawl into their arms.

  Daichi had stopped, spinning in place, Eiko beneath him. More Inquisitors gathered below. Kaori grit her teeth, knuckles white, staring down at her death.

  “I am sorry, Daughter,” Daichi coughed. “I did not want you here.”

  “You should have trusted me, Father. Neither of us had to be here.”

  “Not here, in this place,” Daichi rasped. “In this life. I would not … have chosen this for you. I would have seen you happy … far away from all this.”

  She pictured the timers on the explosives in the chi reservoirs, ticking down.

  Second.

  By second.

  By second.

  “Fear not, Father.” A small smile. “Soon we’ll both be far away.”

  * * *

  “Fucking hells…”

  Yukiko cursed as the Earthcrusher shook off the Kitsune suicide attacks, began lumbering toward Kitsune-jō again. Its hull was blackened and smoking, its head buckled, but still, it marched. Hana and Kaiah circled close by, along with the three remaining bucks from the Everstorm pack, Sukaa still among them. The black was dripping blood, green eyes alight with the thrill of the kill, glancing at Yukiko with something close to hunger.

  “Izanagi’s balls, what does it take to stop this thing?” Hana shouted.

  Yukiko turned her mind from Torr’s son, back to the problem at hand.

  “There’s nothing for it! I have to get inside! If I can see the pilot, I can kill him!”

  YOU SAW WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BRETHREN.

  “And how the hells do we get you inside it?” Hana’s s
hout echoed Buruu’s thoughts. “Those iron-throwers will shred us before we get close!”

  … YUKIKO, BEHIND US.

  She felt warning flicker across Sukaa’s mind, Kaiah roaring and swooping about as shapes coalesced out of the pall of smoke and black snow. Four Guild ironclads, battle-scarred and limping. Hulls torn by grappling irons, inflatables scored by flame, boards washed with blood. But she could see them on the decks, demon helms painted bone-white.

  The last remnant of the Kazumitsu Elite, chainswords drawn, screaming challenge as they saw her—slayer of Shōguns, ender of dynasties. And standing on the bow of the largest ship, face caked with ashes and spattered blood, he stood tall and fierce as tigers.

  Hiro …

  INDEED.

  As Buruu wheeled about, her hand strayed to her belly, the lives swelling inside her. So tiny. So strong. Filling her with power enough to wake ancient dragons, to feel the minds of every soldier in this battle, to swim in the thoughts of every thunder tiger floating above the butchery. A part of her, every bit as much as the heart in her chest.

  But part of him too?

  She stared across smoke-stained skies, remembering how she’d felt the first time she’d seen him. Heart in her sandals. Those sea-green eyes, nothing like the color of the sea at all. Because the oceans were red as blood, just like the poisoned skies. And the Guild who’d ruined it all was the same Guild propping Hiro on his splintered throne, who armed the Tora soldiers committing butchery in the city below, who built that towering goliath just minutes away from turning the Kitsune palace to rubble.

  They his masters, and he their slave.

  But still …

  WE MUST MAKE SURE THIS TIME.

  Meaning what?

  MEANING WE DO NOT SIMPLY TAKE HIS ARM.

  Buruu growled low and long, eyes locked on the Tiger Daimyo.

  WE TAKE HIS HEAD.

  Thunder tigers roared, tearing across the skies toward the Guild ironclads. Shuriken fire glittered amongst falling snow, catching the lightning on their edges, turning all to broken, spinning glass. Hana and Kaiah peeled left, swooping under an ironclad’s bow, Sukaa heading right with another Morcheban black. Yukiko and Buruu soared over the shuriken storm, accompanied by a swift Everstorm buck named Tuake, the pair splitting off in different directions, headed toward the Honorable Death’s inflatable. The topside ’throwers opened up, catching Tuake along one wing and sending him spiraling away, roaring in rage. Yukiko narrowed her eyes, one hand wrapped in Buruu’s mane, the other pressed against her stomach, fingertips skirting the hand-flares stuffed into her obi.

  They hit the inflatable, tearing through reinforced canvas, the air behind them filled with shrieking hydrogen, the popopopopopop of ’thrower fire, roars and Raijin Song. Yukiko drew out a flare, striking it against her breastplate. Flame bloomed in her hand, bright and hot. The warmth on her face made her shiver, sparks trailing through the falling black behind them.

  Just a flick of her wrist.

  Just to let go. Let it fall. Watch it burn.

  Him burn.

  Like this?

  YUKIKO …

  She wavered, staring into the light in her fist.

  … He’s their father, Buruu. The father of these babies inside me.

  HE IS A DESTROYER. ALL THIS DEATH. THIS PAIN. FROM HIS HANDS.

  I know.

  YET YOU FORGIVE HIM? AISHA. DAICHI. AKIHITO. KASUMI. EVEN YOUR OWN FATHER. ALL OF THEM DEAD BECAUSE OF THIS WAR. AND HE LEADS THEIR HOST.

  I never said I could forgive him.

  YET YOU STAY YOUR HAND.

  No, Buruu. Hiro still dies today.

  Yukiko tossed the hand-flare away from the torn inflatable, the light spitting and spinning down to the ruined earth below.

  I just want to tell him why.

  * * *

  Kin dropped down behind the cooling system and collapsed into a ball of pain, clutching the hole in his thigh. He was sweat-soaked, the ambient temperature almost enough to scald his bare flesh. But despite the heat, he felt a terrible chill, greasy and nauseous, his hands shaking like autumn leaves. Hard to breathe. Hard to think.

