The bushiman glanced up from his obi and saw his fellow passed out cold on the deck. He ran to his comrade’s body and knelt beside it, sloughing off his gauntlet and checking at the throat for a pulse. Yukiko stepped out of the shadows behind, footfalls soft as baby’s breath, needle gleaming between her fingers. The bushiman collapsed onto his friend’s body with a bleeding puncture in his neck.
The third and fourth bushimen were standing on the upper walls at the other side of the arena, staring out toward Kigen Bay. Music drifted on the sweltering wind as they spoke in hushed tones, cursing their misfortune at landing guard duty on today of all days. Her feet were quiet as ghosts behind them, a murmur of soft cloth on cool, hard gray. Dull sunlight flashed on surgical steel, a needle in each hand, thumbs poised on the plungers. Spots of blood welled from the needle-pricks, staining the fabric beneath their arms a deeper red. Each man collapsed without a whimper, and the sound of iron crashing hard onto stone echoed among the empty benches.
Looking down at the slumbering soldiers, Yukiko was reminded of a poem her mother had taught her when she was a little girl:
Tiger proudly roars.
Dragon dives and Phoenix soars. Fox gets the chicken.
“Kitsune looks after his own,” she whispered. She tossed the empty blacksleep hypos onto the unconscious bodies and touched the tattoo on her arm for luck. Buruu growled on the arena floor below.
THE STORM GROWS CLOSE.
I know.
Looking up at the fingers of dark cloud drifting over the noonday sun, she
prayed Kin would arrive soon. A length of weighted chain flashed out of the darkness, wrapping around the bushiman’s throat. He gasped and clutched at the metal links turning his larynx to pulp. Akihito loomed out of the black, fist descending to knock the man senseless. Black shuriken stars whizzed from the shadows, cutting the second guard down as he drew breath to shout for help. Blood sprayed across the walls, random patterns of deep scarlet on dull, sweating rock.
Michi stepped from the dark, more throwing stars poised between her fingers. Kasumi prowled close behind, casting anxious glances back the way they’d come. Akihito’s eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and he could see the tension in Kasumi’s stance, swimming in her eyes. Her knuckles were white on the haft of her iron-shod bo-staff.
“Are you all right?” he whispered.
“I’m worried about Yukiko.”
“This way,” Michi nodded.
The trio stole along the corridor, creeping down narrow spiral stairs. The
chattering and screech of rats echoed off moist stone, air growing thicker as they descended. The stink of rotting meat and human waste clung to their skin, slick with sweat. Stone walls pressed in around them, all sweltering heat and noxious vapor.
Michi signaled a stop, crept forward in the darkness. Sounds of a scuffle, leather and metal on stone. A soft, wet exhalation. The girl returned and motioned for them to follow, a splash of someone else’s blood across her forehead and running thick down one cheek. The tsurugi in her hands gleamed black in the gloom.
“You don’t need to kill them,” Kasumi murmured.
“You think they would spare you, Hunter?”
“Why do you do this?” Akihito whispered. “Why help us?”
“Yoritomo must die,” Michi replied flatly, squinting into the black ahead.
They arrived at a T-junction, stopped to listen, pressed against the damp stone. “He hurt you?” Kasumi asked softly.
“Look at the world around you, Hunter,” Michi growled. “He’s hurting everyone.”
HE APPROACHES. Yukiko peered from the grandstand shadows as the sound of clockwork and pistons rolled off the arena walls. She could see an Artificer emerging from one of the entryways, peering around the benches, a squat mechanical contraption on tank treads rolling behind him. The mechanoid dragged a four-wheel trailer covered with a dirty gray oilskin.
“Kin-san!” Yukiko bounced down the stone stairs, feet so light she felt she could fly. She couldn’t help throwing her arms around his neck, eyes alight with her smile. “You came.”
The Artificer disentangled himself from the hug, voice crackling like beetle shells underfoot.
“I gave you my word that I would.”
“I hadn’t heard from you in days. I feared something had happened to you.”
“We should start.” He turned, motioning to the servitor. “We don’t have much time.”
Yukiko helped him unload the trailer and bring the gear into Buruu’s pit. The thunder tiger eyed the Guildsman’s contraption, tail tucked between his legs. Long lengths of hollow metal, enameled with the same strange iridescent coating as the Shōgun’s motor-rickshaws. Sheets of treated canvas, the same lightweight skin as the balloon bladders of the sky-ships. Hydraulics and pistons and clockwork teeth.
THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG.
What do you mean?
THE WAY HE MOVES. THE WAY HE SPEAKS.
“Is everything all right, Kin-san?” Yukiko frowned.