Clockwise, meanwhile, was standing nearby with the reins of their pterosaurs in his grip. The beasts were already saddled and ready to fly, with Tempest pecking at the thin patches of grass, half his face covered in gunk that was weeping from his red-rimmed eyes.
‘Well met, Bladebound,’ said Lord Rayner as the prentices fell into line before him. ‘You’re no doubt surprised to see me this morning. I’ll cut to the heart of the matter. I’m sure you’ve heard of the rustlers who’ve been plaguing us of late …’
Joss shared a quick glance with his brethren. Clearly they remembered Rowan’s talk of rustlers just as well as he did.
‘They’ve raided three of our rookeries in all,’ Rayner went on. ‘With the third having been hit only a few days ago. We’ve just received word that one of the rustlers has been spotted in the nearby settlement of Freecloud trying to sell his cabal’s ill-gotten gains, no doubt after their original buyer fell through. A man who calls himself “Midwinter Jack”, if the whispers be true. I’ve tasked Sur Blaek with the duty of tracking down this Midwinter Jack and his accomplices to bring them to justice and to return our livestock. And what better way for you all to experience firsthand the duties of a skyborne paladero than to accompany him on this mission?’
The prentices exchanged wary glances.
‘With respect, my lord, and without wanting to sell myself or my brethren short –’ said Drake. ‘But wouldn’t Sur Blaek have a better chance of success on his own?’
The shadow of a grimace flitted across Sur Blaek’s face, which Lord Rayner failed to notice as he guffawed in an exaggerated show of astonishment. ‘I’m shocked, young master –’ his lordship hesitated, and turned to Clockwise.
‘Drake, my lord,’ the mek offered. ‘Ganymede Drake of Starlight Fields.’
‘I’m shocked, young Master Drake, that a prentice would seek to turn down such a unique and exciting opportunity.’
‘Please don’t misconstrue my meaning, my lord. It would be an honour to accompany Sur Blaek, as well as highly instructive. My only concern is that our presence might jeopardise what will no doubt be a delicate operation. Our last ride was … well …’
Drake caught Joss’s eye, and shame prickled Joss again like a persistent weed.
‘It could have gone better,’ Drake said, quickly looking away, ‘and none of us would want to be the reason for anything going wrong this time, with such an important mission.’
Lord Rayner snorted. ‘Sur Blaek has told me all about your recent misadventure. He and I have agreed that enough time has passed that you should be given another opportunity to prove yourselves. This is that opportunity. After all, we’re not dealing with master saboteurs here. These thugs are crude, cowardly and opportunistic. Nothing more. You need only ask your female comrade should you seek confirmation of that.’
Everyone turned to Hero. Joss immediately thought of what she’d told him and Drake about the things Lord Rayner had called her. Urchin girl. Daughter of thieves. His lordship was using the spectre of those words now in an attempt to spook her. But Hero didn’t spook so easily. She stared past Lord Rayner and his barbed remarks, even as he gazed expectantly at her.
When she gave him no reaction, he cleared his throat and concluded, ‘So if there are no more objections, I’ll leave you to your task. Though I would suggest leaving behind your humming knives and any other objects that might too easily identify you. These thieves may be witless, but a certain degree of discretion would nevertheless be wise.’ As he left the field, Lord Rayner added, ‘I look forward to reports of your success.’
Sur Blaek turned to the prentices. ‘You heard his lordship. We have a job to do. Freecloud is an hour’s ride from here and I intend to get there in a timely fashion, before all our livestock is sold out from under us. So fetch water or make water, whatever you need to do. We leave in five. Understood?’
‘Yes, sur,’ the prentices replied, then broke to prepare for the journey. Preoccupied with thoughts of what kind of challenges Tempest would offer him, Joss didn’t register the fact that he and Hero were elbow-to-elbow at the water pump until she started speaking.
‘This promises to be an interesting excursion,’ she said, filling her canteen.
‘What makes you say that?’ Joss asked.
‘Because Freecloud is where the shadier characters of Covora would flee to whenever they had trouble with the law that they couldn’t buy their way clear of and they had to lay low someplace,’ she replied, while Drake emerged behind her with his own canteen to fill. ‘Needless to say, I visited more than a time or two with my parents.’
