Stormdancer (19 page)

Their nook was on a branch behind the bathhouse, obscured by thick tangles of wisteria blanketing the walls and the deepening light of dusk. Isao crouched low, eye to the peephole. His friend Atsushi, a wiry, quick-fingered lad one year his junior, sat beside him. The younger boy had drilled the hole several months ago, and the experiment had proved so successful that he’d since expanded the venture across the bedrooms of at least half a dozen girls in the village. His name meant “industrious,” after all.

“Is she in there yet?” Atsushi whispered.
“Hai, shhhh,” Isao hissed.
“Let me see.”
“You go to the Nine Hells. I found her in the forest. Besides you hogged it

yesterday.”
“Well, Hachiro’s wife was in there.”
“Gods above.” Isao pulled away from the peephole and scowled at his friend.

“She’s old enough to be your mother.”
“What can I say? I fancy older women.”
“Well, if you fancy being torn to shreds by the arashitora, keep talking.” “Aiya, it’s days like this I wish we had a picture box.”
“Shhhh!”
Isao pressed his eye to the hole again. He could see Yukiko sitting to one

side, running Eiko’s brush through her long, black hair. Steam uncoiled in a pale haze from the water’s surface, several sputtering candles the only illumination. As Isao watched, the girl stood and untied her hakama, letting it slip to the floor in a dirty heap. He could see the long, smooth line of her legs, leading up to the delightful curve of her buttocks just peeking out from the edge of her uwagi. His eyes widened and he broke into an idiot grin. Atsushi tried pushing him aside and he hissed, punching his friend in the arm. The boys struggled briefly, slapping one another and pressing fingers to their lips, each urging the other to shut it. Emerging the victor, Isao put his eye back to the hole.

Another brief flurry of slaps and hisses for silence. Yukiko untied her uwagi and slipped it off her shoulders. Isao caught his breath, drinking in the sight of the naked girl. Pale skin, bruised and gashed, the elaborate fox running down her right arm, one of its nine tails curled under the swell of her small, high breasts. Her skin was the color of honey in the candlelight. She turned toward him and stretched her arms above her head, sighing, slender, hourglass- shaped.

The girl padded toward the bath, a silhouette now against the flames. She dipped her toe into the water, hands of steam caressing her body. Sinking up to the waist, she turned her back toward him. Candlelight flowed over her skin, falling into shadows along the valley of her spine. She turned and Isao saw a small mole on her collarbone, hair flowing down over her left shoulder, a black curtain parting to reveal the tattoo underneath.
“Oh, shit,” Isao whispered.
“What? What?” Atsushi pushed his friend aside, pressing his eye to the hole,

The tattoo was stark red against creamy flesh, spilling across her shoulder and bicep, striated rays reaching out toward her elbow. It was the hated symbol of a corrupt regime, an engine of greed bleeding the land and its people dry. The flag of the enemy.

Imperial suns drifted in a choking breeze, embroidered on long shreds of golden cloth, deep scarlet against a rippling, sunset sky. Despite the dying light of the day, the heat was a blanket; a living, breathing thing, smothering the stunted palace gardens with a leaden, sticky weight and soaking the flesh beneath in glistening perspiration. Servants stood poised beside spring-driven fans, waiting to turn crank-handles at the slowing of the blades, broad-brimmed hats and brass-trimmed goggles shielding them from the sulfur glare on the western horizon. A chosen few of the Tora court stood in the long shade of the broad palace eaves, cups of water growing milk-warm in their palms, doing their best to appear fascinated as Yoritomo-no-miya, Ninth Shōgun of the Kazumitsu Dynasty, hefted his iron-thrower and slaughtered another defenseless cantaloupe.

The melons sat in a neat row, impaled on the tips of nagamaki spears, juice trickling down the wooden hafts buried in the ground. As the shot from the iron-thrower rang out across the garden, the centremost melon exploded into a haze of pulp and shattered rind. The wilted sugi trees behind were painted in its innards, orange, slick.

Polite applause rippled among the spectators, compliments murmured behind the brass and rubber of their breathers, silken armpits stained with sweat. Why the Shōgun insisted on taking target practice in this awful heat seemed beyond them, but if any harbored resentment at being dragged outside to slap their hands together like trained monkeys, they swallowed it without a word.

The Shōgun raised his iron-thrower and drew a bead on the melon at the far left of the row, elbow slightly bent, chin lowered, feet spread. He struck a formidable pose; the ugly lump of pipes and barrels and nozzles in his hand was the only thing about him that lacked symmetry. His robe was woven of deep scarlet and pale cream, embroidered in golden thread with tall grass and prowling tigers. Long black hair fixed in a topknot, pierced with gleaming pins, his face and eyes obscured by his elaborate tiger-maw breather and its golden jagged smile. Fading sunlight glittered on the glass over his eyes. A thin patina of lotus ash dulled the bronze of his skin to cloudy amber. The servant beside him adjusted his grip on the broad rice-paper umbrella, doing his utmost to keep his Lord in the shade.

