by JM Guillen
“Don’t matter one copper whit.” The captain shook my shoulders. “If they’re closing the gates, then we’re on the wrong side. They can’t afford to let anyone past who might be tainted.”
“She said they would sound the eddár-horns.” Barnabas’ tone turned uneasy. “They haven’t yet. We could still be allowed in…”
“If we can get through that.” Captain Argent indicated the throng of shaedr-ghůl.
For a moment we all watched the battle.
“I expect that some of them are from the pack we felt back in the alleyway.” I looked to Captain Argent, brushing a strand of hair from my face. “If their miasma was that strong then, when we hid in the Oasis…” I let my eyes drift to Barnabas. “How can we expect to fight them? How is it even possible?”
“You must be disciplined with your own emotions.” Captain Argent nodded toward the men who fought the small horde of creatures. “They have no special alchemy; they don’t bear the silver flame. Instead, they have the precepts of Keine and discipline. That is enough.”
I had to admit I didn’t believe it would be enough. The sights in the open field before the Seaęr’s Gate frankly terrified me. I guessed two-dozen shaedr-ghůl trudged toward the wall, not counting those who could rise at any moment. From the look of the corpses around the edge of the gate, the Vigilant had already slain nearly a score, and yet more came.
“It looks hopeless.” Defeat tugged at my shoulders.
As we watched, several of the monstrosities overwhelmed three of the Vigilant, savaging and shredding them where they stood. Their cries were horrific, but as I watched, I noticed that they never stopped fighting. Until their last breath, they swung those great scythe blades at the monstrosities, giving no quarter until their final gasp.
More of the Vigilant came to take their place, trotting out from the gate to hold the line. From here I noticed they didn’t even pause a nonce, didn’t give a second thought to the idea of stepping to the line to give their lives.
Keine’s faithful were nothing if not dedicated to their cause.
“Oh, it is hopeless.” Captain Argent answered me with a rakish grin. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. I don’t know if Barnabas has properly educated you in my nature, but if something isn’t impossible, then I’m not interested.”
“Man has a death wish.” Barnabas chuckled, shaking his head.
“Never doubt, little ’Bel. Folke like us do the impossible just as others put on their shoes. What is impossible for others makes just another day for us.” He glanced back to the blood-soaked field. “Here’s how we’re going to do this.”
“I’d love to know.” I cocked my head, listening attentively.
“You’re going to keep my pistol, but only use it if you absolutely must. We can’t bring them all down.”
“Impossible.” Barnabas nodded. “Far too many.”
“All we care about is getting to the inners. Therefore, all we need is a path.” He loosened the small, silvery waterskin from his belt and then extended a hand toward Barnabas.
The Kab gave a soft chuckle as he unfastened his own bottle from his bandolier and handed it to Argent. “Crazy Riogiin bastard.” He shook his head “Khasag dhuir.”
“Trade-tongue or you’re off the ship.” Argent pointed at Barnabas but smiled. Then, he turned back to me.
“Barnabas and I are going out first. Let us get about halfway across the field, about a five-nonce count. We’ll clear the way. Your only job is to bite your tongue for a moment and foll—”
“The miasma—” I cut myself off, clucking at the notion that I had interrupted him less than a moment after he had cautioned my tongue.
“—will be horrifying.” Barnabas gave me a sideward glance. “The captain wasn’t being coy about biting your tongue. Physical pain can make it easier to ignore.”
“It isn’t real, whatever you see.” The captain nodded at Barnabas. “All you really must do is breathe, focus on physical sensations instead of those wicked dreamings, and run.”
That didn’t sound impossible, actually.
“We’ve no time to waste. They could sound the eddár-horns any moment.” Captain Argent rolled his shoulders, taking a deep breath. “If neither of you have anything else…?”
“Ready to go, Captain.” Barnabas cocked his three-peater, making certain the chamber was loaded.
“Right then. Onward.”
Captain Argent flung open the door.
