by Jay Kristoff
Tatsuya raised his hand to his signalman, preparing to send in his infantry as soon as Riku’s archers were neutralized. It would only be moments before his vanguard smashed the lines—then his bushimen could proceed uphill without being riddled with arrow fire. He could hear screams and agonized wails now rising above the rumble of gunning motors and snarling swords. The Guild engines wreaking slaughter among the—
Wait …
A hush falling over the carnage up the hill, the bass and bottom end falling away from the bloody symphony. Tatsuya frowned, squinting in the burning glare, clawing goggles of polarized glass down over his eyes to dim the burning light. He could see figures falling—armored figures—chainblades tumbling from nerveless fingers amidst cries of rage and despair.
General Ukyo stood tall in his stirrups, hand up against the sun.
“What the hells is happening?”
“Listen,” Tatsuya said.
Ukyo titled his head to the song of murder on the wind. His face paled as he looked to the Bull.
“The armor,” Tatsuya whispered, glancing at the Guild ships floating overhead. “The motors have fallen still…”
Black shapes fell from the silhouettes overhead, pushed over the railings by brass-clad hands—barrels lit with burning fuses. The first landed amidst his archers, a second landing a split-second afterward, Tatsuya’s voice rising up in a roar as a deafening blast ripped through his men. A burst of scalding air hit the Bull’s face, momentarily dazzling, the thunderous whump of a dozen more explosions tearing through his lines like summer fires through waves of dead grass. Dread realization seized him by the throat, cold fear unfurling in his belly.
“We are betrayed!” he cried.
Another explosion, another, the bombardment ripping up his lines and leaving wailing, bleeding pulps of meat and bone in its wake. Soldiers, warriors, brave men all, reduced to blubbering children. Clutching their missing pieces with bloody hands or rolling about in warm, wet puddles of themselves. Screaming horses. Thundering, flaming hooves. Fires blazing, burning, choking smoke, yet more terror tumbling from the sky-ships overhead and bursting upon his shell-shocked troops.
“Great Lord, beware!” Ukyo cried.
The old general lunged forward and slapped Tatsuya’s horse, just as a bone-shattering explosion erupted behind the pair. Ukyo was blasted to pieces, the shockwave hurling Tatsuya to the ground, the bannerpole at his back almost snapping, his colors dragged through the dirt. Another explosion nearby, shrapnel flying, the Bull crying out as blood-soaked clods of earth rained down around him. The sounds of slaughter on the hill, the wails of samurai in lifeless iron suits being chopped to pieces by Riku’s own elite. Tatsuya felt his gorge rising, staggering to his feet, watching his few remaining archers incinerated by another blinding burst of flame.
“Retreat!” he roared at the top of his lungs, the word bitter and black upon his tongue. “Maker’s breath, we are betrayed! Retreat! Retreat!”
The Bull ran to his horse, wide-eyed and bloodied. Though terrified, the stallion was war-trained, holding its nerve long enough for its master to scramble atop its back, kick hard in the stirrups. But where could they go? Somewhere to shelter from the bombardment. High ground, more easily defended. Roofs of stone above their head.
He looked west. West toward those four snow-clad peaks rising from tumbledown hills.
“Ride!” Tatsuya roared. “Make for the Sisters! Ride, damn you!”
Men all about him, scrabbling for horses or simply breaking on foot. Weapons thrown aside, breastplates hurled to the ground—anything and everything they could do to move swifter, escape the barrage from those accursed ships overhead. The bombardment had paused; thick, billowing plumes of smoke shrouding the field in choking black. But Riku’s forces would quickly be finished with the slaughter on the hill, soon to be set like hounds upon his trail. So swiftly, the hunter had become the hunted.
Tatsuya squinted up the rise, fancied he caught a glimpse of a tall man wading amidst the slaughter, a banner bearing the Kazumitsu sigil on his back. The same armor Tatsuya wore, black embossed iron, now slick with blood—a gift from their father on the day they became men. And now Riku had whored himself to the chi-mongers.
What had he promised them? What had Riku sold of himself to buy this bloody victory?
“Godsdamn you for a fool, brother,” Tatsuya murmured.
And kicking at his stallion’s flanks, the Bull turned and fled.
