Stormdancer

  Too many to defeat.

  But not too many to fight.

  Kin removed a brass cylinder from his belt and stabbed one end against his chest. There was a sharp cracking noise, a red light sprang to life at one end of the tube, and he hurled it at the oncoming samurai.

  A soundless explosion, a white sphere of light, tinged at the edges with translucent, bloody red. The sphere expanded in the blink of an eye, catching four of the charging samurai in its arc. There was a sudden stench of evaporating chi, the sound of fuel lines expanding and bursting, a rush of blue-black vapor. The samurai collapsed under the dead weight of their ō-yoroi, chainkatana falling silent as their motors stalled.

  Buruu and Yukiko charged at the gap in their circle, pouncing onto a samurai and disassembling him completely, the pieces flying apart like dry leaves in a storm. They leaped into the air, feeling the heat beneath their wings, soaring across the row of growling swords. Coming down behind the knot of warriors, swiping at their backs, metal shredding like paper. Blood spraying in the air, on their faces, scent filling their lungs. Eyes in front and behind, moving like water, severing arms and opening throats and leaping into the air again, wings a blur, roaring in defiance. Choking sounds. Wet bubbling writ upon broken stone.

  A flash from Kin’s second grenade burst in the middle of the samurai thicket, armor dying in the aftermath. Boiling clouds of blue-black rushed from the ruined ō-yoroi, the men inside howling in frustration as lifeless iron bore them to the ground.

  Yukiko and Buruu flew up above the melee, leash snapping taut, groaning but holding fast. They swooped down again, the chain sweeping through the samurai like a scythe. They were a slingstone on a tether of metal, cutting through the assembled men, a hot blade through snow, all hissing steam and spraying blood. The sun glinted off the metal on their wings, the tantō in their fist, the murder painted on their skin.

  They turned their eyes to the traitor, sea-green stare alight with rage, neo-daishō snarling in his hands. He dashed forward and kicked Kin in the chest, katana glancing off the Guildsman’s armor, a rain of sparks against the brass. Kin deflected the blows with his forearms, staggering beneath the flurry. The loading crane on the Guildsman’s back uncurled and snapped at Hiro’s head, a hissing viper with iron jaws, catching the samurai’s chainwakizashi and tearing it from his grip.

  The Guildsmen of Shima were many things, but they were far from fools. They had gifted the Iron Samurai with weapons to cut through flesh and bone in the blink of an eye. To lay entire armies of meat to waste. But against a Guildsman’s skin? Hiro’s weapons were butter knives against a brick wall.

  Still, the Iron Samurai was adept, honed by years of training that Kin had spent crouched over a workbench. And so the boy’s feet were swept out from under him and he crashed to the floor amidst a burst of chi fumes. Blue sparks spilled from his armor, Hiro stomping up and down on his chest. The samurai raised one black enameled foot to crush Kin’s unprotected head.

  They roared, a boom of thunder across the arena floor, setting the plates of Hiro’s armor squealing. He turned to face them, chainkatana in a double-handed grip, breath heaving in his lungs. He tore the helmet from his head so they could see his face, damp with sweat, fearless, fierce eyes, teeth clenched.

  Yukiko’s voice was a low, dangerous growl.

  “You can’t win this, Hiro.”

  He drummed his fingers across the hilt, spat on the ground.

  “To wield the long and the short sword,” he hissed, “and to die.”

  They bounded into the air, wings spread, blue lightning playing across the edges of their feathers. The hands that had held them in the night, that had sent goosebumps shivering down their spine, now swinging the growling sword toward them, an unrecognizable mask of hatred for a face.

  Their flesh separated, what had been Yukiko springing from the back of what had been Buruu. They took Hiro’s right arm off just below the shoulder, beak shearing through black iron in a shower of sparks and bright red. Their knife sank up to the hilt in the gap in his breastplate, just below his armpit. Sticky warmth flooded over their hands as they held him tight, lowering him to the ground in ruins.

  “Goodbye, Hiro,” they whispered.

  Their breath rasped in their lungs, hearts thundering in their chests. They wiped their hand across their faces, smearing the blood across pale skin, and turned to face Yoritomo.

  The Shōgun dropped his katana and ran.

