by Ian Whates
The slave led him out of the saloon and along the deck towards the aft of the paddle steamer. Outside the thick wet air seemed to deaden the sound of the two massive side wheels that propelled the boat. From either side of the wide muddy river great leaning pond cypresses and southern live oaks dripping with Spanish moss seemed to bend towards the paddle steamer, reaching for him. The yellowing, gibbous moon was going some way towards making the shadows of the trees look animated as well. On the other hand Sabin was aware that he’d lost a lot of blood. He was leaning heavily on the slave who was half carrying him, half dragging him down the passage that ran alongside the saloon. He heard a splash and was aware rather than saw shadows moving in the water. They passed one of the huge, creaking, side wheels. There were torches burning at the rear of the Pride of Jupiter. Sternwheelers were more practical on the Mississippi than side-wheelers but the rear of the Pride of Jupiter was a flatbed. That was where the games took place. The guests watched from the overlooking balcony on the Texas Deck. There were already guards in place, hard-faced men and women, again mostly human, bearing Winchester lever-action rifles. Sabin wasn’t sure if it was the flickering red light from the torches or the blood he was dripping onto already bloodied boards that made floating gladiatorial arena appear so hellish.
One of the guards, a wild eyed, red-haired human woman, pulled open the thick iron-reinforced door to the slave quarters for them. There was a moment of panic as Sabin suddenly thought that Bourbonne was on to him and had decided to make him a slave but the fact that he was still armed, went some way towards reassuring him that this was not the case.
There were two guards inside the slave quarters. Both of them were carrying coach guns, double-barrelled 10-gauge shotguns. Cages ran down either side of the slave quarters. On one side it was mostly humans of African descent, eying him sullenly as he was dragged in. On the other side the cage held a number of orcs sat on benches. They looked, fit, healthy, well fed, and scarred, presumably from previous games. As fierce as the orcs in their cage looked, they were all giving Spiculus a lot of room. The huge ogre was sitting on the bench close to the door of the cage, staring into space. He did not even glance Sabin’s way.
Between the door and the cage on one side of the room, but out of reach of the bars, lay a collection of various melee weapons and pieces of archaic armour. On the other side was a stained wooden table with a half empty bottle of whiskey on it.
“What the hell you bringing a white man in here for?” one of the guards snapped at the slave carrying Sabin. The elf felt the man tense. “I’ll have your skin stripped down to the bone...”
“You hold your peace, Carter, any swamp-spawned halfwit can see he’s been shot. Do you know another sawbones on this boat?” The man sitting at the table leaned into the dim lantern light. He was a fleshy man, with a thick white beard covering the lower part of a jowly face, his eyes were bloodshot and the bags underneath them made him look as if his entire face was drooping. He wore a sweat-stained white linen suit, and had an old cap and ball revolver riding his hip that looked big enough to hole the ironclad escorting the Pride of Jupiter.
“You watch your mouth, Doc!” the guard, Carter, snapped back.
“Go tell it to Caesar you don’t like how I talk,” Doc said before turning to the slave. “Get him on the table, Joe, let’s have a look.” The slave helped Sabin up onto the table.
“Are you a priest of Asclepius?” Sabin asked hopefully. The human just laughed and showed him some forceps.
“I’m here for the slaves, we don’t even got no opium. This is really going to hurt. Joe put that bit in his mouth, can’t have his screams disturbing the passengers now.”
Sabin had spat out the foul tasting bit so he could get some screaming done only to have Joe hold his hand over the elf’s mouth. Then, mercifully, he’d passed out. When he came to his moaning was largely reflex. He actually didn’t feel too bad all things considered.
“Thought I heard gunplay earlier,” Doc said from the chair next to him. A glass appeared floating above his face. “Figured you deserve this.” Sabin reached up and took the glass from the old human. “Heard you did for Tobin and Jimmy Larouxe?”
