The Sin in the Steel

by Ryan Van Loan

“Aye,” I said, spitting seawater out of my mouth. I grabbed a lungful of air. “You don’t have to shout, Eld.” I tried to wrap my arms around the barrel and then I realized why Eld had been shouting as another wave smashed into us.

  30

  There’s not much I can recommend about spending a night in the open sea. Even when you can’t remember any of it, the sea leaves its mark. I woke up to a mouth that felt full of gravel. Burning gravel. I cleared my throat and nearly screamed from the pain. It took several blinks and the back of my hand to clear the grit from my eyes. When I could finally see, I considered closing them again. Vibrant blue waters stared emptily back at me from the rocky beach I was lying on. I sat up.

  My dress was still damp, but drying, already so bleached with salt and sand that the emerald green had faded to a mere suggestion of color. I felt I was missing something, but couldn’t think what it was, so I moved to push myself to my feet and my arm protested. Loudly.

  “Gods’ breath.” Bruises in the shape of fingerprints decorated my shoulder as if an invisible hand still gripped me. I pulled my dress back up and used my other arm for support. After a moment of swaying where I wasn’t sure if I was going up or coming back down, I managed to steady myself. My stockings squelched in my boots, the good leather already showing signs of ruin. “Gods’ breath,” I repeated as my brain signaled to me that something else was wrong. I’d been worrying over my clothes. Instead of.… What? Shame gave me energy and I finally began looking around, taking in my surroundings.

  If the sea had little to recommend it, the island I was on had little better. Sand dunes surrounded the rocky beach where I’d woken up. Beyond them, palm fronds suggested a forest, but it was the dark clouds beyond the fronds that caught my eye. The Shattered Coast was aptly named, shattered by a millennia of hurricanes and storms that made the Empire’s worst weather seem like a light rain on a warm spring afternoon.

  In the last hundred years or so, the massive storms had mostly vanished as the world cooled, but there were still hurricanes. I’d never seen one before, but the tales were enough for me to say with confidence I didn’t need to. Is that what a hurricane looks like? There was no way to say for sure, but the dark clouds stacked one atop the next so that they formed a giant glowering mass were troubling enough, though distant yet, but filled with promise. What am I missing?

  “You’re awake!” Eld’s voice broke me out of my reverie and I turned so quickly, every bone in my neck cracked.

  That’s it. He stood on the crest of a nearby dune, missing his coat, hat, and one boot. His red vest had bled all over his shirtsleeves so that he looked like he’d bathed in blood, and my breath caught in my throat. He came down the dune, walking stiffly, but not wounded, surely not that. He’d been by my side when I nodded off on the barrel, no mean feat, that, but the sea had been rough.

  I’d been awake for several minutes and hadn’t realized Eld was what had been missing. And why should I? I’d lived most of my life alone. Not the past two years. True, we’d spent every moment together since and I’d come to consider Eld a friend. My only friend. But I could go back to living alone if it came to that. Of course I could. You missed him as soon as you woke up; you just refused to acknowledge it. I broke that pattern of thought and focused on Eld.

  Now that he was closer I could see the livid bruise that crept up the side of his cheek and disappeared into his hairline. I didn’t like the way it marred his attempt at a smile. His lip was split and he walked as if someone had kicked him hard in the arse, but the bruise seemed the worst. The large stones cradled in his arms drew my attention.

  “I thought I’d be back before then, but these nuts took ages to collect.”

  “N-nuts?” I asked. The word came out garbled, but I wasn’t going to clear my throat. I could feel the raw tenderness there. “Look like stones.”

  “I thought so at first, but they grew from the palm trees,” he said.

  “I’ve read of them,” I said slowly. “They have—”

  “Water in their center,” he finished my sentence. “Aye. I lost my sword, but I was able to hammer one open with my pistole. Thirsty?”

  For the next while we were busy cracking open the nuts. A quick inventory revealed I had the knife belted to my wrist and my slingshot, but no ammunition, while Eld had lost all but one of his pistoles, which was wet and useless, save for cracking nuts. Still, between my blade and the butt of his gun we were able to get a drink that tasted strangely milklike. It cleared the sand from my mouth and soothed my throat, too. The white flaky meat of the nut didn’t have much taste, but it was something.

