by Jay Kristoff
Her father watched her, still rubbing the back of his head, a pained expression on his face.
“May you live a hundred years and never have daughters, my friend,” he warned Akihito.
The giant sighed and clapped him on the back, and the pair followed her into the mob.
* * *
Kasumi loaded the last pack onto the elevator, then straightened her back and sighed. She wiped her brow and re-tied her ponytail, catching up the dark strands of hair clinging to her face. At a signal from the dockman, the elevator ascended the docking spire, wheels and pulleys shrieking in protest. High above her, the Thunder Child clanked against its couplings, cloudwalkers calling from her rigging like lost birds.
Kigen Bay stretched out to the south; an undulating carpet of bobbing filth and flaming refuse. Lotusmen had lit a fire on the black waters three days ago to burn off some of the accumulated chi-sludge, and parts of it were still ablaze, trailing dark columns of smoke up into the curtain of exhaust overhead. A gull with threadbare feathers cried a mournful song from atop the charred remains of a capsized fishing boat. It caught sight of movement in the muck, and readied itself for the plunge.
Pulling on a conical straw hat, Kasumi cast her eyes over the sky-ship above. She allowed herself a grudging smile; at least they were being sent on their fool’s errand in style. The ship was gleaming black, highlighted with blood-red, the long serpentine coils of a green dragon painted down the flanks of her inflatable. Her skin and fixtures were still unscarred by corrosion or toxin bleaching, telling Kasumi that the Child couldn’t have been commissioned more than a season or two ago. Nothing stayed beautiful under Shima’s black rain for long.
Kasumi was dressed in loose gray cloth. The short sleeves of her uwagi revealed beautiful tattoos; the imperial sun on her left shoulder and upper arm, a ferocious tiger stalking down her right, marking her as a member of the Tora clan. The geisha at Shōgun Yoritomo’s court whispered that she was well past the age when she should have found a husband, but she still possessed a sharp, feral kind of beauty. Deeply lidded eyes, skin turned nut brown by a life spent beneath Shima’s sweltering red sun. Black hair ran in rivers down her spine, pierced by jade combs carved to resemble prowling tigers. There was a hardness to her, calluses and lean muscles, a glint of ferocity in her movements: a big cat, pacing a cage as wide as the world.
Several of the Child’s crew nodded as they filed past her to climb the spire. They were cleaner than the average cloudwalker, meaning that you could probably toss one into the black “water” of Kigen Bay and have him emerge dirtier than when he went in. But their skin was still coated in a greasy film of dragon smoke, their eyes the perpetual red of a lotus-fiend’s.
The Child’s captain emerged from the small office at the spire’s base, slapping the back of the fat customs man inside.
“The lotus must bloom,” he said, nodding farewell.
“The lotus must bloom,” the fat man replied.
The captain sauntered over to Kasumi, muttering under his breath. He stuffed some paperwork into his obi as he scowled up at the Child. He was around ten years younger than her, twenty-four or twenty-five if she was forced to guess, with a long plaited mustache descending from a handsome, if slightly overfed face. His gaudy, short-sleeved tunic proudly displayed his elaborate dragon tattoo and the single lotus bloom of a Guild-approved contractor. Custom Shigisen goggles and a fantastically expensive breather were slung around his neck.
“Son of a ronin’s whore,” he said. “I should’ve been born a Lotusman. These bribes get worse every trip.”
“Bribes?” Kasumi frowned, tilted her head in question.
The captain gestured to the paperwork in his belt.
“We have to fly over three clan territories to get to the Iishi Mountains. Tiger, Dragon, then Fox. That’s three different permits, and three different officials who need their palms greased to make sure my paperwork doesn’t get ‘misplaced.’ Plus we’ll need to refuel in Yama city before we fly back, and the Kitsune just bumped their docking fees another three percent.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Yamagata-san,” Kasumi said. “Perhaps you should tell your customs man that you fly at the Shōgun’s command.”
“Wouldn’t matter.” He scowled, shook his head. “Any discount I haggle would only get added to my next flight. He has his own bribes to pay, and lotus contracts don’t come cheap. The Guild always get their coin, one way or the other. Even the Shōgun knows that.”
