Stormdancer (16 page)

Humid days followed chilled nights, rain dripping from the howling skies, heat trapped beneath the ceiling of green. Sweat ran off her body, soaking through sodden clothing, turning cotton to damp, stinking weight. The slope was ragged and steep beneath them. Buruu struggled worse than she did in some places, shale and mud sliding away beneath his weight. He would slip and stumble, flapping his near-useless wings to regain balance, and curse the children of men, calling down the wrath of his father on those who had mutilated him.

Yukiko would hang her head and say nothing.
It was near midday when they reached the crest. The granite crags looked as if they’d been beheaded by Hachiman himself; cleft flat by the War God’s blade. Yukiko climbed a thick copse of ancient cherry trees to get a better view. Her goggles had been lost somewhere during the crash and, even hidden behind the clouds, the sun’s glare made her wince as she poked her head through the canopy. Behind them, she could see the black scar across the mountain where the Thunder Child had met its end, and she wondered for a brief moment if it would be worth trying to salvage anything from the wreckage. The thought of having to trek back past the Dark Mother’s temple quickly put her musings to rest.

The plateau stretched for miles ahead, clad in rich summer green, spotted with crimson wild azaleas and muted slashes of dandelion gold. The storm clouds threw a shadow over everything. The forest grew thick again further south, and it seemed a long, harsh trek back toward civilization. She hoped the lifeboat and her friends had cleared the mountains intact.

“Susano-ō, deliver them safely. Lord Izanagi, Great Maker, hold them close.”
They shared the last of the smoked rabbit, Yukiko having only a mouthful of meat and a stray mushroom, washed down with wonderfully clear water from a small stream. She suggested they should follow the flow, perhaps stumble across a river where they could fish. Buruu’s stomach growled at the mention of the word, and he purred assent.
It was near dark when they found the snare. Buruu caught blood-scent on the air and fell still as stone. She touched her fox tattoo for luck and crept forward in the deepening twilight, rain masking her footfalls on the leaves. There was a fresh hock of raw flesh dangling above a concealed net: an unwary carnivore pulling at the meat would set off the snare and find itself dangling high above the ground. She disarmed the device by cutting the counterweight free and brought the meat back to Buruu. The arashitora crunched it down in three mouthfuls, barely pausing to breathe between each bite.
Maybe the oni set the traps?
SNARES ARE THE WORK OF MEN.
I didn’t think anyone dwelt in the Iishi Mountains. Not even the Kitsune clan.
WRONG, OBVIOUSLY.
They might have more traps about. Watch your step.
The arashitora eyed the contraption with contempt as they moved past. The net was made of old vines, twisted and knotted tight; he could shred it as easily as a child tearing a piece of damp rice-paper.
He snorted in derision.
THEY SHOULD WATCH THEIRS.

They slept in the trees that night, thirty feet above ground, splayed among an intertwining cradle of maple branches. Buruu had proved an adept climber, much to Yukiko’s surprise, and the trunk was scarred with deep gouges from his ascent. The wind moved like a wave across storm-tossed water, long blades of liriope and forest grass swaying with its song. The rain was a constant murmur, a heartbeat, and she curled up inside the nook of Buruu’s wing and dreamed of the safety of the womb, amniotic and warm.

A metallic, insectoid rasping startled her from her sleep sometime after midnight. She sat upright. Buruu closed his wing around her, eyes shining in the gloom.

QUIET. MONKEY-CHILD APPROACHES.
She squinted through a fan of downy feathers and into the dark. She could hear unsteady, heavy footsteps, the sound of metal against metal. A rectangular slab of red light was moving toward them, a sawing rasp carrying above the music of the storm. Yukiko’s eyes widened as she made out a humanoid, mantis shape.
An Artificer.
WHAT?
Amaterasu protect us. It’s a Guildsman. What is it doing here?
WHAT IS GUILDSMAN?
They administrate the Lotus Guild. They grow the blood lotus flower all over Kigen. Collect it for the Shōgun, pro cess it into chi to fuel their machinery. And they burn people like me.
