The Ace of Skulls

by Chris Wooding

  The central clearing was busier than usual. Preparations for departure were in full swing, and the atmosphere was feverish with the anticipation of battle. There was a sense of time running out. People crowded the stalls and bars to spend their pay packets, to enjoy their last days in this company, to eat and drink and carouse in case they never got another chance. It all had the feeling of a particularly grubby and slightly dangerous fete.

  The first drinking tent Pinn found was warm and muggy. A row of tables passed as a bar. Barrels and a still stood behind them, along with a crate of bottles and a rangy barman who looked like his face had melted in the heat. More barrels were placed upright around the tent to serve as tables. They were surrounded by stools, most of which were occupied even at this early hour. Pinn took a stool at the bar, ordered a grog and set to it.

  Most of the first couple of hours were spent grinding his teeth and calling Marinda all the names he could think of. It took several drinks before he’d mellowed enough to stop hating her, and to start feeling sorry for himself.

  He’d really made a mess of things this time. Here he was, in the middle of nowhere, with no idea where his mates were and no idea how to find them again. And all because of some stupid woman with a great big bloody tattoo on her forehead. What had he been thinking?

  He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and stared at it. His atrocious handwriting stared back at him. Each line had been crossed out.

  Jurny.

  Deth.

  Dark hared stranger (not hot)

  Find sumthin important

  Trajedy on sum-one deer (emanda?)

  You will beleeve!!

  He balled it up in disgust and threw it over his shoulder. That was what he thought of prophecies. He could make prophecies too. He prophesised he was going to get hammered flatter than cowshit, and bollocks to anyone who tried to stop him.

  Just then he caught sight of something on the ground by his stool. A crumpled ferrotype, that must have fallen from his pocket when he pulled out the piece of paper. With some effort he reached down and snagged it between his fingers, then brought it up to the bar and smoothed it out.

  Looking back at him was Lisinda. Gentle, doe-eyed Lisinda. Lisinda of the soft hair and fulsome bosom. He’d crumpled up her picture on the way out of Korrene, meaning to deface it later, but he’d forgotten about it since then.

  He gazed at her in wonder. It was almost as if fate had delivered her to him. She’d come to him in his time of need. A bit creased, but even so. A reminder. A message.

  Lisinda.

  He slammed his hands suddenly down on the bar. The barman stared at him.

  ‘I’ve made a terrible mistake,’ he announced.

  There was only one thought in his mind as he blundered out of the tent and into the sunlight. Lisinda, Lisinda, Lisinda. Why hadn’t he seen it before? She was the one for him. She’d always been the one. She didn’t care about riches or great deeds. She’d loved him, and everything about him. And he loved her. He’d always loved her. He’d just forgotten about it till now.

  Married or not, he was going to get her back.

  The journey back to the clearing where he’d left his Skylance wasn’t quite as short as he’d imagined. In fact, it took him the best part of three hours to get there, by which time he was sweaty, exhausted and beginning to get a hangover.

  The early evening sun baked him steadily as he staggered down the dirt path that finally brought him to his destination. He stopped, wiped his knuckles across his brow and scanned his surroundings. There were the freighters whose crew had tried to stop the Ketty Jay escaping. There was the spot where the Ketty Jay had sat. And there . . .

  A whimper escaped his lips.

  There was the empty space where his Skylance had once stood.

  Pinn lay in bed, his covers tucked up under his chin, wide-eyed in the dark. Six years old and scared.

  The wind rattled the window in the frame. The house creaked. Shadows pooled, slicks of congealed dread.

  Something awful was coming.

  The first footstep on the stair. He clutched the blanket tight, squeezed his eyes shut, rolled on to his side so his back was to the door. Another step, and another. Go away, I’m not here.

  But the footsteps came on relentlessly, up the stairs to the landing. They fell slow and heavy, closer and closer. The knowledge of the inevitable outcome squeezed his heart and pressed down on him hard.

  The footsteps stopped outside the door.

  Don’t come in, don’t come in.

  The creak of a turning handle. The whine of hinges as the door opened.

