Retribution Falls

Nine

Crake hurried through Tarlock Cove as fast as he dared. The streets were dark now, deepening towards true night, and stars clustered thickly overhead. The beam of the lighthouse swept across the town and out to sea. Crake walked with his collar up and his head down, his blond hair blowing restlessly in the salt wind, trying not to draw attention to himself.

Run, he told himself. Just run. You weren’t a part of it. They don’t even know you’re on the crew.

But run where? His assets had been seized, so he had only the money he’d taken when he fled, and there was little enough of that left. His only contact here was Plome, and the last thing Plome needed was to shelter a fugitive. He had his own secrets to keep. No, Crake wouldn’t implicate him in this matter. He’d deal with it on his own.

Run!

But he couldn’t. Because the only way he was going to stay ahead of the Shacklemore Agency was to keep on the move, and the only way he could do that was aboard the Ketty Jay.

And there was more, besides. It was a matter of honour. He didn’t care for Frey at all, and Pinn was beneath consideration, but the others didn’t deserve to be hung out to dry like that. Especially not Malvery, of whom Crake was becoming quite fond.

But if he was honest with himself, even if he’d hated them all, he’d have gone back. If only to warn them. Because it was the right thing to do, and because it made him better than Frey.

He traced his steps back to Old One-Eye’s, and paused at the threshold, listening for signs of a disturbance. He’d been seen drinking with the crew. If they’d already been caught, there was no sense getting himself picked up as well.

There was a good chance Frey hadn’t been recognised, though. The ferrotype on the handbills must have been taken a long while ago, ten years or more. It didn’t look much like Frey. He had a little less weight and a lot less care on his face. He was clean-shaven and looked happy, smiling into the camera, squinting in the sun. There were mountains and fields in the background. Crake wondered when it was taken, and by whom.

The drinkers were merry and the noise inside the tavern was customarily deafening. All seemed well. Peering through the windows, which were bleared with condensation, he detected nothing amiss.

Get in, grab them, and get out of town.

He took a breath, preparing himself to face the throng inside. That was when he spotted a pair of Knights heading up the street towards him.

He knew them from their ferrotypes. Everyone knew the Knights. Broadsheets carried news of their exploits; cheap paperbacks told fictional tales of their adventures; children dressed up and pretended to be them. Most citizens of Vardia could identify twenty or thirty of the hundred Century Knights. But nobody knew all of them, for they operated as much in secret as in public.

These two were among the most famous, and they attracted stares from passers-by as they approached. The smaller Knight was Samandra Bree, wearing a long, battered coat and loose hide trousers that flared over her boots. Perched on her head was her trademark tricorn hat. Her coat flapped back in the wind as she strode along, offering glimpses of twin lever-action shotguns and a cutlass at her belt. Young, dark-haired and beautiful, Samandra was a darling of the press. By all accounts she did little to encourage their attention, which only made the people love her more and the press chase her harder.

Her companion was Colden Grudge, who wasn’t quite so photogenic. He was a man of bruising size with a face like a cliff. Thick, shaggy brown hair and an unkempt beard gave him a spiteful, simian look. Beneath a hooded cloak, time-dulled plates of armour had been strapped over his massive limbs and chest. He bore the insignia of the Century Knights on his breastplate. Two double-bladed hand-axes hung at his waist, and an autocannon was slung across his back.

Crake’s mouth went dry and he almost fled. It took him a few moments to realise that they weren’t heading for him at all, but for the tavern he was standing in front of. They were going to Old One-Eye’s.

He didn’t have time to think. In moments they’d be inside. Before he knew what he was doing, he thrust the handbill at them and blurted: ‘Excuse me. You’re looking for this man, aren’t you?’

The Knights stopped. Grudge glared at him, tiny eyes peering out from beneath a beetling brow. Samandra tipped back her tricorn hat and smiled. Crake found himself thinking that she really was quite strikingly gorgeous in person.

