Heart of Steel

by Meljean Brook

  A tempting thought.

  Almost an hour later, a signal from one of the marines at the bow pushed him out of those imaginings. Amid the first rise, within a stand of tall trees, stood a stone tower—round and solid, and more like the cylindrical Rouen keep than the arches and peaks of the contemporary Viennese buildings. Snow topped a conical roof—parts of it had collapsed, though not badly, as if the roof structure was well-supported beneath. A pass overhead didn’t reveal any gaping holes that would allow Archimedes to rappel directly into the keep. Only narrow arrow slits opened the stone walls.

  Archimedes circled the deck as the airship began to turn for another pass, taking a layout of the surrounding area. Trees made the zombies more difficult to spot, but if he and Yasmeen were quiet, it meant any zombie would have more difficulty spotting them, too. Still, in a forest it often seemed as if the creatures sprang from nowhere—many lay motionless and mindless until something caught their attention. Archimedes had been surprised more than once, saved only by his reflexes, leather guards, and luck.

  He glanced at Yasmeen and his heart constricted.

  God. The mere thought of her hurt down there destroyed him—a fear that stabbed at his chest, just as painful as he could have hoped. This was part of love, to suffer. He’d planned to do it in silence, to experience the beautiful agony of the great romantics.

  Faced with it, however, beautiful agony was shit. He’d crow if it meant she was never in pain. Quickly, he made his way back to her side.

  “I ought to go alone,” he said.

  She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “One person makes less noise. And—”

  “I’m coming,” she said.

  He reached for the buckles on his arm. “Take my guards, then.”

  “They’ll only slow me down.”

  Panic caught in his chest. He stepped close, spoke so only she could hear. “Watching Lady Corsair burn was hell. But I think now, it would kill me. And if you were bit by the zombies . . .”

  No, he could not even think it. His breathing stopped when she pushed her face close to his, looked into his eyes with an expression that was almost gentle.

  “Stop letting yourself fall for me, Archimedes. Anything that makes you worry for someone else’s ass over your own does you no favors, and I like you too well to see you die.”

  He couldn’t have stopped now if he tried. “I’d die to protect you.”

  “Idiot.”

  Why, when he knew she’d have done the same? “Don’t tell me that you wouldn’t have risked your life for your crew.”

  “That is duty, loyalty. Not a foolish reaction based on unsupported fears.” She studied him. “Did I tell you of Constantinople? I was raised within walls, and only allowed out into the city on rare occasions.”

  “A crèche.”

  Many cities within the empire had them. Not to the extent that the outlying territories did, where almost all of the children were raised in them until they were sent into labor. Within the empire, the crèches functioned more like orphanages, the children educated and given assistance in finding a suitable position afterward.

  “No, not a crèche. More like a palace, where I was given the best food and education—and trained to fight. I fought every day of my life until I was fifteen, beginning in the morning and then again at night. When Temür destroyed the city and I escaped, I could count on my fingers the number of full days I’d been outside those walls. Yet I journeyed on foot alone across Greece, armed only with two knives and my wits. I am not like a crèche baby, born, fed, and then changed into a laborer. I was bred to be fast and strong. I was bred to be quiet. And I was bred to kill. You want to protect me, but in truth, I’ll protect you. It was what I was made for. So let me do it.”

  That was incredible. She was incredible. And yet . . . His jaw clenched, despair tugging at his heart.

  How was he to do anything for her?

  “Ah,” she said, watching his face. Her sneer mocked him. “It is easy to fall in love with a woman who is always making you feel more of a big, powerful man. You ought not have picked me, after all.”

  “That isn’t it.” He didn’t question his abilities. “It is simply difficult to know that I offer nothing at all to the woman I’m falling in love with.”

  Her expression lightened. “You offer me nothing? Stupid man. You already give me what few men could. It is rare the man who has the confidence to let me be what I am, whether it is captaining an airship, climbing atop you in a steamcoach, or brawling in a tavern.”

  She thought she wouldn’t make him feel a bigger man? Hearing this from her, it was all he could do not to swagger around with a puffed chest.

