Quillblade

by Ben Chandler

  Lenis felt the airship come about. Where were they going now? No one had bothered to tell him anything since they had left Itsû, but he was used to that. An engineer didn’t need to know which way an airship was pointed, as long as he kept it moving in that direction.

  Besides, wherever they were going had to be better than the Wastelands. There was nothing in the Wastelands except Demons. Lenis had never seen a Demon before, but the stories he had been told were full of fangs, talons and red eyes. He really didn’t want to meet one, which was why he had kept up Atrum’s cloak around the Hiryû long after they had left the Shôgo’s airships behind. The longer they remained invisible, however, the greater the strain on Atrum. Concern for his Bestia slowly gnawed at Lenis’s conscience until it overrode his reflex to hide. He opened the hatch under the engine block and reached into the seemingly empty compartment. Atrum came into his hands quickly and dropped the invisibility he had wrapped around himself and the airship. Atrum usually had the energy of a puppy, but now his head hung down and his ever-moving tail was still.

  ‘Sorry, boy.’ Lenis hugged the Bestia close, as Atrum twined his long tail up around Lenis’s neck. ‘You did an excellent job.’

  ‘Indeed he did.’ The voice was soft, with a heavy Shinzôn accent. ‘You have done well in raising him.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain.’ Lenis straightened and then fell back, clutching Atrum to his chest. The Bestia gave a low whine. ‘Who are you?’ The stranger in the doorway was definitely not the captain.

  ‘My name is Gôshi Yami of the Yûrei clan.’ The man moved around the engine block to face the cowering Lenis.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lenis stammered.

  ‘You have nothing to fear from me, Lenis Clemens.’ The man held out his right hand. His other was resting on his sword hilt. ‘I am sworn to protect the Hiryû and its crew. That includes you.’

  Hesitantly, Lenis reached up and allowed the man to help him to his feet. Gôshi Yami? He remembered hearing the name before, but he couldn’t remember where.

  ‘That is an extraordinary creature. I have never known a Bestia with such an ability.’

  ‘His name is Atrum,’ Lenis said, still cradling the exhausted Bestia protectively. ‘He has an affinity for darkness.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Yami bowed – though whether to boy or Bestia, Lenis didn’t know – and then he turned and left the engine room.

  Lenis stared after him, his heart beating in time with the hum of the engines. Atrum’s own distress soon pushed all thoughts of strange swordsmen out of Lenis’s mind. Lenis knew that if he needed to push Atrum he could feed him raw meat, but in the long run that would only make him sick. What he needed now was fresh water and lots of rest. But when Lenis reached the Bestia hutch, he noticed the water containers were empty. They must have spilled when the Hiryû banked sharply away from the airdock during the escape, the water seeping through the cracks between the floorboards.

  Lenis carried Atrum out of the engine room, past the crew’s cabins, under the mast-shaft that connected the balloons on either side of the airship, and through to the galley. The airship’s cook was stirring a large pot on his stove. His faded red robes hung loosely around his ample girth, and wide sleeves dangled dangerously close to the food he was preparing. Much of the excess fabric of his garments was tied back with a strip of white cloth that also formed a part of the man’s apron. The man was balding, but greying strands of straggly hair ran down the length of his back. All sorts of enticing odours wafted out of the pot he was stirring, and Lenis suddenly realised how hungry he was. He hadn’t eaten all day.

  Still, there were more important things to worry about.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said politely, ‘could I please have some water for Atrum?’

  The cook grunted and looked up from his pot. ‘No need to “sir” me, boy. Chô no Jinsei Hiroshi’s my name. There’s a dish over there, water barrels are back under the mast-shaft. Barely enough to drink, mind you. Don’t know when any of us will get a bath next!’

  ‘Thank you, Hiroshi.’ Lenis bowed. He placed Atrum on a stool and fetched a dish of water. Then he tried to coax the Bestia to drink.

  ‘They say you pulled us out of a mess of trouble back at the airdock, boy.’ Hiroshi eyed him over his pot.

  ‘Atrum was the one who saved us,’ Lenis said quickly.

  Hiroshi gave a harsh laugh. ‘You’re a fine young man. You remind me of me when I was your age.’