* * *
Clouds dipped in sunset, sky the color of a belly wound, just as difficult to look at. The stains of the sickness seeping into the very air around us, turning all to red. Below us, farmlands. Fields for miles. From the blur of one horizon to the next, pressed up against that wounded sky. Between the wheat and corn and rice, I saw long rippling swathes of lotus blossoms. Snaking through the weeping land like rivers of blood. Deeper and wider by the year.
Jun and Ami sat astride my shoulders, the Lady pressed against the boy’s back. Her hands about his waist sent a thrill humming in his veins, adrenaline souring his tongue, and through the sliver of himself the boy had lodged behind my eyes, spilling now into me. I felt as he felt, though perhaps only a shade of it; conscious of the curves of her body snug against his spine, her soft breath on the back of his neck sending frissions of current along his skin.
Youthful memories filled his mind; palace grounds and bright laughter and long ribbons of midnight hair. He was near drunk on her closeness, and yet, the knowledge that the Lady was another man’s wife—a man who would probably be Shōgun by week’s end, no less—lingered first and foremost in his mind. That though she seemed to relish the reactions her proximity caused him, she was a woman, another’s woman, and he himself still only a boy. Unused to courtly games, the weapons used therein. He felt oafish. Clumsy. Foolish.
“Your friend flies swift, Stormdancer Jun,” said Lady Ami.
Though it was more monkey-jabber spilling from her lips, I realized when she spoke, I could perceive something of the Lady’s words through Jun’s ears. Disconcerting. Fascinating also, to feel your clumsy speech take form and shape in my head. And so, while I admit I was still afraid of this boy skulking behind my eyes, the changes his presence wrought in me, I let him linger, listening to her words and his heart and the static charge growing between them.
Crackling.
“Swifter than I imagined,” Jun said. “If we fly through the night, we will reach your Lord and husband’s armies before dawn.”
“They will be impossible to see in the dark. Unless they have already engaged Lord Riku’s forces. They will light no fires by which to be spotted.”
“Koh has excellent eyes.”
She shifted her arms about his waist. Sighed deep. Jun shivered as her breath tickled his earlobe, his blood rushing south, licking at bone-dry lips.
“I fear I may fall asleep,” Ami said. “Perhaps you should sit behind me, Stormdancer. Your arms about me. Better to catch me if I should fall?”
Jun glanced down at the growing problem below his waistline, horrified at the thought of the potential First Lady of Shima inadvertently pressing up against it. I could feel his face flushing a deeper scarlet than the sky, amusement rippling in my mind despite myself.
SHE NOT TIRED. SHE HUNGRY.
Gods above, what is wrong with her?
GRATEFUL YOU SAVE LIFE.
She’s a married woman!
VERY GRATEFUL, THEN.
“Perhaps it would be best if we landed and took some rest, Lady Ami,” Jun said. “It has been a long day, and tomorrow I fear will be longer still.”
“You wish me to bed down in some farmer’s squat?”
“Actually, I’d think it best if we avoided other people. The questions they would no doubt ask. Those we came across might be loyal to your brother-in-law, or possessed of wiles enough to know how much a prize like you might be worth.”
“We have a thunder tiger with us, Jun-san. What kind of fool would challenge us?�
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“The same kind who allows an organization like the Guild to prosper?” He shrugged. “Greed does strange things to people, my Lady. And I have no desire to kill more folk today than I already have.”
“So. Shall we sleep in the mud, then?”
“… Down there, perhaps?” Jun pointed below us, to a tall silo I had spotted, rising from a field of scarlet blooms. “That seems comfortable enough to shelter in for a few hours.”
“Oh, indeed, it looks positively stately…”
We circled lower in the deepening dusk, my gaze drifting to the Four Sisters in the northwest. I wondered how hot the blood was running at the Skymeet. If all had been said and done. What we would do if the Khan’s decision had been made by the time we returned. The thought of stopping made me ill at ease, yet the boy needed rest—exhausted from his trek, his battle, the weight pressed on him. A few hours, I supposed, would not hurt. Just because he slept, did not mean I must.
