The Last Stormdancer

BRIDE? FOOLISH. SEE NOTHING.

  I felt him, then. A frown upon his face, reaching out through the frost-clad space between us and slipping inside my mind. The strangest of sensations; sharing a room as vast as reckoning with another mind, wide as the dawning sky. Touching. Overlapping. A sense of him in me, and me in him. Unlike anything I had ever known. And after a moment, the frown smoothed from his brow, incredulity settling there instead, blind eyes searching mine as if he saw me true.

  My gods. You’re … female …

  TROUBLES YOU, MONKEY-CHILD?

  Not troubling, no. It is just—

  NEVER RIDDEN FEMALE BEFORE?

  Amusement rippling in my mind. Spilling into his.

  In truth, I have not, great one.

  FIRSTS, THEN. FOR BOTH OF US. NOW, WHERE WE GO?

  The Shōgun’s palace is in Kigen city. He is the leader of my people. Like your Khan.

  I looked at the Four Sisters behind me, the Aerie of my race. The Skymeet therein, aloft and aloof and afraid. What would happen to me when I returned? What shape would my Khan’s displeasure take? My kind did not allow females to fly free. Risk themselves in battles. Such was our way. Had always been our way. But there was change coming. All with eyes to see knew it …

  HOPE NOT, MONKEY-CHILD.

  If we visit the Shōgun, I can tell him of this sickness. How it spreads through his subjects and all the beasts and birds of the sky—

  HE NOT KNOW?

  In my experience, those who live with their heads in the clouds seldom look at the ground beneath their feet.

  WHY HE LISTEN?

  Because we have destiny on our side, my friend.

  The boy stood there in the snow, ice on his brows and the soft down at his cheeks. He seemed a tiny, lonely thing, then. Far from home and all he knew. Yet still that certainty loomed within him—the pillar of belief that all this was preordained. A faith unswerving. A conviction, perhaps, that would change the world …

  I do not know your name …

  MY KIND CALL ME KOH.

  Does it have meaning?

  KOH IS ARASHITORA WORD FOR CHANGING OF SEASONS.

  I like that.

  I CARE NOT.

  May I ask something of you, Koh?

  ASK.

  May I touch your face?

  My eyes narrowed, wings flaring, wisps of lightning crawling across my feathers. A growl rumbled in my chest, shivering the snow upon my fur, spilling to the ground in rolling white flurries.

  … WHY?

  The winter sparrow. The one your brethren … killed. She was more important to me than you can know. My gift is called the Kenning in my mother’s tongue. And through it, I can share not only a beast’s thoughts, but also their senses. Little Mikayo …

  He paused to wipe at those milk-white eyes, and I felt a sadness touch my heart.

  She was not only my friend. She was my eyes.

  The sadness swelled, slowing my breath, clutching my chest. You may think us beasts, monkey-child. And beasts we are. Predators, proud and fierce and wild. The storms that rock your walls and shiver you beneath your straw roofs are but spring showers to us. Ours is not a world of mercy, of softness or kindness. The bodies of the weak fill the bellies of the strong.

  But we know kinship. We know pack. We know the warmth of another’s body against our own when the winter bites deep and the cold winds moan. And in the days after my family fell to the sickening, I had learned what it was to be alone.

  Truly alone.

  YOU MAY TOUCH.

  The boy stepped forward, head tilted, reaching out with trembling hands toward my heat and sound. I could feel his heart beating through the thin walls of his chest. I knew it pumped with fear, despite his talk of prophecy and destiny and other such foolishness. Standing naked before the beast he was, sightless and small. But as he touched my cheek, I saw the fear in him melt, slowly, by inches. His hands exploring my face. Down my beak, black as moonless midnight, fading through to gray at a tip that could puncture steel. As his fingertips brushed my closed eyelids, I tensed and growled, and he withdrew not for fear of me, but out of concern. I could feel his presence in my mind, even as I felt his hands return to my brow, my temples, my throat, his thoughts as gentle as his touch. I had not known such sensation. Nothing so careful or … kind? No room in my world for a moment such as this. And in it, I felt the wound left by my kin’s passing begin to ache …

  ENOUGH.

  I pulled away, snorting, claws tearing at the frost. The boy’s eyes were open, and tears were frozen upon his cheeks, and his smile was bright as the sun.

