The Sin in the Steel

by Ryan Van Loan

  More islanders were pouring out of the jungle now that they didn’t have to worry about protecting their village. But I was closer, and as the ring of Shambles drew tighter around Eld and Chan Sha, I realized the newcomers weren’t going to get there fast enough. I glanced back to sea and bit my tongue. If I didn’t go back, they’d be dead. And you’ll lose Eld.

  Eld.

  Mind made up, I reached for the gunwale, but a wave hit the side of the boat and I lost my footing and everything turned upside down. My head slammed off the railing and a high-pitched ringing filled my ears as my vision swam. Something bright and hard fought through the pain. Eld. I bit back tears, clawing my way up the side of the boat.

  The shore was a far stone’s throw away with dark, fathomless water between. That rogue wave had carried us past the shallows and out to sea. “No,” I choked. I pulled myself up as high as I could, nearly pitching over the side, but all I could see was a maelstrom of undead around a small center of flashing steel. The center went under like a rock beneath a tidal wave and when the islanders’ charge broke upon the wave, the wave shattered … but the rock was gone. Chan Sha was gone. Eld … Eld was gone.

  “NO!”

  I screamed myself hoarse, hot tears biting at my eyes. I’d lived my whole life alone. Save for Sister. Losing her had been like being stabbed in the chest with an iron poker, white-hot from the forge. I’d sworn never to love another. Then Eld had found me. Taught me how to read. Stuck with me, even when the best I could offer was a knife in the shoulder and the promise of more pain to come. I told him not to trust me. But he had, he always had. Just like my sister. We’d become friends, more than friends. And in the moment he’d most needed me, I’d hesitated. Because of the same greed, the same power that I claimed to be fighting to change. It’d leeched its way into my heart and I’d allowed it to betray me. My breath came in ragged gasps, spittle flecked my lips, and I couldn’t keep the low, keening moan between my teeth from escaping.

  “D-d-damn you, Eld. I told y-you.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “N-not to t-trust me.” The world blurred behind a wet, blinding sheet of pain.

  34

  I was alone, save for the sounds of the sea around me. The pull of the oar, the cracking of the undead’s knuckles against the wood between their fists, the slapping of the waves against the hull, and the occasional gust of wind, loud in my ears. I stared at the board my boots rested on. Eld. There was pain in the thought. A shadow fell across my salt-stained boot and I looked up to see the hulk of the Ghost Captain’s ship rising before us. We’d arrived. Only, that was wrong. It was how it was supposed to be. How I’d planned it to be. But I’d fucked up. There was no “we.” Just “I.” Singular. I had arrived. Alone.

  A pair of ropes attached to pulleys flew down from above just as we were within another wave of crashing against the hull and both Shambles pulled their oars in and stood up as if on command. I suddenly remembered the cleaver in my lap and waved it in front of them, but one turned its back on me, heading to the rear while the other marched straight toward me, empty sockets focused on the tackle swinging just behind me. Must have only one job. I slid across the bench as the Shambles stepped past me. It was almost completely bone beneath trousers that had been warped by seawater so they were like casts around its femurs, and a threadbare blue-and-white-striped shirt that was missing a sleeve. Catching the rope, it looped it through a ring on the front of the boat.

  The other Shambles, as skeletal as the first, if better clothed, in a faded sundress missing half its petticoats, pulled hard on the rope, using the pulley as leverage, and the rear of the boat shifted up a pace higher than the front. The one by me did the same and the boat shifted to level. Then the one in the dress pulled again, jerking the back end up until the one by me pulled to even us out. And so they went, hand over hand, and steadily we rose by degrees. I could see the rest of the boats around the edge of the ship, a few spans below the railing. They were already emptied; our boat, being the last to come in, was at the rear of the ship. And the most likely to be overlooked.

  My mind was dark and numb, save for one throbbing thought that stood out bloodred amongst the haze: revenge. I’d only just realized what I had to lose: Eld. That wasn’t quite the truth; I don’t think I’d allowed myself to believe there was more there than a partnership, but I believed now. The Ghost Captain had killed my best friend. Check that, my only friend. Eld was … My mind couldn’t hold the thought, so it slid away. It didn’t matter. Nothing did, save that I was going to kill the motherfucker. Cut him. Watch him bleed until death shone brightly in his eyes. Failing that, I’d blow up the whole fucking ship, but one way or another I wasn’t leaving without the Ghost Captain’s corpse. No resurrection for you.