We glided across the field, my wings flattening great swathes through the fronds, a sea of disembodied petals rolling and spinning in our wake. As we slowed to land, they fell about us like rain, red as blood, red as the sun kissing the edge of the world, sinking now gently to her rest. The woman unwrapped her arms from the boy’s waist, slipped down to the earth, her hand lingering upon my fur as she did so. Wonder in her eyes. Her face that of one who walks in a dream.
“Your friend is beauti— Maker’s breath, you’re bleeding!”
Jun slipped down from my shoulders with a wince, hand pressed to the shuriken wound at his shoulder, the sluggish flow of blood seeping down the front of his tunic. The gash at his cheek was crusted over, blood darkening to black in the failing light. Concern in the Lady’s eyes, genuine enough it seemed, her hands hovering as if only now she were afraid to touch him.
“It is only a scratch, Lady Ami, truly,” Jun said. “I am fine.”
Face pale. Noble facade cracking in the face of the blood, the muck, the filth around her. And yet, that same steel in her voice.
“I should tend to it.”
“Gracious Lady, I—”
“You saved my life, Jun-san,” the Lady said. “I owe you a debt. Honor demands no less.”
I GO.
Jun blinked, looking back and forth between the Lady and me.
Wait, what? You go where?
CAN FLY TO FOUR SISTERS FROM HERE. RETURN BY MORNING.
You will leave me alone with Lady Ami?
SAFE ENOUGH HERE.
The boy looked to the woman before him, already unfastening the obi about his waist and gingerly pulling the sticky cloth away from his wounded shoulder.
It is not danger without I fear …
MUST SEE HOW SKYMEET FARES. SPEAK KHAN, IF NEEDS BE.
But will your kin listen? You being female and all?
MY FRIEND. BROTHER WHO NOT BROTHER. RAHH HIS NAME. HE SPEAK FOR ME IF MALES NOT LISTEN.
But you will come back, friend Koh?
I looked the boy up and down. Felt the fear lingering in his mind. Without me, he would be blind again. Without me, he would be alone …
I RETURN. BY DAWN LIGHT. FEAR NOT.
Sparing a glance for the woman, I turned and bounded into the sky. The disembodied blooms a storm beneath me, whipped into scarlet showers by the rush of my wings. Circling higher, watching the woman and the boy below, together in that field of swaying, rolling red. In the deepening gloom, it seemed for a moment they stood on an island, surrounded by an ocean of blood. Tide rising higher with every breath. Soon to engulf them both.
I shook my head to rid it of such foolishness, turning my eyes to the silhouette of the Four Sisters against the blackening sky. Wings thrashing, flying hard as I dared, I cut through wind and cloud toward the place of my birth.
Hours of solitude. Thoughts of my parents, my brother, the black mess they hacked upon the stone in the days before they died. The same stink spilling from the growling swords of those assassins sent for the Lady Ami. I had not a mind for machinations or the politics of monkey-children, but it seemed to me if the ones who made the sky sick also wished the Lady dead, she or her mate must be a danger. And the enemy of my enemy must be my friend?
Not all monkey-children could be the same. Not all of them as blind or ignorant as others. A revelation slowly dawning, that perhaps we had misjudged them. Blamed all for the idiocy of a few. But could I convince my kind of the truth? Would my Khan listen to a word of it? Or would his fear of the unknown, the burden of his loss, rule him as always?
Well past the deep of night, I soared over the frozen peaks and valleys of my home. The chill like a welcome kiss against my cheeks, the thrill of returning almost surprising. How I loved this place; the rolling ice, the groaning wind, the fangs of black granite piercing the sky. How I feared the thought of leaving it behind, and hated the ones threatening to take it away.
Descending to the Aerie, circling above until I spotted him; curled in the crook of a stone cradle, wings pressed tight to his flanks. The brother who was not my brother. Closer to me than kin. The one I would choose when the first flushing pressed upon me with all its insistent heat. We do not know love as you, monkey-child. But that is not to say we do not know love.
“Rahh.”
I alighted beside him, a few others stirring at my approach and grumbling as they curled their heads beneath their wings and drifted back to sleep. Yet, Rahh slumbered on. Oblivious. The Thunder God Raijin could throw lightning at the stone right beside his head, and he might sleep on through it. I growled his name, low and soft as velvet.
“Rahh.”