Yamagata fell silent as a Lotusman clanked past, cogs of its atmos-suit whirring. Red sunlight glittered in its eyes as it gazed up at the Thunder Child’s hull. It clicked a few beads across the mechabacus on its chest, whispered something distorted, then launched itself into the sky. The pipes on its back spat out bright plumes of blue-white flame. It flitted about the Child’s underside, spewing smoke and clicking more beads from one side of its chest to the other.
“Always like you to know they’re watching, eh?” Kasumi murmured.
“Comes with the territory,” Yamagata shrugged. “Every ship that hauls lotus has a Guildsman living on board. You get used to them looking over your shoulder.”
“Nice to be trusted.”
“It’s worse since last week. Two of them burned to death when the refinery caught fire.” Yamagata shook his head. “They locked down the whole complex for three days. Nothing coming in or out. You know what that does to the bottom line of a man like me?”
“Didn’t the radio say the fire was an accident?” Kasumi raised an eyebrow. “Seems a lot of fuss over bad luck.”
“What, and that surprises you? When was the last time you heard about a Guildsman getting killed, accident or no?”
“Guildsmen are flesh and blood under those suits, just like everyone else.” Kasumi shrugged. “All men get their day before the Judge of the Nine Hells; Guildsman, beggar or Shōgun. It makes no difference to him.”
Yamagata sniffed.
“True enough, I suppose.”
Kasumi touched her brow, then her lips, muttering beneath her breath, “Great Enma-ō, judge us fair.”
The Lotusman descended from the skies in a rolling cloud of chi exhaust, landing forty feet down the boardwalk. Peasant folk hurried out of the way, knocking each other over in their haste. The Guildsman clomped away over timber and cobbles without a backward glance.
“Is all your gear aboard?” Yamagata asked.
“Hai.” Kasumi nodded, ran her hand across her brow. “The others should be here soon.”
“Good. I want to get off before the day grows still. Wind at our backs.”
“Minister Hideo commanded we were to wait until he’d arrived.”
“Yomi’s gates, I didn’t know he was coming down here.” The captain sighed. “Bad enough that my ship is being sent north to chase a smoke vision in the middle of monsoon season. Worse that I have to sit on my hands waiting for some bureaucrat to kiss me good-bye. My Guild rep is a son of a whore, wasting my time on chaff like this.”
“Well, someone in the Guild obviously thinks this is important, or they wouldn’t have assigned their best captain to the task, no?”
Yamagata scowled. “The Lotusmen might be happy wasting the finest ship in the fleet on the Shōgun’s pride, but kissing my ass isn’t going to make me turn cartwheels about it, Hunter.”
“If it’s so foolish, why waste the finest ship in the fleet on it?”
“You know that as well as I do.” Yamagata spat onto the wooden decking. “Politics. The Shōgun controls the army, but only the Guild know the secret behind chi production. Both sides need to keep the other happy or the whole shithouse goes up in flames. I’m just a commoner who gets paid to lug their product from place to place. If I want to keep my contract, I go where I’m bloody told.”
“Oh, I know the workings of court politics, Yamagata-san,” Kasumi smiled. “I’ve hunted with the Black Fox under the reign of two different Shōgun now—long enough to become well acquainted with the
mating habits of vipers.”
“Then why interrogate a lowly cloudwalker about it? What the hells would I know that you don’t?”
“Well, between the lines, I was asking who you’d angered to land this errand?” Kasumi brushed a stray hair from her eyes. “It must have been someone important.”
The captain glanced at her sidelong, a slow, grudging smile forming on his lips. “I don’t kiss and tell, Lady.”
“Ah, so.” She smiled back. “The wife of someone important, then.”
“Daughter, actually. But it all ends the same. An empty hold, a wasted trip and me cursing the bastard responsible for both.”
“I hope she was worth it.”
Yamagata closed his eyes and gave a delighted little shiver. “You have no idea.”
Kasumi laughed. “Just keep your hands off any daughters you might meet on this trip, Yamagata-san. Master Masaru isn’t as forgiving as some neo-chōnin merchant with a fat purse and a few Guild contacts.”
“No fear. I’d sooner put my wedding tackle in the mouth of a hungry sea dragon than anger the Black Fox of Shima, Lady.”
