The Sin in the Steel

by Ryan Van Loan

  “Why, whatever do you mean?”

  “Number one hundred and seven.” Eld frowned. “A Year Amongst the Inhabitants of the Uninhabitable Coast,” I said. “Anonymous author, a poor fool marooned back when the Shattered Coast was just becoming navigable. They found some tribes are friendly, some are neutral, and some are hostile. But even the neutral ones practice ritual sacrifice and cannibalism.”

  “Cannibalism?”

  “Aye, beyond fish and pigs, have you seen any protein on this island? Nuts have to get old after a while. Might be they are going to help us,” I said, mocking Eld’s accent, “to fatten us up before the feast.”

  “Good grief,” he growled. “This is starting to get a little thick, don’t you think? First Chan Sha, then this Ghost Captain and the Shambles and bloody pigs with tusks the size of cutlasses, and now cannibalistic islanders.”

  Chan Sha turned back around before I could answer. “Stow it,” she muttered. “Like as not at least one of them kens Imperial, if not speaks it fluently. They don’t give a ruddy fuck who we are—they just want to send the Ghost Captain packing before he breaks through to their village and turns them all into Shambles. And they’re happy to have us along for extra muscle.”

  “Dulcet music to my ears,” I said. “Shall we go rescue the arc—the woman”—I corrected quickly, still not sure why I was keeping her name from the others—“then, before he absconds with her?”

  “Absconds?” Eld asked.

  “It means—” Chan Sha began.

  “That even if someone”—I nodded toward the islanders—“understands Imperial, they aren’t likely to ken the word.”

  Eld’s eyebrows rose. “So what’s the plan?”

  “Let them lead the way and see what the situation looks like when we get there,” I said.

  “I don’t care what the pair of you do,” Chan Sha said, “but I’m killing the undead bastard.”

  “Aye, so you’ve made clear,” I said. Let her provide a distraction. “But unless you know how to do it, good and proper, you might want to focus on rescuing the woman first.” I shrugged. “You do you.”

  Chan Sha muttered something under her breath, but turned back to the islanders, drawing her scimitar. She whistled a question and they all grunted back. “They’re ready.”

  “Perfect,” I said lightly, ignoring the cramp in my side. “Then let’s do this, shall we?”

  Chan Sha grunted something to the islanders and they tore off with high-pitched howls, heading in the direction the Shambles had taken. We followed fast on their heels. Chan Sha’s feet blurred as she sprinted along the faint suggestion of a trail. We brought up the rear, me in my salt-stiffened dress and Eld with one boot on, and by the time we came out the other side, the former Widowmaker was halfway across the rocky beach, sprinting toward the Shambles. They were forming ranks in front of rowboats, the front row rapidly thinning thanks to the spears that poured from the edge of the jungle like bees from a hive. The dead let out a loud chorus of groans and ran or stumbled as their level of decay allowed. The spears stopped, and a ragged line of warriors stepped out of the grasses. Too few.

  “The Ghost Captain!” Eld shouted. A familiar thin cloaked figure had appeared at the head of one of the boat crews. A strange light emanating from the object in his hands turned the black silk of his cloak blue while a bloodred feather pointed to the sky from the corner of his tricorne. He glanced around, standing a full head above most of the bent Shambles surrounding him before returning to his book. The Shambles swarmed toward the jungle and the islanders.

  My eyes swept across the beach. “There she is!” I pointed to a group gathered beside a just-beached rowboat. “They’re trying to take the Archaeologist back to the Ghost Captain’s ship.”

  “The Ark—what?”

  “I dunno, that’s her name,” I told Eld. “We can’t let them escape with her.”

  “Is she really worth this?” he asked.

  I nodded, the kan still sharp in my mind, modulating my thoughts, as I put everything together. Chan Sha had torn after the islanders, heading right for where the Shambles surrounded the Ghost Captain. She and her newfound friends would provide all the distraction needed. I’d a feeling the Ghost Captain used that strange book to commune with the dead and if he was too busy trying to keep Chan Sha from his throat, he wouldn’t be able to stop us rescuing the Archaeologist. To say nothing of keeping Chan Sha from our throats as well. I told Eld that in a single breath.