I nudged him with my forehead, rousing him to waking. He blinked as if thinking he woke dreaming. His chest was broad, muscle and bone and shimmering feathers. His eyes sharper than his talons, lifting that proud, sleek head amidst soft fallings of lonely snowflakes. His voice was gravel and plain song, deep as thunder.
“Koh? Where been? Khan afeared for you.”
“Fear not. I ride with the blind one. The monkey-child.”
A low growl.
“Ride?”
“Not speak here. Come. Fly with me.”
We took to the wing, the wind beneath us, our oldest friend holding us both aloft. Not close enough to touch. Close enough to wish he did. Wondering where this thought came from, when no thoughts like it existed before.
Changing.
I was …
“So,” Rahh growled. “Speak.”
“Blind monkey-child sees true. Sickness caused by children of men. But not all. They war within themselves. I am close to truth of it.”
“Not female’s place to seek truth, Koh. Your place to brood. Breed. Raise strong cubs.”
“No time for such foolishness. How goes Skymeet?”
“Foolishness? Our way is foolish now?”
“Foolish to sit in judgment when not know all. Skymeet. How long until Khan decides if we stay or go?”
“Today. Elders have done with speaking. He decide today.”
I snarled, eyes narrowed in the gloom, a thin red haze smeared over the sky and blurring the face of Father Moon. We had only a day. A day to find and convince this monkey-child Khan to stand against this so-called Guild. But they had tried to slay his mate—surely that alone would be enough to sway him?
I glanced at Rahh, watching him watching me, agitation in the beat of his wings, the hackles bristling at the base of his neck. The words I spoke did not soothe him.
“We seek to raise the monkey-armies against the sickeners. And when we have them beside us, you must speak it to the Skymeet. They not listen me. But if monkey-children fight, arashitora can do no less.”
A growl, low and deadly.
“Koh, no. Must return to Aerie. Khan wrath grow fierce if he learns what you do.”
“Leave to me, to fret on my grandfather. You must hold the Skymeet until I return.”
“Koh, this—”
“Trust me.”
“Koh—”
“Rahh.
Trust me.”
Since we were cubs, we had been close. Born within a moon of one another. We had first taken to the wing on the very same day. When my kin had died, other thunder tigers had feared me, shunned me, thinking perhaps I carried a sickness that in turn could be given to them. But Rahh had helped me drag the bodies from their nests, gift them to the sky. It was I who first taught him to roll in the clouds, he who taught me where the best dartfish might be found in the mountain streams. And still he wavered. Fear of my grandfather. Fear of the Khan. I could see in his eyes; it pressed him hard. And yet.
And yet …
“I trust you, Koh.”
Listen to me now, monkey-child. Listen and hear me well. You have soft skin. Cherry-red lips and neat white teeth. Thunder tigers have beaks of black bone with strength enough to puncture steel. We cannot smile as you. We cannot laugh.
But that is not to say we cannot know joy.
“I return today. Wait for me, Rahh.”
A nod.
“Be swift, Koh.”
“Swift as the wind.”
The tips of our wings touched, the crackling of static current between our feathers, small and impossibly bright. My heart swelling. A purr in my chest.
And into the darkness, I dove.
* * *
“So tell me of yourself, Stormdancer.”
The Lady Ami knelt before young Jun, eyes narrowed in the dim light. They had built a small fire in the shelter of the lotus silo. An old metal bucket sat beside the flames, water within stained crimson. Ami dipped her silken rag again, torn from the edge of her own gown, returned to cleaning the wound at Jun’s shoulder. She seemed discomfited by her surroundings, the dirt and dust and cobwebs thick, but her breeding held her displeasure in check, like a mask held before an open, screaming mouth.
Jun sat still, sightless eyes fixed on the far wall. His world was darkness, all-encompassing, and yet his senses boiled with her. The smell of her perfume; jasmine and hyacinth blossoms, a hint of honey and fresh sweat. The softness of her hands upon his skin, the gentleness of her touch, the press of soft breath upon his face as she leaned close and mopped at his cheek. There was no pain in his world. Only her. The closeness of her. The herness of her; all smoky voice and intoxicating fragrance, leaving no room inside his head for the feeble achings of his wounds.