“Tobin almost did for me,” Sabin said. His side felt a little hot, but there was no pain. He sat up, dangling his legs over the side of the table, and looked down at his ruined waistcoat. There was a poultice over the wound. He didn’t have to concentrate to see the spark of magic in the poultice. The warm feeling would be the healing magic working on the wound. “It was worth killing him for what he did to my shirt and waistcoat.” Doc’s expression remained grim despite the attempt at levity. He knocked back the whiskey and poured another glass. Sabin steeled himself and took a sip of the whiskey expecting it to be disgusting. Instead he was pleasantly surprised to find that it was good Scotch. “So you’re a doctor?” Doc nodded. “No magic?” Doc nodded again. “The poultice?”
“I get them from a woman who works out the back of one of the Basin Street whorehouses. Half negro, and half Choctaw Indian, some say she got nunnehi blood in her, others say her grandmother was descended from Anansi hisself. She was supposed to have been a whore once, but if she was it was a long time ago because Granma Spider is old and as ugly as sin itself. She makes the poultice, collects webs and makes her sacrifices in the St. Louis necropolis when there’s no moon. Even the ghouls leave her alone. She says there some black dirt from the Nile itself in there. I don’t know about that but it works. You’ll scar for a while but I know that doesn’t last long on you elven types.” Sabin frowned when he heard the word scar. Elves hated any blemishes on their skin, in the same way they hated all ugliness. He sat up on the table and looked around, taking another sip of the Scotch.
“Good whiskey,” the elf said. He guessed they could get hold of it now the blockade was over.
“Yeah well, my services are pretty cheap these days.” Doc said quietly.
“The poultices must cost a bit, though?” Sabin enquired. Doc didn’t say anything, he just looked down. The elf looked over at the slaves. One of the orcs was glaring at him but looked away when Sabin caught his eye. “I guess Bourbonne doesn’t want to waste valuable slave stock.”
“Who, Caesar?” the Doc said bitterly. “He doesn’t give a good godsdamn. He considers himself a sportsman. Spiculus is his most valuable fighter but if he loses, he loses.” Suddenly the doc was staring at Sabin. “It’s not a waste of slave stock, sir. It’s a waste of life, I don’t care which god you follow.” Sabin found himself nodding. He tried not to care. It was easier that way. He had understood Sigrid’s anger as an abstract, but now, in this room that smelled of sweat, human filth and old blood, and would soon presumably smell much worse when Doc was up to his elbows in the broken bodies of the wounded gladiators, those that hadn’t just been fed to the alligators, he could feel the corruption of the place seeping into him like the humidity that soaked his clothes. Now it was Sabin that looked away from Doc’s fierce gaze. He took his pocket watch out and flipped it open, cursing himself when he saw the time. They were approaching the deeper part of the river. He could hear feet on the balcony that overlooked the gladiatorial area. The balcony was directly above the slave quarters.
“That’s a fine watch,” Doc said. “Hephaestian manufacture isn’t it?” Sabin snapped the pocket watch shut. “Normally two of them isn’t there? Both perfectly synchronised?” The elf smiled as he tucked the pocket watch back into the pocket of his ruined waistcoat. Doc had clearly been around.
“It’s a fake,” Sabin said. “You won’t tell the dandies upstairs, will you?” Doc didn’t answer. He looked unconvinced. Sabin pushed himself off the dried blood-stained table. “Thank you very much for your ministrations doctor but if you’ll excuse me I must go and tend to my wardrobe before the festivities begin.” Then he turned to the slaves in their pens. “Those who are about to die: I salute you.” He offered the gladiators an exaggerated bow before turning and leaving the slaves’ quarters.
The elf looked down into the flatbed at the rear of the Pride of Jupiter. Spiculus, equipped as a retarius, armed with net, trident and a weapon that looked like a dagger whose blade had been replaced by four spikes, was fighting three of the other slaves: two of the Africans and one orc. One of the Africans was equipped as murmillo, with a stylised fish on the crest of his helmet. He wore an arm guard and carried a gladius short sword and a long oblong shield. The second African was equipped as a cestus. He wore a pair of scizores: vambraces that ended in protruding half-moon blades. The final gladiator, the orc, was armed as a scissor. He carried a pair of gladia, their blades connected by a hinge. It didn’t look a very practical weapon.
