The Iron jackal totkj-3

by Chris Wooding

  Hawkby topped up Malvery’s glass. ‘So far, old fellow, it sounds like the tale of a man justly rewarded for his bravery in the line of fire.’

  ‘You could say that. But then the Second Aerium War kicked off. Lot of folks out there dyin’ on the front lines. And I thought: ‘‘That’s where I oughta be. Back in among it.’’ But I had a life in Thesk by then. I was rich and comfy and I didn’t much fancy giving up my place by the fire. And I knew Macklebury would make sure I wasn’t called up. He wanted my services for himself. So I sat it out. Most of the Second Aerium War I spent in this club, while young doctors like you were sent out to the front.’ He hunched forward in his chair, the firelight reflecting from the lenses of his glasses. ‘Reckon that was the beginning of the end for me.’

  ‘I think you judge yourself harshly,’ Hawkby said. ‘There was need of doctors on the home front, too.’

  Malvery {omad for hi was unconvinced. ‘The old me, he’d have gone regardless. But something changed between the wars. I lost that edge. Too much good living, too much drink. And somewhere along the way the woman I loved became an enemy, whether by my fault or hers, I dunno. Probably both. She thought she was marrying a braver man, I reckon.’

  ‘My dear Malvery!’ Hawkby cried, giving him a hearty thump on the shoulder. ‘I’m not used to seeing you so maudlin.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Malvery, gathering himself. ‘Finding that medal brought it all back, I s’pose. I used to be full of piss and passion, you know? All I wanted to do was save lives. I just wonder what happened to that feller.’

  ‘Well then,’ said Hawkby with a shrug. ‘If you feel that way, come and work for me.’

  Malvery frowned at him. ‘You mean it?’

  ‘You can be surgeon-in-chief at my asylum. Rot knows the daft beggars hurt themselves enough to need a man like you in residence. Stay with me for six months, I’ll see to your reinstatement in the guild, and after that you can do as you please. No doubt I’d be glad to keep you on, but if you think you’d prefer to work in a hospital or set up on your own, I shan’t stop you.’

  Simple as that. He’d forgotten how it was in the world of high society, how easily doors were opened.

  ‘I’m sort of out of practice, mate,’ he said, but the protest was weak and Hawkby steamrollered it.

  ‘Pish! You were one of the best surgeons I ever saw. You have a gift, and it’s going to waste. I’d be honoured to have you on my staff.’

  Could I? Malvery thought. Could I really?

  What would it be like, after all these years, to return to a stable job, a stable world? To save lives again? Wasn’t that what he’d always wanted to do? Wasn’t it all he ever wanted to do?

  This time round, he’d be humble. None of this poisonous high society nonsense, and no more marrying above his station. But it’d be good to have a decent waistcoat, to sit in the Axelby Club again, to cut his steak with a silver knife and wash it down with a fine vintage.

  But first there was the question of Frey. His Cap’n’s life was in danger – his friend’s – and that was his first duty. It occurred to him that he ought to head back to the Ketty Jay soon. The Cap’n would be returning with news from Trinica, and Malvery had better be there for it.

  ‘It’s a generous offer, Hawkby,’ he said. ‘Thank you. But right now I’m in the middle of something that can’t wait. Can I have some tim {hav; he to consider?’

  ‘Of course, of course. Take all the time you need. You know where to find me.’ They got to their feet and shook hands. ‘The offer’s there. Think about it.’

  ‘I will,’ said Malvery. ‘I definitely will.’

  Jez hadn’t slept in four years. But she was dreaming, all the same. She dreamed the day of her death.

  She stood over her corpse, looking down on herself. Her body lay huddled in a hollow in the snow, skin blue and eyes closed. Death had relaxed her features. She was curled up foetally, as if she wanted to reach the end of her life in the same position as she began it.

  It was morning, and a heavy lid of grey cloud pressed down, leaching the colour from the world. This was not the same as her memory. In real life, after she’d died, it had kept on snowing. She’d woken in a cocoon, a frosty womb for her rebirth, and had dug her way out to a clear blue sky. But this was a dream, not a memory, and things were different here.

