Dead of Veridon (Burn Cycle)

by Tim Akers

"Get hooks to the propeller, see if you can clear it!" the captain yelled from his comfortable perch. A few of the crew roused themselves and went aft. We all seemed to be moving in a dream. You could hardly see water for all the bodies.

  "We should light a flare," I said, turning to one of the crew. "Or maybe the horn. Warn any other ships coming this way."

  "Captain won't have it. Not until we're closer to the dock, where we've a right to be." The man touched his forehead in some kind of benediction. "Signals bring Badge. Not something we want."

  "Better than being ridden under by a cargo barge," I whispered, and looked up at the cabin. The captain was fiddling with some kind of control panel and shouting into a speaking tube. The oily reek of smoke leaked up from belowdecks.

  "Should you go down to help?" I asked the man standing next to me.

  "Sir? I'd rather not." A quick succession of bangs ran through the deck, and the engine roared into brief and angry life before sputtering to a halt. "All seems well in hand. Besides, I'm keeping watch."

  "Right." I nodded and leaned against the rail. "I wonder if we'll be quarantined."

  "For what?"

  "Something killed them," I said, nodding to the reef of dead bodies all around us. "Maybe a disease, maybe some weapon."

  "Maybe the thing you delivered to them?" the man said cheerily, before realizing what he had said. "I mean, sir, not that you meant to. You know. Meant to kill them, sir."

  Wilson and I stared him down until he ducked his head and went back to staring out at the river. The fog was even closer now. I looked down at the nearest corpse, rubbing its knobby back up against our hull. Didn't look that different from the mindless creatures I'd encountered below the surface. Only now they were insensate, immobile. As the dead should be, I suppose. Perhaps the Fehn had just lost whatever grip they held on their hosts. We knew so little about them, just that they had been in this river longer than Veridon had perched on its shore.

  "Sir," the man whispered. I looked up. His face was slack, looking out over the water. I looked. The surface rippled and lurched. Something was crawling out from between the bodies. Hands rose up, pulled up, dragged clear shoulders and heads and pearl-white torsos. They clambered onto the bodies of their fallen brothers and lurched forward.

  "Oh, shit, Jacob," Wilson whispered. "What the hell?"

  "What the hell, indeed," I said. The revolver was in my hand.

  "Sir!" the crewman shouted, backpedaling to the center of the boat. I looked around. There were more of them, many more. Only one for every dozen bodies floating around us, but there were hundreds of bodies, dozens of hundreds.

  They were different, though. Still Fehn, or former members of that river-dead race. But unlike any other Fehn I'd ever seen, they bled. Black pitch tears flowed from their eyes, drooled from their tarry gums and colored their ragged teeth. It leaked in stiff rivers from torn fingernails and punctured bellies, and smeared foully across their shiny, white bodies as they stumbled over the slick landscape of their former brothers.

  "Captain!" I shrieked, then loosed my iron and fired. The report was swallowed in the fog and water. The bullet struck the closest revenant square in the jaw. He stumbled, black blood slopping from the shattered bone like molasses, and then he came on. My second shot stopped him, but there were dozens more. I ran back to the small tower of the crew cabin.

  "We need to get the engines started!" I yelled. The crewman I had been talking to was standing numbly against the stairs, his hand over his mouth. There was vomit at his feet. "Crewman! Get below and get that engine going!"

  Wilson ran past me, clambering down the stairs to the engine room, swearing the kind of arcane oaths I rarely heard from him. The engine was now in good hands. Or at least desperate, competent hands.

  I vaulted up the stairs to the captain's perch, then bounced off the door. Behind the window I could see the captain, holding a shotgun, the barrel and stock cut close for boarding actions. He had jammed the lock on his door, and was staring at me with wide, white eyes.

  "You need to get this boat moving, captain! We need to get to shore. Now."

  He shook his head like a man dreaming, backing against the far wall of the cabin. I grimaced and ran back down the stairs. They had reached the boat now, climbing over the rail with bloodslicked hands. Blood or oil, I couldn't tell.

  It didn't really matter.

