The Ace of Skulls totkj-4

by Chris Wooding

  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?’

  Thirty-Four

  Clearing Up — An Argument — Frey Despairs — Decision Time — ‘Rest Up Now’

  They found her in the snow, curled up in a foetal position. It was only by her size that he recognised her. She was smaller than the others.

  Frey stared down at the blackened thing at his feet, and was numb. He thought Trinica had emptied him of grief, but now he found a greater emptiness still. Though she’d been distant of late, and sometimes he’d wished her away, he still remembered the old Jez.

  He turned his face away. ‘Take her to the infirmary,’ he said to Malvery and Silo, who stood opposite. ‘Least we can do is put her somewhere proper.’

  Malvery nodded. There were furious tears glittering behind his green glasses. ‘What about Pelaru?’ he said through a thick throat.

  They’d discovered Pelaru nearby, unburned, but with a jagged piece of shrapnel the size of a dagger driven through his skull.

  ‘We don’t owe him shit,’ said Frey. ‘Leave him.’ It felt good to vent his spite on someone, even the dead.

  He walked off, picking his way through the charred corpses. The snow was already covering up the scene, and melted slush was turning to ice. Nearby, the last of the Awakeners were being rounded up by Grudge and Kyne. The survivors had surrendered rather than freeze to death in the blizzard. They were being marched to the Wrath’s hold, where the
re was a cell for criminals that the Century Knights captured on their travels. What their fate would be, Frey neither knew nor cared.

  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.