He walked towards the blazing mass of pipes and rent metal that was all that was left of the hamlet’s generator. He stood so close that the heat on his skin became hard to bear, and his throat began to burn with the fumes. He welcomed the pain and the poison.
Jez was gone. The raw loss of that was almost too much to bear. This new tragedy was different to that of Trinica: more fundamental, closer to home. It wasn’t only that Jez would never speak, laugh, move again – although that in itself was awful enough. It was the knowledge that something irreplaceable had been taken out of his world. Members of his crew had left and come back before, but there would be no coming back this time. The life he’d come to love had been forever altered.
He let out a trembling breath. Tears wanted to come, welling up from the void in his chest. He wouldn’t let them. He stared into the fire and let the stinging of the fumes take the sting from his sorrow.
Jez. Damn it, why’d you do it?
Ashua had told him how Jez had gone alone into the fray, and how Pelaru had tried to stop her. She’d saved their lives more than once in the past that way, but never against such a number. He wondered, if he’d been there, if things would have been different. He wondered if he would have been able to stop her.
He felt like he’d abandoned her. He could have headed back to the hamlet when he found the road blocked off by Awakeners; instead he’d headed for the Ketty Jay. It seemed to make sense, but in doing so he’d left his crew to bear the brunt of the battle. And he’d taken too long, far too long to get back to them.
Don’t. You’re not responsible. You didn’t even want to come here, remember?
But whatever he told himself, it was small solace. Jez was gone. Nothing would be the same.
He heard boots in the snow. They stopped some way behind him, held back by the heat. ‘Frey,’ said Samandra. ‘We gotta talk.’
‘Not now,’ he said.
‘Now is exactly when we gotta talk. This won’t wait.’
He didn’t have the energy to resist. He turned and walked past her, without meeting her eye, heading back to the Ketty Jay. Samandra sniffed, wiped her nose with the back of her hand, and followed after.
‘Tomorrow?’ Frey’s voice was flat and dead.
Kyne stood in the corner of the mess, his mask expressionless, without mercy, offering no space for Frey’s desolation. ‘Tomorrow. Maybe dawn, maybe dusk. Even if we set off now, we won’t reach Thesk till past nightfall.’
‘So go,’ said Frey. ‘You got what you wanted. You got your proof.’
‘Not exactly, Cap’n,’ said Crake. Anguish had made his face pale and puffy. Neither wanted to make decisions now, but Crake was slogging on anyway. ‘The Imperator said there’d be an attack on Thesk tomorrow. He said nothing about the Azryx device.’
‘But you got the readings, right? The readings we need to exorcise Trinica?’
Crake hesitated. ‘Well, yes we did. But—’
‘Then why should I care?’
Crake exchanged a glance with Samandra, who was sitting next to him at the table opposite Frey. Frey felt a bitter worm of resentment turn in his stomach. Look at them, the two of them, united. They had each other: who did he have?
‘What we got ain’t enough,’ said Samandra. ‘If they attack tomorrow, the whole Coalition fleet will pile in. That’s what they want. They’ll take out all our forces in one sweep.’
‘Not if you warn them about the Azryx device.’
‘We ain’t seen any Azryx device.’
‘We’ve seen it!’ Frey shouted suddenly, banging his fist on the table. ‘You were there in the Azryx city and you bloody well know what it can do! If the Archduke’s too damn stupid to listen then he’s welcome to kiss my arse and die with the rest of his pompous, shit-eating mob!’ He lowered his voice to an angry snarl. ‘You wanted us to give you proof? Well, we tried. And Jez is dead because of it.’
The room was silenced. Ashua scratched the back of her neck awkwardly. Silo showed nothing, as ever. Plome steepled his fingers and stared at them. The rest were elsewhere: Malvery was seeing to Harkins in the infirmary, where Jez’s body also lay. Frey felt it there like a weight on his aircraft, a dense presence impossible to ignore.
‘That’s a real constructive attitude you got,’ Samandra said, narrowing her eyes in sarcasm.
‘Screw you,’ said Frey. ‘Wonder how constructive you’d feel if it were Grudge that got burnt to a cinder?’
