The Ace of Skulls totkj-4

by Chris Wooding

  Pinn whooped behind her. She shook her head and blew out a breath.

  Unable to see the main gate, she cut back toward the road. It led to a hub in the centre of the camp where she could get her bearings. There was pandemonium all around her. Occasional bullets came their way, but she ignored them. Small arms wouldn’t do them any harm. She had to get out of the camp before news of the escape reached the gate. If the guards shut it, they’d be trapped. Outrunning the messengers was her priority.

  Something moved at the edge of the viewing slit, a quick blur that drew her eye. She caught a glimpse of a cassocked figure racing towards her. Suddenly it leaped through the air. There was an impact on the roof of the Overlander, making her duck. Pelaru. Rot and damn, it was the half-Mane. He’d cut across the camp and caught up with them. Now he was clinging to them, riding on top.

  Well, let him, she thought. She had other things to worry about.

  She saw the hub ahead, a wide dirt patch surrounded by buildings both permanent and temporary. Roads rayed out in all directions towards the walls and the doleful mangroves beyond. Awakeners scattered as she approached. She spotted an Overlander coming in from another direction, racing to cut her off.

  No, you don’t, you son of a bitch, she thought, and pressed down on the accelerator.

  The two vehicles reached the hub at the same time, swung together, and met wheel-to-wheel with a heavy crash that almost jarred Ashua out of her seat. Malvery swore loudly behind her.

  ‘Will you keep this bloody thing still for two seconds?’ he yelled, hauling Jez up onto the bench.

  ‘Doing my best, Doc!’ Ashua called back, then swung the wheel and sideswiped the other Overlander, sending Malvery tumbling. Her opponent rebounded away from her, taking out a floodlight. A pair of Awakeners dived out of the way as it roared by, sending up fins of mud as it passed.

  ‘Try harder!’ Malvery called up from the back, exasperated.

  Ashua kept an eye on her opponent. Knocking him away gave her the room she needed to aim them towards the road that would lead them out. She could see the gate some way away, a gap in the wall ahead of them. How long would it take the guards to notice the armoured vehicle roaring towards them, she wondered. Would their first instinct be to close the gate, or to leave it open? Would they think they were preventing an escape, or slowing an urgent errand, risking the wrath of their superiors?

  The other Overlander had regained control and was coming back in again. It couldn’t outpace her, but it seemed determined to knock her off the road. She braced herself as she saw it looming to her right. The impact rocked them, but she wrestled with the wheel and kept them on course.

  The Overlanders left the hub and the road narrowed around them, lined on either side with buildings and tents and floodlight poles. There wasn’t much room any more: the two racing vehicles took up the whole road.

  Ashua slammed into her opponent, but she didn’t have the space to deliver more than a nudge. The engine bellowed in her ears. Ahead of them, Awakeners were getting out of the way as best they could. The gate was still open.

  She heard a bumping up above. Pelaru. Next time she looked, the other Overlander had acquired a new passenger. The Thacian was on top of the other vehicle, clinging on grimly, his hair blown back against his skull. All his elegance and poise was gone now: he was a primal thing, animal, savage. He crawled along the back of the Overlander with inhuman dexterity, fighting through the wind towards the cockpit.

  Fascinated by the sight, Ashua was almost caught out when the other Overlander swung sharply towards her again. She met the swipe with one of her own, but hers was weaker and she was knocked away. She swung towards the edge of the road and bounced off the side of a building with a crash. Her head whipped to the side as she was flung; she almost lost the wheel. Driving more by instinct than conscious thought, she fought the Overlander’s skid and somehow came out of it still on the road, and still neck-and-neck with her opponent.

  Dazed but awash with adrenaline, she struggled to focus. She was close enough to the gate to see the guards running about. She looked across and saw that Pelaru had reached the front of the Overlander. The other driver seemed unaware that he was there. They realised pretty quickly when Pelaru dropped down onto the nose of the Overlander and glared in at them through the windglass.

  The driver panicked and jerked the wheel. The Overlander swung wildly away from Ashua, off the side of the road, carving a shallow arc through a stack of crates and a small mess tent. She saw the vehicle coming back towards her hard as the driver over-corrected, Pelaru still hanging on to the front. She hit the brakes and turned into it.

