Kinslayer (The Lotus War #2)

SKRAAI JOIN KINSLAYER? NEVER.

Yukiko blinked the rain from her eyes, frowning.

“Why do you call him that?”

WHAT HE IS.

“But you call yourself Skraai?”

MY NAME.

“Before I met him, Buruu didn’t have a name. I didn’t think…”

Buruu stepped forward, eyes downcast.

YUKIKO …

The nomad tossed his head, snorting again.

KINSLAYER HAD NAME. THEY TAKE FROM HIM, MONKEY-CHILD.

The sound of retching drew Yukiko’s attention away. Ilyitch was curled on wet stone, hair tangled about his face, coughing up seawater. Her concern swelled, the conversation with Skraai momentarily forgotten. She walked to her fallen satchel, hauled out two deep tuna, each as long as her leg. Sliding one across the ground to Buruu, she tossed the other to the nomad with a grunt.

“You two think you can enjoy a meal without tearing each other to pieces?”

The arashitora regarded each other with wary stares. Yukiko knelt beside the gaijin, smoothed the hair from his face. The tempest had lessened, wind slowing to a gale, rain falling in sheets rather than blankets. Ilyitch looked up at her and gave a weak smile, leaned back against broken rock and pulled his wolf skin tight about himself. Running one hand over the pelt, fingers in sodden fur, he murmured beneath his breath. Eyes closed. Head bowed. He seemed to be giving thanks. Yukiko wondered what gods he prayed to.

After a sentence or two, Ilyitch pulled a tin box from inside his coveralls, produced one of his smoke sticks and put it to his lips with trembling hands. Realizing it was soaked with seawater, he spit it out again in disgust.

Yukiko stood and walked over to Buruu, running her fingertips along the misshapen lines of his clockwork wings. Some of the canvas quills had been ripped loose in the struggle with Skraai and the harness was badly torn, but the skeleton seemed reasonably intact. Bent and crumpled, certainly; it’d be impossible to fly with them in their current state. But with the right tools, she might be able to beat them back into shape.

Problem was, they hadn’t brought any tools with them.

She turned back to Ilyitch, still slumped on the stone, catching his breath. She pushed a picture into his mind; the shape of tools, of hands working on the mechanical wings. The boy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, gave a weary nod.

“So how do we get the tools out here?” Yukiko pointed to the cable network again, made a pedaling motion with her hands. “We have to go back and get them.”

The thought made her entire body ache.

The gaijin held up a finger as if to say “watch and learn.” He reached into his own satchel, produced a bundle wrapped in brown oilskin. Unfolding a few layers, he revealed a cylinder of black metal, perhaps a foot long. Yukiko helped him to his feet, and he smiled and muttered what she presumed was thanks. Walking to the island’s edge with the oilskin beneath his arm, he twisted the cylinder, held it above his head, pointed to the clouds. A puff of smoke spat from the haft, the tube hissing. Magnesium-bright light flared, and an object shot into the sky, fifty feet into the tempest. A tiny second sun, hissing and popping in the rain, trailing a long cloud of pale gray smoke. Buruu and Skraai looked up from their meals, watched the white fire glowing above. Buruu growled. Yukiko stepped forward, confused and frowning.

“What are you doing?” She raised her voice, as if it would help him understand her better. “Ilyitch? Won’t they see that from the farm?”

The gaijin turned to her with a smile. Reaching into his oilskin he drew out a tube of coiled brass and delicate glass globes. He raised it toward Buruu.

“Oh gods, n—”

A crackling arc of white light burst from the tube, reaching across the space between Ilyitch and Buruu and filling it with thunder. The arashitora reared back and took the bolt to his chest, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending him crashing into the rocks behind. Yukiko screamed and lunged toward the weapon, and a backhand from Ilyitch landed on her jaw, sent her tumbling. Skraai roared, spread his wings and charged headlong into another burst of deafening white light. It hit him like a wrecking ball, rolling his eyes back in his skull as he collapsed, skidding to a halt three feet from the gaijin’s toes, steam rising from his fur.

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