Retribution Falls totkj-1

by Chris Wooding

His overseer at the factory knew about Harkins’ past as a pilot for the Coalition Navy. It was all Harkins talked about, when he talked at all. So when the overseer met a man in a bar who was selling a Firecrow, he mentioned it to Harkins.

  That was how Harkins met Darian Frey, who had won a Caybery Firecrow on an improbably lucky hand of Rake and now had no idea what to do with it. Harkins had barely enough money to keep a roof over his head, but he went to Frey to beg. He’d have sold his soul if it got him back into the cockpit. Frey didn’t think his soul was worth much, so he suggested a deal instead.

  Harkins would fly the Firecrow on his behalf. The pay would be lousy, the life unpredictable, probably dangerous and usually illegal. Harkins would do exactly as he said, and if he didn’t, Frey would take his craft back.

  Harkins had agreed before Frey had even finished laying out the terms. The same day, he left port as an outflyer for the Ketty Jay. It was the happiest day of his life.

  It had been a long journey from that Navy frigate to here, flying over the Hookhollow Mountains under Darian Frey. He’d never again have the kind of steel in his spine he had as a young pilot. He’d never have the obscene courage of Pinn, who laughed at death because he was too dim to comprehend it. But he’d tasted what life was like trapped on the ground, unable to rise above the clouds to the sun. He was never going back to that.

  He glanced around apprehensively, as if someone, somewhere might be watching him. Then he settled back into the hard seat of the Firecrow and allowed himself a broad, contented smile.

  For Crake, there was no such contentment. Listless, he wandered the tight confines of the Ketty Jay. There was a strange void in his belly, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He drifted about, a spectre of bewildered sadness.

  At first he’d confined himself to the near-vacant cargo hold, until the space began to oppress him and his mood started to make Bess uneasy. After that he went to the mess and drank a few mugs of strong coffee while sitting at the small communal table. But the mess felt bleak with no one to share it with.

  So he climbed up the ladder from the mess to the passageway that linked the cockpit at the fore of the craft to engineering in the aft. In-between were several rooms that the crew used as quarters, their sliding doors stained with ancient, oily marks. Electric lights cast a dim light on the grimy metal walls.

  He thought about going up to the cockpit to have a look at the sky, but he couldn’t face Frey right now. He considered going to his quarters, perhaps to read, but that was unappealing too. Finally he remembered that their new recruit had managed to get herself shot, and decided it would be the decent thing to go and enquire after her health. With that in mind, he walked down the passageway to Malvery’s infirmary.

  The door was open when he got there, and Malvery had his feet up, a mug of rum in his hands. It was a tiny, squalid and unsanitary little chamber. The furniture comprised little more than a cheap dresser bolted to the wall, a washbasin, a pair of wooden chairs and a surgical table. The dresser was probably intended for plates and cutlery, but it had found new employment in the display of all manner of unpleasant-looking surgical instruments. They were all highly polished—the only clean things in the room—and they looked like they’d never been used.

  Malvery hauled his feet off the chair where they were resting, and shoved it towards Crake. Then he poured a stiff measure of rum into another mug that sat on the dresser. Crake obligingly sat down and took the proffered mug.

  ‘Where’s the new girl?’ he asked.

  ‘Up in the cockpit. Navigating.’

  ‘Didn’t she just get shot?’

  ‘You wouldn’t think so, the way she’s acting,’ Malvery said. ‘Damnedest thing. When she finally let me have a look at her, the bleeding had already stopped. Bullet went right through, like she said.’ He beamed. ‘All I had to do was swab it up with some antiseptic and slap on a patch. Then she got up and told me she had a job to do.’

  ‘You were right, she is tough.’

  ‘She’s lucky, is what she is. Can’t believe it didn’t do more damage.’

  Crake took a swig of rum. It was delightfully rough stuff, muscling its way to his brain where it set to work demolishing his finer mental functions.

  Malvery adjusted his round, green-tinted glasses and harumphed. ‘Out with it, then.’

  Crake drained his mug and held it out for a refill. He thought for a moment. There was no way to express the shock, the betrayal, the resentment he felt; not in a way that Malvery would truly understand. So he simply said: ‘He was going to let me die.’

