River of Thieves

by Clayton Snyder

  I Kind of Miss the Dick Spiders

  “Wooba. Wooba. Wooba,” Rek repeated. He’d latched onto the nonsense word like a security blanket.

  The first five minutes in the deadlands passed uneventfully for him. I even thought he might adjust. Then a five-foot worm wearing what he swore was his grandmother’s face leapt from the water and exploded into a shower of living pork cutlets. He’d insisted on not talking since. I let him. We all had to cope.

  “Well, shithead, how do we get back?” I asked Cord.

  “Just…” he contorted his face as he thought. “Hm.”

  “Hm what?”

  “Well, I thought we just turned it off, but I didn’t see a lever.”

  “Oh good,” I replied, and as the words left my mouth they materialized as three-inch words dripping ice. They hung in the air for a moment, and then burst into a spray of butterflies, scattering to the winds.

  Lux giggled, and I shot her a look. “Not helping. You’re the wizard. Go wiz something up.”

  "Wooba. Wooba," Rek agreed.

  She giggled again, and I rolled my eyes. Of all of us, Lux seemed unbothered by the strangeness of the place. She sat at the bow and stared out over the black water before us. I tried not to let her calm demeanor bother me, but the situation plus Cord's idiocy had my back up.

  Lux's smile dropped, and she pointed to the starboard side of the ship. The banks of the river were little more than deeper black edges at the water, barely visible. We’d been lucky so far. Rek managed to keep us from running aground, but signs of stress showed in the big man as he did his best to keep us from wrecking on the shoals.

  "How you doing, buddy?" I called up at him.

  "WOOB," he replied.

  Lux cleared her throat, and I followed her finger. The shore filled up with pale luminous bodies, strange even for the deadlands. Each held a conglomeration of bone and flesh, appendages not where you’d expect, mouths and eyes and teeth in rings and clusters, roaming like lost travelers on an unfamiliar sea.

  “I’m sure that’s fine,” I said.

  “Wooba,” Rek agreed.

  I checked the port side, and it was much the same, strange creatures gathering for some unknown reason. Lux grimaced.

  “Life bleeders. They’re drawn to us here. We need to get out now.”

  “Cord, Lux—get back down to the engine. Rek, find something to fight with.”

  "Wooba," Rek nodded.

  They bustled about, following direction. I wondered at what point I’d become the de facto leader for our little band, and realized it was when Cord decided to launch us into the shit. Nearly as soon as I’d given the orders, the bleeders waded from the shore. We’d approached a narrow point in the river, and it wouldn’t take them long to reach us.

  I pulled the knives from my tunic and set myself at the starboard side, Rek taking port. He’d found a makeshift club, the end iron-shod, and readied himself. We didn’t have long to wait. The first of the beasts climbed the hull, digging its claws into the wood, pulling itself up inch by inch. When it reached the rail, I severed its pale, grasping fingers and it fell soundless into the water. Behind me, I heard a thump, followed by two more as Rek repelled boarders from that side. Then they were on us en masse, and I fought with as much speed as I could muster, severing limbs and slitting throats, hamstringing opponents where possible. Each fell with that same eerie silence, and it started to unnerve me.

  I heard Rek cry out and spared a glance I couldn’t afford. Three of the beasts pinned him down, latching on with iron jaws, sawing through his flesh. I sprinted to him, but something else had me by the legs. I toppled to the deck, jarring my teeth and biting my tongue. I rolled and rammed a dagger through one massive eye. The thing recoiled as black ooze slid from the wound. I regained my feet in time for another two beasts to pile on, dragging me down again. They bit into my wrists with needle-sharp teeth. The skin parted like paper and I felt warm blood pool in my palms, trickle down my forearms. The deck shook, and I cried out. I squeezed my eyes shut, cursing Cord under my breath.

  They dug deeper, and I felt cold seep into my fingers and toes as they drew something essential from me. Then Lux was there, white fire blazing from her hands. Each bleeder she touched collapsed into a puddle of empty flesh, and as she did, the light in her eyes grew, skin gaining pink radiance it hadn’t held before. I gained my feet, as did Rek, each of us making a bloody mess of things. I swayed on my feet, but managed to rally. We pressed back to back to drive the tide of beasts away.