  She was not asleep, but she was in a deeper trance than she’d ever managed before. The incident on the train, when she’d heard the dying Dakkadian’s thoughts, had inspired her to experiment. Trancing was easy for her these days. It was like breathing out and sinking under water. But she’d always stayed at a safe depth till now, afraid of drowning.

  She’d been consumed by the daemon inside her twice before. Then, she’d become something fearsome, something monstrous. She was afraid of what might happen if she lost control again. Perhaps she’d be forced to leave the Ketty Jay, for the good of everyone.

  But if she ever hoped to find out what it meant to be a half-Mane, a little controlled risk was necessary. So she let herself sink. And she found herself dreaming.

  She lifted her head and surveyed her surroundings. She knew this place well, though she’d long since forgotten its name. It was a small settlement near the icy coast of Yortland. She’d come here as the expedition navigator for Professor Malstrom. The Professor was Vardia’s foremost authority on the Azryx, a lost civilisation possessing strange and advanced technology which disappeared beneath the northern ice many thousands of years ago. Or so Malstrom believed, at least. There was barely a shred of evidence to support his theory. Even the name came from the Professor himself.

  It was a fool’s quest, but Jez had been happy to take the money. She wouldn’t have been so keen if she’d known what was in store for her.

  She followed the winding tracks in the snow, back to the town. Behind the low, domed Yortish buildings, the mountains rose like unsheathed fangs. Up on the glacier were the ice caves, the excavation site where the scientists had searched fruitlessly for a buried city.

  An immense silence lay across the frozen wastes. The only sound was the crunching of her boots in the snow.

  The bright blood was a shock in this clean white world. Bodies lay torn in hunks and rags, strewn between the close-set domes, their remains flung with great violence. Hide coats soaked red, concealing pieces of their occupants within. She walked past them, curiously unconcerned. They didn’t seem like they’d been people.

  Her tracks led her to the place where she’d been given the Invitation, in an anonymous spot between the sloped walls of two snow-covered domes. But the Mane who had made her was nowhere to be seen. It had been beheaded before the Invitation was complete, killed by Riss, a colleague who’d felt more for her than she had for him. She hadn’t thought of Riss much since that day, even after all he’d tried to do for her. She never found out what became of him. Dead, or taken. Perhaps he deserved more of a tribute than she gave him, but Jez had never been the sentimental kind.

  She came to the main street. It was little more than a thoroughfare of packed snow, leading through the buildings towards a tiny landing-pad on the far side, out of sight. A crashed snow-tractor rested against one wall, the windows of its cab cracked and smeared with blood. Bodies lay everywhere.

  There was a dreadnought overhead.

  She couldn’t understand why she hadn’t seen it before. But this was a dream, she supposed, and it followed its own logi c. It hung there, enormous against the grey ceiling of cloud, all spikes and bolts and filthy iron. Ropes and chains trailed from its gunwales, hanging down onto the thoroughfare. The Manes had swarmed down them when they descended on the town, several years ago. But there were no Manes in sight now.

  She stood where she was and looked at the dreadnought. A soft wind blew up the thoroughfare, pushing powdered snow before it. The dangling chains clanked against each other.

  Then, through the aching quiet, she heard a sound she knew well. It was coming from the dreadnought. At first it was faint,
but soon it grew louder, swelling to a clamour. Feral howls, like mad wolves, mournful, savage and needful.

  She listened to her brothers and sisters, and it was like music.

  Fourteen

  Crickslint – A Slap – Trading Identities – A Visitation

  Nine nights left, thought Frey, as he knocked on the door of the curio shop. Next to him, Crake stamped his feet and shivered. The unseasonable cold snap showed no signs of letting up.

  ‘Spit and blood,’ Crake muttered. ‘If this is autumn, I don’t want to be here for winter.’

  ‘Not to worry,’ said Frey. ‘Chances are I’ll be dead by then.’

  ‘That attitude’s not going to do you much good, now, is it?’

  ‘Just trying to look on the bright side.’

  The curio shop was dark. At this time of night, all the shops were closed. There were only two people visible, a pair of men buried in greatcoats, hats and scarves, muttering to each other as they walked past.