  He told Malvery what had happened after he and Frey were captured. It was an effort to keep everything factual and objective, but he did his best. Clarity was important. Emotional outbursts went against his nature.

  When he’d finished, Malvery poured himself another shot and said, ‘Well.’

  Crake found his comment somewhat unsatisfying. When it became clear the doctor wasn’t going to elaborate, he said, ‘He let Macarde spin the barrel, put it to my forehead and pull the trigger. Twice!’

  ‘You were lucky. Head wounds like that can be nasty.’

  ‘Oh, spit and blood!’ Crake cried. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Now that’s good advice,’ Malvery said, tipping his mug at his companion. He hunkered forward in his chair. ‘I like you, Crake. You’re a good one. But this ain’t your world you’re living in any more.’

  ‘You don’t know a thing about my world!’ Crake protested.

  ‘Don’t think so?’ He swept out a hand to indicate the room. ‘Time was I wouldn’t set foot in a place like this. I used to be Guild approved. Worked in Thesk. Earned more in a month than this little operation makes in a year.’

  Crake eyed him uncertainly, trying to imagine this enormous, battered old drunkard visiting the elegant dwellings of the aristocracy. He couldn’t.

  ‘This ain’t no family, Crake,’ Malvery went on. ‘Every man is firmly and decidedly for himself. You’re a smart feller; you knew the risks when you threw your lot in with us. What makes you think he’d give up his craft in exchange for you?’

  ‘Because . . .’ Crake began, and then realised he’d nothing to say. Because it would have been the right thing to do. He’d spare himself Malvery’s laughter.

  ‘Look,’ Malvery said, more gently. ‘Don’t let the Cap’n fool you. He’s got a way with people, when he has a mind to try. But it’s not here nor there to him if you live or die. Or me, for that matter, or anyone else on board. I wonder if he even bothers about himself. The only thing he cares about is the Ketty Jay. Now if you think that’s heartless, then you ain’t seen the half of what’s out there. The Cap’n’s a good ’un. Better than most. You just got to know how he is.’

  Crake didn’t have an answer to that. He didn’t want to say something childishly bitter. Already he felt faintly embarrassed at bringing it up.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ he said. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Hey now, I didn’t say that !’ Malvery grinned. ‘Just saying, you got to realise not everyone thinks like you. Hard lesson, but worth it.’

  Crake said nothing and sipped his rum. His sad mood was turning black. Perhaps he should just give it up. Get off at the next port, turn his back on all this. It had been six months. Six months of moving from place to place, living under an assumed name, muddying his traces so nobody could find him. At first he’d lived like a rich hobo, haunting shabby hotels all over Vardia, his days and nights spent in terror or drunken grief. It was three months before the money began to run short and he collected himself a little. That was when he found Frey, and the Ketty Jay.

  Surely the trail had gone cold by now?

  ‘You’re not really thinking of packing it in, are you?’ Malvery prompted, turning serious again.

  Crake sighed. ‘I don’t know if I can stay. Not after that.’

  ‘Bit daft if you leave now. The way I understand it, you paid passage for the whole year with that cutlass.�
��

  Crake shrugged, morose. Malvery shoved him companionably with his boot, almost making him tip off his chair.

  ‘Where you gonna go, eh?’ he said. ‘You belong here.’

  ‘I belong here?’

  ‘Of course you do!’ Malvery bellowed. ‘Look at us! We’re not smugglers or pirates. We’re not a crew! The Cap’n’s only the cap’n ’cause he owns the aircraft; I wouldn’t trust him to lead a bear to honey. None of us here signed on for adventure or riches, ’cause sure as spit there’s little enough of either.’ He gave Crake a conspiritorial wink. ‘But mark me, ain’t one of us that’s not running from something, you included. I’ll bet my last swig of rum on that.’ He swigged the last of his rum, just to be safe, then added, ‘That’s why you belong here. ’Cause you’re one of us.’

  Crake couldn’t help a smile at the cheap feeling of camaraderie he got from that. Still, Malvery was right. Where would he go? What would he do? He was treading water because he didn’t know which direction to swim in. And until he did, the Ketty Jay was as good a place as any to hide from the sharks.

  ‘I just . . .’ he said. ‘It’s just . . . I thought he was my friend.’

