A smile played across his features. There was something dark in the expression and I felt my muscles stiffen. “You still sail south?”
“I earned my name, boy. Don’t tempt me.”
The young man nodded slowly and his lips pursed as if he were about to say something. Mama Hammer shook her implement again and he shook his head as if in reply. He turned away and, as he moved, I saw the sun catch something bright in his hand. A vial. He tossed its contents back with a single swallow and a heartbeat later his body jerked as if he had a palsy.
“I told you to reconsider,” he said in a voice several octaves deeper than before. “Remember.” Mama Hammer started to speak and he growled. “Remember!”
“Shit, he’s a mage,” I spat.
“What?” Eld stood straight.
“One of the followers of the Dead Gods. Veneficus.”
The word left my mouth at the same instant the lad’s skin exploded outward and he fell to all fours, quivering, and then screaming in bass bellows as his bones cracked. You see mages every day, walking around in their fine robes with medallions swinging around their necks and sometimes, if you haven’t had experience with them, you forget what dark powers they wield. I’d seen more than a few and had little cause to trust them. Eld hates them more than me, though I don’t fully understand why. All that is to say, when a young man rips himself apart to reveal a full-on raging bull with steel horns—it’s hard to ignore.
The bull bellowed and so did Mama Hammer, but her swing rebounded off the beast’s horns and a moment later she followed, tossed like a piece of flotsam. The vat she hit screeched as it cracked, but her head cracked first and that was the end of Mama Hammer.
Men started screaming, fighting with one another to escape the yard, but the vats created natural funnels and where they ran, the bull ran too. Four legs are faster than two. I would have been content to watch, save Eld moved past me and leveled a pistole. It leapt in his hand and the bull howled, paws digging up giant furrows of mud as it spun around. It dropped its head at us.
“Whoops,” Eld muttered.
“Gods damn it, Eld.”
“Any ideas?”
“Aye. Run! And not in straight lines.” I shoved him hard to get him moving, then ducked behind the nearest vat. The one we’d been leaning against tipped over with a squeal of metal on metal that was all but drowned out by the bull’s roar. Or was it the mage’s roar? There was a lot of roaring and none of it good. I can go on about lack of emotions all day, but sometimes they get the better of you. Turns out, all it takes is a rampaging bull up your arse and you understand fear. “Keep fucking moving!”
Eld shot past me into an opening between two vats, slid to a halt with a yelp, and backpedaled into me so that we both went down in a heap. The bull filled the opening where Eld had been a breath before. Anger flashed through me. This is how we die? I saw the bull’s muscles bunch beneath its pink skin and readied myself for the inevitable even as Eld struggled to get to his feet. There simply wasn’t enough time. The bull launched itself at us with another earsplitting roar.
Some lucky bastard in a tattered red bandanna ran around the vat behind us, tripped over my leg, and went arse over face, right into the bull’s path. The creature’s horns took him through both shoulders and the man slid down to their base with a feral scream. The bull shook its head back and forth, but the man was stuck, screaming into the beast’s face. Eld pulled me to my feet. Fear drained away and time seemed to slow.
Left hand to slingshot. Right hand to bottom of purse. Slightly larger than the rest. The nose is the most sensitive part on large beasts. I dug in my purse, left hand closing around the handle of my slingshot, right hand burrowing farther until my fingers touched smooth lead. It took another moment to find the shot I was looking for, but Eld filled the time by drawing another pistole. The pirate’s shoulders finally tore free and he flew through the air with a scream that ended in a crunch of bone and flesh. The bull lowered its head. Its eyes were pure red in its mottled pink skin. Then Eld fired and the creature disappeared in a cloud of smoke from the pistole.
