Stormdancer (20 page)

Yukiko sat upright, blinked in the steam. The candles had burned low, dim shadows playing on the bathhouse walls, pale wax pooled at their feet. The shout had come from outside, Kaori’s voice, shattering the eve ning hush. Had it been aimed at her?

Buruu?
MONKEYS ANGRY. CARRYING STEEL.
She closed her eyes and looked through Buruu’s, feeling their muscles tense,

their claws digging into the branch below, aggression flaring out along their veins. Kaori stood before them, a cadre of twenty men behind, Isao holding a struggling Kin. The boy looked sickly pale and terrified: eyes bruised, flesh blistered, unsure of where he was, or who these people were. Only certain of the blade at his throat.

Yukiko leaped from the bath and threw on her clothes, hair clinging to her skin like seaweed. She drew her tantō and dashed barefoot into the muted evening light. Buruu was on his feet, wings spread in a show of threat, broken sparks of electricity skirting his feathers and making the shadows dance. Yukiko took position beside him, his wings at her back. Arms spread, knife in hand, wisteria perfume strung across the twilight. She could feel the anger in him, the rumbling deep inside his chest. When she spoke, the word almost emerged as a growl.

“You must think us idiots, eh? Troublesome little firebugs without a brain between us?”
“Kaori, what are you talking about?”
“Just deckhands on a sky-ship, hai?” Kaori’s lips were peeled back from her teeth. “You and your little friend here?”
“I never said he was a deckhand.” Yukiko frowned, narrowed her eyes.
“You never said you served the Shōgun, either,” Kaori hissed, spittle on her lips. “And yet you wear the imperial sun on your shoulder. Is Yoritomo so arrogant that he brands his infiltrators before sending them up here to spin their little webs?”
Yukiko swallowed, instinct bringing her hand up to her tattoo.
Oh, no.
WE SHOULD KILL THEM.
They’d cut Kin’s throat.
ACCEPTABLE.
“Yukiko, who are these people?” Kin asked, voice feeble, face twisted in pain.
“Let him go, Kaori.” Yukiko took a step forward, white knuckles around the grip of her tantō, bloodless cheeks and flashing eyes.
“You really think me an idiot, don’t you?” Kaori laughed. “I let this boy go, your beast tears us to pieces. How did you pressgang it into Yoritomo’s service? Its kind is almost extinct because of your Shōgun. Is it blind, or merely stupid?”
“He doesn’t serve the Shōgun.”
“It serves you,” spat Isao. “And you serve Yoritomo.”
“I’ve had this tattoo since I was nine years old. That doesn’t make me a spy.” She raised the knife, Buruu’s growl filling the air. “Now, let my friend go.”
“Your friend, eh? Then perhaps you can explain this?”
Kaori tore away the fluid-soaked bandages around Kin’s chest and throat, exposing the black bayonet fixtures studding his skin. The boy moaned in agony, his face pale as death.
“What the hells are these? They reek of the Guild’s hand.”
Yukiko sighed inwardly, licking her lips.
Be ready for anything, Buruu.
“He’s an Artificer.”
There was a murmur of outrage among the assembled men. Kaori drew her wakizashi, the sharp sound of polished steel ringing out across the treetops. Isao grabbed Kin by the neck and delivered a savage kick to the back of his legs, forcing him to his knees. The long, razored knife sat poised above the boy’s throat.
“Say the word, Kaori. I’ll gut this pig right here.”
“No, don’t!”
Yukiko took another step forward, and several of the men turned on her, weapons ready. The arashitora stood up on his hind legs and bellowed, wings cracking at the air. The atmosphere became tinged with a faint static electricity, the hairs on everyone’s flesh standing rigid. A flock of groggy sparrows spilled from the leaves and tumbled off into the night, squawking an angry protest. The men backed off a few steps, palms sweating on the hafts of their weapons. Nestled inside Buruu’s mind, Yukiko could feel the power radiating across their shoulders, the electricity crackling down their spine and reaching out along their feathers.
They growled with her voice.
“Hurt him and we will kill you all.”
“What goes on here?”
The question rang out high and clear across the throng, snow-white wisteria petals falling loose and tumbling into the empty spaces between the cedars. Daichi walked slowly across the footbridge, hands clasped behind his back, Eiko several paces behind. His katana was tucked into his obi, still sheathed, gilt cranes taking wing across gleaming black lacquer. The crowd parted before him, respectful, heads bowed. He drifted between the men and placed a restraining hand on Isao’s shoulder. The boy loosened his grip, but still pressed his blade to Kin’s throat.
“Daughter, why are there blades drawn among our guests?”
“Father, this girl is a spy.” Kaori never took her eyes off Yukiko, sword still clutched in her hand. “She wears the Shōgun’s irezumi on her shoulder.”
Daichi raised his eyebrow and looked at Yukiko, stroking his mustache.
