Retribution Falls

Thirty-Eight

Frey didn’t hear the explosion. It took some seconds for his stunned senses to recover, but even then, all he could remember was the sensation of being squashed from above by an enormous force, like an insect trodden on by an invisible boot. After that, there was the taste of grit in his mouth, the stinging in his eyes, and the high-pitched whine in his ears, like the squeal of a turbine.

He looked around. Everything was muffled and clouded. The air was grey with pulverised stone. He was on his hands and knees. Ahead of him, what had once been a corridor was now a wall of broken stone.

A shell, he thought, numbly. Orkmund’s stronghold must have taken a direct hit.

Suddenly he was being pulled to his feet. He looked up dazedly to see Silo holding his arm. The Murthian was saying something, but he couldn’t hear. Silo stood him up and spoke with exaggerated volume and clarity, but to Frey it still sounded like it came from a great distance through the cottony pressure in his ears.

‘Cap’n? You hear me?’

‘A little bit,’ he replied. His voice sounded strange in his own head.

‘You hurt?’

Frey checked he had all his arms and legs. ‘Don’t think so.’

There was a faint yell. Silo looked towards the rubble that had filled the corridor. Frey followed his gaze.

‘Hey!’ It was Malvery. Had it not been, Frey probably wouldn’t have heard him, but the doctor’s bellow could wake the dead.

‘Doc!’ Frey cried. ‘You okay?’

‘Cap’n! We’re fine over here. Cuts and bruises. Silo with you?’

‘He’s okay.’

‘Okay!’

The conversation faltered. The dust was settling, and now Frey could see the section of ceiling and wall which had collapsed into the corridor. Frey and Silo had been lagging behind, guarding the rear of the retreating group. Frey stared at the tons of rubble in front of him, and thought how lucky they were that nobody had been beneath it.

‘Wait there!’ cried Malvery. Frey glimpsed him momentarily through a gap in the rubble. ‘We’re going to get Bess to dig through to you!’

Silo grabbed Frey’s shoulder and shook his head. He pointed up at the ceiling. ‘Ain’t a good plan, Cap’n.’

Frey caught on. ‘Silo says no!’ he cried. ‘The roof could come down on you.’

Malvery considered that for a moment. ‘I expect that’d hurt quite a bit,’ he said.

‘Go on to the Ketty Jay. We’ll find another way round.’

‘You sure?’

‘You’ve got the treasure with you?’

‘Safe and sound.’

‘Get it on board. We’ll get there as fast as we can.’

‘Right-o.’

‘And Malvery? If they start shelling us again, you tell Jez to get her airborne and get you out of there.’

‘Without you, Cap’n?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’d rather choke on my own shit,’ Malvery replied cheerily. ‘See you on board.’

Frey shook his head to clear it of the ringing. It was about as effective as he’d expected. At least his hearing was getting less muffled with time.

He picked up his revolver from the ground where it had fallen, and thumbed in the direction they’d come. ‘That way, I suppose.’

They hurried back down the corridor and through a doorway, into a crude kitchen. They could see an exterior window, but even though it had been smashed by the explosion it was too small to get through. Frey led the way into a simple eating-hall with benches and a fireplace. He stayed close to the exterior wall, hoping for a door, but room after room confounded him. Eventually, they came out into another corridor, like the one they had left.

‘Damn it, how hard can it be to get out of a building?’ he complained, and that was when they ran into Orkmund.

He must have heard them an instant before they came around the corner, and that small warning meant he was faster than they were. He was emerging from a doorway as they came into sight, carrying a small jewellery box in his arms. Frey and Silo skidded to a halt as Orkmund dropped the box and pulled a revolver. By the time their own guns were halfway raised, Orkmund already had his levelled.

‘Drop ’em!’ he cried, and they froze.

Frey thought desperately, but he couldn’t force an idea through the fog in his head. This wasn’t a war: there was no question of taking prisoners. If they dropped their guns, he’d shoot them. If they drew, he’d shoot them.

