The ritual of binding loosens, the lines of the great sigil tattooed across my flesh now broken by the bullets that shredded my skin.
Heavy Sulfur. If a man should fail, what better way to wreak havoc amongst the enemy? How better to kill a demon . . . than with a greater demon?
I feel it rising within, tearing free, preparing to rid itself of the prison of blood and bone that is Peyton Cleary. I feel it coming, and I am content.
For king and country.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ari Marmell would love to tell you all about the esoteric jobs and wacky adventures he had on the way to becoming an author, since that’s what other authors seem to do in these sections. Unfortunately, he doesn’t actually have any, as the most exciting thing about his professional life, besides his novel writing, is the work he’s done for Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games. His published fiction consists of both fully original works and licensed/tie-in properties—including Darksiders and Magic: the Gathering—for publishers such as Del Rey, Pyr Books, Titan Books, and Wizards of the Coast. His most recent creation is the Mick Oberon series, urban fantasy/noir set in Gangland Chicago. Ari lives in an apartment that’s almost as cluttered as his subconscious, which he shares (the apartment, not the subconscious, though sometimes it seems like it) with George—his wife—and a cat who really, really thinks it’s dinner time. Find Ari online at mouseferatu.com and on Twitter @mouseferatu.
STEEL SHIPS
Tanya Huff
“Kytlin! Look outside! That’s Commander NcTran!”
Kytlin lifted her gaze just far enough from her beer to frown across the scarred, wooden table at the newest member of the Royal Navy’s Special Forces. When, she wondered, as Harrin directed her attention to the courtyard outside the window, did we start accepting children? She glanced out at the bundled figured crossing toward the admiralty, and her frown deepened. The figure was one of theirs, that much was certain—their people were nearly as bulky on two legs as they were wearing their sealskins—but with a cape draped over the uniform, she couldn’t tell gender let alone rank. “How can you tell that’s NcTran?”
“I can see his empty sleeve flapping in the wind!”
Young eyes, she thought, but said, “He’s not the only shifter missing a limb.”
“It’s him. I’m going to —”
“Sit, Harrin.” Kytlin grabbed his wrist, hauling him back onto the bench, counting on the swirl of smoke from the clay pipes clenched between every other set of teeth and the flickering shadows from the hanging oil lamps to cover the motion and maintain the boy’s dignity. The storm had filled the mess with men and women trying to escape the weather and it wouldn’t take much to tip a room full of bored sailors to mockery. “We’re off duty,” she growled. “If NcTran needs us, he’ll find us.”
“But . . .”
“No.”
Harrin shook off her grip, but remained seated—however reluctantly. “I swore in over a month ago, and I’ve done nothing but harbor patrols.” He picked at a gouge in the tabletop with his thumbnail. “I can do more.”
“There’s a war on, there’ll be more to do. Count on it.”
“Yeah, but something . . .”
His voice trailed off, lost in the noise of the Royal Navy drinking and dicing, but Kytlin could read the last word off his face. Something . . . important.
Harrin had been too young to face the serpent and that defeat had come to define Special Forces. Kytlin had been in the first group of decoys. She remembered one cousin dead and another maimed. She remembered blood in the water. Three years later, their numbers still hadn’t recovered. “There’s bugger all glory in dying.”
“More glory in dying than sitting around here doing bugger all,” Harrin muttered into his beer.
“Steel ships?” Kytlin glanced around the boathouse at those members of Special Forces who’d been available for the briefing and saw her disbelief mirrored on nearly every one of the two dozen familiar faces. “Ships made of steel?”
“The Hawkeye wasn’t willing to commit a hundred percent,” Commander NcTran admitted from where he stood on an overturned dory. “The shipyard is camouflaged, and they know we have birds in the air . . .”
“How . . . ?”
“They have birds in the air, Dugald.” NcTran’s tone shut down further argument.
No surprise he’d recognized the voice; Dugald had fathered two of the commander’s nephews. Well, two that Kytlin knew of. All the members of the RNSF were tied by blood—brothers, sisters, cousins. When one of them bled, all of them bled.