  “If we can’t reach her in time, we’ll steal a boat and follow after. We’ve a chance to burn that fucker’s ship and maroon him with only half a hundred or so of his undead companions. Shortens the odds quite a bit.”

  “It would at that,” Eld muttered as a roar leapt from the islanders as they met the Shambles. The ragged line swelled—dozens more fighters appeared from the jungle and I felt my mouth tug into a grin. There’s nothing so sweet as an ambush—especially when you’re not on the receiving end of it. The Shambles fell back even as the boatload the Ghost Captain had sent forward reached the battle line. Both sides were fully engaged, leaving no room to notice the Shambles struggling to get the Archaeologist into one of the boats. Or us stopping them. Now I’ve got you, bastard. I don’t make mistakes twice. “C’mon, old man!” I shouted at Eld, and tore off across the beach.

  Eld caught up to me a few paces later, awkwardly running with one boot on so that he leapt more with one step than the next. “I’m not old!”

  “You’re older than me.”

  “Older, not old!” he shouted in the face of one of the Shambles that had stumbled toward us, turning at the last moment so Eld’s shoulder sent it spinning back, heels over head. He caught the sword it’d dropped before the weapon touched the sand and as the undead thing sat up, a mass of curls pulling away from its decaying flesh, Eld put his boot through its skull. Hair and black ichor and Eld’s boot flew through the air. Eld leapt forward in his sock feet, blade shining in the sun, running toward the Shambles. I dropped to a crouch, searching for smooth pebbles in the sand.

  The beach was rocky, but stones aren’t the same as bullets. Each bullet, even if poorly made, is roughly the same size, shape, and weight as other rounds of the same type. A few shots and I know just how it will feel in the palm of my hand, in the sling, and against my cheek before I release.

  Stones are individuals and every one a stranger. But what they lack in accuracy they make up for in quantity. And quantity has a quality all of its own. I think someone said that once; if they didn’t, someone should. In moments I had transformed into a machine that turned the air dark with stones that broke flesh and bone, and when I was lucky, skulls.

  Eld and I were wrecking the Shambles’ flank while the islanders, led now by Chan Sha, carved through their front; the Ghost Captain had no choice but to commit the rest of his force. Unlike on the ship, here he had to make do with well less than a hundred Shambles.

  Unfortunately, we’d done too good a job on his flank and a score broke off from the main body to check our advance. Eld met them in a crouch, twisting this way and that, small motions and lunges doing for the first two before he leapt up with a roar and set about them with hacking strokes that parted limbs. I could scarcely see him through the inky spurts that flowed from the dying (dead?) Shambles, but his sword marked him out, always attacking while the rest were fighting to parry it. Between the pair of us, we nearly halved the Ghost Captain’s boatload before they’d crossed half the distance toward us.

  Fools like being the center of attention, but it’s something I’ve always tried to avoid. In trying to rescue the Archaeologist, though, we’d inadvertently turned the Ghost Captain’s flank … and laid a trap for ourselves. The Ghost Captain’s head snapped up and he stared in our direction. He studied Eld, then I saw his tricorne flick as he glanced at me. He turned to his book and suddenly Eld’s advance slowed and then stopped entirely and now he was parrying half a dozen strokes from the Shambles nearest to him. He fell back e
ven as my stone found the dark hole where a tall undead’s nose had been. The Shambles’ movements were coordinated, smooth, almost as fast as living flesh. The dead may be slow, but they don’t tire, while Eld’s parries grew slower with each pass.

  Damn.

  I ran forward, leaping over scattered piles of bone and flesh, dodging a hand that still moved, and slid to a halt beside Eld.

  “What are you doing here?” he grunted. The Shambles before him swung a pair of cutlasses back and forth, carving the air between them. “You’re supposed to be covering my arse.”

  “No, I’m supposed to be finding a way to kill our ghostly captain yon.”

  “Aye?” The Shambles stepped in, bone showing through its tattered trousers, while a long cape obscured the rest of its body. Eld slid away from the first cut, but was forced to take the second squarely on his blade. Steel met steel and both blades stuck for a heartbeat. It was all the Shambles needed to bring its other blade around, rusty steel thrumming toward Eld’s unprotected neck.