  * * *

  A chittering horde, eyes of red, jagged teeth glittering in the dark.

  They scampered from the shadows, all thick tails and mottled fur and sharp claws, a fly-blown legion grown fat and fierce on corpse-meat. The vermin of Kigen’s gutters, now rising to consume its best and brightest.

  Minister Hideo screamed as a beefy black fellow with knives for teeth scampered up the folds of his sokutai robe and began tearing strips off his legs. Bushimen around him began crying out, sleek, mongrel shapes sinking little fangs into the unprotected flesh behind their knees, gnawing at their heels. Screams echoed down the black corridors, the sound of night-terrors and sweat, shrieking, childhood fear.

  Michi lashed out with her tsurugi at the flailing soldiers, blade sinking up to the hilt, painting the walls. She swept away their feet, sending them crashing onto the ground, the skittering horde of black shapes and bright eyes washing over them like a seething, squealing tide. Sharp teeth sank into soft skin, exposed throats, eyelids, the floor awash with scarlet. It was a hard death to endure. Almost as hard as it was to watch.

  Hideo sank to his knees, flailing as the black shapes poured over him, bright mouthfuls of pain tearing through the lotus haze. The bone pipe fell from his twitching fingers. Michi stood over him as he rolled about on the ground, screaming, thrashing, begging for the mercy of the bloody sword in her hand.

  She looked down on him, eyes cold, and sheathed the weapon at her back.

  “Remember Daiyakawa,” she whispered.

  Masaru dragged Kasumi away from the carnage, back into his cell. Akihito crawled in beside him, pale with grief and pain, tying a bloody rag around the gouge in his leg. Masaru tore Kasumi’s uwagi, tried to staunch the blood flow from the wounds in her chest and gut. Kasumi coughed, blood on her lips, teeth gritted.

  “Leave it,” she gasped, pushing Masaru’s hands away.

  “No.” He pressed harder at the bubbling wounds. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “Masaru…” Kasumi winced, swallowed thickly. “If they knew our plan … t-they know Yukiko’s too.” She squeezed her eyes shut, doubled over for a moment. “The arena. The arashitora. All of it. You have to help her.”

  Masaru kissed her hand, smudging his lips with blood, unwilling to let go. Kasumi pressed his palm against her cheek. A thin red line spilled from the corner of her mouth.

  “We have to go.” Michi hovered by the cell door, spattered in gore. “The ship is waiting.”

  Masaru’s eyes didn’t leave Kasumi’s as he spoke, “Yukiko is in danger.”

  “You can barely stand.” Michi nodded to Akihito, “He can’t stand at all.”

  “Get him to the ship,” Masaru glanced back at her. “Get Akihito out of here.”

  “Masaru, you bastard, you’re not leaving me again.” Akihito tried to get to his feet, clutching his leg. “No chance in all the hells.”

  “You can’t fight if you can’t walk, brother.”

  “I’ll bloody crawl if I have to.”

  Kasumi blinked at Akihito, the light dimming in her eyes.

  “Go. There is no shame.”

  Akihito stared hard, jaw set, clenching and unclenching his fists. He glanced down at the wound in his thigh, the blood pooling on the floor at his feet, then back into her eyes.

  “It’s a scratch. I can fight.”

  “Fight another day, you big lump.”

  The big man’s face crumpled and tears spilled down his cheeks.

  “Kas’…”

  She smiled up at
him, pale lips smeared with red.

  “Remember me, brother.”

  Akihito sat for a long, silent moment, holding his breath lest it emerge as a sob. Then he leaned in to kiss her brow, teeth gritted against the pain. Michi padded up beside him, offered one bloodstained hand. Struggling to his feet, the big man threw one arm over the girl’s shoulder. Looking down at Masaru and Kasumi, he closed his eyes as if burning the picture into his mind. Then he hung his head and turned away.

  Sparing one long, sad glance for the lovers on the bloody floor, Michi turned and began hobbling out of the cell, struggling under Akihito’s weight. They became shadows, black shapes limping in the dark. Their footprints glistened on the stone behind them.

  Masaru turned back to Kasumi, squeezing her hands tight.

  “My beautiful lady,” he whispered.