‘Quit your damn sulking! This is bigger than you!’ she cried.
‘Nothing’s bigger than me!’ he shouted back. ‘Me is all I’ve got!’ Samandra opened her mouth to reply, but Crake put his hand on her wrist to stop her, and she subsided.
‘Yeah, you’re not so diplomatic, are you?’ Frey sneered. He flicked a finger at Crake. ‘Let him try.’
Crake seemed shocked by his tone. He didn’t deserve to be treated like an enemy, but Frey wanted to lash out.
‘Cap’n,’ said Crake carefully. ‘This is the future of our country we’re talking about. Our entire way of life.’
‘Last I heard, the Coalition had us all down as traitors. Change of government might be to our advantage, don’t you think?’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Don’t I? You sure?’
‘It’s the only way to clear your names,’ said Kyne. ‘If you don’t care about your own, think of your crew. You want to be hunted the rest of your days?’
Frey sat back and crossed his arms. It was a pitiful threat as far as he was concerned. ‘By who? There won’t be a Coalition if the Archduke sends his fleet up tomorrow.’
‘All we’re asking is that you come back to Thesk and tell the Archduke and commanders what you saw. Second-hand information won’t be enough.’
‘Wait, our word wasn’t good enough before, but now it is?’ Ashua said.
‘Now we have no other choice,’ said Kyne. ‘And time has run out. Bree and Grudge will back you up as best they can. The generals might listen then.’
Frey began ticking points off his fingers. ‘I killed the Archduke’s son, or near enough as makes no difference. I came bloody close to killing Kedmund Drave. I ruined the Mentenforth Institute, the Archduke’s private collection, and destroyed spit knows how many priceless relics. I reckon I’m not far off when I say the Archduke would love to see me and my crew dead.’ He leaned forward, and anger seeped back into his voice. ‘And you want me to go back there and surrender? To throw myself on their damned mercy? Maybe get us all hung? For what? On the off chance that the most powerful men in the country deign to climb down out of their arses long enough to hear me out?’
‘If you’re telling the truth, the conviction against you and your crew will likely be quashed.’
Frey laughed. ‘Likely? That’s quite a promise.’
‘It’s not my decision. I can’t say what the Archduke will do.’
‘Then the Archduke can rot.’
‘Frey, you’ll be comin’ in of your own accord, with three Century Knights vouchin’ for your good character,’ said Samandra. ‘Such as it is, anyway. They ain’t gonna string you up.’
Frey was unconvinced, and it showed.
‘We could make you, if we wanted,’ said Kyne.
‘You could try,’ Frey replied darkly.
Crake leaned back in his chair and stared at Kyne steadily. ‘Use that voice of yours, Kyne, and I’ll know it,’ he said. ‘This is his choice.’
Frey was faintly surprised by that. He hadn’t expected Crake to stand up for him in this matter. But then, Crake had always suffered from an unhealthy sense of fair play.
‘No one’s makin’ anyone do anything,’ said Bree, with a glance at her companion. ‘Look, Frey. We all want the same thing here. We all want to stop the Awakeners, right?’
Frey looked around the room. He felt hunted. Most of the room was against him, it seemed. Everyone pushing him to do what was right, to put the good of the country over his own needs. How had it come to this? He
’d resented the Coalition for most of his life; now he was supposed to swallow his pride and go crawling to them?
‘We had a deal,’ said Frey. ‘I help you get the Imperators. You give me what I need to help Trinica. I kept my part of the bargain. Now you want to change the deal?’ His gaze fell stonily on Crake. ‘I need to get to her. And I need your help to get the daemon out of her. You gonna leave me to do it on my own?’
Crake swallowed. He let the daemonist squirm for a moment. ‘Cap’n—’ Crake said, but Frey held up his hand. He didn’t want to hear whatever mealy-mouthed bullshit Crake had in store to make himself feel better about betrayal.