  You’re going into shock.

  Shinji dropped down next to him with a soft grunt, arms wrapped around his broken ribs, the clicking chatter of his mechabacus muted with the palm of one hand.

  You’re going to die in here …

  Kin hauled himself up on all fours, head down, dripping sweat, struggling to breathe. Fingers curled into fists. Vomiting on an empty stomach.

  “Are you all right?”

  “… Hai.”

  He could hear Guildsmen’s boots, patrolling on overhead gantries and walkways. Kensai must have some inkling as to what he was thinking—there were only a few reasons why he’d have fled into the vents. He had to get those explosives to the transmission. Quickly.

  “Where are the charges?” he breathed.

  “Up there.” Shinji pointed. “Tight squeeze.”

  Risking a glance from his vantage point, Kin saw the explosives welded to the diffuser array, twelve feet above the ground. The cooling system filled the entire floor above the engine room; a twisted sprawl of pipes bubbling with coolant. The air hung thick with steam, the roar of engines and thunder of the Earthcrusher’s tread underscoring a sea of hissing iron.

  Shinji leaned against an inflow pipe and stifled a yelp, his skin sizzling where it touched the metal like cuttlefish on a skillet.

  “How the hells did you get it up there?” Kin asked.

  “We planted them before anyone fired the engines. We never expected to move them.”

  Kin heard approaching footsteps, rasping metallic voices. There was no time, not even a spare minute to look for an alternative. Every second brought the patrols closer, brought the Earthcrusher nearer to Kitsune-jō. Every moment wasted was a moment another arashitora or Kitsune soldier or, gods help him, even Yukiko herself, did something suicidal to stop its march.

  This was why he left the Iishi, why he left her behind. This is why Daichi sacrificed himself. So Kin could be here, at this moment, the power to bring the Earthcrusher to its knees just a few feet away.

  “Give me your membrane,” he said to Shinji.

  “What are—”

  “Just give it to me.”

  Shinji complied, grasping the thin, gleaming fabric and ripping the arms off, the torso, the legs at the thighs. Kin could see the bayonet fixtures in Shinji’s skin, the cables leading from the boy’s mechabacus into his flesh. And wrapping the webbing around his hands, knees, feet, he crawled from behind the pipes. Down on his belly, thigh ablaze, hands shaking, beneath the potbellied bulk of the diffuser array and into the space between it and the wall.

  The air rippling, too thick to breathe. The chill in his gut evaporating in the narrow, scorching space. Back pressed to the wall, wincing at the furnace heat, slithering up to his feet. And then, whispering a prayer to whoever was listening, he pressed his hands to the metal and began to climb.

  The heat took a moment to penetrate Shinji’s membrane, and he’d made it at least three feet off the ground before the fabric began melting. Pain arrived then, a rapid escalation from mild discomfort to searing agony, stink of burning meat in his nostrils, membrane blackening, smoke rising, every instinct screaming to let go, get away, fall. But he thrust his feet and knees and hands against the diffuser, back to the wall, pushing higher as the agony mounted. Blistering. Charring. Shaking away the encroaching numbness from the iron-thrower wound, the shock his body had tried to wrap him inside, dunking him headfirst into incendiary pain.

  Smoke rising from his skin wherever it touched metal. Scream strangled behind his teeth. But he could see it through the haze, the cluster of explosives, just inches out of reach now, smoke in his eyes, tears spilling down his cheeks stretching toward it blistered fingers brushing the edge almost slipping gods it’s too far it hurts IT HURTS.

  And if you let go now it will have all been for nothing

  eve
ry lie every death every second of your

  life

  leading here to this

  moment this place pushing higher back scraping

  skin staying behind reaching

  out farther just a

  little farther and he could smell himself

  charring little

  Kin

  in the fire

  gods

  nothing left nothing

  more don’t you

  dare

  let go now DON’T

  YOU

  DARE

  LET

  GO.

  He fell, skin tearing, face smashing on the diffuser, a layer of cheek left behind to sizzle. Collapsing on steel mesh, hissing as it burned his chest, rolling away from the bundle he’d dragged with him as he fell. A cluster of cylindrical shapes, a tiny radio receiver mounted atop handcrafted detonators, making soft crinkling noises as it slowly cooled.

  A blistered gift.

  A smoking promise.

  An explosion unborn.

  * * *

  Kaori held her breath, waiting to die.

  Rope twisting in her fingers, spinning slowly above the Chamber of Void. Any second now, the chi reservoirs would blow, ripping First House apart. An end to Guild power. An end to everything.

  “Climb up slowly, citizens.” The Lotusmen gathered about the chamber’s lip peered down with burning eyes. “No sudden movements.”

  Eiko was holding her breath lest she sob, trembling grip setting the rope aquiver. Kaori looked up at the girl, pity in her heart. Barely seventeen. So much strength in youth. The wisdom to see and the courage to act. Still doomed to die in this pit with the rest of them.

  “Courage, girl,” Kaori said. “It will be over soon.”

  Tickticktick …

  “I don’t want it to be over…”

  “Want seldom matters in life, child. We do what we must.”

  “What we must…” Daichi murmured.

  Kaori looked at her father on the rope above, his eyes affixed on the First Bloom’s headless corpse. She saw a pale fear in them; a shadow of doubt never present before. And she realized it was not Eiko making the rope tremble.

  It was him.

  “Citizens!” The Lotusman raised the flat barrel of his shuriken-thrower. “If you are not climbing within five seconds, you will be falling.”