DESPOILER PRIEST.
She could feel the anger swell in Buruu’s heart; a cold, black hatred.
It must be from the Thunder Child. It must have missed the lifeboat. Gods help us . . .
DO NOT PRAY FOR US. PRAY FOR IT.
Buruu moved, razor-swift, whisper-quiet, stretching out his wings and leaping into the dark. Yukiko shouted at him to wait. The Artificer looked toward her voice, sharp intake of breath hissing through its bellows as the shadow swooped down. It turned to run, far too late. Buruu was on top of it, swiping a fistful of bristling talons across its chest and sending it spinning into a nearby tree. A flash of bright sparks accompanied the hollow crack of bursting pipes. The Guildsman tumbled down into a tangle of wild roses, crying out in fright and pain amidst the groan of metal and hiss of acetylene.
Yukiko swung down from the maple branches, running toward the pair, hand outstretched.
“Buruu, stop!” she screamed. “Stop!”
“Yukiko?” The Artificer wheezed, one hand clasped to its ruptured breastplate.
Buruu’s talons hung in the air, poised for the deathblow.
IT KNOWS YOUR NAME.
Yukiko frowned.
It might have overheard it on the ship . . .
“Yukiko-chan, it’s me.” The Guildsman fumbled with the clasps on its helmet. There was a hiss of suction, compressed air bursting from the cuff around its neck as the throat unfurled like a mechanical flower. It peeled the helmet away from its face and she saw pale skin, close-cropped hair, eyes bright as a knife-edge.
“Kin- san?” she gasped.
YOU KNOW THIS ONE?
Yukiko was aghast, staring at the boy as if he were a ghost.
I met him on the sky- ship. But I never saw him in his suit.
“You’re a Guildsman?” Her eyes were narrowed with surprise and betrayal.
“Hai.”
“But Yamagata- san said the Child’s Guildsman was called Kioshi . . .”
Kin had his hands up in surrender, back pressed against the tree behind him. Rose petals fell about him like snow. Thick red oozed from his ruptured breastplate, leaking down the brass in a sluggish flow. His eyes never left the arashitora’s claws.
“Kioshi was my father. He died two summers ago.”
“So?”
“So, it’s Guild custom to take the name of an honored parent after they pass.” He winced, moving slowly so as not to startle the thunder tiger looming above him. “Can you call off your friend, please? He seems to listen to you.”
“You’re with them.” Yukiko took a step back, drew her knife. “You’re one of them.”
“I was born one. I never chose it.” He looked up into her eyes. “You don’t get to choose your family.”
“But you burn people, Kin. You burn children . . .”
“No, that’s not me,” he shook his head. “I’m an Artificer, Yukiko. I fix engines. I build machines. That’s all.”
“You could have said something. You lied to me.”
“I never lied. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
“You said you were alone.”
“I am alone.”
“There’s hundreds of you. Maybe thousands. You and your ‘family’ are everywhere.”
“Just because you’re standing in a crowd doesn’t mean you belong there.”
Buruu glowered at the boy, eyes alight with bloodlust. One flick of his talons and the monkey-child’s life would be spilled over the forest.
WE SHOULD KILL HIM.
Yukiko chewed her lip, stared down at the Artificer.
I’m not so sure . . .
WHY NOT? DESPOILER. USURPER. HIS KIND OVERSEE THE RAPE OF SHIMA.
. . . I’m not sure he’s like the others. He’s gentle. Kind.
She pushed a picture into his mind, the image of Kin without his suit, standing on the Child’s prow and laughing in the clean rain. It was almost impossible to imagine that pale, fragile boy as one of the faceless monsters she so despised. Looking into Kin’s eyes, she couldn’t imagine him hurting a lotusfly, let alone lighting a fire under some poor child at the Burning Stones.
Give me a minute to talk to him.
YOU DO NOT TELL ME WHAT TO DO.
I’m not telling. I’m asking.
She ran one hand down the sleek feathers at his throat.
Please, Buruu?
