Heart of Steel (2 page)

I have delivered your manuscript to
The Lamplighter Gazette
and enclosed their bank check. You ought to begin asking them to pay in livre; English money is worth nothing, and will not be until they are better recovered from the Horde occupation.

 

 

 

P.S. You should title it
Archimedes Fox and the Ravenous Cadavers of Venice.

 

 

 

 

When you meet our favorite mercenary, I recommend wearing
only
your yellow waistcoat—her hysterical laughter will afford you another thirty seconds of life before she recovers her wits and runs you through.

I will not stab you, but
my
hysterical laughter began at the word
rational
and continued on for a good hour after finishing your letter. Do you not remember that you considered Venice before? Not long after poor Bilson ran off, and you still feverish and vomiting from an assassin's poison.
Venice!
you cried.
Marco Polo was imprisoned there after he returned from the Mongol territories along the Silk Road, and in prison he penned his mad writings about the machines of war the Horde were creating!
And then,
Leonardo! While the Horde's war machines were held back at the Hapsburg Wall, the great men of Europe convened in Venice, and da Vinci was among them, inventing weapons to hold back the Horde! Surely there must be something left in the city!

How is it that you are as stupid now, in your full senses, as you were half out of your mind with sickness? Must I remind you that when the zombie infection came across the Hapsburg Wall and it was discovered that the creatures would not cross water, almost everyone in that region fled to Venice? Must I also remind you that blowing the bridges did not save them—and that once the infection reached the city, only the few who made it to a boat escaped? There is not a building or a foot of dry land in Venice that a zombie does not stand upon, and they are more numerous there than anywhere else in Europe. Only a few years ago, even
you
in all of your dim-witted, thick-skulled rationality deemed it too dangerous.

 

 

P.S. I intend to call it
Archimedes Fox and the Idiotic Impossible Quest.
Anyway, there is no point. A survey by Bishop Mendi reported that most of the buildings along the canals were all underwater, as were the streets, and that zombies filled every inch of dry land. Overgrown with moss and vines, nothing on paper could possibly have survived. It is a fool's errand, brother.

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. It will be
Archimedes Fox and the Astonishing Discovery.

 

 

 

 

By now you will have looked up the scientific article and know that Mendi was aboard
Lady Corsair.
Do not do the same, brother. You will never reach Venice. If you are lucky, she will only hang you naked and upside down from her bow like she did that Castilian comte—but more likely, she will open you from gut to gullet like she did Bloody Bartholomew, then feed your dismembered limbs to megalodons.

 

 

P.S.
Archimedes Fox and the Merciless Mercenary.

 

 

 

 

 

P.S.
Archimedes Fox and His Brilliant Acquisitions.

 

 

Quickly, for
Lady Corsair
is about to depart, and I must hand this letter over to the porter before the captain fires the engines.

 

 

P.S. Do not begin scheming yet! I shall return, of course. I will be three weeks in Venice, add on a few days for the flight; you should expect a letter this time next month, and my visit a few days after—unless I have found something worth taking to auction. If I have, I will head directly to the Ivory Market, but I will send a letter regardless, including every detail of the encounter between
Archimedes Fox and the Captivating Captain Cutthroat.

 

 

 

 

I am late returning to the airship. By some miracle,
Lady Corsair
still waits for me. I can see her white balloon from my window, hovering over the rusted ruins of the great basilica, exactly where I asked her captain to meet me a week ago. Was it only my waistcoat, is it the remainder of my payment, or does she have tender feelings for me? If it is not that, I must make certain that she eventually comes to care for me. I have had much time to think, and I have heard that extreme hunger clears the mind. I have seen that she respects the Iron Duke—a man who Gives Orders—and so to win her heart, perhaps I will affect the same attitude when I next see her.

 

 

P.S. You will never read this, of course, because I will prevail, and paddle my door to the airship, where I will take charge and give orders. Once there, I will discard this letter and write another. Do not despair, sister! Soon, you will hold in your hands the adventures of
Archimedes Fox and the Mysterious Lady Corsair.

Chapter One

Yasmeen hadn't had any reason to fly her airship into the
small Danish township of Fladstrand before, but her reputation had obviously preceded her. All along the Scandinavian coast, rum dives served as a town's only line of defense against mercenaries and pirates—and as soon as the sky paled and
Lady Corsair
became visible on the eastern horizon, lights began appearing in the windows of the public houses alongside the docks. The taverns were opening early, hoping to make a few extra deniers before midday . . . and the good citizens of Fladstrand were probably praying that her crew wouldn't venture beyond the docks and into the town itself.

Unfortunately for them,
Lady Corsair
's crew wasn't in Fladstrand to drink. Nor were they here to cause trouble, but Yasmeen wasn't inclined to let the town know that. Let them tremble for a while. It did her reputation good.

Dawn had completely faded from the sky by the time
Lady Corsair
breached the mouth of the harbor. Standing behind the windbreak on the quarterdeck, Yasmeen aimed her spyglass at the skyrunners tethered over the docks. She recognized each airship—all of them served as passenger ferries between the Danish islands to the east and Sweden to the north. Several heavy-bottomed cargo ships floated in the middle of the icy harbor, their canvas sails furled and their wooden hulls rocking with each swell. Though she knew the skyrunners, Yasmeen couldn't identify every ship in the water. Most of Fladstrand fished or farmed—two activities unrelated to the sort of business Yasmeen conducted. Whatever cargo the ships carried probably fermented or flopped, and she had no interest in either until they reached her mug or her plate.

When
Lady Corsair
's long shadow passed over the flat, sandy shoreline and the first rows of houses overlooking the sea, Yasmeen ordered the engines cut. Their huffing and vibrations gave way to the flap of the airship's unfurling sails and the cawing protests of seabirds. Below, the narrow cobblestone streets lay almost empty. A steamcart puttered along beside an ass-drawn wagon loaded with wooden barrels, but most of the good people of Fladstrand scrambled back to their homes as soon as they spotted
Lady Corsair
in the skies above them—hiding behind locked doors and shuttered windows, hoping that whatever business Yasmeen had wouldn't involve them.