The Ace of Skulls

Twenty-Nine

By the time Frey and Silo reached the courtyard, they could hear the engines on the wind. The others were hurrying out of the house, bundled up in coats and carrying shotguns and pistols. Samandra was yelling at the crew, pointing them this way and that. Snow flurried round the hamlet, obscuring their vision and blowing in their eyes.

‘Frey!’ she cried as he arrived. ‘You’re with me! Come on!’

‘Come on where?’ Frey called back.

‘Landing pad!’

Frey wasn’t used to taking orders from anyone. Even in a crisis, he was roused to indignity. ‘Now hold your arse for a second, Bree, this is my crew!’

Bree took a breath to swear at him, then decided diplomacy would be quicker. ‘I need to get to that landing pad and get the Wrath airborne,’ she explained. ‘Rest of us need to dig in here ready for when they come at us. I could do with another pair of hands on board, and Grudge is better here with that cannon of his. Now you want to stay or come?’

‘What about the Ketty Jay and the Firecrow? Bess is still locked up in the hold!’

‘You ain’t gonna make it to them in time!’ she said.

She was right. Their best chance lay in getting the heavily armoured Wrath off the ground. The Ketty Jay and the Firecrow were on the other side of a forested rise, through heavy snow. But the road between here and the landing pad was dangerously exposed, and he wondered if they should scatter off into the trees instead of staying in the hamlet. That would leave the bridge undefended, though, and Crake and the others were in there, and-

‘Now, Frey!’ Samandra snapped.

The crew were looking at him expectantly. He made a decision. Any was better than none.

‘We need to get to the landing pad and get the Wrath airborne,’ he said with authority. ‘Rest of you need to dig in here ready for when they come at us.’

Bree rolled her eyes, grabbed his arm and pulled him away towards the road. He heard Silo barking orders behind him, dividing up the crew into defensive positions.

Three Imperators. Three aircraft, and who knew how many guns and men? Frey and his crew knew something they shouldn’t, and the Awakeners were going to make damned sure they didn’t live to tell about it.

Frey and Samandra raced out of the hamlet, boots crunching in the snow. The road cut through the colourless landscape, winding between steep banks. On their left was a forest of bare trees; to their right, the trees had been cleared for meadows.

Frey caught sight of something out there in the whirling whiteness. A bulky grey shadow sinking towards the meadows. A troop transport, by the shape of it, probably packed with mercs or Sentinels or both.

‘Malvery!’ he yelled over the whine and roar of thrusters. ‘They’re coming at you from the south! Tell Silo!’

‘Right-o,’ said Malvery, and he sounded so matter-of-fact that Frey felt himself heartened. He believed in his crew, in their competence and spirit. Silo was a good leader; he’d left them in capable hands. No matter what the odds, they could win out. They always had a chance. He had to believe that.

‘Frey! Heads up!’ Samandra came to a halt, pointing at the sky. Ahead of them, coming from the direction of the landing pad, another craft was taking shape. It pushed out of the gloom, coming in low and steady. Frey stopped next to Samandra, peering at it, unsure of what sort of danger it represented. Was it, too, coming in to put down troops?

A gust of wind pushed the snow aside, and he saw it. His heart sank. It hung in the sky like some enormous bird of prey. A Besterfield Predator. A military grade attack craft. And they were right in its path.

He felt Samandra slam into him just as the Predator’s rotary cannons opened up. They crashed into a snowdrift and a hail of bullets tore past them, throwing up a long cloud of powder. The Predator soared overhead, following the road towards the hamlet.

Frey found himself on his back on the bank, with Samandra lying on top of him, her face inches from hers. Even amid everything, the softness and warmth of her stirred him. He was inordinately pleased to find that he was still capable.

‘Well, hello,’ he said.

‘In your dreams, pirate,’ she said, and shoved herself off him and back to her feet.

‘Hey! Crake’s a pirate too, you know,’ he said, as he pulled himself free of the drift.

He looked about, but he could barely see a thing for the snow-haze. He wasn’t even certain which direction the landing pad was now. He’d got turned around. It was far too easy to get lost when everything was white.

‘Which way’s the-?’

She held out a hand to shut him up. The rotary cannons had started up again. They heard smashing glass and falling slates as the gunship fired on the hamlet. The sound sucked the humour out of him.

Voices came to them, snatches of barked orders. Soldiers or Sentinels, coming from the other direction. He caught a glimpse of grey figures slipping down the bank. The Awakeners had reached the road. Frey and Samandra had delayed too long; they were cut off from the landing pad.

Samandra grabbed him and thumbed at the north bank. They scrambled up it and into the naked forest, before the army of men coming down the other bank could catch sight of them and shoot them dead.