  But it was a chest that deserved deflating. “I haven’t always let you be,” he reminded her. “I tried to take your ship in Venice.”

  “With a gun that didn’t work.” She surprised him by knowing. “It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. Still, I admired your balls.”

  “You knew the gunpowder was wet?”

  “I didn’t know if it was wet or if you were out of bullets. But we found you on a raft in the middle of the canal, safe from zombies, and yet you were shouting across a pile of ruins to our ship in the middle of the night. If you could have, you’d have signaled with a gun—either then or earlier.”

  He would have. For a week, he’d been praying for the airship to notice him, but by that time, dirty and starving, he’d resembled the zombies more than a man. He’d have given anything simply for a bright waistcoat to wave on a stick.

  “Would you have still forgiven me if it was properly loaded?”

  “No, Mr. Fox. If you’d aimed a properly loaded gun at me, I’d have shot you dead. I threw you over the side for being an idiot, pulling it on me in front of my crew and then ordering me about.”

  Had there ever been such a woman? “The idiots are all of the men who want you to be something else.”

  “Ah, well. Quite a few of them are dead now.” She grinned at him. “I’ll help you not to join their number.”

  Until Bigor and his marines met them at the rope ladder, Archimedes hadn’t known that Guillouet had told the men to accompany them on the ground—but as long as they could be quiet, Archimedes didn’t care. He shook his head when the man drew a gun, as if in preparation to go down.

  “Try to be silent. If one or two come at us, kill them with your machetes or crossbows. One shot will bring the others, and they’ll be a little slower in the cold and snow—but against a mob, that won’t matter.”

  The man gave a short nod. While the other marines holstered their guns and readied their weapons, Bigor pointed to each. “Dubois, Durand, and Laurent—representing a combined forty years serving our king, and one year in Europe. Your assistance yesterday was appreciated.”

  “My pleasure. The worst way to begin an expedition is by dying in an exploding tree harvester.”

  “I believe you are correct, Mr. Fox.” Bigor’s flat gaze moved to Yasmeen, then back to Archimedes. “Shall we precede you?”

  “No.”

  Archimedes stepped to the side, and though she didn’t need the support, took Yasmeen’s hand in his, helping her over the gunwale and onto the ladder. Her eyes met his briefly. He let go.

  She slid down. Quiet, so quiet. On the ground, she remained crouched and listening, looking into the trees as they followed her down. Archimedes led them across the snow to the keep. Behind him, three of the marines spread out, keeping watch in all directions. Yasmeen at his side, Archimedes moved around the tower. Halfway around, they located the arched doorway—the entrance sealed up with stone blocks.

  Moving almost as quietly as Yasmeen had, Bigor joined them. His voice was low. “Protecting something inside?”

  Probably. He’d seen the same in other cities, other villages. Many strongholds became depositories for treasures that the fleeing citizens couldn’t carry with them—and everyone assumed they would eventually return. Archimedes’ first find had been something
similar, a journey begun after months of sifting through fragments of letters and cryptic references.

  He retrieved his iron prybar, fitted the end between the blocks. The stones didn’t shift. Christ.

  “Anything we use will make noise,” Yasmeen whispered.

  Archimedes nodded, studying her face. She already had a solution, he knew, but she wouldn’t like depending on Guillouet to carry it out. “A distraction?”

  Her teeth clenched. She tilted her head back and looked up the side of the tower, then at the surrounding terrain. Weighing her options, he thought. Finally, she nodded and turned to Bigor.

  “We need Guillouet to fly Ceres to that stand of trees, so he has a clear shot at this door. His boilers need to be at full steam before he starts her engines up, and run half power into the electrical generator. He’ll use the rail cannon to take out these blocks.” She took a deep breath. “The zombies will come. So as soon as he fires on the keep, he needs to kick in the propellers and take Ceres at least two or three hundred yards off. Once there, that crew needs to shoot their rifles, drawing the zombies to that location while we head inside the tower—and once we’re in, even two of your men guarding the entrance can handle any strays. When we signal, Ceres can pick us up.”