The thunder tiger growled, a bass rumble that made the leaves above and the boy below tremble. But he lowered his claws and stepped back, eyes like arrowslits. His tail whipped from side to side, head cocked, shoulders tense.
“You’re hurt,” Yukiko said, kneeling beside Kin. Concern welled in her eyes as she looked down at the thick red spilling over his clockwork breastplate. The ruptured mechabacus whirred and clicked in a broken beat, spitting counting beads into Kin’s lap.
“It’s not blood, it’s only chi.” He reached out as if to touch her, make sure she was real.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Kin?”
There was no anger in her voice now, only disappointment. She sheathed the tantō at her back.
Kin’s hand dropped to his side.
“I thought you would hate me.” He hung his head. “That you wouldn’t trust me. Besides, being seen in public without our suits is forbidden. It’s a great sin for your kind to see our flesh, for us to risk contamination from the outside world. If anyone found out . . .”
“Then why take it off at all?”
“To feel the wind on my face. To know what it is to be normal. To live like you, if only for a second.”
Yukiko frowned, ran one hand across her eyes.
Normal . . .
“So you were on the Child’s deck before the crash. What happened?”
“I couldn’t risk my flesh being seen. I stayed hidden, hoping the deck would clear, but when the lightning hit, the crew were everywhere. I had to wait until they abandoned ship.”
“Did you see what happened to the lifeboat? My father?”
He shook his head.
“By the time I heard the pod detach, I was already below deck getting back into my skin. It was a close thing. I barely made it off before the impact.”
“So you risked your life rather than be seen by the crew?” Yukiko raised an eyebrow.
“My chi burners can fly for twenty minutes before they run dry.”
“But what if you didn’t get into the suit in time? You’d have been incinerated.”
He shrugged.
“Being killed in a sky-ship crash would be a mercy compared to my punishment if the Guild found out I’d taken off my skin in public. There are worse things than dying.”
“Taken off your skin? What do you mean?”
“That’s what we call it.” He rapped his knuckles on the atmos-suit. “Our skin. The Purifiers say the flesh underneath is only an illusion. Flawed and powerless.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“That’s Guild doctrine,” he shrugged again. “Skin is strong. Flesh is weak.” He touched his forehead with two fingers. “The lotus must bloom.”
ENOUGH NOISE. STAND ASIDE. I WILL GUT HIM.
Buruu stepped forward, a low growl building in the back of his throat. Yukiko glared at him over her shoulder, refusing to move.
We can’t kill him like this.
AH. YOU WISH TO LET HIM STARVE, THEN. SLOW DEATH. FITTING.
No, I think we should bring him with us.
Buruu blinked, cocked his head to one side.
TO EAT?
What? No! I mean we should help him.
. . . NO.
Why not?
DESPOILER. PARASITE. HIS KIND HAVE TORTURED THE SKIES. COUNTLESS BEASTS. COUNTLESS LIVES. ALL FOR GREED.
If you kill him, you’re no better than them. You’re just another murderer. And if we leave him out here, he’s as good as dead.
Kin looked back and forth between them, a frown on his face.
Please, Buruu. Just for a while at least?
Buruu’s frustration bubbled over in a snarl, but he backed away, finally turning and bounding up a nearby cedar. He nestled among the shadows and glowered down at the Guildsman, claws twitching on the branches. Waiting. Patient as a cat.
“It’s magnificent.” Kin shook his head, staring at the arashitora.
“I don’t think he likes you.” Yukiko smiled, apologetic.
“We didn’t believe they existed. We thought that Yoritomo had finally gone mad, that this quest would end in dismal failure and his public humiliation.” He shook his head. “Imagine his joy when you bring him such a prize.” He looked at her, eyes sparkling. “You will be a goddess. You could ask for anything you wanted, and the Shōgun would grant it.”
She stood, arms folded, uncomfortable beneath his stare.
“Can you climb a tree in that suit? It’s probably not safe to sleep on the ground.”
“I can get into the trees, hai.”
“We’ll set out at dawn. We’re heading south, toward Yama.”
