At least one other sky-ship—Kitsune’s Courage—seemed to have the same idea as the Kurea. Her engines roared as she charged, firing a storm of grapples before plowing into the Death’s flank. Her crew withered under a battery of shuriken fire, cloudwalkers and bushimen left minced across the deck. Kurea collided with the Death a few moments after, and Michi was already leaping across the gap, chainswords shrieking.
The clash of steel all around, the growl of ō-yoroi, chaindaishō, screams of dying men, shrieks of sundered metal. Iron Samurai from the Courage were also boarding, roaring challenge in their Daimyo’s name. She moved swift and sure, cutting along the railing toward the pilot’s deck until three Iron Samurai intercepted her advance. She lashed out, plunging her chainwakizashi through the eyehole of a samurai’s oni mask. The man was dead before he had a chance to cry out, the bone-white demon’s face drenched red.
She deflected three lightning-quick strikes, dancing backward until her backside was pressed against the railing, sparing a quick glance for the drop below. Another samurai stepped up to replace the one she’d slain, and Michi realized she’d bitten off more than she could chew. Not simple bushimen like the kind she’d slain in Yoritomo’s palace here. These were men born to soldiering, bigger and stronger, and thanks to their ō-yoroi, just as fast as she was. She could see Hiro on the pilot’s deck, but there was no way she was cutting her way through twenty Elite to get to him. Best to seek another path to the prize.
She relieved one samurai of his chainkatana as he lunged, another of any chance he had of having children as he slipped on the blood-slick deck. Seizing her chance, she flipped back onto the Death’s railing, sheathed her swords and began climbing the rigging, two Elite close behind.
Monkey-swift, she pulled herself up onto the Death’s inflatable. The skies were a storm of corvettes, dark snow and darker smoke. Fire gleamed on her goggles as another Kitsune ironclad went up in flames, dropping like an anvil, her captain steering her into the Tora soldiers below as his final act of defiance. A dull explosion tore the air to ribbons, the rumble of collapsing buildings and the Earthcrusher’s tectonic tread, the chatter of a hundred propellers, screams of the dying, cries and curses and prayers.
The Elite behind her climbed up onto the inflatable, cresting the balloon’s gentle curve. She turned and charged toward them, a soundless howl on her lips. Using the inflated canvas like a springboard, she leapt toward one Samurai’s chest, planting both feet on his breastplate. The man grunted, lost his balance and spilled backward into the void, silent as he fell. Kicking off the samurai’s chest, Michi bounced back onto the taut canvas, flipping up to her feet as the second Elite swung at her head, once, twice, shearing clean through her braid and filling the air with wisps of long black hair.
Michi fell back under the onslaught, parry and riposte, feint and lunge, her swords a blur. She could see the samurai’s eyes through slits in his demon helm—dark and narrowed, his skin crusted with ashes. The man was a master, pressing her back over the spongy surface, giving no opportunity to launch a counterattack. Heart thundering in her chest. Sweat clawing at her eyes. Feeling suddenly small and alone, up here in the storm.
Just we two …
The wind howled like hungry wolves, teeth of ice and lolling tongues. She sheathed her katana, reached into her obi as she ducked one scything blow, sidestepped another, growling blades shearing through the cloth at her elbow. And drawing out a tiny clay bottle from her sash, she snapped off the cork and hurled it, an arcing stream of jet black, right into the samurai’s face.
The ink splashed across the oni mask, into the samurai’s eyes. The man staggered back, blinking furiously, but it was already too late. The girl moved, like a scalpel, a razor, a double-handed blow with her chainwakizashi shearing through his wrist. Spinning on the spot as he fell, collecting him just beneath the chin, where the long cheek guards of his helm kissed the iron collar at his neck. A spray of blinding red, great gushing gouts of it falling like rain as the samurai clutched the new smile she’d carved, dead before he fell.
She stood panting, mouth dry as dust, looking at the empty ink bottle in her hand and hurling it into the void with a roar.
“And you said a bottle of ink never won a battle, Blackbird-san!”
The sky ablaze, ironclads roaring as they plummeted from the clouds, metal groaning, shuriken fire and propellers chewing the haze, blue-black smears daubed across it all. And beneath the cacophony, below the shrieking orchestra of metal and bone and blood, she heard distant shrieks, thunder like the pulse in her veins, heart pounding in her chest.
Distant shrieks.
Thunder like a pulse.
Growing closer.