by Jay Kristoff
How much more can this man take from me?
She glanced back at the approaching guards, picturing the little bamboo valley where she had grown up, her father and mother seated by the fireside, she and her brother lying with old Buruu in their laps; the brief summer days before the winter it had all begun to fall apart. And in the wake of that image, a bright spark of realization rose above the despair inside, the burning anger of her loss.
She remembered the wolf, the cold winter snow, Satoru and old Buruu by her side. She remembered her rage at the hound’s death, reaching out across the Kenning to snuff out the wolf’s life with her hatred. She remembered the shape of Satoru’s mind, the pain of his death pushing her inside him as the venom took him away.
He’s too far away to touch.
She glared at Yoritomo across the stones.
But I don’t need to touch him to hurt him.
She reached out toward him, hands motionless, straining to her limits, her father’s words ringing in her ears.
This is something worth sacrificing for. Something greater.
NO. WAIT FOR ME.
Her temples began to throb, eyes narrowed to paper cuts.
I AM COMING.
The bushimen were seconds away. Crossbows and needle-throwers. Naginata and nagamaki. Buruu wouldn’t stand a chance.
They are too many.
WAIT FOR ME!
Help me, Buruu.
WAIT!
“I’m going to kill you, little girl,” Yoritomo sneered. “Like I killed your whore mother.”
Yukiko glanced at the young boy and his balloon. Fear and awe shone bright in the child’s eyes.
“Let me show you what one little girl can do,” she said.
Yoritomo frowned as the blood began dripping from her nose, bright, salty red spilling over her lips and mingling with the taste of her sweat. She felt the shape of him, the heat of him, stretching toward him and closing her fist about his mind. Somewhere far away, she could hear someone calling her name.
This is it. Our chance. Help me, brother.
“What are you—”
A gasp, eyes wide, mouth open in shock. Yoritomo moaned, pain registering at the base of his skull and spreading bloody fingers throughout his synapses.
The shape of his mind was slippery, alien, not at all like the mind of a beast. Yukiko felt it sliding away, her rage not hot enough to maintain her grip, a serpent slithering between her fingers. And then, someone was beside her, inside her, anger entwining with her own. A familiar warmth, a strength that lifted her up and carried her on his shoulders high above the ground, the whole world at her feet. Together they pressed down, using the hate, the rage, seizing hold and wrenching from side to side, gray matter running to pulp in their grip.
Yoritomo staggered away, a shapeless gurgle spilling from his lips as his ears started to bleed. He put one hand up to his brow, pawing at his temple, hemorrhaging turning the whites of his eyes a dark, cloudy scarlet. The iron-thrower wavered in his grip. He blinked. Gasped. Squeezed the trigger.
A muzzle flash. A burst of sound. A voice roaring her name. A hard shove, something heavy slamming into her from behind. A metallic breeze whispering past her cheek, so close she could feel its heat. Hear its hiss. She was falling. She was weightless.
The little boy cried out in horror.
The Shōgun collapsed on the ground, blood pouring from his nose and ears and eyes. He spasmed, spine arching, heels kicking at the stone. Fingernails clawing at the sky, lips peeling back from bloody teeth. They wrapped their hands together and strangled until nothing remained inside him, darkness fading away into a whimper as the Ninth Shōgun of the Kazumitsu Dynasty folded down upon himself and ended on the ash-covered stone.
Blinking, gasping, she came to her senses. The presence inside her head receded like an ebb-tide, leaving her hollow and empty in its wake. She reached out toward Buruu, felt him speeding closer, but still too far away.
Then who …
There was blood on the cobbles around her, blood on her skinned hands and knees. The smell of the shot hanging in the air. Someone had shoved her, pushed her out of the way. Someone …
She turned, saw him writhing on the stone, sticky red spilling from his mouth and the hole in his throat.
No.
She crawled toward him, a scream tearing loose and echoing across the square.
“Father!”
