The Iron jackal totkj-3

by Chris Wooding

  ‘Hey, I did exactly the same for you, back in Sakkan!’ he snapped. ‘I put my crew at risk to save your neck, and at considerably greater bloody odds.’

  He was surprised to see her flinch at his tone. It took the sting out of him.

  ‘They owe me,’ he added, more gently. ‘Don’t they get it?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ said Trinica. He hated when she did that.

  ‘So explain better,’ he said, the edge creeping back into his tone.

  ‘They see what’s going on between us!’ she cried. ‘And now people have died for it! People who they respected, people who were friends and companions!’ She caught herself before her anger could get out of control, and suddenly she was tired and mournful again, the fire doused. ‘I’m in charge of fifty cut-throat men. Men like that don’t take orders from women. But they take orders from me. You know why? Because I don’t let them think of me that way. They want me ruthless, Darian. They want me cruel.’

  She met his gaze, and he saw tears glittering in her black eyes. ‘You’re taking that away from me,’ she whispered.

  Something terrible was coming. He sensed it. Suddenly it was hard to breathe.

  ‘I know you, Trinica. That isn’t how you are.’

  ‘No,’ she said, and she held out a gloved hand to him. ‘You knew me.’

  Lying in her palm was a silver ring. A ring he’d given her once, in place of the one he should have given her all those years ago. The ring that linked them together.

  ‘Take it,’ she said, her voice cracking.

  ‘No,’ he said. The words sounded distant. Blood was beating in his ears. ‘It’s yours.’

  Then she tipped her hand, and the ring slid from her palm and fell to the floor of the cockpit. ‘I don’t want it.’

  He felt suddenly weak, and sat against the edge of the metal desk at the navigator’s station. He couldn’t take his gaze from the ring on the floor. It felt as if something dark was thundering towards him. He was shocked that anything would unbalance him so much.

  When he looked up at Trinica, she was wearing the breather mask, and pulling the cowl over her head. She turned her face towards him, and he couldn’t see anything of her any more.

  ‘I’ll deliver the slaves to the camp, as we agreed,’ she said. ‘You have more pressing issues to deal with.’

  She walked to the door and slid it open. There she stopped, her head bowed slightly.

  ‘Consider us even for Sakkan, Captain Frey. I doubt we’ll meet again.’

  And then she was gone, walking up the passageway.

  Frey crouched down slowly. He was suddenly unsure whether his legs would support him. His stomach felt like it wanted to cramp, to pull him into a ball. He reached out, picked up the ring, and stood up again.

  I don’t want it.

  He turned it over in his hand. His corrupted hand. Then he slipped it on to his little finger, where he’d worn it before he gave it to her.

  Footsteps were coming up the corridor. He swallowed down the nameless feeling that was swelling in his gut, crushing it back. He pulled on his breather mask, stared hard into the middle distance. Control, control. Be the captain. No time for this.

  It was Silo. He stuck his head in through the open door of the cockpit. ‘Cap’n?’ he said.

  Frey nodded at him.

  ‘Last shuttle up to the Delirium Trigger ’s about to leave.’

  ‘Trinica’s gone,’ he said. The double meaning almost broke him, but he firmed his mouth behind his mask.

  ‘Yuh,’ he said. ‘Passed her. Just thought you’d want to know.’

  ‘You’re…’ he began, then stopped. Did he really want to ask the question? ‘You’re not going with them?’

  Silo’s face showed nothing. ‘Man can’t go back, I reckon,’ he said. ‘It’s Ehri’s show now.’

  Frey walked over to stand behind the pilot’s seat and looked out through the windglass at the Delirium Trigger and the fog-shrouded buildings of Gagriisk.

  ‘We did some good here, right?’ he said.

  ‘Some,’ said Silo.

  Frey let out a breath, with only the slightest of trembles in it. ‘Being a hero really bites shit, huh?’ he said.

  ‘Wouldn’t know, Cap’n,’ said Silo.

  ‘No,’ said Frey. ‘Me, neither.’