  You are … beautiful, Koh.

  BEAUTIFUL TO MONKEYS? THINK THIS FLATTERY?

  Not flattery. Just truth.

  A growl deep within my chest, ruffling my feathers and shaking the snow from my wings. The boy wiped salted ice from his cheek, the mask of determination slipping back into place.

  Kigen city is southeast of here. Perhaps a day as the thunder tiger flies.

  THEN CLIMB ABOARD. NO TIME TO WASTE. NEED NOT WARN TO NOT LOOK DOWN.

  The boy walked forward, prodding the snow with his lacquered cane, feeling about my wings for the briefest of moments before he scrabbled atop me, light and only a little graceless. It was a strange sensation, the weight of him up there. I had not flown with anyone on my back before. My muscles tensed, wings flinching as he found his balance, my tail lashing side to side. His arms closed about my neck and I almost balked, blood rushing beneath my skin. But ever I could feel him in my mind, just as frightened as I, trembling just as deep, all his certainty eroded at the heat radiating from my fur, the taste of ozone in back of his tongue, the crackle of infant lightning across the breadth of my feathers.

  Clumsy as first-time lovers we were. And though nothing of love lay between us, I could not recall a time I had felt as close to another as I felt to him in that moment.

  YOU ARE WELL?

  My voice in his mind, killing the uncomfortable silence between us.

  I am well.

  THEN HOLD ONTO ME, MONKEY-CHILD.

  My wings spread, twenty feet, flickering with pale blue-white. His skin prickling with adrenaline, echoing in his thoughts. His arms about my neck, squeezing tight.

  A swift breath before the plunge.

  HOLD TIGHT.

  Then flight.

  * * *

  Lord Tatsuya stood in his command tent, bathed in the bloody light of burning chi-lamps, staring at the map before him. He was decked in traditional samurai armor—an elaborately embossed suit of black iron, commissioned for him on his eighteenth naming day by his dear-departed Lord and father. Katana and wakizashi at his waist, a braid of long dark hair slung over one shoulder. Dawn waited two hours distant, but the battle ahead was already playing out in his mind, clear as a portrait hung upon the palace walls. The ring of steel. The smell of blood.

  Soon.

  Four days had passed since his father’s funeral, and already, the war had begun. After a bloody skirmish in the Broken Hills, his brother’s forces had retreated north, refusing to engage Tatsuya’s armies in the open field. Riku’s men were now almost boxed in on the slopes of the Junsei river valley. To the west lay the Four Sisters Mountains. To the north and east, the rushing flow of the Junsei herself. Though Riku had the high ground, there was also nowhere for him to run if the battle went badly (which, Maker and simple mathematics willing, it most certainly would), save for a single bridge spanning the Junsei, perhaps a mile east of their encampment. The Bear seemed caught between the hunter and the trap.

  “What will you do, brother-mine?” Tatsuya wondered aloud.

  One the four generals gathered about the table—a grizzled old wardog called Ukyo—tapped his finger on the map.

  “If he has wisdom, he will remain on the high ground and make us pay dearly before we reach him. We may have numerical advantage, but numbers cannot wield blades.”

  “My brother is no strategist on open ground,” the Bull said. “He will break
for his keep in Blackstone province. Turtle there and make overtures to the other clanlords for aid.”

  “There is no path north through the Four Sisters. And if he orders retreat across the Junsei, his forces will be bottlenecked on that bridge. Most will be slaughtered before they can cross.”

  “As I said,” Tatsuya murmured. “No strategist. Riku has a head for duels and drunken diplomacy, not open warfare. He should have killed me when he had the chance.”

  One of Tatsuya’s samurai stalked into the tent, armor clanking with an off-key tune, gleaming in the flickering light. He stopped before the council table, covered his fist and bowed low, the red tassel on his helm near touching the earth at his feet.

  “Forgiveness, Lord Tatsuya. An emissary to see you.”

  A raised eyebrow. “The Bear sends overture?”

  “Not from Lord Riku, great Lord. The emissary is of the Lotus Guild.”

  The generals about Tatsuya murmured, scowls running deep. Tatsuya himself stroked his chin, his face that of man confronted with an angry viper in his wedding bed.

