Stormdancer

by Jay Kristoff

  I WILL PLAY MY PART. FEAR NOT.

  Yukiko smiled, ran her hands along his flanks.

  I fear nothing when you are near, Buruu.

  The arashitora purred, nuzzled her with one broad, feathered cheek. He prowled about her, brushing gently with his wings, wrapping his tail about her legs. Yukiko watched him with a smile on her face, dragging her fingers through his fur. There was a subtle cough, and the Guildsman standing a respectful distance away spoke with a sandpaper tongue.

  “We will descend and pay our respects to the Shōgun now.”

  Yukiko nodded and fell into step beside the Lotusman, Buruu staying on the Glory’s prow. She stepped across to the sky-spire and began climbing down, painful memories of the day she had first arrived in Kigen welling in her mind. She could see herself sitting on her father’s back as he descended, the entire city at her feet. The applause of the crowd was a dirge in her ears now, the hum of her mother’s funeral hymn.

  She wondered where they had buried her.

  Yukiko reached the ground, flanked on all sides by Guild mercenaries and Lotusmen, the air abuzz with the noise of their suits, the rasp of their breath. The greasy reek of lotus crawled over her tongue and the back of her throat, making her feel ill. The pristine air of the storm-wracked Iishi seemed a distant memory now, so far back in time, so far away she could only barely see the edges, a blurry haze on a distant horizon. She tried to remember the taste of clean rain, and failed.

  The crowd looked at her with unabashed curiosity. This dirty, bedraggled girl who had tamed a thunder tiger and brought it from the heart of the wilds to lay at their Lord’s feet.

  “Arashi-no-ko,” she heard them whisper.

  She could feel Buruu frown in her mind, puzzled by the word’s shape.

  WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

  She smiled, embarrassed, turning her eyes to the floor.

  Storm Girl.

  His pride warmed her insides.

  I LIKE THAT.

  The first rickshaw opened and Herald Tanaka stepped out, golden breastplate reflecting dirty scarlet sunlight. Yukiko pressed her forehead to the dirt as Tanaka crowed the full list of Yoritomo’s titles, the speakers at his throat amplifying his voice into a rasping shout. “Guardian of the Holy Empire,” “Resplendent Sword of the Four Thrones,” “Son of the Nagaraja Slayer.” It was all a blur, an insectoid humming in her ears, empty slogans and hollow words until the final phrase, a sharp kick to her gut that sent a murmur of appreciation through the crowd.

  “Next Stormdancer of Shima.”

  Yukiko kept her head low, swallowed the rage boiling up inside her. She imagined tearing the scroll from Tanaka’s hands, shoving it down his throat and screaming the truth to all these docile sheep.

  Rapist.

  Murderer.

  Butcher of unborn children.

  CALM. BE CALM. SOON WE WILL RIGHT THESE WRONGS.

  She smiled to herself, reached out and touched Buruu’s mind. She kept her forehead to the floor, watching the scene through his eyes.

  Soon.

  Tanaka rolled up his scroll and the central rickshaw cracked open. Yoritomo-no-miya stepped out with a flourish, and the assembled mob dropped immediately to the dust. The Shōgun wore a brand-new respirator, solid gold, crafted so that his face resembled an eagle’s, twin filtration cylinders sitting either side of a curved beak, eyes hidden behind amber glass. His embossed breastplate was fashioned with a small golden wing on each shoulder, the corners of a red silk cloak spilling out from each metal pinion and billowing in the contaminated breeze.

  RIDICULOUS.

  She could feel Buruu’s snort of contempt rumbling in her own chest, pressed her lips together lest it spill out of her mouth. The Shōgun helped his sister from the rickshaw as the herald pronounced her name. Yukiko risked a glance up at the woman, the impeccable facade hidden behind mirrored lenses and the blades of her golden respirator fan. A full dozen serving girls flowed out of the rear carriage and flocked to their Lady’s side, swathed in slippery red silk. There was the barest flicker of recognition in Aisha’s face as she stared at Yukiko, glanced down to the puppy in her arms. And then it was gone.

  Yoritomo approached Yukiko, one hand resting on his sheathed katana, stopping within arm’s reach. He took off his respirator and handed it to Tanaka, slinging his long plait over his shoulder with a toss of his head.

  “Rise, Kitsune Yukiko.”

  His voice had an edge to it. A fervor she’d never taken note of before.

