by Stephen Hunt
After Lana got to the bridge she punched up comms and made an offer to take the message point-to-point on a tight laser line, but the courier refused, which kind of made sense. If you were paranoid enough not to risk your precious message getting hacked in the wild, you weren’t going to chance someone having a pebble-sized probe hanging tight off a hull and trying to intercept your laser communications.
The courier ship was a pert matt-black needle floating void, not much more than a pilot cabin and life support system forward of her jump drive and the pion reaction thrusters she used to kick some tidy little propulsion out. With a hull-to-engine ratio tricked out like that she could tear a strip through this lonely corner of space. Faster than the Gravity Rose, that was for sure, even with the Rose running empty. Speed being of the essence, and all, Lana opened the doors to the Gravity Rose’s starboard-side hold and the courier couldn’t have set her down more sweetly if Lana’s vessel had been a navy carrier, three little landing skids folding out of the dart. She noted from the hold’s cameras that the pilot was another kaggen, like Polter. A five foot-high sentient crab-shaped mass of religious worry. Female kaggens were twice the size of the race’s males, so this one was a lad, just like their navigator.
Lana instructed the courier to come to the bridge, skipper’s privilege, rather than doing a meet-and-greet in their massive empty hold. There were traditions to be observed, and it never hurt to underline the fact that the courier’s sense of urgency wasn’t her problem. Not yet, anyway. Not until it started putting bacon on her table, as well as the courier’s. A few minutes later the messenger scuttled into the bridge, his two large vestigial claws folded backward along his top-shell to indicate he came in peace and with God. Like the little pacifists come in any other flavour. He signed a private greeting to Polter, and kept on with a kag blessing even as he began talking to Lana, a parrot-like beak on the soft fleshy face underneath his carapace warbling in satisfaction at having tracked down his quarry. His accent was a lot thicker than Polter’s. ‘I have the honour of addressing Captain Lana Fiveworlds, proprietor of Fiveworlds Shipping, registered out of the Protocol world of Nueva Valencia, The Edge?’
‘That’ll be me, and I reckon you’ve got my transponder codes, flight plan and license, to prove it, shorty,’ said Lana.
The courier dipped respectfully on four of his six legs. ‘I am Ralt Raltish of—’
‘Spare me your diocese and family tree stretching back to the fortieth generation. This message, it’s only for yours truly or…?’ Lana indicated her crew standing on the bridge.
‘Not specified. Do you trust your crew?’
‘You slide void any other way out here and you ain’t going to live long enough to regret it,’ said Lana. ‘Staying alive is a team game. Least ways, it is if you are not flying some tricked-out comet firing faster than photons. That would be that needle of yours sitting in my hangar, shorty.’
‘Then I may pass you my message,’ said the courier. ‘It is from my most majestic client Rex Matobo, blessings be upon him.’
‘Shizzle,’ Lana cursed under her breath. Rex. ‘I just knew that this was going to be trouble. And the message?’
‘He says, “I would appreciate it if you came quickly”.’
Lana shook her head in disbelief. ‘That’s it?’
‘I have the co-ordinates of my client’s world of origin, with instructions to divulge these to you.’
‘You feel like divulging how much business you’ve been doing with Rex?’
The courier raised one of his two manipulator hands and wiggled a bony finger in a cursory way, the kaggen equivalent of a shrug. ‘He is a new client, blessings be upon him. The world of origin is not much visited. In fact, it’s not even recognized by the Protocol.’
‘I’ll just bet it isn’t. What’s this world called, shorty?’
‘Hesperus is its common name,’ said the courier. ‘Standard cartography reference Hes-10294384b is the planet’s formal title.’
She nodded to Zeno, and the android pulled the details from the bridge computer. ‘So, Zeno, this Hesperus look like anywhere we want to be travelling to?’
