The Ace of Skulls

Twenty-Two

Ashua hunched over the steering wheel, foot pressed hard on the accelerator, staring out of the reinforced windglass slit at the chaos outside. Sentinels fired helplessly at the Overlander. Bullets bounced off thick armour plate. The vehicle surged and bounced, six huge wheels spinning on the muddy ground as they roared away into the heart of the camp.

Awakeners ran this way and that, fleeing out of her path. She took the dirt road that led away from the building. The Overlander skidded and slipped until it found traction: it wasn’t meant to be driven at speed over terrain like this. They drifted right, swung back too hard to the left. The edge of the vehicle clipped a supply tent and brought the whole thing down in a tangle of sticks and tarp.

A grin spread across her tattooed face. Here she was, dressed in a Sentinel’s grey cassock, running rampant through the middle of an Awakener base. Damn, this was fun. She was usually so careful, a survivor, weighing risk and reward and looking out for herself before anyone else. She hadn’t done anything this reckless or stupid in a long while.

She looked back over her shoulder at the crew, absurd in their cassocks, some of them with Ciphers painted on their foreheads. Pinn and Frey were getting into their bench seats, grabbing on to whatever they could. Malvery was crouched over Jez, keeping himself steady with one hand and trying to secure the unconscious half-Mane with the other. It looked like the aftermath of one of Maddeus’ fancy dress parties, gone horribly wrong. Then again, they’d always gone horribly wrong.

‘Everyone alright back there?’

‘Just drive!’ Frey snapped at her. He was right on the edge. They all were.

She turned her attention back to the road, just as an Imperator stepped out into it.

Her first instinct was to swerve. Her second was to plough the bastard into the earth. She went with that.

But the Imperator stood there in her path, hooded and cloaked and clad in black, face hidden behind a smooth black mask. And he looked at her through the windglass.

She knew the fear by now, and expected it. It didn’t help at all. If she could have held out for a few seconds, she could have run him down. But even a few seconds was beyond her. She threw the steering wheel to full lock, and the Overlander skidded wildly, flinging Malvery and Jez against the benches. Mud sprayed up against the viewing slit. Her leg was locked down on the accelerator, glued there by terror. She felt the vehicle’s centre of gravity shifting, felt it trying to tip. But those huge wheels kept it upright, and they bit into the ground again and sent the Overlander arrowing off at ninety degrees, into another supply tent.

Boxes smashed against the Overlander’s nose. Tarp piled against the windglass and blinded Ashua. The vehicle bucked and jerked as it bounced wildly over unseen obstacles. Any moment they’d hit something solid, something hard enough to send her flying into the dashboard, cave her chest in against the steering wheel. She fought to take her foot from the accelerator but the panic was just too much. She had to get away from the fear, get away, get away!

And then it was gone. Snapped off, like a light. Out of range? She didn’t know.

The tarp pulled away from the windglass, tugged under the wheels and off. Ahead, the side of a building loomed, a wall of grey. She swung the wheel, hit the brakes. Malvery and Jez went flying again. Frey was thrown from his seat. She felt herself slide across her seat as the Overlander fishtailed, back wheels swinging round to hit the wall broadside. She switched her foot from brake to accelerator, stamping down hard. The Overlander’s back wheels spun, found a grip, and shoved them forward. Their wide skid took them past the building into clear ground beyond, and they came out of it steady, racing though a floodlit landscape of grim buildings and tents stewing in the swampy night.

Pinn whooped behind her. She shook her head and blew out a breath.

Unable to see the main gate, she cut back toward the road. It led to a hub in the centre of the camp where she could get her bearings. There was pandemonium all around her. Occasional bullets came their way, but she ignored them. Small arms wouldn’t do them any harm. She had to get out of the camp before news of the escape reached the gate. If the guards shut it, they’d be trapped. Outrunning the messengers was her priority.

Something moved at the edge of the viewing slit, a quick blur that drew her eye. She caught a glimpse of a cassocked figure racing towards her. Suddenly it leaped through the air. There was an impact on the roof of the Overlander, making her duck. Pelaru. Rot and damn, it was the half-Mane. He’d cut across the camp and caught up with them. Now he was clinging to them, riding on top.

Well, let him, she thought. She had other things to worry about.

She saw the hub ahead, a wide dirt patch surrounded by buildings both permanent and temporary. Roads rayed out in all directions towards the walls and the doleful mangroves beyond. Awakeners scattered as she approached. She spotted an Overlander coming in from another direction, racing to cut her off.

No, you don’t, you son of a bitch, she thought, and pressed down on the accelerator.

The two vehicles reached the hub at the same time, swung together, and met wheel-to-wheel with a heavy crash that almost jarred Ashua out of her seat. Malvery swore loudly behind her.

‘Will you keep this bloody thing still for two seconds?’ he yelled, hauling Jez up onto the bench.

‘Doing my best, Doc!’ Ashua called back, then swung the wheel and sideswiped the other Overlander, sending Malvery tumbling. Her opponent rebounded away from her, taking out a floodlight. A pair of Awakeners dived out of the way as it roared by, sending up fins of mud as it passed.

‘Try harder!’ Malvery called up from the back, exasperated.

Ashua kept an eye on her opponent. Knocking him away gave her the room she needed to aim them towards the road that would lead them out. She could see the gate some way away, a gap in the wall ahead of them. How long would it take the guards to notice the armoured vehicle roaring towards them, she wondered. Would their first instinct be to close the gate, or to leave it open? Would they think they were preventing an escape, or slowing an urgent errand, risking the wrath of their superiors?

The other Overlander had regained control and was coming back in again. It couldn’t outpace her, but it seemed determined to knock her off the road. She braced herself as she saw it looming to her right. The impact rocked them, but she wrestled with the wheel and kept them on course.

The Overlanders left the hub and the road narrowed around them, lined on either side with buildings and tents and floodlight poles. There wasn’t much room any more: the two racing vehicles took up the whole road.

Ashua slammed into her opponent, but she didn’t have the space to deliver more than a nudge. The engine bellowed in her ears. