The Guild had betrayed him. Hachiman’s chosen.
Out into the blinding heat, long red cloak billowing behind him as he fled down the broad cobbles of the arena district, into the alleys and squeezeways near the Market Square. The Shōgun screamed for his guards, for anyone, cries ringing off hollow stone. The streets were empty, not a soul to be seen. He could hear the sound of music and laughter drifting on the choking breeze. Breaking left, he dashed toward Spire Row and the gala at the base of the skyspires. He tore off his cloak, threw it behind him. Lost in his fear, no pause for thought, flight instinct flooding his veins with adrenalin and pumping into trembling, taut muscle. Thunder rumbled to the north.
He heard a roar bouncing off the alley walls, his face twisting in fear.
It is behind me.
He screamed again, stumbling through the alley trash and out onto the Market Square, breath burning in his lungs. His muscles were tense with anticipated agony, the terror of dying beneath the beast’s claws turning his gut to water. It screamed again behind him, a prelude to his bloody end.
A crowd of revellers paused mid-song, faces pale with astonishment as the Ninth Shōgun of the Kazumitsu Dynasty barrelled through them, scattering them on the flagstones. He pounded across the cobbles, stumbling and almost falling down the steps surrounding the Burning Stones. The blackened columns rose into the air about him, casting long shadows on the ground. A child cried out from across the way, several drunken men dropped to their knees in supplication. The unwashed masses, instinct forcing their foreheads into the dirt.
Why do they not run? Do they not fear the beast?
Yoritomo risked a wide-eyed glance behind him and saw only the girl. Not the gore-soaked thunder tiger that had torn his men to ribbons. Not the engine of beak and claw and lightning he feared was chasing him. Just one feeble little girl with a bloody knife in her hands.
He skidded to a halt in the pit, incredulous, ashes billowing around his ankles. His fingers closed about the textured grip of the iron-thrower in his obi, drawing it from its holster. The girl charged headlong toward him, snarling, knuckles white on the handle of her tantō. Her eyes were a demon’s, alight with hatred.
The iron-thrower rose in slow motion. The muzzle flashed, bright as a second sun. A boom rang out like thunder as the bullet ricocheted off the stone at her feet.
The girl froze.
Masaru had only stopped long enough to tie the hakama of a fallen bushiman around his waist, snatch up a pair of bloody goggles and a bloodstained kodachi blade from a gnawed, twitching hand. Dashing along dark sweating corridors, bounding up the prison stairs three at a time, past the open cells and slumped bodies of Michi’s victims, up toward the sunlight. He sprinted out into the blinding glare, hand up to blot out the light as he strapped the lenses over his eyes. Pawing at the thick droplets of congealing scarlet on the glass, he bolted in the direction of the arena.
A group of drunken revellers took one look at the half-naked, blooddrenched, sword-wielding madman dashing down the street toward them and fled in the other direction as quickly as they could manage. Matted gray hair streaming behind him, fists clenched, bare, bloody feet pounding on broken cobbles, Masaru ran as fast as his body would take him, through the twisting maze of alleys past the chapterhouse, across a broad footbridge, east toward the arena. Breath dragging in his lungs, salt burning in his eyes, broken glass and cracked stone tearing at his heels. But the pain was nothing compared to the thought of his daughter fighting and falling alone; the fear of losing the only thing he had left in this world turned his gut to grease and shushed the meager concerns of his body away.
And so he ran, breath hissing between his teeth, heart lurching in his chest, flesh slick with a sheen of sweat. He could see the walls of the arena looming up over the jagged rooftops in the distance, the empty, snaggle-toothed faces of the Docktown tumbledowns. His grip on the hilt of the kodachi was a vice, the buildings around him nothing but a blur, running so fast he felt he might fly. He seized hold of a downspout as he rounded a corner, skidding to a stop as he heard a strange sound split the air.
A hollow boom, as of too-close thunder. The sound of a ricochet cracking off splintering stone. Not as deep as a dragon cannon. Louder than a kindling wheel.
Only one man he knew carried a weapon capable of making a sound like that.