  He remembered the touch of her lips, the feel of her skin, those sweet, desperate nights together beneath the stars. He’d been blind. He should have loved her as she deserved. He should have seen that punishing himself meant he was punishing her too.

  I should have married you, love.

  “I…” He swallowed. “I should have…”

  “You should have.” A faint smile. “But I knew it, Masaru. I knew.”

  She exhaled, drifting closer to that bottomless, colorless edge with every breath.

  “I will miss you.” She closed her eyes as she began to fall. “I love you.”

  He squeezed her hand, willing her away from the brink. He couldn’t see her face for the tears in his eyes, the sting of his grief. He could only feel her, smell her, listening as her breath became shallow and frail in the dark, and then became nothing at all.

  “Wait,” he whispered.

  But she didn’t.

  * * *

  The beast roared, straining at the end of its metal leash, the chain unwilling to break. Yoritomo glanced over his shoulder as he fled out into the street, saw the Guildsman light a blue fire at his wrist and begin cutting the tether around the arashitora’s throat. In seconds, it would be free, pursuing him on those accursed clockwork wings.

  The Guild had betrayed him. Hachiman’s chosen.

  Out into the blinding heat, long red cloak billowing behind him as he fled down the broad cobbles of the arena district, into the alleys and squeezeways near the Market Square. The Shōgun screamed for his guards, for anyone, cries ringing off hollow stone. The streets were empty, not a soul to be seen. He could hear the sound of music and laughter drifting on the choking breeze. Breaking left, he dashed toward Spire Row and the gala at the base of the sky-spires. He tore off his cloak, threw it behind him. Lost in his fear, no pause for thought, flight instinct flooding his veins with adrenaline and pumping into trembling, taut muscle. Thunder rumbled to the north.

  He heard a roar bouncing off the alley walls, his face twisting in fear.

  It is behind me.

  He screamed again, stumbling through the alley trash and out onto the Market Square, breath burning in his lungs. His muscles were tense with anticipated agony, the terror of dying beneath the beast’s claws turning his gut to water. It screamed again behind him, a prelude to his bloody end.

  A crowd of revellers paused mid-song, faces pale with astonishment as the Ninth Shōgun of the Kazumitsu Dynasty barrelled through them, scattering them on the flagstones. He pounded across the cobbles, stumbling and almost falling down the steps surrounding the Burning Stones. The blackened columns rose into the air about him, casting long shadows on the ground. A child cried out from across the way, several drunken men dropped to their knees in supplication. The unwashed masses, instinct forcing their foreheads into the dirt.

  Why do they not run? Do they not fear the beast?

  Yoritomo risked a wide-eyed glance behind him and saw only the girl. Not the gore-soaked thunder tiger that had torn his men to ribbons. Not the engine of beak and claw and lightning he feared was chasing him. Just one feeble little girl with a bloody knife in her hands.

  He skidded to a halt in the pit, incredulous, ashes billowing around his ankles. His fingers closed about the textured grip of the iron-thrower in his obi, drawing it from its holster. The girl charged headlong toward him, snarling, knuckles white on the handle of her tantō. Her eyes were a demon’s, alight with hatred.

  The iron-thrower rose in slow motion. The muzzle flashed, bright as a second sun. A boom rang out like thunder as the bullet ricocheted off the stone at her feet.

  The girl froze.

  * * *

  Masaru had only stopped long enough to tie the hakama of a fallen bushiman around his waist, snatch up a pair of bloody goggles and a blood-stained kodachi blade from a gnawed, twitching hand. Dashing along dark sweating corridors, bounding up the prison stairs three at a time, past the open cells and slumped bodies of Michi’s victims, up toward the sunlight. He sprinted out into the blinding glare, hand up to blot out the light as he strapped the lenses over his eyes. Pawing at the thick droplets of congealing scarlet on the glass, he bolted in the direction of the arena.

  A group of drunken revellers took one look at the half-naked, blood-drenched, sword-wielding madman dashing down the street toward them and fled in the other direction as quickly as they could manage. Matted gray hair streaming behind him, fists clenched, bare, bloody feet pounding on broken cobbles, Masaru ran as fast as his body would take him, through the twisting maze of alleys past the chapterhouse, across a broad footbridge, east toward the arena. Breath dragging in his lungs, salt burning in his eyes, broken glass and cracked stone tearing at his heels. But the pain was nothing compared to the thought of his daughter fighting and falling alone; the fear of losing the only thing he had left in this world turned his gut to grease and shushed the meager concerns of his body away.

