Which way do we go?
… left best way is left …
She turned in the crowd and dragged Yoshi away, struggling against the riptide. A glance behind revealed nothing, but she could hear struggles, angry commands.
… they are coming go go . .!
They reached a squeezeway between two lopsided buildings, breaking away from the crush and heat. A shouted curse, a glimpse of tattooed flesh behind. The press of crooked walls all around them, stink of rot and waste, struggling through the shin-high filth. Yoshi’s hand was slippery with perspiration and blood, and he stumbled along as if sleepwalking, dried tear tracks cutting through the dirt on his face.
“Come on, Yoshi,” she breathed. “Run.”
Pounding footsteps, the scrape of inked flesh against the walls behind. The pair belted out onto a narrow street lined with empty merchant stalls, knocking aside a group of gutter-waifs beating on an overturned Guild crier, the machine spinning its tank tracks and clanging its bells in alarm. A backward glance revealed crooked faces, inked flesh, blades flashing in clenched fists. At least a dozen yakuza chasing them now, closing fast.
Yoshi crashed into an abandoned peddler’s cart, old pots and children’s toys cascading into the street as it upended. He stumbled, Hana grabbing his arm, pulled him upright.
… left go left now …
Daken bolted across the rooftops, a black shadow against the firelight glow. Corpse-rats squealed in the shadows, fleeing the growing mob, rising flames. Thunder rumbled overhead, mixing with the roar of sky-ship engines, spotlights cutting like lightning through the black.
… turn right alleyway …
Breath burning in their lungs, sweat in their eyes.
… left left hurry . .!
“Faster!” Hana grabbed her brother’s arm, dragging him along.
“I can’t!”
… beware …
Two tattooed lumps of muscle appeared at the alley mouth. Murder lit their eyes, split their lips into greedy grins. Hana tore the iron-thrower from her pants without thinking and aimed at the bigger man’s face. She squeezed the trigger.
The weapon spat out a hollow, empty click.
A stout, brutish-looking man collided with her from behind, knocking the breath from her body. Hana screamed, clawing the man’s eyes with broken fingernails. Tattooed arms grabbed her in a bear hug as she drove her knee into his crotch. Yoshi was on his feet, clubbing the man with a piece of rusty pipe, roaring at the top of his lungs. Two more men crash-tackled him, brought him down amidst a flurry of profanity. Boots danced on his ribs, his face. He struck back with his feet, connecting with one man’s knee and inverting it. Snapping bone and bright, wide-eyed screaming. Blood. Kicks rained down on Yoshi’s head.
The siblings were hauled to their feet, Hana still flailing with nails and teeth and fists, Yoshi’s head lolling, nose and ears bleeding. She called his name, received no answer. Looking up, she saw a mangled silhouette peering over the ledge above. Stubby ears. Yellow eyes.
Daken, help us!
… Hana …
Please!
She felt the conflict within him, the desire to help overwhelmed by his fear, the certainty there was nothing he could actually do. One cat against half a dozen hardened thugs?
… too many …
Help!
… am sorry …
She felt him hovering as the Scorpion Children surrounded them. A sky-ship in Phoenix colors roared overhead, spraying the rooftop with shuriken fire. And then, heart sinking in her chest, she felt Daken running away. Over rooftops, away from the fire and smoke, soft as shadows. She screamed at him to stop, pleaded for help.
Don’t leave us!
But he was gone.
The yakuza were a knot of inked muscle and curling, curdled faces. Hana looked up into the leader’s eyes. A thin, angled scowl, teeth like a trash pile, tetsubo in his hand.
“You killed Hida.”
He raised his club into the air.
“You’re going to wish it was the other way around, bitch.”
And down it came.
48
STILLNESS
Chaos ran through the Daimyo’s palace, and the nightingale floors sang in time with its tread. The smell of distant flames mixed with the cooking fires, entrées lying cold on the feast tables. Panic at the Kagé attack was quickly replaced by outrage, vows of vengeance, drawn swords. And the Daimyo of the Tora clan led his Samurai out into the city, the Dragon Daimyo and his retinue falling into step behind these men with ash-streaked faces, these walking dead set once more like wolves amongst the flock on Kigen’s streets.
A legion, almost one hundred strong, marching from the palace gates. Every one clad in great lumbering suits of iron, spitting chi smoke into the air, flags flying high in a scorching wind, tinged with the reek of burning skin. Michi watched them from an upper window of the servants’ quarters, a grim smile on her face.
Soon, they will not know which way to seek the foe.
She stole amidst the corridors, down the servant’s passages, Ichizo’s package in her arms. Flitting through the abandoned kitchens, the cleaner’s rooms, then down into the generator room, oiled rags and tongues of flame. The hum of quiet panic, fear amongst the remaining nobility suppressed beneath a stoic facade, the mask of honor, the notion of “face.” It would be unseemly—indeed, shameful—to show anything but disdain for these Kagé dogs, anything but absolute faith in the Daimyo’s ability to restore order to his capital. Trembling wives were rebuked. Guests returned to the dining hall, nervous glances still lingering on a fire-painted sky.
And then it began.
First, an explosion within the cellars, the Daimyo’s generators splitting asunder, setting the bottom floor of the eastern wing ablaze. Cries of terror from the dining hall, courtiers running through the corridors. A hastily assembled line of bushimen gathered, stretching from the garden stream to the cellar doors, dashing buckets full of cloudy water and the occasional unfortunate koi fish onto the swelling inferno.
Guests fled the feast. Tiny, hurried steps within the hems of their robes, fearful expressions hidden behind beautiful breathers and fluttering fans. The families of the Dragon clanlord retreated to the guest quarters, personal house guards barring the doors. But all too soon, they were screaming; screaming and fleeing as the bleached cedar tiles above their heads caught fire, choking smoke and burning embers dancing in the air.
Heavy boots, running feet, shouted orders, iron bells. Smoke drifting through the corridors, seeping under the doorway of the room she slipped back inside. And finally, Michi stepped into the hallway and walked toward the royal wing.
If the sight of the pristine girl and her scarlet gift box seemed strange, the bushimen dashing past appeared to have more pressing concerns. Michi made her way around the veranda, away from the bucket line and the still-blazing cellar. She yelled at a passing bushi’ brigade, telling them she saw rebels fleeing over the western walls, and they yelled thanks and charged away. Up the stairs, past the tearooms, the nightingale floor chirping beneath her sandals. Keeping her head bowed, eyes downturned from the guards who thundered past, crying for servants to bring water. The guest wing was a burning lotus field on a hot summer’s day.
She heard combat somewhere out in the city, steel upon steel, the heavy thunder of shuriken-thrower fire. The tickticktick of a spider-drone roaming the halls, perching on a balcony to watch the guest wing roof giving way, fire reflected in its tiny, glowing eye. She picked up her pace, small shuffling footsteps taking her across the mezzanine above the library, until she’d gone as far as she’d reasonably hoped to get.