Joss blinked, standing back as Drake tended to the water pump.
‘You’re saying that we’re flying into a town of outlaws and fugitives?’ he asked.
‘I wouldn’t call it that,’ Hero shrugged. ‘It’s really more of a settlement than a town.’
The wind was blowing in from the south, using all its strength to fight the riders the whole way to Freecloud. Joss had learned enough of skyborne traditions over the last several weeks to know that the superstitious among them would have considered this an ill omen, leaving him more on edge than he’d already been about his reunion with Tempest.
The pterosaur was as unruly as ever, its face scrunched tight as it tugged at its reins and bucked, doing everything it could short of throwing its rider from the saddle. It made a challenging flight even harder, with Joss unable to appreciate the view of the Backbone Ranges for fear that losing concentration would cost him his life.
After what felt like an eternity, Sur Blaek pumped his hand in the air to signal for attention, then gestured down at the mountain range. Joss stared where the paladero had pointed and saw nothing. Not at first. But then something shifted in his vision, and suddenly he could see what had eluded him, like spotting a chameleon on a flat rock: a jumble of lopsided stone towers and crudely built blackwood cabins, all constructed among the peaks and chasms of the mountain range. Misty clouds trawled the thin, muddy streets, while people tromped across gangplanks that had been laid over the thick sludge.
Sur Blaek led the way down, circling towards a stocky tower on the outskirts of the settlement. Here they landed on perches that had been erected for skyborne riders, Joss landing his mount with considerable effort as the beast continued to fight his every direction.
Cursed bird, he griped to himself.
‘Sur Blaek!’ someone called out, and Joss looked with his fellow prentices to see a wild-eyed boy dressed in mud-flecked rags emerging from a doorway at the top of the tower.
Sur Blaek regarded him with distant curiosity, as if searching for a name to put with the face. ‘Wilem, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sur,’ the boy bowed his head, his mop of ashy brown curls bouncing.
‘Wilem, we’ll be needing refreshment for our animals, a quiet place to house them for a day or two, and a promise that our presence in Freecloud will go unreported.’
‘You can count on me, Sur Blaek.’
‘Good lad,’ the paladero said, pushing a pair of folded bank notes into the boy’s hand before dismounting to lead the way to the heart of the settlement, passing abandoned silver mines, empty hardware stores and boarded-up wells. From there they followed a set of rotting wooden stairs down into a stony gorge that had been fashioned over time into a haphazard street. The locals didn’t give them a second glance as they navigated through the winding passageway, though Joss couldn’t tell if that was because he and his brethren were doing a good job of blending in or if it was simply because everyone else was in the habit of keeping their eyes to themselves.
The gravelly street led them past market stalls built out of crimson tarps and reclaimed timbers, while the more established businesses had taken up residence in the system of caves that pockmarked the rock face. The largest of these caves belonged to Touchshriek’s Tavern, a literal hole in the wall that announced itself with a flaky hand-painted sign.
‘I’ve been here many a time now,’ Sur Blaek
said, approaching the cave and the wooden hatch that shielded its entrance. ‘But even if I hadn’t, I’d still know of Touchshriek’s by the reputation it’s acquired. We’ll need to keep our profiles low and our wits well-honed.’
Sur Blaek rapped on the door and a spyhole in the centre shunted open. ‘Fortune’s widow sent me,’ said Sur Blaek, and was quickly answered with the spyhole slamming shut, followed by the unbolting of locks and then the creaking of the door as it swung open. A heavily muscled guard stood to one side, mute, granting the group entry. Sur Blaek offered him a nod as he led the prentices through.
It feels generous to call this place a tavern, Joss thought. The earth underfoot had been packed tight to form some semblance of a floor, while a handful of lanterns had been strung overhead. Padded leather booths were fixed to the closest rock wall, their seating ripped open and seeping feathers, while a bar had been built on the far side, tended by an oversized spider-mek whose many slender limbs were busy pouring drinks and polishing glasses. Other than that, the cave was as spiked and stony as any other, and just as dank.
