Focus, damn it. Gallows steadied his breathing. Bullets riddled the Liberty Wind’s skyglass, pinged from its hull. Rifle rounds snapped, filling the hangar with the odour of gunpowder.
Royce slid over to Gallows, taking potshots with his repeater.
‘You holding up?’
‘I’m alive,’ breathed Royce. He took another shot. ‘Damn. Hollande’s dead and Tanestri’s been hit. I, I have to save her.’
Bullets punched the air around them. They were pinned down, but as long as they were drawing fire, Lockwood could advance.
‘Not yet!’ urged Gallows, straining to be heard. ‘Stick to the plan! We’ll come back for ’em!’
Royce’s eyes turned down. ‘Right you are.’
‘Hostiles at eleven high. I’ll draw ’em, you shoot. Okay?’
Royce nodded.
‘Ready.’ Gallows sprinted around the Wind’s port side. Tracer fire streaked in front of his eyes, missing him by inches. He dived behind the airship’s landing strut and listened as Royce’s gun rattled, silencing the enemy rifles.
‘-secure the commander!’
‘-grab the shields!’
‘She’s injured-’
‘I’m fine!’ Lockwood bellowed. She marched toward the passage entrance where Augostino had greeted her, and took cover by its lip. Smoke billowed from its mouth as more RSF troopers converged—they were so busy shooting at the men in front of them that they didn’t notice Lockwood standing at the edge of the entrance. She shot them all in the back. When her rifle ran dry, she whipped the scabbard from her back, unsheathed the greatsword and cut a man in half.
‘Clear!’
‘Clear!’
‘Rally point alpha—go, go!’
Gallows and Royce re-joined Lockwood. They stepped over bodies, the ones still alive crying out in pain. Lockwood commanded her troops to follow her through the wide passage, using crates for cover. Gallows took no pleasure killing RSF, but in war, you didn’t get to choose your enemy.
Lockwood’s sword spun in great, dividing arcs, cleaving men’s legs from their torsos and covering her in blood. She fought with savage precision; less refined than Damien, but just as efficient. She hacked skulls, split enemies and severed arms at the shoulder.
That was the pirate hunter he’d heard of.
Bright synthetic light shone ahead, squeezed into nothing by the descending passage gate.
The enemy troops were retreating. Just like Lockwood said they would. Gallows hadn’t believed it when they’d refined the plan—why would N’Keres sacrifice the advantage of numbers and high ground?
‘When he has an even greater advantage,’ Lockwood had told him. ‘When he can cut us off without sacrificing a single soldier.’
General N’Keres’ voice crackled through the ship’s intercom. ‘You are surrounded, Rowena. Drop your weapons. Surrender. There is nowhere left for you to go.’
But Lockwood’s access hadn’t been revoked yet. She used the cargo hold’s intercom and patched it through to the whole ship.
‘This is Commander Lockwood. All units stand down. We can avoid further bloodshed. General N’Keres is under arrest for war crimes. He is a traitor to the Crown and the Kingdom of Dalthea. Any crew standing with him will be declared traitors. The punishment is death. Stand down or die.’
Darkness painted the warship’s ducts and passageways. Interior fans kept the heat at bay. Damien pressed his arms and legs out and climbed, the Schiehallion’s blueprints etched in his mind. Shots rang out far beneath him.
During an invasion, the Schiehallion would lock down. From its Command Operations Centre, sections of the warship could be isolated and contained.
It was a good defensive tactic—but it didn’t account for Damien Fieri.
Lockwood’s voice sailed out around the craft, sowing confusion. Fighting broke out everywhere, troops declaring loyalty to either Lockwood or N’Keres.
‘…N’Keres is in charge, Ensign Cooper, that’s all there is to it.’
‘Sir, Commander Lockwood trained me to fly, showed me…’
It would not be long before debate turned to destruction.
Damien pressed along the metal, skin alternating between sweating and freezing. Nausea weighed in his chest, limbs trembling. He told himself it was the tension.
For an instant, the anguished faces of the Watch he’d murdered in the opera house crept on the gleaming surface of metal, the light in their eyes disappearing.
Meaningless hallucination. Ignore it.
