Authors: Jay Kristoff
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 . . .
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 adrenalin 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, blooddrenched, 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, snubnosed 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 skyspires. 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.
Check-mate.
“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.
How much more can this man take from me?
She glanced back at the approaching guards, picturing the little bamboo valley where she had grown up, her father and mother seated by the fireside, she and her brother lying with old Buruu in their laps; the brief summer days before the winter it had all begun to fall apart. And in the wake of that image, a bright spark of realization rose above the despair inside, the burning anger of her loss.
She remembered the wolf, the cold winter snow, Satoru and old Buruu by her side. She remembered her rage at the hound’s death, reaching out across the Kenning to snuff out the wolf’s life with her hatred. She remembered the shape of Satoru’s mind, the pain of his death pushing her inside him as the venom took him away.
He’s too far away to touch.
She glared at Yoritomo across the stones.
But I don’t need to touch him to hurt him.
She reached out toward him, hands motionless, straining to her limits, her father’s words ringing in her ears.
This is something worth sacrificing for. Something greater.
NO. WAIT FOR ME.
Her temples began to throb, eyes narrowed to paper cuts.
I AM COMING.
The bushimen were seconds away. Crossbows and needle-throwers. Naginata and nagamaki. Buruu wouldn’t stand a chance.
They are too many.
WAIT FOR ME!
Help me, Buruu.
WAIT!
“I’m going to kill you, little girl,” Yoritomo sneered. “Like I killed your whore mother.”
Yukiko glanced at the young boy and his balloon. Fear and awe shone bright in the child’s eyes.
“Let me show you what one little girl can do,” she said.
Yoritomo frowned as the blood began dripping from her nose, bright, salty red spilling over her lips and mingling with the taste of her sweat. She felt the shape of him, the heat of him, stretching toward him and closing her fist about his mind. Somewhere far away, she could hear someone calling her name.
This is it. Our chance. Help me, brother.
“What are you—”
A gasp, eyes wide, mouth open in shock. Yoritomo moaned, pain registering at the base of his skull and spreading bloody fingers throughout his synapses.
The shape of his mind was slippery, alien, not at all like the mind of a beast. Yukiko felt it sliding away, her rage not hot enough to maintain her grip, a serpent slithering between her fingers. And then, someone was beside her, inside her, anger entwining with her own. A familiar warmth, a strength that lifted her up and carried her on his shoulders high above the ground, the whole world at her feet. Together they pressed down, using the hate, the rage, seizing hold and wrenching from side to side, gray matter running to pulp in their grip.
Yoritomo staggered away, a shapeless gurgle spilling from his lips as his ears started to bleed. He put one hand up to his brow, pawing at his temple, hemorrhaging turning the whites of his eyes a dark, cloudy scarlet. The iron- thrower wavered in his grip. He blinked. Gasped. Squeezed the trigger.
A muzzle flash. A burst of sound. A voice roaring her name. A hard shove, something heavy slamming into her from behind. A metallic breeze whispering past her cheek, so close she could feel its heat. Hear its hiss. She was falling. She was weightless.
The little boy cried out in horror.
The Shōgun collapsed on the ground, blood pouring from his nose and ears and eyes. He spasmed, spine arching, heels kicking at the stone. Fingernails clawing at the sky, lips peeling back from bloody teeth. They wrapped their hands together and strangled until nothing remained inside him, darkness fading away into a whimper as the Ninth Shōgun of the Kazumitsu Dynasty folded down upon himself and ended on the ash-covered stone.
Blinking, gasping, she came to her senses. The presence inside her head receded like an ebb-tide, leaving her hollow and empty in its wake. She reached out toward Buruu, felt him speeding closer, but still too far away.
Then who . . .
There was blood on the cobbles around her, blood on her skinned hands and knees. The smell of the shot hanging in the air. Someone had shoved her, pushed her out of the way. Someone . . .
She turned, saw him writhing on the stone, sticky red spilling from his mouth and the hole in his throat.
No.
She crawled toward him, a scream tearing loose and echoing across the square.
“Father!”
A roar from the skies, a typhoon wail. The soldiers looked up and cried out in fear, scattering as Buruu landed atop Yoritomo’s corpse, smearing it across his claws and shattering the flagstones beneath. He spread his wings, lightning flashing on his feathers, electricity dancing across the manacles on the Burning Stones. White fur, black stripes and spatters of warm, fresh red. The bushimen fell back as he circled around Yukiko and Masaru, roaring again in warning.