The Lady Aisha watched her brother from beneath the swaying arms of a maple tree, surrounded by a dozen serving girls, wilting like flowers in the heat. Pale, porcelain skin, motionless as stone until the moment Yoritomo pulled the trigger. She flinched then, despite herself, jaw clenched, hand at her throat. The hollow boom of the iron-thrower was frighteningly loud, as if someone had chained Raijin inside the hollow tubes in Yoritomo’s hand, leaving the Thunder God only a tiny, black opening through which to bellow his rage.

Another cantaloupe shattered, a spray of bright orange against bloody sky. Another round of feather-light applause floated among the gray leaves.
The hiss and clank of ō-yoroi armor broke the stillness in the shot’s wake, the hollow report still echoing across high, glass-topped walls. The heavy tread of metal boots thudded against the veranda. Yoritomo was bringing the iron- thrower to bear on another melon when a thin, hoarse voice rang out across the garden.
“Great Lord, your humble servant begs forgiveness for this intrusion.”
Yoritomo did not bother to look over his shoulder, instead glaring down the barrel at the mottled rind of his next victim.
“What is it, Hideo-san?”
The old man paused, drew a crackling breath on his pipe.
“News from the Iishi, great Lord.”
Yoritomo’s arm dropped to his side and he turned toward his minister, hidden in the shade of the palace’s eaves. He squinted into the shadows, making out the looming forms of several Iron Samurai surrounding the major-domo, wreathed in chi exhaust, two more figures lurking in the gloom behind. The Shōgun beckoned. The samurai trod down the stairs onto the river-smooth stones of the garden path, pushing the figures before them. As the pair stepped out into the fading light, a hiss of surprise escaped from between Yoritomo’s teeth.
“Masaru- san.” Confusion in the Shōgun’s voice, tinged by faint suspicion. “And Captain Yamagata.”
“Your humble servant, Seii Taishōgun.”
Yamagata’s clothing was worn and travel- stained, his skin filthy, his hair a bedraggled mess shoved back into a rough tail. He still wore his custom Shigisen goggles, but appeared to have lost his breather, mouth covered instead with a torn strip of gray rag. Masaru was in a similar state, hair and clothing disheveled, his skin smeared with chi smoke and grime. The right lens of his goggles was smashed, cracks spreading out across the glass like a spider web, the kerchief around his mouth drenched in sweat. Both men knelt on the ground, pressed their foreheads into the dying grass at the edge of the path.
Yoritomo pulled off his breather with a wet, sucking sound.
“I was not informed that you had set sail back to Kigen.”
The statement was aimed at the huntsman and cloudwalker, but the Shōgun’s glare was fixed firmly on his chief minister.
“They informed no one, great Lord.” Hideo’s long, narrowed eyes roamed the backs of the two kneeling men, blue-black smoke drifting from his lips. “They arrived late this afternoon by heavy rail direct from Yama, presented themselves at the palace gates and begged for audience. I brought them here immediately.”
“By rail?” Yoritomo glanced down at Yamagata, cold and iron-hard. “Where is your ship, Captain-san?”
“Destroyed, great Lord.” Yamagata’s voice was muffled against the ground. “Lightning struck us in the Iishi. Our inflatable was set ablaze. The Thunder Child fell to her death in the accursed mountains.”
Yoritomo’s face darkened, muscles at his jaw clenched. He licked once at his lips. A servant materialized at his side as if conjured from the spirit realms, offering a mug of tepid water on cupped palms. The man faded into the background just as quickly when he caught the gleam in his Lord’s eye.
“You failed to find the beast.” A statement, not a question. “Undone by misadventure before the hunt even began. And now you wish to beg for mercy.”
“All respect, great Lord,” Masaru kept his tone steady, his fingers pressed into fists. “We did not fail. The beast was found, exactly as you commanded.”
“You saw it?” Yoritomo’s eyes widened. “It exists?”
“Hai, great Lord.” Masaru dared a glance up from the ground, pulled the grubby kerchief down around his throat. “I swear it on the souls of my ancestors. The beast exists. And moreover, great Lord, we captured it.”
A strangled snatch of laughter spilled from the Shōgun’s mouth, spittle flecked on his lips. He stared at Hideo, a bright, brittle joy shining in his eyes, the corners of his mouth drawing upward as if pulled by hooks in his cheeks. He took a step forward, cast his gaze among the courtiers, to his sister, dragging shaking fingers across his lips.
“It exists.” Another gasp of strangled laughter, longer than before. “Hachiman be praised, it exists!”