“A deceiver . . .”
Buruu growled again, the report rolling down their spines and landing in each man’s gut.
“Daichi-sama, Kaori is mistaken.” Yukiko’s words tumbled over each other in their haste to escape. “My father serves the Shōgun, and I wear the imperial mark. But I’m not here to spy on any of you. We crashed in a sky-ship, just like I said. This boy was the Guildsman on board. We had no idea anyone lived up here. Please believe me.”
“A Guildsman?” Daichi looked down at the boy with hatred. Ice cold. Crystalline.
“We are not spies!” Yukiko insisted.
“As for you, I cannot say,” the old man growled. “But this boy is our enemy. His Guild is a rotten sore on the face of this land.”
“Who are you people?” Kin moaned, voice taut with pain.
Daichi knelt in front of Kin, glaring into the boy’s eyes. “We are the flame to cauterize your disease. Plant by plant, throat by throat, until you drown in ten times the blood you have spilled for your precious chi.” He hawked a mouthful of phlegm, spat into the boy’s face. “You say the lotus must bloom. We say it must burn.”
“Burn.” The word was echoed by a dozen other voices. Not raised in anger, but soft with menace, rolling among the gathering like a prayer.
“I knew it,” Yukiko breathed. “You’re the Kagé.”
Daichi looked at her, eyes narrowed, as if weighing her on a scale inside his head. He glanced at Buruu, running finger and thumb down through the length of his mustache, his mouth a thin, hard line.
“We are the Kagé,” he nodded. “We are the clenched fist. The raised voice. The fire to burn away the Lotus Guild, and free Shima from the grip of their wretched weed.”
“You burn the fields,” Yukiko scowled.
“We burn more than that.”
“The refinery fire.” Yukiko searched their faces.
“The first of many. The Guild’s propaganda machine calls it an accident. But their lies will not shield them much longer. We have infiltrated the airwaves. We have fists in every metropolis in Shima now. Shadows in the Kazumitsu court itself. Closer to the Shōgun than he could ever dream.”
“People died in that fire.” Yukiko looked around at the crowd in disbelief. “Not just Guildsmen. Innocent people.”
“Lotus is killing this country.” Daichi stood, hands still clasped behind him. “Choking land and sky, enslaving all it does not outright destroy. Absolute power over the state rests with a single man who rules by fiat, not merit, empowered by an elite that the common man can never join, nor understand. A regime of deception and murder, blood in the gutters, de cades of war on foreign shores, all for the sake of more chi.”
The eve ning air grew more oppressive, a cloying blanket of sticky tropical heat, slicking Yukiko with sweat. She began to feel very alone, and a long way from home.
NOT ALONE. I AM HERE.
“Innocent people,” she repeated.
“Sacrifices must be made,” said Kaori. “The people of Shima are addicted to chi. The system will not die willingly, it must be killed. Those enslaved will adapt or perish, like any addict denied his fix. But better to die on your feet than live on your knees.”
“That’s not your decision to make!” Raised voice, Yukiko’s hands clenched into fists, eyes flashing. “People can decide for themselves!”
“Can they?” Daichi’s tone was a counterpoint to her own, measured and soft. “Every word they read or hear is Guild controlled. There is no truth, only the reality that the Communications Ministry weaves. When was the last time you heard the wireless tell you about a farmer who went under? A daughter raped by a nobleman whom the law will not touch? A species that ceased to exist?”
“Well, what about all of you?” she demanded. “You made up your own minds.”
“Have you heard of the Daiyakawa riots?”
“. . . No.”
“Nor would you if this scum had his way.” Daichi kicked Kin in the stomach, the boy grunting and curling into a ball. “Ten years ago, the Prefect of Daiyakawa province allowed his farmers to stop growing foodstuffs and switch their crops to lotus. It was worth five times its weight in any other harvest, after all. The problem was, the government had designated Daiyakawa a breadbasket province—they had been commanded to grow nothing but rice, according to the administration’s grand design.” Daichi stroked his mustache, scowling. “Such is the state of affairs in the countryside of this nation. A man cannot even choose what he plants in the ground any more.
“It did not matter to the Shōgun if Daiyakawa’s farmers were forced to tithe so much of their harvest that they could barely feed their families. No matter that their children starved to death surrounded by fields of food. And so, when the farmers saw that there was more money to be made in growing lotus, they decided to claim a slice of that profit for themselves. The Shōgun ordered them to desist, to sow their fields with food again. They rioted, burned the local guardhouse, killed the magistrate. So Shōgun Kaneda and Minister Hideo ordered in the army.