  The boat jerked me out of my reverie and I realized that while I’d spaced out, the Shambles had pulled us nearly level with the rest of the boats. That won’t do. I didn’t want any of their brethren to know I was there until it was too late. I stepped gingerly across the seats, picking my way carefully so as not to alert the one in the dress, but its seaweed-infested locks didn’t shift once.

  I could almost wish for one of Ciris’s Sin Eaters; superhuman powers couldn’t hurt for what I was about to do. This was war, even if I was the only one who realized it. In the end, I’d have to take Ciris down as well, but the Ghost Captain first. After these Shambles. I waited for the other Shambles to pull the boat level again and then swung the cleaver, feeling the blade shiver as it cut through the neck of the one wearing a dress. Its bones shattered; its body fell against the side of the boat while its head went over the edge in a burst of dark spray. I spun around, waiting for her compatriot’s attack, but it just stood there, desiccated fingers wrapped around the rope, waiting for the other’s pull. Would it wait for its turn forever? I couldn’t be sure, so I leapt across the seats and practiced decapitating the Ghost Captain with its bleached bones. Practice makes perfect, they say. And I needed this to be perfect. I’d get only one chance.

  I’ve a head for heights, but usually even I wouldn’t have attempted swinging myself out over open water several stories high with only a rough rope to keep me from plunging to my death. But nothing about this was usual, so I barely noticed when a gust of wind threatened to slam me off the side of the hull. Bracing myself with my legs, I used the momentum to leverage myself higher until I was level with the rest of the rowboats. My hands were beginning to tingle, my arms to burn, but I didn’t allow myself to care. It was someone else’s pain and I was storing it up inside like a vast keg of grain alcohol, just waiting to be dumped on someone’s head and lit aflame. I was both vessel and match and I was filled to overflowing. I needed only to strike.

  At last I caught ahold of the railing, taking care to wrap my fingers around the very edge of a wood post. I drew my cleaver with one hand. I was close enough to the top that all I had to do was swing my arm over and heave and the rest of me would follow. First I had to make sure I wouldn’t land on top of a Shambles. The other two ships I’d been on had always had a deckhand or two toward the back of the ship. That was fine; I could deal with one or two, so long as I kept the element of surprise. Just more practice for the Ghost Captain. I grinned to myself when I didn’t hear anything.

  One.

  Two.

  Thre—Skeletal arms came over the side, wrapping iron fingers around my wrists, and jerked me up and onto the deck, wrenching my shoulders half out of their sockets.

  I catapulted into the chest of a reedy Shambles, sending an ivory rib out the side of its leather jerkin, then landed on my arse. Dozens of Shambles surrounded me, and standing just beyond them was the Ghost Captain. This close I could see the stubble on his cheeks, dark and speckled, like the gunpowder on Eld’s face when he reloads too quickly. His goatee shone from the bells interwoven in it, a bell at the bottom cleaner and shinier than the rest. Why? Is it new? Added after he sank Chan Sha’s ship? Like a notch in his belt? The thought slid away, belonging to another person with
other priorities. If I succeeded, in a few moments I wouldn’t need to wonder about his demented proclivities.

  “Sambuciña!” His teeth were white beneath the shadow cast by his tricorne. “You’ve saved me the trouble of another expedition.”

  My name on his tongue brought me up short. How? Doesn’t matter. The rest of his words flew past me, as meaningless as the horde of undead surrounding me. Now that the time had come, all other might-have-beens left me. I felt that bright thought in my mind darken like blood in the sun as I shouldered aside the Shambles standing between me and the Ghost Captain and threw the cleaver toward him, overhead, with both hands. Straight at his face. He let out a startled squawk that brought a smile to my lips. Eat steel, bitch.

  A short Shambles leapt from nowhere and took the cleaver square in the chest. Its rib cage caved in and it fell back, limbs moving, but unable to stand.