  He wanted to run. He wanted to shout. He wanted to throw off his blankets and show them he was awake. They couldn’t get away with it if he could see them. They couldn’t possibly do it if he could see them!

  But nothing he did made any difference. It was always the same. He couldn’t move or make a sound. He was forced to replay that night exactly as it had happened.

  He lay there, pretending to be asleep. Long, delicate fingers ran through his hair; a palm rested gently against the side of his head.

  ‘I love you,’ his mother said, quietly.

  Why had he pretended to be asleep that night? Maybe he’d planned to jump up and surprise her. Maybe he’d been angry about something and sulking. Whatever the reason, the sound of her voice drove it from his mind. It confused and frightened him. Those three words, never spoken before, now delivered in a tone of sadness and loss. He had the sense that something important was at hand, and he froze.

  She got up and walked out of the room. He heard the whine of the hinges again. With that, the doom of his dream was complete. With that, she was gone for ever, without trace or reason.

  The click of the latch as the door closed was like a gunshot. He jerked awake and sat upright. Standing in front of him was a lean, sag-faced man with straggly black hair turning to grey. He stared at the man. The man stared back. Pinn took a few moments to work out who he was.

  The barman. He was back on the same stool that he’d left earlier in the day when he went off to get his Skylance. His clothes had stuck to his skin in the tepid and moist air, but his mouth was dry.

  He turned his head carefully to the left and surveyed the bar with the suspicious expression of a man who didn’t quite know how he’d got to where he was, and was wondering if he’d been tricked somehow. It was dark outside, but hanging lanterns provided light. Fat moths circled them and occasionally managed to find a way inside, a decision they quickly regretted. The tent was noisy with conversation and the sound of night insects from the trees outside.

  ‘You want another?’ the barman asked.

  Pinn made a wheeling motion with his hand. Keep ’em coming. The barman stuck a mug of grog in front of him.

  ‘That one’s on me,’ said a voice to his right. Pinn rotated blearily and came face to face with a man who looked like he’d just shambled out of a burrow. He was short and squat, with long, shaggy hair that hung in unwashed clumps over a grizzled face of surpassing ugliness. Half his throat was covered with a disfiguring scar.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Pinn asked, squinting.

  ‘Should think so,’ came the surly reply. ‘We crossed paths more than once.’ He raised his mug and grunted. ‘Balomon Crund. Bosun on the Delirium Trigger.’

  Pinn vaguely remembered him, but he wasn’t sure if his presence here was a good thing or not. Still, anyone who bought him a drink was alright as far as he was concerned. He clanked his pewter mug against Crund’s and took a long pull to wash the sticky gunk from his mouth.

  For a while they sat drinking in silence. Crund didn’t seem much inclined to speak, which was odd, since buying a drink tended to imply that conversation would follow. Pinn began to feel slightly uneasy, but not enough to take his mind off his booze.

  ‘Wasn’t sure you’d still be here,’ Crund said at last. ‘Thought you’d run off with the rest of ’em. Couldn’t think why you’d leave your craft behind
though.’

  ‘You know where it is?’ Pinn asked sharply.

  ‘Aye. They’re gathering all the fighters ahead of the big take-off. Engineers jacked it and they flew it off to put with the rest of ’em. Someone else’ll be flying it, I suppose.’

  ‘Not bloody likely!’ said Pinn, steadying himself on the bar as he got to his feet. ‘I’m gonna get it back!’ His hand slipped off the edge of the bar and he fell off his stool and into Crund. Crund shoved him back onto his stool. ‘Tomorrow!’ Pinn finished with a flourish.

  ‘So they gave you the boot? Your crew?’

  Pinn snorted. ‘I gave them the boot.’

  ‘You an Awakener now, then?’

  Pinn scowled. ‘The Allsoul,’ he raised his mug towards the roof of the tent, ‘can pucker up and plant a great big sloppy kiss on my balls.’

  The barman raised an eyebrow at that, then walked off towards the other end of the bar to serve somebody else. A cautionary voice in the drunken stew of Pinn’s brain belatedly warned him to remember where he was, but nobody else appeared to have heard him over the din of conversation.