“As you wish.”
“Well . . . goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Yukiko-chan.”
She turned and flitted across the undergrowth, climbed up Buruu’s tree and nestled beside him. He closed a protective wing around her. They watched as Kin placed his insectoid helmet back on, twisting buttons and levers at his wrist. The coiled pipes at his back roared to life, spitting bright blue lotus flame, propelling him upward into the branches of an ancient maple. He lay down among the boughs, securing himself with steel cable from a capsule on his thigh. Roses smoldered in his wake, blackened by lotus exhaust.
Buruu growled, staring at the ring of wilted, ruined blossoms.
DESPOILER. EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH, THEY DESTROY.
Yukiko stared at the clockwork silhouette. Intermittent blue sparks spat from ruptured metal. The blood-red rectangle glowed, the eye of some hungry ghost, a winter wolf come down starving from the mountain. She shook her head at the fancy, banishing it from her mind.
Still, it was a long while before she slept.

Yukiko only managed a few hours of fitful half- sleep before the groggy morning light pawed its way through the canopy, pushing the sleep from her eyes. She had dreamed again of the green-eyed samurai, adrift on a crimson sea of lotus blossom. He had reached out to touch her lips, sending delighted shivers down her spine. She scowled now at the memory, cursing the stupidity of it all. Stranded in the deep wilderness with an impossible beast and a godsdamned Guildsman, and she was wasting sleep dreaming about boys.

As she peeled her eyes open, Buruu’s gut was growling, and her own stomach murmured in sympathy. Kin was already awake, standing beneath the sprawling boughs of his maple tree, keeping a safe distance from the thunder tiger. He was trying to bend the torn plates of his skin closed with a handwrench, pounding the ruptured pipes with the hilt, sealing them as best he could. The dull clank of metal hitting metal drowned out the sound of the rain. Yukiko foraged around the damp roots below her tree, finding a few small mushrooms. She scoffed down half before wandering over and offering the rest to Kin.

“No need,” he buzzed, gesturing to the cluster of pipes and compartments on his back. “It will be several weeks before I run low on nutrients.”
Yukiko blinked.
“The suit feeds me intravenously. A complex string of protein and mineral supplements. It is forbidden for us to eat the food of the hadanashi.”
Yukiko narrowed her eyes at the word.
“What do you mean ‘hadanashi?’ ”
“People without skins.” He shrugged. “People like you.”
“What’s wrong with people like me?” Yukiko put her hands on her hips.
“You’re polluted by the lotus. The food you eat, the water you drink. We’re forbidden to come into direct contact with the bloom or anything touched by it.”
“Look around you,” Yukiko laughed. “There’s no lotus for miles. You can’t even smell it up here. Go on, try some mushrooms.”
Kin shook his head.
“It is forbidden.”
“Well, it’s forbidden to take off your suit and let your face be seen by a hadanashi girl too.” She covered her mouth, feigning shock at the scandal. “But that didn’t stop you on the Thunder Child.”
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?
Shhh.
YOU ARE TALKING TOO MUCH TO HIM. TALK TO ME.
Buruu nudged her with his beak, almost knocking her over.
In a minute!
Yukiko held out the mushrooms to Kin, nodding encouragement. His sigh was soft and distorted. Peering around out of a ridiculous notion that someone might be watching, he worked the clasps on his helmet. The throat unfolded again, interlocking plates unfurling, a pretty, metallic ballet. The metal made a crisp, grinding sound, as if two blades were rubbing against each other. She heard a dry sucking noise as Kin pulled the helmet off and stowed it under his arm, the lengths of segmented cable spilling from its mouth rasping against each other. He took a mushroom from her outstretched palm and popped it between his teeth, chewing tentatively. He made a face, uncertain, but ate another nonetheless.
“They taste . . . odd.” He shook his head.
“The Iishi’s own recipe,” Yukiko smiled. “Pure as can be.”
“That’s something at least.”
“Why is the Guild so afraid of coming into contact with lotus anyway?”