  The Overlander crossed the road in front of her, and she slammed into its rear corner, right on the sweet spot to force a fishtail. It swung right around, its back end skidding wildly, and smashed hard into the side of a building, facing the other way. Ashua raced past it. An instant later she heard a thump on the roof of the Overlander, and looked up.

  Pelaru. She couldn’t imagine the agility it must have taken to leap off one wildly spinning vehicle and land on the roof of another that was moving at speed. She shook her head. Manes. What a world.

  They were coming up on the gate now. The gate guards were swarming. She’d expected some resistance, but there was something odd about their behaviour. Their response to her approach was chaotic rather than coordinated. It took her a moment to realise they were shooting outwards, down the road, beyond the gate. And then she twigged.

  Silo. Silo was shooting at them from the cover of the swamp.

  She looked back at Frey and realised he was still wearing his earcuff. Silo also had one. Despite the interference from the daemonic machine, the Murthian must have picked up enough scraps of what was going on, and decided to weigh in.

  That’s it. Keep them busy. A few seconds is all we need.

  She saw one guard running for the gatehouse on the inside of the wall, where she presumed the gate controls to be. He went down, clutching his leg, chopped down by a shotgun shell. A second man ran past him: this one made it inside.

  Ashua put her foot to the floor. The way was clear now. It was a straight shot to the gates. The engine roared, drowning out all sound beyond the armoured shell of the Overlander.

  She saw cogs begin to turn on the inner wall. Pulleys strained. The gates started to roll shut.

  ‘Brace yourselves!’ she shouted. She turned to glare at Malvery over her shoulder. ‘I really bloody mean it this time!’

  Malvery had Jez as secure as he could make her by now. The others hung on to whatever they could with as much strength as they were able. Ashua spared a thought for Pelaru, up on the roof, but she couldn’t worry about him now. Besides, if they hit that gate at full speed, she wouldn’t need to worry about anything ever again.

  Come on, damn it! she urged the vehicle, willing it onward.

  Bullets pinged off the Overlander’s armour as some of the guards turned their attention to her. One hit the windglass, causing a spiderweb crack, making her flinch. The gap between the doors of the gate was narrowing by the second, closing in on her, and no matter how hard she pushed the Overlander it seemed like it couldn’t possibly be enough. She angled them towards the centre of the gap, heedless of anything else, concentrating only on that. They rushed towards it, the gates clanking in on either side, thick walls of steel like slow jaws.

  Here it comes! she thought with a sickening terror.

  And the Overlander roared through the gap, its tail striking sparks from the gate as it passed. Ashua hit the brakes, half to control the skid and half because they couldn’t leave Silo here. The gates crashed shut a few metres from their tail.

  ‘Whoo-hoo!’ Pinn yelled from the back, and slapped his thigh.

  Frey was up in an instant, pulling open the side door, calling out to his first mate. Ashua slumped back in her seat, heart thumping in her chest. Malvery blew out his moustaches in relief.

  ‘That was some driving,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘
That was some bloody driving.’

  Bullets came down on their roof from the guards up on the wall. Were they shooting at Pelaru? Was he still up there? She didn’t care; they couldn’t get to her. There was a commotion behind and Silo bundled in. Frey slammed the door behind him.

  ‘Reckon we might have outstayed our welcome, fellers,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘What say we get out of here?’

  She put her foot down and the Overlander tore away down the road, back towards the Ketty Jay.

  Twenty-Three

  A Little Discipline — The Returners — A Man Left Behind — Point Blank — Evade, Evade, Evade

  Harkins sat on the stairs of the Ketty Jay’s cargo hold, and watched Bess searching for her master. She’d taken to doing this whenever she was left unoccupied. She’d peer into corners, search behind crates and pipes. She’d adventure into the dark recesses behind the sanctum and come back again empty-handed. If she could have got into the rest of the craft, she’d have gone searching there, too. Mercifully, her size prevented her.

  Harkins wondered what she thought. Did she believe Crake was still on board, on the upper decks, ignoring her? Did she think anything at all? What a strange creature she was. Strange and misunderstood and treated rather badly, in his opinion. In that, they were the same.