Approaching the bar, Sur Blaek hailed the mek by waving a twenty-crown note in the air. The tarnished sphere that constituted the machine’s head pivoted towards the paladero, preceding the rest of its whirring, segmented body.
‘We’re looking for someone,’ Sur Blaek said. ‘Goes by the name “Midwinter Jack”. And I’m told he’s a regular here.’
‘We serve many customers in this establishment,’ the mechanoid replied, its two longest arms mixing a drink for a patron at the other end of the bar.
‘This customer has been looking to make a livestock sale without the hassle of heading to market, if you take my meaning. Have you served anyone like that?’
‘As stated, we serve many customers.’
Sur Blaek grimaced. ‘How about this, then; this is Touchshriek’s Tavern. Correct?’
‘Correct.’
‘Then bring me Touchshriek,’ Sur Blake said, the corner of his mouth flickering with triumph.
‘Impossible,’ said the mek.
‘And why is that?’
‘He has been sadly deceased for more than two years now.’
Sur Blaek sighed wearily. ‘So then who’s in charge?’
‘That would be the manager – Florence. Would you care to speak with her?’
‘Please,’ Sur Blaek growled, then tapped the bar and pushed the twenty-crown note across. ‘And we’ll have three sarsaparillas and two fingers of the house amber while we wait.’
The mechanoid took the money, served the drinks with automated precision, then folded its many arms into its chassis to go in search of the manager.
‘Meks,’ the paladero spat, downing his drink in one gulp. He gestured to the three tankards that had been set beside it. ‘Best take these and find yourselves a quiet booth to occupy while I bash beaks with our new friend Florence.’
‘Are you sure?’ Joss asked. ‘Shouldn’t we stay close? In case you need reinforcements?’
‘Or even just to observe how a paladero goes about questioning someone,’ Drake added, and was met with a quizzical look from Sur Blaek.
‘I thought you said you might jeopardise things simply by being here?’
‘Well … now that we are here, we may as well make the most of it,’ Drake replied with utter earnestness.
‘Agreed,’ Hero piped up.
Sur Blaek lowered his brow. ‘Go. Sit. Drink.’
Knowing the end of an argument when he heard one, Joss joined his brethren in withdrawing to a corner booth. As they went, a tall woman with forearms as thick as meat mallets emerged from a backroom. Her wild eyes and tangle of curly hair reminded Joss of Wilem, the stablehand. Her appearance betrayed not only how close-knit this settlement was, but also how slim the chances were that word of their presence wouldn’t spread.
‘You the one asking to see the manager?’ she could be heard asking Sur Blaek. The rest of their conversation was swallowed up by the din of a tavern patron pumping a coin into the illuminator to play a medley of mountainfolk songs, each more tortured than the last.
‘Something stinks,’ Hero said, barely audible over the music, as she stared at Florence.
‘And not just my pterosaur,’ Joss added. Both his brethren made the same face at him. ‘What? It does!’
Shaking her head, Hero said nothing as she and the others watched Sur Blaek parlay with the curly-haired woman. The paladero was so subtle in the way he slipped her a fifty-crown note that Joss wasn’t sure if he’d even seen him do it. Florence slipped the note in her pocket, then nodded to Sur Blaek. She returned to the backroom and was replaced a moment later by the spider-mek, who poured another drink for the paladero. He took the glass and wandered over to the prentices.
‘So?’ Hero asked.
Sur Blaek met her eagerness with a cool glance before taking a sip of his drink. ‘She’s going to organise a meeting for tonight. Ten o’clock at the wind farm outside of town.’
‘Do you trust her?’ asked Hero.
‘She could just keep the money without ever even laying eyes on this Midwinter Jack character,’ Joss said.
‘Or they could be in cahoots,’ Drake suggested. ‘And she’s helping him organise a trap.’