“It clouds thought. Pollutes consciousness. We must remain untainted. Impartial. So we can govern its use correctly.” He touched his brow again and shrugged. “Skin is strong, flesh is weak.”
“But you’re fine with the rest of us sucking it down? Becoming tainted by it?”
“Me?” He blinked at her. “This isn’t me we’re talking about. I don’t make these rules.”
“But you follow them.”
“When I have to. We all bow to somebody, Yukiko-chan. Or did you travel up here hunting thunder tigers of your own volition?”
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING TO HIM ABOUT?
Shhh. I’ll tell you soon.
“So you’ve never smoked it? Never touched it?”
He was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was hesitant, soft.
“. . . Only once.”
He placed the helmet back on, scanning the swaying green, the curtain of rain. His eye was aglow, her reflection crawling on the lens, a distorted scarlet portrait.
“We’d best be off. Your friend looks hungry.”
He started clomping through the brush. Yukiko and Buruu followed.
I DO NOT LIKE HIM.
Yukiko smiled to herself.
Are you jealous?
HE TALKS TOO MUCH. SCREECHING HURTS MY EARS. HIS VOICE SOUNDS LIKE RUTTING MONKEYS. AND HE IS THIN. PASTY.
You are jealous!
FOOLISHNESS. I AM ARASHITORA. HE IS HUMAN. WEAK. PUNY.
Well, good, there’s nothing to be jealous of. He’s just a strange boy. He’s harmless.
TELL THAT TO THE SPARROWS WHO FALL CHOKING FROM THE SKIES. THE FISH DROWNING IN BLACK RIVERS. TELL IT TO THE BONES OF MY FOREFATHERS.
Buruu growled, so low and deep that she could feel the vibration in her chest.
HE AND ALL HIS KIND ARE POISON.
Yukiko said nothing, and Buruu fell into a sullen and uneasy silence. The trio stumbled on through the downpour, each lost in their own thoughts. Lightning arced overhead, turning the world to brilliant white for split seconds at a time, clear and pure. But the gloom in its wake seemed all the more black for that moment’s clarity, darker than if the light had never been.
The thunder sounded like laughter.

Even glazed in red behind the glass of his visor, her flesh illuminated by the occasional sparks bursting from his ruptured skin, she was beautiful. He slowed his pace and fell into step behind her, watched the way she moved through the trees. She was almost soundless, fluid, as if she danced to a tune only she could hear. Untouched by the snags and clawing undergrowth, dodging around the falling leaves; he fancied even the storm was afraid to touch her as she walked between the rain. Just the gentle kiss of the wind on her skin, running its fingers through her hair.

To be the wind . . .
He thought of her beside him on the prow of the Thunder Child, her face alight with joy and wonder. The way she had taken his hand, her flesh on his, the first time he could really remember touching another human being. The way she had spoken to him without fear, even after she knew what he was; the way he imagined regular people spoke to each other every day.
He found it hard to watch the girl and his footing at the same time, and so he stumbled, clumsy, crashing through the greenery like a drunken shredderman. His boot finally twisted among some roots and he fell, crunching face- first onto the ground. The dead leaves beneath him smoked and smoldered in the shower of sparks from his skin. He looked up and she was standing over him, one hand extended, a small smile on her face. He wrapped his fingers in hers, feeling nothing but the press of his gauntlets against his flesh. His hands were shaking. As she struggled to pull him to his feet, she spoke, and her voice sounded like it came from underwater.
He didn’t hear a word she said.
The beast would glare at him occasionally over its shoulder, radiating disdain. When they stopped to rest he would catch it watching him, tail extended and curling upward, and he would feel like something small and furry, making a desperate dash across a wide empty field, the shadow of wings blotting out the sun above.
So he kept his distance, ten or so feet behind them, and simply watched her move.
And so he began to notice it.