  He had been wondering when the Lotus Guildsmen would decide to place their bets. Tatsuya’s father had warned him often about their strange brotherhood, their arcane arts. Fueled by the wondrous chi—in turn derived from the blood lotus flowers from which the brethren drew their name—the machines the Guild created were wonders, to be sure. Harvester machines to bolster the productivity of breadbasket provinces. Generators providing power for everyday life. Railways and crude lighter-than-air ships the Lotusmen promised would revolutionize travel in Shima. Maker’s breath, even Tatsuya’s own supply lines were made up of motor-rickshaw convoys provided by the chi-mongers. But the wealth they were accumulating, the power such wealth brought them … any ruler of Shima would be right to dread getting into bed with them for fear of being suffocated as he slept.

  Tatsuya turned to his lead general.

  “Ukyo-san, ensure the men are ready to march. My brother may seek escape across the Junsei under cover of darkness. If he does so, he must pay in blood.”

  “Hai!” The old general bowed, led his commanders from the tent.

  Tatsuya turned to the samurai guard. “Send the Guildsman in.”

  A low bow. The song of oiled armor, heavy tread. The samurai exited the tent, reappeared a few moments later with three other guards, a fourth figure corralled between them.

  The Lotusman was clad in a suit of heavy brown leather, riveted with thick brass plates. It wore a sealed helm, some kind of breathing contraption made of snaking metal tubes strapped over its nose and mouth. A device of counting beads and transistors and wires was affixed to its chest, clicking and chirping and shuddering. Goggles of blood-red glass covered its eyes, bulbous and facetted. Tatsuya imagined it the gutter-born offspring of woman and wasp, clad in its brass and leather suit to hide its hideousness.

  “Lord Tatsuya, Bull of the Tiger clan, son of Sataro, exalted Shōgun of Shima. We are honored you grant us audience.”

  The thing’s voice was an insectoid hum, tinged with gravel and metal. It bowed low, almost simpering, lamplight glittering in its empty, bloodred eyes. Tatsuya wondered what kind of man could be found beneath that false skin. If a man could be found at all.

  “And what name do I have the honor of addressing you by, Guildsman?”

  “Call me Maru, great Lord.”

  “Then I bid you speak swift, Maru-san. I mean no discourtesy, but I have a war to win this day.”

  The Lotusman glanced at the map table, the carved figures arrayed atop it. As it breathed, bellows on its back rose with machine precision, hiss-whoosh, hiss-whoosh, a sharp, antiseptic smell slowly pervading the tent.

  “You are well placed to win the battle, great Lord,” said the Guildsman. “But the war? We think not.”

  “I was unaware the Lotus Guild boasted masters of military strategy, Maru-san?”

  “Escape for your brother lies across the Junsei. Should he flee, the battle will be yours, but he will live to fight another day. To raise rebellion. Muster more troops. Recruit other clanlords to aid in his cause. In short, to be a thorn in your side.”

  “You tell me nothing I do not know,” Tatsuya said. “Come, do me the honor of speaking plainly. What is it you wish of me?”

  “I speak not of what the Guild wishes. I speak of what it offers.”

  The Bull sighed. “Offer, then.”

  “For some time now, our ironworks in the Midlands have been dedicating their resources to perfecting the art of war. We of the Lotus Guild wish to make ourselves valuable to the Shōgunate. To the man who sits on the Four Thrones. We offer you this token of our goodwill.”

  The Lotusman touched the device upon its chest, slipping the counting beads back and forth in some unfathomable, intricate pattern. Another brass-clad figure soon entered the room, kneeling before Guildsman Maru and proffering a long metal box on upturned palms.

  The box was unadorned, set with two plain brass clasps. Maru flipped the catches under the watchful stare of Tatsuya’s guards. More than one of the men let their hands drift closer to their sword hilts, tensing visibly as the Guildsman drew a sheathed katana from the box. The weapon looked strange—bulkier than a regular sword, its heavy hilt encumbered by some kind of motor …

  “With your permission, great Lord?” the Lotusman asked.

  Tatsuya folded his arms, distrust running deep as the molten blood of the earth. Yet finally, he grunted assent, nodded once. The Guildsman drew the katana from its scabbard, and Tatsuya saw the blade was adorned with hundreds of metal teeth, razor sharp and gleaming in the amber light. The blades were interlocked, like the spurs of the tree-shredders used to clearfell forests for lotus planting.

