In Dark Service

by Stephen Hunt

  ‘Well, we are where we are. Wishing won’t make it otherwise.’

  Even so, neither of Jacob’s companions voiced doubts about con­tinuing without the ransom money. Rich in mettle, if not in more material matters. Jacob looked at Sheplar. ‘If we had the money, who would you choose to transport us?’

  Sheplar indicated a couple of men in simple grey jackets that Jacob might have mistaken for monks’ habits, save for the heavily tattooed arms emerging from the sleeveless sackcloth. Both airmen had identical long black beards with their remaining hair cropped short. ‘They are crewmen from Touriel. Their carrier is called the Night’s Pride, rated at seven-hundred rotors. Large and safe. Pilots from their state are said to be solid and reliable. Best of all, they are flying towards the far south. Few layovers, no diversions.’

  Jacob grunted. That was the sort of flight they needed. His nightmare was that they’d use what funds they had to begin the trip, only to end up in a foreign port down the line without friends, money, influence, or any idea how to complete the rest of the journey. To catch up with Carter and the others, they had to travel fast, go by air all the way. Otherwise, the three of them would end up fulfilling Benner Landor’s doubts. Living off the land, travelling by caravan and sailing ship, and dying of old age before they got within a thousand miles of any child of Northhaven. There was no helping it. Some things you couldn’t plan for – you just had to do. Find Carter. Free my son. Return with my son. Any one of those tasks seemed impossible, right now. But they always would be, as long as he believed they were. Jacob lifted the bottle of wine he and Sheplar had been drinking from. ‘It’s not too late for you, Sheplar. If Khow and I divide the money between the pair of us, we can pay for a flight south, even if it’s only to the end of the league. Out there we could radio begging messages to Benner Landor from relative safety. You could travel north back to Rodal.’

  Sheplar shook his head. ‘The vow of a skyguard officer is not circumscribed by distance, Jacob of Northhaven. Any more than the bond that exists between father and son.’

  Jacob shrugged sadly. Without the protection of the soldiers and Benner’s funds, this was looking less like a rescue mission, and more like two parents following their grief on a suicide mission.

  ‘We are with you in this, manling,’ said Khow. ‘To the bitter end.’

  I don’t want a bitter end. I want Carter home with me, whole and safe. An upsurge of voices rose to their side. Someone stumbled back into their table, spilling drinks across the lacquered floor. The broker who had fallen into them drew away, apologising profusely, and Jacob started as he saw the figure at the centre of the altercation. It was the vagrant bard, Sariel. A party of gold-uniformed airmen had thrown him to the floor, one of them pointing an angry finger at the rascal. ‘When you sing songs, old man, take care you do not impugn our country!’

  Sariel’s walking staff had fallen to the floor, along with the tramp’s tattered backpack. From where Jacob sat, he could see the money piled inside the sack, a solitary coin rolling out for him to stop with his boot and scoop it up. On one side was the royal boar of Weyland, on the other was the all-too familiar crest of the House of Landor – twin maize stalks resting against a seashell.

  ‘Did I say your king was a syphilitic madman?’ spluttered Sariel. ‘A thousand apologies, good airmen, I misspoke, indeed I did. I surely meant your neighbours to the east, Magdouf. That tale was about Magdouf… my age, you see, and I am so thirsty, having just arrived in town. Hunger addles the details of my otherwise splendid tale.’

  ‘A pox on your tales, you leprous dog!’

  Jacob was out of his chair, placing himself between the bard and the irate airmen before they advanced on him and kicked a few lumps out of his flesh. ‘Peace upon you, gentlemen. Forgive this old rascal. I’ve warned him many times about entering coffee-houses and begging when the church is already extending alms to him.’

  ‘Better that you throw this dog in a house of work, Father,’ spat the airman, ‘rather than allowing him to slander noble dignitaries.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ said Jacob. ‘I am afraid our bishop is far too merciful; too soft, allowing such layabouts out of the poorhouse. Allow me to take him away and add a few stripes across his back for the nuisance he’s caused you. The local police shouldn’t disturb your rest for a brawl with a lowborn scoundrel like this.’