  Thirty-Six

  ‘Where are you, Jez?’ – An Unexpected Meeting – Good News, Bad News – Turbulence

  Silo sat amid the tight maze of metal walkways that surrounded the Ketty Jay ’s engine assembly. He was staring into space, one arm dangling over his knee and a wrench held loosely in his hand, listening to the engine with half an ear. Everything was smooth. Not even the hint of a fault.

  Sweat ran insidiously across his shaven scalp. It was night outside, but the engine kept things hot in here. There was a wet chewing sound from nearby: Slag, devouring a rat somewhere out of sight.

  Silo felt restless. His mind wouldn’t settle to any kind of peace. He’d tried to distract himself with duties, but as usual there was nothing for him to do.

  He should go see if he could help patch up Bess, perhaps. But Crake was feverishly working at something for the Cap’n, and wouldn’t welcome the disturbance. She’d only taken a few holes; it could wait. Besides, it was painfully obvious make-work, and it smacked of desperation.

  He downed tools and headed out of the engine room. He couldn’t stop seeing Fal’s dead face, or Ehri’s hateful eyes. She’d blamed him. In time, perhaps she wouldn’t, but he wouldn’t be there to receive her forgiveness if she did.

  And what about Akkad? Akkad, a man who’d been his friend. What had they done with him? Did he go to the Warrens? Did they put Babbad and his other allies in there with him? What about his wife Menlil and their children? Surely not them. Surely Ehri wouldn’t do that.

  He’d never asked, not after that first time. He hadn’t dared to. And now he never would.

  The door to the engine room was at the end of the main passageway that ran up the spine of the Ketty Jay. The first doorway on his right was the infirmary. It was open. Jez lay on the operating table. Malvery had his feet up on a chair and was sipping from a mug, idly reading a broadsheet.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked.

  Malvery looked up. ‘Same.’

  ‘Mind if I sit with her awhile?’

  Malvery swung his legs off the chair and got up. ‘Could you? I’ve been waiting for someone to keep an eye on her. I’ve got one hulking colossus of a turd to unload. Feels like I’m about to give birth to my own leg.’ He rolled up his broadsheet and strolled off towards the head, whistling.

  When he was gone, Silo slid the door shut and took a seat. Jez lay motionless. Malvery had sponged off the blood from her face and hair and hands, but her clothes were still covered with dried gore. There was nothing about her to indicate that she was alive. They were just going on faith that everything would be alright.

  Ain’t we always?

  He sat there a long while, listening to the rumble of the thrusters. Outside was the desert and the night. They were headed on a course plotted by the Yort explorer, flying to who knew where. By this time tomorrow night, that damned relic would have to be put back wherever it came from.

  But what if it wasn’t?

  ‘I lost my place, Jez,’ he said. He surprised himself by speaking aloud. There was a hollow ring from the empty walls of the infirmary as each word faded.

  He looked at Jez. She didn’t move. After a moment he sighed to himself, and settled, and spoke again.

  ‘Time was, there weren’t no choices and there weren’t no questions. I got born a slave. There weren’t no other way to be. In the end I broke out, but things were just as straight-up then as before. Black ’n’ white, us ’n’ them. And I had a lot of anger to work off.’

  He rolled his shoulders, then fished in the pocket of his trousers and drew out a pouch.

  ‘World ain’t that simple no more,’ he said.

  He built himself
a roll-up full of Murthian herbs. The process was relaxing. He enjoyed the comforting rhythm of spreading the dried herbs, rolling the paper, licking and sealing it. He let his mind wander while his fingers worked, allowing his thoughts to percolate. He lit a match, took a drag, sat back and waited for what he wanted to say to come out of his mouth. He wasn’t in any hurry, and nor was Jez.

  ‘When I was back there, back with my people…’ he said at length. ‘Y’know, for a while it felt like things was right again. Like the last nine years din’t happen, like I won instead o’ losin’ when I went up against Akkad, and the world just rolled on without no break.’ He dragged and exhaled, filling the infirmary with the pungent, acrid smell of the herb. ‘But I ain’t that young man no more, Jez. Got old enough to feel my losses. And bein’ back among my people, killin’ Daks

  … It makes me someone I don’t wanna be. If I’d stayed, they’d suck me right back in. That’s what your people do. They suck you in. Happens whether you like it or not.’