  “How’d we end up here?” I asked when I had enough down to start to feeling merely hungry instead of ravenous.

  “Sea spat us out,” Eld said. “After your suicidal rope swing, I didn’t know what to do, but I was beside the barrel and it occurred to me—”

  “You picked up the barrel? The one filled with limes and fruits?”

  “Aye, well, some spilled out.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Aye. No one else was going to do it; they were too busy fighting.” He frowned. “Why?”

  “No reason.” I glanced at Eld’s sleeves. I knew he was strong in his own way. Sure, he was good in a brawl or to loom when the situation called for it—so long as he didn’t speak. He’s always so Godsdamned polite. But his sleeves were stretched tight against his biceps and I was suddenly struck by just how powerfully built the man was. He’d picked up a barrel on his own, carried it across a ship, and hurled it from one side to the other of a second vessel, but he didn’t look anything like as muscle-bound as half the tavern toughs. Even roughed up, he looked like a distant storm, dangerous, but beautiful. Damn. “Continue.”

  “Well, you know the rest. We went over the side and you were fading out on me, small wonder given a horde of rotting corpses had tried to tear you apart. I managed to get a hand on your shoulder and the other on the barrel and the waves carried us away from the fight pretty damned quick.” Eld breathed out loudly and scratched his chin. “It was a long night after that.”

  “I’ll bet it was,” I said. I wanted to poke him, if for no other reason than it was my nature to do so, but the man had saved my life. Twice, really. Not many would run through an army of Shambles to save another. Had our positions been reversed, I wouldn’t have. I would have followed my original plan before Eld got me to thinking about taking down the Ghost Captain: hightail it over the other side and take a lifeboat with me. “So is it you I have to thank for the handprint on my shoulder?”

  Eld blushed, or maybe his skin was starting to show the sun. “Sorry about that.”

  I waved a hand. “Anytime you’ve a choice between giving me a bruise and keeping me alive, choose the bruise every time. Besides, I like it rough.” Eld began coughing hard, thumping his chest to clear his throat. “Chew before swallowing next time.” He shook his head, still slapping his chest. “I wonder what happened to Chan Sha’s crew. I don’t think they were in danger of winning that fight.”

  “Don’t know,” Eld said when he managed to regain his voice. His face was still red and he avoided my eyes, staring out to sea instead. “Pretty hard to win against another crew that’s already been killed.”

  “Aye.”

  “We’re lucky we got off that ship at all, really,” he added.

  “Lucky? Luck has—”

  “Nothing to do with it, I know.” Eld nodded. “But you tell me. We escape the Sea Dragon’s explosion and are picked up by Chan Sha, who we thought was behind all the disappearances, only to discover that it’s not her but some Dead Gods priest captain thingie. Then the bastard practically walks right up to us, even though there must be a hundred leagues of sea he could have been sailing in.” He ticked the points off one by one on his fingers.

  “Then he tried to turn us into corpses to join his ranks,” I added. “Really lucky, that.”

  “But he didn’t. Instead we escaped again and wound up on a seemingly unin
habited island that’s loaded with nuts that provide food and water.” Eld’s teeth looked shockingly white against his red skin. “That’s luck. What else could it be?”

  I had just opened my mouth to let him know he’d beaten me when the universe intervened and let me keep my pride. A hissing noise made me look toward the dune Eld had come down. The head of a Shambles wearing a bandanna that had slid down over one cheek popped up over the dune. A strange wet, snuffing sound bellowed from its mouth and I felt gooseflesh break out across me. Phantom skeletal hands clutched at my skin the way they had back on the ghost ship and fear wrapped its tendrils around my throat.

  The thing charged over the dune, but the head remained low to the ground, with yellowed blades jutting out from where its shoulders should be. Then it cried out again and the rest of it came into view … and it wasn’t a Shambles at all.

  The wild boar’s muffled shriek of rage at the offending skull trapped between its tusks might have been amusing if, while wildly swinging its head back and forth, it didn’t catch sight of us and charge, running down the hill in a haphazard fashion that kept begging for it to fall, but the pig never did. Instead the boar began throwing its tusks around with reckless abandon as if practicing for what it was about to do to us.