‘Drop ’em!’ Orkmund shouted again, allowing no time for deliberation.

Frey looked at Silo. Silo looked back at him. And in that moment, Frey realised what the Murthian was thinking.

He could only shoot one of them. And Silo had decided it was going to be him.

‘Don’t—’ Frey began, but it was too late. Silo moved, raising his revolver to fire. Orkmund reacted, shifting his aim to Silo. Frey folowed Silo’s lead, an instant behind him: but Orkmund had already committed to his target.

Three shots fired, almost simultaneously. Orkmund fired first, and his bullet took Silo in the chest. Silo’s own shot went wild. Frey’s, hastily aimed, clipped the side of Orkmund’s revolver and sent it spinning away with a spark and a metallic whine.

Silo fell to the ground. Orkmund hesitated, surprised to find that his gun was no longer in his hand. Frey aimed square at his head and pulled the trigger.

The hammer fell on an empty chamber. He was out of bullets.

Orkmund lunged at him, drawing a cutlass from his belt. Frey threw his revolver down as his own cutlass leaped from its scabbard, flying into his hand, the blade moving of its own accord. The two cutlasses met hard with a ringing chime. Orkmund swung again, pressing the attack, slicing at his ribs and then his thigh. The daemon-thralled blade parried both, blurringly fast, moving with a speed far beyond anything Frey would have been capable of alone. Orkmund was an expert swordsman; Frey had an expert sword.

There was no time to think of Silo. The necessity of survival wouldn’t permit it. All he saw was Orkmund’s blunt face, twisted in fury, the blades darting between them. He backed away under a flurry of blows, knocking away the pirate’s strikes. The cutlass in his hand was doing its work with little help from him, but it could barely manage to keep up with Orkmund’s attacks. There was a sharp bite of pain in his shoulder as Orkmund nicked him; a moment later, it was followed by one on his forearm.

The pain set loose the rage. In the corner of his eye, he could see Silo lying motionless on the ground. Possessed by a sudden recklessness, he pushed forward, switching from defence to attack. His cutlass sensed the change, moving with renewed vigour. It felt eager in his grip. Adding his strength to the blade’s forced Orkmund to retreat. Suddenly Frey was the one hacking and thrusting while his opponent blocked and parried.

Then, an all-consuming roar, bone-shakingly low. The corridor shook as a tremor ran through it from a nearby shell. Orkmund stumbled back, Frey overreached and lost his balance; but it was Frey who went tumbling to the floor and Orkmund that kept his feet. Frey rolled onto his back, parried aside a downward thrust aimed at his heart, and kicked the pirate’s legs away. Orkmund went down, and suddenly they were on equal terms again. They rolled apart and sprang to their feet, panting, facing each other.

There was surprise and a little amazement in Orkmund’s eyes. ‘You can fight!’ he exclaimed.

‘Yeah,’ said Frey, hatefully. ‘I can fight.’

He lunged forward again. He was taken by a loathing for this man, a need to eradicate him from existence. The very sight of him was unbearable: the broken planes of his nose, the pattern of tattoos over his neck, skull and arms. This man had pulled the trigger that sent the bullet into Silo’s chest. Maybe the quiet Murthian was already dead. Maybe he was even now gasping his last. The one thing worse than the fact that Orkmund had shot him was the fact that he was now preventing Frey from doing anything about it. Every minute was a minute his friend could be bleeding out. Every minute could be the one that ended him.

Silo had taken a bullet for him. He was damned if he’d have that man’s death on his conscience for the rest of his life.

Had it not been for the cutlass Crake had given him, the wildness of his attack would have seen him dead at the hands of a swordsman like Orkmund. But with the blade guiding itself, and his murderous strength behind it, he became formidable. Orkmund parried and blocked, but Frey’s blows were so vicious that he could barely hold on to his weapon. Steel rang again and again, punctuating the distant explosions.

