by Jay Kristoff
An iron-thrower.
“Where the hells did you get that?”
“Lifted it from the Daimyo’s room. Loaded, too. Awful nice of him.”
Hana paused, looking for the words, knowing she was straying onto dangerous ground. Jurou had been her dearest friend, but Yoshi loved him with all he had. Anything he didn’t keep for her, he’d given to him. And now, the place the boy had filled was flooded with the sight of him lying gutted in that alleyway, mouth lipless and silently screaming.
But …
“Yoshi, there are bigger things happening now.”
Her brother fixed her in his sights, gaze shifting to glower.
“Don’t you fucking dare, girl. Don’t you spiel this rebellion shit on me. I’m not some dishpig gathered ’round an alms house radio, or some farmer fresh from the fields.”
“I know what you’re going to say, and—”
“Oh, doubtless? You know what I’m going to say?” Yoshi snatched his hand from hers. “Why don’t you tell me then, little Stormdancer?”
“… What?”
“Head still in the clouds? Ears full of thunder? Too high up to see the gutter you came from? Remember the people you came up with?”
“What the bleeding fuck are you talking about? I know exactly who I am and where I came from. I loved Jurou.”
“Not like me. Not by half.”
“Yoshi, there’s a war coming. Tens of thousands of men. Machines that blot out the sun. Sky-fleets and Iron Samurai—”
“And what does one gutter-rat do against that? What exactly am I doing here, ’sides from taking up space at that senile old prick’s table?”
“Yoshi, we need you.”
“Room on that thunder tiger for two, you think?”
“Are you jealous? Because Kaiah chose me and not you?”
“It’s not about that, and you know it. You’ve known me since you were knee high to a lotusfly. When have I ever fitted about the cards I got dealt? I do what needs doing. Always have. Always will. And what needs doing right now is that Shinshi and his band of painted pigs.”
“But you look after me.” Hana felt tears welling in her eye.
Yoshi shook his head. “Two tons of arashitora ought to sub just fine. You got an army behind these walls. Guildsmen and stormdancers and sky-ships and all. Up here, I’m just taking up air. But down there, there’s some Scorpion Children that need doing, and state of play being what it is, I don’t fancy their chances of getting shivved lest it’s me flying the knife.”
“Yoshi you can’t leave me. Gods, not now…”
“Akihito will look to you. He’s fine people. I like him, sis.”
“You can’t go!”
She threw her arms around his waist, digging her fingers in like the world was collapsing. Her entire life, he’d been at her side. The only one who knew what they’d been through, knew what it was to be clanless half-blooded gaijin filth. She’d noticed him drifting away over the last few weeks. But to leave entirely? Gods, she couldn’t bear the thought …
“Got to stand tall now, Hana.” Yoshi hugged her back. “Taller than most, on that arashitora’s back. You’re somebody special now. You don’t need me.”
“You don’t have to do this alone. Just wait. When the war is over, we can—”
Yoshi pulled away, pressed his palms to her cheeks and looked her in the eye.
“Not later. Every day that motherfucker breathes, every mouthful, every moment, he stole. He doesn’t deserve the dregs of it. And Jurou didn’t deserve to go out like that. That boy was my beauty, Hana. That boy was my dawning and dusk. And they wrecked him with hammers and pliers and every time I spend a second in it, it grips me so tight I can’t breathe. I can’t see for the red in my eyes. And I just can’t do it anymore.”
She blinked at him in the dark, cupped the hand that cupped her cheek.
“You understand, don’t you, sis? That this is about him, not us?”
A thick sniffle. “I understand.”
“And you know I love you?”
She kissed his hand, tears coming in floods again. “I love you too, big brother.”
“Hush now, girl, don’t cry.” He folded her in his arms again as she wept, great wracking sobs that shook her whole body. “Don’t cry, sis. It’ll be all right.”
“It won’t. You know it won’t.”
“You stand tall, you hear me?”
“… I will.”
Yoshi touched the golden pendant hanging around Hana’s throat. The only thing they had left of their mother besides memories of sad blue eyes and the blond hair they both kept hidden. The stag embossed into the metal stared back at them, three sickle horns on his head. If the beast held any secrets, he kept them to himself.
“Stick with Akihito. Talk with that round-eye if you can make any godsdamned sense of him. He knows better than anyone what all this means. Ma. Your eye. All of it. You find out your truth, you hear? You tell me about it when I get back.”
“All right,” she sniffed. “I will.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
But he didn’t listen.