  “Gods!” Eld jumped to his feet, leveling the pistole in his hand before he remembered it was just a lump of steel.

  I stood up calmly, more calmly than I felt. Not the undead. Despite my fear, or maybe because of it, everything clicked into place. Pistole. Slingshot. Skull. “Eld. Eld!” I almost had to shout to break his concentration. “The ball,” I hissed, my throat erupting in new flames. “From your pistole!”

  Eld’s eyes widened in understanding and he slammed the end against his palm several times. “I didn’t have time to use a patch when I reloaded so it should—Yes!” He tossed me the lead ball and I caught it deftly with my right hand, my slingshot ready in the other.

  The boar carrying the dead bastard’s skull had gained speed going down the dune. It reached the bottom just as I drew, a mere score of paces away. I held my breath, dropped the slingshot down a hair, and released the round, along with the breath I’d been holding in. The Shambles’s skull exploded, whipping back into the boar’s face. The pig screamed from the round smashing it in the nose and tripped over itself, tumbling until it came to rest on its back, all four hooves in the air. Eld crowed until the boar started moving again, sitting up on its dark hairy haunches so we could see its bristly, but well-muscled, black hide and polished tusks. The dead skull must have absorbed enough of the force of the impact to keep the lead ball from penetrating the animal’s skull. Or maybe the bone was just that thick. Eld’s victory shout turned to a war cry and he ran forward with me on his heels.

  I swerved to the side, slid in the sand, and nearly cut myself on the remaining teeth jutting from the Shambles’s broken jawbone. I caught up the jaw and tore after Eld. He ran up to the boar, which was nearly the size of a small pony, and drop-kicked it with his remaining boot. It spilled backward end over end on the sand with a startled squeal and Eld’s momentum carried him past.

  Before either could recover, I reached the pig and smacked it in the arse with the jawbone, jagged teeth facing out. The boar squealed again, its twisty tail doing circles as its hooves churned up sand in giant spurts until it caught traction and took off back up the dune, squealing with every other lumbering leap. My arm still shivered from the impact where the bone met flesh and I let the jawbone slip from my hand before sinking down beside Eld.

  He opened his mouth and I stopped him with my hand. “I know, I know, luck.” I shook my head and ran my hands through my salt-crusted locks. “You know what?” I looked at him. “We were lucky.” A giggle escaped my chest. “Lucky there was just one of those hairy-arsed squealing bastards.”

  Eld laughed with me. “Aye, I don’t think we could have taken two. Not with an empty pistole and a blade the size of your finger.” We were both laughing so hard that we didn’t hear the pig return with a pack of his friends until they were halfway down the dune. A full dozen and every one as big again as the original boar, the air reverberating with their angry grunts.

  Heading right for us.

  31

  The lead pig was the same as before, yellowed tusks glittering in the sunlight like gilded arse fuckers in search of a hole. Its eyes rolled in its head, shifting back and forth between me and Eld. Eld adjusted the pistole in his grip, caught up the jawbone I’d dropped, and stepped forward with a growl of his own that slowed the boar down as it charged the last dozen paces. I drew the small blade strapped to my wrist and dropped into a crouch. Here we go.

  Something whined past my ear and the boar’s left tusk flew one way, its head snapping back the other. A musket’s retort echoed behind me. I opened my mouth, but before I could speak, the air exploded with fresh gunfire, drowning out the waves breaking onshore. The wild pigs stopped in their tracks, hooves churning sand as they tried to run away from the veritable volley of musket fire. A few tumbled down the dunes with wet, throaty squeals, anger transformed to terror at their sudden reversal, while the rest catapulted themselves in great leaps back up the dune and disappeared, their squeals sounding their retreat as they faded into the distance. The sands were still, the dead swine lying about like dark lumps of driftwood on the light sands.

