The Last Stormdancer (6 page)

The general smiled and bowed. “You will make an admirable Sh
ō
gun, great Lord.”

“Time will tell.”

Tatsuya saw Maru the Guildsman approaching over uneven ground, his brass-and-leather suit hissing and whirring, bloody eyes aglow. The Guildsman stopped before the Bull, bowed low, hand over fist.

“Great Lord, my superiors find your conditions most agreeable, and humbly thank you for your gracious considerations. We will aid your noble endeavors in exchange for quality controls and licensing over blood lotus production in Shima. We have drawn up a document,” here the Lotusman proffered a scroll case marked with the Guild’s lotus bloom sigil, “outlining the finer points of the arrangement.”

“Leave it with my scribes,” Tatsuya said. “I will mark it once your side of the bargain is fulfilled. On this you have my word. I presume the vow of a son of Kazumitsu is acceptable in place of some scribblings upon a page?”

“… Hai, great Lord,” Maru rasped.

“Good. Now where are these wonders you promised me?”

The Lotusman pointed west, his voice a graveled rasp.

“They approach, great Lord.”

Tatsuya squinted into the brightening sky, burned by the glow of the rising sun. He could see blunt silhouettes approaching—what looked like tall ships floating on the clouds. In place of sails, the ships had large inflatable balloons, propellers at their flanks, the song of their engines like the hum of distant insects. He had seen inflatable craft before, of course—the Guild had been experimenting with lighter-than-air ships for decades. But this was the first he’d ever seen a ship so obviously outfitted for war. The snouts of what looked like black-powder cannon jutting from their flanks. Armor plating. Faster than any airship he’d laid eyes on.

He found himself counting his good fortune that the Guild had been so easily cowed.

“Chainkatana and wakizashi,” said Maru. “Suits of armor augmented by chi-powered motors. Enough to arm every one of your samurai, and cut your brother’s forces down like grass.”

“See them distributed amongst my elite,” Tatsuya said. “General Ukyo will assist you. We attack within the hour.”

“As you command.” Maru bowed. “Sh
ō
gun.”

*   *   *

“We have no time, Lady Ami. No time left at all.”

Jun knelt in what felt like a vast space, cool breeze echoing in distant recesses. The whisper of silken amulets moving in the wind. The distant murmur of servants’ footsteps. He could smell the tea placed before him, hear the soft breathing of the woman kneeling opposite. Head turned, eyes downcast, mind still clouded with the recollection of her face.

Like a portrait from the days when he still had sight; the work of the masters he had studied before the sun took his eyes away. She was smoke and coal. Alabaster and red silk. Lips the color of heartsblood. Irises so black it seemed night itself pooled behind her lashes. The image he had seen through Koh’s eyes, eagle-sharp and tinged with predatory hunger … he feared he would never be rid of it. The music of her voice. The shape of her face.

All this he remembered.

And yet now, without the thunder tiger, without his little sparrow, he dwelled in darkness. His other senses sharpened, yet no compensation for the loss of his eyes. Clouded by the urgency coiled tight in his belly, pulsing with every beat of his heart, despite the surety that all this was happening exactly as it was meant to. He could feel other presences in the room: a maidservant introduced as Chiyoko, now pouring the tea, guards lining the walls, armor clanking, breathing soft. The quiet creak of the rafters above his head.

Lady Ami’s voice was low, smoky, his skin prickling at every note.

“Your name is Jun?” she asked.

“So my mother named me, great Lady. Before the sickness took her.”

“From what clan do you hail?”

He licked his lips. Forced himself to be patient. Courteous. Calm.

“I am Fox clan, Lady,” he replied. “Born and raised.”

“Another Kitsune.” Jun heard a smile creep into the Lady’s voice, muffled by the fan she no doubt covered it with. “I am pleased to enjoy the company of a clansman once again. It has been many years since I saw my homeland.”

“In this, we are equals, Lady Ami-san.”

“Then you were not born blind, Jun-san?”

Images of a vast garden. Laughing children. A girl who smiled at him as
—

Jun shook his head to banish the memories.

“No, Lady. I began losing my sight when I was ten. It took two years to depart. My grandmother blamed the pollution in the sky. The haze that makes Lady Sun burn brighter and hotter. I am told many folk wear goggles now in the north, to protect them from my fate.”