  Still they came on, and I could tell Lux was at the end of her strength, corpsefire waning. I let one last scream of defiance as the bleeders closed in, and the world shook, shuddered, and shattered. I fell, and found myself staring up at blue skies and fluffy clouds. I blinked away the black spots gathering in my vision, then sat up. Greenery passed to either side and birdsong drifted on a pleasant breeze. Rek did the same, rubbing his head, and Lux wandered away, a sly smile on her face. I sank back down.

  “Well, I’m wearing Cord’s balls for earrings,” I said.

  “Wooba,” Rek agreed.

  Everything's Fine, Ignore the Corpses

  The Harrower engine dropped us somewhere down the eastern tributary of the Lethe. We found ourselves drifting alongside tall grasses topped with golden seeds and small wildflowers nodding in the wind. Though summer still held sway, the breeze carried a crisp bite. Just a few miles north, and you'd run into the Bladesbacks, the range running practically the entire length of the Veldt, from the sea to the western kingdoms inland. From here, we saw the peaks, tall crags topped with a thick blanket of snow. Clouds crowded the tops, the black specks of birds wheeling above their tree-lined sides. Closer, green-blue lakes spread out in patchwork, waters shimmering under the sun.

  Despite it being day, I yawned tremendously. I'd spent most of the night cleaning and binding wounds, cleaning myself and the deck—pushing pools of liquefied flesh into the river, and scrubbing dried blood from my skin. After, I'd fallen into bed. Pale many-limbed beasts stalked me across a black plain in my sleep, keeping me from falling too deep. I sat in the bow beside Lux, the two of us not talking—something Cord couldn't relate to—and let the brisk air slap me awake.

  I'd had time to cool down, and my cramps and flow finally abated. Lux mentioned in an aside that time passed differently in the deadlands. I considered borrowing a Harrower engine on a regular basis on learning that little nugget. Hey, don't judge until that bitch, the Red Fairy, visits you.

  I took in Lux while she stared out over the bow. Her skin gained a healthy hue since our encounter, and her hair looked fuller, less brittle. The milkiness in her eyes thinned, and her lips looked fuller.

  "Cord hasn't noticed, has he?"

  Lux turned toward me and smiled. She shook her head.

  "No. Isn't that always the way?"

  "What happened back there? In the deadlands?"

  Lux shrugged. "I was able to steal some of their life."

  "Is it permanent?"

  "I don't know. But it feels good. Better than I've felt in a while. It hurts less. When I was dead..." she trailed off. I let her. You don't have to know everything, especially the things that hurt.

  Cord called out from the crow's nest, interrupting our conversation.

  "Village!"

  We looked, and ahead, saw the telling signs of chimney smoke and a small berth for boats. Little more than fifteen or twenty homes, but it looked like heaven from where we sat. Rek spun the wheel, bringing us closer to shore. Cord slipped down the rigging and worked the windlass, dropping the anchor into the water. It landed on the riverbed with an audible clank, and a soft cheer went up from the boat.

  "All ashore that's going ashore," Cord called, and loosed the rowboat from the side.

  We climbed in and made our way into the village.

  ***

  It possessed one inn, a largish affair for the size of the village that served both travelers on the Lethe and riders on the eastern ro
ad to Midian. None of us had eaten since Tremaire, and the slipped time in the deadlands did little to dull our hunger. We piled in and set the innkeeper to work frying potatoes and cutting thick slices of pig from a spit over the fire. While we waited, the group chatted. Cord remained oddly quiet for once. I waited a bit, ready for a quip or a set-up. Instead, he leaned in, strangely sober.

  "What do you see here, Nenn?"

  He'd slipped into teaching mode. I straightened a bit and looked around. The inn was cozy, at least near the fire, and men and women huddled over plates and bowls of food, or chatted in low tones over pints of ale. Serving women mingled through the crowd, aprons smudged with food residue and ash, or stained with beer spills. The longer I watched, the more I noticed how harried they looked. Hair in disarray, rouge and lip stain slightly blurred from the sweat they'd worked up. The edges of their clothing frayed in strings and ragged edges.

