Kinslayer (52 page)

“Don’t,” she’d said.

And Aisha had smiled then; the first time Michi had actually seen her smile in all the months she’d served. Beautiful and bright, like the first rays of dawn after winter’s longest night.

“There it is,” she said.

Aisha had dismissed Kiki with a wave, the terrified girl scuttling from the room with an apologetic glance to Michi, sliding the door closed behind her.

“I had wondered how long it might take,” Aisha had said.

“Take?”

A nod. “For you to risk all.”

Michi had blinked, remained mute.

“That girl is nothing to you.” Aisha motioned to the doorway Kiki had left by. “Yet you dared lay hands upon the First Daughter of the Kazumitsu Dynasty in her defense. Jeopardizing your mission. Showing defiance that could spell your death.”

“Let it come,” Michi had said.

Aisha stepped closer, placed both hands on Michi’s shoulders.

“I know who you are, daughter of Daiyakawa. And I admire your conviction. Truly, I do. But this is no place for an inferno. Daichi-sama sent you to be my hand, my eyes, and you can be neither if you are blinded by the fire inside you.

“Let it burn slow. Be as I am. Keep it all inside, hidden until the day it will truly matter, when standing up and risking all will be worth the blood you wager. The day we can win.”

“You would have me sit by and let innocents suffer?”

“I would,” Aisha said. “And I know how much I ask in that. One day I may ask even more. I may ask everything of you. But not for the sake of one person. For the sake of this nation. For the lives of every man and woman and child upon these islands.

“These are the stakes we play with now, Michi-chan. There is no prize for second in this game. This is no sortie for a hill amongst boys in iron suits. This is a war for the very future of Shima. And you must understand that if you are to serve the Kagé here. You must witness atrocity and remain mute. Watch others suffer, even die, and lift not a finger to help. You must be as patient as stone until the time comes to strike, and
harder
than stone when you finally draw your blade.”

Michi stared, as if seeing her for the first time. The conviction in Aisha’s eyes, the breathless passion in her voice. And she did not see the spoiled princess she’d learned to hate. She saw fire, every bit as bright as the one in her own chest; a fire that gave birth to Shadows.

Aisha took up her hands, held them tight, stared hard.

“Do you understand me, Michi-chan?”

Michi looked down to the hands that held her own. Back up into Aisha’s eyes.

“I do.”

“Can you let it burn slow?”

“I can.”

“And when I ask it of you, will you give all?”

She licked her lips.

Nodded.

“I will.”

38

TERMINUS

The metal dragonfly flew with less grace than the real thing. It spun its wings rather than flapped them; three propellers pinned around the craft like points on a triangle, angled at 45 degrees. Its skin was dark metal, crusted with oxidization, gleaming with rain. The craft seemed lopsided somehow, held together by excess solder and sheer bloody-mindedness rather than engineering prowess. Two glass domes shielding the cockpit gave the impression of eyes. Its engines spat a clanking growl, like a wolf with a mouthful of iron bolts.

The propellers
whumphwhumphwhumph
ed as the vessel descended, more like a fat, wobbling bumblebee than a dragonfly. The pilots hammered at their consoles, struggling to hold the craft steady in the gale. Rain sluiced off the windshields as it touched down, shearing sideways across the glass as the wind tore at its hide.

Yukiko was slumped against an outcropping, barely conscious, her face black and blue. She’d watched Ilyitch cut the young arashitora from throat to belly, begin peeling the skin back from his flesh, so much blood she could taste metal as she breathed. She’d pushed feebly into Buruu’s mind the entire time, but Ilyitch’s lightning-thrower had knocked him into a slumber deeper than blacksleep could ever manage. Smooth, reptilian shapes pulsed in the water around them, but unless they could grow legs, the dragons wouldn’t be of any help. She could sense the female thunder tiger circling overhead, like a carrion bird above a battlefield.

Head splitting, blood pouring from her nose, she reached out to the arashitora above.

They’re going to skin him.

A mental blink.