  Frey knocked again impatiently. ‘Doesn’t anyone hurry any more?’ he griped. He peered through the shop window, and saw a faint light in the back, and movement. ‘Finally. Someone’s coming.’

  ‘I don’t like this plan you’ve got, Cap’n,’ Crake murmured.

  ‘That’s because it’s barely a plan at all. If I had something better, I’d use it. But we’ve got no leverage. So we either get the relic out of him this way, or we go to plan B.’

  ‘Plan B? Isn’t that just code for ‘‘wade in there and shoot anything that moves’’?’

  ‘Exactly. And that means bullets flying everywhere. And because I don’t like getting shot much, I try to avoid Plan B when I can.’

  ‘Remarkable how often we end up using it, though,’ Crake commented.

  ‘That’s because Plan A never bloody works.’

  The door was opened by a pinch-faced bruiser with hulking shoulders. A little bell tinkled cheerily overhead. ‘Mr Frey and Mr Crake, right?’

  ‘ Captain Frey,’ said Frey.

  The thug gave him a long and deeply unimpressed stare. Frey returned a cheesy grin.

  ‘ Captain Frey,’ the thug said at length. ‘Come in, then.’ He let them through, locked the door behind them, and then searched them for weapons. They weren’t carrying any, for the same reason that Frey had only brought Crake from his crew. They were going to try and do this the nice way.

  The curio shop was an unsettling place. Shelves of glass-eyed dolls stared down at them as they were led towards the back. They passed a stuffed beast that Frey didn’t recognise, some kind of hunting cat with a mane of spikes like a porcupine. He was half-convinced it was going to spring to life and snap at him. Ticking toys shifted restlessly in the dark: the kind of clockwork junk Pinn was fond of. He was reminded of the night Pinn had rashly announced his intention to be a famon iftous inventor. The pilot appeared to have forgotten all about it, which was probably for the best.

  Mind on the job, Frey. You’ve got one chance to play this right. Don’t mess it up like you did with Trinica.

  He shut away that memory. Her scorn had burned him. He’d never even had the chance to tell her about the curse.

  Nine nights left. Was it really true? It had been three nights since he’d seen the vision in the cargo hold and spoken to the sorcerer, and there’d been no sign of the daemon in between. Despite Crake’s strange readings, despite the sorcerer’s words, he still couldn’t fully convince himself of the threat. He kept trying to reason his way out of it. A simple hallucination wasn’t too much to worry about, really. Maybe Crake’s readings were skewed. And the sorcerer was hardly reliable: he might be as much a charlatan as the Awakeners were.

  He couldn’t quite believe that there was a daemon out there, waiting to get him. That margin of doubt was what kept him going.

  Crickslint sat behind a desk in a small area at the back of the shop. There was a single electric lamp hanging from the ceiling above his head. He had a jeweller’s glass fixed to his eye, peering at a small golden casket that he was turning over in his hand. Two more bodyguards, inconspicuously armed, stood at the edge of the light. Frey and Crake settled themselves in antique seats that had been placed in front of the desk.

  Crickslint ignored them for a while. Darian waited. He was used to these boring displays of importance from people he dealt with.

  ‘Darian Frey,’ he said eventually. He put the casket aside, took out the jeweller’s glass, steepled his fingers and smiled a chrome-toothed smile. ‘We meet again.’

  Frey winced inwardly. He’d forgotten how irritatingly theatrical Crickslint was. Every movement, every expression was exaggerated; his conversation was full of dramatic pauses and flamboyant surges in volume. The annoying piece of shit seemed to think he was the Dread Lord of Vardia or some such bollocks, instead of a weasel-faced runt with a voice like a girl.

  ‘Yes,’ said Frey, as neutrally as possible. ‘Apparently we do.’

  ‘And who is your friend?’ asked Crickslint, drawing out the syllables, tapping a finger against his cheek as if pondering deeply. His face lit up. ‘Why, it looks like Grayther Crake, the daemonist.’

  ‘How do you do?’ Crake said politely, seemingly unfazed by Crickslint’s over-the-top delivery. Coming from the aristocracy, he was probably used to odder things.

  ‘Now,’ said Crickslint. He adjusted the sleeves of his jacket and made a show of arranging himself. ‘What business might you two gentlemen have with me?’