Yamagata grinned and gave a small bow, one fist covered by the palm of his other hand. Kasumi returned the bow and watched him begin his long climb up the spire. The man swung on the corroded rungs, deft hands on rusting iron, up toward his ship above. The Thunder Child’s captain seemed a decent sort, and Kasumi breathed a small sigh of relief. The Dragon and Fox zaibatsu had been fighting border skirmishes for decades, and there was little love lost between the two clans. Although not every Ryu or Kitsune took the long-standing grudge to heart, she had been worried Yamagata might not appreciate having the Black Fox or his daughter aboard.
Kasumi turned her eyes to the crowd, leaning on her bo-staff—a six-foot length of ironwood capped with burnished steel. The mob milled around her: cloudwalkers fresh off their ships, sararīmen rubbing shoulders with the clockwork suits of the Lotusmen, young boys handing out sticky printed newssheets and singing tales of barbarian atrocities against Shima colonists overseas. She even noticed a few gaijin traders among the mob, short blond hair and pale, smog-stained skin, clothed in dyed wool of a strange cut, animal furs draped over their shoulders despite the crushing heat. They were surrounded by wooden crates and looming piles of genuine leather, negotiating the price on a dozen rolls of tanned cowhide with a swarming gang of neo-chōnin.
For the past twenty years, the round-eyes had worn the label of “enemy”; painted in the newssheets as treacherous blood-drinkers who stole the spirits of beasts and wore their skins. They had wasted the last two decades fighting a futile resistance against the Shōgunate invasion, when it would have been easier for everyone if they simply rolled belly-up and allowed themselves to be civilized. Kasumi marveled that even in the midst of all-out warfare, there were men who sought profit in the beds of their would-be conquerors. Yet here they were: gaijin merchantmen trekking across the seas in their lightning-powered freighters, each one with an elaborate residency permit inked on their wrists. They stood on the boardwalk under the narrowed stares of the city guards, selling their leather goods at exorbitant prices in a country where hide made from anything other than corpse-rat was now virtually impossible to find. They haggled and traded and counted their coin, pale blue eyes hidden behind polarized glass, watching war prisoners arrive by the shipload. But if the Docktown gaijin had misgivings about the treatment of their countrymen, they also had no wish to join their fellows on their march up to the chapterhouse. And so they kept their heads down, and their opinions to themselves.
After a spell, Kasumi caught sight of Akihito, standing a head taller than most of the mob. The big man appeared as if he was treading water in a sea of dirty straw hats and paper umbrellas.
She waved, and the trio shoved their way through the throng until they were face to face.
“You found them, I see.” Kasumi smiled at Yukiko. “And in one piece.”
The girl grimaced, pulled her goggles down around her throat. “One smelly piece.”
“Masaru-sama.” Kasumi bowed to Yukiko’s father. She tried not to notice when the girl rolled her eyes.
Masaru returned the bow, still looking quite ragged about the edges. An ugly purple bruise was forming under one eye, spilling out from under the lens of his goggles.
“How are you, you big lump?” Kasumi looked Akihito up and down. “Excited?”
“No, I’m hungry.”
“You just ate!” Yukiko shook her head.
“Oh, cheer up.” Kasumi slapped the big man on the arm. “Don’t tell me your blood doesn’t quicken at the thought of hunting a thunder tiger, you grumpy sod. It’s been years since we went after something like this.”
“Something like what?” Akihito folded his arms, clearly unimpressed. “The figment of a smoke-fiend’s imagination?”
“We should get moving,” Masaru interrupted the pair, squinting through the haze at the sky-ship above. “Is all the gear aboard? Extra Kobiashis and blacksleep?”
“Hai, Masaru-sama,” Kasumi nodded. “It cost me a few extra kouka to get the cage down here on short notice, but I needn’t have rushed. Minister Hideo said we were to wait until he arrived.”
“Aiya,” Masaru sighed, lying down across a stack of crates and rubbing the back of his head. “That could take all day. Someone kick me when he gets here.”
“You got anything to eat?” Akihito raised a hopeful eyebrow.
Yukiko snorted over Kasumi’s laughter. Reaching into a pouch at her belt, the older woman tossed the giant a rehydrated rice cake, and the pair sat down in the shade to wait.