Small things at first. The way they changed direction simultaneously, the way the rhythms of their pace were mirrored, one step for another. Around noon, they both came to an abrupt halt for no apparent reason and stood, still as statues for two full minutes. Not a sound passed between them. Not a glance. He hovered, uncertain, as heavy seconds ticked by to the beat of the pouring rain, almost ready to open his mouth and speak when the spell was shattered and they began to walk again as if nothing had happened.
Once, she looked at the beast and laughed as if it had said something amusing. But it hadn’t breathed a whisper. Not a growl or a purr, let alone something approaching words. Yet she smiled and touched it briefly on the shoulder, and beneath a vague sense of jealousy, an impossible thought took seed in his brain.
Could it be?
By late afternoon, Kin’s ruptured breastplate was spitting out fingers of blue current with alarming regularity. Yukiko noticed he was having trouble keeping pace, shuffling and stumbling in the undergrowth. Even the eye in his mantis mask seemed to be dimming.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He started, as if she’d woken him from a daydream.
“The rain is getting into my skin.” The voice of an angry wasp. “Your friend ruptured the internal seals. The moisture is frying my relays.”
“Can you fix it?”
Gears sang as he shook his head.
“My acetylene tank is ruptured. My cutter and welder won’t work.” A metallic sigh. “An Artificer who can’t even fix his own skin. Although I suppose I should be thankful. He would have killed me if I were naked.” He touched his brow, a now familiar gesture. “Skin is strong, flesh is weak.”
An arc of raw current spilled from the rend above his heart, cascading in a waterfall down his breastplate. It skirted the pipes across his ribs in fingers of bright blue-white.
WHAT IS HE SAYING?
His suit is damaged. I think you broke it.
Buruu flexed his wings, fingers of stuttering voltage spilling off the mutilated feathers.
HE SHOULD LOOK ELSEWHERE FOR SYMPATHY.
The mountain stream was a constant babble on their eastward flank, growing gradually wider, white breaks flowing over submerged teeth of smooth river rock. Though drinking did little to ease their gnawing hunger, the water was wonderfully cool compared to the forest’s cloying humidity.
The plateau began sloping downward, and as they trekked lower, the air grew thicker, the heat more pronounced despite the constant rain. The stream spilled over a short waterfall, forming a large pool in a natural depression of rock. Yukiko waded out up to her waist, sinking below the surface and washing the sweat and grime from her body. Her skin prickled in the delightful chill, and she ran her fingers along her scalp, hair flowing in the water behind her; black silk on sparkling glass.
Buruu took up watch on an outcropping of rock over the water, tail swishing, muscles coiled tight. Kin wandered the banks, chest occasionally spitting out a plume of bright sparks like a broken strobe light.
Yukiko sank below the water, felt the current wash over her. Beneath the rippling crystal, she thought of her father, of Akihito and Kasumi, hoping they might have reached safety by now. Resurfacing, she blinked up into the rain, the roiling wall of clouds overhead, clashing like great warships on a black sea. Monsoon thunder rolled down the mountain, echoed across ragged cliff faces, small stones tumbling into the depths.
She looked at Buruu, watching from the spur of black granite. Kin had wandered off somewhere into the woods.
The water is good. Come in. Wash off what’s left of that oni blood.
She saw him tense, a subtle shift of involuntary muscle, tail stretched like a whip.
DO NOT MOVE.
What’s wrong?
BE STILL. STILL AS STONE.
His tension became hers. She licked her lips, eyes roaming the water, bright with new fear. Without a sound, Buruu spread his wings and plunged into the pool beside her, talons outstretched. There was a tremendous splash, a wave that lifted her up and dunked her as she shrieked. She surfaced, spluttering, wiping the blanket of sodden hair from her face. Buruu lunged in the water, pupils dilated, gray silt seething in his wake. She scrambled for the bank, hauling herself out and drawing her tantō.
What is it?
Buruu pranced out of the pool, head high, gallons of chill water spilling off his fur. He shook himself, spreading out the impossible breadth of his wings to keep balance.
PREY.
Yukiko saw two fat trout in his claws, one still struggling feebly, mouth agape as it suffocated in the damp mountain air. The fear melted into relief and she sighed, trying to hold back her smile.