  The airman made a dismissive wave of his hand, as though he was a duke dismissing a pauper. His crew turned on their heels and Jacob grabbed Sariel’s collar when the bard tried to exit with the backpack clutched in his hands. He dragged the beggar back to their table and sat him roughly in a chair.

  Sheplar’s nose wrinkled in distaste, as he smelt the unkempt man’s clothes. ‘Charity only goes so far. You have averted a fight. Must we also share our wine with this dispossessed devil?’

  ‘Oh, but this is one devil I recognise,’ said Jacob, reaching over to pluck a coin from the tramp’s bag. ‘This gentleman of the road is the same traveller whose fare I paid to ride our train.’ He turned over the coin to show Sheplar and Khow the crest on the other side. ‘And while you don’t know Sariel here, I’m sure you recognise this…’

  ‘Thieving serpent!’ shouted Sheplar, restrained from leaping up by Jacob. ‘How did you come to lay your hands on our money?’

  ‘Why, through the ants, of course,’ said Sariel. ‘And this is my money, you shallow man.’

  ‘Ants, you treacherous serpent, tell us the truth!’

  ‘I was sleeping in the cargo hold of the Talekhard express. I woke one night to see a line of ants carrying these coins into my bag. Many ants hold me in considerable regard, you understand, ever since I was of some small assistance to their empress during the great war between the ants and the beetles.’

  ‘Or maybe those light fingers of yours found a little opportunity for theft in the garrison car,’ said Jacob, ‘when half the troopers had headed out for the forest and the rest were standing sentry against a nomad attack?’

  ‘You impugn me, Your Grace,’ spluttered Sariel. He reached for the bottle of wine as the pilot tried to stop him from grabbing it. Sheplar was too slow. The bard slurped from the bottle as Sheplar turned his face away in disgust.

  ‘You didn’t arrive here on the express,’ said Jacob. ‘It was heading back towards Brinkdalen. It hasn’t caught up with us, yet. So I’m guessing that after you raided the strongbox, you jumped the train before the troops found they’d been robbed. Another service rolled past and you jumped a ride here. Freight hopping is the least of your crimes.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ insisted Sariel. ‘The red ants’ generosity is renowned throughout the world. And a ghost train provided my passage here. What a sight she was, manned by the unquiet spirits of all the departed railmen. And my fellow passengers… spirits from the afterlife that have met untimely ends on the endless lines. The ghost engine stopped to pick up the maintenance train’s poor, slaughtered souls. I painted my face as white as a sheet with ashes from the attack, then boarded, pretending I too was naught but a wailing spirit. I was assisted in my endeavours by the spirit of the lawman you travelled with, Sir Wiggins, newly arrived after crossing the River of the Dead. How he cursed and railed against his assassins.’

  ‘I will make you wail, scoundrel,’ said Sheplar. ‘You are not fit to mention our poor friend’s name. How did you know he was dead? What sorcery have you used?’

  ‘A confidence man’s eye for detail, is all,’ said Jacob. ‘Wiggins isn’t with us and the obvious conclusion…’

  ‘We should see this vagabond thief hung,’ said Sheplar.

  ‘I am no thief,’ insisted Sariel. ‘Damn you if you claim so, you spur-galled cutpurse. And if you try to steal my money like perjured, false and disloyal brigands, I have only to call for the city’s constables to take you into custody.’

  Jacob moved his coat aside to show the tramp the two pistols belted around his waist. ‘That depends on how quickly you can call, don’t you think?’ This was the
best chance they had of leaving the country without getting involved in an all-out war against Major Alock’s company of barely reformed brigands. Damned if Jacob was going to let that opportunity walk out of the door carrying away their passage to some distant slave market. God had taken away their money and God had given a portion of it back again. Maybe the Wiggins’ spirit was involved somewhere in the affair after all. He’d be laughing himself hoarse at how things had worked out.

  Sariel scratched nervously at his straggly white beard. ‘What business does a servant of God have with those evil tools?’

  ‘Let me acquaint you with one of my favourite passages from the good book of the saints: And the hammer of the lord shall fall on the unrighteous. As you can see, old man, I’m carrying two hammers by my side.’

  ‘You make a fair point, Your Grace. Perhaps the ants carried the money to me so I could act as its temporary guardian, until such time as I could reunite the funds with their rightful owner?’