A roar from the skies, a typhoon wail. The soldiers looked up and cried out in fear, scattering as Buruu landed atop Yoritomo’s corpse, smearing it across his claws and shattering the flagstones beneath. He spread his wings, lightning flashing on his feathers, electricity dancing across the manacles on the Burning Stones. White fur, black stripes and spatters of warm, fresh red. The bushimen fell back as he circled around Yukiko and Masaru, roaring again in warning.
The thunder echoed the beast’s cry. Raijin was pleased.
Kin descended from the sky in a cloud of burning smoke, blue-white flame flaring at his back as the crowd scattered out of his path. Roaring at the soldiers to back away, he landed beside the arashitora, brass boots crunching on the cobbles. Anguish welled in knife-bright eyes as he caught sight of the girl kneeling over the bleeding body of her father. She looked up at him, eyes shining with tears, pale with grief.
“Kin.” Her throat was raw, choking. “Help me with him.”
Face drawn with sorrow, he helped Yukiko lift Masaru onto the thunder tiger’s shoulders. A ribbon of blood spilled from the older man’s mouth, spattered across the cobbles, smeared on the Guildsman’s skin. A murmur rippled among the spectators, watching in amazement as Yukiko leaped on Buruu’s back.
Fly, Buruu. Fly!
A collective gasp ran through the crowd as the beast leaped into the air. People pointed in wonder, eyes wide, blessed with a story to tell their children.
“Stormdancer,” one whispered.
A gale swelled beneath Buruu’s wings as the ground fell away below them. They spiraled upward on Kigen’s thermals, up into the rumbling sky. The buildings became toys, and the people became ants: tiny dark figures gathered around the blackened pillars and a small spot of blood, staring skyward. The ocean stretched out to the south, red waters melting into deeper scarlet, the wind caressing their skin.
Yukiko cradled her father in her arms, rocking him back and forth. Her hands were soaking wet; dark, hot floods gushing from his neck as she pressed down on the wound.
“Father,” she whispered. “No, please, no.”
She clutched him, desperate, hot tears and blood smudged across her cheeks, her whole body shaking with the sobs. Masaru opened his mouth but no words would come, thick red bubbling and bursting on his lips. He clutched a handful of the arashitora’s fur, white knuckles, trembling hands. He pressed his fingers to the beast’s flesh, reached out for his warmth in the growing cold, the spark to keep the dark at bay.
Buruu tossed his head, narrowed his eyes.
I CAN FEEL YOU, OLD MAN. POKING AROUND INSIDE MY MIND.
Yes.
YOU CUT ME. YOU TOOK MY WINGS.
I am sorry.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
There are things I would say. But the wound …
AND WHY WOULD I HELP YOU? AFTER WHAT YOU DID TO ME?
Because you love her too.
The sky around them was red as blood, dimming to black where the clouds reached down from the north. They flew toward the roiling storm; the great beast, the dying man and the weeping girl. And with a slow nod of his head, the arashitora closed his eyes, took hold of the man’s fading thoughts and cupped them in his talons, carried them across the vast, empty gulf to the girl’s waiting mind.
YUKIKO.
… Father? How?
THE KENNING WAS MINE BEFORE IT WAS YOURS.
You helped me. I felt you.
ARE YOU SAFE? IS IT OVER?
We’re safe, can’t you see? We’re flying, father. We’re flying.
I … I CAN’T LIFT MY HEAD.
She squeezed his hand, blinked away her tears.
Then use our eyes.
His lashes fluttered against his bloody cheeks. The island stretched out below them, swathes of brown and green, a swaying ocean of red blooms. The mountains loomed in the distance beyond the autumn storm, the dark shadow of the Iishi, shrouded in rolling mist. They could see the lightning, feel the wind on their skin. The hands of the tempest held them tight, ozone and thunder, willing them home.
I SEE, ICHIGO.
It’s all so beautiful from up here.
IT IS.
Blood dripped from his fingertips, falling through the sky like soft rain. The song of thunder rolled around them. He thought of Naomi singing by the fireside, Satoru beside her. He thought of Kasumi stalking through long grass, wind playing in her hair. He pushed the pictures into her mind.
THEY ARE WAITING FOR ME.
No.
I LOVE YOU, YUKIKO.
No. Don’t you dare say your goodbyes to me.