Hot knives stabbed at his insides, pain carrying through his very bones.
You haven’t felt like this since you returned, ‘Damien’—since you saved the hide of worthless Gallows-
Ignore it!
Fighting broke out in the deck beneath him. Through the slats of a ventilation cover, he saw two RSF—a man and a woman—disarm and herd five more into a storeroom. The woman spoke first: ‘The general is in charge, Kira. Don’t be stupid! You’ll be court-martialled and found guilty of treason.’
Two enemies.
It’d be okay to kill one of them. Just one, to keep the symptoms at bay. That would be okay, wouldn’t it? Just one. They were enemies. They deserved it. Feel your fingers clasp around their necks. Didn’t he have to neutralise them to save the prisoners? People were dying all over the warship, what difference would it make? Just one.
‘You heard Lockwood!’ called the one named Kira, her ochre hair sitting against her pale skin like autumn leaves on a corpse. ‘N’Keres is a traitor!’
The woman cracked the butt of her rifle into Kira’s mouth.
Damien dropped behind them, the vent cover clattering to the ground. The male soldier spun to face him—Damien dislocated his shoulder, wrenched the gun from his hands and turned on the woman with a swift-
The butt of her Vindicator burst Damien’s lip open.
He stumbled back.
Her eyes brimmed with venom as she raised the weapon and-
Bullets struck the walls and ceiling as Kira yanked her back and slammed her head against the bulkhead. She slumped to the floor, blood trailing from the wound.
‘I’m Flying Officer Kira.’ She picked the gun up. ‘You with Lockwood? We owe you our lives.’
But her words meant nothing.
Damien’s heart thumped. He was a second away from death. The sickness had rooted him to the ground, made him vulnerable.
Denying your desires is killing you, ‘Damien’. How long will you last before you surrender?
‘I…’ He breathed through his nose, composed himself. ‘Open the door in sector B-3—you’ll find Commander Lockwood. Get her to the elevator. Set up barricades.’
Kira’s brow furrowed. ‘You okay?’
Damien clenched and unclenched his fist. On wobbling legs, he leaned against the bulkhead. ‘Get Lockwood.’
Tugarin stared at the sky as he drained the bottle of absinthe. Without looking, he fired up the Talon’s ignition sequence. He did not want to waste time when the signal came.
The Raincatchers and the RSF. Tugarin never thought he’d see the day.
He pulled the mic to his mouth. His voice resounded from every intercom. ‘The svinya Vaughan is dead! Today we sail not for the Guild or the Council but for ourselves!’
Tiera had told him of Vaughan’s volshebnitsa—his witch. Most people would have balked at the thought. Most people had not met Taliana Konstantin. The other captains? They were concerned only with money, but Tugarin saw the bigger picture.
His crew? Not so much.
‘And you believe in this crusade?’ asked Zuri, Tugarin’s First Mate. She was small with clumps of charcoal hair, and skin that had been touched by fire.
‘I do.’ Tugarin’s voice turned grim. ‘In Tarevia, there is a legend of a sorcerer-witch. A man who could turn tides with his hands and summon hail in summer and warmth in winter. They say he brought the peasants food and water and asked for nothing in return. Soon every worker in the land followed t
his man. But the jarls and sheriffs—they did not much like it when the farmers stopped working their fields. So they marched against the people, who had become legion.
‘But the soldiers were more.’ Tugarin’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘They had the greater number, better horses, superior weapons and armour. They cut down a thousand villagers and sent the rest running back to their holes. They burned the bodies, slaughtered the old and enslaved the women.’
‘And?’ asked Zuri. She had never enjoyed Tugarin’s tales of the Motherland. But what did she know? She was from Ryndara. Men lay with their cousins there. ‘What happened to the sorcerer-witch? How did he avenge his people?’
Tugarin gnashed his teeth. ‘He did not. He was a story concocted by the jarls and sheriffs to demonstrate how easy it was to sow hate in the minds of people—and how easy it was to destroy them. Just like our ballad, a tale to make us think we’re united like sheep following a shepherd. Vaughan and his promises were no different. The lesson is this: Blind belief is as lethal as a knife to your own heart. We will not be controlled! We will live with boots on our throats no longer! We seize our own fortune!’