Then Frey’s hands were wrenched back, and his cutlass withdrew of its own volition, in preparation for a mighty strike. Frey panicked, struggling against the wishes of his own blade: he’d been left wide open. Orkmund, seeing the advantage, thrust inside Frey’s guard to skewer him. But then Frey’s cutlass twisted impossibly, almost breaking his wrist as it did so, and Frey felt the blade cut through meat and bone.

Orkmund’s cutlass clattered noisily to the floor. The pirate captain staggered back a step, dazed, gazing at the severed stump of his forearm. Blood fountained with the pulse of his heart. White-faced, he stared at Frey in disbelief.

Frey gritted his teeth and ran him through.

The square in front of Orkmund’s stronghold had become a battle-ground. Shells pounded the grey sky and gunfire cracked and snapped all around. A lumbering pirate frigate was cruising slowly overhead, terrifyingly low and close, its cannons bellowing as it fired at distant Navy frigates. The return barrage exploded deafeningly above the square. Stray artillery ploughed into the town itself, demolishing whatever it hit. A row of buildings along one side of the square had dissolved into rubble and slumped inward after one such misplaced shell.

In the centre of the square sat the Ketty Jay. Its cargo ramp was open and guarded by Bess. Its crew had taken cover inside the mouth of the hold or behind the hydraulic struts, firing on anyone who came close. Pinn and Harkins hovered in support, laying down machine-gun fire from their fighter craft, staying just high enough to avoid potshots from below.

An increasingly desperate group of pirates were shooting from the cover of the rubble. The square was scattered with the bodies of those who had already tried to rush the craft, seeing the Ketty Jay as their only hope of escaping the cataclysm around them.

Frey hurried through the gates of Orkmund’s stronghold with Silo on his back, heedless of the gunfire criss-crossing the air. The ground shook beneath his feet; there was a vast groan of metal from deep below. It felt like the platform they were on might collapse at any moment. He ran low and hunched over in an attempt to keep the Murthian from sliding off. Jez called out at the sight of him and the crew redoubled their fire, keeping the pirates’ heads down as their captain came closer.

Frey was exhausted, running on adrenaline alone. The constant noise of the explosions, the effort of carrying almost ninety kilos of dead weight on his back, and the emotional shock of the past few minutes had put him into a shallow trance. He hardly noticed when a shell obliterated one of the buildings nearby, spraying him with stone chips and pushing him sideways with the force. He staggered, corrected himself, and ran doggedly onward.

Bullets whined past. He didn’t know if they were meant for him. All he wanted was to get to the Ketty Jay.

He stumbled onto the ramp and was met by helping hands from Malvery and Jez, propelling him up into the dim safety of the hold. Bess stepped back onto the ramp, surveying the square threateningly, and Crake pulled the lever to raise it. The pirates screamed with frustration as they saw their chance of escape narrowing, but none of them dared to take on the golem.

All Frey wanted to do was lie down and sleep, but he didn’t have that luxury. He hardened his resolve. This wasn’t over yet.

He let Malvery take Silo from his back. Warm blood had soaked into his coat where the Murthian lay against him. They laid him on the floor of the hold while the doctor looked at his wound. Malvery’s face was pale and fearful.

‘Fix him,’ Frey told Malvery.

‘He’s losing too much blood,’ Malvery said.

‘Fix him, damn you!’ Frey snarled. Then he headed for the stairs that led out of the hold. He went up to the passageway that ran along the spine of the Ketty Jay, then through the doorway into the cockpit, where he flung himself into the pilot’s seat and punched in the ignition code. Jez was moments behind him, dropping into her spot at the navigator’s station as Frey flooded the aerium tanks to maximum.