I couldn’t see the effect, and the beast did little more than grunt, so I wasn’t exactly surprised when a mountain of flesh and horns charged at us through the smoke. I brought the slingshot up, dropped it slightly as the bull lunged forward, and released the ball at ten paces. The bull’s scream turned from rage to pain and the beast slid to a halt two paces from us, nearly cartwheeling end over end as its front hooves tried to reach its nose. It shook its head, blood flecking the air. It paused, glaring at us through eyes that looked more human than they just had, and bellowed so loudly, I felt it in my chest. I didn’t have time for another round and even if I did, I only had one silver ball. The creature cried again and spun around, leapt over a vat, crushed another pirate beneath its hooves, and then was gone in a whirling cloud of dust.
“Silver,” I said when my breath came back. “Only thing that will turn a Veneficus.”
“Aye, silly me,” Eld said lightly. He stepped over the flattened pirate’s bloody corpse. “Guess I wore the wrong sword.”
* * *
The yard was a mess of mud and blood, twisted steel and bodies, but Eld thought there might be clues to be found and I couldn’t argue with him. Mostly because he was right, but also because I was so damned tired that if I tried to talk him out of it, I’d likely lose and I never lose an argument, so he’d know something was up. I could have just told him, I suppose—three days of seasickness would kick anyone’s arse—but there’s a core in me that is too hard to bend. Until now it’s been impossible to break, but the problem with iron is that when you start to see the cracks, it’s already too late.
My musings were interrupted by a moan. Eld shoved one of the legs of a vat off two pirates. As he checked the woman for signs of life, the man beneath her moaned again. Eld turned him over carefully. His breath hissed through his teeth and when he moved aside, I saw why. The pirate was a thin, reedy fellow wearing a vest and striped trousers and nothing else. I’m not sure what color the vest had been, but now it was dark with his blood. The bull had caught him low in the stomach and his hands were the only thing keeping his intestines inside. His right forearm was twisted with recent scar tissue, but any other markings were hidden by blood.
“Hold still,” Eld said gently, squatting down next to the man. “I’ll do what I can to help.”
“Help?” The pirate’s lips were turning blue and his teeth chattered despite the heat. “Naught you can do now, maybe put a bullet through my head and end my suffering. B-bad luck. Is all,” he stuttered.
“I’d say we all had some bad luck,” Eld said, glancing at me.
“Own fault,” the man said. Blood flecked his mouth. “I knew better than to come, but I needed the money.”
“Why’d you know better than to come?” I asked. The man squinted as if trying to see me better, but damned if I was going to get down in the mud like Eld. Certainly not for someone who only had a few breaths left in him. “Did you expect this?”
“S-should have,” he said. “I was on a ship in the Southern Expanse. Black flag. We were overtaken by the Widowmaker—heard she was behind the attacks to the south, but the ’hood usually leaves their own alone. Marooned for a week afore a ship came close enough to hail and get me back to port. Swore off pirating, but…” He grimaced and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “But I was broke and I got nothing else.”
“What does the Widowmaker have to do with what happened today?” I asked. Eld gave me an exasperated look, but there was no time for politeness. The dying man was punching his ticket for his final gondola ride and taking any useful information with him. “Huh?”
“Rumor’s been that she’s in league with the Dead Gods. It’s why she still sails the Southern Expanse while the rest of us disappear. I—I didn’t believe it. Should have.” He grunted and stared past Eld sightlessly. “That’s why the Veneficus attacked. Keep us from the South.”
> More blood filled his mouth and Eld lifted his head to keep him from choking. “Easy, man. Easy.”
“B-bad luck, is all,” the other whispered.
“Bad luck aside, what do the Dead Gods have to do with the Widowmaker? What do they care about this Godsforsaken coast?” I asked.
“Luck,” the man repeated.
“Aye,” Eld said. He cursed and looked up at me. “I don’t think he’s much time left.”
“No,” I said. I pointed. “He’s gone already, and my answers with him.”
“Damn.” Eld let the man down to the ground gingerly and stood up, dry washing his hands to hide their trembling from me. “That was a hard way to go. What a fucking day.”
I glanced around at what was left of the yard, my mind filled with the memory of what it had looked like only minutes earlier. When I blinked, the pirates and Mama Hammer were gone, replaced by bloody strips of flesh and cloth.
