“General! The Guildsmen wearing red paint—they’re rebels! They’re on your side!”
She heard a roar behind, turned to see Yukiko and Buruu cutting through the air, blood spattered on snow-white feathers and snow-white skin. Yukiko was sitting tall, a naked katana in her hand, its blade gleaming in the inferno light.
“Rebels!” she cried, pointing to the Kurea. “We offer sanctuary! Head to our ship!”
Hana saw the loyalist Guildsmen thrown into panic at Yukiko’s approach. Three Lotusmen beating on a rebel scattered like a flock of sparrows as her shadow fell over them. Dots of blue-white flame flared over the city, loyalists fleeing through the smoke and exhaust fumes toward their ruptured tower. Buruu roared, filling the skies with thunder.
“The Stormdancer!” one of them screamed. “Run while you can!”
And run they did. Fleeing to the docks in droves, the hulking shapes of ironclads gathered around the sky-spires. Artificers scuttling from their ruined tower, followed by wasp-waisted figures with silver razors on their backs. The Kitsune samurai charged over the Amatsu bridges, chainswords revving, calling for surrender as the Guild loyalists bundled into their ships.
Hana was bleeding, wound at her thigh, another on her forearm. But the red, red pulse thundered in her veins and the smoke and death filled her lungs and she knew, she knew with every ounce of herself that though this might not be right, at least it was just, and though the walls and ceiling might be painted red, this was the closest thing to a home she’d ever known.
Propellers surged at the sky-docks, the Guild fleet casting off and pushing their engines into the redline. The Kitsune fleet was moving from their own spires on the western bank, firing their net-throwers and snarling engines, ships on both sides listing and crippled.
The Guild ironclads laid down withering fire, forcing Buruu and Kaiah back from the largest and grandest of the sky-ships. A hundred and fifty feet long, name painted down its flanks in bold kanji: Lotus Eater. It was a floating fortress studded with shuriken turrets, lumbering upward and filling the skies around it with death.
“That must be the Second Bloom’s sky-ship!” Yukiko shouted.
“Should we let him get away?”
Kaiah snarled, her bloodlust flowing into Hana and pounding in her chest.
– SHOULD KILL NOW. STRIKE WHILE WEAK. – “I don’t think we could get close!” Yukiko yelled. “It’s too well armed. Besides, we have to regroup. Speak to the rebels. Dozens of them died today because of Kaori’s bullshit—we have to mend that bridge. Having them as allies is going to be more useful than killing the Second Bloom of a ruined chapterhouse.”
Hana nodded, sitting up on Kaiah’s back and fighting against the impulse to tear anything moving from the sky. The Kitsune fleet shadowed the fleeing Guild ships, but they seemed more interested in protecting the city than preventing the Guild’s departure. Two crippled Guild ships were being boarded, crews resisting with suicidal abandon. The skies echoed with chatter of shuriken fire.
“We should help the Kitsune,” Hana said. “Those Guild crews aren’t going—”
“Hana…” Yukiko pointed to the Lotus Eater. “Look.”
Hana found herself falling behind Kaiah’s eyes without thinking, her vision knife-sharp though the glare and smoke. She could see figures at a shuriken turret on top of the Lotus Eater’s inflatable—two Guildsmen struggling with a third. As she watched, the lone fighter kicked one assailant in the chest, sending him tumbling out into the open air. The falling Guildsman fired his rocket pack, bringing himself level with the deck. He shouted to the apparently oblivious crew, pointed at the struggle going on above their heads.
The arashitora circled closer, watching as a half-dozen Lotusmen leaped over the railings and rocketed up toward the melee. In the meantime, the struggling Guildsman had gained the upper hand, tearing a handful of cable from his opponent’s backpack and kicking him out into the void. His atmos-suit was stained with soot and smoke, but certainly not painted red.
Hana shouted over the wind and engine roar. “If he’s not a rebel, why are they fighting?”
Yukiko shrugged, shouted back. “Infiltrator?”
The Guildsman climbed into the shuriken-thrower turret and aimed the barrel at the inflatable. The ’thrower fired, punching through reinforced canvas. The air was filled with the screech of escaping hydrogen as the compartment began deflating. Standing at the tear’s edge, the Guildsman tore the mechabacus from his chest in a blinding shower of red-hot sparks.
“Death to the Serpents!” he cried.