—Y
Ō
KAI-KIN.—

Yukiko closed her eyes, maintained the link despite the volume and pain.

The gaijin killed Skraai. They’re going to do the same to Buruu.

—AND?—

Doesn’t that mean anything to you? These monkey-children are going to cut the skins from your kin’s backs and wear them as godsdamned trophies!

—WEAKLINGS TO BE CAPTURED AT ALL. SPENT THEIR STRENGTH FIGHTING EACH OTHER. AND FOR WHAT? I, WHO WANT NEITHER.—

They were captured because of me! Because I trusted—

—FAILING YOURS. NOT MINE.—

You can’t just let Buruu die!

—ONE LESS BUTCHER. ONE LESS FOOL.—

With a bitter curse, Yukiko broke contact, pushed the female away with all her strength. She flexed her fists, trying to slip her hands free of her bonds. Her eye was swollen shut, bloody drool slicked on her chin. But the Kenning still roared inside her amidst the agony of her beating, so far beyond hurt it ceased to have meaning at all.

She could kill Ilyitch. She knew that now. She could feel it surging in her, stronger than it had been when she and her father lay Yoritomo low. But what about the rest of them? Could she kill them all?

If they touched Buruu, she’d sure as hells try …

The metal dragonfly’s belly split open, a hatchway disgorging half a dozen gaijin in red jackets, dark furs and bronze insignia. Danyk walked in the lead, still wearing her katana at his belt. A furious-looking Piotr stepped out behind him, a bloodstained bandage around his head. He scowled as soon as he spotted Yukiko, limping across the island toward her.

Danyk and the other gaijin gathered around Ilyitch, amazement on their faces. The boy flourished his knife, covered head to foot in blood, motioned to the butchered arashitora at his feet. Several younger gaijin clapped him on the back, all grins and laughter, as if he’d done something extraordinary rather than commit an atrocity. Even Danyk managed a grudging smile, extending a hand which Ilyitch shook with great enthusiasm.

They treat him like a hero …

Piotr knelt beside her, looked her over. Yukiko’s head was splitting; she could see three of the dark-haired gaijin swimming in the air before her. The ache grew blinding, the song of sledgehammers ringing in her skull.

“Not move.” His voice came from underwater. “Head. Head.”

Something thick and soft was being wrapped around her brow. She tried to reach up with bound hands, wrists rubbed raw, blisters on her palms torn and bleeding. She forced her eyes open, stared at the gaijin as the storm howled all around them.

“Stupid girl.” He shook his head. “Stupid.”

“Go to the hells,” Yukiko spat.

He reached toward her face and she flinched away, lashed out with her feet.

“You touch me I’ll turn your brain to soup, round-eye.”

“Eh?” A raised eyebrow. “Help. I help.”

“Help? You wanted to rape me, you bastard! Get the hells away from me!”

Piotr stared at her, aghast. “Rape? Trying to
help you,
girl.”

He glanced over his shoulder to the gaijin near Ilyitch’s prize, lowered his voice to a furious whisper.

“Stupid! I warn! I say! Tell for you to come with me. Using for the body!” The gaijin pointed to the arashitora laid out upon the stone, ran his hands down his shoulders, over his chest. “Using you. Gryfon body! Gryfon!”

“Arashitora…”

“Da! Arashitora body.”

“You…” Yukiko’s voice caught in her throat. “You were trying to warn me…”

“Now too late.” He shook his head. “Too late. Wear for the body. Great strength. Much prize for Ilyitch. Much prize.”

“Why would you warn me?” She narrowed her eyes. “Why help me?”

“Promise friend.”

“What friend?”

“Piotr!”

Danyk’s voice startled the scarred gaijin. He looked over his shoulder, made a questioning sound. The round-eye leader barked an order, beckoned with one broad hand.