“When you’re right, you’re right.” I nudged the pirate at Eld’s feet, but he was well and truly dead. “Was he lying?”
“Lying? Why would a dying man lie?”
“Why wouldn’t he lie?”
Eld snorted. “I thought you said we needed to find pirates because this Widowmaker was the pirate captain of the Southern Expanse. He as much as told you your hunch was right.” He touched my arm carefully—I’ve been known to snap when someone touches me. Comes of being on the streets where every touch has a double meaning: money, food, power, desire. Pick a sin and it’s there, on their fingers. I tensed but didn’t move and he squeezed gently. “And with this much information? When have you ever been wrong?”
I heard his words, but my eyes were on the dead man. Were you lying, you bastard? He didn’t say anything. The dead are arseholes like that. There wasn’t much left to him anyway, save for the twisted scar tissue on his forearm, but next to the gaping hole in his stomach, what was that?
“Never,” I said finally. But when have I ever been this tired? The last two years hadn’t been easy, but they’d left me softer than when I’d started.
“Never,” he agreed. “So lose the frown and let’s go find this Widowmaker before another mage finds us.”
“Aye,” I grunted, and followed him to where our pack lay surprisingly undisturbed amid the wreckage where we’d been sitting, but didn’t lose the frown. I was missing something. I knew it. What do the Dead Gods care for this place? Or a pirate? Am I wrong?
Never.
11
“Then she shot me with silver, Eldest, and I had to leave before I returned to my human form,” he said. The tremors that came after Transfiguration were growing worse and the silver in his bloodstream felt like liquid fire coursing through his veins. His knees shivered violently against the rough flagstone floor, abrading his flesh, but the external pain was a fly bite beside the internal. He risked a glance up through his dark hair, saw her eyes were on him, and kept his head bowed. “She was the only one left.”
“A Sin Eater?” the Eldest’s voice was dry parchment, stiff and wrinkled.
“I—” He had implied as much; no ordinary human would have stood up to a Veneficus in full form … but lying would make him wish for the pain he felt now. He licked his lips. “I can’t say, Eldest. You know their Goddess has been sending more Sin Eaters here now that our agent owns the sea.”
“True,” the woman muttered. “But She hasn’t moved openly against us in half a century. Why now?” Breath hissed between her teeth. “Is her madness spreading?” The last barely reached his ears.
“It may be that the Sin Eater was acting on its own. Panicked?”
“A better scenario than Ciris at war with us,” the Eldest said. “If it was a Sin Eater, it is well you didn’t kill her, child. The Council hasn’t approved direct action.” Her voice didn’t indicate if she was happy about that or not. But she was a Veneficus too, and they both knew the Council was run by Dead Walkers these days. A byproduct of their magic: a Veneficus could pass as human until they chose to Transfigure; a Dead Walker tended to attract the wrong kind of attention. It was hard not to when the undead followed on your heels like rotting lapdogs. So the Dead Walkers sat in the halls made from bones of their Dead Gods and the Veneficus went out into the world.
“Even accidents have consequences,” she continued. “Especially accidents.”
“Then I haven’t failed?” His head shot up before he could stop himself and his heart sank at the grim expression on the Eldest’s face. He knew the question was a mistake, but the pain was blinding his reason. She studied him for a long moment, her smooth, unlined midnight skin incongruous next to the ancient eyes that pierced his own. She shook her head, white braids shifting back and forth around her shoulders. “Eldest,” he whispered, and in that word he felt the tension slip from his head. “My life to yours.”
“You haven’t failed, child, but your work isn’t done.” Her mouth twisted. “You’re useless with silver inside you.” Her hands groped in her robe and came out with a vial flecked with dark splatters and a tiny pool of liquid at the bottom. “Drink.”
The vial felt warm in his hand and he searched the blood for signs of what creature she’d given him, but found nothing. His breath caught in his throat and he searched her face. It can’t be … “Eldest?”
“Our Gods’ blood,” she confirmed. “Drink and be restored.”
