The Ace of Skulls

by Chris Wooding

  ‘I notice he never quite said daemonism,’ Trinica muttered.

  ‘That’ll come in time,’ said Samandra. ‘Can’t change people’s minds overnight, but I reckon it ain’t gonna be long before daemonism ain’t such a dirty word no more.’

  ‘Jandrew Harkins!’ the Archduke continued. ‘For outstanding bravery in the air, I present you with the Coalition Navy’s highest honour, the Iron Wing!’

  The gallery applauded with gusto. Frey whistled through his fingers until Trinica hit him.

  ‘Artis Pinn!’ said the Archduke. ‘For a selfless act of espionage, for infiltrating the Awakener ranks at great personal risk in order to return with critically important intelligence, the People’s Medal!’

  ‘How in rot’s name did he swing that?’ Samandra murmured.

  ‘Pinn just won a medal for intelligence,’ Frey said, shaking his head as he clapped. ‘I don’t want to live on this planet any more.’

  Then the Archduke moved to stand before Silo. There was a short pause as the Archduke regarded him, and seemed deep in thought.

  ‘Wait for it,’ said Frey. ‘This’ll be a treat.’

  ‘Silopethkai Auramaktama Faillinana!’ the Archduke boomed.

  Frey’s jaw dropped. ‘I’ll be damned. That feller’s good!’

  ‘Your leadership in battle is an inspiration to all Vards,’ the Archduke said. ‘When all seemed lost, you gave us strength. Never before has a Vardic duke or monarch awarded a medal to a Murthian, but I do so today. You have shown us that courage knows no race nor borders. I give you the Duke’s Cross, in recognition of your gallantry!’

  The riot of applause that followed shook the doors of the hall. Chancellor Plome was the first in the pews to stand, and with him went the House of Chancellors, and then everyone was on their feet, and cheers swelled up like a tide and roared through the chamber. The men of the Ketty Jay couldn’t keep their composure, and broke out in great beaming smiles. Frey clapped until his hands were sore, and by the time they began walking down off the dais, he was all but exhausted.

  ‘You’re not sad you didn’t get one?’ Trinica asked him.

  Frey blew out his lips. ‘What would I do with a medal? I’m surprised that lot got one, to be honest. After what happened with Earl Hengar, I mean. Pretty gracious of him, I’d say.’

  ‘Reckon too many people heard about what you fellers did,’ said Samandra. ‘He sorta had to. But with regards to Hengar, they were just followin’ orders. You were givin’ ’em. It’d be a bit much for him to take, honourin’ you.’

  ‘Pity Ashua couldn’t be here, though. She’d have liked to see the doc get his.’

  ‘That’d also be a bit much,’ said Samandra. ‘Traitor to the country, whether she meant it or not. She can count herself lucky she got a pardon.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Frey, with a meaningful glance at the woman next to him. ‘Not like that evil pirate Trinica Dracken.’

  Samandra just looked ahead. ‘Far as I know, she died on the Delirium Trigger, just like her bosun. Funny that your new lady looks a bit like her without the make-up, though. What are the chances?’

  ‘It is remarkable, isn’t it?’ Trinica agreed.

  They heard a shriek from the hall. Frey looked down and saw a stocky young blonde woman in peasant dress struggling with the guards. Suddenly she broke free and ran up the aisle towards the side of the dais, where the crew of the Ketty Jay had descended. Before anyone could stop her, she ran up to Pinn, seized him by his chubby cheeks and planted an enormous kiss on his lips.

  ‘Oh, sweet rot and damnation,’ Samandra said in horror, a hand over her mouth. ‘What am I seeing here? Is someone actually kissing Pinn?’

  Then the woman broke away from him, and Frey got a look at her. Yes, he knew that placid, bovine country face. He’d seen her ferrotype a hundred times, forced on him by Pinn whenever he was in his cups. It just didn’t seem possible.

  ‘Lisinda!’ cried Pinn.

  ‘I think . . . er . . . I think that’s his sweetheart,’ said Frey. ‘Like, the original one.’

  ‘Didn’t he abandon her five years ago or something?’ Trinica asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Frey. ‘Well, I mean, he left her a note saying he’d be back when he was famous and rich or something, but we all thought . . . Well . . .’ Frey just stared. ‘Do you think she really just . . . I mean, she actually waited for him? For him?’ He threw up his hands. ‘I dunno. I give up.’