Bourbonne looked Sabin up and down. “Pleased to see you could join us again,” the latter day lanista said and offered the other elf a cigar. Sabin declined and Bourbonne lit one for himself. Spiculus was standing in the centre of the other three gladiators as they looked for an opening. Sabin noted that there were crosses on either side of the river where escaped slaves, many of them having been tarred and feathered first, had been crucified. He guessed that Bourbonne had timed the games this way to prevent armed slaves from getting any ideas.
“Well it’s what we came for,” Sabin said and forced a smile. “I apologise for my part in the fracas in the saloon.”
The scissor attacked Spiculus’ back. The huge ogre spun out of the way, displaying surprising grace and obvious training. The orc cried out as the net enveloped him. Sabin couldn’t quite work out why until he saw the barbed hooks on the inside of the net bite into the orc’s flesh. Bourbonne clenched the cigar between his teeth as he clapped, the rest of the cloud joining in as did Sabin and Sigrid. Like most elves Sabin had an instinctive dislike of orcs but he didn’t think that this one had been given much of a chance. The other two gladiators saw an opportunity and attacked. The cestus leapt high into the air, hoping to drive one of his crescent shaped blades into the huge ogre’s head, the murmillo charged forward. It was over very quickly. Spiculus kicked the net-trapped orc over the back of the paddle steamer and into the river. He thrust out the trident, impaling the cestus in mid-air. The murmillo stabbed out with his gladius and Spiculus swept the short sword’s blade aside with his manica, the arm guard that covered his left arm. There was screaming and thrashing from the back of the boat. Sabin knew that it took a lot to make an orc scream. He saw that Spiculus’s right foot was standing on the rope attached to the thrown net, which was used to reel entrapped gladiators towards the trident. Spiculus brought his left leg up and one massive foot stepped on the murmillo driving him to the ground. The ogre dropped the trident with the impaled cestus on the end of it, drew the four-spiked dagger and drove it into the murmillo, even as the other gladiator was trying to get up. The slave spat blood, kicked and was still. The cestus was trying to crawl away from Spiculus. The ogre almost fell over as the rope attached to the net was yanked hard. The ogre reached down and grabbed it with both hands and pulled. Many in the crowd actually screamed and stepped back from the balcony as Spiculus pulled the torn, bleeding net out of the muddy river, a huge alligator attached to it, the orc, still struggling and alive even as it was being eaten. The guards moved back from the rear of the boat, levelling their Winchesters at the monstrous reptile. Spiculus let go of the rope and let the net drop into the water. The ogre’s facial expression had barely changed. He walked to the cestus who was still trying to pull the trident out of his chest and looked up at Bourbonne. There was booing from the crowd. Bourbonne took a drag on his cigar and then gave the thumbs down.
Sabin turned away and looked up at the paddle steamer’s smokestacks. He saw the sparks shoot out of the chimneys and then float away in the thick, humid air. He heard cheering and then a splash, he assumed that the cestus had been flung overboard. Sabin made himself turn back. He could see the black forms in the river following the boat. Sabin forced himself to smile and clap. He noticed Bourbonne looking at Sigrid. She hadn’t screamed, or cheered, or clapped. She was just staring down at the blood-stained deck, the smell of ruptured and evacuated bowels mixing with the humid rot of the surrounding swamp. Sabin caught her as she fainted.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Sabin said.
“I could have a slave...” a concerned Bourbonne started.
“She’ll be fine. I think the spectacle is all a bit too much for her rarefied, northern-European sensibilities. I have smelling salts and a good bottle of brandy back in the cabin.”
“Shame for y’all to miss the rest of the fights, that was just a warm up.”
“It is, and we’re unlikely to see the likes of this again but I’m afraid that certain proprieties must be observed,” Sabin said, with a bit of effort. Sigrid was starting to feel heavy in his arms.