  Yukiko stood, kept her eyes to the floor under the pretense of respect. Her fingertips tingled, the tantō in her obi felt heavy as a brick. She could hear her mother singing by the fireside in their little house, her voice filling the night, weariness of the day giving way to gentle dreams.

  “Great Lord,” she said.

  She felt his hands on her chin, and it was all she could do to hold back the scream; to not lash out with the knife and open his throat wide, bathe in his blood. He forced her gaze up from the ground, tilting her head back until they looked into each other’s eyes. There was a faint tittering among the geisha, whispers drifting in the throng.

  “You have served your Shōgun well, daughter of foxes.”

  “Thank you, great Lord.”

  “You bring honor to your father. I am glad I did not kill him.”

  “My great Lord is truly merciful.”

  “Indeed. I am.” Yoritomo released his grip and glanced up and down her body, a lingering stare that made her stomach turn. “Now, where is my arashitora?”

  Yukiko stepped backward out of his reach and gave a shrill whistle, fingers to her lips. The sound of claws on wood was heard overhead, a sudden rush of air, and a great silhouette blotted out the sun. The children shrieked and pointed, men and women gasped in wonder as Buruu stretched his crippled wings and dropped from the Glory’s deck. He could manage only a brief, wobbling glide, spiraling down far too quickly and sending the Guild marines and gathered bushimen running for cover. Landing clumsily, he skidded across the cobbles and gravel, talons tearing deep furrows in his wake.

  He opened his beak and roared. A deafening sound, broken lightning flickering across his outstretched wings. The stupefied crowd crouched low in terror. Even Yoritomo was taken aback, stepping away and clutching the braided hilts of his daishō. The Iron Samurai drew their own blades, the chattering chainkatana growl lost in the reverberation of the thunder tiger’s wings. The bushimen advanced as the arashitora prowled toward their Shōgun, weapons at the ready, uncertain glances. Yoritomo held his ground but his face was bloodless with fear, knuckles white on his sword hilts. And as the assembled crowd gasped in wonder, Buruu dipped his head and scratched at the ground before the Shōgun’s feet.

  The beast was bowing to their Lord.

  Applause. Jubilant, euphoric, a giddy wave spilling over the throng and turning Yukiko’s stomach. An awful sound; all slapping sallow skin and bare, stamping feet, row upon row of grubby kerchiefs hiding a streetful of empty, crooked smiles. But the mob was overjoyed, filling the air with whistles and shouts, ecstatic that this beast from the pages of legend had immediately abased itself on seeing their Shōgun. Truly, this was a man who deserved their obeisance. Truly this was a Lord worthy of the title. His father’s son.

  Yoritomo smiled and nodded, holding his hand up to the people. At a signal from Tanaka, a tarpaulin was pulled away from the back of the rearmost motor-rickshaw, revealing a large cage with bars of thick pig iron. Yoritomo strode to it and pulled aside the door, looking at the arashitora expectantly.

  “Forgive this crude transportation.” He gave a small, mocking bow. “But since he cannot fly himself…”

  Yukiko put her hand on the beast’s flank, running her fingers through his fur. She could feel his fear, saw the images painted across his mind’s eye; the moment he had awoken in that cage on the deck of the Thunder Child and found his wings mutilated.

  Buruu, you don’t have to …

  NO.

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nbsp; The arashitora shook his head defiantly, pushing the fear away.

  I SAID I WILL PLAY MY PART.

  “Up,” she said, voice harsh with command. “Get in there.”

  The beast padded toward the cage, aiming a glittering amber stare directly at Yoritomo. And then as the crowd dropped into a breathless hush, he folded his wings and leaped inside.

  Applause. Nauseating, deafening applause.

  “Great Lord,” said Yukiko, staring at Yoritomo’s split-toed boots. “With your permission, I will ride with the arashitora to the palace. He may become unnerved by the noise of the city.”

  “Your family seems to enjoy the view from behind bars.” Yoritomo laughed, still waving to the crowd. “But do as you wish. Just keep it calm until we get to the arena.”

  “Arena, my Lord?” She swallowed.

  Surely he cannot intend to have Buruu fight for sport?

  “You will see, Kitsune Yukiko.” Yoritomo dropped his hand and strode toward his waiting rickshaw. “You will see.”