  I smashed open a toolbox at the foot of the stairs and pulled out a splicing blade. It was heavy, a long, thick blade used to cut snarled lines and stray nets that might get tangled in the prop. On a ship like this it might also see use in a boarding action. I hefted it in my hand, giving it a couple of experimental swings to get used to its weight. A quick count put not more than ten on the decks, but dozens more nearly to us, and dozens of dozens still struggling to reach us.

  "The engines, captain!" I yelled, throwing myself at the shambling horrors.

  I took the first one down with the blade, two quick blows across his chest, cracking ribs and splitting maggot-pale skin. It was the blood that scared me, blood as black as pitch and hot as it splashed onto my arm. The Fehn don't bleed. The Fehn are cold and dead as river mud. He fell back against the rail and toppled over. Another one came up behind him, the river running off his bony shoulders in sheets. I kicked him in the teeth, winced as they cracked like china, then turned to the others. Many aboard, and more by the minute.

  I fought my way back to the cabins. It was slow going, the creatures in my way clumsy but tough as driftwood. It took a heavy hand to put them down. When I got there, some of the crew were defending the stairs down into the ship's belly with coal shovels and line hooks. The monsters had clambered up to the captain's perch, and were beating against the glass with flat, swollen hands. The captain lost his nerve. A shotgun blast blew out one of the windows, scattering several of the creatures. The remaining revenants clambered to the new opening and started crawling through. A second blast left little but corpses and pitch black blood on the stairs. I turned to one of the crewmates standing before the engine room.

  "What luck down there?"

  "Drive shaft's buckled. Your friend is setting it true, but who knows if it'll hold!"

  "It'll hold," I said. "Celestes help us, it better hold. I've never wanted a water burial."

  "Aye," he said, and then we were busy fighting to get back to land.

  Things turned quickly against us. The waves of creatures became a flood. I heard a number of blasts from above, followed by the unmistakable cracking of a doorframe and the captain's horrified screams. I couldn't get to him, couldn't fight past the walls of clawing, mewling, dead-eyed monsters on the deck. The men around me blanched and refused to look at one another. One by one we began to fall. Hard to look ahead when such horrible things are happening, just out of reach, just out of help. Hard to keep going, and some of the crew couldn't, stood gaping at the butchery for a brief second before they were torn down. Some kind of motivation in that.

  Finally it was just two of us, me and a young kid with thick arms and scared eyes. He fell, stumbled down the stairs behind me and landed with a loud crunch. I couldn't look back, but I couldn't hold the stairwell on my own. I started backing down the stairs. The creatures followed, slowly, clumsily. Blood on their hands and in their mouths.

  I got to the doorway to the engine room and stood there for a handful of breaths. Someone had dragged the kid inside. That meant there was more crew behind me, though none of them were rushing to my aid. I thrashed forward in one last flurry of blade and blood, then fell back and threw the heavy iron door shut.

  The engine room was small and crowded. Those of the crew who had not died on the decks above were stuffed into the spaces between pistons and turbines. The air was half smoke and half the stink of fear and adrenalin. All of them were looking at me in abject horror, all but Wilson. He looked fully alive for the first time in a long time. Coat thrown aside, sleeves rolled up to reveal thin arms, sweat drenching the smooth white egg of his long he
ad, Wilson was bent over the dissected heart of the boat, elbow deep in gears. His eyes were alive and sharp.

  "Wilson," I snapped. "What's the word on getting these engines going?"

  He ignored me. Something banged against the door behind me. Everyone jumped.

  "Could be the captain," one of the crew said meekly, hoping someone else would come up with a reason that it wasn't the captain, that they wouldn't have to open the door. I had a reason.

  "He's dead," I said. "Or dying, which in these circumstances amounts to the same thing. Wilson!" He glanced up. "The engines?"

  "If you'd all just," he whispered, grimacing. "If you'd all just leave me alone, give me a little quiet." He bent to the task again.

  "Okay, you heard the man. Everyone outside." I stood aside and gestured to the door. No one moved. "No? Okay, then. Wilson, you'll just have to fix the engines in our unbearable presence. Sorry about that."