  ‘He is your friend. Kind of. Just depends on your definition, really. I had lots of friends, back in the day, but most of ’em wouldn’t have thrown me a shillie if I was starving.’ He opened a drawer in the dresser and pulled out a bottle of clear liquid. ‘Rum’s done. Have a suck on this.’

  ‘What is it?’ Crake asked, holding out his mug. He was already pleasantly fogged and long past the point of being capable of refusing.

  ‘I use it to swab wounds,’ Malvery said.

  ‘I suppose this is a medicinal-grade kind of conversation,’ Crake said. Malvery blasted him with a hurricane of laughter, loud enough to make him wince.

  ‘That it is, that it is,’ he said, raising his glasses to wipe a teary eye.

  ‘So why are you here?’ Crake asked. ‘Guild-approved doctor, big job in the city, earning a fortune. Why the Ketty Jay?’

  Malvery’s mood faltered visibly, a flicker of pain crossing his face. He looked down into his mug.

  ‘Let’s just say I’m exactly where I deserve to be,’ he said. Then he rallied with a flourish, lifting his mug for a toast.

  ‘To friends!’ he declared. ‘In whatever form they come, and howsoever we choose to define them.’

  ‘Friends,’ said Crake, and they drank.

  Five

  Flying In The Dark—Pinn And The Whores—A Proposition Is Made

  Night had fallen by the time they arrived at Marklin’s Reach. The decrepit port crouched in the sharp folds of the Hookhollows, a speckle of electric lights in the darkness. Rain pounded down from a slow-rolling ceiling of cloud, its underside illuminated by the pale glow of the town. A gnawing wind swept across the mountaintops.

  The Ketty Jay sank out of the clouds, four powerful lights shining from her belly. Her outflyers hung close to her wings as she descended towards a crowded landing pad. Beam lamps swivelled to track her from below; others picked out an empty spot on the pad.

  Frey sat in the pilot seat of the Ketty Jay’s cockpit, his eyes moving rapidly between the brass-and-chrome dials and gauges. Jez was standing with one hand resting on his chair back, looking out at the clutter of barques, freighters, fighters and privateer craft occupying the wide square of flat ground on the edge of the town.

  ‘Busy night,’ she murmured.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Frey, distracted. Landing in foul weather at night was one of his least favourite things.

  He watched the aerium levels carefully, venting a little and adding a little, letting the Ketty Jay drift earthward while he concentrated on fighting the crosswinds that bullied him from either side. The bulky craft jerked and plunged as she was shoved this way and that. He swore under his breath and let a little more gas from the trim tanks. The Ketty Jay was getting over-heavy now, dropping faster than he was comfortable with, but he needed the extra weight to stabilise.

  ‘Hang on to something,’ he murmured. ‘Gonna be a little rough.’

  The Ketty Jay had picked up speed now and was coming in far too fast. Frey counted in his head with one eye on the altimeter, then with a flurry of pedals and levers he wrenched the thrusters into full reverse, opened the air brakes and boosted the aerium engines to maximum. The craft groaned as its forward momentum was cancelled and its descent arrested by the flood of ultralight gas into its ballast tanks. It slowed hard above the space that had been marked out for her, next to the huge metal flank of a four-storey freighter. Frey dumped the gas from the tanks and she dropped neatly into the vacant spot, landing with a heavy thump on her skids.

  He sank back in the chair and let a slow breath of relief escape him. Jez patted him on the shoulder.

  ‘Anyone would think you were worried for a moment there, Cap’n,’ she said.

  Water splattered in puddles on the landing pad as the crew assembled at the foot of the Ketty Jay’s cargo ramp, wrapped in slickers and stamping their feet.

  ‘Where’s Malvery and Crake?’ Frey asked.

  Silo thumbed at the ramp, where a slurred duet could be faintly heard from the depths of the craft.

  ‘Hey, I know that one!’ Pinn said, and began to sing along, off-key, until he was silenced by a glare from Silo.

  ‘What are we doing here, Cap’n?’ Jez asked. The others were hugging themselves or stuffing their hands in their pockets, but she seemed unperturbed by the icy wind.