  ‘You’re sad about Crake, aren’t you?’ he said. He raised one of the ear flaps of his pilot’s cap and scratched the side of his head to relieve an itch. ‘I’m sad, too, a bit. I mean, he didn’t take the piss quite as much as the others. And he was, well. . he’s a gentle sort. That’s got to count for something, right?’

  Bess briefly stopped her search, aware that he was speaking. She stared at him without any sign that she’d comprehended. Harkins sighed. He was beginning to wish he hadn’t volunteered to stay behind. They’d been gone an awfully long time, and Bess wasn’t much good as company. He doubted they missed him, though. He doubted they’d even noticed he wasn’t there.

  ‘You and me, Bess, we don’t get much respect, do we?’ he said. ‘I mean, who’d respect us, right? I’m a big chickenshit and you’re a walking pile of pots and pans with a mental condition.’

  Bess made a quizzical bubbling sound.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Harkins.

  Bess went back to her search. Harkins decided he couldn’t bear watching her any more. He needed to do something to get himself out of this maudlin mood. Moping around was no fun, and Bess was bringing him down.

  ‘Come on, Bess!’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘Enough of all that. We’ve got an important job to do here, you know!’

  Bess watched him curiously, her eyes distant glimmers in the dark behind her face-grille.

  ‘Well, the Cap’n told us to guard the Ketty Jay, right?’ he said. ‘We’re making a pretty poor fist of it, though. What you need,’ — he bonked her with his knuckles — ‘is a little discipline. Like this! March! March! March!’

  He went marching off across the hold, arms straight, skinny legs jerking. It felt unfamiliar and a little ridiculous at first, but it wasn’t long before his body remembered. Hundreds of hours on the parade ground as a young man had left an imprint on his muscles, and he found himself slipping easily back into the rhythm.

  ‘About. . face!’ he cried, and went marching back the other way.

  Usually he’d have been too wary of mockery to dare anything like this, even knowing that the rest of the crew were elsewhere. Fear of being caught, detected by some secret method he hadn’t yet thought of, would have kept him from it. But now he stormed up and down, throwing his limbs about, and it felt rather exhilarating. It felt good.

  Bess watched him with interest as he came back towards her. ‘What are you doing standing there, soldier?’ he cried. ‘Get in step! On the double!’ He turned and marched off in another direction. Bess trailed uncertainly along behind him.

  ‘Not like that!’ said Harkins. He turned and started marching on the spot in front of Bess. ‘Swing those arms!’ he said. ‘Legs straight!’ He was enjoying himself now.

  Bess clapped her hands and started stomping her feet, rocking left and right.

  ‘Not good enough, soldier! Arms! Like me!’ He swung his arms harder for emphasis. Bess copied him. ‘Now your legs!’

  This was harder for Bess, whose legs were short and stumpy in comparison to her body. Still, she did what she could. Her attempts at staying in time were hopeless, but soon she was wobbling and flailing about in a comical approximation of a military march.

  ‘Good!’ said Harkins. He was sweating and a big grin was plastered on his face. ‘Now follow me! Quiiiiick. . march!’

  He spun on his heel and went off across the hold again. Bess clattered and crashed along behind him, throwing her outsize arms all over the place, kicking the air. ‘That’s the way!’ he cried. ‘That’s the way!’

  They paraded up and down the hold, and Harkins felt wonderful. He was so light he could almost laugh out loud. Damn, how long had it been since he was silly like this? How long since he’d done anything with such abandon? He was a red-faced, beaming fool leading a grotesque, clumsy golem around an empty cargo hold and for once, just for once, he didn’t care. He wished this moment could go on for ever.

  But it didn’t, and when it ended, it ended in the roar of an engine and the shriek of brakes.

  He knew right away that the sound meant trouble. All that good feeling drained out of him in an instant. He stopped, and Bess bumped into the back of him, sending him stumbling forward. By the time he’d regained his balance, he was awkward old Harkins again, fumbling and embarrassed.