  "Always such a damn comedian, Jacob." He tore something loose and tossed it to the floor. "You think this is easy?"

  "I'm the one covered in blood, friend. So yeah, I think you should quit your bitching and..."

  The door rang with another impact and I wheeled back to face it. Steel. Good, honest steel. As long as we stayed in here, we'd probably be okay.

  "Just get it fixed, Wilson," I whispered. "Before they start in on the hull."

  The crew shuffled nervously around the room. I hefted the blade from hand to hand, shaking out my fingers with each transition. The revenant blood smeared across my arms was still warm. My skin was beginning to itch with it.

  "Seriously, Wilson, we need..."

  The engine roared to life, incomprehensibly loud in the wake of our nervous silence. Wilson slammed the engine shut and bolted things down. He looked at me and started talking. His voice was lost in the noise. I shook my head and stepped forward. He leaned in to me.

  "I got it going," he yelled.

  "Okay," I yelled back. "Now what?"

  He looked at me with a complete lack of understanding, then shrugged.

  "We ship out of here?" he asked.

  "The captain's dead, and we can't get topside. Can we control the ship from down here?"

  He looked around the room, at the grim faces, the closed door, finally settling on the black gore on my hands and blade. Realization settled across his face.

  "Oh. Hell."

  I nodded. "Can we do it?"

  "No," he said, shaking his head. "I've got engine power, but no rudder. We need the con for that."

  "So you can go, but you can't turn."

  "Yeah."

  I looked around the room. The crew stood at mute attention, adrift without their captain. They looked like scared children.

  "Anyone know which direction we were facing when we became mired in this... unpleasantness?"

  "East south east," someone answered. "But we could have drifted."

  "We've certainly drifted," another growled.

  I grimaced. Drift could have us pointing down toward the waterfall, or maybe upriver. There was no way of knowing.

  "Any volunteers to go out there and secure the con?" I asked. Silence, or as much silence as you could get in an engine room. I nodded. One guy stepped forward, his eyes on the deck.

  "Sir, if you were... that is, if you go out there, the least we could do. The least I could do, I mean, is have your back. Sir."

  "Brave of you. But hell if I'm going out there." I turned to Wilson and smiled. "Open it up all the way. Let it run for five minutes, then let's cut power and see where we are."

  Wilson messed with some pistons, then wound up a flywheel and threw a gear. We lurched forward. There was a hammering chop from the prop. Bodies in our wake. It was a couple minutes until the sound stopped, and the engine stayed strong. I was just turning to Wilson to tell him to cut the power when a low, urgent drone filled the room. I looked around in confusion.

  "What's..."

  "Proximity horn!" someone yelled. Wilson swore and threw the engine off. We were still moving though, our speed bleeding off into the water. Another horn sounded, and another, each one more desperate, more panicked. I imagined the poor shipman, laying on the horn as we barreled at him.

  "Brace!" I yelled.

  We crashed into something, accompanied by a chorus of snapping wood and distant screams. The ship pitched crazily and I was thrown to the deck.

  A long creaking groan settled over the ship, then we were still. I stood.

  "Another ship? Or the docks?" I asked no one in particular. The crew, coming carefully to their feet, just stared around the room. These people were a special kind of worthless. The ship rumbled and shifted again, pitching at a bad angle to one side. There was more shouting outside, and the distinct, muffled roar of a shotgun blast. I found the blade that I had dropped when we hit, then went to the door.

  "We can't stay here. Either we're sinking or the Badge is rushing the decks with some very sharp questions." I nodded to Wilson, then glanced at the rest of the crew. "Best get out of here while you can."

  Wilson took my meaning and grabbed up a hammer. We were fighting our way out, whether it meant chopping down revenants or Badgemen. I threw open the portal.

  A lazy slop of water sloshed over the frame and splashed against the engine. It hissed into steam as it cascaded over the machinery. The room quickly started to fill up. I ran up the stairs, which were little more than steps in a waterfall. The anansi was on my heels, the crew close behind.