  ‘There’s a man I have to see. A whispermonger, name of Xandian Quail. There shouldn’t be any trouble, but that’s usually when there’s the most trouble. Harkins, Pinn, Jez, grab your guns and come with me. Silo, you take care of the docking permits, watch the aircraft and all that.’ The tall Murthian nodded solemnly.

  ‘Think I might need to do some diagnostics,’ blurted Harkins suddenly. ‘Check out the Firecrow, you know? She was all tick-tick-tick on the port side, don’t know what it was, best check it out, probably, if you know what I mean. Don’t want to fall out of the sky, you know, zoooooom, crash, haha. That wouldn’t be much good to anyone, now would it? Me dead, I mean. Who’d fly it then? Well, I suppose there’d be nothing to fly anyway if I crashed it. So all round it’d be best if I just ran my eye over the internals, make sure everything’s ship-shape, spickety-span.’

  Frey gave him a look. He squirmed. It was transparently obvious that the thought of a gunfight terrified him.

  ‘Diagnostics,’ he said, his voice flat. Harkins nodded eagerly. ‘Fine, stay.’

  The pilot’s face split in a huge grin, revealing a set of uneven and lightly browned teeth. ‘Thank you, Cap’n!’

  Frey surveyed the rest of his crew. ‘What are we all standing around for?’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Get to it!’

  They hurried through the drenched streets of Marklin’s Reach. The thoroughfares had become rivers of mud, running past the raised wooden porches of the shops and houses. Overhead, strings of electric light bulbs fizzed and flickered as they were thrown about by the wind. Ragged children peered from lean-to shacks and alleyways where they sheltered. Water ramped off awnings and gurgled down gutters, the racket all but drowning out the clattering hum of generators. The air was thick with the smell of petrol, cooking food, and the clean, cold scent of new rain.

  ‘Couldn’t we go see this guy tomorrow instead?’ Pinn complained. ‘I’d be dryer underwater!’

  Frey ignored him. They were already cutting it fine. Being held up in Scarwater had put them behind schedule. Quail had been clear in the letter: get here before the end of Howl’s Batten, or the offer would go dead. Frey had been lazy about picking up his mail, so he hadn’t got the message for some time. With one thing and another, it was now the last day of the month of Howl’s Batten, and Frey didn’t have time to delay any longer.

  ‘Gonna end up with pneumonia, that’s what’s gonna happen,’ Pinn was grumbling. ‘You try flying when your cockpit’s waist-deep in w
et snot.’

  Xandian Quail lived in a fortified compound set in a tumbledown cluster of alleys. His house hulked in the darkness, square and austere, its tall, narrow windows aglow. The grinding poverty experienced by the town’s denizens was shut out with high walls and stout gates.

  ‘I’m Darian Frey!’ Frey yelled over the noise of the downpour. The guards on the other side of the gate seemed nonplussed. ‘Darian Frey! Quail’s expecting me! At least, he bloody well better be!’

  One of the guards scampered over to the house, holding the hood of his slicker. A few moments later he was back and indicated to his companion that he should let them in.

  They were escorted beneath the stone porch, where another guard—this one wearing a waistcoat and trousers and sporting a pair of pistols—opened the main door of the house. He had a long face and a patchy black beard. Frey recognised him vaguely from previous visits. His name was Codge.

  ‘Guns,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘And don’t keep any back. You’ll make me real upset if you do.’

  Frey hesitated. He didn’t like the idea of going into a situation like this without firepower. He couldn’t think of any reason for Quail to want him dead, but that did little to ease his mind.

  It was the mystery that unnerved him. Quail had given no details in his letter. He’d only said that he had a proposition for Frey, for Frey in particular, and that it might make him very rich. That in itself was enough to make him suspicious. It also made him curious.

  I just have to hear him out, Frey thought to himself. Anyway, they were here now, and he didn’t much fancy tramping back to the Ketty Jay until he’d warmed up a bit.

  He motioned with his head to the others. Hand ’em over.

  Once he’d collected their weapons, Codge stepped out of the way and let them into the entrance hall, where they stood dripping. Three more armed guards lounged about in the doorways, exuding an attitude of casual threat. A pair of large, lean dogs loped over to investigate them. They were white, short-haired and pink-eyed. Night hunters, that could see in the dark and tracked their prey by following heat traces. They sniffed over the newcomers, but when they reached Jez, they shied away.