  They spent more time at certain tables as well. Despite men with brash wandering hands and lewd mouths, if their clothes were finer, or if they wore the trappings of a soldier, their orders came quickly and more often. Next were tables with couples in regular clothing—nothing fancy, but still bought from a proper tailor. They too received fair service, though a bit slower. Like the soldiers and merchants, their plates groaned with piles of meat and cheese, rich potatoes.

  Last and furthest from the fire sat the workers. Homespun clothes, tattered in some cases. They'd probably worked an entire week for the pleasure of stopping from the cold of the road for a warm meal, their fare lukewarm bowls of porridge. They spoke in low tones and did their best to avoid the attentions of the moneyed classes. If they saw a server more than once, it seemed unlikely.

  When I'd been silent for a time, Cord leaned in again. "Doesn't seem right, does it?"

  I shook my head.

  "Seems like someone should do something."

  Panic seized my chest, and I grabbed Cord's wrist. "Don't you dare burn this fucking village down."

  Cord laughed, made a psst sound. "Wouldn't think of it. But sometimes people deserve a decent meal, don't they?"

  I nodded. He worked himself free and approached the innkeeper, a fat bag appearing in his hand. They spoke in close, quiet tones, and the innkeeper took the bag with a smile. Cord returned to the table with a grin of his own.

  "There. Not so bad, right? The innkeeper makes money; these people get a nice dinner and save some coin."

  "All right," I admitted grudgingly. "You did a good thing."

  He opened his mouth to gloat some more, but our plates arrived interrupting him. I stuffed a potato between his lips to shut him up. He made a muffled noise and set to chewing.

  ***

  We walked back to the boat to the sound of cheers. They dwindled behind us. Despite offers to bed down for the night and the promise of real food, leaving a Harrower engine unattended seemed like a terrible idea. Word got out that Cord paid for dinner and drinks and the people raised him up as hero of the day. The spirits in the room lifted immensely, and someone started a round of My Lady Fanny. Before long, almost the entire inn joined in, to the consternation of several of the more proper women in the room.

  It wasn't until Rek pointed out that the soldiers looked less than happy that the local citizenry was anything but miserable that we made our goodbyes. We beat a hasty retreat down the country lane to the water, doing our best to appear unhurried.

  "See, Nenn? Feels good to do good, right?" Cord said.

  "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you managed to not fuck this up," Rek said.

  "That was amazingly disaster-free," Lux said.

  I opened my mouth to agree, and found myself staring at the business end of a short sword. My sentence changed of its own accord.

  "Fuck," I said.

  "Ever astute," Cord said.

  Three men wearing chainmail and tabards blocked the path. The clink and chime of armor behind us alerted us to the presence of more arriving. I cursed again. The soldiers from the inn. The one with the blade pressed forward, pushing us back into a tight knot. He was thick and sturdy, chest like a barrel, arms the size of my thighs. I knew where my blades were, but wasn't sure I could get to them in time, let alone saw through that much muscle.

  "Is there a problem, gentlemen?" Cord asked.

  "Well, not as such," the big man replied. "But we noticed you seemed to have an overabundance of riches, and we being poor soldier types on poor soldier type salaries, thought you might like to redistribute the wealth."

  Cord looked him up and down and winked at me. My stomach dropped. I knew the look of a man about to do something stupid. I knew it on Cord like the back of my hand. I moved my hands closer to my blades and shook my head.

  "No," I mouthed. He ignored me.

  "And why would I share with class traitors?" Cord asked.

  The leader's brow beetled. It was obvious he didn't know the vagaries of socioeconomic policy, but he certainly knew an insult when he heard one. His men reached for their blades, and found ourselves confronted with a small hedge of steel.

  "What'd you call me? We're as loyal to King Mane as anyone." he said.

  "And that's the problem," Cord replied.

  He pulled a knife free and launched himself onto the big man's blade, the steel ripping through his ribcage and punching out his back. The soldier had the good grace to look surprised before Cord rammed his knife into the man's eye. That done, Cord promptly died, dragging both men down into a floppy tangle. The street erupted into chaos.