  “Damn.”

  I stared from the cleaver buried in the Shambles’s chest to where a bone shard had just missed the Ghost Captain’s throat, taking most of his goatee instead, leaving a small tuft behind. We stared at each other, my brain suddenly slack and empty.

  “Another mistake, Sambuciña,” he muttered. “Take her!”

  Darkness flashed across my vision and clocked me full in the face. The deck rushed up to greet me, and bones gripped my flesh on every side. I screamed as one bent over me, blackened stump of a tongue spraying ichor as it hissed into my face. I’d ended up in the same fucking predicament as the first time I was on the Ghost Captain’s ship, only this time there was no Eld to save me.

  Eld. Rage lent me strength and my war cry actually sent the Shambles stumbling back. I fought one arm free, drew the flattened steel blade strapped to my arm, and slammed it into the empty eye socket of the one in my face. I managed to free a leg and kick myself away from the roiling mass of undead, their fetid stench so strong that I could taste it with every breath. I’m going to kill them all. Another inhuman roar filled my throat and then something slid over my head, taking the fury of light and sound and smell with it and turning my cry into a throaty gurgle. The masses bore me back down and my head slammed off the deck. I couldn’t breathe.

  I’m going to kill.

  Them.

  All.

  The world and I parted ways.

  35

  The world came back to me in a bloody bruise. At least that was what it looked like as consciousness returned in fits and starts. I heard, more than felt, my heart beating in my chest at the same moment a ragged gasp whistling in my burning throat filled my lungs. I saw the sun setting, deep crimson reaching out to touch the purpled bruise marring the sky. I blinked and pain set my face on fire and my skull to throbbing. I sat up, taking another wheezing, rasping breath as I gingerly felt my face and realized I’d been looking out of one eye; the other was almost swelled shut. I moaned as I felt the edge of my cheek and sent pain waves reverberating through my face.

  “So you’re awake,” a soft voice whispered. “Thank the Gods I’m not the only one trapped here.”

  “Trap-ped?” The word clung to my dried lips and I had to work moisture into my mouth to get my tongue to move properly. “Trapped?” I repeated, twisting my head around so I could see with my good eye.

  “Aye,” the Archaeologist said, grinning around her split lip. Her cheeks were flushed to the color of her curled hair, or maybe that was from too much sun, but her grin widened when she met my eyes. Eye. “Awaiting the pleasure of the Dead Walker.”

  I frowned. Dead Walker. “Ghost Captain,” I muttered.

  “That’s the one,” she agreed.

  I fought to stand up, but my boots couldn’t find purchase; they kept kicking through the air and suddenly my world spun, slowly, in a circle. Ropes creaked around me and I finally took a moment to take stock of the situation. I was sitting in a cage made of out rope with a wooden frame, almost like a hammock, but with larger holes. My boots hung in a couple of the gaps in the weave and now that I was aware of what I was seated on, I could feel the sharp indentations through my dress where my arse poked through in other places, between the woven grass ropes, which were as thick as my wrists. I looked up and realized the cage was suspended from a spar off the mainmast. Then I looked down.

  I immediately regretted my decision.

  A few spans below, Shambles stood waiting on the deck, crammed so close that if we were to fall, we’d land on bone instead of wood. And every dead mother’s child staring up at us, a hundred empty sockets questing, searching for something unfathomable to mortals. Their eyeless gaze sent gooseflesh racing down my spine and across my arms. Memories raced with it. The Ghost Captain. The cleaver. Eld. I shivered, blinking back tears. My sudden movement made the cage twist in a slow circle.

  “Who’s Eld?”

  “What?” I looked up, my thoughts broken.

  “You said a name just now,” the Archaeologist said. “Who’s Eld? Will they come rescue us?”