  And so he ran, breath hissing between his teeth, heart lurching in his chest, flesh slick with a sheen of sweat. He could see the walls of the arena looming up over the jagged rooftops in the distance, the empty, snaggle-toothed faces of the Docktown tumbledowns. His grip on the hilt of the kodachi was a vice, the buildings around him nothing but a blur, running so fast he felt he might fly. He seized hold of a downspout as he rounded a corner, skidding to a stop as he heard a strange sound split the air.

  A hollow boom, as of too-close thunder. The sound of a ricochet cracking off splintering stone. Not as deep as a dragon cannon. Louder than a kindling wheel.

  Only one man he knew carried a weapon capable of making a sound like that.

  He tilted his head, frowning, breath heaving in his lungs, listening to the fading report bouncing across cracking brick and crumbling mortar. Glancing at the streets around him, the sun above him, desperate to get his bearings. He cursed, torn with indecision, turning his head left and right. And with a whispered plea to Kitsune, he dashed off toward his best guess, hoping that, one last time, Fox would look after his own.

  * * *

  The distance between them had weakened the link, pulling them far enough apart that Buruu’s bloodlust was momentarily overcome by Yukiko’s fear of the iron-thrower. Alone among the Burning Stones, she could see Kin through Buruu’s eyes, desperately cutting through the thunder tiger’s tether, the arashitora near-mindless with impotent rage.

  The iron chain melted, one droplet at a time.

  The despoiler lord sneered as the killing fury inside her faded, the ugly, snub-nosed barrel aimed squarely at her head. His eyes glowered above the iron sight.

  YUKIKO.

  Buruu.

  WAIT FOR ME.

  A bead of sweat crept down her face, the taste of salt lingering at the corners of her mouth. She was out of breath from the chase, heart thumping in her chest, wisps of loose hair plastered to her cheeks. Yoritomo backed away to a safe distance on the other side of the pyre pit, eyes narrowed at the dust and lotus ash blowing down the Way, coiling among the blackened tinder at the foot of the stones. The wind-swept space between them was too wide for Yukiko to lunge across with her tantō; he’d end her with the
iron-thrower before she even got close. His lips were twisted in a cold smile, finger on the trigger, the barrel a bottomless black hole.

  “So now you see what you are,” Yoritomo sneered. “One pathetic little girl. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  A crowd had gathered around them, wide-eyed and awe-struck. A small boy in a festival uwagi carrying a bright red balloon recognized Yukiko, pointed to her with a cry.

  “Arashi-no-ko!”

  The cry echoed across the Market Square, repeated in a dozen different voices down the street, the name spreading out like ripples on still water. Yukiko could hear heavy footsteps ringing on the cobbles, glanced toward the sky-spires. A multitude of soldiers was rushing toward them up the Way, Iron Samurai and bushimen, chainkatana and naginata spears drawn, crying out in alarm. Dozens upon dozens. Too many even for Buruu.

  They’d be here in moments.

  She turned back to Yoritomo, fingers slick with sweat on the handle of her tantō, folded steel glinting in the light of the muted sun. She had bathed the blade in the blood of a dozen oni, cut demons from the deepest hell down to the bone. But the knife felt so tiny in her hands now; a fragile splinter of metal, far too short, far too small.

  He’s too far away to touch.

  WAIT FOR ME.

  Yoritomo followed her gaze down the Palace Way, smiling at his men’s approach. The game was over. The girl had taken her chance, risked all in one final gambit. And the king still stood.

  Checkmate.

  “Your father is dead.” His smile was lazy. Gluttonous. “He and his whore and that ignorant Fushicho thug. They all died in the bowels of the prison, cut to pieces by my men. A pity they are not alive to torture. I will have to make do with you.”

  Yukiko’s heart sank, bitter tears welling in her eyes. Her father. Akihito and Kasumi. So it had all been for nothing. The thought that she would never see them again filled her, an anguish and rage almost too painful to bear.