  He examined the roll-up, held between his betweenlong fingers. He’d smoked them ever since he escaped. Seemed like the sort of thing a free man should do.

  ‘I thought lettin’ another man make my choices for me was the best way to go about things. Turns out it ain’t. Might be the Cap’n gonna be dead this time tomorrow. Might be we all be goin’ our separate ways then.’

  He shook his head. ‘Reckon you can’t never go back to what you were,’ he said. ‘But I done bein’ quiet now, I know that.’

  He took another drag, drawing the smoke into his lungs. He held it there till it started to burn, then he let it seep out from between his lips.

  Jez still hadn’t moved. He wondered if she ever would.

  ‘Where are you, Jez?’ he asked quietly. ‘Where you gone?’

  Snow flurried around Jez’s face, driven by a chill wind. Loose strands of hair fluttered against her cheek. She stood over her own dead body, looking down.

  The Yortish coast. The bleak settlement where the Manes had caught her. White flakes sifted from the grey clouds.

  Her corpse lay on its side in a foetal position, half-buried. The snow had gathered in the hollows of her body and face, obscuring her.

  Had she been here before? She couldn’t quite remember. Had it been different then? She couldn’t remember that, either.

  She followed her own tracks back to the town. Between the domed buildings, she saw hints of more corpses – a frozen hand, a blue face in a drift – but the carnage had been mostly erased beneath the whiteness, and it was possible to ignore it as she wandered.

  She found the main thoroughfare. A snow-tractor lay in a deep drift, with only the corner of its cab visible. She had a vague recollection of cracked windows and smeared blood, but there was nothing visible now. The street had a quiet, abandoned feel. The only sound was the restless whistle of the wind.

  A dreadnought hung in the air above the thoroughfare. Ropes and chains hung from its flanks, trailing down to the ground. The chains clanked softly as they were stirred by the wind. She regarded it curiously, running an eye over its spiked gunwales and dirty iron keel.

  She was waiting. Listening. And soon she heard it: the slowly swelling sound, the baying of the pack, their screeching. They were up there, on the dreadnought. She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there. They didn’t call to her as they had in the past. They keened and howled to each other instead. But their voices provoked in her a desire to be with them, to join them in the feral simplicity of the hunt. To be a sister to them, and be enfolded in the warmth of their community. She was always in between, not quite human and nowhere nand nowhear Mane. She felt the lonely ache of separation.

  A hand touched her shoulder, and she turned. Standing there, dressed in thick furs, was someone she’d never thought to see again. The man who’d been with her that day when the Manes came, who’d tried to protect her when her own courage had failed. Who’d saved her from the Invitation by killing the Mane that caught her.

  His hood had been thrown back and his mask hung on a strap round his neck. Thick black hair framed a plain and honest face.

  Rinn.

  She hugged him, surprising herself. He was the last person she saw before she died. It was important to her that he was here.

  His arms folded around her with uncertain reverence, then he clutched her tightly. There was longing in his touch. The pilot had always felt something for her that she never had for him.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ she said.

  ‘No more dead than you are.’

  She let him go. ‘They took you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘After you ran into the snow, I tried to follow. But I was alone, and two of them caught me. There was no one to help me.’ He smiled. ‘Now I’m glad of it.’

  Jez searched his face. He seemed like the same old Rinn: solid, reliable, relentlessly normal.

  ‘What’s it like?’ she asked.

  He shook his head slightly, as if to say: you wouldn’t understand . He held out a gloved hand to her.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  And then, in the way of dreams, they were elsewhere.

  They stood inside a huge cave of ice. At their feet, the ground fell away in sharp steps, cut out in great squares and rectangles that descended towards a narrow shaft in the centre. Excavation machinery, brutal claws and drills, sat among the ladders and scaffolding, their surfaces rimed with frost. The wind blew outside, but within the cavern was a vast quiet, and the air was still. It felt like an abandoned temple.

