Predator's Gold

by Philip Reeve

  “Oh, ah…” Pennyroyal looked a little shamefaced, and tried to hide it with his old, roguish smile. “Thing is, Tom, I think it was me who brought the Huntsmen here.”

  For no reason that Tom could understand, Hester started to laugh.

  “I only sent a couple of harmless distress calls!” the explorer complained. “I never imagined Arkangel would pick them up! Who ever heard of a radio signal travelling that far? Some freak of these Boreal climes, no doubt… Anyway, it’s done me no good, as you can see. I’ve been holed up here for hours, hoping to sneak aboard that Huntsman airship and make a break for it, but there’s a dirty great sentry guarding it, and a couple more inside…”

  “We saw,” said Tom.

  “Still,” the explorer went on, brightening, “now you’re back with your Jenny Haniver, it doesn’t matter, does it? When do we leave?”

  “We don’t,” said Hester. Tom turned to look at her, still unsettled by her talk of taking on the Huntsmen, and she went on quickly, “How can we? We owe it to the Aakiuqs, and Freya and everybody. We’ve got to rescue them.”

  She left them staring at her and went to the kitchen window, peering out through the prisms of the frost. Aimless snowflakes eddied in the cones of light beneath the harbour lamps. She imagined the guards aboard their ship, their comrade out on the docking-pan stamping the cold from his toes, the rest of Masgard’s crew up in the Winter Palace, warming themselves with the contents of the Rasmussens’ wine cellar. They would be dozy and confident and not expecting trouble. They would have been no match for Valentine. Perhaps, if she had inherited enough of his strength and cruelty and cunning, they would be no match for her.

  “Hester?” Tom stood close behind her, frightened by her icy mood. It was usually he who came up with rash plans to help the helpless. Hearing Hester suggest such a thing made him feel as if the world had come off its bearings. He laid his hand gently on her shoulder, and felt her stiffen and start to flinch away. “Hester, there are loads of them, and only three of us…”

  “Make that two,” Pennyroyal chipped in. “I don’t want any part in your suicidal scheme…”

  Hester had the knife at his throat in one swift movement. Her hand trembled slightly, setting the reflections shivering on the blade’s bright edge.

  “You’ll do what I tell you,” said Valentine’s daughter, “or I’ll kill you myself.”

  32

  VALENTINE’S DAUGHTER

  “Eat up, little Margravine!” called Piotr Masgard from the far end of the table, waving at Freya with a half-eaten chicken leg.

  Freya stared down at her plate, where the food was beginning to congeal. She wished she was still penned in the ballroom with the others, eating whatever slops and scraps the Huntsmen had given them, but Masgard had insisted that she dine with him. He said that he was only showing her the courtesy she deserved, and that it would hardly do for a margravine to eat with her people, would it? As leader of Arkangel’s Huntsmen it was his duty, and his pleasure, to entertain her at his own table.

  Except that the table was Freya’s, in her own dining room, and the food had come from her own larders and been cooked in her own kitchens by poor Smew. And every time she glanced up she met Masgard’s blue eyes, amused and appraising, full of pride at his catch.

  In the first horrible confusion of the attack on the Wheelhouse she had consoled herself by thinking, Scabious will never stand for this: he and his men will fight and save us. But when she and her fellow captives were herded into the ballroom and she saw how many of her people were already waiting there she understood that it had all happened too quickly. Scabious’s men had been surprised, or busy fighting the fires the rocket attack had started. Evil had triumphed over good.

  “Great Arkangel will be with us in a few more hours,” Masgard had announced, circling the huddle of prisoners while his men stood watchful guard with guns and crossbows at the ready. His words boomed from the loudspeaker horns on his lieutenant’s helmet. “Behave yourselves and you may look forward to healthy, productive lives in the gut. Attempt to resist, and you will die. This city is a pretty enough prize; I can afford to sacrifice a few slaves if you insist on making me prove how serious I am.”

  Nobody insisted. The people of Anchorage weren’t used to violence, and the Huntsmen’s brutal faces and steam-powered guns were enough to convince them. They huddled together in the centre of the ballroom, wives clinging to husbands, mothers trying to stop their children crying or talking or doing anything that might draw them to the attention of the guards. When Masgard called for the margravine to dine with him, Freya thought it wisest to accept; anything to keep him in a good mood.