  * * *

  Buruu prowled the arena floor, tail lashing. The chain tether rasped across stone and straw, clanking as he paced. The rock beneath his feet was dark with the blood of a thousand gaijin: victims in the spectacles that kept Kigen pacified on festival weekends and feast days. Countless pale throats dragged across the waves, opened up to the tune of the roaring crowd.

  The arena pit was sunk ten feet into the ground, a hundred feet in diameter. The stone floor had been pierced at its center with a single bar of black iron, driven deep into the rock. Empty stone benches rose in concentric circles all around the pit, wind howling mournfully in the vast, hollow space. Above them sat the empty imperial box, tiger flags whipping in the breeze. Though there were no bars above his head, thick chain and crippled wings kept Buruu firmly tethered to the hateful earth. He looked up at the red sun and squinted, shook himself like a soggy tomcat. The iron collar at his throat clanked with the motion.

  AT LEAST I CAN STILL SEE THE SKY.

  I’m sorry, Buruu.

  I WILL ENDURE.

  The Guild Artificer affixed the other end of Buruu’s tether to the iron spike in the middle of the arena, its arc torch flaring sun-bright, blobs of molten solder spattering thick on the floor. A rectangular eye of black glass reflected the white-hot flare. As Yukiko watched, the Artificer turned off its welding iron and stabbed a switch on its chest. The black pane over its eyes slid aside to reveal a slab of malevolent red. She stared at the brass mask, wondering who was really inside that suit, whether they were truly as evil as the Kagé would have her believe.

  She thought of Kin lying burned in the rain, murmuring the Guild mantra over and over to himself. The desire to ask whether the boy had been punished was tempered with the knowledge that a hadanashi girl showing any kind of concern for him might only make his punishment worse. And so she kept her questions to herself, picturing her friend standing in the rain on the bow of the Thunder Child, and prayed for Kitsune to watch over him.

  Yoritomo stared at the Guildsman, nodded when the task was done. He was surrounded by half a dozen Iron Samurai in the golden jin-haori tabards of the Kazumitsu Elite. Each warrior stood nearly eight feet tall, clad in great, hissing suits of ō-yoroi armor, gleaming black, chi exhaust spitting from the power units at their backs. Their masks were iron, crafted to resemble the faces of oni, twisted and grinning. Chainsaw katana and wakizashi were worn at their waists, heavy iron gauntlets never straying far from the hilts. Beside the Shōgun stood Herald Tanaka and the bent figure of Chief Minister Hideo. The old man clutched a walking stick in one hand, a lotus pipe in the other, occasionally lifting his breather to suck down a lungful of smoke. The scent reminded Yukiko of her father.

  I hope he is all right.

  Buruu pawed at his collar, glanced at his ruined wings and said nothing.

  “So.” Yoritomo addressed the Guildsman. “You will begin constructing the saddle immediately. I have drawn the one I saw in my vision. It must be exactly as I have illustrated here.”

  Yoritomo snapped his fingers, and Minister Hideo dutifully handed a carven mahogany scroll case to the Artificer. The Guildsman accepted it, nodded slowly.

  “I expect it to be ready in time for the bicentennial celebrations next month.” Yoritomo’s eyes were fixed on Buruu, glazed with hunger. “The Kazumitsu Dynasty has ruled these islands for the past two hundred years. I intend to usher in the next two hundred on the back of this arashitora. Am I understood?”

  “As you command, great Lord.” The clicking of cicada wings.

  “The lotus must bloom.”

  “The lotus must bloom,” the Guildsman repeated, touching its forehead with two fingers. With a hiss of chi smoke and the whirr of a dozen clockwork engines, the figure clanked off across the stone floor under the watchful eye of the Iron Samurai. Two other Guildsmen waited as patiently as spiders beneath one of the outer arches. Yukiko watched the trio exchange brief words, casting glowing stares in her direction before departing. Dread clutched at her stomach. Heavy footsteps rebounded across sweating stone, their shadows sliding down the wall and out into the lotus-choked light.

  “How long until its feathers grow back?”

  Yukiko took a moment to realize the Shōgun was addressing her.

  “Ah…” She stammered, staring at the floor, hands clasped before her. “Forgive me. I do not know, great Lord.”

  “Ask it.”

  Yukiko dared a glance at the Shōgun’s face. He was studying her intently, dark eyes glinting like star metal, smile like a razor. His long jin-haori tabard writhed in the warm, cancer wind, golden tigers prowling across scarlet silk.

  “Great Lord?”

  “The Lady Aisha changed her perfume after our meeting at the sky-docks. Her dog has seemed quite content ever since. Strange that you guessed the root of its misbehavior in a handful of seconds. Almost as if you knew its mind…”

  Yukiko glanced between Yoritomo and his bodyguards, hands on their chainkatana hilts. A tiny, childish part of her realized that the samurai to Yoritomo’s left had green eyes.

  “I … I have a way with beasts, my Lord.” She swallowed, turned her eyes back to the ground, squeezing her hands into fists to stop the shakes.

  “You are yōkai-kin.”

  “No, Lord, I—”

  Yoritomo’s raised hand was as good as a slap, cutting her sentence in half. Buruu edged closer, eyes on the Iron Samurai, hackles rippling.

  “You have nothing to fear, Kitsune Yukiko.” The Shōgun’s smile never reached his eyes. “I have no interest in revealing your secret to the Guild. I do not care for their zealotry, their crusade for ‘purity’. The Book of Ten Thousand Days has many interpretations, and theirs is only one.” He motioned to Buruu. “This beast will accept me as his master quicker with you telling me his thoughts, and conveying mine to him. That is all that matters to me.”

  The Shōgun ran one hand across the thunder tiger’s flank, fingers spread into claws, buried deep in the thick fur. He inhaled the arashitora’s scent, the heady mix of musk and ozone, tracing the line of one thick black stripe over Buruu’s spine.

  “Magnificent. My vision was true. Do you see, Hideo-san?”

  He turned to glare at the minister.

  “I see, great Lord.” Hideo bowed deep, voice distorted by his pulsing breather-helm. “Truly, the God of War has spoken to you. None can now doubt that you are Hachiman’s chosen. Astride this creature’s back, you will become the greatest general in the history of Shima. The gaijin will quail before you. After twenty years of war, your hand will bring an ending, and the barbarian hordes will hail you rightly as conqueror, and sovereign Lord.”

  Yukiko scowled at the minister, despising him for his sycophantic little liturgy. Yoritomo seemed too intent on Buruu to notice, running his fingers along the arashitora’s wing. Buruu rankled at the touch but kept himself calm, still as the stone beneath their feet. The Shōgun grinned, bloodless lips across perfect teeth.
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br />   “So.” A glance at Yukiko. “How long?”

  Yukiko remained mute, terrified beneath that iron stare. For her to admit her gift here in front of the Shōgun was to place herself in mortal danger. She recalled her mother’s words, urging her and Satoru never to risk death by revealing the secret. To admit it now would be to invite the executioner’s blade, or worse, a screaming death chained to the Burning Stones in the Market Square.

  And then, glancing at the Iron Samurai, she realized her life was in danger anyway. Regardless of what he knew or what he didn’t, Yoritomo had the power of life and death over every man, woman and child in Shima. If he wanted her dead, she’d be dead; he didn’t need a reason. He certainly didn’t need a confession. One snap of his fingers would be all it took.

  So to the hells with being afraid.

  Be clever instead.

  “The beast has a simple mind, great Lord,” she said. “It thinks in scent and sight, not words. I would measure it no smarter than a dog. It understands concepts that any hound might; only day and night, not months or years. But I believe it will moult at the end of autumn, when it grows its winter coat.”

  “That is nearly four months away,” the Shōgun hissed.

  “It may be sooner, Lord.” She kept her eyes on the ground. “But it is looking forward to winter. I do not think it will fly before then.”

  NO SMARTER THAN A DOG …

  Shhh.

  The Shōgun snarled, cheeks flushed with blood. He took a few deep, calming breaths, clenching and unclenching his fists. Yukiko could see the tension in Hideo’s stance, the nervous glances between the samurai at their Lord’s growing rage. Yoritomo closed his eyes and breathed deep, blotches of color fading on his cheeks. Finally, he gritted his teeth and nodded.

  “So be it.” He opened his eyes and glared. “You will break this beast, get it accustomed to the notion of a rider, of being steered with bit and bridle. When the Artificers have completed my saddle, we will begin training. You will stay in the palace, one of my Elite will accompany you at all times.” His tone became darker, edged with steel. “I remind you that your father is still imprisoned in the dungeons. Should you fail in this task, you will not be the only one to suffer for it.”