  We were sinking. The ship was pitched up at an angle, most of its starboard side underwater. We had hit a supply raft, and were only still afloat because we were lodged on its deck. The great flat expanse of the craft was taking on water as well, and the carefully stacked crates of its cargo were sprayed into a chaotic jumble. I ran up the uneven deck and hurled myself onto the raft. There was about a foot of water swirling lazily over the tarry wooden deck. The crew of the raft was struggling to dislodge our ship, to save their own. Crates were shifting slowly towards the sinking corner, further unbalancing the raft and adding water to the deck.

  Our friends had come with us.

  They wandered across the deck, killing and dying. The crew of the raft was having trouble coping with the two-fold disaster. Most had gone to deal with the problem they understood, and were clustered around our stricken craft, trying to dislodge it from their deck. Only a few were dealing with the more horrific problem, the score of living dead who were slowly killing their way across the raft.

  I threw myself into the fight. A handful of the creatures were fighting their way past some toppled crates that had become an improvised barricade. I came at them from behind, cracking open skulls and severing long-dead limbs with my blade. The rest of the crew, with Wilson at their head, smashed into the revenants with frantic energy. They howled like madmen, desperate to get this nightmare behind them.

  Together we broke the last of the revenants. Around us in the water were bodies, but apparently none of them were still animated. I was gathering my thoughts and looking for the captain of this raft when there was a horrific crashing sound and our doomed ship tore free from the raft. More crates bounced loose as we bobbed up, the water on our deck spilling over the edge as we righted. I ran to the side to watch the ship go down, and to see if anything came back up.

  The ship slid quickly into the water, leaving nothing but flotsam and pearl-white corpses in its wake. Nothing moved. I was surrounded by the former crew, staring silently as the crew tower disappeared. The last thing we saw was the blank eyes of the captain's blown-out cabin, windows ringed in shattered glass and singed by his shotgun.

  One of the raft's junior officers rushed up to us, his face flushed red with fury.

  "What was the meaning of that! Ramming us, traveling at such speed in this fog! Have you lost your damn minds!" He was shuddering in his ill-fitting black suit, the cheap epaulets on his shoulders wrinkled from too much wear and not enough cleaning. "I demand - demand! - to speak to your captain."
r />   I looked down at the blade in my hand. The black blood of the revenants was slick along its length, pooling and dripping onto the deck of the raft. As it fell it coagulated before my eyes, crystallizing into tiny gears that clattered noisily at my feet. I stared at the snowflake-delicate gears swirling peacefully in the pools of water left behind, mixing with the blood of the crew who had died in the fight, along with my own, leaking from numerous cuts and bruises.

  "Captain's dead," I said to the frantic little man. I looked up at the swirling eddy that marked the last resting place of the ship, her captain, and much of her crew. Wilson stood next to me, his knuckles white on the grimy shaft of the hammer he had picked up.

  "For now," he whispered, turning away.

  Chapter Three

  Draw Iron, Draw Steel

  THERE WAS A very brief but very sharp argument, when the captain of the raft decided that we should circle around and look for survivors. Wilson and I showed him the remains of the cog-dead on his deck, made it clear that there weren't survivors, and made some quiet threats about what would happen if he tried to turn the raft back. He took it poorly, but he also didn't touch the wheel. That's all I cared about.

  The Ebd-side harbor ghosted into view through the thick morning fog. Our raft was trailing wreckage, a flotilla of broken wood and smashed crates and broken bodies bobbing in our wake. Wilson and I huddled on the front of the raft, as far away from the accident as we could manage. They brought us blankets and coffee. The raft wasn't fast, and I wanted nothing more than to be fast and off the water. The coffee mug in my hand shook, from the cold or the adrenalin. Not the fear.

  "What are we going to do?" Wilson asked me, away from the rest of the crew. It was clear what they were going to do. Drink, and forget, and maybe find a new line of work away from the river. Sounded good to me.

  "We're going to talk. Talk to Crane, talk to the elder Burn." I drank some coffee. "Maybe talk to Valentine."

  "Valentine will be difficult, Jacob. He hasn't forgiven you. That man keeps his grudges like clockwork."