Silo ran through the kitchen with his head down. The window exploded inward; the counter-top was splintered and scored; the stove popped and clanged as it was riddled with holes. He skidded into cover in a doorway and crashed into Malvery, who had his hands over his head.

‘This is pretty bloody unsporting behaviour!’ Malvery yelled over the noise of the rotary cannons. ‘What happened to picking on someone your own size?’

Gallows humour was lost on Silo. Survival was a serious business to a Murthian. He searched the room, looking for better cover, angles of fire, anything that might help them. Years of living as a resistance fighter in Samarla had given him a talent for getting out of desperate situations, and this one was right up there with the best of them.

‘There’s another one!’ Ashua cried, who was crouched by a window on the far side of the house, visible through the open doorway. ‘They’ve got two gunships!’

Two of ’em. Mother. They gonna shred us from both sides.

‘Soldiers coming in over the meadows!’ Jez called.

Silo listened as the first aircraft swung away and began firing on another building. It was hovering over the courtyard, pounding the houses that surrounded it. Silo guessed the pilot didn’t know exactly where they were, so they were cutting up the whole place in the hope of flushing them out.

He hurried through the doorway to the living room and hunkered down next to Jez. She and Ashua were at neighbouring windows overlooking the south slope, where the meadows ran out and the land tipped down to meet the back of the buildings. Off to the right was the hamlet’s generator, attached by a cluster of pipes to a large cylindrical fuel tank.

Grey figures were hurrying across the meadows, carrying rifles. Dozens of them.

‘Soon as they’re close enough, let fly,’ he said.

‘I can go out there,’ said Jez. She gave him a disturbingly hungry look and drew her lips back over her teeth. ‘I can get among them.’

He felt a wave of repulsion at the feral leer on her face. ‘Keep your post, Jez. Need you here.’

She stared at him for a long moment, then turned back to the window. It was a relief to have her eyes off him. No man or woman could put the scare on Silo, but Jez was different. She got you in the place where dreams and nightmares lived. Courage didn’t mean a thing there.

‘Soldiers headin’ down the road to us!’ Malvery called, his hand on his ear where the earcuff was affixed.

Damn it. Too many sides to defend. Too many enemies. If the Awakeners overran the courtyard there would be no way out, no possibility of retreating into the trees to the north. He had to block them off.

‘Doc!’ he called, as he headed for the stairs. Malvery ran across the room and joined him. ‘You two, don’t move!’ he shouted at Ashua and Jez as he left. ‘We gotta hold the line!’

Harkins, Pelaru and Colden Grudge were strung out in positions along the south side of the hamlet, hidden among the buildings, waiting for the soldiers. It was the best he could do given the time that he had. They were already spread thin; now they’d have to spread themselves thinner.

He pushed open the door to the house and peered out. The gunship’s cannons were loud enough to make him flinch. Bullets destroyed the flimsy walls of a shed; the roof collapsed with a crash. Overhead, above the gunship, an identical craft hove into view. Two Predators together, and the crew like mice hiding from cats. The second gunship let loose on the house where Kyne’s device had been kept. The living room windows smashed in; stone and snow turned to powder beneath the assault.

Malvery jostled up to him and raised his shotgun, aiming at the gunship. Silo grabbed the barrel to stop him.

‘Can’t hurt ’em like that,’ he said. ‘It’d just bring ’em down on us.’

Malvery huffed in frustration. ‘Where’s Grudge and that damn great cannon of his?’

Silo would have liked an answer to that himself. But Grudge was smart. No sense giving away his position until he was sure he wouldn’t be massacred in retaliation.

Better not wait too long, though, Silo thought, and he slipped out of the door. Or there ain’t gonna be anywhere left to hide.

Just when Crake thought things couldn’t get any worse, the lights went out.

‘Well, that’s exactly what I needed,’ said Plome in a tiny voice.

Crake let his eyes adjust to the gloom. They were in a short corridor with three doorways leading off it. A large window at the end faced out across the chasm toward the hamlet. The cloud and snow was so thick that it was almost possible to forget it was still afternoon. The warmth of electric lamps was replaced by the grim cold glow from outside, and shadows clung thick to the corners.

The house was silent, but he could hear engines in the distance, and the chatter of machine guns, and the sound of collapsing walls. There were still a few lights on over the far side of the chasm. Perhaps the link between the generator in the hamlet and the mansion had been severed, some cable inadvertently cut amidst the wanton destruction. He wanted to believe that. Better than thinking the Imperators had done it on purpose.