16
BLOOD AND THUNDER
NO.
- NO. -
No?
Yukiko looked back and forth between Buruu and Kaiah, lightning ripping the clouds to ribbons overhead. Freezing cold in the Daimyo’s garden, wind whipping amidst the cedars, thunder rolling between both arashitora and setting them apurr. But their eyes were flint hard, claws piercing the earth, feet apart as if bracing for onslaught.
What do you mean no, Buruu?
THE OPPOSITE OF YES?
Gods, I should’ve never taught you to sarcasm …
- FOOLISH PLAN. WILL NOT WORK. -
Yukiko turned on Kaiah.
And why the hells not? We need an army to fight the gaijin and the Guild. And there’s an army of arashitora in the Everstorm.
- NO ARMY. A SCATTERED FEW. -
A few thunder tigers are worth a thousand sky-ships. Ten thousand men.
NO, YUKIKO.
You said that already, Buruu. You still haven’t said why.
IS IT NOT ENOUGH THAT I SAY NO? DO YOU NOT TRUST ME?
- SHE LEARNS WISDOM AT LAST, KINSLAYER. -
AH, YOU SPEAK TO ME NOW?
- ONLY TO SPIT. -
Kaiah, you’re not helping.
- IN THIS MADNESS YOU SPEAK? NO, I AM NOT. KINSLAYER CANNOT RETURN TO EVERSTORM. HE EXILED. MARKED FOR DEATH. -
And what about you? Why can’t you go back?
- NOT CAN’T. WON’T. -
Why won’t you, then?
- TORR. -
Who is that?
HE IS KHAN.
- FALSE KHAN. WILL NEVER BOW TO HIM. NEVER. -
What the hells does that mean? Izanagi’s balls, Buruu, will you just speak to me?
- CANNOT SPEAK. EXILED BEFORE TORR CAME. REVILED. ACCURSED. -
All right, Gods, I don’t care who tells me, as long as somebody does!
Kaiah growled low, tossed her head.
- KHAN RULES EVERSTORM. MIGHTIEST MALE. FIERCEST WARRIOR. TORR CLAIMED KHAN, THOUGH HE HAD NO RIGHT. -
No right? Why?
- NOT EVERSTORM BORN. TORR AND HIS PACK CAME FROM EAST. BLACK FEATHERS AND BLACK HEARTS. SEIZING EVERSTORM. KILLING MALES WHO STOOD DEFIANT. THEIR CUBS ALSO. BECAUSE OF HIM. -
Kaiah stepped toward Buruu with a snarl, hackles raised, wings unfurling.
- BECAUSE OF YOU. -
I AM SORRY.
- MY MATE AND HIS BROTHER STOOD ALONE, THE OTHERS TOO OLD, OR TOO AFRAID. AND WHERE WAS OUR KHAN WHEN USURPER CAME? -
THE LAW IS THE LAW. THE KHAN IS NO EXCEPTION.
- LAW WAS ALREADY BROKEN. KHAN MAKES LAW. -
SOME LAWS ARE WRIT IN STONE. IN THE BLOOD AND BONES OF OUR ANCESTORS. ARASHITORA DO NOT KILL OTHER ARASHITORA.
- PITY TORR DID NOT FEEL THE SAME. -
I DID NOT KNOW, KAIAH.
&nbs
p; The female roared, snapping at the air a few inches from Buruu’s face. Yukiko stepped between them, but Buruu simply backed away, wings pressed against his sides. No aggression in stance or thoughts—just a sorrow that filled Yukiko’s heart to breaking.
She’d glimpsed it before in his mind; a shadow swimming just beneath his surface. But she’d never touched it, never sought to learn more out of respect for her friend. If he wanted her to know, he’d have told her. But it was close now. So close she could almost see its shape.
Thunder rocked the skies, faint spatters of black rain falling. Kaiah’s tail was a whip, lashing side to side, hackles raised in jagged peaks down her spine.
- WHAT YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN? -
I DID NOT THINK. THAT WAS MY FAILING.
- NOT THE FIRST. RAIJIN DAMN YOU, KINSLAYER. NOT THE FIRST BY FAR. -
YOU THINK I DO NOT KNOW THIS?
- THEN KNOW THIS ALSO. KNOW IF WORLD WERE FALLING, IF ALL THERE WAS AND EVER WOULD BE WEIGHED ON ME, I WOULD RATHER SEE IT END THAN FORGIVE YOU. YOU ARE COWARD. -
I AM MANY THINGS, BUT NOT THAT.