‘Do any of you understand?’ he said, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. ‘The woman I—’ He lost the word; it came out as a breath. He screwed his face into a grimace, determined to express the depth of what he felt. ‘The woman I love is out there somewhere. Might be she’s dead and something’s walking round in her skin. Might be they’ve cut out her tongue by now.’ He felt frustrated tears prick at his eyes. They stood there, but didn’t fall. ‘Might be she’s trapped in there with it, trapped in some . . . some torment I can’t even begin to imagi—’ His voice failed him again. He took a hard breath, let it hiss out through his teeth. ‘Do any of you get that?’
There was silence. They knew better than to pretend they did.
‘Cap’n,’ said Silo at last, his deep voice calm. ‘Whole Awakener fleet gonna be at Thesk tomorrow. Trinica gonna be with ’em, ain’t she? Strikes me that whatever way you wanna go, it’s all the same direction.’
Frey shut his eyes, trying to keep a lid on the emotions boiling up inside him. He hadn’t considered that. He wasn’t thinking straight.
‘We need to do this, Frey,’ said Crake. ‘The whole civil war might rest on what we do right here and right now. If we don’t give it our absolute best shot, we might be handing Vardia to the daemons tomorrow. We have to.’
Frey barely heard him. Why couldn’t they all just bloody well leave him alone?
‘You got a plan for how you’re gonna get to her?’ said Samandra, more gently than before.
Frey opened his eyes and looked up. ‘What?’
‘Y’know,’ she said. ‘How you’re gonna get past the Awakeners, and then past her crew. How you’re gonna subdue her or whatever. And then how you’re gonna get her back to a sanctum where Grayther can do his stuff?’ She turned to Crake. ‘If it works, I mean. You didn’t seem too confident about it before.’
Grayther didn’t say anything, but his face said enough.
‘No,’ said Frey. All the anger had drained from him and now he was weary, so very weary. ‘I thought I could lure her out, maybe . . .’
He trailed off lamely. Lure her? She probably didn’t even know him any more. Yes, Crake might cobble together some daemonic device so he could tackle her, but his chances of even getting close were appallingly slender. He had no idea how to subdue her, for she wouldn’t come willingly, and he could never smuggle her out past her crew. His only chance was getting her alone, and he couldn’t see any way that could be done. The old Trinica he knew how to manipulate; but there was no telling what now walked in her place.
There was pity in Crake’s eyes, and that was what crushed him. He saw his delusion mirrored on his friend’s face. Suddenly it all seemed so absurd, so pointless, so pathetic. Love had made him wretched and desperate. But it was time to face the truth.
Trinica was gone, or beyond his reach. Jez was a blackened corpse in the infirmary. These things were irretrievable. And here he was among all these people, and all of them wanted something from him, leadership or sacrifice, decisions too important to delay. He felt crowded, panicked, suffocated . . . but most of all, he felt bone tired. And with that tiredness came a kind of bitter peace, an acceptance that turned the storms inside him to calm: the bleak cold calm of a stony desert.
Let the world do with him as it would. He didn’t care.
He stood up slowly. There was a great weakness on him. His chair scraped against the floor as he pushed it back.
‘Let’s go to Thesk,’ he said, and walked over to the ladder that would take him up and out of the mess.
‘Cap’n,’ said Crake. ‘What are we going to do when we get there?’
Frey paused with one hand on a rung. He didn’t look back. ‘We’re going to surrender,’ he said.
Ashua was first out of the mess after Frey. She hurried down into the hold, her boots echoing in the silence, and had her hand on the lever of the cargo ramp before sense caught up with her.
What are you gonna do, Ashua? Where are you gonna go?
Well, there was the mansion. She wouldn’t freeze to death, at least, although it’d be cold with the generator out. The staff had aircraft to put them in touch with civilisation. No doubt they’d be flying out as soon as the blizzard cleared, to summon help. Maybe she could hitch a ride. Maybe she could steal one.
And go where?
She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut against the fear. She wanted to run. She wanted to run so badly. To remain on the Ketty Jay meant going to Thesk, to seek forgiveness for something she hadn’t even done. Presenting herself for the judgement of the rich and powerful so they could decide whether she was worthy to continue living.
This wasn’t her way. Damn it, this wasn’t even the Cap’n’s way. If Frey hadn’t been so broken down he’d have told them where to stick their absolution. Since when did they bow to anyone? Wasn’t the whole point of being a freebooter to be free?