  Bigor nodded. “All right. What signal?”

  She glanced up. “We’ll be on the roof. Even if the zombies follow Ceres back, we’re out of reach.”

  “They won’t climb up?”

  “They don’t climb,” Archimedes said. “They’ll go up an incline or stairs, so they might follow you up onto a pile of ruins, but they don’t have the brains for vertical.”

  “All right.” With another sharp nod, Bigor ran for the rope ladder.

  Archimedes followed Yasmeen away from the keep. The rail gun’s accuracy meant they didn’t have to go far, and they waited, back to back, watching the trees. A soft moan came from the west; Durand took the zombie down with a crossbow bolt shot through its eye.

  Bigor returned to the ground. Above, steam boiled from Ceres’ tail as she sailed into position in line with the tower’s entrance. So far, Guillouet was following Yasmeen’s instructions.

  She turned her head to whisper, “Shall we make a wager? What do you think might be inside? Gold, jewels? If I’m very lucky, cigarillos?”

  He grinned but shook his head. It was impossible to know, and depended upon the manner the zombie infection spread, and whether the population had time to gather more than a few items before they fled. Some cities had time to contain the infection and to prepare—and until the very end, Vienna had been one of them. Blocking the entrance to this tower could have been to protect something inside, or simply to keep the zombies out until they returned.

  “Don’t bet on the last. There was no tobacco in Europe,” he said.

  “No tobacco, no opium; no wonder the Horde thought they were barbarians.”

  A high-pitched whine suddenly ripped through the air as the engines started, firing the electrical generator. Yasmeen tensed, watching the woods. The rail cannon fired, silent until the ball rammed into the blocks, blowing through the entrance in a shower of shattered stone. The marines moved toward the entrance to search out any zombies inside—just in case.

  The whine faded. Ceres’ propellers began to spin, the engines huffing. The airship retreated west, the crew already shouting, shooting, making noise. Yasmeen ripped off her hat, angling her head as if trying to listen for moans over the ruckus.

  She suddenly stilled. “I hear them. A lot of them.”

  Archimedes took her hand, started toward the keep. “Let’s get inside.”

  “No.” She set her feet, eyes wide. “Oh, by the lady. Run, Archimedes! Bigor!” she shouted. “Come away from the keep! Run! To the ship!”

  The marines were already backing away from the keep—and now Archimedes could hear them, too: moans and growls, all coming from inside, nearing the shattered entrance.

  When the zombies burst through, he was already turning to run.

  Yasmeen kept pace with him, suddenly sprinting ahead to meet a zombie that darted from between the trees in front of them. Her machete chopped through the zombie’s neck, its head flying. The moans behind them became louder, more, closer. He heard the marines shout, the cracks of their guns. Ahead, Yasmeen whirled, revolver in hand, aimed at Archimedes. Her weapon sounded, again and again, each bullet whizzing past him, striking flesh.

  He didn’t want to know how close the zombies had been. His boots crunched through the snow, and he couldn’t think about slipping—only about running and making sure they both made it back to the airship. When he caught up, Yasmeen traded her gun for her machetes and ran with him.

  “She’s coming back around!” Yasmeen shouted.

  Someone on the airship must have seen the mob and alerted the captain. Above the bare trees, Ceres was making a slow turn, the crew’s rifles picking off zombies below. Oh, Jesus. Their distraction had worked too well. Even if they outran the mob behind them, the noise of the airship drew more from all directions, too many for the crew to shoot. The rope ladder dropped, and Yasmeen’s scream of “No!” was lost in the moans and the huff of the engines. Zombies attacked the swinging ladder, emaciated hands gripping the ropes, pulling—cutting off their easiest escape.

  Movement from the corner of his eye warned him. Archimedes pulled his gun, fired. The zombie dropped. They were almost to the airship but more were racing toward them, some abandoning the ladder, others coming in from the forest.

  Machetes flashing, Yasmeen sped ahead and killed three with astonishing efficiency. She whipped around, shot another. “Tree?”