  ‘Remember this?’ Rinn asked.

  ‘I hardly ever came up here,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know they’d dug down so far. amp;rsquoso far.

  ‘The Professor was warned. He knew it was coming up to blizzard season, and that was when the Manes went raiding along the coast of the Poleward Sea. But he was obsessed. He was convinced there was an Azryx city buried under this spot, and he couldn’t wait.’

  She studied the excavation. ‘I knew it too,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t really believe the stories. But all that talk about the Azryx’s wonderful advanced technology, this utopian civilisation lost beneath the ice…’ She discovered that she was wearing a fur-and-hide coat, the same one she’d been wearing the day she died, and she drew it close about her even though she wasn’t cold. ‘Sort of romantic,’ she said. ‘Making history. I wanted to be part of it.’

  ‘But there was nothing down there in the end,’ he said.

  ‘What happened to the Professor?’

  ‘He was killed,’ said Rinn. ‘When we came for him, he surrounded himself with men with guns. We don’t like that.’

  Something in his voice had changed. Jez turned to look at him. He was gazing back at her with sunken, blood-coloured eyes. His teeth had sharpened to points. His face was gaunt and hollow. None of it disturbed her in the least.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked.

  ‘To warn you. You’ve been testing your abilities, Jez. Pushing your boundaries. But you don’t know the cost involved. The more you use them, the more you unlock, the more you’ll become like us.’

  ‘I thought the Manes had agreed to let me be.’

  ‘We have done. The Manes don’t want the unwilling. That’s why I’m telling you now. It’s you who’s doing this.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘Curiosity killed the cat.’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘Do nothing. You’re a half-Mane. Be content with that.’

  She nodded to herself. Suddenly, she was tired of the sight of the excavation, and a moment later they were outside the ice caves, on the glacier, looking down over the town and the dreadnought hanging over it. She could see its decks now. They were empty, but she could still hear the singing of her brethren, and it tugged at her.

  ‘What if I’m not content with that?’ she asked.

  ‘Then you’ll be welcome among us, b
eloved,’ said Rinn, now wearing rags, his skin like parchment, his voice breathy and hoarse. His thick hair had become a greasy straggle, and his lips had peeled back to show yellowed and daggerlike fangs. ‘But if you choose that way, you’ll walk a fine line. We can think because we used to be human. The daemon you have inside you, it doesn’t think in any way you can comprehend. It’ll change you if you let it. It can’t help itself. Bit by bit, you’ll become more like us and less like them.’

  ‘Is this how it works, for those who refuse the Invitation?’ she asked. ‘You let them go, so they can make their own way back? Because you want them willing?’

  ‘We’re not so devious. The choice is yours.’

  ‘But I bet they all come back in the end, don’t they?’

  ‘Most do. Some don’t. The others…’

  ‘They kill themselves,’ said Jez.

  ‘Yes.’

  Jez could understand. She’d never contemplated it herself, but the terror of the Manes and the temptation of their call could have easily driven her to madness in those early days. A more delicate soul might have ended themselves rather than risk succumbing to that.

  She surveyed the scene. The snow was falling more heavily now, and the far side of the town was becoming obscured. ‘When do I wake up?’ she asked.

  ‘That’s up to you.’

  She thought about that. Then she walked over to a hillock of ice and sat down. ‘I reckon I’d like to stay a while yet. Chew things over. Will you stay with me?’

  Rinn was Rinn again, pink-cheeked and healthy, clad in furs and hide. The man she’d known when she was alive. He sat down next to her.

  ‘I’d like that,’ he said.

  Crake stood in his makeshift sanctum at the back of the Ketty Jay ’s cargo hold, his hand on his bearded chin, and regarded the relic with deep suspicion. It sat on the floor inside a protective summoning circle, amid a jumble of cables and detecting devices. The black case was open, showing the jackal emblem inside the lid. The double-bladed weapon lay in its finely-wrought cradle. He hadn’t dared to touch it.

  But then, as it turned out, he hadn’t needed to.