The explosion cut his sentence to ribbons.
The dictagraph blasted apart, hurling Kensai clear across the room. He smashed into the far wall, felt his impact against the bricks, tasted blood in his mouth. Crashing to the floor, black flooded in, drowning the rising pain, the scent of his own charred flesh. Smoke filled his lungs, but he could barely manage a cough, fingers stabbing at his mechabacus—a stuttering, clumsy plea for help across the emergency frequencies.
Fading.
Falling.
All the while, a small voice in the back of his head was protesting. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen, it assured him. This wasn’t his What Will Be.
But who was to say any of it was right? Who really knew?
Kensai fought as the dark rushed in, pushing it back, flailing and clawing.
No, I don’t die like this!
Kensai had no time for a rebellion.
And then Kensai had no time at all.
10
AN IRON SEA
The undisputed Lord of the Dragon clan stood in a hallway of his seaside fortress, listening to the rising storm outside his window.
Through the glass, Haruka could see the cliffs where he used to stand as a boy, watching the winter storms ravage his homeland’s coastline. He’d spent hours at a time with his toes at the edge, electricity tingling his scalp as the lightning flashed and thunder rolled, the knowledge that a gust of greedy wind would be all it took to send him down into the Bay of Dragons below. He’d done it to master himself. To kill any trace of terror inside him, that he might grow up to be as fearless a Lord as any the Dragon clan had known.
At sixty-two years of age, Daimyo Haruka almost envied that boy on the cliff’s edge. He couldn’t remember what it was to feel afraid anymore.
He almost missed it.
The Dragon clanlord was short and wiry, a long goatee and gray locks swept away in a topknot. He was clad in a sapphire-blue kimono and a thick cuirass of solid iron. Black clouds hung over the Bay of Dragons, the seas whipped to rushing gray foam. The waters were the color of pitch, rolling out into a dull blood-red. On afternoons like this, Haruka could fancy the oceans were still filled with the spirits of his clan, thrashing in the breakers with long, silvered tails, teeth like katana gnashing amongst the waves.
But those days had passed now. The dragons had gone the way of the arashitora—chased back to the spirit world by chi fumes and the death rattles of the land they once called home. This was not a time for beasts of legend. This was a time for men.
Men and swords.
“Thuh-the most honorable and resplendent D-d-daimyo of the Ruh-Ryu Clan!” Young Daisuke heralded his Lord’s arrival in the Hall of Warriors, voice echoing amongst high rafters. “Fuh-firstborn son of R-r-ryu Sakai, protector of the Suh-seven Seals of J-j-j-jimen-Jiro…”
Haruka stalked to his place at table, swept the long pleated skirts of his kimono aside, and sat cross-legged in one swift motion. His war council remained kneeling, waiting for the herald to finish stuttering through his announcement. Three spit-soaked minutes passed, the boy’s face reddening with concentration. Haruka sighed inwardly, features impassive. His sister’s son had been afflicted by the gods; it had been the honorable thing to offer place amongst his retinue. But still, his sister could have requested a more sensible role for the boy than godsdamned herald …
Daisuke eventually finished, face purple from exertion, pressing forehead to floor.
Relief drifted amongst the war council as the boy fell silent. A chill wind howled in off the bay, filled with the reek of chi sludge and dead fish. Yet Haruka enjoyed the sea’s song despite the stink; the hiss and roll of black surf where his clan once roamed in long sail-ships, a terror to the merchants of the Hawk, the Mantis, and the Turtle. Before the twenty-four clans became four zaibatsu. Before his forefather knelt at a Shōgun’s feet.
Haruka nodded to his assembled council, one hand on the chainsaw katana at his waist.
“My samurai,” he said.
The assembled men pressed brows to table, murmured greetings as one. Haruka turned on his firstborn son, newly returned from scouting the eastern borders of their province.
“Reisu-san. Report.”
“Daimyo.” Reisu bowed his head. “The rumors are true. The Guild has fashioned an almighty war-machine for the Tiger clan. Three hundred feet high if it stands an inch, and an army of shreddermen beside it. The Phoenix Fleet is mustered at Midland Junction, with more Tiger troops arriving by rail every day. They prepare to march north. The upstart Hiro seeks to punish Daimyo Isamu for the temerity of not attending his wedding.”
Haruka stroked his beard. “Think broader, my son. Why would the Tiger clan need shreddermen suits to attack Isamu’s fortress? Is it made of wood?”
“No, Daimyo…”