- THEN FIGHT ME. -
No, Kaiah. Stop this.
The female took another step forward, lightning cascading down her wings. Yukiko could feel the storm hung heavy in the air, ozone on her tongue, pulses racing.
- YOU KILLED THEM. AND IF YOU HAD COURAGE TO TAKE WHAT WAS YOURS, ALL THE DEATHS TO FOLLOW WOULD BE BUT A BAD DREAM. -
ARASHITORA DO NOT KILL OTHER ARASHITORA.
- A FOOL’S LAW! -
A KHAN’S LAW.
- THERE IS NO KHAN HERE, KINSLAYER. -
I WILL NOT FIGHT YOU.
- THEN DIE! -
Kaiah charged, ripping great clods of damp earth from the ground, eyes narrowed and gleaming like embers. Yukiko pulled back, terrified at the murderous rage inside the female’s head. Buruu’s roar shook the pillars of Kitsune-jō as the pair collided, crashing back into a twisted cedar and nearly tearing it from the ground. A resounding crunch, the tortured whine of Buruu’s false wings, one brilliant snow-white feather torn free and spinning earthward amidst a hail of dead leaves, its end ugly and flat from the kiss of a Shōgun’s blade.
Kaiah lashed out with her claws, a spray of bright red sailing into the darkness. Buruu roared again, furious, rearing up onto his hind legs, crashing breast to breast with the smaller female, locking her foreclaws in his own. She tumbled, the pair smashing an ancestor shrine to splinters as they rolled about in a roaring, screeching tangle.
Yukiko came to her senses, hands in fists by her sides.
“Stop it!”
Kaiah broke loose and lunged again, beak open and gleaming like a katana’s edge.
“STOP IT!”
Her scream echoed in the Kenning, bouncing across walls of ancient granite, rocking both arashitora back onto their hindquarters. Lightning chased the thunder across the skies, illuminating the ruins of the Daimyo’s garden. The two beasts glowered at each other, sodden and bleeding, flanks rising and falling with the fury of a blacksmith’s bellows.
For the love of the Gods, we’re on the same side!
APPARENTLY NOT.
- COWARD! -
Stop it, both of you!
“What the hells is going on?”
Hana stood on the verandah, night clothes and hair in disarray, surrounded by baffled guards and servants. She looked as if she’d been crying.
“It’s nothing, Hana.”
“Nothing?” The girl stepped down into the garden, put one protective arm around Kaiah’s neck. “Doesn’t look like nothing.”
- HE IS NOTHING. FOREVER AND ALWAYS. HEAR ME, KINSLAYER? -
Buruu made no reply, eyes downcast. Kaiah snorted in disgust, flaring her wings.
- IF YOU NOT HEAR, THEN YOU SEE. -
Yukiko put hand to brow as Kaiah’s mind flooded with images; faded memories bathed in bloody red. She saw two arashitora—one jet black, another white, clashing across storming skies. She saw the white arashitora smashed to pulp at the foot of a great black mountain, the seas around it boiling to steam. She saw a younger arashitora male, barely more than a cub, hit like a thunderbolt by a black shadow, sinking into the boiling ocean without a trace. And at the last, she saw that same shadow, dark and vast, looming like a nightmare over a nest of twisted branches and brambles. Beak open wide, talons descending.
Descending toward …
“Gods, no,” Yukiko whispered.
Two arashitora cubs with soft down and fur, eyes wide as they looked up into the face of darkness. Too young to comprehend. Too small to flee. Able only to wriggle, to burrow beneath the blanket of old feathers, squalling and tearing each other in their fear.
Plaintive cries as the shadow seized them in claws as sharp as death.
Little wings torn from trembling bodies.
Trembling bodies hurled from the nest.
Down and down and down, skies painted red, falling into ruin.
“Oh my gods,” Hana breathed, throwing her arms around Kaiah’s neck and pressing her face into the thunder tiger’s cheek. “Oh my gods…”
TORR …
- THIS IS WHAT YOU WROUGHT, KINSLAYER. YOU AND YOUR COWARDICE. YOUR PRECIOUS LAW. NO JUSTICE. NO PEACE. JUST THIS. -
Buruu hung his head. Thunder filling the skies. Rain falling heavier. Yukiko looked at him, folded down upon himself, misery written in every line, every curve. She reached out with herself, pouring her warmth into him. No judgment, no anger, just love—the same unquestioning love he’d always given her. None of it mattered. She was his and he was hers, from now until world’s ending, and nothing would change that.
