Heart of Steel - Meljean Brook [17]
“Yes.” The walk here had reminded her of one rule that she’d been fortunate to have learned before Archimedes Fox had boarded her airship. “Don’t let her go soft for a man.”
Zenobia stopped, looking dismayed. “A romance adds excitement.”
“With a man who tries to take over everything? Who wants to be master of her ship, or wants the crew to acknowledge that she’s his little woman?” Yasmeen sneered. God, but she imagined it all too easily. “What man can tolerate his woman holding a position superior to him?”
Zenobia apparently couldn’t name one. She grimaced and pulled out her notes. “Not even a mysterious man in the background? More interest from the readers means more money.”
Yasmeen wasn’t always for sale, and in this matter, the promise of extra royalties couldn’t sway her. “Don’t let her go soft. Give her a heart of steel.”
“A heart of steel,” Zenobia repeated, scribbling. She looked up. “But . . . why?”
Why? Shaking her head, Yasmeen signaled for the rope ladder, which would take her back to her lady. Zenobia had begun that morning tied up and gagged, then had a gun shoved against her throat and her body used as a shield—and yet she had to ask Why?
The answer was obvious. “Because there’s no other way to survive.”
Yasmeen flew into Port Fallow from the east, high enough that the Horde’s combines were visible in the distance. After their war machines had driven the European population away and the zombies had infected those remaining, the Horde had used the Continent as their breadbasket. They’d dug mines and stripped the forests. Machines performed most of the work—and what the machines couldn’t do was done by Horde workers living in enormous walled outposts scattered across Europe. Soldiers within those compounds protected the laborers from zombies and crushed any New Worlder’s attempt to reclaim the land.
But thirty years before, Port Fallow had been established as a small hideaway for pirates and smugglers on the ruins of Amsterdam, and had boomed into a small city when the Horde hadn’t bothered to crush it. Either they hadn’t considered the city a threat or they hadn’t been able to afford the effort. Yasmeen suspected it was the latter.
Two generations ago, a plague had decimated the Horde population, including those living in the walled compounds. A rebellion within the Horde had been gaining in popularity for years, and after the plague, had increased in strength from one end of the empire to the other. Now, the Horde was simply holding on to what they still had, not reclaiming what they’d lost—whether that loss was a small piece of land like Port Fallow or the entire British isle. No doubt that in the coming years, more pieces would fight their way out from under Horde control.
Just as well. A five-hundred-year reign was long enough for any empire. Yasmeen would be glad to see them gone. But then, she’d be glad to see a lot of people gone—and currently, Franz Kessler was at the top of her list.
It wouldn’t be difficult to find him. Port Fallow contained three distinct sections between the harbor and the city wall, arranged in increasing semicircles and divided by old Amsterdam’s canals: the docks and warehouses between the harbor and the first canal, with the necessary taverns, inns, and bawdyrooms; the large residences between the first and second canals, where the established “families” of Port Fallow made their homes; and beyond the second and third canals, the small flats and shacks where everyone else lived. Kessler’s home lay in the second, wealthy ring of residences, and he sometimes ventured into the first ring—but he’d never run toward the shacks, and only an idiot would try to climb the wall. Few zombies stumbled up to Fladstrand, but not so here. The plains beyond the town teemed with the ravenous creatures, and gunmen continually monitored the city’s high walls. Kessler couldn’t run that way. The harbor offered the only possibility for escape, but Yasmeen wasn’t concerned. Though dozens of boats and airships were