  ‘I do?’ Lenis couldn’t imagine anything he’d have in common with Hiroshi. Had the cook been sold into slavery by his own father? Had he been forced to work in factories, surrounded by pounding machinery and cut off from the sun? Had he been traded from one master to another until he found himself celebrating his thirteenth birthday in a foreign country? Lenis doubted it.

  ‘You take care of your companions.’ Hiroshi nodded to the Bestia. ‘I remember once I was in the Wastelands just off Kôgen, and one of my companions was nearly gutted by a bear Demon. Had to carry him on my back for four days to get him to a healer.’ He laughed. ‘That was the life, let me tell you! Poor wretch died, of course, but there it is.’

  Hiroshi went back to stirring his pot and Lenis felt a little guilty for his earlier thoughts. The cook was only trying to be nice. It was hardly his fault Lenis was a slave. Ever since Lenis and Missy had been sent to Shinzô, Lenis had felt ... well, angry. When he was in Pure Land, on board an airship flying through clear skies over green fields, or blue lakes, or purple mountains, it was easier to accept what he was. But here, surrounded by people he didn’t know who spoke languages he couldn’t understand, he felt lonely.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ Hiroshi asked suddenly.

  ‘Um ...’ Lenis tried to think of something convincing to say. The last thing he wanted to do just then was confide in the cook. He suddenly remembered the man who had startled him in the engine room. ‘There’s a swordsman on board who calls himself Gôshi Yami.’

  ‘Oh, that one.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Everyone in Shinzô knows Yami, or has heard of him. You ask me, he’s as much trouble as a Demon. Worse, maybe.’

  ‘Worse?’

  ‘Well, none of them Yûrei clansmen are quite right, but him? He’s cursed.’ Hiroshi spat right on the floor. ‘Or so they say.’

  ‘Cursed?’

  ‘By a Demon.’

  ‘He said he’s sworn to protect us.’

  Hiroshi spat again. ‘You never mind about him, boy. You stick with me and I’ll take care of you. Me and Murasaki. There’s nothing we can’t sort out, I tell you.’ He pointed to the wall behind him. There, attached to a long chain, hung a short but clearly sharp sickle. The chain itself had flattened edges that looked no less sharp than the blade. ‘That’s what we call a kusarigama. It’s mostly a peasant weapon. Not as delicate as a sword, but effective in its own right.’

  Lenis shuddered as he imagined what the kusarigama could do to him. Hiroshi clearly didn’t notice. He stirred his pot for several more moments in silence before tasting its contents. Then he snorted and, apparently satisfied it was ready, bellowed, ‘Namei!’

  A young Shinzôn girl came scampering into the galley, her face flushed. She looked a year or so younger than the Clemens twins and wore her straight, black hair short by Shinzôn standards. It came to her shoulders, and she kept it out of her face with a strip of red cloth. She wore short-legged pants and the robe of her Shôgo uniform was short-sleeved. Namei also wore long boots and, despite the fact she was clearly hot, had a thick red scarf tied around her neck. From beneath the edge of her left sleeve, Lenis thought he saw the beginnings of a tattoo, but he realised he was staring and looked quickly away.

  ‘What took you so long? Never mind,’ Hiroshi snapped as she opened her mouth to answer. ‘Take these up to the bridge.’ He ladled some stew into several bowls. ‘And there’s more to d
ish out after that lot. Quickly, now, before it all gets cold!’

  Namei hurried off, trying desperately not to drop the many bowls Hiroshi had demanded she carry. The cook placed a bowl in front of Lenis and grunted at the Bestia in his arms. ‘Some meat is what the little thing needs. You get some of that into him.’

  Being spoon-fed the thick stew was the last thing Atrum needed, but Lenis didn’t want to be rude. ‘He’ll probably eat more comfortably in his hutch,’ he said. He stood, balancing stew, water dish and Bestia with as much difficulty as Namei had her bowls.

  Hiroshi nodded, convinced, no doubt, that Lenis was intent on following his advice.

  Lenis made his way back to the engine room to care for his Bestia and maybe get some rest himself.

  ‘Border sighted!’ The lookout’s voice came vibrating down the speech tube several hours later. It was the same woman Lenis had heard before. Lenis sighed with relief. Aeris had been flying almost all day and would need to rest for the night. He hadn’t relished the idea of landing the Hiryû in the Wastelands.

