*
The Artificer screamed as the iron-thrower shot punched through his shoulder, dropping him to his knees. Kin gasped, blistered palms tearing wide. Cries of alarm spread through the Earthcrusher’s belly as Shinji dropped from the transmission housing to the deck, the floor beneath him seething as the Earthcrusher continued its march.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
The wounded Artificer seized the boy’s ankle. Kin fired again, the shot going wide, sparking bright on greasy metal. More shouting, brass shapes rushing through steam and smoke. Shinji dragged the detonator from his belt, but a savage kick sent the device spinning off into the darkness. Kin fired again, the shot ricocheting off the Artificer’s helm, sending him reeling into cover. Rocket packs flared, Guildsmen closing in on Kin’s vent. He fired off a handful of shots, hoping they’d just keep their heads down. Shinji cried out as the wounded Artificer wrapped him in a headlock, the boy’s strength no match for a fully-suited Guildsman.
Another shot. Another. Sweat in Kin’s eyes. Chi on his tongue. Shaking so badly he could barely breathe. An Artificer landed on a gantry just across from his vent and Kin fired, hitting the Guildsman’s thigh and dropping him like a stone.
“Kin!” cried Shinji. “The detonator!”
Another shot, cracked off at a brass shape ducking behind the drive train. The iron-thrower clicked empty. With a ragged gasp of pain, he pulled himself from the vent, crashed onto the mesh below, crying out. Flares of blue-white flame. Boots pounding metal grilles.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
“Check the transmission!” A rasping metallic cry.
“They planted something!”
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
Kin caught a glint of metal beneath a knot of cooling pipes, the scarlet globe atop the detonator winking at him. He pulled himself to his knees, burned skin tearing wide, lunging across the floor just as two Artificers rounded the corner, a third landing in a halo of blue-white on the gantry above. Dragging himself under the narrow space between pipes and floor, hand outstretched, fingertips brushing the burnished metal case and failing to find purchase.
“There are explosives in the transmission!”
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
“Get them out!”
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
The shuddering jolt of impact, great scythe-arms smashing ancient walls to splinters, the bastion of Kitsune-jō within striking range at last. Kin felt a vise grip seize his ankle, dragging him back as he roared in pain. He lunged at the detonator once more, just touching the edge.
Stretching.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
Gasping as the Guildsman dragged him back.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
Too far.
The pain too much.
Her lips were soft, a feather-light brush against his own, gentle as falling petals.
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
“Yukiko…”
DOOMDOOMDOOMDOOM.
He lunged, ligaments tearing, seizing the detonator as the Artificer tore him out from under the pipe. An explosion filled the engine bay, deafening in the confined space, Kin crying out as the air caught fire. The concussion knocked everyone to the floor, pieces of atmos-suit and bloody meat falling like red snow over the din of buckling, tortured metal. A ragged, ear-splitting shriek, the broken-tooth growl of snapping drive rods and popping rivets.
The floor swayed, like the deck of the Thunder Child on the night he and Yukiko stood together in the clean rain. It dropped away on one side, the behemoth listing, Kin tumbling away and coming to rest against the cooling pipes, chest heaving, squinting through the choking fumes at the transmission housing, the black smoke spilling from its innards.
The great engines trembled, stalled, and went silent. Metal shuddered and breathed one final sigh. And at last, the Earthcrusher fell still.
But only for a moment.
*
Yukiko was closing a final grip around Hiro’s mind when the flare scorched the southern horizon. She turned to stare, watching the sky brighten, almost as if a second sun were cresting the island’s lip. The deck shook beneath them, the wounded hulk of the Honorable Death smashing houses away with her belly as she slowly fell. Smoke drifted across the deck as aftershocks from the Tōnan explosion finally reached them, the very air shuddering.
Hana and Kaiah swooped in from the west, a flaming ironclad tumbling from the skies behind them, the girl’s voice burning bright in the Kenning.
The rebels did it! First House is gone!