  Still, she thought, prodding at her rapidly cooling meal, if dinner with Masgard is the worst I have to endure, I shall have got off lightly. It didn’t feel that light though, not when she glanced up at him and felt the air between them crawling with threat. Her stomach lurched, and she thought for a moment she was going to be sick. As an excuse not to eat she tried making conversation. “So how did you find us, Mr Masgard?”

  Masgard grinned, blue eyes almost hidden under their heavy lids. He had been a little disappointed when he got here; the townspeople had given up far too easily, and Freya’s bodyguard had turned out to be a little joke of a man, not worthy of Masgard’s sword, but he was determined to be gallant to his captive margravine. He felt big and handsome and victorious, sitting there in Freya’s throne at the head of the table, and he had a feeling that he was impressing her. “How do you know it’s not my natural skill at hunting that led me to you?” he asked.

  Freya managed a stiff little smile. “That’s not the way you work, is it? I’ve heard about you. Arkangel’s so desperate for prey that you pay people to squeak on other cities.”

  “Squeal.”

  “What?”

  “You mean ‘squeal on other cities’. If you want to use under-deck slang, Your Radiance, you should at least get it right.”

  Freya blushed. “It was Professor Pennyroyal, wasn’t it? Those stupid radio messages he sent. He told me he was just trying to reach a passing explorer, or a merchantman, but I suppose he’s been signalling to you all along.”

  “Professor who?” Masgard laughed again. “No, my dear, it was a flying rat who did the squealing.”

  Freya felt her eyes dragged towards his again. “Hester!”

  “And you know the best part? She didn’t even want gold in exchange for your city. Just some boy; some worthless scrap of air-trash. Name of Natsworthy…”

  “Oh, Hester!” whispered Freya. She had always thought that girl was trouble, but she’d never imagined her capable of such a terrible thing. To betray a whole city, just to keep hold of a boy you didn’t deserve, who’d have been much better off with someone else! She tried not to let Masgard see her rage, because he’d only laugh. She said, “Tom’s gone. Dead, I think…”

  “He’s had a lucky escape, then,” chuckled Masgard, through a mouthful of food. “Not that it matters. His quail’s vanished; she flew off before the ink was dry on her contract…”

  The door of the dining room banged open, and Freya forgot about Hester and turned to see what was happening. One of Masgard’s men – the fellow with the loudspeaker-horns – stood in the doorway. “Fire, my lord!” he gasped. “Up at the harbour!”

  “What?” Masgard went to the window, tearing the thick drapes aside. Snow whirled across the gardens outside, and behind it a red glare flickered and spread, throwing the gables and ducts on the roofs of Rasmussen Prospekt into sharp silhouette. Masgard rounded on his lieutenant. “Any word from Garstang and his boys at the harbour?”

  The Huntsman shook his head.

  “Fangs of the Wolf!” bellowed Masgard. “Someone set that blaze! They’re attacking our ship!” He drew his sword, pausing next to Freya’s chair on his way to the door. “If any of your verminous townspeople have harmed the Clear Air Turbulence, I’ll skin them alive and sell their hides as hearth-rugs.”

 
; Freya tried to make herself small, pressing down into her chair. “It can’t be one of my people, you are holding them all…” But even as she said it she thought of Professor Pennyroyal. She hadn’t seen him in the ballroom. Perhaps he was free? Perhaps he was doing something to help? It seemed unlikely, but it was the only scrap of hope she had, and she clung to it while Masgard heaved her out of her chair and flung her at his lieutenant.

  “Take her back to the ballroom!” he shouted. “Where are Ravn and Tor and Skaet?”

  “Still guarding the main entrance, my lord.”

  Masgard ran, and left the other man to drag Freya out of the dining room and shove her along the graceful curve of the corridor towards the ballroom. She supposed she should try to escape, but her guard was so big and strong, and so well armed, that she didn’t dare. Her relatives’ portraits stared down at her as she passed, looking as if they were disappointed in her for not fighting back. She said, “I hope somebody has set fire to your precious airship!”