  The woman on the other end of the speech tube suddenly swore. ‘Airship sighted flying the red dragon banner!’

  ‘Prepare to be boarded.’

  Missy felt her chest constrict at Andrea’s words.

  The Shôgo airship had come up alongside them and was now flying just over their starboard balloon. There was going to be a fight. Not an airship-to-airship battle, but a person-to-person, blood-spilling, life-threatening fight, right here on the Hiryû’s deck.

  She watched as all but Shin, who remained at the tiller, made their way out onto the deck, their weapons at the ready. The captain, first officer and Yami each had a sword. Kenji had a pistol with him, though Missy couldn’t imagine how he had managed to smuggle one out of Pure Land. They were relics built using lost technology, and so few of them actually worked that you needed a special permit from the Ruling Council just to own one. They never let them out of the country in case some foreign power worked out how to replicate them.

  From the other side of the airship, the cook came up on deck, still wearing his apron. He had a big smile on his face and was swinging an ugly-looking sickle and chain.

  Behind the cook, Long Liu emerged carrying a large, battered bag over one shoulder. Missy had been trying to avoid the Tien Tese doctor ever since she had first seen him. He wore what could only be called a threadbare sack and loose-fitting trousers. Missy wasn’t sure if the tangle of twigs and beads on his head was supposed to be decoration or if he simply never washed his hair. His teeth – the ones that remained – were yellowing and cracked and his skin was sallow. His most unsettling features, however, were his eyes, which lacked any colour and darted around spasmodically when they weren’t staring at a point just in front of his nose. How had this strange man from the western empire become the Hiryû’s doctor?

  Ropes were thrown from the Shôgo’s airship and a dozen warriors wearing black and red uniforms came swinging down, wielding a variety of weapons. Without realising it, Missy had pulled the Quillblade out of her robe and was clutching it in her right hand. She moved onto the deck with the others.

  Somehow she managed to remain upright while she faced the oncoming warriors, despite the shaking of her knees. The quivering rose up and flowed through her, down into the hand that held the Quillblade. The weapon trembled in her grip. No, it wasn’t trembling, it was pulsating. The Quillblade hardened and her fear vanished. Somehow, she didn’t know how, the shintai of the Thunder Bird had absorbed it and the weapon had come alive because of it. It was feeding off her fear, just like Tenjin had said it would. Missy smiled. She wielded the power of Lord Raikô and nothing was going to stop her! She took one step forward, ready to join the fight with the others, and felt something on her shoulder. She turned to find herself looking directly into her brother’s eyes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lenis pointed at the Quillblade in her hand. ‘What is that? Where did you get it?’

  Missy looked back at him, unsure, but the doubt soon left her. The corners of her brother’s mouth dropped further. The Quillblade was tingling pleasantly in her grasp. A metallic gleam ran across its surface.

  ‘I just have to –’

  ‘What? Join them?’

  He turned her back around to face the battle. Captain Shishi, Arthur and Yami had already engaged the first rank of the Warlord’s warriors. Time seemed to slow as Missy watched Arthur’s heavy blade tear through a man’s torso with a dreadful cruelty. The captain was much quicker, but the swift flicks of his blade drew more blood, disarming and wounding but leaving his adversaries alive.

  Yami’s foes simply fell where they stood. His blade was of a dark metal and seemed to deflect enemy weapons, but when it met flesh it passed through without leaving a mark, as if the weapon was somehow insubstantial, and the damage it caused was all beneath the skin. Though Yami’s adversaries never shed a drop of blood, they fell to his phantom blade as readily as if it had actually cut them down.

  The fight on the flanks was even worse for its savagery. To the captain’s left, Hiroshi swung his dreadful implement, hacking at the limbs of his foes. The half-crazed doctor juggled a series of small crystal balls he pulled out of the bag on his shoulder. Each was filled with a different smoke, gas, or liquid. They shattered as Long Liu hurled them at his foes, and the effect of each was unique. The purple smoke from one blinded an assailant, while the bright green liquid of another clung to the clothes of the next and burnt through to the skin. The smell of the tortured tissue brought a foul taste to the back of Missy’s throat. The doctor danced as he tossed his crystal balls and sang in his native Tien Tese tongue. The tune was simple, but the words were gibberish.