  Frey sized up his opponent, trying to spot anything that might give him an angle. Crickslint’s teeth were new, since the last lot had been knocked out. He could have had a natural-looking set made up, but he clearly preferred to think of himself as fearsome, so he’d chosen metal. His face was sallow as ever, with small weak eyes. Thin blond hair was slicked back over a long skull.

  Frey knew his sort. He was just like the weedy, sickly children at the orphanage where Frey grew up, the ones who got beaten up and pushed about their whole adolescent lives. Frey had to resist the urge to bully him now. Something about him made it instinctive.

  But Frey would have to tread carefully. Crickslint had grown sly, and he’d gained the power to get revenge on the world for all those humiliations. That made him dangerous.

  ‘Trinica Dracken sold you a relic recently,’ Frey said.

  ‘She did.’

  ‘I’d like you to loan it to me.’

  Crickslint blinked. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘A loan. You know. Two weeks. I’ll pay, of course, and I can leave you a Firecrow as collateral. I just need to borrow it.’ He shrugged. ‘You lend money to everyone, right? This is the same thing. You can still sell it on at full price after I’m done.’

  Crickslint looked faintly amused. ‘That’s an odd proposition. And what do you intend to do with it?’

  ‘That’s my business. But you have my assurance, my absolute assurance, that it’ll be returned to you in perfect condition.’ It was an easy enough promise to make, since Frey wasn’t thinking much further than getting his hands on the relic at this stage.

  Crickslint leaned forward across the desk, so that the light from above fell onto his face, calculated to lend him a sinister air. ‘Do you even know what it is, Captain Frey? The relic, I mean?’

  ‘No,’ said Frey. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Frey narrowed his eyes. ‘I reckon you don’t. I bet you don’t even know where it came from.’

  ‘Oh, I can tell you that quite easily. It was found by an explorer. Ugrik vak Munn kes Oortuk, in fact.’

  ‘Uh-huh. I’m guessing he’s not from around here.’

  ‘He’s a Yort. Huo; ot fe’s actually quite famous.’

  ‘Never heard of him. Where’d he get it from?’

  ‘That, I’ll admit, I don’t know.’

  ‘So how’d the Sammies get hold of it?’

  ‘They caught him. Sammies don’t like people wandering about outside of the Free Trade Zone. Especially not those who go around
stealing their ancient relics.’

  ‘And you heard about it. Through a whispermonger, I’m guessing. And then you sent Trinica Dracken to get it for you.’

  Crickslint clapped slowly. ‘Very good, Captain Frey. None of which gets you any closer to having it yourself.’

  Frey leaned back in his chair. If there was a time to make his move, it was now. ‘I like your new teeth,’ he said.

  Crickslint gave him a sharklike smile. ‘Flattery. You must really have nothing to bargain with.’

  ‘My friend here’s got something similar. Show him your gold tooth, Crake.’

  Crake leaned forward and offered a dazzling grin. His tooth glittered in the light from overhead. Crickslint, half-interested, glanced at the tooth. Then a strange expression crossed his face and he peered closer.

  ‘That is a nice tooth,’ he said.

  Frey felt a stirring of hope as he saw Crickslint’s eyes glaze over. He’d seen it happen to people before, as they stared into their own reflections in Crake’s daemon-thralled tooth. They became mesmerised and suggestible. If he was lucky, the bodyguards wouldn’t even notice what was going on.

  ‘It is a nice tooth, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Listen, Crickslint, we go way back. Why don’t you just lend me that relic, and let’s not worry about a price. I’ll bring it right back to you when I’m done with it. How’s that sound?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Crickslint, not taking his eyes off Crake’s tooth. ‘Yes, that sounds fine. Whatever you want.’

  ‘Really?’ Frey was faintly surprised at how easily he’d agreed.

  Crickslint got up in his chair and leaned across his desk to get a closer look. ‘Yes, yes, take it. Just one thing I’d ask, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Crickslint hit Crake hard across the face, a ringing slap that echoed through the empty curio shop.

  ‘Don’t embarrass yourselves by trying any more of that daemonist shit with me!’ he hissed, and sat back down. He motioned to one of his thugs. ‘Get him out of here.’