He tore the stopper off greedily, then stopped himself from throwing the vial back. The Gods had died—in a manner of speaking—millennia ago, having finished creating all life in the world, but they’d left their bodies behind and, with them, the Gift of their blood. Their blood was too precious to be wasted; it was only given to priests along with the hair of an animal required for Transfiguration, never pure like this. The vial shook in his grasp.
The Eldest spoke the ritual words, but he couldn’t hear them over the throbbing beat of his heart in his ears. When she finished, he bit his tongue hard, until his own blood filled his mouth. Then he tipped the vial back and after what seemed an eternity, a new warm metallic tang filled his mouth.
When he swallowed, warmth flooded him, banishing the pain and tremors that had tortured him a breath before. He could feel the skin on his knees reforming, his nose straightening, and every other ache and wound mending. The brand on his right forearm itched, like it always did during Transfiguration. For a heartbeat his vision blurred, then everything snapped back into sharp focus.
“You have been blessed, child. Now listen and obey.”
“I live to serve,” he said, gasping.
He listened with half a mind, the rest gaping at the Transfiguration healing his body as she spoke. The Dead Gods’ blood gave him and the others like him their name: Veneficus. Only this time, without having to fit into a new creature’s flesh, the process was painless. It was ecstasy. But even in the throes of pleasure, her final instructions pulled him back to reality. “An arch a what?”
“Archaeologist,” the Eldest repeated, enunciating the unfamiliar word slowly and clearly. “One who understands history. Think, child. The Empire’s sent their servants here. That the Empress doesn’t know they dance to Ciris’s siren song is small comfort, but that Archaeologist is powerful in her own way, for there is power in knowledge. She discovered descendants of the survivors from these islands before the colonizers came and this filthy port was founded. Were she to be picked up by them … the combination of the Empire, Ciris, and this Archaeologist would take more attention than our servant can give. You can’t fail here.”
“I won’t, Eldest.” How could he, with his Gods’ blood in his veins? He was holy now. “I swear it.”
“Then go, my son, and be swift.”
He scrambled to his feet, his trousers stiff with dried blood. “Eldest?” The woman craned her neck to look up to him now that he stood. “What about Ciris’s agent? The one who shot me?”
“She’ll be dealt with shortly.” He frowned and her youthful features crinkled in amusement. “You weren’t th
e only priest in the tanning yard, child. I watched through one of your brother’s eyes before he passed on.” She repeated what the dead man had said and by the time she finished, they were both grinning.
“But then,” he said, laughter beginning to bubble up from his lungs, “she’s racing toward her doom?”
“And none will know it was our hand that dealt the blow,” she agreed. Her laughter joined his and the walls echoed with it, matching the pulsing in his ears from the Gods’ blood.
12
The sun was waning when we reached the main thoroughfare and the crowd was thrice its previous size we left it, houses and hovels apparently emptying now that the worst of the heat was over. Taverns were already bright with lanterns, as if to dispel the dusk, and here and there a few of the nicer places had fiddlers, one accompanied by a horn. It sounded out of tune, but the woman played enthusiastically, as if to make up for it. I looked back the way we’d come, a mere few hundred paces when you removed the warren of alleys in between. Gunfire seemed to go unremarked in Port au’ Sheen, but surely the tanning yard had been close enough for people to have heard the bull’s cries of rage?
“I think that mage could have transformed right in the main square and so long as it didn’t disturb a drink, none would mark it,” Eld said into my ear. I glanced up at him and he laughed. His grin looked out of place on his waxen features and tight eyes. “I could read it on your face.”
I smiled back and from his reaction my smile was no better than his. Gods damn it. I was weak indeed if my face was an open book. I bit my tongue once again until the pain forced the breath from my lungs. It also forced me to concentrate and helped me fight the urge to pull a wad of kan out of my jacket and smoke it. My brain was slow enough without that. Useful thing, biting your tongue. I don’t know why people waste it on keeping from saying what’s patently obvious. Address the obvious and move on. Everyone seems to get uncomfortable when I do that, but it’s never bothered me. By that point, I’m on to the matter at hand.
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