But Crake, oh, Crake with his bloody trust in authority. And Malvery too, and Harkins. She knew what they would have said, if they’d been there. The idiocy of patriotism enraged her. She had to get out.
Now her heart was fluttering, and she trembled. She couldn’t breathe easily. Panic had her by the throat. She gritted her teeth and fought to pull herself back from the brink.
Easy, she said to herself. What’s wrong with you?
But she knew what was wrong. She’d seen it before in the slums. After a kid made his first kill, or after someone had walked out of a fight unscathed that left everyone else dead. She was shaken up badly. The adrenaline of the battle had drained away, and now the shock was setting in.
She took her hand away from the lever. There were no solutions out there. Just white emptiness and cold.
Ocken! she thought suddenly. Bargo Ocken! Than man owes you enough to set you up for a long time!
The thought of him drove her to her sleeping-nook, where she’d hidden the communication device under her blankets, between the pipes. She let the fabric curtain fall behind her. Once closed in, she felt a little safer. She dug out the device and turned it over in her hands. A small brass cube, with a button on one face and a small glass light on another.
Get off this craft right now. Get in touch with Ocken. Take your payoff.
An ascending hum sounded from all around her, making the pipes vibrate. The engines were warming. The Cap’n was preparing for take-off.
Beyond the curtain of her nook, she heard footsteps as several people made their way down into the hold. Voices came to her, getting louder as they neared the bottom of the metal stairs.
‘What about you? Are you coming with us?’ said Crake.
‘No, no, I don’t think so.’ She recognised the high, nervous tones of the politician, Plome. ‘Can’t see what help I’d be, to be honest. I shall stay here with the staff and see to things. They’re not happy about being locked up like that. And someone needs to explain to the Tarlocks what happened to their property. Not a job I relish, I tell you that!’
Bullshit, thought Ashua, who distrusted politicians of any kind. You just don’t want to be in Thesk when the fleet arrives tomorrow. Well, you might be a weasel, but you’ve got some sense at least.
She should go. Nothing was stopping her. Nothing but herself.
Ashua thought of herself as a loner, but as far back as she could remember, she’d never been alone. A child couldn’t survive
on the streets of Rabban without help. Her earliest memories were peopled by benefactors and guardians. Adults who took pity on her, older children who fed and protected her, kids her own age who provided strength in numbers. Later there was Maddeus, father figure and employer both. Though she prowled the streets, tough as an alley-cat, she always had a home to go back to after he took her in.
And even when Maddeus sent her away, she had Shasiith, a city full of contacts and acquaintances to support her. When Shasiith had gone bad, when Jakeley Screed came after her and the Sammies were out for her blood, she’d jumped on board the Ketty Jay and found her support there.
But now there was nowhere left to go. And she found that she didn’t want to leave anyway.
Her life had been filled with companions of necessity, her friendships more like alliances, easily broken when the need arose. Even Maddeus, distant intellectual Maddeus, had put her aside when it suited him. But in her time on the Ketty Jay she’d found people she liked and, more importantly, whom she trusted: Malvery, Crake, even the Cap’n when he wasn’t being an arsewit. She respected Silo and was even sort of fond of Harkins. And Bess, well . . . she couldn’t deny a certain affection for the golem, too. She’d always secretly wanted a pet.
She knew them now, and she’d seen how they were with one another. For all their bickering, they looked after each other, and the Cap’n looked after them. And she was part of that now. Maybe not as much as the others, but still. They wouldn’t drop her if things got tough. If she needed help, they’d give it. She believed that, and it touched her. She’d never had that in her life before.
Walking out now felt like a betrayal. She could face the Cap’n, maybe, but not Crake and certainly not Malvery. She’d have to slip away, and would hurt them worse by doing so.
She didn’t want to do that. But she didn’t want to die, either. The war was coming to Thesk, and they were heading right to its heart. Even if they weren’t treated as traitors, they’d be caught up in the fight. And this one would make the battle she’d just been through seem like a street-corner spat between children.
But it was that, or be alone.
The Ace of Skulls Page 40