“They’ve put archers in towers, so her bird had to move fast,” NcTran continued, “but she’s certain she saw metal and she’s certain the Navreen have covered at least two ships in it.”
The boathouse filled with speculation. The Hawkeyes—blindfolded and safe behind the front lines—didn’t see what their birds saw; they saw through the eyes of their birds. It was a subtle but important distinction. And if the Hawkeye saw metal ships . . .
“It could be mage work,” she heard NcTran say in answer to a question she’d missed, “but the Hawkeye doesn’t think so. Said it looked too useful.”
That brought a unison snort from everyone present. The Most Wise were seldom useful.
“So we have surveillance that puts the shipyard eight to ten hours up the Treel River.” The commander leapt off the dory and motioned Jeordie NcMarin, his Second, forward. “The Treel’s not deep,” he continued as NcMarin unrolled a map of the North Sea’s eastern shore against the dory’s curve. “They’re building shallow-draught boats, made for rivers. They’re planning something big, and not only because they’re trying so hard to hide it. Now, given that we’ve recaptured the mines, unless the army’s been lying to us . . .”
“Like that’s never happened,” Eoin NcMarin called from the back. He was the Second’s first cousin and Kytlin’s second cousin, and the gesture Jeordie tossed at him was rudely familial.
“. . . using this much steel has to have emptied the Navreen’s iron reserves. They’re gambling big, like they did when they brought in the serpent.”
It always came back to the serpent, Kytlin acknowledged silently. The Navreen had emptied their treasury when they hired a Mer to negotiate with the serpent. The Mers’ services did not come cheap. If they’d covered two boats with steel . . . Two river boats . . . “Commander! Could they be planning a run up the Atanent to the capital?”
NcTran nodded. “High Command believes that’s their intent, yes. And they’ll have a clear run. If we block the Atanent, we’ll have to pull horses and men out of the army and off the lines to get wood to our own shipyards. The queen won’t agree to that, not when there’s a river right there. If we leave a dreadnought in the bay”—he smacked his palm against the map—“their Hawkeyes will spot it and they’ll engage it as a distraction, we’d be playing right into their hands. The Navreen will slip around close to shore and across the estuary under cover of darkness.”
“And once they’re in the bloody river,” someone called from the back, “incendiaries’ll be useless and there’s bugger all we can do to slabs of metal.”
“Then we take out the sails!” Kytlin thought that was Dugald.
“Or the oars!” Fyona, probably. Though it might have been Selen.
“If they plan a run up the Atanent,” the commander snapped, cutting the argument short, “then we have to assume they’ve come up with a fast and quiet method of propulsion.”
“And that their mages are more useful than ours,” Jeordie muttered.
“Couldn’t be less useful,” Commander NcTran agreed.
Eoin pushed forward and frowned down at the map. “And if that isn’t their plan?”
“If you can think of a way that the enemy building ironclad ships will benefit us, Eoin, I’d like to hear it.” NcTran waited until Eoin finally shook his head. Then he turned his attention back to the company as a whole. “If you’ll recall, the Hawkeye’s description
was have covered not are covering. Whatever they’re going to do, they’re close to launch. Dark of the moon’s in eleven days: High Command assumes they’ll move then, so we’re running out of time. Our orders are to take out those ships—and the shipyard if possible.”
“And do what against steel?” Kytlin asked as the noise level began to rise again.
Before NcTran could answer, the small door in the north wall opened and a tall, skinny young man blew in on a gust of wind and rain. He flipped his hood back, revealing pale skin, a scattering of freckles, bright red hair, and only one eyebrow. Given the red and blistered skin on his forehead, it looked as though the other had recently been burned away.
Mage, Kytlin realized. When skirmishes had turned to war, Queen Isabella had gathered all six of the mages within her borders under one roof and ordered them to turn their attention to the defeat of the Navreen. Kytlin knew three people running book on when they’d blow that roof off.