He’d taken the earcuff from his ear. He needed all his concentration for the task ahead, and he couldn’t do it if he was worrying about the others. About Samandra. She was the most capable person he knew, a woman for whom no challenge seemed too much, a character larger than life who could never be overcome. But he feared for her anyway.

‘Maybe we should go back to the room,’ Plome whispered. He’d been loath to leave the chamber they’d rigged up as a trap, and was looking for any excuse to return there. Like most daemonists, he felt powerless outside his sanctum.

Kyne had his head tipped back and was looking up at the ceiling. ‘We can’t trap three of them,’ he said. ‘We need to deal with two first.’

‘Deal with?’

Kyne drew his large-bore pistol and fixed Plome with those green, faintly glowing eyes. ‘Kill,’ he said.

Plome swallowed and nodded. Clad head to toe in close-fitting brass armour, the Century Knight seemed barely human, a faceless force incapable of weakness. Crake hoped that was the case, anyway. He’d spent a few days working with Kyne on their preparations, and knew him to be formidably intelligent, but he’d still learned nothing of the true character of the man beneath the metal. Like many of the Archduke’s elite, Kyne presented a public façade that was hard to penetrate.

The Century Knight was looking up at the ceiling again. ‘They’re staying together,’ he said. ‘I’d hoped to split them up, take them one at a time. But maybe it’s better this way.’

There was a long creak from overhead. A foot on the floorboards. Crake felt something cold pass down his spine.

‘I only hear one,’ said Plome hopefully.

‘But I see three,’ said Kyne. ‘Follow me.’ He moved up the corridor, past the gaping Chancellor.

‘He can see them? Through the damned ceiling?’ Plome hissed at Crake.

Crake didn’t know. Hard to tell how much of Kyne was real and how much was show. Was it possible that Kyne had thralled the eyepieces of his mask to allow him to see through solid objects? Was it their daemonic auras that he saw? The heat of their bodies? If so, his mastery of the Art must be breathtaking. But it might just as easily be some trickery that he was passing off as a miracle.

Following Kyne’s lead, they made their way through the mansion. It was difficult to be stealthy with their clumsy backpacks, but there were rugs to muffle their footfalls. All Crake’s senses were on edge. Tuned to the daemonic as he was, he felt keenly the presence of the Imperators, somewhere out of sight. The paranoia and unease was expected, but it didn’t make the shadows any less threatening.

His mouth was full of the thin acid taste of fear. Three Imperators. Surely, to tackle them was suicide? He remembered the time he’d faced one in the corridors of a downed Awakener freighter, the way he’d cringed and puled in abject terror. He couldn’t face that again. Kyne said they were capable of killing a man with their power, and Crake believed it.

But he didn’t want to die. Not now he had so much to live for.

The man that first set foot on the Ketty Jay just over two and a half years ago had been a wretch. Hunted, riddled with guilt, he’d turned his back on the Art and sought only escape. How things had changed since. He’d had a hand in some of the most important events in the history of the Coalition. He’d seen things he hadn’t known existed. He’d learned more of the Art through necessity and adventure than he’d ever learned from books.

And he’d met a woman he’d never have expected to love, or to love him back. A brash, vulgar, wonderful woman, who made him feel for the first time that there was something in the world more interesting and exciting than daemonism.

That was why he’d survive today. Three Imperators? He’d just have to beat them. Because he was damned if he’d die now, just when things were getting good.

Kyne held up a hand, bringing them to a halt. They were in a parlour furnished with low settees, a harpsichord, a card table and a Castles board. To their right was a stone fireplace. A fire burned low in the grate, throwing shadow shapes into the room. There were two doors other than the one they’d entered by. Both were open, showing dark rooms beyond.

‘Here,’ said Kyne. He motioned for them to hide.

The room was large and cluttered enough to provide ample opportunity for concealment. Plome scurried off behind the harpsichord. Kyne took position behind one of the doors — presumably the one he expected the Imperators to come through. Crake moved behind a large settee and knelt down on one knee. Easier to get up quickly with the heavy pack on his pack.

‘As soon as they’re in the room,’ Kyne whispered. ‘Hit them with everything you’ve got.’ The strange harmonics surrounding his voice made it sound like it was coming from inside Crake’s head. ‘Start with the screamers. Dampers right after. I’ll take care of two of them. The last one we catch with the harmonic arc generators.’

I’ll take care of two of them. How could he be so confident? What did any of them know about the Imperators, really?

Well, they fell down if you tore their heads off. He’d seen that. So maybe a man like Kyne could take care of two of them. Maybe that cannon of his was thralled with something spectacular.

Maybe.