  Suddenly he felt maudlin and sighed. ‘I stayed behind. Did it for a woman. Probably shouldn’t have.’ He looked up. ‘Speaking of women, how’s old Chalk-face doing, anyway?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t she a daemon or something these days?’

  Crund’s hand tightened around his mug, and his face became taut and grim. ‘That’s what I’m here about.’ He fixed Pinn with a hard stare. ‘We gotta talk.’

  Twenty-Eight

  Heavy Weather – Pelaru Speaks of Home – Engines – Crake’s Game – A Reversal

  Snow blew against the window, sliding down the glass, piling on the sill. Jez stood there in her overalls, head tilted to one side, looking out. The fire at her back threw a warm yellow glow onto her legs and shoulders. The cold and dark was in front of her, the heat and light behind. She, being half-Mane, was neither hot nor cold, but somewhere in between. Where she’d always been.

  The window was on the first floor, overlooking a cobbled courtyard with a fountain in its centre. Surrounding the courtyard were small, simple houses, stables, and a garage for vehicles. Lights glowed in some of the windows. Smoke wisped from chimney stacks, drifting into the grey-white void overhead. It was afternoon, but dark enough to be evening. To her right, a short marching arc of electric lights delineated the bridge.

  Samandra Bree emerged from one of the houses and hurried across the courtyard. Jez watched her approach. Samandra was bundled up in a hide coat, furred hood pulled over her head. It was the first time Jez could recall seeing her without her tricorn hat. But then, this was winter in the Splinters; even Century Knights could freeze up here.

  ‘Weather’s closing in,’ Malvery rumbled.

  She shifted her gaze and took in the scene reflected in the glass. They were in a living room, bare and plain but still more homely than they were used to. Malvery was sitting on a stool by the fire, a bottle of grog hanging from one great paw. At a table nearby, Ashua was playing cards with Frey, Harkins and Colden Grudge. Silo sat at the end of the table, watching the gauges on a large brass device that hummed and grumbled at the borders of her consciousness.

  Daemonism. Strong daemonism, courtesy of Morben Kyne. It set her teeth on edge.

  ‘You think they’ll come today?’ Harkins asked nervously.

  ‘Don’t look like it now,’ said Malvery.

  ‘It’s only been two days,’ said Ashua, picking out a card from her hand. ‘Could be weeks till they turn up, if they bother at all. Imperators probably have better things to do than chase down every dissident who gets ratted on by his peers.’

  ‘Feels like it’s been weeks already,’ Frey muttered.

  ‘That’s ’cause you have the attention span of a brain-damaged seagull,’ Ashua replied. ‘Me, I’m happy they’re taking their time. There’s a mansion across the bridge with a wine cellar full to bursting, a cold room stocked with good meat, and a library bigger than I’ve ever seen.’ She snapped down her card and scooped up the pile. ‘I’m good.’

  Frey cursed. ‘Can’t we play Rake again?’ he complained.

  The Cap’n wasn’t taking the waiting well. She wondered how long it’d be before he decided that action – any action – was better than doing nothing at all. Before he broke his promise to the crew and set off after Trinica regardless of the consequences.

  That was love. The kind that made you stupid. The kind she’d never felt, nor let anyone feel for her. She envied him that, whatever misery it brought him. He had something she’d never had.

  But she had something else.

  The door opened downstairs, and there was a gust of wind from outside. Samandra stamped in, trailing snow and flapping at herself. ‘Cold as a corpse’s arse out there,’ she said. ‘Fires are banked up. Should be good for a couple of hours. You’re up next, Frey.’

  Frey looked at his cards and said nothing.

  ‘Are we gonna have to do this every day?’ Malvery moaned.

  ‘You want the houses lookin’ occupied, don’t you?’ Bree replied. ‘No one’s gonna set down here if it don’t look like the lights are on.’ She walked over to Silo and peered over his shoulder at the gauges. ‘Anything?’

  ‘Nuh.’

