The sun had barely raised its weary head before Yukiko awoke the next day. Her father was sprawled in his hammock, one foot dangling over the side, snoring like a shredderman’s buzzsaw beneath his kerchief. His clothes reeked of lotus, his fingers stained with sticky, blue-black resin. She made as much noise as she could while washing and dressing, but he stirred not an inch. Cursing under her breath, she stalked from the room.
The deck was already alive with cloudwalkers, the rigging above crawled with at least a dozen men, double-checking knot and cable as they drew ever closer to the oncoming monsoon. Captain Yamagata stood at the helm, both hands on the broad, spoked wheel, shouting orders to his men and cursing up a storm. The Thunder Child had trekked deep into the territory of the Dragon zaibatsu, and a quick glance over the side revealed the Iishi Mountains looming like a dark, jagged stain on the far northern horizon. Soon they would be flying over Kitsune territory; a scarred and smoking landscape she hadn’t seen up-close in almost eight years.
A thick tangle of hair blew across her face, and she tucked it back behind her ears, feeling too sullen to even tie it up. She sat on the chi barrels lashed at the Thunder Child’s bow and watched the red countryside blur and roll beneath her feet. The dawn wind was cool, but the sun’s heat was already growing fierce, and she pulled her goggles up over her eyes to guard them from the piercing glare. She could see the brown stain of a chi pipeline, stabbing westward across the lotus fields; a rusted artery running through diseased flesh. Following the shape to a distant cluster of mountains on the port side, she squinted at the tiny specks of sky-ships floating around a dark smudge of dirt and smog; the mountain bastion of First House. The Guild stronghold was a pentagonal hulk of yellowed stone, squatting high among black clouds on its impregnable perch.
A short wooden practice sword clattered onto the deck between her feet, the blunt blade nicked and dented in a dozen places, hilt wrapped in worn, crisscrossed cord. She stared down at the bokken, then glanced over her shoulder at the person who’d thrown it. Kasumi stood behind her, another short bokken in her hands, long hair tied back in a thick braid.
“Spar?” The woman’s voice was slightly muffled behind her kerchief. “No.” Yukiko turned her eyes back to the horizon. “Thank you.” “It’s been days since you practiced.”
“Four days off in seven years.” Yukiko tried to keep the scowl from her
voice. “I think I’ll live.”
“I’ll go easy on you, if you’re feeling air-sick.”
Yukiko felt her hackles rise at the smile in Kasumi’s voice. She glanced over
her shoulder again. “You couldn’t goad a rabid wolf with talk that weak. You want to try harder?” “No, you’re right.” Kasumi flipped the bokken from one hand to the other. “I should probably just leave you up here to sulk like a six-year-old.”
Yukiko turned to face her. “I’m not sulking.”
“Of course you’re not.” Kasumi knelt and picked up the bokken she’d thrown, pointed at the floor between Yukiko’s feet. “Mind you don’t trip over your bottom lip when you decide to get off your backside.”
Yukiko snatched the practice sword from the older woman’s hand.
“Fine. Have it your way.”
The foredeck was large enough for a decent scrap without getting in any of the sky folk’s way. Yukiko felt a few curious eyes on her as she stood and tied her hair back in a braid, knotting it at the end. Kasumi took up position on the starboard side, flourishing the bokken sword in her hand, a sweeping spiral over her head and around her hip that turned the dented wood into a whistling blur. Yukiko walked to the port side, flipped the practice sword end over end. She took up her stance, stared at the older woman.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on him,” Kasumi said.
Yukiko dashed across the deck, swung the bokken right at Kasumi’s throat. The older woman fell back, deflecting the blow with ease. Yukiko pressed, aimed three quick stabs at face, chest, gut, spinning down into a sweeping arc toward Kasumi’s knees. The sharp crack of wood upon wood rang out across the ship, the thump of bare feet on the decking, the short, shapeless cries that punctuated each swing of Yukiko’s sword.
She locked up Kasumi’s blade, forced the older woman back against the starboard railing. Hundreds of feet of empty air yawned between them and the swaying lotus fronds below.
“Don’t lecture me,” Yukiko spat. “You’re not my godsdamned mother.”
“So you keep reminding me.”
Kasumi hooked her leg behind Yukiko’s and pushed her away. The girl tumbled backward and up into a crouch, parrying the blow falling toward her head. Kasumi kicked her hard in the chest and sent her rolling further across the deck, breath spilling from her lips in a spray of spittle. Yukiko barely flipped up onto her feet in time to ward off the next rain of blows: two diagonal slashes at her chest and a flurry of stabs at her face. She retreated back across the foredeck, trying to regain balance.