‘Why, yes we are, sir,’ she said. ‘Seen him?’

‘I just . . . yes, I just did, yes,’ he stammered. ‘At least I think it was him.’

‘And where was that?’ Samandra asked, with a faintly amused expression. She took his nervousness to be the reaction of a man intimidated by a pretty woman, instead of someone strangled by the fear of discovery.

‘In a tavern . . . that way!’ Crake improvised, pointing up the road.

‘Which tavern?’ Grudge demanded impatiently.

Crake grasped for a name. ‘Oh, it’s the one with lanterns out front, you know . . . The Howling Wolf or something . . . The Prowling Wolf! That’s it! That’s where I saw him!’

‘You sure about that?’ Grudge asked, unconvinced.

‘You’re not from around here, are you?’ Samandra asked, in that charmingly soft voice that made Crake feel like pond scum for lying to her.

‘Does it show?’ he said, with a grin. He gave them a smile, a glimpse of the golden tooth. Putting just a little power into it, letting the daemon suck a tiny fraction of his vital essence, just enough to allay their suspicions, just enough to say: believe him. ‘I’m visiting a friend.’

Samandra’s eyes had flicked to his tooth for just an instant, drawn by the glimmer. Now they were back on him.

‘Be where we can find you,’ she said.

Crake looked at her blankly.

‘The reward!’ she said, pointing at the handbill. ‘You do want the reward?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Crake said, recovering. ‘I’ll just be in here.’ He thumbed towards Old One-Eye’s.

Samandra and Grudge exchanged glances, then they hurried off up the road in the direction of The Prowling Wolf. Crake let out a slow, shaky breath and plunged into the tavern.

Frey was having a rare old time. He was exhausted from laughing and perfectly drunk, hovering in that elusive zone of inebriation where everything was in balance and all was right with the world. He never wanted this night to end. He loved Malvery and Pinn and even silent Harkins as brothers in arms. And if things began to wind down, well, the waitress had been giving him looks. She had a homely sort of face, but he liked her red hair and the freckles on her button nose, and he was in the mood for something curvy and soft tonight.

What a life it was! A fine thing to be a captain, a freebooter, a lord of the skies.

Crake’s arrival was something of a downer. ‘We’re getting out of here,’ he said, slapping the handbill onto the table and thrusting a finger at the picture of Frey. ‘Now!’

Frey, a little slow off the mark, was more surprised by the picture than the danger it represented. He recognised it immediately. How did they get their hands on that one? Who gave it to them?

Crake snatched the handbill away and stuffed it in his pocket. ‘I just had to head off Samandra Bree and Colden Grudge. They’re looking for us. They’ll be back in a few minutes. I suggest we not be here when they do.’

‘You met Samandra Bree?’ Pinn gaped. ‘You lucky turd!’

‘Spit and blood! Get moving, you idiots!’

The penny had finally dropped. They surged up and pushed their way through the crowd towards the door.

By the time they emerged from the tavern, Frey’s mood had seesawed from elation to cold, hard fear. The Century Knights? The Century Knights were on his tail? What had he done to deserve that?

‘Back to the Ketty Jay?’ Malvery suggested, scanning the street.

‘Bloody right,’ Frey muttered. ‘This is one more town we’re not coming back to.’

‘Why don’t we just emigrate and be done with it?’

‘Not a bad idea at that,’ Frey said over his shoulder, as he hurried away in the direction of the docks.

The town’s landing pad was situated halfway along one of the mountainous arms that sheltered the bay. Houses became sparser as they approached, and the streets were whittled down to a single wide path that dipped and curved with the land. It was flanked by storage sheds, the occasional tavern and a customs house. The vast, moist breathing of the sea was loud here. Waves crashed and spumed on the rocks far below.

Frey hugged his coat tight around him as he led his crew along the stony path. The previously welcoming town seemed suddenly threatening and nightmarish. He glanced over his shoulder for signs of pursuit, but nobody came running after them. Perhaps they’d given the Knights the slip.