I love you, Buruu.
Yukiko stepped closer, black rain falling in earnest now. She knew she should get out from under it, that it would scald her. But Buruu sat beneath it, bent and thoroughly wretched.
Do you hear me? I love you.
I AM SORRY.
It’s all right.
NO.
He climbed to his feet, spread his wings with a song of metal and canvas mesh, the iridescent frame creaking like old bones. He shook himself like a hound might, black water spilling from his flanks, eyes turning skyward.
NO, IT IS NOT.
With a single leap, he tore up into the air, pounding at the rain with his ironclad wings. Up into the black, over the fortress walls as she called after him, his warmth fading as the distance between them grew. His sorrow lingered in her mind, a sour taste on her tongue, and she turned to glare at Kaiah. The beast stared back, prowling in from the rain to take shelter with Hana and the wide-eyed servants on the verandah. Yukiko snatched up Buruu’s severed feather and ran under cover, skin stained with black, already beginning to tingle.
She stared at the pair for a moment, Hana with her arm about Kaiah’s neck, three eyes staring in silent challenge. And without a word, Yukiko stalked back to her room, looking for clean water to wash away the black rain, sorrow’s stain, the memory of those little shapes flung wingless and crying out into the void.
Her hand strayed to her stomach. The dread she found curled there. Rain pounding like mallets on the bleached tiles overhead, like a heartbeat, like the pulse beneath her skin.
And there she sat, hours in the dark, turning the feather over and over in her hands, waiting for Buruu to return.
Wondering if he ever would.
17
EARTHCRUSHER RISING
“Do you remember our chess game?” Kin stared at the old man across the embers, the fire burning in tired, steel-gray. “What you told me?”
Daichi stared back, unblinking, cold and reptilian. Wheels within wheels, weather-beaten and aged, weighed down by guilt and responsibility and the lives of those who needed him. Now more than ever. Now, when he was at his weakest.
A slow nod, black stains on his lips. “I do.”
“Then we need to talk.”
He nodded to the old man’s daughter.
“Alone.”
* * *
B
lood in his mouth. Crawling on his tongue. Tasting death.
Daichi bent double, hugging himself as the coughing fit seized him, digging fingers into his gut, his throat, laughing somewhere in back of his mind. There was something altogether terrifying about living this way—knowing each inhalation could be the one that set it off. This pain. This helplessness. Living each moment afraid to breathe, the very motion that kept you living. Until you realize this wasn’t living at all. This was just waiting to die.
No idea how long it lasted. No thought throughout, save that he wanted it to stop, please, make it stop. A just punishment he knew, this disease, twisting him on the cell floor and painting his palms black. He deserved it, for all he’d done. Daiyakawa village. Yukiko’s pregnant mother, gods … how had he ever been a man who thought such deeds righteous?
This was his to cherish. Reward for faithful service to a regime built on murder and lies. He knew that. He understood. But in the grip of those seizures, he couldn’t help but wish it over. To stand before the Judge of the Hells, and then, to kneel before the Endsinger on her throne of bones. To wander in the Yomi underworld as a hungry ghost, utterly damned for all time.
It could not be worse than this …
The coughing stopped, somewhere after an eternity and before forever. Silence fell, edged with humming sky-ship engines, vibrations creeping through the brig floor. And looking up through the cell bars, he saw them—three men with bloodshot eyes, swathed in black, the light dimming around them.
“You sound ill,” the foremost said; a little man staring at his own outstretched fingers.
Daichi held back lunatic laughter for fear he might start coughing again.
“Some would say.”
“Do you believe in gods, Daichi-san? In heavens and hells?”
“In Storm and Sun and Moon?” whispered the second.
“In the great benevolent Maker and his divine order?” asked the third.
“Of course,” he nodded.
“Will you walk, or shall we carry you?”
“Where?”
The Inquisitor’s face was hidden beneath the smooth upturned lines of his breather, but Daichi could swear the little man was smiling.
“To see what your faith has brought you.”
* * *
In the end, they carried him.
One under each shoulder, the short one leading, up onto the deck. The skies were filled with ironclads, sleek, arrowhead corvettes cutting exhaust streaks across the sky. Daichi squinted, the dawn much too bright after days below. A storm was amassed to the north, the distant Iishi hidden by a curtain of black rain.