You scared me!
I AM NEAR. NOTHING TO FEAR.
He blinked at her, head cocked to one side, then tossed one of the trout into the air and caught it in his beak, swallowing it whole.
COME. EAT.
He bit the second fish in half, laid out the twitching remainder on the bank’s smooth stones. Yukiko crouched beside it, started filleting it with her knife. She heard a faint cry off in the distance, the sound of breaking branches, a metallic bang. Twisting to her feet, she peered into the forest.
“Kin-san?”
A long pause, filled with drumming rain upon broad leaves.
“Help!” A faint reply, drifting from the depths.
She darted into the undergrowth, clutching her knife, Buruu bounding along beside her. Lighting flashed above, gloom deepening as they struggled deeper into the green. Kin called her name and she followed his voice. The wind shrieked through the trees, singing the song of the storm.
“Where are you?”
A faint cry in response, somewhere to the west.
“Keep talking!” she called, desperate.
They crashed on through the scrub, into the tropical heat and spitting rain. It was Buruu who finally found him, coming to a halt at the edge of a deep hole and peering at the boy trapped below. A woven layer of scrub and leaves had been draped over the pit. The Guildsman had blundered right into it, plummeting through the cover and down into darkness.
CLUMSY FOOL.
Kin had fallen among a series of long bamboo spikes, aimed upward like a fistful of knives. His atmos- suit had deflected the worst, but one shoulder plate had been wrenched away, and a shaft had impaled the instruments on his back. His hydraulic crane twitched about as if in a fit. Thick streams of chi flowed from ruptured fuel tanks, down the backs of his legs, pooling bloody in the mud at his feet. Blossoms of blue-white popped and spat from the torn spaulder, and the lens over his eyes was cracked and dark.
“Are you all right?” Yukiko called.
“Fuel line severed, main control down.” He shook his head. “Can’t fly out. Can’t see.”
“But are you hurt?”
He was struggling with his helmet, cursing under his breath. It finally folded away from his head like brass origami and he pulled it off, blinking up into the rain. He stabbed at a small button among the rends in his chest, twisting and pawing with thick metal gloves, hissing in frustration.
“Emergency skin release isn’t working. These sparks might ignite the chi . . .”
He looked around in desperation, clawing the spike of bamboo that held him transfixed. The circular saw on his wrist was spinning intermittently, spitting sparks. He tried cutting the bamboo, but wasn’t flexible enough in the suit to reach it.
“The cable,” Yukiko called. “The one in your thigh. Throw it up to us.”
Kin fumbled at the compartment on his leg, flipping it open and spooling out lengths of fine metal wire. There was a hook at one end, and Kin swung it in a circular motion at his side before flinging it up toward them. Yukiko lunged but the wire fell short, tumbling back down into the pit. There was another burst of blue sparks from Kin’s shoulder, reflections dancing across grubby, bloodstained bronze.
“Try again,” she cried over the thunder.
The wire sailed from his hand and plunked into the earthen wall two feet below Yukiko’s outstretched fingers. Another arc of orphaned current tumbled down the armored shell, and with a dull whumph, the leaking chi ignited in a burst of blue heat. The boy screamed in terror.
“Throw it,” Yukiko yelled. “Throw it!”
Sailing skyward, the length of cable fell short of Yukiko’s grasp again. She wailed in frustration. Gray, scaled talons stretched out and seized hold of the hook; a clumsy fist, still smeared with trout blood. Buruu growled and snapped the wire up into his beak, heaving with all his strength. Kin was screaming and slapping the flames spreading across his body as two tons of muscle hauled him out of the trap. The thunder roared disapproval. Buruu spread his wings for balance and backed away, cable and claws cutting into moist earth as the boy emerged flaming at the lip of the pit. Yukiko beat the fire with soaking branches, and between the rain and bursts of strange white foam from valves at the suit’s collar, the flames soon died.