  Not good enough. Archimedes reached back, gripped his pneumatic launcher. He aimed for the airship, fired. The grapnel arced upward over the side, the long rope trailing behind. Steel hooks caught the gunwale, held fast.

  He heard Yasmeen’s wild laugh. She leapt for the rope, began climbing. Archimedes waited for her to climb high enough, three zombies falling to his bullets before he followed her up. Clawing hands grasped his boot, almost yanked him down. A crack sounded from above; the zombie’s head exploded. He looked up. Holding herself steady with the rope between her thighs, Yasmeen hung upside down, the barrel of her gun smoking. She grinned before rocking back up, hauling herself upward with astonishing speed.

  The rattle of the cargo lift joined the moans and gunshots. The crew dragged the rope ladder up halfway, shooting a path clear for the marines. They dropped it again as Bigor reached the airship. The four marines began climbing all at once, as if this weren’t the first time they’d had to share a single ladder in a rush.

  Yasmeen reached the deck. She leaned over the side, hauled Archimedes over. Chest heaving, laughing, Archimedes turned to look below. Jesus. The zombies were still coming out of the keep.

  “Well—” He had to stop, catch his breath. “Now we know where they confined the infected.”

  Yasmeen laughed. Her bright eyes met his, her smile brilliant. He watched it die as her gaze lit on something beyond him.

  “Oh, fuck,” she said softly.

  He looked around. Near the rope ladder, the marines were huddled over one of their men. Bigor had torn away Durand’s sleeve. The bloody marks couldn’t be anything but a bite.

  The crew hushed.

  Without turning his head, Bigor asked, “Mr. Fox, how long?”

  A ball of lead settled in Archimedes’ gut. “If he has nanoagents, a few days. If he doesn’t, a few hours.”

  Durand closed his eyes. Bigor bent his head toward the other man’s, said something too low to hear. A moment later, he stood and faced Captain Guillouet. “Will you please clear the deck, sir? We would like to say our farewells.”

  Though his expression looked suddenly weary, Guillouet’s shoulders straightened. “I have to stand witness.”

  “He’s our brother, sir.”

  “That’s why I have to stand, marine.”

  Bigor’s face tightened, but he nodded.

 
; Yasmeen tugged on Archimedes’ hand. “Come.”

  He followed her to the hatchway, where the deck crew was gathering, waiting their turns on the ladder. Softly, he said, “Should we say something to him before we go?”

  “What can we say?” She slid down the ladder and waited for him below before starting along the passageway to their cabin. “He asked to have the deck cleared. That was his request. So we honor it.”

  “And the captain?”

  “Too many people try to hide their loved ones after a bite.” The weariness on her face matched the captain’s. “Guillouet standing witness isn’t personal, it isn’t an insult. It simply says: The crew comes first.”

  And her crew had also always come first, Archimedes knew. “You’ve done the same?”

  “Too many times. And too many times, I’ve been the one pulling the trigger.” She stopped as a gunshot sounded above. Her eyes closed. After a long moment, she looked up at him. “If I’m ever bit, please do the same for me. Don’t make me do it myself.”

  “I will.” It was the most difficult promise he’d ever made. “I’d ask the same, but there’s no question that you’ll shoot me—even if I wasn’t infected.”

  A smile touched her mouth, but her eyes remained serious. “It might take more for me to shoot you than you think. I suppose that means I’m not as dangerous to you. Is that disappointing?”

  Was it? He recalled the pounding of his heart as he’d shot her with the opium dart, the delicious fear that had accompanied him back to Lady Corsair, certain she’d try to kill him at any moment. That fear had gone, but it wasn’t a loss: every moment with her was more thrilling, more fulfilling, even if she wasn’t trying to shoot him.

  And he had more fears now to replace it: fear for her life, fear that when this expedition was over and her vengeance satisfied, he’d never see her again. And though he knew her heart was steel, though he looked forward to the longing of an unrequited love, he also knew the fear that she’d never feel the same in return.

  She might not kill him, but he was still on a path that didn’t lack for danger. It lurked behind her every touch, her every smile, her every word. With each one, he fell a little more—but instead of hope, his shattered heart waited below.