“I was the captain sent to quell them.”
Daichi’s voice was shaking, he took a deep breath before continuing.
“Have you ever seen Iron Samurai in action against men of flesh and blood, Yukiko-chan? Farmers, with empty bellies and pitchforks for spears?”
Yukiko said nothing, a look of horror on her face.
“Kaneda sent his herald when we were done, decreeing that any farmer who sowed lotus would suffer the same fate as the prefect. Then we dragged the man into the street and executed his family in front of him. Wife. Two sons. A baby girl.” Daichi swallowed, looked down at his trembling hands. “Then we forced him to commit seppuku.”
“Gods,” whispered Yukiko.
“Daiyakawa province grows rice to this day.” Daichi curled his hands into fists. “But they don’t teach you why. Shima’s people never heard of the riot on the wireless, never heard the sound of that baby screaming.”
“It was Shōgun Kaneda who commanded you. Perhaps Yoritomo—”
“Yoritomo is his father’s child,” Daichi growled. “I have seen oceans of blood spilled by his command. Children. Pregnant mothers. Beggars hold out their hands to him and draw back stumps. He rules side by side with a cabal of zealots, turns a blind eye to Purifiers burning people alive for the sake of their ridiculous dogma.” He glared down at Kin, shaking his head. “And all the while, these animals meld their flesh with machines and fill our lungs with cancer.”
Daichi looked up at Yukiko, steel-gray irises growing dark with anger.
“We’ve burned dozens of fields since I arrived in this village, gods know how many more before that, and not one blaze has ever been reported to the people. We burn the refinery, the Communications Ministry says it was a fuel leak. We could cut off the Shōgun’s head and parade it down Palace Way on a spike, and the Guild would say he died of natural causes. And the people would believe them.”
“The Guild print the history books,” Kaori said. “The Guild control the airwaves. Every report, every word they speak to the common man is like a kick to his head. Cowing him. Making him stupid.”
“His kind,” growled Daichi, kicking Kin again. “Are poison.”
Buruu purred, eyes fixed on the gathered men and their steel. Yukiko could feel his approval. The arashitora agreed with the philosophy of the Kagé. She was shocked to realize that a part of her did too.
“Daichi-sama, please, let him go.”
“Wake up. The lotus must burn. The Guild must burn.”
“Burn,” murmured the Kagé.
THEY SPEAK TRUTH. THEY SEE CLEARLY.
They kill innocent people.
CHANGE IS SELDOM BLOODLESS. SOME EYES WISH TO REMAIN CLOSED. SOMETIMES THEY MUST BE CUT OPEN.
I can’t believe that. I won’t.
“Just let us go, please. We won’t breathe a word about you, I swear it.”
“Let you go?” Kaori laughed. “So you can take Yoritomo his prize? Hand over this beast to that rapist so his bastard Hunt Master can mutilate it some more?”
Yukiko felt a flash of anger, tilting her head and glaring at the woman through her lashes.
“Don’t you call my father a bastard. He is a man of honor.”
Daichi turned pale, slack-jawed and breathless as if she’d punched him in the stomach. Kaori’s eyes widened, and she glanced back and forth between her father and Yukiko.
“You are Kitsune Masaru’s daughter?” Daichi’s voice was a whisper. “Then your m—”
“Oni! Oni!”
A boy of eight or nine was running across the rope bridge toward them, hissing the word over and over, as loud as he dared. The assembled Kagé turned toward his voice, hands on their weapons. The boy broke through the crowd and knelt before Daichi.
“Daichi-sama, Kaiji-san reports oni on the western rise. A raiding party from Black Temple. Dozens.”
“Aiya, so many,” murmured Isao.
“Angered at their brethren’s deaths.” Kaori stared directly at Yukiko. “They seek vengeance. Skulls for their mother, Lady Izanami.”
DEMONS. MAGGOTS FROM THE YOMI PITS.
Do they come for us?
Buruu blinked at her, pawing at the ground.
DOES IT MATTER?
Daichi pulled the boy to his feet, one hand on his katana. His calm had returned as swiftly as it vanished, voice low, hard as steel.
“Isao, take this filth to the holding cells and lock him down.” He pointed at Kin. “Kaori, fetch the other captains. Make sure they are armed and ready to move. The rest of you, come with me.” He turned to leave, his cadre with him.
“Daichi-sama,” Yukiko called.
The man turned to look at her, eyebrow raised.
“We will help you,” she said. “If Kaori-chan is right and they seek revenge for the blood Buruu and I spilled, honor demands that we help send these things back to the deepest hell.”
She tossed her head. Defiant. Proud.
“I am also my father’s child.”
A long pause. A knowing glance shared with Kaori. A sigh. But finally Daichi licked his lips and nodded to Yukiko, running one hand across his scalp.
“If the Black Fox’s daughter asks it, then it will be so.” His stare unsettled her. “But when we return, we will speak more. There is something I must ask of you. Something important.”
He turned to his men and nodded.
“We move.”