Kin gasped, his throat and face charred. Yukiko clubbed at the jammed emergency release with the hilt of her tantō until she heard a dull, metallic snap. Clockwork seals grudgingly unwound, the atmos- suit peeled open, heated metal steaming in the rain. Beneath the shell, Kin’s body was clad in pale skin- tight webbing from feet to throat. The strange covering was melted around his shoulder and chest, the skin beneath red and blistered. To Yukiko’s horror, she saw black lengths of rubber piping inside the suit, plugged directly into Kin’s flesh. Bayonet fixtures made of dark metal were studded along his ribs, the inside of his arms, one embedded just below his collarbone.
“Lord Izanagi save us,” she breathed.
Buruu snorted, shook his head.
THEY DESPOIL EVERYTHING. EVEN THEIR OWN BODIES. MADNESS.
Kin blinked up at her, wincing with pain, licking blistered lips.
“It is bad?”
“You’re burned.” She swallowed. “It’s not good. You need medicine.”
“Aid kit,” he rasped. “Left thigh. Opiates. Antibiotics.”
“I have to get you out of this suit. These pipes in you . . . how do I release them?”
“Push in . . . counter-clockwise turn.” His face twisted, teeth stark white against charred lips. “Gods, it hurts.”
Yukiko fumbled with the compartment on Kin’s left thigh, wrenching it open and spilling the contents onto the leaves. The boy began muttering, a repeated mantra, over and over, whispered under his breath: “Skin is strong, flesh is weak. Skin is strong, flesh is weak.” Sorting through the jumble of instruments, Yukiko found several hypodermics marked with the kanji for “painless.” She stabbed one into Kin’s neck, auto-plunger depressing with a faint hiss. The boy sighed and swallowed, closing his eyes, head drifting back into her lap.
LEAVE HIM. HE IS DOOMED.
We can’t just abandon him, Buruu.
Yukiko took hold of the cable above Kin’s heart, felt it squirm under his skin. The rubber was warm beneath her fingertips, corrugated and vaguely oily. She grimaced, fighting back a wave of sudden nausea. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and pushed, twisting the fixture in until she felt a faint click. With a small popping sound, the cable came loose from the metal stud in Kin’s flesh. Broken motors whirred, the cable retracting partway back into the suit’s lining. Gulping down great lungfuls of air, she repeated the pro cess until Kin was unplugged, flesh pocked with a dozen of the round bayonet collars, sealed tight against the rain.
She drew her tantō, started to cut away Kin’s undersuit. The flames had fused the pale webbing onto his flesh, and she was forced to tear it away, peeling off layers of skin with it. Her lips felt dry despite the rain, her mouth tasting of bile.
Emptying a hypo of antibiotics into his arm, she wrapped his burns in pressure bandages from the aid kit, tiny rolls unwinding into improbably long strips. She poked around the suit’s compartments, salvaging medicine and a tube of gray slush that stank like boiled cabbage. Hoping the muck was Kin’s “nutrients,” she stuffed the items into a netting bag spooled in his belt. An impatient growl rumbled in Buruu’s throat.
POINTLESS. BLOOD SICKNESS WILL KILL HIM. LET US GO.
I told you, I’m not leaving him.
THEN WHAT DO YOU PROPOSE? YOU CANNOT CARRY HIM.
We could put him on your back?
NO MAN RIDES ME. NO SHŌGUN. CERTAINLY NO DESPOILER.
Yukiko felt tears of frustration welling in her eyes but refused to let them flow. Blinking hard, she scanned the forest around them, gaze finally coming to rest on the pit trap beside her. It was the work of many men, cut deep into the earth and cleverly concealed. From the look of the walls, the age of the bamboo spikes and bloodstains, she’d guess it had been here for a long time, reset with regularity.
This is the second trap we’ve found in as many days. There are people living up here.
SO?
So, people who set snares have to come back and check them. And we need people to help us with Kin. I can’t take care of him by myself.
Buruu paused, and she felt faint admiration swell inside him. He shook himself, rain spraying from his flanks, anticipation coursing through his veins.
HUNT THE HUNTERS.
Yukiko smiled, lightning reflected in her eyes.
Exactly.