“Oh indeed, please let me know if either of you need anything,” Bourbonne said casting a long, lingering look at Sigrid that made Sabin want to shoot him there and then. The elf turned around and carried Sigrid away.
“Well how was I?” Sigrid asked as she quickly changed out of her dress and into more masculine clothing that was easier for her to move around in.
“I’ll be honest,” Sabin said as he checked the contents of his bag and then slung it over his shoulder. “You’ve had better performances.” Sigrid pouted. “It’s to your credit though.” Particularly where you come from. He nodded towards the rear of the boat. “That’s sickness.” Sigrid nodded and looked away from him. He noticed that she was putting pamphlets into her own bag. “What are those?”
“Underground Railroad. Even out here there’s people who will help,” she told him. He suspected that she half expected an argument but he just nodded. Freeing the slaves during a rest between the bouts would act as the diversion they needed.
Sabin’s three barrelled, 12-gauge shotgun was hanging from a sling under his arm, tucked inside and almost concealed by his long suit jacket. He broke the weapon to check its load, flicked it shut and let it hang down on its sling. He checked the watch Red had given him again.
“How long?” Sigrid asked.
“Just under five minutes.” He used a match to light the oddly clear candle and took out the secret that he had written on the piece of paper. He closed his eyes and told Jana, goddess of secrets, the boon he wanted of her. Then he burnt the paper. That wasn’t the sacrifice. The sacrifice had been carrying the secret around with him written down, risking discovery. It was a powerful secret as well: who, and more importantly what Sigrid actually was. He would only know if the magic worked when he tried use it, however.
On the other side of the room Sigrid was asking her own two-faced goddess for a boon. Cold emanated from his lover and Sabin stepped back from her. He felt the same instinctive dread he always felt when she called upon her matron goddess. When she had finished she looked paler, her features pinched, crueller somehow, and she exhaled her breath in a cold mist, despite the humidity.
“Ready?” Sabin asked. Sigrid just nodded. He tucked his pointed ears up under his hat.
The magic of Jana’s blessing would not render him invisible. As far as Sabin knew that was beyond the capability of even the most powerful gods-blessed wielder of magic. Instead it guided him to move when no one was looking, it encouraged the shadows to embrace him, it whispered convincing lies to the minds of those who did see him, making them think they had seen someone else.
He
tipped his hat to the elderly man he passed in the corridor, the man barely glanced at him. Sabin made his way forward on the Texas Deck between the two rows of cabins. He found the cabin that Red, the disgraced priest of Hephaestus, had highlighted on the map. Sabin glanced around and then listened at the door. When he was reasonably sure that there was nobody in the room he slipped the skeleton key out of his bag. There was a sound like knuckles cracking as the key, made from the bones of a hanged but once very successful London pickpocket, reformed itself to fit in the cabin’s lock. Sabin drew one of his .45s and let himself into the cabin.
The cabin was empty and had been left in something of a mess by its inhabitants. Sabin looked up at the ceiling. Bourbonne’s own private stateroom was immediately above. Sabin took the dynamite and the glue out of his bag.
Sabin checked the synchronised Hephaestian watch, lit the long fuses that Red had carefully cut for him, and left the room, hoping that its inhabitants didn’t come back before the dynamite exploded. It had gone quiet at the rear of the ship, he guessed they were between bouts. One of the slaves pushed past, barely noticing him.
Sabin moved quickly, going out onto the deck. Just behind him he could see the low angular shape of the CSS Redeemer, hear the chugging of the ironclad gunboat’s engines. If they got involved then it could all go bad very quickly but if all went according to plan then this would look like a boiler explosion and the boilers on paddle steamers exploded all the time. In theory they should be very far away before anyone realised otherwise.
The guard patrolling the deck ignored Sabin as he opened the door to the engine room and clambered part of the way down the stairs pausing only to pull the black neckerchief up over the bottom of his face. There were some actions, after all, that were just too blatant for even the goddess of secrets to hide. He brought the three barrelled shotgun to his shoulder and went down the remaining stairs and into the roar of the pounding, steam-powered pistons that drove the two massive side wheels.