“That is very sad.”

“Happier than some. The sickness grows worse with each passing year. It claims lives, not just eyes. My mother and father both fell to it. The people of my village call it blacklung. And it strikes not only humans. The phoenix sicken and die. The mujina and tanuki of the forests, the kappa of the river and lakes, even the thunder tigers—all of them are falling prey.”

“We hear rumor of this sickness you speak of, Jun-san,” said Lady Ami. “I remember folk of my father’s court falling to it when I was younger. But we had no notion it had grown to such a threat. My father-in-law’s illness, the matter of succession … the Sh
ō
gun’s court has been consumed by it in recent times.”

“I fear the Lotus Guild is to blame for…”

His voice drifted off as a familiar shape in his mind … no, two … coalesced out of the mists at the edge of his senses and stalked forward into the light. All purring and soft velvet, tread like a faint breeze on the polished boards. He reached out with the Kenning, their thoughts calling to his, recognizing them as cats, male and female, slinking to their mistress’s side and watching him with curious eyes. He touched their minds, bid them greeting, feeling their delight as the Lady Ami ran her fingernails through their fur, their sensual shivers flowing into him.

“These are your cats, Lady? What are their names?”

A long pause, the press of three stares upon his empty eyes.

“Whisper and Silk,” the Lady finally replied.

“Very pretty.”

“You have excellent ears, Jun-san. Can you hear what color undergarments I wear?”

A playful tone in the Lady’s voice, soft laughter as his cheeks flushed at the imposition of thoroughly unbecoming thoughts. He shivered again as she stroked the tomcat’s spine. Despite his upbringing, he felt a novice. Provincial and ignorant in the face of this Lady’s parlor games.

She has changed so much
 …

“I hear the thoughts of beasts, Lady. The cats in your lap. The thunder tiger outside.”

“… You are y
ō
kai-kin?”

“Hai.”

“I have never met one of your ilk before. I though perhaps you were legend.”

“So it might one day be said of phoenix or henge and tanuki. So might it be said of all the spirit beasts of this land, if the Lotus Guild and their sickness are not stopped.”

The Lady cleared her throat, attention refocused, the cats in her lap forgotten.

“The Guild grows in power daily,” she said. “They buy ministers and magistrates with the iron coin their mechanical marvels bring them. They could be dangerous enemies. You have proof of their involvement in this sickness, Jun-san?”

“I do not, Lady. I am … that is to say, I
was
a simple artist. But my grandmother is a wise woman, and she is convinced the Guild is to blame. Her village stands at the edge of a murmuring forest, by the banks of a chuckling stream. But the water flows from a Guild factory upriver, and the thicker their smoke grows, the sicker people become. The tanuki I spoke to in the Iishi forests said similar. The phoenix also. And why else do the Guildsmen wear masks? Those suits? Why do they not breathe the same air we do unless they know it is toxic?”

“You were an artist?”

Jun frowned, confused as to why
that,
of all he had said, might catch the Lady’s attention.

“Hai,” he finally nodded. “My father was a hunter. But when my sight began failing and it became clear I would never follow in his footsteps, my mother thought to teach me of the arts. Poetry. Painting. Until the sun took my eyes completely, at least, and the sickness them besides.”

“Your tale grows sadder still, Jun-san. It has the seeming of a great ballad. A song for the ages. A painter struck blind by the Sun Goddess. A poet, never to write again. All you need is some unrequited love and perhaps a tragic death…”

“Please, Lady,” Jun said. “You make jest at my expense. But the spirit beasts are dying in droves. The thunder tigers are planning to leave Shima. We have only days until they decide whether or not to abandon us to our fate. And the prophecy spoke of their importance.”

Jun could hear the skepticism in the Lady’s voice. “Prophecy?”

“My grandmother has the Sight, great Lady. She foretold a child of her bloodline—a child Kitsune-born—would save these islands from certain destruction.”

“And you … believe yourself this child, Jun-san?”

“I have no living kin, save her and my grandfather. If anyone is to fulfill the prophecy, it must be me. But we have only days. So I beg forgiveness if I seem ill at ease sitting here drinking this lovely tea.”