She shook her head, willing the darkness gone, flaring in his mind with stubborn, warm light. A scream welled up inside and spilled over her limits, a long wavering note of grief echoed by Buruu, the pair roaring in defiance together as if they could frighten the end away.
Stay with us.
I CAN’T.
Don’t leave us alone.
LET ME GO.
No. All this is for nothing if you’re gone.
THEN MAKE IT FOR SOMETHING.
Masaru closed his eyes, felt the wind on his face, the bleeding land rushing away beneath him, a final peal of thunder drifting off into blessed silence.
He smiled.
SOMETHING GREATER.
EPILOGUE
Sumiko prayed.
The procession wound its path down the Palace Way, a snaking line of beggar monks clad in death-white, shaved heads bowed low to the earth. Each held a funeral candle between outstretched fingers, flames guttering in the dawn light, a sluggish sun rearing its head over the black waters of Kigen Bay.
Forty-nine days since the Seii Taishōgun’s death. Forty-nine monks to pray for his rebirth after forty-nine nights in the courts of Enma-ō. Tradition held that the souls of the dead were reborn in the Hour of the Phoenix, as daylight banished the deep of night. And so they marched toward sunrise to the beat of somber drums, the air thick with incense and mournful song, pretending it would make a difference. A throng had gathered to watch the procession, Sumiko among them, just one more beggar girl amidst the mob. Each spectator whispered their own prayers and hid their own thoughts and wondered what would come next.
The war with the gaijin was forgotten. The zaibatsu were poised to war with each other. Tiger and Phoenix, Dragon and Fox, all scrabbling for Shima’s empty throne. The chapterhouses buzzed like hornets’ nests kicked from their trees. The Guildsmen urged calm, watching as their creations were amassed across smoking fields of dead earth, poised to destroy each other.
Dangerous thoughts bloomed in Sumiko’s head; thoughts that had taken root these past few weeks and refused to let her rest. Thoughts that there must be a better way than this.
At midnight they would gather around the almshouse radio, she and her friends, listening to the pirate broadcasts and wondering if the words they heard were true. The crackling, metallic voice spilling from the speakers at weeksend spoke of their enslavement to chi, to the men who controlled it. It said that the Guild had liquefied gaijin prisoners of war to make the inochi. That the very fuel on which their Empire had been built was made with blood; razored gears and metal teeth lubricated with the lives of innocent people. And though the Communications Ministry scoffed at the claim, none could help but notice how rapidly inochi supplies had dwindled once Shima’s armies retreated from the fronts. How the price of the fertilizer had skyocketed once the slave fleets began flying home with growling, empty bellies.
Could it be true? Were we so blind?
People whispered in the long midnight hours, asking the same question, over and over.
Has all this been bought with innocent blood?
The riots after the inochi broadcast had been brief, brutally suppressed. And now an uneasy peace had settled over the clan metropolises, broken glass crunching underfoot, violence on hold until the official period of mourning came to an end. Forty-nine days of fragile, jagged silence. Forty-nine days spent waiting to be told who would rule, now that the Kazumitsu Dynasty had lost its only son.
Sumiko kept her eyes on the ground, lips moving in silent prayer. Not for Yoritomo, Seii Taishōgun of the Empire, but for the people he had murdered. The women, the children, the old and the weak. The prisoners who had been dragged up the hill into the chapterhouse, to die frightened and alone, a thousand miles from home. The soldiers who had perished on foreign soil, fighting in a war built on lies and the fear of empty fuel tanks. The starving beggars, the silenced dissenters. Even the great Black Fox of Shima. Every soul sent on its way for the sake of greed and hubris and madness.
It had been a small thing to begin with; just a few spirit tablets laid out to mark the place of the Black Fox’s death near the Burning Stones. Nobody knew who had put them there. But then a few had grown into a dozen. And then a hundred. At first, the guards had tried removing the markers and paper flowers laid to honor the dead, but soon there were thousands of ihai laid out across the Market Square. A silent recrimination, a graveyard for the countless bodies with no grave to call their own.