  Jez tried to shut out the daemonic hum from Kyne’s device. It was a mix of machinery and aethereal power, running off electricity provided by a generator which fed the hamlet and the mansion nearby. The device was linked to large resonator masts placed all around the rim of the valley, set to detect engine noise. They were all linked up in a manner similar to Crake’s earcuffs, but on a grander and more complex scale.

  Kyne had access to some formidable technology, and by Samandra’s account he was the best daemonist in the land. But even with his help, their plan was a risky one. Capturing an Imperator would be no easy matter. It was said they could stop a man’s heart by willpower alone. Only a Mane could resist them, and then there was no question of capture; they awoke such primal hatred that neither Jez nor Pelaru would be able to stop themselves killing their targets.

  Jez didn’t much concern herself with plans any more. The struggles of the crew felt distant. Only occasionally did she involve herself with their wants and needs. The rest of the time she was simply there, doing what needed to be done, waiting for the right moment. The moment of certainty. The moment when she’d turn her back on the world, and leave them for ever.

  The device was too distracting. She couldn’t marshal her thoughts. She sensed the others watching her as she walked out of the room.

  ‘. . . why do they put up with her anyway . . .’

  ‘. . . gives me the chills, but it’s Jez! Don’t be so . . .’

  ‘. . . gonna have to do something about . . .’

  She took the stairs to the top floor, where there were two small bedrooms with several unmade beds between them. Some of the crew had been sleeping in the house. They had to take shifts watching the gauges on Kyne’s machine, and it was easier to stay here than to trek back and forth to the Ketty Jay.

  She went to the window of the back bedroom and opened it. A snowy rise, thick with bare black trees, lay before her. She clambered out and onto the sloping roof, moving swiftly and assuredly over the slippery surface. Sitting erect at the peak of the roof, waist deep in the snow, was Pelaru. She climbed up and sat next to him.

  ‘I had hoped for some privacy,’ he said, blinking away snow from his lashes. He was wearing a coat, but it was only to protect his fine clothes. He was Mane enough that he didn’t feel the cold.

  Jez ignored the hint. She had things she needed to talk to him about.

  From up here, it was possible to see the whole of the grounds. The houses and stables and garages were for the servants that worked at the mansion during the summer. A skeleton staff of guards and caretakers looked after the place during the winter months. They were now under lock and key in the basement level of the mansion where they’d be out of the way and safe. They
were being cared for well enough, and it was a bloodless ambush in the end. The guards had put down their weapons once Samandra Bree got involved. Her fame preceded her.

  To her left she could see the lights of the landing pad glowing in the murk, away at the end of a short road. The Century Knights’ aircraft was there, along with two smaller craft for the staff. The Tabington Wrath was a heavily armoured gunship, but it was expensive enough to be the choice of a paranoid rich man. The Ketty Jay and the Firecrow had been hidden elsewhere, in a clearing further down the valley, in case they were recognised.

  To her right was the bridge to the mansion itself. The mansion stood on an island of rock in a shallow chasm that ran along the floor of the valley. During the summer months a meltwater river would run there, and the valley would be green. Now the valley was buried in snow, and the chasm yawned icily.

  The mansion itself took up a third of the island, perched precariously on the edge of the drop. The rest was taken up by gardens – dead till spring – and a wide driveway to the bridge. Jez could barely see the mansion in the snow, only the lights of its windows. It looked dark and forbidding now, but she knew it was white and golden and fine in the sunlight.

  ‘Have you ever visited Thace?’ Pelaru said. ‘I miss it. I miss Arath, her high gleaming spires, her shaded colonnades, her tree-lined boulevards. I miss the music and theatre and language. But what I miss most is the togetherness. For almost two thousand years, we’ve been the only true republic in Atalon. Every man and woman has their say. That unites us. Being Thacian unites us. We stand in the shadow of the great slave-owning nation over the mountains to the west, and we defy them.’

  ‘You do more than defy them. You bombed the Samarlans’ capital and killed their God-Emperor,’ Jez pointed out. ‘Twice.’

  ‘Always in retaliation. Always after they tried to invade us.’ His face darkened. ‘We should have wiped the Divine Family out when we had the chance, but we wasted our time with peace settlements and politics.’