“You ride one of the beasts already, Jun-san. Why do you need the Sh
ō
gun’s help at all?”

“In Grandmother’s prophecy, the child would ride with an
army
of thunder tigers at his back. But the arashitora will not help if we do not help ourselves. If they are to stand against the Guild, the Sh
ō
gun must stand beside them. The arashitora will not fight our battles for us.”

“There
is
no Sh
ō
gun to stand against the chi-mongers, Jun-san.”

“Will your husband be victorious against his brother, great Lady? Claim the Four Thrones of Shima as his own?”

“Nothing in this life is certain, Jun-san. Least of all the battle between Bear and Bull.”

“My grandmother taught me differently, Lady Ami. She taught me to believe I would save this place from itself. And I intend to do just that.”

“Excuse me, Lady,” the maidservant said. “I must fetch more tea.”

Jun heard the girl rise, retreat with short, clipped steps across the floorboards. He felt the cats purr in his head, their chests thrumming, the Lady Ami stroking each in turn, watching him in silence. He felt his blindness keenly, longing for the little sparrow on his shoulder. He could look through the cats’ eyes to be certain, but then he would see only himself. Not her face. Not her eyes, no doubt locked on his, those ruby lips pressed thin in thought as she watched and he remembered—

“I agreed to speak to you out of respect for the beast you rode, young master Jun. My father raised my sister and I on tales of the Stormdancers. But this talk of prophecy and destiny … it will carry no weight with my husband, should he prove victor against his brother. And Lord Riku will care less for it still. Regardless, it is doubtful the war will be decided within days, and days are all you have before the arashitora leave.”

Jun heard the serving girl reach the doors.

Close them softly.

Slide a bolt into place.

He frowned, head tilted. Rising slowly to his feet.

“I ask forgiveness if this displeases,” Lady Ami continued. “But if the only proof—”

Jun grasped his walking stick in both hands. With a click and a flourish, he drew his fists apart, revealing the three feet of gleaming folded steel hidden inside the haft.

“Master Jun—” the Lady warned, a tremor in her voice.

Jun leaped across the tea service, sending the pot and cups crashing to the floor. Lady Ami rose to her feet and shrank back in sudden fright, clutching the small tant
ō
blade hidden in the drum bow at her waist. The guards about the room cried out in alarm at the sight of Jun’s hidden blade, raising their tasseled spears and charging toward the blind boy, intent on protecting their mistress.

As such, they missed the assassins crawling in the rafters above.

A shuddering
pop! pop! pop! pop!
rang out overhead, the air filled with dozens upon dozens of gleaming shuriken stars. The guards fell, bloody and screaming, the whistling blades shearing through skin and leather, puncturing iron breastplates. Lady Ami cursed as Jun pushed her back against a pillar, swiping at the air with his thin sword. Sparks flew, blinding bursts of light, the boy moving as a field of long grass in a rolling winter wind. His blade struck the shuriken from the air, one, two, three, head tilted, eyes closed, brow furrowed, pain twisting his features as one of the stars struck his arm, another grazed his cheek. Blood flowing now, bright and red, and still he moved amidst the hail, sweeping his blade as if a conductor’s baton, and the gleaming death sprayed toward him, his orchestra.

A series of hollow clicks and the room fell silent, save for the Lady’s shuddering breath, the moans of dying guards. And from the ceiling, long, thin-limbed shapes unfurled—men, clad in shadows, strange weapons with flat barrels in their hands. Loose black cloth swathing their forms, a strip of flesh showing through their cowls, eyes covered in goggles of dark red glass.

They sheathed their hollow weapons at their waists, drew long katana from their backs, the blades studded with spinning, growling teeth. Jun frowned, the engines’ growls filling his ears, clouding the assassins’ footsteps as they crept closer. He felt the Lady Ami at his back, heard her draw her own blade, ragged breath, steel in her voice.

“There are eight of them,” she whispered.

“I know.” A slow nod. “Can you use that tant
ō
you carry?”

“I am no master like you, Jun-san,” Ami breathed. “Should we live through this, I would hear the telling of how a blind painter became a sword-saint…”

“Stay behind me, then. I will protect you with my life.”

Soft footsteps as the figures gathered about them. The Lady’s voice, softer still.

“My thanks, Jun-san.”