‘Doesn’t appear too dangerous on the face of it, skipper,’ said Zeno. ‘A little light on details here, though, on the wiki. It’s a failed colony world. Lost their technological base in an ice age and they’ve been living back in the dark ages for centuries. You might catch dysentery on Hesperus, but nobody’s going to be shooting missiles at us down there. They won’t even know what a gun is, let alone a starship.’
‘Most curious. What is this old friend of yours doing in such an unconducive locale?’ Skrat asked Lana.
‘No damn good,’ said Lana, ‘if I know him.’
‘You are going to world?’ asked the courier. ‘I have been paid to return a negative reply, if you choose not to heed my client’s message.’
‘Give me a minute to think on it,’ said Lana.
‘This Rex Matobo fellow is a human?’ Skrat asked. ‘I’ve never heard of the chap?’
‘Before your time,’ said Lana. ‘The rest of the crew will remember him.’ But not fondly, I reckon. ‘How about it, Zeno? You want to see Rex again?’
Zeno tapped his artificial skin. ‘Hell, it’s not my nano-mechanical backside that’s going to be catching dysentery.’
Lana groaned inside as she realized how few choices she had left in front of her, now. You can’t complain, girl. That’s why you’re still flying free as an independent. If it’s civilised living you’re after, sell out to one of the corporate houses and work yourself some of those sophisticated routes inside the Triple Alliance’s void.
‘Are we going, revered skipper?’ asked Polter, eager to see if his premonition about receiving work was about to be rewarded.
‘Only if this human chap has money,’ insisted Skrat.
‘Oh, he’ll have money,’ said Lana. The main problem is, most of it won’t be his.
Worst thing was, she owed Rex Matobo a favor. Not the kind you got to skip by lightly, either. Stepping aside, Lana sighed and indicated her ship’s hulking navigation board for the benefit of the courier. ‘Load up the damn jump co-ordinates, shorty; then you can light out of here. Polter, crunch the numbers for a hyperspace translation, we’ve got us a little business to attend to.’
She glanced towards a wide view of the no-account world fixed on the front of the bridge, the ball creatures’ planet, its brown gas-wrapped orb barely visible beyond the pitted expanse of the orbital station they had just left. And just once, don’t let it be the bad kind. Just this damn once.
CHAPTER TWO – World of winter, world of war
Calder Durk felt them coming through the blizzard after him, six shield-warriors maybe seven. The big, heavy muscled brutes from Baron Halvard’s bodyguard. They were fresh and he was exhausted. Even with the weight of his pursuers’ two-handed swords, axes, shields and crossbows, and Calder carrying only the single hunting dagger he’d escaped with, the men were going to overtake him soon. His manservant, Noak, was ruddy faced and breathing hard under his bear furs, but showed every sign of being more spry than Calder, despite being twice his young master’s age. Fear could do that to a man. Calder wasn’t afraid; he was looking forward to the slaying. He was looking forward to carving up Halvard’s boys and leaving the treacherous scum frozen in the snow for the baron to find. A man has to die some time, right? Might as well be out here.
Noak recognized the frown crossing Calder’s furrowed brow. Knew that his master’s supernatural hunting sense was alive and kicking. ‘How many behind us now, my prince?’
‘Six, I think. Armed for the fight and that’s the truth of it.’
‘Won’t be much of a fight.’
Calder scrambled up a bank of snow, ignoring the aching pain in his legs, spurred on by adrenaline and the desire to survive.
‘You with a dagger and me with nothing but spit,’ added the manservant, lest the young prince think that he was considering fleeing and abandoni
ng his charge. Of course, with ninety of their friends and crew lying poisoned across the tables of their so-called host’s great-hall back in the castle, doing a runner was probably the sanest course for the servant right now. But you’re too loyal, aren’t you. And you want to live to say ‘I told you so’, you wretch.
‘How far are we from the Frozen Sea, do you think?’ Calder asked Noak.
The manservant rubbed the silvery beard of his chin, taking a second to glance behind them. Nothing but endless forests waist-deep in snow, every tree as tough as a granite cliff. The sea has to be less than ten miles ahead, doesn’t it?