  There was a brief debacle as Lisinda was dragged away by the guards, with Pinn still attached to her, noisily trying to slurp at her face. After that, the ceremony resumed, and Frey got restless again.

  ‘What happens next?’ he asked Samandra.

  ‘Next? Oh, there’s a drinks reception in the palace with the great and good. Dukes and duchesses waitin’ to congratulate you, Chancellors shakin’ hands, the Press takin’ your picture, wine, lobsters, all o’ that.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Frey. He shuffled his feet, looked from one lady to the other, scratched his cheek. ‘You wanna just round everyone up, find a bar and get slaughtered?’

  ‘I’m in,’ said Trinica immediately.

  ‘Thought you’d never say it,’ Samandra added, already on her way out the door.

  Malvery roared with laughter and crashed his mug of ale so hard against Samandra’s that he showered everyone in the booth.

  ‘And that’s for the Century bloody Knights! Legends, the lot o’ you!’

  ‘Adrek! Keep ’em coming!’ Samandra hollered.

  Adrek, barman and proprietor of The Wayfarers tavern, was already on his way with another tray. ‘Steady now!’ he said, as he put down their drinks.

  ‘Ah, come on, Adrek!’ Samandra cried. ‘How many times you get this many heroes in your bar all at once? Look at all them medals!’

  ‘You hear that?’ Pinn asked Lisinda, who was nestled inside his arm. ‘Heroes!’

  There was another cheer, and they swept up their drinks from the tray and crashed them together, wasting half the round immediately.

  Arkin chuckled. Despite having a Century Knight as a regular patron, the barman seemed rather star-struck. Or maybe it was just that he was relieved his establishment was still standing, and was prepared to indulge those he held responsible for saving it. Either way, he was in a good mood, and the drinks were on him tonight.

  The Wayfarers was Samandra’s drinking hole, a place that managed to be simultaneously large and cramped, with walls panelled in dark wood and many niches and secluded booths. Fires kept the winter chill away, and yellow light glittered on rippled green glass in the partitions. They’d changed from formal wear into clothes more suited to the occasion, but those who had medals still wore them anyway, pinned to coats and shirts. They’d earned them, and they were damned well going to show them off.

  They toasted the Coalition, and themselves, and then gave a more solemn toast to absent friends and absent pets. They told each other stories of their adventures as if they hadn’t all been there, and fell about at the punchlines. They even half-listened as Pinn extolled the virtues of his sweetheart, pointing out her flawless skin, her depthless eyes, her bountiful bosom. She giggled and hiccupped and seemed not the slightest bit embarrassed by it all.

  ‘Well, of course I waited for him!’ she told them. ‘He went off to find fame and fortune, all to be worthy of me! So romantic! But when the broadsheets put up the list of who was going to get a medal, and I saw his name there, well . . . I had to see! So I thought I’d surprise him!’

  ‘And you know what else?’ Pinn cried incredulously. ‘You know that letter I got from her ages ago, the one that said she was married? Well, it wasn’t even from her! She was never even married!’

  Frey looked at Malvery. ‘Fancy,’ he said, deadpan. Malvery coughed into his fist and concentrated very hard on his pint.

  They drank and they laughed until Frey thought he’d burst with joy. To be here now, with his friends and with Trinica by his side – it was more than he could ever ha
ve hoped for. There was Ashua, her eyes bright; there was Crake, cracking a joke. Malvery guffawed and Pinn japed. Even Harkins and Silo were having fun. And though Jez wasn’t with them, he imagined her out there somewhere, with her people, and he wondered if she might be happier than they could ever have made her.

  Balomon Crund wasn’t with them. He’d signed on with the first freebooter crew out of Thesk. It was enough for him that Trinica was safe; he couldn’t bear seeing her in anyone else’s arms. That wasn’t what she was to him. But Frey raised a mug to the scarred bosun anyway, and the rest did too. Without him, none of them would have been here.

  For a time, it was if they floated in a sphere of perfect contentment, and everything outside was fuzzy and unimportant. And then Crake said:

  ‘So what are you all going to do now, then?’