  ‘That’s a right healthy way of looking at things,’ said Jacob, dragging the pack from the tramp’s arms and placing it on the centre of the table. Khow lifted the flap up to examine the heaped coins inside. The old rascal – it’s a wonder he could stagger after a freight train carrying that much weight.

  ‘Half our funds. Not enough to ransom back all of those taken by the skels,’ said Sheplar. ‘But sufficient to carry us to the skel slave market.’

  ‘Skels!’ Sariel fair jumped out of his chair. ‘What business do you have with those foul beasts?’

  Jacob patted his pistols. ‘This kind of business. They’ve kidnapped my son for a slave. Khow here’s son, too.’

  ‘And they carry with them my honour,’ said Sheplar.

  Sariel shrugged. ‘Such a small thing for a mountain man. It’s a wonder they have not already mislaid it.’

  Sheplar grinned evilly and patted the sword belted to his side. ‘The same may happen to a thief’s hand, when he is not careful.’

  ‘I know little of being careful,’ said Sariel. ‘Although I know many stories about the virtues of caution – including how the Rodalian Skyguard was only formed to allow the mountain warriors to retreat faster than they ever could riding horses.’

  ‘Enough,’ ordered Jacob. ‘I’ve already got all the trouble I need in my life. What are the skels to you, Sariel?’

  ‘I had a wife once,’ said Sariel. ‘The skels arrived where we lived, and then… I didn’t.’ He said the words with sadness. No boasts or hyperbole. So simple that Jacob knew here, at least, he had a nugget of truth out of the raggedy old bard. Maybe that was the start of the old man’s wanderings? How many of Jacob’s parishioners had he abandoned at Northhaven without a living or family or life, people who would wander out of the prefecture and keep travelling. As if casting off their old existence could ever be the same as forgetting their pain.

  ‘Then we have something in common,’ said Jacob, ‘beyond the fact you’re sitting there with a pile of coins which are mine.’

  The sadness faded from the vagrant’s face almost as quickly as it had appeared. A twinkle of mischief settled again, as though Sariel had remembered all that he needed to of the truth. ‘The skels’ ruler, the Great Khan of the Sky, is my mortal enemy, as I am his. If this money is to be used against the skels, you can have every last coin… and I shall travel with you to make sure it is well spent.’

  ‘We do not need your stench along with us, thief,’ said Sheplar.

  ‘Yet, you appear to need my money.’

  ‘My money,’ said Jacob.

  ‘For the cause,’ said Sariel, ‘for the cause. And I know much about the skels and the nations they sell slaves to. You are going a long way on this journey, Your Grace. You have been far-called.’

  ‘You don’t need to be a bard to know that much,’ said Jacob. ‘Every­where on Pellas is a long distance away.’

  ‘So it may be. But your journey will be longer than most.’

  ‘What do you say, Khow?’ asked Jacob.

  The gask fiddled with his abacus machine, tapping the calculator’s buttons. ‘This is extraordinary. The probabilities of meeting in this way are inconceivable. Yet, this manling holds no weight within my calculations. It is as if he does not exist, as though he is insubstantial as mist.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Sheplar, pouncing on the gask’s conclusions. ‘No weight… no purpose to our mission.’

  ‘Naturally, dear gask,’ said Sariel. ‘You calculate an infinite deal of nothing. I have travelled so far and cheated death so many times – do you think mere sums are capable of describing Sariel the Magnificent? No mortal but Sariel has ever travelled the ghost train, leaping from her engine car before she sank down to the underworld, whistles keening with the screams of a thousand souls.’

  ‘If you know the skels,’ said Jacob, ‘tell me one real thing about them. Something I can use. Something besides the pain you claim you feel about losing your wife.’

  Sariel laughed. ‘I shall tell you two things, Your Grace, and those two things are all that you will need to know. The skels have fallen very, very far, and what has supplanted them in the world… well that is far worse.’

  ‘And how is that?’

  ‘Because they’ve been replaced by man.’