  A soldier charged Rek, but made a fatal mistake. He'd charged Rek. The big man possessed a surprising amount of speed. He sidestepped and grabbed his opponent's sword arm, then snapped it like a twig. Rek picked the blade up with a casual nonchalance and slammed it through the soldier's chest, chainmail parting like tissue. Two down.

  Three came at Lux, then the night flashed bright white, leaving nothing but smoking piles of meat. That left the one facing me. I feinted, and he broke, turning tail down the path. I let him get a few yards away then tossed a dagger. It landed with a satisfying thunk in the back of his neck. He dropped like a sack of rocks.

  We gathered our things, disentangling Cord's corpse from the mess, Rek carrying him like luggage back to the boat. Once aboard the Bough Mount, I raised the anchor while Rek unfurled the sails and got us running. Underway again, I joined him on the quarterdeck. Cord's body lay on the deck below us.

  "Well, that was a fuckin' stain," Rek said.

  "Isn't it always?"

  "Yeah."

  I looked up at the stars. "Nice night."

  "Yeah."

  We sailed on.

  Storytime for Wayward Rogues

  We made our slow way east by southeast, drifting down a wide branch of the Lethe that crawled its way toward Midian and the sea. We saw the ocean, a silver expanse to the east that brought with it the smells of salt and sand and the cries of gulls. Farther out, black shapes bobbed on the waves, trawlers and merchant ships at anchor.

  Cord's body still lay on the deck. Rek wanted to put him below, but I'd argued against it, considering the strange things he vomited up when he revived. Gods only knew where they'd end up or what they'd become if they got loose in the hold. I couldn't understand why he'd thrown a life away so easily. Was he that committed to his crusade? Was he simply unhinged? Regardless, he was dead for now.

  We kept watch in shifts, shooing the flies away and erecting a makeshift shelter that kept the worst of the sun from baking him like a roast pig. In the meantime, I took the chance to chat with Rek. I liked Lux, but let's be honest, she was pretty, but the kind of pretty that comes with roses. Hidden somewhere in all that were thorns, and they just waited to draw blood. To keep too-curious hands away from the blossom. This is a weird metaphor, right?

  I wondered again at the lesson Cord tried to teach me in the village. The obvious takeaway was that things were hard, and inequality didn't make it better. There was more there though. I had the sinking feeling that h
e hadn't intended it as an admonishment to keep an eye on those less fortunate, to do a kindness for them. I saw the grim look in his eye, the disdain he had for the wealthy. I had the suspicion Cord meant to do for everyone. I only wondered what that entailed, and how much blood it required.

  "You got that look in your eye," Rek said.

  "What look?"

  "That look that says you'd be better off if Cord wasn't causing trouble."

  I didn't answer, and Rek shrugged. "We could toss him overboard, sail into the sunset."

  When I still didn't answer, Rek chuckled. "Kidding. He'd pollute the river."

  "I just keep thinking there's more to this. This isn't just a heist to him. I think Cord intends to go down in a big way, and that freaks me out a little. Where's that put the rest of us?"

  Rek took a turn at thinking quietly. "I've known Cord a long time. He's a sonovabitch, but I'll be honest, he cares about his crew. Whatever happens, it'll happen for all of us."

  "Did Cord tell you the plan?" I asked.

  Cord had a habit of keeping his ideas close to the vest until the last minute. This one though, he'd deemed too important. He'd needed us to know, like it was a fire he couldn't control, and he needed to pass it on unless it burned him to a husk. He'd told me almost as soon as he'd decided.

  Rek nodded and twitched the wheel, correcting for a sandbar. "Yeah, we're hitting the treasury."

  "Does that seem insane to you?"

  He shrugged. "No more than most of his ideas. But if I were pressed? I'd say it's way more dangerous than most of his ideas. He'd always been pretty content with small cons and knock-offs. If you ask me, that whole not-dying thing knocked those rocks in his head loose."

  I thought of the tavern again. "Anaxos," I said.

  "What about him?"

  "Cord hates the rich. I think he'd eat them if he could. Who's richer than Anaxos?"