  Thwack!

  The Shambles’s head exploded and it fell in a heap, cutlass landing harmlessly at Eld’s feet. Behind it, another dropped with a dark hole in its forehead. It clawed at the sand and then went slack, tarry liquid leaking down its pale corpse-face like midnight’s tears.

  “You’re welcome,” I said, slipping another stone into the pouch of my slingshot.

  “Welcome?”

  “You’d really be fucked without me, you know that?” I asked.

  “I would not,” he said with a snort.

  “Good, then I won’t feel bad about leaving you,” I said. Eld looked up from inspecting the faint notch in his blade. More Shambles were coming toward us, but there was an opening to the rowboats. If we both took it, they’d follow us and we’d be forced to fight, drawing the Ghost Captain’s eye again. I saw understanding in his eyes and clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m off,” I said without looking back.

  “Seems a good way to get killed.”

  “Or kill,” I said. I dropped to the ground to gather more projectiles.

  “Or that.” He took a breath. “I won’t be able to follow you, but I’ll do what I can.”

  “I know,” I said. You always do. “Luck, Eld.” I glanced up and laughed when I saw his expression. It doesn’t pay to let a man get settled and Eld was first and foremost a man. So I left him with my laughter ringing in his ears and began running low across the sand, using the bones of those already killed as cover.

  There were a few Shambles still on their feet, but they kept shifting position, first toward Eld, then toward the islanders, as if being driven by two indeterminate wills. Whatever the cause of their hesitation, soon I was past them. I couldn’t take credit for all of the undead lying on the beach—here and there one was pinned to the sand with a spear or three—but I’d offed close to a dozen. A few more will do the trick.

  I dropped lower as I drew closer to the Shambles holding the Archaeologist. One lay awkwardly against the boat, ichor sprayed across the hull’s sun-bleached side. The rest were wrestling with the woman, who was giving a good account of herself considering four of them had her completely off the ground. Keep it up, woman.

  One of the unencumbered Shambles looked over its shoulder and I threw myself down. The sand was hot and scratchy against my skin; the darker stones burned so that I fancied I could smell my flesh burning, but I think it was just the smell of so much ichor from the Shambles. I risked a glance up and saw the Archaeologist being tossed over the side of the boat, which was surrounded by half a dozen of the taller undead. I lowered my head but kept my eyes on the boat, slowly inching my way forward.

  Dead Shambles lay thick around me and I had no choice but to crawl over bones and rotting flesh, my dress fighting me with every move as it snagged on and stuck to the gore surrounding me. The smell was sharp, rank, yet almost sweet in a way that made bile rise in my throat. I crept over one that was all bone; its rib cage, pressing against my abdomen, sent gooseflesh racing down my arms.

  I risked another glance and froze—one was staring right at me. If it saw me, it gave no indication. Another half dozen joined the rest and they began to climb, awkwardly, over the side of the gunwale. They’re leaving! With them would go my chance, but several still stood, looking around, so I bit back my impatience and kept my head down. I kept going, making every movement with frightful slowness that made me want to scream by the time I’d covered half the distance left between me and the undead circling the boat. The Archaeologist appeared once again, red hair gleaming in the sun as she clawed at the edge of the boat. For a moment it looked as if she was going to pull herself over, but dozens of skeletal hands grabbed her, yanking her out of view. The Shambles on the shore began pushing the boat back out to sea.

  No longer being watched, I came to my feet, slingshot in hand, and dropped the nearest one with my first shot. Another stepped up to take its place, gnarled claws of bones grasping the side even after my second shot blew its head to shards. The boat slowed and I bit back a laugh as my third shot took out one on the far side, dropping it like, well, like a stone. The boat ground to a halt, but the Shambles didn’t attack me like I’d thought they would. Instead they kept pushing, moaning as their bones began to crack from the strain. There weren’t enough of them left to shift the boat, which was mired in soft sand.

  Now I’ve got you. I bent to pick up a stone. When I straightened, my smile slipped from my face.