  He hurried over to the lever to open the Ketty Jay’s ramp. If something was going on outside, it was best to find out what. It occurred to him belatedly that this wasn’t necessarily the safest or most sensible course of action to take, but by then he’d pulled the lever and the ramp was opening. He watched it descend, wondering at himself. An impartial observer might interpret what he’d just done as something other than rank cowardice. He must be getting sick or something.

  He went down the ramp, and Bess followed. It was humid, warm and dark outside; the only light came from the moon and the headlights of a six-wheeled armoured Overlander which had just pulled up next to the Ketty Jay. The crew came piling out. All of them were wearing Awakener cassocks, and some had Ciphers painted on their foreheads. He would have laughed, but the gravity of the situation was etched on their faces.

  He saw Pelaru snatch the unconscious Jez from Malvery’s hands and come racing up the ramp. The Thacian bounded past without so much as looking at him. Harkins cringed away; there was something wrong about the way he moved, the way he looked.

  ‘Wait, is Pelaru coming with us?’ Malvery asked the Cap’n as they hurried towards the Ketty Jay. ‘You know that two half-Manes make a whole one, right?’

  Frey didn’t seem to be in the mood for humour. ‘We’ll deal with him later. Harkins! Get to the Firecrow! We’re leaving! Malvery, Ashua, go drag out that bloody lad and toss him off my aircraft. We’ve got enough dead weight. Bess, get inside!’

  Bess paid no attention, waiting eagerly on the ramp to see if Crake was going to appear. Malvery and Ashua hurried past her. Silo took position at the bottom of the ramp, scanning their surroundings, shotgun ready.

  There were the sound of engines in the distance. Even at this hour, there were a few other people in the clearing where the Ketty Jay sat. They were mostly crewmen from the battered freighters nearby, smoking roll-ups or drinking away the night. The dramatic arrival of the Ketty Jay’s crew had stirred their interest, and some were walking over. Some of them looked like they had guns.

  ‘Cap’n!’ said Pinn. He grabbed Frey’s arm as Frey headed for the ramp.

  ‘What?’ Frey snapped irritably.

  Pinn stood there a moment, thinking. No doubt trying to assemble his moronic thoughts into some kind of coherent grunts, Harkins thought uncharitably.

  Frey ran out of patience. ‘There’s no time! We need to get
out of here!’ he said.

  ‘But that’s just it,’ Pinn blurted. ‘I’m not coming!’

  Frey stared at him. Harkins stared at him. Silo kept his eye on the people from the other freighters. One of them was calling out. ‘Hey! What’s the trouble over there?’

  ‘Better move it, Cap’n,’ he rumbled.

  ‘Pinn, get in the Skylance!’ Frey cried. ‘You can have whatever bloody crisis you’re having after we’re airborne.’

  But Pinn shook his head, stubborn as a mule. ‘It’s not right, Cap’n. What we’re doing.’ He pulled out a piece of crumpled paper and held it up. There were several phrases scrawled on it, all but one crossed out. ‘See?’ he said. ‘The prophecy! Look! Journey: that’s Korrene. Death: that’s Pelaru’s mate or whatever. Dark haired stranger: Pelaru. Find something important: well, we just did! Tragedy will fall on someone dear. .’ He looked at Frey meaningfully, and drew his finger across the last phrase, as if crossing it out.

  Frey was about to explode. ‘What in the name of gibbering shit are you talking about, arse-wit?’

  ‘The Allsoul is real, Cap’n,’ said Pinn, his piggy eyes wide. ‘We’re fighting on the wrong side.’

  ‘What are you lot doing out here?’ Ashua cried as she came hustling out with Malvery, pulling Abley between them. The Awakener boy had his hands tied behind his back, gagged, limping and bewildered. Ashua put her boot in his arse and sent him sprawling on the turf. ‘Bess! Inside!’ she said sternly.

  Bess trudged off up the ramp, having given up on the possibility of her master returning. Ashua and Malvery followed her inside.

  ‘Oi! Hey! What’s up over there?’ called one of the approaching men, in a tone that made a friendly enquiry sound like a threat. Abley tried to yell something through his gag.

  ‘Do what you like, Pinn,’ Frey snapped, angrily dismissive. ‘Do whatever you like.’ He rounded on Harkins. ‘What did I say, Harkins? Get to your damn aircraft!’