“No fear. I’d sooner put my wedding tackle in the mouth of a hungry sea dragon than anger the Black Fox of Shima, Lady.”
Yamagata grinned and gave a small bow, one fist covered by the palm of his other hand. Kasumi returned the bow and watched him begin his long climb up the spire. The man swung on the corroded rungs, deft hands on rusting iron, up toward his ship above. The Thunder Child’s captain seemed a decent sort, and Kasumi breathed a small sigh of relief. The Dragon and Fox zaibatsu had been fighting border skirmishes for de cades, and there was little love lost between the two clans. Although not every Ryu or Kitsune took the longstanding grudge to heart, she had been worried Yamagata might not appreciate having the Black Fox or his daughter aboard.
Kasumi turned her eyes to the crowd, leaning on her bo-staff—a six-foot length of ironwood capped with burnished steel. The mob milled around her: cloudwalkers fresh off their ships, sararīmen rubbing shoulders with the clockwork suits of the Lotusmen, young boys handing out sticky printed newssheets and singing tales of barbarian atrocities against Shima colonists overseas. She even noticed a few gaijin traders among the mob, short blond hair and pale, smog-stained skin, clothed in dyed wool of a strange cut, animal furs draped over their shoulders despite the crushing heat. They were surrounded by wooden crates and looming piles of genuine leather, negotiating the price on a dozen rolls of tanned cow hide with a swarming gang of neo-chōnin.
For the past twenty years, the round-eyes had worn the label of “enemy”; painted in the newssheets as treacherous blood-drinkers who stole the spirits of beasts and wore their skins. They had wasted the last two de cades fighting a futile resis tance against the Shōgunate invasion, when it would have been easier for everyone if they simply rolled belly-up and allowed themselves to be civilized. Kasumi marveled that even in the midst of all-out warfare, there were men who sought profit in the beds of their would-be conquerors. Yet here they were: gaijin merchantmen trekking across the seas in their lightning-powered freighters, each one with an elaborate residency permit inked on their wrists. They stood on the boardwalk under the narrowed stares of the city guards, selling their leather goods at exorbitant prices in a country where hide made from anything other than corpse-rat was now virtually impossible to find. They haggled and traded and counted their coin, pale blue eyes hidden behind polarized glass, watching war prisoners arrive by the shipload. But if the Docktown gaijin had misgivings about the treatment of their countrymen, they also had no wish to join their fellows on their march up to the chapterhouse. And so they kept their heads down, and their opinions to themselves.
After a spell, Kasumi caught sight of Akihito, standing a head taller than most of the mob. The big man appeared as if he was treading water in a sea of dirty straw hats and paper umbrellas.
She waved, and the trio shoved their way through the throng until they were face to face.
“You found them, I see.” Kasumi smiled at Yukiko. “And in one piece.”
The girl grimaced, pulled her goggles down around her throat. “One smelly piece.”
“Masaru-sama.” Kasumi bowed to Yukiko’s father. She tried not to notice when the girl rolled her eyes.
Masaru returned the bow, still looking quite ragged about the edges. An ugly purple bruise was forming under one eye, spilling out from under the lens of his goggles.
“How are you, you big lump?” Kasumi looked Akihito up and down. “Excited?”
“No, I’m hungry.”
“You just ate!” Yukiko shook her head.
“Oh, cheer up.” Kasumi slapped the big man on the arm. “Don’t tell me your blood doesn’t quicken at the thought of hunting a thunder tiger, you grumpy sod. It’s been years since we went after something like this.”
“Something like what?” Akihito folded his arms, clearly unimpressed. “The figment of a smoke-fiend’s imagination?”
“We should get moving,” Masaru interrupted the pair, squinting through the haze at the sky-ship above. “Is all the gear aboard? Extra Kobiashis and blacksleep?”
“Hai, Masaru-sama,” Kasumi nodded. “It cost me a few extra kouka to get the cage down here on short notice, but I needn’t have rushed. Minister Hideo said we were to wait until he arrived.”
“Aiya,” Masaru sighed, lying down across a stack of crates and rubbing the back of his head. “That could take all day. Someone kick me when he gets here.”
“You got anything to eat?” Akihito raised a hopeful eyebrow.