“Listen up, people!” NcTran stepped forward and took the mage’s arm, pulling him into place beside the dory. “This is Alaster Grant. Those of you who were on the Vixen when she sailed the strait know him. For the rest of you, yes, this is the Most Wise who came up with the spell that destroyed the serpent.”
The room erupted into cheers and barking. None of them were in their seal-shape, but sometimes that didn’t matter. Alaster blushed scarlet.
NcTran let them sound off for a moment then raised his hand for silence. “The Most Wise is here today because he has a way for us to destroy the steel ships. Most Wise . . .”
“Right. Yes. Well . . .” Alaster looked up, then down, shifting from foot to foot, and Kytlin realized he couldn’t be much older than Harrin. He drew an oilcloth bag out from under his cloak, set it carefully on the dory, and opened it.
Everyone in the boathouse leaned forward, then back again when he pulled out a small clay bowl wrapped in waxed cloth, a large piece of rock, and a hammer.
“The rock isn’t for the ships,” he explained, unwrapping the bowl and setting it facedown on the rock. “We were trying to speed things up, to get more iron out while we control the mines, before the Navreen take them back again.”
“Takes them away again,” Dugald called. “Not back. They were on our side of the border to begin with.”
“Were they?” When the commander nodded, Alaster sighed. “I’ve lost track.”
The war had started when the Navreen took the mines. Kytlin couldn’t decide if she was annoyed the mage had forgotten or was envious that he could.
“Anyway, we made this spell for the miners, but they couldn’t use it.” Shifting his grip, he hit the bowl with the hammer. The bowl shattered, the rock shuddered, and gray liquid ran from the rock, down the side of the dory, to puddle on the floor. “That there, that’s the iron’s final state. It can’t be heated or worked or turned into weapons. It’s pretty much useless.”
Kytlin stepped forward, squatted, and poked the puddle. It felt like warm water. “Will the spell work on steel?”
“Absolutely. I’ve got a lot of clay bowls left over, bigger ones, and it’s just a matter of adding the parameters of the carbon to the spell before I paint it on the inside curve. When you get where you’re going and you need to use them, you just wet the edge of the bowl with a finger”—he licked a fingertip and mimed a circle in the air. “. . . and stick them to the ship above the waterline. Then, before you break the bowl, you strike the ship to align the spell. With the hammer,” he added. “Because of the added carbon content.”
Kytlin sighed and straightened. “What part of covert,” she asked over the rising profanity, “do you not understand, Most Wise?”
He blushed again. “Oh, you don’t hit it hard. Just a light bonk.”
“Bonk?”
The blush deepened.
“How many spells to dissolve a ship?” Eoin asked, moving to crouch at Kytlin’s feet and poke the puddle himself.
“Four should do it.” The mage sketched ships in the air. “On the bow, the stern, and one about the middle of each side. Once I’ve worked out the changes, I can have a dozen ready in two days.”
“Three days,” NcTran said, waving Kytlin and Eoin away from the dory. “Two dozen bowls.”
Alaster opened his mouth, closed it again, frowned, and finally nodded. “I can do that.”
“How many teams, Commander?” Harrin looked as though he was one step away from waving his hand and shouting, “Pick me! Pick me!”
“Three teams,” NcTran replied. “Four to a team. Strong, fast swimmers who can make it from the estuary to the shipyard under cover of darkness with no idea of the defenses along the river.”
If the commander wanted twenty-four bowls, eight bowls to a team, four bowls to a ship . . . each team would have enough firepower to complete the mission. That was more than redundancy. That was expectation.
Kytlin looked around the boathouse. It looked as though everyone else had also done the math—although Eoin was still counting it out on his fingers.
“Well, that’s why we’re Special Forces,” NcTran said into the silence. “If it was easy, everyone would do it.”
“There is, uh, one small problem.” Alaster flinched as everyone’s attention snapped back on to him. “Because the spell’s painted on the inside of the bowls, you can’t get the bowls wet.”
