The Ace of Skulls

Thirty-Three

Silo backed off through the ruined room, Malvery at his side, both with shotguns held ready. All around them was the sound of movement: feet scraped, glass tinkled. An Awakener in a thick brown coat came lumbering through a doorway, carrying a rifle. Malvery fired, and he spun away in a cloud of blood and fabric.

Debris crunched underfoot, threatening to turn their ankles as they retreated. A section of the ceiling had caved in and boards hung down. To their left were jagged window frames that had once held glass. They were on the ground floor, and all Silo could see through the windows was the slope leading up to the meadows. That, and the man climbing in.

The Awakener was caught halfway in and halfway out. He’d got himself snagged on something and was frantically trying to pull his arm free. He looked up as Silo turned the barrel of his weapon on him, and Silo saw that he had wild black hair, and young terrified eyes. Then hair and eyes alike disappeared in the roar of Silo’s shotgun.

‘Swarmin’ all over us down here!’ Malvery said, still backing away.

Silo went to the doorway at the other side of the room and looked through. At the end of a short passageway, a door to the courtyard stood open, snow piling up against it. Malvery was right. They would have to abandon the buildings on the south side of the hamlet, facing the meadows where the lander had come down. Jez and Pelaru were nowhere to be found, Ashua had abandoned her post, and he’d sent Harkins to watch the trees to the north. They probably couldn’t have held the south side anyway, not against this number.

‘Awakeners keen on havin’ us dead, that’s for damn sure,’ he said.

‘Must’ve really got ’em worried,’ Malvery replied, with a grim smile.

‘Come on. Back to the others. We gonna hold that house, at least.’

They stopped for a moment in the doorway to the courtyard, to check that the coast was clear. The hamlet had been reduced to a warzone. The buildings were bullet-gnawed, roofs slumped and windows smashed. Snow had invaded them eagerly, and now gathered in cheerless living rooms and garages. The fountain in the centre of the courtyard had collapsed amid a tangle of metal that seeped black smoke: the remains of the gunship Grudge had taken down.

The wind picked up again, blowing a stinging flurry. Silo narrowed his eyes and ran for it. It was as good a time as any.

Somewhere to their left, past the burning wreckage of the gunship, was the bridge, the chasm, and the mansion beyond. All of that was lost to sight in the blizzard. To their right was a gap between the buildings where the road led away to the landing pad. The Awakeners had taken the pad and were pushing down the road, but they hadn’t dared to enter the courtyard while the defenders held both sides of the hamlet.

Silo could hear the dull roar of engines nearby, an insidious reminder that another gunship still lurked out there. Grudge had made the pilot wary, and his autocannon was another reason the foot soldiers wouldn’t enter the courtyard. He was hidden on the first floor of one of the buildings on the north side, covering the area from an elevated position. Silo approved of his tactics. The threat he posed kept the enemy off their backs more effectively than a dozen shotguns.

Somebody fired at them from the direction of the road, but the bullets were past and gone before they heard the shots, and they ignored them. They ran through the doorway of a stout stone house which had weathered the assault better than its neighbours. Inside was a short gloomy corridor with a doorway off to the left and narrow stairs heading up.

Malvery ran on while Silo paused and looked back, searching for signs of the gunship. Over the buildings on the south side of the courtyard, black smoke was billowing. The generator’s fuel tanks had gone up. Something to do with Jez? Perhaps. He hoped she was keeping them busy out there.

He assessed his options, and found them meagre. It was only a matter of time before the enemy took up positions in the houses across the courtyard and started shooting at them. One of the houses had caught fire, either because of the explosion or because a burning log had spilled from its grate in the chaos. If the fire spread fast, it would make a more effective barrier of those houses than armed defenders ever could. But Silo didn’t think they’d be around long enough for that to happen. Grudge could only hold the Awakeners back for so long, and by the sounds of the gunfire in the house behind him, their attackers were coming through the trees to the north as well.

They were surrounded, reduced to holding a single house. They needed help, and fast.

