HOW NICE CAN MONKEY-CHILD ASK?
Well, if you were a pretty boy with prettier lips, I might think of something fancy. But I think I’ll have to do with “pretty please,” oh mighty Shai, Shakhan of the Everstorm pack.
MIGHTY SHAI.
Amusement rippled in the Kenning, warm as a new spring breeze.
YOU I WILL DEFINITELY LIKE.
*
The elevator doors split apart with a hiss, iron grinding in buckled furrows. Kin limped out onto the Earthcrusher bridge, the air filled with the smell of burned insulation, chi exhaust and blood. All around him, Guildsmen lay on the floor, heads beating against the decking with that off-beat rhythm, arms and legs twitching.
Kin and Shinji made their way down to the deck, Kin’s eyes fixed on the figure sitting in the pilot’s chair. That perfect, childish face, eyes aglow, blood leaking from his collar—the man Kin had called Uncle. Second Bloom Kensai.
No, Kin reminded himself. First Bloom now …
Shinji grabbed a piece of broken iron railing, tore it free, standing beside Kensai’s prone form as Kin thumbed the latches at his collar, watching the throat unfold like a flower, unfastening the lengths of cable at the child’s mouth and pulling the helmet free.
It wasn’t a monster waiting for him behind the mask, not a horror twisted and deformed. Just an old man, eyes creased at the edges, slack jowls, balding pate dotted with liver spots. Kensai’s eyes were wide, pupils fixed, and he continued to bash his head into the harness, his mechabacus echoing the stuttering beat spitting from every Guildsman’s chest.
“Do you want to do it?” Shinji proffered the iron bar. “Or should I?”
“Why would we kill him?”
“He’s the First Bloom of the Lotus Guild. He killed Maseo and Bo. Why the hells would we keep him alive?”
Kin looked out to the smoking ruins of Yama city. He thought of the arashitora cut to pieces by the Earthcrusher’s defenses, the brave samurai who’d crashed their ships into the Earthcrusher to try and halt its advance, the countless soldiers who must have lost their lives. And at the last, he thought of Daichi. This victory the old man had bought with his life.
“For all he’s done, Kensai deserves justice in the cold light of day. Not a clumsy murder in the dark.”
Kin replaced Kensai’s helm to spare the old man’s skull further punishment. Then he began unfastening the pilot’s harness, the pain of his burns a distant, cutting ache.
“Help me with him, brother.”
Shinji stood, uncertain, the air filled with the stuttering beat of Guildsmen skulls on metal grilles. But at last, he took hold, straining with the weight, and the pair hauled the First Bloom out of the pilot’s rig. Half carrying, half dragging him to the elevator, the boys staggered out into the loading bay, finally reaching broad double doors marked with diagonal stripes of yellow paint. The hydraulics were disabled, and the pair propped Kensai against the wall as they spun the locking wheel, finally cracking the doors open and blinking out into blinding light.
Kin winced, held his breath, the poisoned air tasting impossibly sweet after the Earthcrusher’s choking confines. He looked out over Yama, the smashed walls of Kitsune-jō all around them, the bushimen and samurai moving out of cover slowly, weapons raised. Smoke and ash, fire and blood, the ground trembling as an aftershock from the colossal quake hit the city.
Ruined walls toppled to dust, Kin and Shinji crouching low with Kensai between them as the city shivered and fitted, just like the man they clutched between them.
“Gods above,” Kin breathed, eyes roaming the carnage. “Just look at it all…”
Shinji extended the loading ramp down to the broken ground. Palace guardsmen were surrounding the Earthcrusher, crossbows raised, cadres of bushimen preparing to advance.
“Hold!” Kin called.
“You give no commands here, Guildsman!” A tall Kitsune man stood amidst the rubble, broad as a doorway, a general’s sigil on his tabard. “You stand within the walls of Kitsune-jō, the Fortress of the Fox and our Lord, Daimyo Isamu!”
“We are rebels!” Kin shouted. “We have Shateigashira Kensai here as our prisoner!”
“An obvious ploy.” The man spat on the ground. “You think us fools?”
“A ploy? Who the hells do you think sabotaged this thing?” Shinji slapped one palm against the Earthcrusher’s hull. “Didn’t you notice someone stopped it stone dead forty feet from your Daimyo’s bedroom door? Or did you think it ran out of fucking chi?”
“Quite a mouth you’ve got on you, boy.”
“That’s just what your daughter said!”
The general laughed. “Quite a pair too. What’s your name?”
Kin cut off Shinji’s reply. “My name is Kin, General. My exuberant friend is Shinji.”
“I have heard your name. This very day, in fact…”
The man lowered his head in a slow bow.