Warbound: Book Three of the Grimnoir Chronicles by Larry Correia Page B

that made him suspect that the assassins that had been sent by the false Chairman had removed the other embassy staff who had known too much.
    Gold was promised to anyone who could provide information on Toru’s whereabouts, and anyone who managed to erase this shame from the world would be given a wealth beyond their dreams and a position of importance within the court bureaucracy.
    Toru Tokugawa was now the most wanted man in the Imperium.
    The worst part was that every espionage plan he’d been involved with, and there were many that had originated at the Washington embassy, were now compromised. Cells would be rearranged. Undercover agents would be pulled. The Chairman’s mission of conquest in America had been dealt a severe blow. The message implied that Toru had been a Grimnoir agent, and that he had been recruited years ago after losing face and shaming himself as a coward during the occupation of Manchuria. That was nothing but an insult. Toru truly loved the Imperium. He would never betray the Chairman’s mission of purification. He believed in the doctrine of strength above all else. His integrity would never allow him to give valuable Imperium secrets to the Grimnoir. He was only here because his father’s ghost had demanded it.
    His attempt at meditation was a failure. Peace would not come. His mind would not clear. Toru’s bed consisted of a mat and a few blankets thrown down on the cold metal floor, and now, meditating only seemed to focus his discomforts. The small portion of the cargo hold which he had claimed for himself was permanently chilled. The constant thrum of the Traveler’s unearthly engines grated on his nerves. He had given up his position of status for this?
    What he really wanted to do was take up his steel tetsubo and start smashing things, but a warrior did not disgrace himself with displays of emotion, especially when among his people’s enemies. He would not show weakness in front of the wretched Grimnoir . . . Also, the interior of a fragile dirigible was a terrible place to go mad with an eighty-pound club and superhuman strength.
    How dare they bring up Manchuria? Yes, he had questioned his leaders, but it had not been because of cowardice . . . It had been . . . What? He had disobeyed those orders why? Compassion? No . . . That was not what had cost him his promotion and gotten him removed from the front and sent to serve with the Diplomatic Corps in America. That was not why he’d disobeyed.
    It had been guilt. It had been conscience .
    He crushed the letter in his fist and tried to go back to his meditations. After a few minutes of futile mental exercise, he decided to concentrate on physical exercise instead. The one thing the Traveler had in abundance was pipes sticking through the walls, and he’d already found a few solid enough to do chin-ups from.
    Careful not to tap into his own Power or any of the eight magical kanji branded onto his skin, for that would have been cheating, Toru began doing repetitions. The stronger his own body was, the harder he could push his Power without damage. Since it was discovered that he was a Brute, the Imperium schools had made sure he’d spent hours a day doing physical training, every day, for a decade. Toru was no stranger to exercise. Besides, it helped him think.
    The Imperium had wanted him to read this message. Diplomatic Corps training had taught him that a message such as this would have been encrypted. This message had not been. Surely, as soon as they discovered that he had faked his own death, the code key would have been changed. He should not have been able to read a real, current message.
    They were trying to shake him. They were trying to insult him, make him angry, to cause him to do something foolish. If that was the case, they had underestimated his resolve. It would not work. Okubo Tokugawa’s final command had been to Jake Sullivan, ergo, Toru was honor-bound to see Sullivan’s mission completed, no matter what.
    If