He shut the door and turned the key to lock it, then followed Malvery. The house had a similar layout to others in the hamlet. There were two rooms taking up the ground floor. At the front was a small living-space with a stove and a table; another doorway led to a bedroom in the back. Upstairs was a separate and larger apartment, with a kitchen and living room, and bedrooms above that. Simple accommodation for the servants and staff.

‘We gotta get out of here!’ Ashua called as he entered. She was in the back room, shooting through the windows.

‘We ain’t goin’ anywhere!’ he snapped. ‘You already left one post, you ain’t leavin’ another!’

She didn’t reply to that, but he could sense her resentment. Silo didn’t care: he was angry at her for running. He’d been the one to vouch for her when the Cap’n wanted to kick her off the crew back in Samarla, and some part of him felt responsible for her behaviour. But much as she seemed intent on staying, he’d always had the sense that she’d drop them if it suited her. She hadn’t the loyalty to the Cap’n that the others did. That made her unreliable.

‘Comin’ up the road!’ called Malvery, who squatted by a window facing the courtyard.

Silo took position at the window next to him. The sight of the defenders abandoning the houses on the south side had encouraged the Awakeners. He could see their blurred shapes moving closer, sticking near the snowdrifts on either side of the road. A few speculative bullets came their way.

‘Save your ammo,’ said Silo. ‘Won’t hit anythin’ at this range.’

‘Right-o,’ said Malvery. He patted the pockets of his coat, to check they were still bulging with shells. Silo glanced back at Ashua, who was covering the rear of the house with Harkins. They had a small ammo box between them. How long would that last, if the Awakeners came at them in force?

‘You heard from the Cap’n?’ he asked Malvery.

‘He doesn’t have his earcuff in, naturally,’ said Malvery. He ducked away as a bullet ricocheted off the stone near his head. ‘Might be in his pocket, but I can’t hear bugger all over the sound of the wind and these pesky bastards trying to kill us.’ He popped up and fired off a round.

‘Ammo, Doc,’ Silo reminded him.

‘Sorry,’ said Malvery. ‘They’re gathering out there.’

Silo cursed in Murthian. Where was the Cap’n? He could understand Frey’s reluctance to use the earcuffs — like Frey, Silo hated the distraction in a gunfight, though it didn’t appear to bother Malvery — but right now he needed to know when, or if, help was coming.

Suppose it don’t matter, he told himself. Ain’t no place to run, anyways. Gonna hold this house as long as we can, and hope that’s long enough.

He heard fresh gunfire from the bedroom. Harkins and Ashua. ‘Watch the road,’ he told Malvery as he hurried through to the back.

‘What in rot’s name are we still doing here?’ Ashua cried. She had her pistol steadied with both hands, and was firing into the trees. ‘We need to fall back!’

Silo pressed himself up against the wall on the other side of the window, leaned out, and took a shot at a ghostly shape out there in the white world beyond. ‘You gonna hold the damn line till I say otherwise,’ he said.

‘I didn’t join this bloody crew to die in some frozen hole in the mountains!’

‘Me neither. But here we are.’

There was a lull in the shooting. Neither of them could see a target. Ashua opened her mouth to protest further, but Silo got in first.

‘Where you gonna go, huh? The mansion? Imperators there. That’s if the gunship don’t shoot us to pieces crossin’ the bridge. The Cap’n’s comin’. You might not believe it, but I do. So stay put.’

Ashua glared at him, a sullen fire in her eyes. Her defiance didn’t fool him. She was afraid. She might be tough, but she’d never been in a war, never been under such sustained fire for so long. You never knew how someone might react when they were pinned down with no way out, not knowing if the next bullet coming would be the one to take them in the skull. She was on edge, liable to do something stupid.

He looked over at Harkins, who was at the next window, furiously concentrating on his task. Ashua needed something more than orders to steady her. Silo took a gamble.

‘How about you, Harkins?’ he called. ‘You wanna run for it?’

‘No, sir!’ Harkins replied, without taking his eyes off the trees. Ashua looked startled.

‘Why not?’ Silo said.

Harkins turned his head. He was addressing Silo, but looking straight at Ashua. ‘Because I’m no chickenshit,’ he said levelly. ‘Sir.’