  “Won’t make any difference to us,” her guard growled. “It’s you who’ll suffer for it. Arkangel’ll be here soon. We won’t need an airship to get off your poxy town once it’s in the Scourge’s belly!”

  As they neared the ballroom door Freya could hear a rising babble of voices coming from inside. The captives must have seen the fire, too, and were talking excitedly, while their guards hollered for quiet. Then something flashed past her head, and Masgard’s lieutenant went backwards without a cry. Freya thought he’d slipped, but when she turned there was a crossbow-bolt jutting from the front of his helmet and a thick dribble of blood starting to drip from one of the horns.

  “Eww!” she said.

  In an alcove beside the ballroom door a long shape unfolded itself from the shadows.

  “Professor Pennyroyal?” Freya whispered. But it was Hester Shaw, already fitting a fresh bolt into the big crossbow she was carrying.

  “You’re back!” gasped Freya.

  “Oh, what a clever piece of deduction, Your Radiance.”

  Freya flushed with anger. How dare the girl mock her? It was her fault this was happening! “You sold our course! How could you? How could you?”

  “Well, I’ve changed my mind,” said Hester. “I’m here to help.”

  “Help?” Freya was speaking in a hoarse, furious whisper, fearful that the guards in the ballroom would overhear. “How can you help? The best help you could have given us was to have never come anywhere near my city! We don’t need you! Tom didn’t need you! You’re selfish and wicked and cold and you don’t care about anybody but your horrible self…”

  She stopped talking. They had each remembered, at the same instant, that Hester was holding a loaded crossbow, and that with a slight twitch of her finger she could pin Freya to the wall. She considered it for a moment, touching the tip of the bolt to Freya’s breast. “You’re right,” she whispered. “I’m evil. I take after my dad that way. But I do care about Tom, and that means I have to care about you and your stupid city as well. And I think you need me now.”

  She lowered the crossbow and glanced down at the man she had just killed. There was a gas-pistol stuffed into his belt. “Do you know how to use that thing?” she asked.

  Freya nodded. Her tutors had gone in more for etiquette and deportment than small-arms training, but she thought she grasped the general idea.

  “Then come with me,” said Hester, and said it with such an air of command that it never occurred to Freya to disobey.

  The hardest part so far had been getting rid of Tom. She did not want to lead him into danger, and she could not be Valentine’s daughter if he was with her. In the dark of the Aakiuqs’ parlour she had pulled him close to her and said, “Do you know any back ways into that Winter Palace? If the place is crawling with Huntsmen we can’t just walk up to the main entrance and announce we’re here to see Masgard.”

  Tom thought for a moment, then fumbled in the pockets of his coat and drew out a small, shining object that she’d never seen before. “It’s a lock-pick from Grimsby. Caul’s people gave it to me. I bet I can get in through the little heat-lock behind the Wunderkammer!”

  He looked so excited and pleased with himself that Hester couldn’t stop herself from kissing him. When she’d finished she said, “Go, then. Wait for me in the Wunderkammer.”

  “What? Aren’t you coming?” He didn’t look excited now, only scared.

  She touched her fingers to his mouth to hush him. “I’m going to scout round by the airship.”

  “But the guards—”

  She tried to look as if she wasn’t frightened. “I was Shrike’s apprentice, remember? He taught me a lot of stuff I’ve never got round to using. I’ll be all right. Now go.”

  He started to say something and then gave up, hugged her and hurried away. For a second or two she felt relieved to be alone; then she suddenly needed very badly to have Tom back, to be in his arms and tell him all sorts of things she should have said before. She ran to the back door, but he was already out of sight, following some secret route towards the palace.

  She whispered his name to the snow. She did not expect to see him again. She felt as if she were sliding too fast towards an abyss.

  Pennyroyal was still crouching at the bottom of the stairs. Hester pushed her way back past him into the kitchen and took an oil lamp from a cupboard above the sink. “What are you doing?” he hissed as she lit it. The yellow glow gathered slowly behind the smoky glass, then spread, lapping across the walls and windows and Pennyroyal’s soap-pale face. “Masgard’s men will see!”

  “That’s the idea,” said Hester.