‘Good thing then that I’ll have reinforcements,’ said Sur Blaek, and threw back the rest of his drink. That left the prentices to drain their tankards, the sarsaparilla’s bubbles doing little to soothe Joss’s stomach. He couldn’t shift the feeling he’d had almost the entire time they’d been at Blade’s Edge Acres of something being amiss, from Lord Haven’s death to Lord Rayner’s mercenary army to Rowan’s stories of mutilated livestock. Now they were here, in a settlement best known as a refuge for rogues and scoundrels, preparing to meet with an outlaw rustler. Joss wondered how it was that he always ended up in these predicaments.
‘Come on,’ said Sur Blaek. ’Ten o’clock will be upon us all too soon. We’d best away.’
As they left Touchshriek’s Tavern, Joss threw one last look back at the bar to see the spider-mek staring at them. Or at least that’s how it seemed to Joss, with the mechanoid’s head pivoting around to focus its sole glass eye on their exit. Joss’s gut clenched as he followed the others out into the falling night, watchful for whatever it was that awaited them.
CHAPTER TWENTY- ONE
A PALE WHITE FACE AND A GRUESOME RED GRIN
THE wind farm was awash in a sea of mist, with the dozens of turbines that crowded its fields better resembling darkened lighthouses as they lazily carved the air. Even with the use of his shadowscope, Joss could barely see Sur Blaek at the base of the nearest turbine; the paladero was dwarfed by its mighty bronze pylon. He looked especially vulnerable at this scale – like a tiny target stuck out in the open, waiting for the archer’s arrow – while the prentices kept watch from behind a boulder, perched atop a nearby stony hill.
‘I can’t see a thing,’ Hero grumbled beside Joss, her grip tight on the thunderstick Sur Blaek had left in her care. She was staring down its barrel, muzzle trained on the area surrounding the skyborne paladero, waiting to let loose a concussive blast of air should any threats reveal themselves through the mist.
‘Here,’ Joss said. He took the thunderstick from her and strapped his shadowscope to it with his belt. ‘Better?’
Hefting the weapon back into her grasp, Hero settled into position and stared down the scope. ‘Better,’ she said.
Hunched beside her, Drake gazed up at the sky. Though the earth was masked with mist, the heavens were clear and sparkling. ‘At this rate, we’ll be knee-deep in snow before this “Midwinter Jack” ever shows himself,’ he said.
‘Hard to know which would be the better outcome,’ replied Joss.
‘Quiet!’ Hero hissed. ‘We have company.’
Joss and the others stared down at the wind farm to see a lean figure sidling in through the mist. He was dressed in lizard leathers and sabretooth furs, with a wide array of hunting knives st
rapped to his thighs. Moonbeams bounced off his glacial blond hair. He wore an eyepatch that had been fashioned into a grinning skull, and a scarf was knotted around his neck with the tension of a noose. His walk had an offbeat jangle to it, a half-skip that exuded a killer’s confidence, set to a tuneless song that he whistled with every step.
‘Midwinter Jack?’ Sur Blaek’s voice boomed, well-accustomed to carrying itself over strong winds.
The whistling came to an echoing end as the figure bowed with theatrical flair. ‘The one and only,’ the man grinned. ‘And be you the curious gent of which Florence the barkeep told a tale? The one who’s in want of a bargain flock that comes with no questions asked?’
‘I am. Though we seem to already be at two questions and counting,’ Sur Blaek said.
Midwinter Jack’s grin broadened, his one good eye glinting. ‘So we are. Well, at the risk of adding to that number, I’ll greet you without guise or deceit and simply ask you this; how was your journey from Skyend, Sur Blaek of Blade’s Edge Acres?’
Sur Blaek had no time to react as Midwinter Jack palmed one of his many knives and slashed at him. A red burst coloured the night as the paladero grabbed at his throat, blood squirting between his fingers.
‘No!’ Joss shouted, seizing Midwinter Jack’s attention long enough for Sur Blaek to draw his concealed dagger, while Hero lined up her shot and squeezed the trigger. The misty barrier that swirled between the prentices and Sur Blaek corkscrewed violently as the thunderstick erupted. An invisible blast of force struck Midwinter Jack in the bicep, spinning him like a flung bola. He crashed with his back against the pylon, Sur Blaek’s blood still running down the brass surface.
The Edge of the World Page 13