Horrific noise drifted inside, a symphony of screaming, dying madness. Without a moment’s hesitation, he beat cobbles into the fray, looking square ahead and nowhere else. Then, with the kind of faith only held by priests and madmen, Barnabas followed.
“Crazy Riogiin bastard.” I muttered, a grin pulling at the corner of my mouth. Then, after a five-nonce count, I dashed after them.
I supposed I’d become just as mad as they were.
The first twenty strides weren’t so awful. The rotten stench did nothing to blot out the screams of the dying and the damned, but I kept my head down and pounded streetstone. I already had my tongue in my teeth, waiting for the moment—
“What, lil’ sweetmeats?” He glanced at me. “This where you try to rook dumb ol’ Ogrim?”
“Isn’t there a way we can work this out?” I looked down his body, making certain he knew exactly what I meant.
“I think there might be.” He leered at me, far too many razored teeth shining in that smile. “I think I know just the thing.”
He grabbed the front of my shirt, ripping it open as easily as I might have torn paper. I gasped at the suddenness, at how easily he tore my clothing from me.
“Ogrim, I—”
“We’re going to enjoy you, Ysabel.” His tongue snaked from his mouth, a serpentine, glistening thing covered in boils. His eyes shone dead-white.
Around us, men began to gather.
No, they were cold things who also had white death for eyes. They were covered in scales, and I could feel the desire pouring off them. They stank with rotten lust, reaching for me with—
“No.” I shook my head. I wasn’t to the battle yet, not for another twenty strides or so, still, the miasma of the creatures—
“Eighty-one names.” My father’s voice was philosophical, almost soft.
I, on the other hand, was nude, bound with leather to our table, and squirming.
“Each has their own sigils and signs, Ysabel, and each hungers. But I know the proper rite, the Once ways. I can keep you.”
In the back of my mind, I could hear those horrific names, sounds wrought with iron and fire. He chanted them endlessly, and they wound through the space of our small home.
LiNtpkIn, thE fIrE of The aBySs…
LerIIn, The LoSt inNoceNt…
LlyRdK, tHe evEr waTchfUl…
MEr, thE moURnfUl onE…
“The glyphs will protect you, my darling.” He held up the first of the iron brands, glowing red hot. When he grinned at me, his eyes swirled in a cacophony of madness. “Then, we can go to Teredon.”
I smelled my burning flesh as—
“Ysabel!”
Barnabas? I peered toward him, lost in wonder.
When had I fallen to my knees?
“ifn om pet Tomn TAK,” I muttered to him, nonsense gibberish that made no sense to anyone, I was certain. No being alive had ever uttered such words.
I pushed myself to my feet, noting that we were less than five strides from the edge of the battle. Large knots of the creatures pushed forward, eagerly slavering to get to the line of the Vigilant.
Then, one of the corpses moved.
A single hand burnt to the bone made a tiny flick. It twitched and then clenched. The head of the corpse turned toward me, revealing the face of a young, tattooed Sindri man.
“Captain!” I scrambled to my feet running toward them. I needed—
—they were inside me, spider-like and yearning to be birthed into the world. I could feel them roiling in my stomach, wa
tch as my skin distended. The pain came again, and I was bleeding—
“No.” I bit my tongue exactly as the captain had suggested. Immediately, I tasted the warm copper of my blood, but I couldn’t care.
It was true. The pain gave me a little focus. I bore down on my teeth and sprinted toward Barnabas.
“On your mark!” The captain stood about six strides in front of us, his cry wild and high.
He gestured toward the knot of the ghůl in front of him, his arms waving wildly. Three of them turned toward his voice, aware of easier prey within their reach. Their eyes, not yet fully rotted, gleamed with crimson madness.
“Mark, Captain!” Barnabas nodded.
Then Captain Argent hurled his silvered container of lucia fuegiin straight at the band of slavering monsters. Barnabas tracked the captain’s throw with his right eye as well as his polished three-peater, then he fired.
Once.
