Another Shatei spoke up. “Communications back online.”
Rei gave his stirrups an experimental nudge, and the Earthcrusher took four thundering steps forward, all aboard the bridge clutching at support to keep their footing.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
“We have drive control again, Shateigashira,” Rei reported, somewhat needlessly.
Kensai stepped forward, glaring through the viewports at Yama city.
“Leave no brick unbroken. No blade unshattered. Let this day be spoken of with shock and awe for one thousand years. Let Yama’s ruins serve as a tomb for the corpses of this rebellion, and her tumbled walls a marker for the graves of those who defy us.”
Kensai pointed one bloody finger at the city walls.
“Annihilate them.”
*
Michi stood on the Kurea’s deck, frozen breath billowing from bruised-blue lips. The sky-ship floated above Yama, watching the shreddermen suits lay their iron walkways across the Amatsu, storming across the tar-thick flow with floods of Tora bushi’ following. She glanced at the Daimyo’s flagship, the Lucky Fox, seeing old Isamu surrounded by his samurai guard and command staff. The Guild fleet was bearing down on them, but the Kitsune warships were holding back for fear of being caught in the Earthcrusher’s fiery demise.
Except the Earthcrusher wasn’t doing anything that resembled exploding.
“Shouldn’t we be seeing fireworks by now?” Blackbird roared from the pilot’s deck.
Michi grit her teeth, watching the Guild fleet draw ever closer. A dozen ironclads, fat and heavy and armed to the nines. The air swarmed with three-man corvettes, crisscrossing the skies like swallows on the mate. The Phoenix fleet was amassed to the west, sleek and beautiful ships armed for slaughter, circling to starboard. If the Kitsune fleet sat still for much longer, if the Earthcrusher didn’t pop its cork soon, they’d be crushed like a thumb in a vise.
Her heart skipped as the behemoth groaned; a shuddering, rumbling exhalation, a mile-high spray of black from the chimney spires dotting its spine.
“Here it comes!” she yelled, covering her ears.
Poor choice of words, as it turned out.
The behemoth lifted four of its massive limbs, smashing them earthward in quick succession. The ground split asunder, clods of freezing black as big as boulders spraying in all directions. The remaining legs rose up, stretching and groaning. And with dread clutching her innards, Michi realized the Earthcrusher wasn’t exploding.
It was charging.
Warning sirens howled amongst the Kitsune fleet, the Yama walls rang with the panicked peals of a hundred iron bells. Michi turned to the Blackbird, roaring over the din.
“Look alive, Captain-san! You might not have the chance much longer!”
“What the bloody hells is happening?” Blackbird roared.
“We have a war after all!”
Michi looked left, saw the Lucky Fox engage its propellers and lunge forward, followed by the other Kitsune ironclads. The Fox corvettes swarmed west to engage the Phoenix, Isamu standing on the pilot deck and waving his sword above his head, pointing toward the enemy.
Michi drew her chainblades, thumbed the ignitions. The motors roared to life, sending warm vibrations through her forearms. She searched the line of incoming Guild ships, eyes narrowed in the falling snow. But at last, she saw it, fresh painted and adorned with flags of the Tora Daimyo, deck glittering with a hundred blades. Down her bow, Michi could see her name in fresh kanji—a threat or promise that right now seemed about the best she could hope for.
The Honorable Death.
“There!” she screamed. “Full ahead, Blackbird. Right at that flagship!”
She could see him on the pilot deck, standing tall and proud amidst his samurai.
Hiro.
She remembered him sitting in the bleachers of Kigen arena as Yukiko pretended to train Buruu, the mock frowns she’d throw in his direction when she caught him staring too long at the Kitsune girl. She remembered teasing him, gathered with the other handmaidens and whispering as he passed, giggling as he smiled. So young, all of them.
And then she remembered Aisha. Chained to that awful half-life by those Guild machines, breath rattling in her lungs. What they’d done to her.
What he’d let them do.
“The line of Kazumitsu needed its precious son. The Guild needed to cement their Shōgun’s legitimacy. So do you know what they used?” Aisha grit her teeth, spit the words. “A metal tube. A handful of lubricant. As if I were cattle, Michi. As if I were livestock.”
Blackbird was bellowing over the engines, the opening salvos of ’thrower fire, battle cries splitting the air. “You want us to ram the Daimyo’s flagship? Have you gone mad?”
Michi licked her lips, eyes locked on Hiro.
“Not mad, Blackbird-san,” she growled. “Just thirsty.”
*
Burning.
Lungs. Eyes. Skin. Throat.
All.