Ashua spat on the floor and hunkered down to watch the trees again. Shame would keep her where she was. Silo gave Harkins a nod of respect and headed back to Malvery.

He’d seen something in Harkins these last few days. A new distance in his gaze, something firmer in his eye. He snapped to attention when spoken to, he didn’t gripe or bitch like the others as he went about his work. He’d found a way to prop up his courage, and damn if he wasn’t turning out to be useful in a gunfight at last. He still couldn’t hit much with his pistol, but the Awakeners didn’t know that.

Silo crouched next to Malvery, who was looking narrowly out at the road. Silo saw figures moving behind the windows across the courtyard.

‘Don’t like this,’ said Malvery. ‘They’re waiting for something. Could do with getting Grudge to send a few shots their way, keep ’em on their toes.’

‘That feller don’t take no orders from me,’ said Silo.

Malvery glanced at him. ‘Heard what you did back there with Ashua,’ he said. ‘Cap’n made a smart pick having you as first mate. Ain’t anyone else on the crew we’d listen to at a time like this.’

Silo shrugged a shoulder. ‘You my people,’ he said.

The bellow of engines alerted them a moment before the gunship came sweeping out of the blizzard, its cannons pointed right at them. Silo and Malvery scrambled away from the windows and flailed back towards cover as the front of the house was torn up. Splinters and powdered stone and plaster filled the air; the clatter of rotary cannons battered their ears. Silo hunkered in behind the stove. Malvery, having no better option, dived behind the sofa and made himself as small a target as his generous frame would allow.

The assault was over as quickly as it had begun. The gunship swung away and powered off into the blizzard, chased by Grudge’s autocannon. It had been a swift attack, meant to catch them off guard.

Damn nearly did, as well.

‘They’re coming through at the back!’ Ashua called. ‘There’s a lot of ’em!’ Then she opened up with her pistol, and Harkins joined her.

Silo was about to run back there, but Malvery had slipped up to the front of the house and was looking through the ragged hole where one of the windows had been. ‘We’ve got our own problems,’ he said.

‘Hold ’em!’ Silo called back through the doorway.

‘Yeah, I knew you were gonna say that,’ he heard Ashua mutter as he ran over to Malvery. The doctor was already firing. A half-dozen men were spilling from the buildings on the south side and running across the courtyard, using the wreckage of the gunship as cover. Another eight or nine were running in from the road. Silo started shooting.

The gunship’s attack had been a signal to come at the house from both sides. These weren’t mercs: he could tell by the way they used their weapons, their inept understanding of cover. They were Sentinels. Mercs wouldn’t run at a defended position with such abandon. They weren’t suicidal.

Silo and Malvery dropped one, two, three of them. But they kept coming.

Malvery’s shotgun ran dry. He tossed it to the floor, pulled out a stick of dynamite, and struck a match off the wall. Silo covered him till the fuse was lit, and then he lobbed it out through the window.

Some of the oncoming Awakeners saw it coming, tried to check their charge. Their companions crashed into the back of them, sending them stumbling forward in a tangle. The dynamite went off and sent them twisting and rolling away, living men turned to limp corpses.

Silo had ducked down to avoid the explosion; now he popped back up again and levelled his shotgun. It was seized by an Awakener who’d slipped close to the window along the wall. One hand on his shotgun barrel, the Awakener aimed a pistol at his face. Silo pulled his head aside, yanking his shotgun as he did so. It was enough to tug the Awakener off balance. The pistol went off by his ear, loud enough that it was like a punch, but the bullet missed.

Silo struggled with the Awakener, fighting to free his shotgun. The other man was strong, face weathered and teeth gritted beneath his furred hood. He was trying to get his arm through the window, get a good point-blank shot at Silo, but Silo was too close now. He was peripherally aware of Malvery frantically jamming another shell in his shotgun, but the doctor wouldn’t be able to help him in time. So Silo lunged instead, shoving forward, using his weight. It took the Awakener by surprise. He swung the butt of the shotgun and caught the man a glancing blow on the jaw.

