Jay Kristoff - Kinslayer

“Daichi-sama.” A low bow. “You honor this house with your presence.”

“Gray Wolf.” Daichi covered his fist and bowed. “This is Kin-san and Ayane-san.”

Kin felt like the old woman looked right through him.

“The Guildsmen…”

“I vouch for them,” Daichi said. “They have risked more than most to be here tonight.”

The woman chewed at the inside of her cheek, turned and walked down a narrow hallway. The trio followed, Daichi limping hard, past a cluttered kitchen, corpse-rats strung up and bleeding over a cast-iron sink, descending twisting wooden stairs into the cellar. A broad oaken table dominated the space, spread with a map of Kigen city, the pieces from three or four different chess sets arranged across the labyrinthine streets. Kaori stood near the stairwell, speaking with a man the size of a small house. They were surrounded by dozens more people; young and old, men and women and children. As Daichi entered the room, everyone stopped and stared, placed palms over fists, eyes filled with unveiled adoration and relief.

“My friends,” the old man smiled. “My brothers and sisters.”

“Father.” Kaori motioned to the big man beside her. “This is Yukiko’s friend, Akihito-san.”

“Daichi-sama.” The big man limped forward and bowed low. “We heard you were wounded. It gladdens us all to have you with us.”

“Akihito-san.” Daichi clapped him on the shoulder, a fragile tremor in his voice. “Yukiko-chan spoke of you often.”

“How is she? I’m surprised she’s not here.”

Murmurs around the room. Nods of agreement.

“The Stormdancer is entangled in business to the north.” Kin noted Daichi phrased the statement so it wouldn’t be an outright lie. “I am certain we are in her thoughts. But it is not for her alone to pull this country back from the brink.

“When you place too much faith in one person, in me, in the Stormdancer, whomever, you lose sight of the power within yourself, my friends. Each of us must risk all. For each of us has as much to lose if we fail.” He coughed, wiped his knuckles across his lips. “Everything.”

Daichi looked around the room, caught the eye of each man, woman and child. Kin saw uncertainty in them to match his own. Desperation. Even fear. They saw the old man’s weakness. The new frailty. The walking stick. The hand pressed to battered ribs.

“Take heart, brothers and sisters,” Daichi said. “You will tell your children you were here. Tonight, as we take one step closer to throwing off the chi-monger’s yoke and freeing this nation once and for all. We bring the dawn after blackest night. We bring fire to all the dark places of the world. They say the lotus must bloom. We say it must burn.”

“Burn,” came the scattered reply, a soft murmur from a few uncertain voices.

Daichi licked his lips. Eyes like cold stone roaming the Kagé members.

“Say it again,” he said, his voice growing louder. “The lotus must burn.”

More voices now. Stronger.

“Burn.”

Daichi shook his head, his voice harder still, steel ringing in his tone. “Speak it as if your lives depended on it.”

Every voice in the room now, raised in unison. All save Kin and Ayane.

“Burn.”

Daichi was shouting now, drawing strength from them, they from him, a perfect circle of flame and will and rage. “Say it as if you and you alone stood between this nation and utter ruin!”

“Burn!”

“The slavery of your children!”

“Burn!”

“The end of everything you know and love!”

“BURN!” they cried, roaring from the bottom of their bellies, fists clenched, teeth bared, spit flying. “BURN!”

“And that is exactly what we will do.” The old man nodded, surveyed the chess pieces on the map. Picking up a black empress, he placed it in the chi refinery. “Burn it all. Right into the ground.”

Kin watched silently as the old man split the Kagé into groups; street ambushers, palace assault, bridge gangs. He watched the locals issue weapons; kusarigama sickles, iron tetsubo, staves, crude knives, even an old katana in a battered sheath for Daichi. Kerchiefs tied over faces, hats pulled low over narrowed eyes. Embraces and kisses of farewell, hands clasped, hollow bravado ringing in their laughter. He looked at the people around him, folk from every walk of life, united in their hatred of the thing he used to be.

The thing he could still try to run from.

Ayane pressed against him, hand still clasped in his.

Too late for that. Too late for all of it. The pieces were in place, moving toward confrontation, homemade chi-bombs clutched in their hands. To think they believed they had a chance. To think anyone here believed there could be a way out of this. To stand against the colossus of iron and smoke that even now would be stretching its limbs, gunning its motors, chainblades blotting out the moon.

There was no fighting it. Not this way. Against the Earthcrusher, this rabble had no chance at all …

“You’re Yukiko’s Guildsman.”

Kin blinked his way free of his reverie, focusing on the big man now standing in front of him. Akihito looked him up and down; a mountain carved in flesh, impassive face, massive arms folded across a barrel-broad chest.

“You were on the Thunder Child, ” he said.

“I was,” Kin replied.

“They say you helped her escape. Built metal wings so the arashitora could fly her free.”

“I did.”

The big man stared hard, eyes as cold and black as flint. Kin felt other stares upon him, sweat tickling the back of his neck. Slowly, deliberately, Akihito extended one massive paw.

“Then you have my thanks. And I would call you friend.”

Kin glanced around the room, at the sharp stares and pursed lips, distrust hanging so thick in the air he could scrape it away with his fingernails. He looked back at the giant, down at the extended hand, tongue cleaving to his teeth.

“I’m not so sure you want a friend like me, Akihito-san.”

Daichi was standing near the map table, caught Kin’s eye and motioned him closer, asking him to outline the refinery layout to the strike team one last time. Kin stepped away from the giant with an apologetic bow and looked at the assembled Kagé—the Shadow crew that would slip between the cracks and light a conflagration in the Guild’s innards. Kaori would lead them, taking a dozen men into the refinery core and reducing it to cinders. The rest of the Kagé would disperse in the city, drawing out forces from chapterhouse and palace, making the Shōgun and Guild denude their stronghold defenses to protect their streets.

Daichi would oversee the Shadow strike into the Tiger palace—just a swift handful, light as knives, stealing through the chaos and wresting the Lady Aisha from her wedding bed. Kin stared at the Kagé who would guard their general on the back lines, young and fierce as tigers. The faces of the boys who had tried to kill him. Who had hurt Ayane.

Isao. Atsushi. Takeshi.

Their distrust was palpable, stares drifting to the input jacks at his wrists, the pale slip of a girl behind. The legacy of her assault was still carved on their arms. Their vengeance written in her hollow, haunted eyes.

Daichi patted Kin’s back; a show of endorsement, of faith despite it all. The way his father used to do in the workshop, in days before he dreamed of dissent or betrayal or revolution. Before he even knew what those words meant.

Kin unrolled a hand-drawn map of the refinery sewage system, took a dozen chess pieces and began to speak. He outlined approach. Breach. Security. Contingencies. Every nuance, every possible outcome. He took Kaori over the homemade chi explosives again and again, explaining in minute detail how to arm the devices and where they should be placed for optimum results.