A dozen beggars were huddled across the way from the Thunder Child’s berth, wrapped in dirty rags, fingers outstretched and trembling. One was a young girl around Yukiko’s age. She was a pretty thing: deep, moist eyes and creamy skin. Her mother sat beside her, rocking back and forth, the dark, telltale marks of blacklung smudged around her lips.
Kasumi touched the kerchief tied around her own face, wondered for the thousandth time if it would be enough to protect her from that dreaded stain. Blacklung had reached epidemic proportions in the last decade, and the final stages of the disease were terrible enough to make its victims envy the dead. She’d feel safer with more than prayers and a grubby rag over her mouth to protect her.
Perhaps if this fool’s errand bore fruit, the Shōgun would reward them with enough kouka to afford their own mechanized breathers …
Kasumi scowled, shook her head at the thought.
And perhaps the Shōgun will sprout wings and have no need of a thunder tiger at all.
She watched as Yukiko wandered across the street, knelt down beside the beggars in the dust. They spoke, Yukiko and the girl, a few minutes together under the red sun. Kasumi couldn’t hear what they said. She saw Yukiko glance back at her slumbering father, then up to the sky-ship that would be their home for the next few weeks. The beggar girl followed her gaze. The mother began coughing, shoulders hunched, face twisted in pain, knuckles pressed hard over her mouth. When she drew her hand away, it was smeared with dark fluid.
The girl wrapped her fingers in her mother’s, greasy black smudged between their skin. Yukiko looked up from those stained hands into the girl’s eyes. Reaching into her obi, she tugged out her coin purse and handed it over. Then she stood and walked away.
Kasumi smiled, pretended not to notice.
The sun climbed higher in the sky. The stone around them became the walls of a kiln, sweat trickling across their dusty skin. The crowd milled about amidst the fumes and flies and oppressive heat, a seething ocean of flesh and bone and metal beneath a burning sky.
“An arashitora, Kas’,” Akihito muttered. “Gods help us.”
Kasumi sighed and turned her eyes to the horizon.
High above them, the lone gull called into the choking wind and received no answer.
6
A BOY WITH SEA-GREEN EYES
It was mid-afternoon when the sound of singing
roused Yukiko from her stupor. Akihito stood and tilted his straw hat away from his eyes, frowning into the distance.
“Here he comes,” the big man muttered.
Yukiko and Kasumi rose to stand beside him. Masaru still snored on his bed of packing crates. Through the shimmering heat, they could see a procession winding down the broad cobbled boulevard from the imperial palace.
Long red banners adorned with the imperial sun were caught high in the dirty breeze, whipping about like headless serpents. The figures of nine huge Iron Samurai led the cohort, another nine bringing up the rear. The men stood almost seven feet tall, golden tabards marking them as members of the Shōgun’s personal guard; the Kazumitsu Elite. They were encased in great suits of mechanized armor known as “ō-yoroi.” The piston-driven iron was lacquered with black enamel, awash with the color of old blood beneath the scorching red sun. Chainsaw katana and wakizashi were sheathed at their waists. To inspire terror in their enemies, the mempō faceguards of the samurai’s helms were crafted into the likenesses of snarling oni: the demon spawn of the black Yomi underworld. The spaulders protecting their shoulders were broad and flat, like the great eaves of the imperial palace. The gleaming cloth of their jin-haori tabards was embroidered with the kami totem of the Tora clan: a proud, snarling tiger. Tall golden banners marked with the same symbol fluttered above the combustion engine mounted on each samurai’s back, their exhaust pipes spewing chi smoke into the already greasy breeze. They marched with one thick gauntlet wrapped tight around the scabbard of their katana, right hand grasping the hilt, as if ready to draw the weapons at a moment’s notice. The armored suits made a din like iron bolts being dropped into a meat grinder.
A cadre of infantrymen followed behind the Iron Samurai, naginata spears clutched in their gauntlets. The weapons were nine feet tall, curved blades as long as katana mounted at the end of thick hafts, a glittering thicket of folded steel. Each man was clad in the banded iron breastplate, scarlet tabard and flanged helmet of a soldier in the Shima Army. Fierce, grim faces were hidden behind polarized lenses and blood-red kerchiefs. Known as “bushimen,” each of these common-born warriors was sworn to the same code as the samurai nobility: the Way of Bushido.