The Awakener staggered back from the window, but somehow he held on to the shotgun, bloody-mouthed and furious. The increased distance gave him space to aim his pistol, but then Malvery’s shotgun boomed, and that ended it.

Suddenly the courtyard cobbles were being smashed, and men were smashed with them, limbs blasted into bloody smears on the snow as Grudge rained down autocannon fire from above. Silo didn’t know what had taken him so long — perhaps they’d pinned him down once he’d revealed his position by firing at the gunship — but he was here now, and just in time. The Awakeners had been moments from overwhelming them at the windows; now they scattered and ran for their lives, knowing it was hopeless. Even the faithful had their limits.

Silo shot off the last of his rounds to discourage anyone who thought trying to climb inside would be the best way of escaping the death from above. The Awakeners on the south side had been driven back, but there was no respite for him. Seeing that the courtyard was safely covered, he scooped up a handful of shells and ran through to the other room.

He vaulted the bed and skidded into cover next to Ashua as a flurry of bullets clawed up the wall. Blinking brick dust from his eye, he reloaded and added his gun to Ashua’s. The Awakeners were pouring from the trees now. The short slope of clear ground that led down from the snowy forest was littered with the dead, but it didn’t deter the men behind.

They don’t care ’bout their losses. Just keep comin’ and comin’. They need us dead, and damn if it don’t look like they gonna get their wish.

There was a fevered look in Ashua’s eye, the dangerous gleam of someone backed into a corner. Harkins was frightened too, but he held his post at the window. Both of them knew this was a last stand. Both of them had decided to go down fighting.

An Awakener came skidding down the slope and lobbed a stick of dynamite at the windows. His aim was off: it hit the wall, bounced back, fell in the snow. Two of his companions tried to scramble away from it, but not fast enough.

There was a cry from Harkins. Silo saw him spin away from the window. His pilot’s cap was gone; there was blood all over half his face. He staggered back and collapsed.

‘Doc!’ he shouted, as he crawled on his hands and knees under the windows.

‘Busy here!’ Malvery replied, and Silo heard Grudge’s autocannon start up again. The Awakeners had regrouped and were coming back through the courtyard, autocannon or not.

Harkins’ eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. Silo didn’t have time for more than a cursory glance at him. Men and women fell in battle all the time; Silo had seen more than his share of that. He’d grieve later, if he had to.

He took up Harkins’ position by the window. Men rushed at him and he fired, primed his weapon, fired again. His movements became automatic, his enemies faceless, reduced from living, breathing people to simple threats that had to be removed. He fought as if in a dream. Sounds were dulled; he was deaf in one ear from the pistol shot. His body was at once incredibly tired and yet vital and strong. He killed and dodged and killed, and there was nothing but this moment, this fight. Nothing before or after. Only this.

Caught in that state, he was slow to recognise the dark shape that appeared among the trees at the top of the slope. It was only when she roared that he recognised Bess.

The sound of her shook the windowsills and rattled the pipes. She ploughed into the Awakeners from behind, swinging her great arms in all directions. The naked trees were smashed to matchwood. Men were swatted aside, crashing into trunks with bone-breaking force. She was like some mythical ogress, a force out of the primal dark come to life.

The Awakeners dissolved into confusion at the sight of her. Some of them scattered to the sides: some came on towards the windows, driven by fear of the beast in the trees.

Ashua fired dry, and was reloading when an Awakener lunged at her through the window. He tried to cram his rifle through to get a close-range shot, but got himself tangled up with her instead. Silo swung his shotgun around, but he couldn’t fire without hitting Ashua. Instead he scooped up Harkins’ pistol and tossed it through the air. Ashua caught it deftly in her left hand, jammed it in the Awakener’s throat and pulled the trigger.

The Awakener pawed at her, gargling. She wrenched the rifle from his hand, put her boot in his chest and kicked him back out into the snow. Now with two weapons, she looked for a new target; but then her eyes widened, and she threw herself behind the bed. Silo turned back to the window in time to see Bess, who’d uprooted a tree, fling it down the slope towards them. He dived out of the way just before it hit the wall with an almighty boom, cracking the wall and crushing several Awakeners between the tree and the house.