Wanted for murder? Piracy, fine, he’d own up to that (to himself, at least. Damned if he’d admit it to a judge). But murder? He was no murderer! What happened to the Ace of Skulls wasn’t his fault!

It didn’t matter that piracy and murder carried the same penalty of hanging. In real terms, whether he did both or only one was moot: his end would be the same. But it was the principle of the thing. It was all so tragically unfair.

He slowed as they spotted a trio of Ducal Militiamen coming towards them. They were striding along the road from the docks, clad in the brown uniform of the Aulenfay Duchy, all buttoned-up jackets and flat-topped caps. The path afforded nowhere to duck away without looking suspicious.

‘Cap’n . . .’ Malvery warned.

‘I see them,’ Frey said. ‘Keep walking. It’s only me they’ll recognise. ’

Frey tucked his head down into his collar and shoved his hands into his pockets, playing the frozen traveller hurrying to get somewhere warm. He dropped back into the group, keeping Malvery’s bulk between him and the militiamen.

Their boots crunched on the path as they approached. Frey and his crew moved to the side of the path to let them pass. Their eyes swept the group as they neared.

‘Bloody chilly when the sun goes down, eh?’ Malvery hailed them with his usual booming good humour.

They grunted and walked on. So did Frey and his men.

The landing pad was busy with craft and their crews, loading the day’s catch onto the vessels for the overnight flight inland. A freighter was rising slowly into the air, belly-lights bright. Its aerium engines pulsed as electromagnets pulverised refined aerium into ultralight gas, flooding the ballast tanks.

Frey had planned to avoid the rush and leave in the morning, since his cargo wasn’t nearly as perishable as fresh fish, but now he was glad of the chaos. It would provide cover for their departure.

They passed the gas-lamps that marked the edge of the pad and wended their way towards the Ketty Jay. Crews laboured in the dazzling shine of their aircrafts’ lights, long shadows blasted across the tarmac by the dark hulks that loomed above them. Thrusters rumbled as the freighter overhead switched to its prothane engines and began pushing away from the coast. The air was heavy with the smell of fish and the tang of the sea.

‘Harkins, Pinn. Get to your craft and get up there,’ said Frey. ‘Harkins, I know you’re drunk but that’s my Firecrow and if you crash it I’ll stuff you into your own arsehole and bowl you into the sea. Clear?’

Harkins belched, saluted, and staggered away. Pinn scurried off towards his Skylance without a word. The mention of the Century Knights had intimidated him enough that he was glad to get out of there.

Silo was standing at the bottom of the Ketty Jay’s cargo ramp when Frey, Malvery and Crake arrived. He was idly smoking a roll-up cigarette made from an acrid Murthian blend of herbs. As they approached, he spat into his hand and crushed it out on his palm.

‘Where’s Jez?’ Frey demanded.

‘Quarters.’

‘Good. We’re going.’

‘Cap’n.’

Silo joined the others as they headed up the ramp and into the cargo hold. The hold was steeped in gloom as always, stacked high with crates that were lashed untidily together. The reek of fish was overpowering in here.

Frey was making for the lever to raise the cargo ramp when a gravelly voice called out:

‘Make another move and everybody dies.’

They froze. Coming up the cargo ramp, revolvers in both hands, was a figure they all knew and had hoped to never see. The most renowned of all the Century Knights. The Archduke’s merciless attack dog: Kedmund Drave.

He was a barrel-chested man in his late forties, his clumsily assembled face scarred along the cheek and throat. Silver-grey hair was clipped close to his scalp, and he wore a suit of dull crimson armour, expertly moulded to the contours of his body by the Archduke’s master artisans. A thick black cloak displayed the Knights’ insignia in red, and the hilt of his two-handed sword could be seen rising behind his shoulder.

‘Back away from that lever,’ he commanded Frey. One revolver was trained on him; the other covered the rest of the crew. ‘Get over with your friends.’