‘Even if the RSF curs desecrate the Talon?’
‘This is a middle finger to them, Zuri. Money runs out, but we will give them a symbol they cannot forget. We will forge our own future today, this I promise.’
Somewhere in the darkness, whining voices cried in woeful melody.
Tiera pressed her back against a wall, knife raised, heart thudding. They’d wasted ten minutes going in circles. Screw their rendezvous. I’ll stay as long as it takes.
No-one knew anything about this place. Kids were told they’d get sent here if they didn’t eat their greens. It was a myth, like Mother Snowfrost.
And yet here she stood, in the deathly gloom. What light there was shimmered on the black rock. Webbing peeled from the rough surface like black flakes of corrupted skin. Neither warmth nor cold touched her. It was as if time had stood still.
Fitz had to be here. She wouldn’t rest until she had him back.
Valentine took point, rifle raised as she stalked through the dark. Tiera did not like following the ginger. ‘Why haven’t we seen any guards yet?’ she whispered.
Amber light limned the outline of a jutting rock. They prowled towards it, grinding gravel underfoot. ‘Damn good question.’
Damien wiped blood from his lip. He should have felt it long before it happened.
Your senses are failing you. They need sustenance. They need blood…
Lockwood’s loyalists pushed on the deck above, rifle rounds snapping. Troops covered their advance while Kira took point.
‘Incoming!’ she yelled.
Guns pounded and bullets tore gnarled metal from the bulkheads. Ignium filled the air and voices shouted.
Damien stood still, frozen, unable to make sense of the chaos.
‘They’re fortifying their position in the COC!’
‘-traitors!’
‘-suppressing fire!’
Kira took cover behind a makeshift barricade, blasting bullets from her Vindicator. ‘Damn the Gods, I didn’t sign up to shoot my buddies!’ One of her comrades took two bullets to the chest. He fell back by Damien’s feet.
Damien held his gaze as he died.
‘Commander Lockwood.’ N’Keres’ voice floated through the long passage stretching ahead. Bodies slumped over one another. ‘Order your forces to stand down now and you will not be harmed.’
‘Yeah, until the noose wraps around our necks!’ Kira yelled. Shots rang in the distance, the sound of retreat.
‘Hold this position.’ Damien’s voice croaked. ‘Wait here for the commander. Secure the elevator.’
‘Where are you going?’ Kira asked.
Damien gazed up.
‘Stand your ground,’ ordered N’Keres, a bull of a man. ‘When this is over, I want to know how they got through the hatch.’
Damien slid forward, silent as a shark in the deep. Sweat soaked his clothes.
‘Sir,’ started Augostino, ‘she’s using the elevator, coming directly into the COC!’
‘Can you shut it down?’
‘Negative, she’s overridden the controls. She still has access!’
Twisting on his back, Damien got into position.
A battery of men bearing repeater rifles surrounded N’Keres. Augostino was at his back, crouching behind a console, pistol raised.
‘B-3…’
‘Ready weapons.’
‘B-2…’
‘Aim.’
‘B-1!’
The elevator pinged.
‘Fire!’
A hail of gunfire drilled through the elevator doors.
Concealed in the din, Damien burst from the vent access hatch and sprung up behind Augostino, wrist blade pressing against his jugular.
‘Stand down, General!’
N’Keres turned.
He didn’t notice the flash bombs in the elevator.
Gallows and Lockwood breached the COC’s door. Some of N’Keres’ forces insisted on shooting but a Flying Officer called Kira commanded a squad and kept the enemy at bay. By the sounds of it, N’Keres’ troops were dwindling.
The COC door fell unhinged.
‘Hold fire!’ yelled Lockwood.
A phalanx of RSF troops surrounded the general. Some of ’em writhed on the floor, disoriented by the flash bomb trick.
‘Someone shoot her!’ roared N’Keres.
‘If anyone so much as points their gun at the commander,’ said Damien, ‘Augostino dies—and you will follow.’ Damien’s skin glistened with sweat and he stood on unsteady legs. His eyes kept flicking to the blade pressed at Augostino’s throat.
Gallows’ finger brushed the trigger.
