KILL YOU ALL.
The celebrations were short-lived. The mournful whine of the Child’s remaining engine dragged the cloudwalkers from their moment of joy. Many of them glanced at the torn rigging or at the smoking hole in the Child’s flank, fear plain in their eyes. The storm pounded their ship without mercy; a child’s toy adrift on a raging ocean. The portside engine was gone, severed fuel lines still spitting blood-red chi into the abyss below as the sailors struggled to shut down the valves. Even with the starboard motor at full burn, Yamagata couldn’t maintain course. The Child plunged deeper into the tempest, compass spinning, silhouettes of black crags looming out of the darkness.
Masaru clambered up to the pilot’s deck, pushed the rain-soaked hair from his eyes.
“Is it bad?”
“It’s a far cry from bloody good!” Yamagata shouted, leaning into the wheel, his face as grim and pale as a hungry ghost’s. “I can’t see a godsdamned thing!” He turned to his navigator. “Toshi, get on that floodlight on the port side, and get somebody up here to take the starboard. We’re too low. We could fly right into one of these bastard mountains and wouldn’t even know it until we’re dead. Where the bloody hells is Kioshi?”
The navigator stumbled away toward the ladder, yelling for one of the crew. Masaru leaned in closer to Yamagata, shouting to be heard over the snarling wind.
“Can you get us out of the storm?”
“No chance!” The captain staggered as the Child bucked beneath them, wiped his eyes on his sleeve and spat on the deck. “We’re at the mercy of the wind with only one motor. Even if we had a spare port engine, we couldn’t fix it in this shit.”
“Can you take her up?”
“I’m trying, godsdammit! We’re carrying a lot of extra weight.”
As if it could read their minds, the arashitora reared up in its cage, letting loose a groggy roar. The rain pooling across the deck danced skyward amidst the subsonic vibrations. Cloudwalkers backed away from the cage as the beast tried to gain its feet, tearing at the netting with claws and beak, steel-strong lotus fibers snapping like rotten wool.
“Izanagi’s balls,” Masaru breathed, shaking his head. “I put enough blacksleep into it to kill a dozen men.”
“How much do you have left?”
“Not nearly enough for the trip home.”
The sound of shearing cord rang out under the rumbling thunder and howling wind. The creature bellowed in answer to the clouds, the hairs on Masaru’s arms standing rigid, air charged with static electricity. The beast shook itself, remnants of the net sloughing off its wings. Its claws dug great furrows into the deck beneath its feet, the planks cracking like dry leaves.
Kasumi called his name, and Akihito’s face appeared at the top of the ladder to the pilot’s deck moments later. The former quarrel between the men was forgotten, the big man still charged with the elation of their victory.
“It’s waking up, Masaru! Seven darts and it’s on its feet! Have you ever seen the like?”
There was a sound like thunder, close and deafening, splitting the air in two and rolling down their spines. Loud as the crack of an iron-thrower, a bullwhip snapping in the air. The ship rocked as if it had been uppercut, thrashing back on it haunches, cables groaning. A scream of pain rang out from below. Several cloudwalkers were rolling on the wood, covering bleeding ears with trembling hands.
The air split again, Masaru wincing as the ship bucked beneath his feet. He blinked through the rain at the beast, watching as it tried to rear up on its hind legs in the confines of the cage. The mighty wings flapped again, a burst of blue electricity arcing along its flight feathers, accompanied by that same, deafening thunderclap. The ship dropped a good twenty feet in altitude, Masaru’s stomach staying behind to admire the view.
“Gods above, what is that?” Yamagata cried.
“Raijin song,” breathed Masaru.
Truth be told, he had thought it was a mere tall story. Gaudy trimming on the tales of the Stormdancers, one more magical power to elevate them from bedtime stories to legends. The old tales spoke of the song of an arashitora’s wings, the deafening thunderclap that sounded as they wheeled in the storms above, sending the front lines of enemy armies scattering or curled in fetal distress on the battlefield. A gift from their father, the Thunder God himself, the stories said, to mark his children as his own. But it was only an old wives’ tale.
As if in answer, the thunder tiger cracked its wings again, making the same head-splitting noise. Arcs of raw current seethed down the iron cage, bright, impossibly blue. The ship bucked again, rivets groaning, ropes unravelling one thread at a time.