Another explosion rocked the Ketty Jay as she began to lift her weight off her landing struts. Frey flinched and ducked as a bullet hit the windglass panel in front of his face, leaving a small circular shatter-mark. The pirate frigate loomed above them and to starboard, shells bursting in the air all around it in a pummelling cascade of light and sound. Its keel suddenly came open, unbuttoned in a sequence of detonations that raced along its flank from stern to bow. Frey willed his craft to lift as the frigate tipped sideways towards them with a moan like the death-cry of some enormous metal beast.

‘Come on, come on!’ he murmured under his breath, as the Ketty Jay hauled her bulk into the air and began to ascend. Jez was staring in horror at the black, flaming mass of the frigate as it grew in their vision, threatening to crush them on its way down. The Skylance and Firecrow shot past him on either side and streaked away; they couldn’t help him now, and they had their own safety to consider. Screams from the square could be faintly heard over the concussion of artillery and the sound of the Ketty Jay’s engines. The men and women of Retribution Falls had seen their fate descending on them.

The Ketty Jay had barely cleared the tops of the nearest buildings before Frey kicked the throttle to maximum and the prothane thrusters opened up with a roar. He was thrown back in his seat as they accelerated, their landing struts scraping the roof of an inn, tearing off slates as they powered out of the shadow of the frigate. Frey gritted his teeth as the colossal craft bore down on them from above.

The deck of the frigate plummeted past their stern with a bellow of displaced air, raging with smoke and flame, and collapsed into the square with the force of a landslide. The Ketty Jay carried Frey and his crew away as Orkmund’s stronghold was obliterated, and the great scaffolded platform cracked in half.

For once, Frey was glad that he couldn’t see behind his craft. The appalling destruction in their wake was left to his imagination. A stab of grief surprised him—not for the dead, but for Silo, whom he’d dumped into Malvery’s care as if he was luggage. He forced himself to be cold. He had a responsibility to the others. Time to wallow in remorse after he’d got them safe.

He vented aerium to curb the Ketty Jay’s excessive lift and took her around the rim of the sinkhole, skirting the Navy fleet and avoiding the worst of the fighting. Pinn and Harkins fell into position behind him. To starboard, he had a view of the whole battle. Retribution Falls was a ruin, a half-submerged junkyard. The stern ends of broken pirate craft jutted out of the brackish, rancid water, leaking flaming slicks of fuel. Smoke choked the scene. From within came rapid flashes of guns and the sound of explosions.

The Navy had blocked off one route into Retribution Falls, but there were evidently other ways out, and the pirates took them. The defence of the town had been abandoned and the pirates were retreating, melting into the mist overhead, vanishing into gullies and canyons. The Navy had taken losses, but the surprise attack had kept them light.

Frey flew the Ketty Jay behind the Navy fleet, who were still looking in towards the town and not out towards the rim. If anyone noticed the three insignificant aircraft sneaking past, then perhaps they recognised them for who they were and held their fire. In any case, the Ketty Jay passed unmolested into the canyon that led out of the sinkhole and away from the battle. The rocky slopes of the Hookhollows closed around them, blocking out the sight of Retribution Falls. Soon they’d left the pirate town behind, and all was quiet again.

Malvery and Crake carried Silo into the tiny infirmary and laid him on the surgical table. The Murthian was unconscious, his breathing shallow and rapid. His eyes moved restlessly behind their lids. The air smelled of oil and blood, and the floor moved with the tilting of the Ketty Jay as she flew.

Crake’s hands were covered in gore. He felt somehow that he should have been sickened by that, but he was too intent on the moment to allow himself weakness. He remembered the Silo that had helped him patch up Bess after the gunfight at Rabban, the one who had talked and joked with him on that grassy hillside. They were no longer strangers to each other. Crake would do whatever he had to.

Malvery ripped open Silo’s shirt, exposing the wound. A ragged hole had been punched through one slab-like pectoral. Rich blood welled out of it in awful quantity. He swore under his breath.

‘He’s bleeding inside,’ said Malvery. ‘I can’t do anything.’