‘You are disobeying orders.’ N’Keres’ voice turned to a growl. ‘Shoot her.’
‘We have taken command of every single deck,’ said Lockwood, claymore in hand. ‘The Schiehallion is mine.’
‘You will hang for this, Lockwood.’
The troops lowered their weapons.
But N’Keres reached for a pistol.
Damien lunged, blade glinting-
Two gunshots rang out.
N’Keres howled as two of his fingers became bloody stumps.
Damien’s face twisted in pain, blood oozing from his shoulder.
Gallows kept his weapon raised, smoke coiling from the barrel.
Lockwood shoved N’Keres’ head forward onto a console full of gleaming buttons and switches. ‘What happened to you, Rowena?’
Specialist Lestra brushed past Lockwood, taking position by the commander’s side. She tapped at buttons and nodded to Lockwood.
‘As Commander of the Royal Sky Fleet of Dalthea, I am arresting you for treason. Evidence located at an installation known as Outpost One Three Seven proves you oversaw illegal experimentation and carried out unwarranted executions.’
N’Keres laughed. ‘I’ve seen your record, Rowena. We’ve all dirtied our hands in the name of security. Do your comrades know what you did to the Scalpel?’
‘Enough.’ Rowena bent down close to him. ‘You know what Thackeray did, Kurzul. You know he faked his own death. You know that Tiera Martelo was manipulated. Captain Vaughan is dead. I have seized his contraband. If you do not admit to me your role in this, I will force you to admit it—just as Martelo was forced to carry out Thackeray’s plot. You’re aware the Fayth considers suicide a sin—I will make you shoot yourself in the head. Or leap from a hangar as we soar above the Steelpeaks. Or wear a goddamn tutu and dance like a chicken in front of the whole kingdom.’
N’Keres spat. ‘Fine. But I want immunity. And get me to a goddamn doctor!’
‘Immunity?’ Gallows couldn’t look at the general as he spoke. ‘You’re lucky you’re alive, asshole.’
It was true. Gallows had seen the look in Damien’s eye. Shooting him was the right call. Probably should have taken the kill-shot instead of grazing Damien’s shoulder
. When you draw a gun, you accept the responsibility for killing someone. Gallows knew that. And if Damien killed anyone after today, Gallows would have to take responsibility for that too.
‘Tell me everything,’ said Lockwood.
Spittle flecked N’Keres’ chin as his face pressed into the console. ‘One Three Seven was where we created the ignogen bomb that ended the war. I killed traitors who threatened to leak the story. Constable Kyatis and Constable Daroh. Traitors! I helped Pyron Thackeray fake his death.’ N’Keres winced. ‘And I had Aramon Fallon arrested and forged his signature on a false confession.’
‘Is that everything?’ Lockwood asked.
‘No. I have more. But not until I get my deal in writing.’
‘Specialist Lestra, did that go out?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ confirmed Lestra. ‘His voice was broadcast to every Information Tower in the city.’
‘What?’ N’Keres struggled against Lockwood. Gallows assisted her in keeping him pressed down. ‘Bitch! You said I’d have immunity!’
‘You’re under arrest, Kurzul. Thackeray will be next.’
‘Commander!’ Lestra’s eyes widened as she spoke.
‘Specialist?’
‘Fighter signatures on RADIOM, coming from the west.’
Beyond the skyglass, dots split from the horizon, growing bigger.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘One Three Seven was where we created the ignogen bomb that ended the war. I killed traitors who threatened to leak the story. Constable Kyatis and Constable Daroh. Traitors! I helped Pyron Thackeray fake his death… And I had Aramon Fallon arrested and forged his signature on a false confession--’
‘That sound is the sound of freedom!’ called Tugarin. He pressed his face to the intercom: ‘Zuri, Anya! Now we fly!’
Anya, Tugarin’s navigator and co-pilot, took her seat by the RADIOM apparatus.
Tugarin punched buttons on his console. Ignium hissed through the Talon’s guts. Her rotors spun and igneus fuelled the thrusters.
Her mass shuddered and ascended. The bonds tying her to the ground pulled and snapped like tendons. When she was clear of the landing pad, her thrusters spat blue hellfire.
Symphony of the Wind Page 59