  Missy shuddered and dropped the Quillblade. It hit the deck with a metallic clang and the fear came back. Her brother’s grip on her shoulder was like an anchor, keeping her there, watching. Just in front of them, Andrea fought a semi-circle of attackers with nothing but her knives, the fighting too close for her crossbow.

  ‘It’s terrible, isn’t it?’ Lenis asked her.

  She nodded mutely, turning to look into his sad, bluegreen eyes again.

  ‘Go, Ignis,’ Lenis said.

  It was then that Missy realised what, or rather who, Lenis was holding in the crook of his other arm. Ignis. Bestia of fire. She watched, wide-eyed, as the Bestia leapt out of his grasp and scampered across the deck.

  ‘Lenis!’ She tore away from his hold at last and rounded on him. ‘How could you –’

  ‘Watch.’ He pointed after Ignis and Missy stared. She had no desire to see scorched flesh, to know that her brother had made it happen, but she could not refuse his quiet command.

  Ignis wasn’t interested in the fighting. He ran to the Hiryû’s railing and up one of the ropes connecting the two airships, followed by a small tendril of flame that clung greedily to the rope.

  ‘Stop!’ Lenis shouted, and for some reason they did. Even Long Liu had halted his dancing mid-step and now stood frozen like some ridiculous statue. As one, the warriors looked from Lenis to the thin trail of fire connecting both airships. ‘Leave! Or I’ll burn your airship to the ground!’

  Missy looked into Lenis’s eyes and saw something in them she hadn’t seen since they’d been sold to the Warlord of Shinzô. She caught a glimmer of the old Lenis, the one who had played pranks on their owners and the slavers back home in Pure Land. The one she had seen slowly fade on the journey to Shinzô. Had his horror at the violence around them shocked him into remembering who he had been back then?

  ‘I mean it!’ Lenis went on. ‘Get back on your airship and land it. Empty your balloons and don’t try to follow us.’ Still, no one moved. ‘Do it!’

  Above them, Ignis ran along the railing of the Shôgo airship and another of the ropes connecting the two vessels caught fire. A moment later it fell away from the Shôgo airship and curled down to land in a
smoking heap on the Hiryû’s deck. The Shôgo warriors backed away from their opponents and shuffled closer to their diminishing escape route.

  ‘Move!’ Lenis cried, and Ignis burnt another rope.

  This seemed to be enough to convince the Shôgo warriors. Abandoning all pretence of protecting their retreat, they rushed to the remaining ropes and climbed back to their airship.

  Ignis remained crouched on their railing, sending small wisps of flame towards anyone who approached him. A few moments later the airship began to pull away and Ignis jumped down onto the Hiryû’s starboard balloon and ran across the mast-shaft to Lenis’s shoulder.

  Arthur wiped the blood from his sword. ‘We had better leave in case they try to follow us.’ He looked over at the Shôgo’s airship.

  The captain cleaned his own sword and sheathed it in one smooth movement. ‘Certainly. Mister Hiroshi and Miss Namei, please clean the decks. Master Clemens, please return to the engine room and get us moving.’

  Lenis slowly let out a breath and made to follow his captain’s command. He was shaking as he moved below decks. Absently, he took Ignis off his shoulder and began patting him. The Bestia wriggled in Lenis’s arms and kept trying to lick his face, thrilled at the attention and the excitement of it all. Lenis’s mind was elsewhere. Why had he and his sister been caught up in this madness? Stealing an airship from a foreign Warlord? How could he do the right thing when he didn’t even know who was in the right and who was in the wrong? Worse, what would the captain do to him now that he had seen what Lenis was capable of? He had acted on impulse, without thought for the consequences of his actions, and had done the one thing a slave must never do. People with authority feared slaves with power. Lenis knew this. He’d pulled plenty of stunts that had gotten them sold on before, but nothing that would make his owners think he was dangerous. Who would the captain sell them to now that Lenis had flaunted his power in front of him? Anyone in Shinzô who bought the Clemens twins would probably hand them back to the Warlord, either to gain his favour or for a price, and then ...