Piotr helped Yukiko to her feet, the world slipping away underneath her, Ilyitch’s kicking still ringing like a thousand iron bells in her skull. He guided her over to the others, standing in a pool of watery blood around Buruu, speaking in a babble of gruff voices. The smell from Skraai’s corpse was nauseating; a rancid mix of blood and guts and excrement, bile and copper on her tongue. She looked at these men with hatred swelling in her chest, a bitter loathing threatening to steal the very breath from her lungs. Eight of them.

How many of them can I kill before they take me?

She looked down at her friend’s body on the stone, groped for him in the darkness.

Buruu, please wake up. Please.

The gaijin seemed to be debating about Buruu’s wings. Two of the younger ones were prodding the crumpled machinery running down his spine, the torn harness affixing the contraption to his pinions. Danyk spoke to Piotr in his rumbling baritone, waving at the arashitora. Lightning arced across black skies, the downpour growing heavy again; so thick it was almost blinding. The sound of the rain upon the ocean was a constant, rolling hiss.

“Danyk ask what wrong with this one.” Piotr’s voice was harsh, but there was pity in that single blue eye. “Is cripple?” He pointed to his leg, the metal brace around it. “Cripple?”

“What if he is?” she said.

“Will not wear for the cripple body.” The gaijin shook his head. “No strength. No prize.”

Her heart skipped a beat. A glimmer of hope. She nodded to Danyk.

“He’s a cripple.”

Danyk gritted his teeth, spat what sounded like a vicious curse. He waved the younger gaijin aside, commanded a pale black-haired fellow to step forward. The man was broad, jaw like a brick house dusted with black stubble, eyes of blue glass. He drew a long, double-bladed axe from his belt.

“What are you doing?”

Yukiko’s eyes were wide with disbelief. Piotr dragging her away.

“No, why would you kill him? Stop! Stop it!”

BURUU, WAKE UP!

“Kak zal,” Danyk said, watching the soldier raise the blade above his head.

“NO!
NO!
”

Yukiko reached toward Piotr, slammed into his mind with everything she was. The round-eye released his grip on her arms, fell to the ground, senseless and mute, nose and ears gushing. Turning on the axeman, she seized hold of his mind and squeezed as hard as she could, two bloody handfuls, tearing side to side like a wolf worrying a piece of meat. The gaijin made an odd, strangled sound and staggered as if she’d struck him, dropping the axe and clutching his temples. She screamed, lips peeling back from her teeth as she felt it rise up inside her, the heat of a collapsing star, the roar of a thousand hurricanes. And with blood pouring from his ears, nose and eyes, the gaijin crumpled to the stone.

She whirled on a third, smashing into his skull with everything inside her own, his head flopping about as if she’d broken his neck. And with a roar, Danyk seized her by a handful of sodden hair, pulled her back as she screamed and cursed and kicked and spat, nails and teeth and fists, mouth agape, eyes rolling in her head. Madness had taken her, a rage so deep it was suffocating, stealing away everything she was and leaving a shell behind; a burning, shrieking thing wearing her skin. She bucked in his hands, tore lose from his grip, a handful of hair clutched in his fist as she reached out to crush his mind like eggshells.

He punched her; a hook to her jaw that rocked her sideways, lit a fire at the base of her skull. And then, with almost casual brutality, he hauled back and buried his fist deep in her belly.

Pain
.

Awful. Wet and tearing.

PAIN.

A scream, somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice that sounded like her own. A burst of light in her head, flaring bright as the world fell perfectly still.

She could feel it. All of it. The men gathered around her, each a tangled thread, a thousand knots thick—so intricate it hurt just to look at them. Buruu at her feet, a shape she knew as well as her own, a distant pulse still struggling toward consciousness, flickering with the taste of stolen lightning. Skraai’s shell, just a shadow of lingering heat in his bones as all he was escaped into the ether. The dragons in the snarling ocean around them, swaying with the current, cold as the lightless depths of the sea. High above, the female, circling in the blood-scent, the knowledge she should protect her kin burning bright in her mind, overshadowed with a rage born of heart-deep grief; a severing so terrible it hurt her to even begin remembering.