  Another crew of Shambles had arrived, sweeping around either side of the boat like a tidal wave of death and decay. A dozen stopped to help push the boat and with their added numbers, it slid smoothly into the surf, oars locking into place and drawing it into deeper water. No! I’d been so close, within a stone’s throw of rescuing the woman, and now just like that, she was gone. I screamed my frustration to the heavens. The Shambles heard me, answering my cry with moans of their own.

  A whining noise whipped past my ear, something flickered in the air, and several Shambles fell, fought to get up, and were pinned down by flights of spears until they stopped twitching. I glanced back to see a small army of islanders racing toward me, Chan Sha and Eld in the lead. Something caught in my throat, bit me to my core, but I swallowed the emotion before it could do more. I’d pasted a bored smile on my face by the time my allies reached me, the islanders spreading out to square off against the undead.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “I thought you were off killing the Ghost Captain.”

  “Nice to see you, too,” Chan Sha said with a smirk.

  “We were,” Eld added, “until he left. Look!”

  I followed his finger. The beach was littered with fallen Shambles, but those still standing were milling about the Ghost Captain’s dozen or so rowboats. He himself stood on the rail of one, staring down intently at the book in his hands. The Shambles around him began moving more smoothly, and the retreat turned from a rout into a tactical withdrawal. Though many Shambles tumbled into each boat, some remained on the beach, pushing the boats out to sea. More than that, I realized, as the islanders charged past us into the ranks of the Shambles. He needs a rear guard.

  “C’mon!” I yelled, waving the cleaver I’d taken from the Shambles in the calico dress. “I’ve a plan.”

  “Bloody wonderful,” Chan Sha said.

  “Shut up and follow me. No fighting, save to break through. If we hurry, we might be able to save the Archaeologist yet. Aye, and send the bastard’s ship to the bottom too!” I shouted the last, sprinting after the islanders.

  “Save who?” Chan Sha asked.

  Eld muttered something in reply, but then my adrenaline kicked in again and all I heard was the beating of my heart, loud in my ears. A large Shambles in an overcoat faced off against three islanders with spears. I picked this one out because it was bowlegged and because its attention seemed taken up with the three blades searching for its throat. I bowled over one of the islanders and threw myself into a roll. In my mind I had thought I
’d be able to break his knee with the cleaver, but when I hit the sand, it was all I could do to keep ahold on the wooden handle, slick as it was with my sweat. I bounced off the undead’s undead leg instead, knocking him off balance and coming out the other side with his overcoat hot against my face. It slid away, leaving a sheen of mildew across my forehead that made me gag.

  Coughing hoarsely, but clear of the line of undead, I risked a glance back to see Chan Sha and Eld take down a Shambles between them and then they were free too. Whooping, I ran on, toward the nearest boat, where half a dozen Shambles had it nearly into the water. Increasing speed, forcing my tired legs to move as fast as they could in my once-again-sodden dress, I leapt onto one of the Shambles at the rear of the boat. I used a jutting piece of its rib cage as a step to reach its shoulders, steadied myself on its shoulders, then launched myself into the boat. I landed on top of another Shambles, pinning its head and neck against the seat while at the same time falling through its chest.

  The sternum and vertebrae broke with a sharp crack beneath its leather vest, spraying me with dark rancid blood. I fought to my feet just in time to dodge a knife thrust from another that was as short as me. I wiped my eyes clean with one hand and buried the cleaver in the neck of the Shambles with the other. It fell, revealing two undead rowers staring blankly ahead and … empty seats. I guessed right.

  “Eld! Chan Sha! Get your arses in here!” I shouted. “Damn, I’m good,” I told the rowers. I jumped up on one of the seats to get a better view and my smile died on my lips.

  Eld and Chan Sha weren’t climbing up over the side. They were two score of paces away, back where I’d left them, with what was left of the islanders, surrounded by Shambles. The Ghost Captain’s rear guard.

  “No,” I whispered. It didn’t make sense. They’d been right behind me. But blood ran down the side of Eld’s face. Something had put him down after I’d glanced back. The boat shifted, then rocked, and I realized we were in the water. Shit. If I jumped out now, I could make it to them. Well, to the Shambles surrounding them. But this was the last boat—if I did that, then the Ghost Captain would escape with the one person who knew how to kill him. And you’ll lose everything you’re here to gain. A stake in the Company. A seat on the Board. Power.