‘Near enough, my prince,’ said Noak. ‘But there are no ports hereabouts. What are the chances of us spotting and flagging down a passing ice schooner out on the flows?’ It was a purely rhetorical question.
‘Somewhere between hell and none,’ sighed Calder. It wasn’t fair, it really wasn’t. Surviving the war, surviving the long journey back home. All that way, all that blood, only to die here, so close to... glimpsing Sibylla’s immaculate naked body again, a voice within him whispered. He shut that down fast. Survive first, kisses with princess later.
Over the rise and down below lay a structure, something more than the endless snow and forest that they had passed so far during their desperate escape. A round stonehouse alongside an oil derrick, two blinded slaves walking the circle in chains and driving the oil well’s pumping-beam up and down. The hut’s thatched roof wouldn’t stand against crossbow bolts, but the flint stone walls would serve as cover enough against Baron Halvard’s assassins. No windows, of course. Anyone rich enough to put glass panes in their walls wouldn’t be milking the ground so far from town or village. Whoever owned that hut was probably off fishing at an ice-hole on the river that they had passed a mile back. The hut’s chimneystack was cold and smokeless, and the one thing you knew about a driller, they always had enough oil spare to light a fire.
Calder brushed black tufts of hair out of his snow-tanned face and pointed to the stone hut. ‘There’s our luck. We run down and past, then walk our own footprints back to the hut and shelter inside. When the baron’s shield-warriors go past, we take them in the rear.’ Maybe if we’re lucky, there will be some clay pots inside we can fill with oil. Something more than harsh words to toss at our executioners . . . oil grenades. The two of them, young prince and manservant, stumbled down the rise towards the hut.
‘I think you should use it, my prince.’
‘Use what?’
‘The amulet.’
Calder’s hand snaked to the crystal hanging from the chain beneath his fur-covered tunic. ‘Damned if I will.’
‘You were given it to call for help in time of need, my prince. If this is not such a time, then will it not do until a darker hour deepens?’
‘You think so?’ Calder spat. ‘It was that useless warlock, that dirty singer of spells, that mud-brain of mud-brains, who happily waved our fleet off when we departed in search of glory. If thousands of our men stretched out as pale corpses in front of the walls of Narvalo really were his plan, then it’s true glory we have brought back in his name. You think old allies like the baron would have switched sides to the Narvalaks if we’d had the good sense to send that filthy sorcerer off with a flea in his ear? Why, the same scum chasing us would be dragging our sleds across the border towards home and raising a song in our honour!’
The prince’s manservant didn’t appear to agree with the assessment. ‘The wizard is powerful.’
‘He’s mortal! His plans can be snapped as easily as the skis on an ice schooner. If it were otherwise, the shaking hand of a Narvalak priest would be crowning me King of the World now while you would be drinking your gourd off in some sacked Narvalo tavern.’
They reached the hut. Calder was about to threaten the two slaves outside with murder unless they held their silence, but then he noticed the reason the two oil-pushers were still so intent on the progress of the wooden wheel they were chained to. Their cheeks were hollow from a time long ago when their tongues had been cut out. Blinded as well. Tough luck for them. The peasants should have put up more of a struggle when the baron’s warriors arrived at whatever dirt-hole of a village these two jokers had been living in. There’s a lot of darkness in the winter. That had been one of Calder’s father’s favourite sayings, before he had fallen off a horse with a crossbow bolt through his left eye.
Calder glanced over to where Noak stood examining a gear reducer on the oil well. What’s he trying to do? Calder scooped up a snowball and threw it at the manservant’s back. ‘You found a crossbow hidden behind the tubing? Come on, we’ve got to run past the hut and double back before the baron’s swords turn up.’