  “What in the Maker’s name is that?” Tatsuya asked.

  “We call it a chainkatana, great Lord.” The Guildsman pressed a button on the hilt, and the weapon sputtered to life, spat a blue-black plume of exhaust into the air. The Guildsman depressed what appeared to be a throttle, and the razored teeth on the blade began spinning and spitting a rasping tune. As if to demonstrate, the Guildsman swung the weapon at the box still proffered on his comrade’s palms, shearing the metal in two, filling the air with a blinding spray of sparks. The two halves clattered to the floor, the edges looking as though they had been savaged by dragon teeth.

  “Maker’s breath…” Tatsuya breathed.

  “I am glad it pleases you, great Lord,” the Guildsman rasped. “This is the first of many weapons we can bring to bear in your name. Soon we will have a fleet of warships that can sail the skies, rain death upon your enemies. Armor for your samurai, augmenting the wearer’s strength and making him impervious to most conventional weaponry. An army backed by the Lotus Guild will be unstoppable.”

  With a bow, the Guildsman held out the strange weapon on upturned palms. Tatsuya took the proffered blade, swung it in one hand, testing the weight, gunning the throttle and listening to the blades sing a tune of murder.

  Murder and victory.

  Tatsuya looked up from the chainkatana, peered deep into the Guildsman’s bloodred lenses as if straining to see the real eyes beyond.

  “And you will give these weapons to me?”

  “The Lotus Guild offers much, Lord Tatsuya. We can outfit your troops with arms such as these. Sky-ships from our yards—only a handful at first, but understand more are being built as we speak. And lastly, we can offer you your brother’s head.”

  Tatsuya’s eyes narrowed.

  “Now you have my attention, Guildsman.”

  “As you say.” Amusement buzzed in the Lotusman’s voice. “We have a crew of sappers at work beneath the water as we speak. The bridge over the river Junsei is being rigged with chi-bombs from our Midlands munitions works. The blast will be violent enough to collapse the structure, ancient stone though it may be, cutting off your brother’s escape route. You can win this war today. Literally, this very morning. With our help.”

  “You would hand me my thron
e upon a brass platter?”

  “In exchange for … considerations, great Lord.”

  Tatsuya smiled, the Tiger blood in his veins running hot. “So we come to the rub at last. What do you ask in return for these marvels, Guildsman?”

  “Trifling things, great Lord.” The Guildsman waved his hand. “We wish to decentralize our chi production. Perhaps some land in each clan capital upon which to build a refinery. Some hand in the administration of farms growing blood lotus. Perhaps a licensing system, controlled by the Guild to ensure quality and yield. Most importantly, we would seek to root out an impurity amongst Shima’s people. A deformity, if you will.”

  Tatsuya’s eyebrow raised in silent question.

  “Those who speak to the minds of beasts,” Maru offered. “Yōkai-kin, they are named. Our scriptures speak against them. We would seek permission to … cleanse the land of their taint.”

  “And in exchange for these trifles, you offer my brother’s head?”

  The smile in the Guildsman’s voice was obvious now. “We would, my Lord.”

  “My twin brother.” Tatsuya took one step closer to the Lotusman. “A man with whom I shared a womb. The son of a Shōgun. A descendant of great Kazumitsu himself.”

  A pause, filled with the empty hiss-woosh of the Guildsman’s bellows.

  “My Lord?”

  “Think you, the blood of the Kazumitsu is to be bought with trifles?”

  hiss-woosh

  “Think you, I would enlist the aid of mechanics and artisans—not a single soldier or samurai amongst you—to help win me a war I am already winning?”

  “Great Lord, I—”

  Tatsuya gunned the chainkatana’s throttle.

  hiss-woosh

  He could swear he heard the Lotusman gulp.

  “Lord Tatsuya, I counsel—”

  The Bull raised the weapon, blades hovering an inch or two from the Guildsman’s throat. He revved the engine again, watching the lanternlight gleam on growling teeth, noting with grudging admiration that the Lotusman did not flinch.

  “Be at ease, Guildsman,” said Tatsuya. “I am not the sort who murders an emissary, no matter how grave the disrespect I or my family are shown. Count yourself fortunate you did not offer this same deal to my brother. The Bear does not share my fondness for clemency.”