A white-hot blossom of fire engulfed them, igniting every creature it splashed. Shaedr-ghůl might not know pain, but lucia fuegiin knew hunger. The alchemy quickly caught those creatures it touched.
“Ha!” Captain Argent turned toward us for a moment, his grin manic and wide. Then he charged into the creatures, his blade gleaming.
“So he’d rather fight them while they’re on fire?” I muttered under my breath.
Barnabas chuckled. “I told you, the man’s insane.” He gestured to himself. “I’m not, of course.”
Then Barnabas followed the captain in.
“Of course.” I trotted along behind him.
Now, more corpses began to move, returned to some haunted unlife by the presence of the shaedr-ghůl. Yet speed proved our ally. They crawled to their feet. The not-dead Sindri I darted past, only reached his feet once I had taken several strides from him.
“Die!” Captain Argent swung his blade at one of the creatures that lunged for him, and it fell.
—I was lost in a cavern beneath the world, a cavern that was home to rot-eyed harvestmen, wearing nothing but scraps of cloth. I could hear their mumbled whispering, words of men whose cerebra had long turned to black mush. They were emaciated, skeleton thin, and—
“No!” I shook my head.
Captain Argent and Barnabas tore through the horde, much thinned by the alchemal fire. On the other side of the pack, several of the Vigilant tore into the creatures, their wicked sardis-blades doing their dark duty.
One of the men waved to us.
“Oi!” This one was behind the others. “How many you have?”
“Three!” Captain Argent couldn’t spare a glance for the man.
He was engaged with a slender, female monstrosity who wore no shirt. Bloody gashes circled round her body, curling like art. The captain started to speak again, but then she leapt at him, fingers extended like talons. She wrapped herself around him and bore him to the ground.
“Captain!” Barnabas shot the nearest of the grinning creatures straight in the face, and it fell back from the blast. He held his sword in his other hand, attempting to slice a path to Captain Argent.
The Vigilant man got to the captain first. With a powerful swing of his curved blade, the ghůl chewing at the captain’s face fell to the side, and Captain Argent rolled to his feet, his cheek bleeding. The woman lunged toward the two, but this time she was met with the captain’s scimit.
“Stay close!” The Vigilant man spun toward one of the ghůl. “There are too many—!”
“One is too many.” Captain Argent worked his second bottle of fuegiin loose from his belt. “You’re going to have to close the gates.” He gestured to Barnabas, who drove his blade through the neck of one of the creatures, then cocked his gun.
“On your mark, Captain.”
“Mark!” Argent hurled the second bottle, doing his best to aim away from the Vigilant soldiers.
With a single shot, Barnabas destroyed the bottle, showering a half dozen of the screeching creatures with those hungry flames.
“This way!” The Vigilant forced his way through a wild-haired, leering, young woman, who had lost much of her jaw.
He swung again, and Captain Argent stepped to his side, gracefully slashing with his wicked blade.
Barnabas and I sprinted over to them, and we began to move through the remaining horrors.
A corpse, one of the fallen ghůl, began to jerkily rise from the ground. Its eyes were dark, not reflecting any of the flickering light from the captain’s fire. I wondered what those dead eyes had seen, what mad visions awaited those who traveled to the land of the dead and returned.
“Not today.” I aimed and pulled twice. Two bullets put it dow—
—if I had to listen to that song, that horrifying song any longer, I knew I would go mad. It would sing the last of me into the darkness, and there, I would never die.
I looked into the cracked mirror, seeing only darkness behind me. Slowly, I picked up her longest, most ornate hatpins, one in each hand.
I took a deep breath, and then pushed them—
“Ysabel!” Barnabas grabbed my arm with one of his huge hands. “Come on!”
We sprinted forward, following the Vigilant man through the swarming creatures. One of the ghůl grabbed my arm, clawing at me with ragged, black nails. For a moment, I hung between the creature and Barnabas.
“Step back, tupping rotter!” I whirled on her, firing the captain’s pistol twice and removing the left side of her face.
She didn’t release me, but the suddenness of my shot caused her to recoil.