Calder and his manservant followed the plan. Wading through the snow past the driller’s hut a good distance, then carefully walking back over their footprints in the snow towards the hut. There wasn’t a lock on the driller’s door, but it could be bolted from inside. Just light planking on the entrance, not up to much. Good for keeping out wolves and bears for long enough to lift a crossbow off the empty hook on the wall. Calder could have kicked in the door himself, if he wanted to advertise their presence inside to the assassins. The prince had to hope that two of them, as good as weaponless against a company of shield-warriors, was a plan so crazy that the element of surprise was the one thing they would be armed with.
‘Check the room,’ whispered Calder Durk. ‘See if there’s anything here.’ Not that there was going to be. A fireplace with a roasting spit. Some straw to sleep on, a few blankets in the corner of the sunken floor. Spare netting and line hanging on the wall to fish the river. Anything metal or sharp had gone to the river along with the baron’s driller living here.
Calder kept a wary eye on the top of the rise, peering through the planks of the wooden door. The two slaves were still working the noisy, creaking wheel, the oil derrick nodding back and forth in time to their labours. Black liquid dripped out into a large wooden barrel from a pipe rammed into the down-hole. Doesn’t seem much coming out of there. Maybe the well’s nearly tapped out? Calder hadn’t spotted sled tracks in the snow, so that meant the driller who lived here had left on foot. Too poor to keep his own dogs and pay for sled and harness. There was a wooden measuring stick leaning against the barrel, half-covered in tar. So, the driller had dipped it into the barrel to take a measure of its contents, just to see if his pair of slaves slacked off while he was away catching fish for their dinner. Not a trusting man. His slaves might be blind and mute, but Calder suspected they’d feel the crack of the whip well enough if they stopped turning the well’s crank.
Noak rifled through the scant possessions behind them. ‘No weapons.’
‘Any clay pots, something we could fill with oil to burn them when they pass by?’
Noak lifted up a solitary metal frying pan. ‘I can smack them with this.’
Calder laughed, despite their predicament. ‘You really are an old woman, now.’
‘Just rub the amulet, my prince, please,’ pleaded Noak. ‘Before Halvard’s killers turn up and see the light of sorcery under our roof.’
Well, what the hell. In for a lump of copper, in for a lump of gold. Calder lifted the amulet out of his shirt, and resting his hand on its diamond surface, chanted the incantation the sorcerer had made him memorise. It took a second for an evil whining noise to fill the silence. A ghostly face appeared before them, hovering in the centre of the hut, and Calder tried unsuccessfully to keep the shivers from freezing his spine. Off to the side of the hut, Noak traced the sign of the Fire Goddess across his chest. Something used to ward off demons. The apparition grinned. Skin as black as night on his face – it didn’t matter how much snow-glare you took, no skin should get that tanned – his accent exotic and strange, a voice all-too knowing and cock-sure. Hair curled like a woman’s. Smug too. How could the sorcerer still appear so bloody smug after he had dispatched the manhood of an entire nation to its untimely end?
‘I am betrayed,’
said Calder. ‘Baron Halvard burnt my schooner at her moorings and murdered my crew with poison at his own table. He has broken the compact and sold us out to the enemy for my weight in silver. That was the price of his honour.’
‘Ah, Prince Calder, last of the House of Durk,’ smirked the sorcerer. ‘Reduced circumstances, then?’
Calder had to stop himself shouting at the sorcerer. The assassins would be close enough to hear them in a minute. ‘I followed your plans, and I have been reduced in all things. Four armies lie dead in front of the walls of Narvalo. My crew and I have spent a year in foreign parts voyaging home, fighting creatures and monsters and enemies so sodding strange they would freeze the veins of lesser men. Now all I have been left is this dagger, Noak here, and my honour.’
‘Well,’ said the sorcerer. ‘Top tip for next time, your highness. You would have done better keeping your armada of schooners intact and losing your dagger, rather than vice-versa.’
‘You dog,’ cursed Calder. ‘I built the giant wooden wolf like you instructed, left it outside their walls. You know what the enemy did to it? They dragged it onto the sea-flows, set barrels of oil alight in a circle around it, melted the ice and drowned every man hiding inside.’