  “No.” I shook my head and looked into the sun’s dying light. “They were too stupid to save themselves, let alone us.” You should have listened to me, Eld. I had a plan! After all, I was the one who—

  I was the one who led us stumbling from one mistaken nightmare to the next. The thought poured ice water over my self-pity and rage and maybe for the first time since we left Servenza, my mind was blissfully clear. I’ve fucked up everything. Okay, perhaps “blissful” wasn’t the word. But my mind was clear. I’m the leader. Me. I say so. Eld says so. Said. And we’ve almost been gutted by a bull-man thing, been sunk by pirates, tortured by pirates, almost eaten by sharks, nearly drowned, almost killed by the undead—twice—and now Eld really is dead and I’m trapped on a ship at the Ghost Captain’s mercy. Sprinkled in among those highlights were a number of other mindless errors that had aided and abetted our misery. Gods, I’m a failure.

  “Glad to see you ladies are getting along!” a thin voice called.

  Below, the Ghost Captain leered up at me, hands on his hips, tricorne cocked at a jaunty angle. He leaned against an enormous water cask, which was secured to the mainmast by dozens of ropes, surrounded by Shambles. His smile grew when he saw he had my attention.

  “You know,” he said, “sometimes you have to fight and claw for what you want and it seems like nothing is going to break your way and then everything changes in the blink of an eye and you’re handed everything you want, no questions asked.”

  “‘Change is but a breeze away,’” I quoted by rote.

  “That’s it exactly,” the Ghost Captain agreed. “I searched for you, Archaeologist, for months, when it became apparent I wasn’t going to find that cursed island on my own. That bitch and her black-flagged brethren kept you from me.” He laughed and stroked the remnants of his goatee. “I was beginning to give up hope. Then, not only do I capture you and with it the location of the island, but on the same day, the Sin Eater I need to retrieve the artifact walks right across my deck and into my hands.”

  “Why do you need one of Ciris’s mages?” the Archaeologist asked.

  “You’ve been to the island,” the Ghost Captain replied. “So you already know the answer. The artifact didn’t come from the Dead Gods.… It came from the New Goddess. Stands to reason, then, that the artifact won’t work for me.”

  “But you want it anyway?” the Archaeologist asked. He nodded. “Then what will you give me for the location?”

  Their words flowed through me. A small part of my mind analyzed the conversation, sifted through it, making calculations, but the greater part of me ignored it. Failure. The word was all-encompassing and I couldn’t seem to see past its edges. Nor, if I was being honest, did I really care to.

  “If your life means so little to you, you wouldn’t have fought my servitors so hard, woman. So stop trying to negotiate with me—you’re in no position to bargain,” the Ghost Captain said.

  “I don’t know the location!” The Archaeologist’s voice cracked, rough with unshed tears. “I’ve just a ge
neral idea of where it lies … likely the same as you.”

  “That’s not how that Kanados captain whose ship I took remembered it,” the Ghost Captain said with a laugh. “His memory was of carrying you with all speed to Servenza to meet with the Board. And the story you told then was of a more … specific sort. Did he lie? Because I can call his moldering corpse up for us right now,” he growled, pointing back toward the open door leading belowdecks.

  “Of course I told a different story,” she protested. Her knuckles were nearly translucent where she gripped the edges of the cage. “I lied! Because that’s how this sort of venture works. I needed a fleet of ships to find the island and the money to pay for them. A single ship hired for a few days was never going to get more than a vague sense of where it lies.

  “The trading companies wouldn’t finance an expedition to nowhere.” She sank back against the ropes. “So I lied, and a fat lot of good it did me. I was laughed out of their office and sent back here, shipless and coinless to boot.”

  “Why do you want Ciris’s artifact?” I asked. The question surprised me; it’d come from the fraction of me that still cared. The one that had been listening intently. I hated that part of me, yet allowed it to speak. “And where will you find a Sin Eater?”

  “I’ve already found one—you!” He laughed.

  I snorted. “Me? I’m no Sin Eater.”

  “Oh, but I’ve reason to believe you are, Sambuciña.” He tapped the side of his nose. “The dead have a smell to them, don’t they? I’ve come to realize the living have a smell to them as well. The dead smell sweet—too sweet sometimes, it’s true, but sweet nonetheless. It’s the living that smell bad, what with their sweat and odors. And Sin Eaters?” His smile hardened. “They have another smell. A hard smell. A metallic smell.” He inhaled deeply, through his nose.