Barnabas stepped close. “No time for this.” He swung downward, severing the arm of the ghůl from its body, just above the elbow.
I pulled away.
“Get them to the iron-weir!” called another Vigilant, an older Sartian woman. I gawked at her facial tattoos, caught by their beauty even in the middle of this madness.
It wasn’t e’rry day I saw someone from Elderlund.
The dark-haired Vigilant leading us nodded. He trotted forward, through the line of the Vigilant. Captain Argent, Barnabas and I dashed through safely as another small squad streamed out.
I gazed back to the courtyard and grinned. The tables had definitely turned due to Captain Argent’s liberal application of lucia fuegiin. The way that he and Barnabas had worked together sang to me of something they had done in the past; Barnabas had almost intuitively understood what the captain intended and only needed a single shot each time.
The man was uncanny good with firepowder.
“— just past the iron-weir. They’ll give you the go-ahead.” The dark-headed Vigilant man gave Captain Argent a brisk handshake.
They just intuit that he’s in charge. I mused, considering his mien. Captain Argent certainly had a way of carrying himself, a bearing that said more than words.
“Thank you, signor.” Captain Argent gave the man a half-bow.
At that odd title, I regarded the Vigilant anew. The dark hair and eyes, the slight uplilt to his speech…
The man was Eddön-born.
That seemed truly strange to me. Yes, Calyptin Station saw all kinds, but the Vigilant were truly folke from all corners of Cæstre. Idly, I wondered how people of such varied blood all came to be stationed here.
“Not that it will matter much if the bounds fall.” I muttered to myself.
“Quiet.” Barnabas raised an eyebrow. “Don’t frighten the lubbers.”
“Right.”
“We ready?” Captain Argent turned away from the young Eddön, giving me a roguish smile.
I could see he was bursting to brag.
“Yes, yes.” I folded my arms as he grinned at me. “You got us in, very clever.”
“Oh, we’re not in yet.” Captain Argent laughed. “We have to pass the gates.” He paused. “Better give me my pistol, ’Bel. This might be easier if you were a simple slave for a nonce.”
I hated it, but I could see his point. Grudgingly, I handed it over.
“Now…” He checked the chambers to see that
I had reloaded. “I imagine this will be simple enough.”
Barnabas chuckled, looking square at me. “Unless you’re tainted.”
“Not even funny!” I scowled at the two of them. “Honestly, you just bought me this afternoon. Are you in the habit of transporting tainted debtslaves, sir?”
One of the Vigilant glanced at us, obviously caught off guard by the conversation.
“Let’s get inside.” Captain Argent leaned closer. “Barnabas is right, ’Bel. You need to quit riling up the lubbers.”
Then, one of the most exasperating men I had ever met turned his back on me and walked toward the gate.
Barnabas only chuckled as we both followed him.
9
I might have expected that the iron-weir wouldn’t be a simple thing to pass.
The gate itself opened to us under the watchful eye of a Vigilant almost the size of Barnabas.
“Good omen.” The man was all business. “I’m going to need your names and city papers.”
“We’re not natives.” Captain Argent gave the man a winning smile. “I’m captain of the Storm Dancer, dock one-eighty. My registrations are all current.” He gestured toward Barnabas. “This is my First Man, and my debtslave. I purchased her at the Downs.”
“Ship captain, eh?” The man studied Captain Argent up and down. “We’re going to have to check some things.”
I found this all ridiculous. Less than a hundred strides from of a small horde of ghůl that fought to make their way into the inners, this man wanted to run us through the paperstampers!
“Fine enough.” Captain Argent nodded. “In the meantime—”
“In the meantime we need to check over the three of you.” He glanced behind himself, where another of the Vigilant appeared…
With an absolutely monstrous dog on a leash.
“Oh…hello.” I hated that I could hear the nervousness in my own voice, but the beast was huge. She could wrap her jaws around my head.
“Bedian dhirehound.” Barnabas whispered as if to calm me. “They can smell the taint of the Shroud.”