  Duncan squatted in the back of Anna’s transporter. Slaves moved around the station hangar wearing masks against the burning squalls blowing in through the opening. Outside, the sky was a crazy swirl of crimson clouds, the air filled with firecracker rattles – sleets of rocks cooling as they powered up from the erupting caldera. On either side of the transporter’s cage sides, slaves with drills screwed in a series of metal panels as protective armour. The extra weight meant the transporter would have less flight time, but at least the sky miners would have a chance of reaching a fresh claim alive. Only two days for Duncan to recover from the crash the last time he ventured out. Allowing the stratovolcano to vomit out the worst of its fury. Duncan sat on the craft’s bench with bandages wrapped around his ribs. But a claim rush loomed… with Princess Helrena’s zones of the sky mines as bare as a beggar’s cupboard. Duncan could have had both his legs amputated in the accident, and he’d still be sitting in the back with crutches. Carter hardly looked any fitter than Duncan, the man’s breathing mask covering a web of bruises around his face. Anna limped around the new transporter, checking and rechecking every bolt of the shielding, her rotors and fuel lines. Only Kerge and Owen appeared unaffected by their previous outing. We’ve already been caught by the volcano and sent crashing into the station. How much more dangerous is it to enter the eruption in its dying stages?

  Owen tried to reassure the nervous miners in front of him, twenty slaves racked in the transporter’s rear for the flight. ‘I know this is the first time for most of you. I know you haven’t been given all the training you should. But we’re dry, just dust left to process, otherwise we wouldn’t be heading out so hasty.’

  ‘Damn this waiting,’ said Carter. He fiddled with his green armband – something to distinguish the Weylanders from any rival crews they encountered during the rush for fresh stakes. ‘We doing this, or going back to our dormitories?’

  ‘If there’s an art to sky mining, this is it, Mister Carnehan. Getting the balance right. Put out too early and we’ll lose every transporter we’ve got along with everyone on board to the storm. Light out too late, and any rocks worth staking will either belong to someone else, or be caught in a trade wind heading for Vandia’s neighbours.’

  ‘I’ll just settle for coming back alive,’ said Duncan. There were nods of agreement from the other slaves. He was glad of that… it made him feel a little less like a coward. He was meant to be on light duty for a few weeks after having half a transporter sitting on his ribs. That meant pushing a cart between the supply chambers and any strike they brought back with them. He guessed that bringing the fresh rock home was going to prove the most troublesome part of that equation.

  ‘When we take off, that’ll be Thomas Gale�
��s decision. Princess Helrena and her entourage have shown up to make sure he doesn’t call it too late. We’re in for a hard pounding out there, no doubt. From that smoker, as well as every rival house with an interest in undermining the princess’s standing within the imperial family.’

  Duncan felt a ball of tension tightening in his gut. He had already tasted the stratovolcano’s fury once. He had little desire to push his luck by risking his life a second time. At least Willow and Adella were safe inside the station. Their work wouldn’t begin until a new rock had been captured and towed back. Tethered next to the station, for the slaves to swarm over it and begin the slow, unrelenting task of weeding out every vein of metal-bearing ore. If there was any consolation to this situation, his sister and Adella waiting out of harm’s way was it for now. Duncan had to stay alive for the two women. Who else was going to look after the pair if he went down in the eruption spewing outside? Those worries wormed deeper into him than any consideration of his own safety. God, I haven’t asked you for much before. Seemed I already had everything and didn’t much appreciate any of it, anyway. But just keep me safe, please, to watch out for Willow and Adella.

  ‘We’re heading out first as lead scout,’ said Owen. ‘And you remember this: what we’re doing, we’re doing for every Weylander here, not for the imperium. You think the rations shipped in by the Vandians have been bad so far? You see how hungry our people will get if we fail to come home with a stake. Princess Helrena doesn’t see much margin in greasing the cogs on her mining machine if it isn’t running, you understand?’

  Grunts of assent rose from the sky miners on the transporter’s benches. Only Carter maintained a sullen silence. That fool would probably eat rock if he thought it would piss off the Vandians. That’s the fool you owe your life to, a nagging voice reminded Duncan. Yeah, well, that was only to piss me off too. Showing courage when matters turned difficult was no substitute for a pinch of caution and common sense. A bit of yield, given their current miserable circumstances. That’s as maybe, but a life saved is still a heavy debt.