“About godsdamned time. This dramatic entrance bullshit is getting out of hand…”
A roar splitting the air, the song of lightning and thunder, the rhythm of mighty wings. The cry echoed through the valley, the city, bouncing amidst burning streets, off broken walls, repeating amidst the clash of steel, the war cries and death rattles, curses and prayers. And glancing up into the lightening western skies, Michi realized there was no echo—no trick of feeble sound in the hollow, bloody places. Instead of one thunder tiger descending from the black above, there was almost a dozen, filling the sky with their cries. Yukiko and Buruu at their head, screaming together as they fell, the air about them flooded with shrieking arashitora.
What did the old tales call a group of thunder tigers?
“Pack” seemed too simple. Too soulless and tiny to describe the sight. Wingspans as broad as sky-ships, cruel talons and hooked beaks, feathers of pristine white and darkest jet. Fierce and brilliant and beautiful, descending like hammers and flawless blades of folded steel—a sight no one had witnessed in over a century.
A flight?
A host?
A cloud?
No.
She shook her head, held her blades aloft as she roared.
Not a cloud.
And all around, all across the brightening skies, the thunder tigers roared in answer.
A godsdamned storm.
40
FLOWERS FALLEN
“Oh,” Hana smiled. “Forgiveness, please.”
Katya smiled in return, ran glass-smooth fingertips over Hana’s cheek. And reaching up, she pulled the goggles down from her eyes.
Firelight gleamed bright, dazzling after the gloom.
And then everything came undone.
Katya’s eyes widened, lips peeling from sharpened teeth. Hana thought the woman was going to bite her until she saw tears welling in her eyes, pulling back as if horrified to touch her. The Holy Mother stared across the flames, despair and outrage mixed on her face.
“What is it?” Hana asked, looking among the Zryachniye. “What’s wrong?”
The Mother spoke words Hana couldn’t comprehend, anguish in her eyes. Katya was climbing to her feet, face darkening in fury, Morcheban falling from her lips in leaden mouthfuls.
“What’s wrong?” Hana wailed. “For the love of the gods what is it?”
Mother Natassja drew a curved, gleaming knife from within her furs. Hana tensed as the woman stood, reaching out to Kaiah’s mind, just a heartbeat shy of screaming for help. But it was clear from the Mother’s expression she meant no violence, only sadness in her eyes as she limped around the fire, holding up the flat of the blade so the girl could see her own reflection.
- ARE YOU WELL? -
Oh gods …
- WHAT IS WRONG? HANA? -
Trembling fingers stretching up to her face, her reflection doing the same. The leather strip, the pale skin, the wisps of burned blond. But beneath her eyebrow, where she should have seen an iris glittering like new rose quartz, there was only muddy brown.
Her eye had ceased to glow.
Katya stormed from the tent, a flurry of black snow tumbling inside as she tore the flap away. Hana took the blade from Natassja, pawed at her cheek, rubbed her eye, silently pleading for some explanation, some word to make sense of a world that suddenly made none at all. The old woman knelt beside her, and taking Hana’s hand, she whispered in the Shiman tongue. Three words that sent the ground falling away from Hana’s knees.
“No man,” she said. “Zryachniye. No man.”
“Gods, no…” Hana breathed.
“Spoiled.”
She slipped into the glass-smooth warmth behind Kaiah’s eyes, crying warning. The thunder tiger was on her feet, hackles rising, ready to charge into the tent and tear all asunder.
No not me, Kaiah! Akihito!
Hana forced the arashitora to turn, looking toward Katya as she stalked toward the big man. She saw the woman reach behind her, draw one of those awful sickle-shaped blades. Akihito strode toward her, warclub raised, demanding explanation. Kaiah roared warning, began bounding forward, lightning crawling across her feathers. Too far away.
Far too late.
And as Katya whirled in place, slicing Akihito from ear to ear, Hana started screaming.
*
Aleksandar was climbing to his feet as Katya cut the big man’s throat, her face twisted in fury, those razored teeth gleaming. And then the Zryachniye was screaming, screaming at the top of her lungs for the Marshal, for warriors, to arms, to arms.
“Sergei!” she shrieked. “We are betrayed!”
The gryfon roared, turning on the command tent and charging into the dark where Hana and Natassja were sequestered. Aleksandar drew his lightning hammer, engaged the current, roaring at the top of his lungs as static electricity crackled up his arm.