  Eld and I turned around at the same moment and found ourselves blinking against the harsh light. A woman’s face coalesced out of the brilliant sunshine, her features impassive, dark braids hanging thickly around her slender arms, twin pistoles smoking in either hand. A tanned olive shoulder peeked out of a hole in a threadbare shirt. She cocked her head and a matchstick slipped from her locks and hissed as it fell.

  “You!”

  “Me,” Chan Sha said. She brushed a few braids out of her deep, angled eyes. “A little comedown in the world since we last met, I’ll grant you,” she added. “But an unholy terror, nonetheless.”

  She wiggled the pistole in her fist, then swung it in an arc that finished with it pointing at my chest, before drawing the weapon back and resting it over her shoulder. She nodded toward the trail of smoking muskets that lay beside her wet tracks in the sand, which led to a lifeboat that looked as if it were made to hold water, not ride it.

  “Lucky for you I came along, else those runty pigs would have finished you where you fell.” She glanced past me and her lip curled. “City folk think they’re cute because they oink and squeal, but farmers and islanders know: a pig will eat a human as soon as anything else and a wild pig will defend its territory to the death. But put down the lead boar”—she gestured toward the original pig, which lay in a growing pool of its lifeblood—“and the rest will think otherwise.”

  “You know a lot about pigs,” I said with a sniff.

  Eld jumped in before Chan Sha could stop blushing long enough to reply in kind. “We thought they were Shambles,” he said, explaining what had happened with the first boar.

  “Shambles?” She bent to inspect the remains of the desiccated skull I’d destroyed with my slingshot. I leaned over it as well, but I didn’t see anything of note, save that the bandanna it’d worn had been silk. She glanced up at me. “He’s got to be lurking nearby with that Godsdamned ship.”

  “You’ve the lives of a Dead Gods’ priest,” Eld said.

  “Funny, I was going to say the same about you lot,” she said, rising to her feet. “You aim to take one of them from me, Buc?”

  I cocked my head at her and she rolled her eyes. “If you’re going to try, you’d best find something more than that shard in your hands,” she said, pointing.

  I’d forgotten I’d drawn the flattened steel blade strapped to my wrist, but at the sight of Chan Sha I’d brought it up of its own accord. The streets had worked themselves into my bones and I’d reacted to the threat of her appearance without thought. Every fiber in me drew tauter as we stared at each other. There can only be one queen.

  “Just happy t
o see you,” I lied, forcing the tension from my limbs.

  “Aye?” She shook her braids. “I’ve been told I can cause that reaction. Come on then, if you’re not going to stab me.” She marched past, letting her pistoles hang from the pair of remaining ropes hung around her neck. She drew a scimitar from her waistband without breaking stride.

  “Where are we going?” I called after her.

  “Can’t you hear it?” She jerked her braids toward the dune the pigs had come over. “There’s fighting over yonder hill.” She pointed the blade at the shattered skull. “Bet you a plugged doubloon it’s that undead bastard what sank my ship.” Her smile was hot steel, showing every tooth. “I aim to repay the favor. Thought you lot might be inclined to feel the same.”

  “Friends?” Eld called.

  “Allies,” Chan Sha and I spoke as one.

  “And temporary ones at that,” I added, just for Eld’s ears. His mouth twitched, so I kept talking. “The bitch tried to murder the pair of us, Eld. Do you hear anything?” He shook his head and I cursed. “There’s something she’s not telling us. Many somethings.”

  “She could say the same for us,” he protested. A wet, meaty thud echoed behind me. “Gods,” Eld said, glancing over my shoulder. “She just decapitated a boar with one stroke.”

  “Testing her blade. Better on the piggies than us,” I muttered. “Allies only, aye?”

  Chan Sha jogged to the top of the sand dune, while Eld and I followed more carefully, unused to moving in loose sand. As we reached the crest, the island opened itself up to us, smaller dunes running down until they met jungle. Farther out, smoke streamed lazily up from a civilization of some sort. The village looked sizable, nestled back amongst some cliffs where I could see a small waterfall and natural spring that split the settlement in two. Half their buildings were thick, squat structures built to withstand hurricanes, pyramiding up to flat roofs, the clay and stone whitewashed by the sun, while the rest were long, horizontal huts built of dried grasses and palm fronds.