  His words brought them back to earth. The spectre of the future cut into the moment, the carefree atmosphere was gone, and they became serious. This drunken celebration wouldn’t last for ever. At least some of the crew of the Ketty Jay would be departing. An era was at an end.

  They all knew about Crake. He’d declared that he was staying in Thesk, to study daemonism under Morben Kyne, and to be with Samandra. He’d evolved his field daemonism method while on the crew of the Ketty Jay, but now he believed he’d reached the limit of what he could do with a makeshift sanctum. The chance to learn from Kyne was too good to pass up.

  Plus, there was the question of Bess, and Thesk was a better environment for her than the Ketty Jay. There was even talk of having her socialise with the other golems of the Archduke’s army. She’d taken to hanging around them whenever she could, and they seemed to accept her.

  ‘The daemons in the golems talk to each other, and to her,’ Crake had told them. ‘I think she might actually be able to make friends with them, in some way.’

  So the question of Crake was settled. Now Frey looked around the faces of the people at the booth to see who else had outgrown him and his aircraft.

  ‘The, er, the Navy wants to take me back,’ said Harkins. ‘Turns out I’m one of the most experienced pilots they’ve got, now. Might be I’ll be an instructor.’ He looked downcast. ‘Sorry, Cap’n. I think I want that. Think I work better with rules and discipline, and the Ketty Jay . . .’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Frey, with a rueful grin. ‘We don’t have much of either.’

  The others laughed uneasily. But Frey put a hand across the table. ‘I’ll be sorry to see you go, Harkins. You can keep the Firecrow, if you want. Won’t be much good to me, and you thrashed it so hard I can’t even sell it anyhow.’

  ‘Thanks for understanding, Cap’n,’ said Harkins, and he shook Frey by his good hand.

  ‘I’m going back home with Lisinda!’ Pinn declared loudly, oblivious to the sombre mood. ‘Done my stuff! I’m a bona fide hero! Reckon it’s time to settle down with a good woman.’ He looked into Lisinda’s adoring eyes. ‘Maybe even raise a couple of kids.’

  Malvery spluttered into his mug of ale and covered his face in froth.

  Crake, Pinn, Harkins. ‘How about the rest of you?’ Frey asked. He felt Trinica take his hand under the table. He didn’t know what he wanted them to say. He didn’t know what he wanted to do. His whole life had been a game of Rake, with steadily ascending stakes; he’d never thought about what would happen after he won.

  Malvery spoke up first. ‘Well, that sorta depends on you, Cap’n.’ He inclined his head towards Trinica. ‘Seems like your circumstances changed more than most. There’s your lady; you got her. So what are you gonna do?’

  Frey looked at Trinica, seeking a reaction. She put her hands up in the air. ‘Oh, no! Don’t put this on me! You make your own choice, Darian, and I’ll go where you go. I’m homeless and don’t have a ducat to my name; the Coalition seized all my assets, remember?’

  ‘That’s kinda fair, considering where you got ’em,’ said Samandra. ‘Consider it the price for us forgettin’ Trinica Dracken ever existed.’

  ‘See?’ said Trinica to Frey. ‘I don’t exist.’ But the wink she gave him suggested that the Coalition hadn’t quite found all of her rainy day money.

  Frey sat back, puffed out his cheeks and ran a hand through his hair. So, the decision was all his? But he didn’t want to make it on his own. It wasn’t just about him any more. It was about everyone.

  ‘Well, I still got the Ketty Jay,’ he said, with a shrug. ‘You fellers even want to tag along any more? Doc, weren’t you thinking of opening up a practice in Thesk or something?’

  ‘Cap’n,’ said Malvery. ‘More people get shot around you per hour than any other location in Vardia. Reckon I’m more use by your side than anywhere else. Besides, someone’s got to keep an eye on you.’

  ‘And someone’s got to keep an eye on you!’ Ashua said.

  ‘Someone gotta keep an eye on all o’ you,’ said Silo. ‘I’m with you, Cap’n. Medal or no medal, I ain’t got no other place I belong more ’n’ on that aircraft.’

  Frey began to get excited. Malvery, Ashua, Silo, himself . . . and Trinica. Well, that was pretty much a crew, wasn’t it? ‘So what are we gonna do?’ he asked them. ‘Where are we gonna go?’