‘Fall back! Fall back!’ he heard from outside, as he hunkered amid the falling dust from the ceiling, breathing hard. Caught between the guns in the house and the monster behind them, the Awakeners abandoned the assault at last. He heard them running, some of them screaming louder than the wounded left behind. Bess ran after them, bellowing.

Ashua got shakily to her feet. She climbed back over the bed and stared at the tree that now lay against the windows. An arm hung limply over the sill, its owner mangled just out of sight. She looked over at Silo, a crazed kind of disbelief on her face. ‘The Cap’n came through,’ she said.

‘Don’t he always?’ Silo said. He got to his feet. ‘You did good.’

A little smile touched the edge of her mouth. Then she saw Harkins, and it faded.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Stay here. You see anythin’, yell.’

He went into the front room, where Malvery was lying against the wall, chest heaving, exhausted. The room stank of cordite. The quiet beyond the windows told Silo that the call for retreat had already spread to the courtyard, and that everywhere the Awakeners were routed.

‘I do believe I heard the dulcet tones of Bess a moment ago,’ said

Malvery, and chuckled. He lifted himself up and looked over his shoulder out the window. ‘Look at ’em run.’

‘Need you in the back, Doc,’ said Silo. ‘It’s Harkins.’

Malvery became grim, and he got to his feet and hustled past Silo, through the doorway. Silo went to the windows. Beyond, the fires crackled and snapped, and snow was still falling, blanketing the bodies in the courtyard.

Thrusters sounded in the distance. Even muffled, he recognised the sound of Blackmore P-12s. The Ketty Jay was on her way.

I did what I could, Cap’n, he thought. Rest is up to you.

‘I can’t see shit up here!’ Samandra yelled down from the cupola.

‘You and me both!’ Frey replied. It hadn’t stopped him from flying recklessly fast. He’d wasted enough time already.

The Ketty Jay had been slow to wake in the cold. He’d only got her running by using a trick from the old days, before Trinica had his craft overhauled and everything started working as it should. His toe still hurt from that.

Below him and to starboard lay the hamlet. Half the south side was aflame. Nearby, the tangled remains of the generator burned bright in the gloom. He saw one wrecked gunship, but not the other. Belatedly it occurred to him that he should have asked Malvery what the situation was down there, but his earcuff was deep in his pocket and he couldn’t spare the time to dig for it right now.

Is everyone alright down there? Is Crake? Am I already too late?

He slowed and banked to port, searching the blizzard for the second gunship. He spotted the landing pad where the Century Knights’ aircraft waited, mantled in white. There were no troops in sight, but they’d left churned snow in their wake. He followed their tracks with his eye and found Bess, carving a trench across the meadows. Ahead of her, barely visible, frightened figures stumbled and hurried in the direction of the lander which had brought them here.

They’re running, he thought, and hope fluttered inside him. Did we win?

‘Frey! Ten o’clock!’ Samandra called.

It was the second Predator, dropping out of the grey sky, guns angled downward. It wasn’t facing them: the pilot hadn’t seen them yet. The guns were trained on Bess.

Frey boosted the thrusters and hammered towards the Predator. Bess could hold up to small-arms fire well enough, but those cannons would take her to pieces. The pilot was intent on the target, lining up the shot, as Frey raced closer.

Hang on, hang on, just a second more.

But it was a second he didn’t get. The pilot opened up, a hail of bullets lashed through the air, and Bess disappeared in a cloud of vaporised snow.

‘No!’ Frey cried, and he clamped his finger down on the trigger. Tracer fire spat from the Ketty Jay’s underslung machine guns, raking the Predator’s flank, chewing up its ailerons. The craft slewed wildly to starboard, bringing the cockpit into Frey’s line of fire. The windglass smashed and the pilot inside was chopped to meat. Still turning, the Predator dipped its head and its thrusters forced it down, grinding its nose into the earth. It crinkled and exploded in a rolling cloud of flame.