Yoritomo roared, veins standing taut on the flesh of his throat, a triumphant, wordless challenge to the sun sinking toward the horizon. He stomped about in a small circle, grabbed a nearby servant by the cloth at his throat, shaking the little man back and forth until the umbrella dropped from his hands.
“It exists, you beautiful little whoreson!”
The Shōgun shoved the servant away, the man tumbling across dead grass and smooth stones, one sandal flying from his foot. Yoritomo seized hold of Masaru’s uwagi, dragged him to his feet, pulling his face close enough that the Hunt Master could see the veins scrawled across his Lord’s eyes. The Shōgun tore the broken goggles from Masaru’s face, chest heaving, laughter caught in his teeth.
“Where?” Yoritomo’s grin stretched his lips to splitting. “Where is my arashitora, Masaru-san?”
Masaru took a deep breath, swallowed hard. A bead of perspiration trickled down pale skin. There was pain in his eyes, distant and clouded by lotus smoke.
“It is dead, great Lord.” His voice was tiny, choked. “The beast is dead. And my daughter with it.”
The garden was as still as the portraits hanging in the palace halls, as the ancient statues standing among the trees, gray leaves frozen, not a breath of wind. Only Lady Aisha moved, rising up from her seat into a half-crouch, one hand stretching ever so slowly in the direction of her brother. The fire in Yoritomo’s eyes flared and died, breath dragged over a fading smile into strangled lungs. The grip on Masaru’s collar slackened as the Shōgun exhaled, long and ragged, moving his lips at the terminus of breath to frame one trembling word.
“Dead?”
A blink, wiping the confusion from his eyes, rage in its wake. Yoritomo hissed through clenched teeth, “How?”
“The crash, great Lord.” Masaru hung his head, lotus ash caked on dry cheeks, tears swimming in his voice. “They both died in the crash.”
“We were laid low by the might of the heavens themselves, great Lord.” Yamagata rose to stand beside Masaru, keeping his gaze on the floor, hands clasped behind his back. “The Black Fox brought the arashitora to its knees, chained in a cage of iron on the deck. But Raijin . . .” The captain shook his head. “The Thunder God grew angry at the conquest of his offspring. Hurled lightning from the clouds to strike the Child’s inflatable. It was an inferno, spreading like we were made of tinder. I ordered the crew to abandon ship. There was no time to save the arashitora.”
Yoritomo’s glare slipped sideways, over Masaru’s downturned face, coming to rest on the captain. His voice was a whisper.
“Say that again.”
A tiny frown creased Yamagata’s brow. “Great Lord?”
“Say it again.” Yoritomo took one step closer to the cloudwalker. “You ordered the crew . . .”
“I ordered the crew to abandon ship.” Yamagata swallowed, pawed beneath his goggles at the sweat burning his eyes. “There was no time to—”
A hollow boom, thunderous, too close. A rush of air, the brittle crackling of tiny sparks. A sound Masaru would never forget. Yamagata’s head rocked back on his shoulders, the back of his skull popping like an overfull balloon, full of bright red sweets. Masaru flinched away, spattered in something warm and wet. The captain’s body seized tight, rose up on the balls of his feet and tumbled backward like a marionette as the music died. Somewhere in the distance there was a shriek, painted lips muffled by pale, grasping hands. The cloudwalker’s body hit the path, stones washed smooth by the hands of ancient rivers, now washed again in a flood of sticky gray and scarlet. Heels beat a staccato rhythm against the rock, a thin, broken-finger wisp of smoke rising from the shattered lens and bloody mess where Yamagata’s right eye used to be, another drifting from the barrel of the iron-thrower in Yoritomo’s outstretched hand.
Soft sobbing from the direction of the maple trees. Aisha’s hissed command for silence.
Masaru swallowed thickly, eyes still downturned, refusing to look at the shattered lump of carrion bleeding on the stones beside him. In the distance, he could hear the sounds of the bay, the Market Square. The churn and growl of sky-ship motors, the reverb of a thousand voices, the song of life swelling beyond these walls. He looked up at the sky, eyes narrowed against Lady Amaterasu’s light burning on the horizon. He thought of his wife.
His son.
His daughter.
The years that had flown by so quickly, the span of days and nights that now seemed only a heartbeat long, just one more heartbeat remaining until it was all over.
He almost welcomed the thought.
Yoritomo raised the iron-thrower, levelled it at Masaru’s head. “Failure,” he hissed.
And Masaru closed his eyes.