Sumiko had made one herself. A simple tablet of stone, carved with her mother’s name, as black as the blood she’d coughed at her ending.
A cry rang out among the crowd, picked up and carried by a dozen other voices, fingers pointed at the sky. A single word, rolling among the mob like breaking surf, awash with wonder and awe. Sumiko looked up and the prayer died on her lips.
“Arashitora.”
A majestic black silhouette against the brightening, bloody sky, flying out of the north with the poison wind at its back. It soared overhead, above the gasps and cries of astonishment, heading up the Palace Way. The procession collapsed into bedlam, the solemn rows of monks and spectators dissolving into a throng of running feet, thousands of people breaking ranks and following the silhouette up the street.
Sumiko squinted behind her goggles in the grubby dawn light, one hand up to blot out the sun.
“Gods above,” she breathed.
There was a rider on the thunder tiger’s back.
The shape circled above the Burning Stones, splitting the air with rasping, beautiful cries, its wings making a sound like rolling thunder. It was the color of clean snow, black slashes across pristine white, lightning playing at the edges of its wings. Eyes flashing, cruel, hooked claws and beak, proud and fierce.
Sumiko had never seen anything more beautiful in all her life.
A metal frame sat over its wings, gleaming and iridescent, feathers made of hard bloodstained canvas. The beast circled lower, alighting on the cobblestones as the crowd gathered, surrounding them in a wide circle. The few Tora guards among the mob watched on fearfully, hands slack on their naginata.
The rider was a girl Sumiko recognized. Long hair, dark eyes, pale skin clad in mourning black. She was the girl they sang kabuki plays about in the Downside taverns. The girl the street children mimicked, running among the gutters and alleys, flapping their arms and hollering at the sky. The girl that had gifted her with a full purse and a sad smile in the shadow of the sky-docks.
Arashi-no-odoriko, Stormdancer, Slayer of Yoritomo-no-miya.
The girl dismounted, placed a circlet of fresh wildflowers on the ground. A rainbow of color woven into a beautiful wreath, the scent of jasmine and chrysanthemums, azalea and wisteria rising above the black lotus stink. She gently set an ihai among the others, dark stone, a single word carved deeply into its face.
Father.
The girl bowed her head, lips moving as if in prayer. She wore a short-sleeved uwagi, and Sumiko could see her left arm was horribly sc
arred; the flesh about her shoulder was a patchwork of new burns. An old-fashioned katana in a black lacquered scabbard was strapped across her back. Her face was a grim, pale mask, cold as stone as she lifted her eyes and stared at the sea of wondering expressions around her.
“People of Kigen,” she called. “Hear me now.”
The toxic wind howled in off the bay, bringing the stink of rot and lotus ash, coating the throats of the crowd, seeping into their pores. The girl’s voice rose above it.
“For forty-nine days, we have mourned our lost; those we loved, and those who loved us.” She swallowed. “Now the time for grief is over.
“For too long we have lived, fat and prosperous on the back of the machine, on the fuel that drives it. But there comes a time when the price grows too high, when the oil runs too red, when we begin building our lives on the shattered lives of others. And at the last, the machine we once controlled ends up controlling us.
“Some in this land would have you bleed for them now, to plant their flag where another’s once flew. Others would have you light a fire, to make ashes of the endless fields, to reduce those five-sided slave pits on the hill to rubble. A few would have you do nothing at all. To remain meek and cowed, to bow your heads and accept what the machine hands you. They are not afraid of you. But they should be. The few should fear the many.”
She held out her arms, showing the terrible scar where irezumi must once have been.
“I believe that when the engines that poison our land and choke our sky lie rusting in the earth, we will be free. Free to choose a new path. A path that will not end with our destruction, or the destruction of the world around us. I do not know what that new path will be. I only know that it will be better than this. That it is not too late.”
She turned and vaulted onto the back of the waiting thunder tiger. The beast opened his beak and roared, and the sound of his wings was a breaking storm.
“Each of you must decide where you stand,” she called. “All we ask is that you refuse to kneel. You are the people. You have the power. Open your eyes. Open your minds. Then close the fingers on your hand.”