The thunder echoed the beast’s cry. Raijin was pleased.
Kin descended from the sky in a cloud of burning smoke, blue-white flame flaring at his back as the crowd scattered out of his path. Roaring at the soldiers to back away, he landed beside the arashitora, brass boots crunching on the cobbles. Anguish welled in knife-bright eyes as he caught sight of the girl kneeling over the bleeding body of her father. She looked up at him, eyes shining with tears, pale with grief.
“Kin.” Her throat was raw, choking. “Help me with him.”
Face drawn with sorrow, he helped Yukiko lift Masaru onto the thunder tiger’s shoulders. A ribbon of blood spilled from the older man’s mouth, spattered across the cobbles, smeared on the Guildsman’s skin. A murmur rippled among the spectators, watching in amazement as Yukiko leaped on Buruu’s back.
Fly, Buruu. Fly!
A collective gasp ran through the crowd as the beast leaped into the air. People pointed in wonder, eyes wide, blessed with a story to tell their children.
“Stormdancer,” one whispered.
A gale swelled beneath Buruu’s wings as the ground fell away below them. They spiraled upward on Kigen’s thermals, up into the rumbling sky. The buildings became toys, and the people became ants: tiny dark figures gathered around the blackened pillars and a small spot of blood, staring skyward. The ocean stretched out to the south, red waters melting into deeper scarlet, the wind caressing their skin.
Yukiko cradled her father in her arms, rocking him back and forth. Her hands were soaking wet; dark, hot floods gushing from his neck as she pressed down on the wound.
“Father,” she whispered. “No, please, no.”
She clutched him, desperate, hot tears and blood smudged across her cheeks, her whole body shaking with the sobs. Masaru opened his mouth but no words would come, thick red bubbling and bursting on his lips. He clutched a handful of the arashitora’s fur, white knuckles, trembling hands. He pressed his fingers to the beast’s flesh, reached out for his warmth in the growing cold, the spark to keep the dark at bay.
Buruu tossed his head, narrowed his eyes.
I CAN FEEL YOU, OLD MAN. POKING AROUND INSIDE MY MIND.
Yes.
YOU CUT ME. YOU TOOK MY WINGS.
I am sorry.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
There are things I would say. But the wound . . .
AND WHY WOULD I HELP YOU? AFTER WHAT YOU DID TO ME? Because you love her too.
The sky around them was red as blood, dimming to black where the clouds reached down from the north. They flew toward the roiling storm; the great beast, the dying man and the weeping girl. And with a slow nod of his head, the arashitora closed his eyes, took hold of the man’s fading thoughts and cupped them in his talons, carried them across the vast, empty gulf to the girl’s waiting mind.
YUKIKO.
. . . Father? How?
THE KENNING WAS MINE BEFORE IT WAS YOURS.
You helped me. I felt you.
ARE YOU SAFE? IS IT OVER?
We’re safe, can’t you see? We’re flying, father. We’re flying.
I . . . I CAN’T LIFT MY HEAD.
She squeezed his hand, blinked away her tears.
Then use our eyes.
His lashes fluttered against his bloody cheeks. The island stretched out below them, swathes of brown and green, a swaying ocean of red blooms. The mountains loomed in the distance beyond the autumn storm, the dark shadow of the Iishi, shrouded in rolling mist. They could see the lightning, feel the wind on their skin. The hands of the tempest held them tight, ozone and thunder, willing them home.
I SEE, ICHIGO.
It’s all so beautiful from up here.
IT IS.
Blood dripped from his fingertips, falling through the sky like soft rain. The song of thunder rolled around them. He thought of Naomi singing by the fireside, Satoru beside her. He thought of Kasumi stalking through long grass, wind playing in her hair. He pushed the pictures into her mind.
THEY ARE WAITING FOR ME.
No.
I LOVE YOU, YUKIKO.
No. Don’t you dare say your goodbyes to me.
She shook her head, willing the darkness gone, flaring in his mind with stubborn, warm light. A scream welled up inside and spilled over her limits, a long wavering note of grief echoed by Buruu, the pair roaring in defiance together as if they could frighten the end away.
Stay with us.
I CAN’T.
Don’t leave us alone.
LET ME GO.
No. All this is for nothing if you’re gone.
THEN MAKE IT FOR SOMETHING.
Masaru closed his eyes, felt the wind on his face, the bleeding land rushing away beneath him, a final peal of thunder drifting off into blessed silence.
He smiled.
SOMETHING GREATER.