‘You’ve got to!’ Crake protested. ‘Open him up. Stop the bleeding!’

‘I can’t,’ Malvery said. He adjusted his round green glasses and tugged anxiously at the end of his white moustache. ‘I just can’t.’

He opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of medicinal alcohol. He’d unstoppered it and brought it to his lips before Crake snatched it from him and slammed it angrily down on the operating table.

‘You’re the only one who can do this, Malvery!’ he snapped. ‘Forget what happened to your friend. You’re a surgeon! Do your damn job!’

‘I’m not a surgeon any more,’ Malvery replied, staring at the man on the operating table in front of him. Blood pumped up from the bullet wound and spilled down Silo’s chest in grotesque washes of red. Crake clapped his hands ineffectually over the wound, then began looking around for something better to staunch the flow.

He understood Malvery’s pain, but he’d no time for sympathy while Silo lay dying. If only Crake had been a better daemonist, he might have used the Art to heal the Murthian. But he didn’t have the equipment, so he couldn’t do anything. Silo’s only chance was Malvery, and the doctor was paralysed.

‘Spit and blood, you’re just going to stand by and watch?’ Crake cried.

‘What do you want from me?’ Malvery bellowed. ‘A miracle? He’s dying! I can’t stop that!’

‘You can try!’ Crake shouted back with equal ferocity. Malvery was shocked at the force in Crake’s usually quiet tone. ‘This isn’t like the last time. He’s going to die anyway. Nobody will blame you if you fail, I’ll make sure of that. But I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when the captain finds out you didn’t even try.’

Just then, the Ketty Jay yawed to port, making him stumble; he had to put out a hand on the operating table to steady himself. The bottle of alcohol tipped from the table, but Crake caught it before it fell. Malvery’s eyes went to it.

‘Give me the bottle,’ he said.

Crake just glared at him.

‘I’ll need a swig to steady my hand!’ Malvery insisted.

‘Your hand’s plenty steady, Doc. Do it. Earn your place.’

‘Me?’ Malvery roared. ‘You’ve been barely four months aboard, you arrogant shit!’

‘Yes. And I saved you all at Tarlock Cove. Bess saved you from Kedmund Drave. I uncovered Grephen’s plans at Scorchwood Heights, and we’d never have taken the charts from Dracken without Bess. We’ve done our part. Pinn and Harkins fly, Jez navigates, Silo keeps the craft running. What do you do that one of us couldn’t? Fire a shotgun? Work the autocannon occasionally? You’re a surgeon who doesn’t operate, Malvery! You’re dead weight!’

Malvery’s face twisted in anger. He lunged across the table to grab him, but Crake was too fast, and pulled himself out of the way.

‘Then prove me wrong!’ he cried. ‘Cut him open! Stop the bleeding and save his life!’

Malvery’s huge fists bunched and unbunched. His face was red with rage. For a moment, Crake though he really would attack; but then he turned away, and stamped over to the wooden cabinet that was fixed to the wall. He pulled it open and drew out a scalpel. The surgical instruments were the only clean things in the grimy room. Malvery came back to the table and stared at Crake.

‘I’ll cut him, damn it,’ he snarled. ‘And you’re staying to help.’

Crake rolled up his sleeves. ‘Tell me what to do.’

Frey sat in the pilot’s seat, staring out at the fog. His air filter still hung round his neck, though more than an hour had passed since they crossed the lava river and its noxious fumes. Jez read out directions and co-ordinates from the navigator’s station behind him, and he followed them automatically. Once in a while she consulted the compass and warned of some distant mine that the Navy minesweepers had failed to catch, but it was always too far away to be a threat.

Frey barely paid attention to the job at hand. This was the fourth time he’d flown along this route, and it had lost its fear for him now. He trusted Jez. Harkins and Pinn were following his lights through the murk. As for the Navy, they could find their own way out.