Kytlin pulled herself up out of the water onto the gravel beach, shrugged out of her sealskin and into a long sheepskin robe. Temperature change effected shifters a lot less than non-shifters, but there was no reason to be stupid about it. “The harness works,” she said, nodding out to where Harrin and Aiden dragged covered coracles around the harbor at full speed, their seal-shapes barely visible in the chop, “but we need to improve the waterproofing at the join.” Made of willow and hide, the coracles were light, and it had been Kytlin’s idea to protect the spell bowls by joining two of the small, round boats together gunnel to gunnel—like a walnut shell. “Tar’s a pain in the ass in the amount we need and the wax has gone brittle enough to crack.”
“Wax is faster to remove than tar, particularly if it’s pre-cracked, and you’ll need to work quickly when you reach the ships. The bowls will be wrapped in waxed cloth,” Commander NcTran continued before she could respond. “And you’ll spend a minimal amount of time in the sea. There won’t be chop enough to crack the seam on the river.”
She made a noise halfway between a grunt and a seal’s bark. It could’ve meant Yes, sir. It could’ve meant Fuck you. It usually expressed a sentiment somewhere between the two, and they both knew it. The commander was a solid, familiar presence at her back as they stood and watched Aiden swim in a wide circle as Harrin tried to submerge his coracle. “He’s very young,” she said after a moment. He. Harrin. Although Aiden wasn’t much older.
“What choice did we have?”
A rhetorical question, she assumed. Twelve swimmers—four strike teams strong enough and fast enough to reach the shipyard before dawn—meant Harrin had to be on the list. “He’s too young to believe he’ll die.”
The commander’s turn to grunt. “And you?” he asked.
“How long have we been at war?” That was as much of an answer as she had to give him.
“The Navreen emptied their treasury to pay for the Mers’ services; they’ve emptied their iron reserves for this,” NcTran said quietly, his voice barely carrying over the sound of the waves and the wind. “If we can take out these ships, this shipyard, there’s a chance they’ll have lost enough to sue for peace.”
How much of a chance, she wondered as she beckoned Harrin in to shore, then answered her own question as Commander NcTran met him at the highwater mark with a robe. Wars were won by a throw of the dice as much as strategy, tactics, and attrition. The Navreen were ready to throw. Time to pick up the dice.
The next night they were in a fast sloop heading south; black sails, black woodwork, metals dulled to prevent reflection. Jeordie NcMarin—the commander's eyes and ears at
sea, cleat on the bottom of his wooden leg digging into the deck—alternated with one of Kytlin’s cousins at the wheel. No siblings shared this mission, but her people were too tied to avoid all family connections. Aiden’s cousins Boyd and Fyona stood by the starboard rail; Euan and his cousin Shuard were at the bow; Harrin and the other five still asleep below deck were tied back for generations. Even with minimal losses, every family on the coast would mourn. Kytlin stared down into the water, the surface as black as the ship and considerably colder. If no one made it to the shipyard then the whole country would end up mourning. Perspective was everything.
She bent her knees as the schooner rolled, sails snapping taut in the rising wind. On the one hand, the storm coming in from the east would provide cloud cover and keep the defending dreadnoughts busy. On the other hand, storms at this time of the year were more than dangerous: they could be brutal.
“A polite enemy would fucking wait until spring,” Boyd growled, half slamming into the rail beside her. “The Navreen must want the war over before freeze.”
“I’d like the war over before freeze.” She’d like the war over before morning. Bracing herself, she glanced toward the helm where her cousin had hung his considerable body weight off the wheel to hold the course. They planned for the schooner to slip into the estuary and drop anchor to unload teams and equipment. They’d slip out again when the tide turned, spend the day avoiding the enemy, and return the next night for extraction. The sea had a way of rewriting plans. “We go in any closer, we risk losing the ship. We’ll have to go over the side in deep water.”
“The wax . . .”
The waves had swelled in the last couple of minutes, troughs grown deeper and darker. “No choice. Wake the others.”
By the time they were assembled on deck, the storm had gone from promise to howling wind and freezing spray.
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