  “I won’t help you!” the explorer quavered. “You can’t make me! This is madness!”

  She didn’t bother with the knife this time, just pushed her gargoyle face close to his and said, “It was me, Pennyroyal.” She wanted him to understand just how ruthless she could be. “Not you. I’m the one who sent the Huntsmen here.”

  “You? But Great Poskitt Almighty, why?”

  “For Tom,” said Hester simply. “Because I wanted Tom for myself again. He was to be my predator’s gold. Only it didn’t go how I planned, and now I’ve got to try and put things right.”

  Footsteps crunched through the snow outside the kitchen window, and there was a sigh as the outer heat-seal was tugged open. Hester slid backwards into the shadows beside the door as the sentry from the docking-pans pushed his way into the room, so close that she could feel the breath of cold coming off his snow-caked furs.

  “On your feet!” he barked at Pennyroyal, and turned to check for other fugitives. In the instant before he saw her Hester stuck out her arm and pushed her knife into the gap between the top of his armour and the bottom of his cold-mask. He made a gargling noise and the twisting of his big body dragged the knife-handle out of Hester’s grasp. She flinched sideways as his crossbow went off, and heard the bolt slam through a cupboard door behind her. The Huntsman was groping at his belt for his own knife. She grabbed his arm and tried to stop him. There was no sound but their harsh breathing and the crunch of crockery under their feet as they stumbled to and fro, with Pennyroyal scrambling to keep out of their way. The Huntsman’s wide green eyes stared out at Hester through the windows in his mask, furious and indignant, until at last he seemed to focus on something very far away beyond her, and his gargling stopped and he fell sideways, almost pulling her down with him. His feet kicked for a while; then he was still.

  Hester had never killed anyone before. She had expected to feel guilty, but she didn’t. She didn’t feel anything. This is what it was like for my father, she thought, helping herself to the dead man’s cloak and fur hat and pulling on his cold-mask. Just a job that had to be done to keep his city and his loved one safe. This is how he felt after he killed Mum and Dad. Clear and hard and clean, like glass. She took the Huntsman’s crossbow and its quiver of bolts and said to Pennyroyal, “Bring the lamp.”

  “But, but, but –!”

  Outside, sno
w swarmed like white moths under the harbour lamps. Crossing the docking-pans, shoving the terrified Pennyroyal ahead of her, she glanced through a slot between two hangars and saw a big, far-off smudge of light on the eastern sky.

  The hatchway of the Clear Air Turbulence stood open. Another Huntsman was waiting there. “What is it, Garstang?” he shouted. “Who’ve you found?”

  “Just an old geezer,” Hester yelled back, hoping that the cold-mask would muffle her voice, the fur cloak disguise her skinny outline.

  “Just some old man,” the Huntsman said, turning to speak to someone inside the gondola. Then, louder, “Take him to the palace, Garstang! Shove him in with the others! We don’t want him.”

  “Please, Mr Huntsman!” Pennyroyal shouted suddenly. “It’s a trap! She’s—”

  Hester swung the crossbow up and squeezed the trigger and the Huntsman went screaming backwards. As his comrades tried to push their way out past his thrashing body Hester grabbed the oil lamp from Pennyroyal and lobbed it in through the hatch. A Huntsman’s cloak caught light, and fire blazed up inside the gondola. Pennyroyal shrieked in terror and fled. Hester turned to follow, but after two steps she found that she was flying, lifted up by a hot wind from behind and dumped into snow that was white no longer but a Halloween dazzle of saffron and red. There was no bang, just a great, soft “woof” as the gas-cells caught. She rolled over in the snow and looked back. Men were scrambling from the burning gondola, slapping at the sparks which burrowed through the fur of their coats and cloaks. There were only two of them. One ran towards Hester, making her fumble for her fallen crossbow, but he didn’t look at her, just clumped past shouting something about saboteurs, and she had plenty of time to slip another bolt into the bow and shoot him in the back. There was no sign of Pennyroyal. She circled the burning airship, and met the last of the Huntsmen in a place where the smoke was thick and dark. Took the sword from his hand while he was dying. Thrust it through her belt. Ran towards Rasmussen Prospekt and the lights of the Winter Palace.