Silence fell, but for the faint sounds of combat that floated to them across the chasm, the low whistle of the mountain winds and the grizzling fire. Now they were no longer moving, the tension of the situation began to pile up inside them. Crake peered round the edge of the settee, into the shadowed room beyond the doorway. Dread was coming for them, dread greater that the mind could endure. He stared into the dark, convinced with the certainty of a frightened child that monsters lurked there.

A shadow moved. He froze. A product of his tormented imagination? He strained his eyes to see.

A burning log snapped like a gunshot in the grate. Crake jumped, but not as hard as Plome. The politician lurched halfway to his feet in fright. His arm wheeled as his backpack threatened to overbalance him. He teetered, then went down to his knees in an effort to correct himself. The weight of the pack tipped him forward, and he threw his hands out to stop himself bashing into the harpsichord. It moved as he touched it, its feet screeching across the parquet floor, and every string in its body resounded with a cacophonous din.

The clashing and chiming faded into an appalled and horrified silence. Nobody dared to move or breathe. Plome’s eyes were as round as peeled eggs.

The shadows on the other side of the doorway seemed to thicken like treacle.

And then the terror came.

It bore down on Crake with almost physical force, a freezing weight heavy on his shoulders. Panic exploded in his breast. His mouth was dry, ears singing, heart thumping wildly. The darkness in the room had become the harbour of a thousand fears, but none greater than what waited beyond the doorway. There he sensed evil, so dense it dripped from the air.

He had to get away. It was a desperate need, the only thing in his mind: to run from that unseen malevolence. But he couldn’t move. His muscles had gone weak. The harpsichord crashed again and he saw Plome flailing. The Chancellor tried to get to his feet, failed, and finally curled into an awkward ball, his pack like a protective shell. Even with all his thralled equipment, Kyne wasn’t immune. The Century Knight staggered away from the doorway, clutching himself, and fell against the wall.

No help. No hope. No one to save him.

Crake went down on his hands and knees, nails clawing along the parquet floor. His fingers tangled in one of the many wires and cables that surrounded him, and something metal jerked loose from his belt and clattered loudly to the floor. He cringed from the noise. Please-pleaseplease don’t let them notice me.

They didn’t even need to be in the room. They just needed to know where their targets were. How could you fight something like that? How could you even try?

The fear was intensifying. His chest tightened, heart slamming against his ribs. It was difficult to draw breath.

They can kill you just by thinking about it.

His vision blurred with tears. He looked down between his hands and saw the object that had fallen from his belt. A metal sphere, attached by wires to a battery on his belt.

Damper sphere.

He heard the words in his head, but they didn’t mean anything. He fell over on to his side. He couldn’t support himself any more. Through the gap beneath the settee, he could see across the firelit room to the doorway. Something moved beyond it, a dark figure, sliding through the shadow.

Damper sphere.

And now the words connected through the fog in his mind, and found meaning. The damper sphere. It could stop the fear. It could take this unbearable feeling away.

With a monumental effort, he turned his head. His cheek was pressed to the floor. The damper sphere lay half a metre away from him. A small round button protruded from it. He tried to raise his arm and couldn’t. There was no strength in him. His salvation lay right there and he couldn’t reach it.

They’re coming they’re coming they’re coming.

He wanted to be sick. He wanted to wet himself. Tears dripped from his eyes. His body shook and his bones felt liquid. His heart was slamming so hard and so fast that each beat became agony.

Reach, he told himself. Reach for it.

His vision was dimming, sparkles crowding in at the edges. He couldn’t move. So cruel to die now, when he was so happy, when he had-

Samandra.

And he saw her, like a flashpan had gone off in his mind. Samandra, a vivacious, beautiful explosion of life. Samandra.

He gritted his teeth, body shuddering, lips a trembling snarl. He wouldn’t give her up. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t!

With a surge that was half terror and half fury, he brought his hand up and slapped it down on the button of the damper sphere.

The effect was immediate. The damper sphere vibrated and throbbed, throwing out a low buzzing hum, a mix of sonics that surrounded them in a null-field. The Imperator’s influence was flung off him, the weight whipped away from his body. He gasped in a breath as the band round his chest loosened.

But though the power of the Imperators was lifted from him, genuine fear and fright remained. He had seconds to act before the damper ran out. Panicking, he scrabbled at his belt, found the screamer, hit it. A shriek cut through the air: wild sonics lashed the area. From the room beyond, he heard the Imperators howl, their voices lifting as one in a cold animal screech.

The sound was too much for him in his present state. All thought of defeating the enemy was gone; he just wanted to escape them. Without even looking at his companions, he blundered to his feet and ran, and ran, and ran.