Frey slowed and banked hard, bringing the Ketty Jay around. He had to see what had become of Bess. He’d never been certain whether he thought of her as a living thing or a disposable object, but right then her safety was deeply important to him. He was still uncertain about the fate of his crew, and he dreaded to face his losses. Every survivor was precious. Even the golem.

Come on, Bess. You’re a tough old girl. You’ll be alright. Please be alright.

The snow filled his sight, flurrying against the windglass. The meadows were hazy with fog thrown up by the Predator’s gun. He squinted, looking closer. Was that movement? Was that — ?

Bess!

She came lumbering out of the cloud, turning left and right, searching for Awakeners with the puzzled enthusiasm of a child looking for lost toys. They were all out of sight now, leaving her bewildered but apparently unhurt. The gunship had missed.

Frey let out the breath he’d been holding.

‘Aircraft!’ Samandra shouted.

Frey tensed. The lander! How had it got airborne so quickly? It must have been already halfway to taking off by the time he arrived. They were leaving their men behind in their haste to flee.

Frantically he searched for it. If the lander got away, then all their efforts would be for nothing. The Awakeners would never imagine Frey’s crew capable of capturing an Imperator and forcing information from them, but if the Century Knights were known to be involved, matters were different. The Sentinels would tell the Awakeners what had occurred, and the Awakeners would know their plans had been compromised and change them. But if nobody returned, the Awakeners would simply assume their ambush had failed, or something unforeseen had occurred on the way; there would be no cause to alter anything.

A growing bellow of engines. The lander came thundering out of the blizzard and over their heads, a dark slab of metal flung through the sky.

‘Shoot it!’ Frey cried, but the autocannon was already thumping. He hauled the Ketty Jay around, knowing it was already too late to catch them. He couldn’t turn and accelerate in time, and if he lost sight of them in the snow he’d never find them again.

The back end of the lander came into view, its thrusters diminishing into the gloom. Autocannon shells flew after it. None of them came close to hitting the mark.

‘You’re worse than Malvery!’ Frey shouted in exasperation. He hit the throttle, but the lander was already a grey blur, powering away over the hamlet. He watched it despairingly as it faded from view.

Just before it disappeared completely, its back end exploded.

Frey’s eyes widened in surprise as a ball of flame consumed the lander’s thrusters. It slowed and went into a shallow dive, sailing over the hamlet to disappear into the chasm beyond. There was an almighty detonation, and the chasm lit up along its length. After that, silence, but for the sound of the Ketty Jay’s Blackmore P-12s.

Frey braked to a hover and fell back in his chair. ‘Good shot!’ he called up to the cupola.

‘Wasn’t me, that’s for damn sure. Can barely aim this thing,’ said Samandra, a grin in her voice. ‘Guess we can be sure that Colden is alive down there.’

Grudge. Grudge had taken it down. The thought of the Century Knight brought the possibility of other survivors to mind. He dug out his earcuff and clipped it on.

‘Malvery! Crake! You still there?’

‘Just about,’ said Crake. ‘You ever blown yourself up with dynamite before? It’s quite a thing.’

Frey laughed, relief making him lightheaded. ‘You get ’em?’

‘We got them. Got most of what we needed, too. But you’re not going to like it.’

‘Tell me later. Malvery?’

‘Me, Silo and Ashua still kicking, Cap’n,’ came the doctor’s voice. Frey could have cheered for joy. ‘Harkins took a hit, though.’

Frey’s silent celebration stalled. ‘Bad?’

‘Got a bullet across his scalp. Bled like a stuck pig and it knocked him out, but he’s come round now. Reckon he’ll be fine. Feller’s got a thicker skull than we gave him credit for.’

There was a fondness in Malvery’s tone that warmed him. There was a bond between this crew, a kind of companionship he’d never known elsewhere. He was so immensely glad he hadn’t lost that today.

Rot and damn, they’d really done it. They’d come through the Awakeners’ ambush alive. He could scarcely believe it.

Up yours, Amalicia, he thought, giddy with triumph. Nice try, but you lose.

Then something brought him up short. The count wasn’t right. Somebody was missing. It took him a shamefully long time to remember who.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Anyone seen Jez?’