Frey obliged. He’d sobered up fast. The effects of the alcohol had been cancelled by the chill shock of adrenaline. He wracked his brains frantically to think of a way out of this, because he knew one thing for sure: if Kedmund Drave took him in, he’d swing from the gallows.

‘Guns!’ Drave snapped, as he herded them together. ‘Knives. All of it.’

They disarmed, throwing their weapons down in a small heap in front of them. Drake looked them over critically.

‘Step back. Against the crates.’

They did as they were told.

‘Now. Who’s this Jez I heard you mention?’

‘She’s the navigator,’ Frey replied.

Drave glanced at the stairs leading out of the cargo hold. Deciding whether it was worth the risk of going up and getting her.

‘Anyone else?’

‘No,’ said Frey.

Drave took a sudden step towards them and pressed the muzzle of his revolver to Crake’s forehead. ‘If you’re lying, I’ll blow his brains out!’

Crake whimpered softly. He’d had just about enough of people putting guns to his head.

‘There’s not another soul on board!’ Frey said. He started with himself, and then pointed to each of the crew in turn. ‘Pilot. Engineer. Doctor. Navigator is in her quarters. You’ve got a full crew here. This one . . .’ he waved at Crake, ‘he’s just along for the ride.’

‘The others? The outflyers?’

‘Already gone.’

Drave glared at him, then took the revolver off Crake and backed away to a safer distance.

‘Both of them?’

‘Already gone,’ Frey repeated, shrugging. ‘They took off when they heard the Knights were on the case. Could be halfway to anywhere by now. We’re all alone here.’

Deep in the shadows between the piles of crates, two tiny lights glimmered. There was the heavy thump of a footstep and a rustle of chain mail and leather. Drave spun around to look behind him, and the colour drained from his face.

‘Well, unless you count Bess,’ Frey added, and the golem burst from the darkness with a metallic roar.

Drave’s reactions saved him. The armour of the Century Knights was legendarily light and strong, made using secret techniques in the Archduke’s own forges, and it slowed him not at all as he flung himself aside to avoid Bess’s crushing punch. He hit the ground in a roll and came up with both revolvers blazing. Bess flinched and recoiled as the bullets ricocheted from her armour and punched through her leather skin, but the assault did nothing more than enrage her. She bellowed and swept another punch at Drave, who jumped backwards to avoid it.

As soon as the Knight was distracted, the crew scattered. Frey dived for the guns, came up with Malvery’s shotgun in his hands and squeezed the trigger. As he did so, he realised he’d forgotten to prime it first. He hoped the doctor had been careless enough to keep a round in the chamber.

He had. Drave saw the danger, raised his pistol, and was a split second from firing when Frey hit him full in the chest. The impact blasted him off his feet. He landed hard on the cargo ramp and rolled helplessly down it and off the end.

Silo lunged across the hold and raised the lever to close the cargo ramp. Bess started to run down it, chasing the fallen Knight, but Crake shouted after her. She stopped, somewhat reluctantly, and settled for guarding the closing gap. Drave was already trying to pick himself up off the ground. He was groggy but otherwise unharmed, saved by his chestplate.

Frey had bolted for the stairs that led up to the main passageway before the cargo ramp had even closed. He sprinted into the cockpit, past Jez, who was just opening the door to her quarters.

‘Was that gunfire?’ she asked.

He leaped into his chair and punched in the ignition code, then boosted the aerium engines to full. The Ketty Jay gave a dolorous groan as its tanks filled and began to haul the craft skyward. He could hear gunfire outside over the sound of the prothane thrusters: Drave shooting uselessly at the hull. The dark aircraft that shared the landing pad sank from view as they lifted into the night sky.

‘Cap’n?’ Jez enquired, from the doorway of the cockpit. ‘Are we in trouble?’

‘Yes, Jez,’ he said. ‘We’re in trouble.’

Then he hit the thrusters and the Ketty Jay thundered, tearing away across the docks and racing out to sea.