  ‘Who cares?’ said Malvery. ‘Let’s go hunt down Peleshar, that island that disappeared! Your mad mate Ugrik said he had a plan to find it, didn’t he?’

  ‘New Vardia!’ Ashua said. ‘I always fancied the frontier!’

  ‘Since when?’ Malvery asked.

  ‘Since thirty seconds ago. Damn, we’ll go join Red Arcus and be rebels!’

  ‘You’re just pissed ’cause you didn’t get a medal,’ said Pinn, waggling his medal at her.

  ‘Alright then, let’s go to Samarla!’ Ashua said, laughing. ‘Give the Thacians a hand, see if we can’t help out some of Silo’s folk.’

  ‘Hey, hey, hey!’ said Crake, holding up his hands for silence. ‘Can I throw a wild idea in here? Don’t any of you want to, you know, take it easy for a while? Do some honest trading, maybe? Go on holiday?’

  They all looked at one another across the table. Then a grin spread across Crake’s face, and Malvery roared with laughter and clashed his mug against Crake’s. Suddenly they were all shouting over each other, boasting, joking, making plans and dreaming possibilities. Frey sat back and slid his arm around Trinica; she leaned into him, and he knew everything was alright, that the future was theirs for the taking.

  Everything he’d always dreaded had come upon him: responsibility, commitment, the weight of expectations. And yet here he was with the woman he loved at his side and the world at his feet. He was freer than he’d ever felt. He could go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. And he’d never been happier than now.

  ‘You think we can do it?’ he said to her quietly, as the rest of them argued and hollered and jostled. ‘You and me? You think we can ever forget what we did to each other, make it how it was, begin again?’

  She took his face in her hands and kissed him. His friends whooped and cheered like louts. And when she let him go, she looked deeply into his eyes, and there on her lips was a little heartbreaking smile of hope.

  ‘Yes, Darian,’ she said. ‘Let’s begin again.’

  Epilogue

  In the gloomy, gaping silence of the Ketty Jay’s hold, tiny claws clicked on metal.

  It was a small rat, not like the great monsters of old, but it had courage beyond its size. It came out tentatively and slipped along a narrow pipe with its body held low, then clambered down the bulkhead to the floor. Once there, it stood on its hind legs and raised itself, sniffing the air.

  Instinct told it to be careful. It was a foolish rat that braved the open spaces with the Adversary about.

  But things had changed of late. The terrible stench of their tormentor had faded from the vents and ducts and the deep places. The scourge of generations had departed, it seemed, and the rats grew bold. They sensed the balance of power in their world had shifted.

  The rat ran out into the hold, stopped, sniffed arou
nd again. The chill air held the promise of great bounty. It could smell edible things inside some of those crates. The ducts were meagre hunting grounds, but here was the promised land they’d been denied for so long. It scuttled off, following the scent.

  This one was only the first; there would be others, and more after them. The rats would come, and they’d feed, and they’d breed. The Ketty Jay would be theirs again.

  A thumping of paws came quick from the shadows. The rat turned to flee back the way it had come, but the cat sensed its plan and intercepted it. Claws like blades plunged into its side. Fanged jaws snapped shut on its throat.

  It was a foolish rat that braved the open spaces with the Adversary about.

  The ugly mottled cat tore and gulped at the flesh, and licked the blood from her black and orange fur. She was not a big tom like Slag had been, but she was learning that these little rats were not beyond her. There were many of them, and that was good, for she was often hungry now.

  She ate every morsel she could strip from the carcass, and left the remains where they lay. Then she padded away across the hold, back towards the little nest she’d made in a far dark corner. She went to sleep with the taste of the hunt still on her tongue, and the warm presence of new life quickening in her belly.

  Also by Chris Wooding from Gollancz:

  The Braided Path Omnibus

  The Fade

  TALES OF THE KETTY JAY

  Retribution Falls

  The Black Lung Captain

  The Iron Jackal

  Copyright

  A Gollancz eBook

  Copyright © Chris Wooding 2013

  All rights reserved.

  The right of Chris Wooding to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  First published in Great Britain in 2013 by

  Gollancz

  The Orion Publishing Group Ltd

  Orion House