He was thinking of Silo. The black spectre of loss hovered over him. It wasn’t only the thought that Silo himself might die—Frey had already been surprised by the depth of feeling he had for the taciturn foreigner—but the idea that one of his crew would be lost. With each new peril they survived, he’d thought of them more and more as one indivisible whole. Whereas he’d often dreamed in the past of ditching his crew and flying off alone, now he couldn’t stand the thought of it. They’d become a miniature society, the denizens of the Ketty Jay, and they needed one another to survive. Somehow they’d achieved a balance that satisfied them all, and when they were in balance they’d been able to achieve extraordinary things. Frey feared losing any of them now, in case that balance would be upset. He feared a return to the way things were.

All this time he’d armoured himself against loss by refusing to care for anyone. Now, somehow, he’d been blindsided. He tried to be angry for allowing himself to become so vulnerable, but he couldn’t muster the feeling. It had all been part of a greater change, one that had seen him gain a level of self-respect he’d never had before the destruction of the Ace of Skulls. He wouldn’t trade the days between that moment and this. Not for anything.

But now Silo lay on the edge of death, left in the hands of an alcoholic doctor and an untrained assistant. Silo, who had taken a bullet so Frey wouldn’t have to. Frey didn’t want to live with that responsibility.

What’s taking them so long? Aren’t they done yet?

As if in response, he heard the infirmary door slide open. He hunched his shoulders as if expecting a blow. Footsteps came up the passageway, boots rapping on metal. They were too light to be Malvery, so it had to be Crake. Frey turned in his seat to be sure, and saw the daemonist arrive in the doorway. His hands were gloved with blood, and he was still wearing his filter mask. He pointed to it and said something quizzical which nobody understood.

‘You can take it off now,’ Jez said, guessing his meaning.

Crake pulled off the mask and took a few deep breaths. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘Those things are so stuffy.’

‘Mmm,’ said Jez in mild agreement.

‘Everything alright?’ Crake enquired.

‘Will you bloody well tell me what’s going on back there?!’ Frey exploded, unable to bear the tension any more.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Crake. He grinned. ‘The doc stopped the bleeding and got the bullet out. He says the patient is going to be alright.’

Jez gasped and gave a little clap, a surprisingly girlish reaction from someone Frey had come to think of as rather unfeminine. Frey slumped back into his seat with a sigh, and a huge sense of relaxation spread through his body. Exhaustion and relief piled in together. At last, it was over. A broad smile spread across his face. Crake laughed and slapped him on the shoulder, leaving a grotesque handprint there.

‘Good work, boys,’ Frey said. ‘Bloody good work.’

‘Well, I’ve got to go and help Malvery finish up,’ said Crake. ‘Just thought I’d let you know.’ He disappeared down the passageway again and into the infirmary.

‘We’re here, Cap’n,’ said Jez. ‘All stop. You can start ascending now.’

Frey brought the Ketty Jay to a halt and set her rising through the fog. The haze gradually thinned and the darkness brightened by degrees. The flanks of the mountains became discernible again as forbidding slabs of shadow.

Frey looked up. A smile was still on his lips. Up there was light and freedom. Up there was the prospect of a new life, a luxurious life, one financed with the chest full of Awakener gold they’d stolen from Orkmund. Up there was a second chance for all of them.

‘Never seen you smiling like that, Cap’n,’ Jez said.

‘It’s just, for once, I really feel that everything’s going to be okay.’

Then they broke free of the mist, and a shattering explosion hammered the Ketty Jay, filling the cockpit with dazzling light, shaking them about like rag dolls.

When no further explosion came, Frey blinked away the shock and pulled himself back into his seat.

A swarm of Norbury Equalisers surrounded them. Looming ahead of them, with all of its considerable arsenal trained on the Ketty Jay, was the Delirium Trigger.

Frey blew out his cheeks and huffed a sigh of resignation. ‘Bollocks!’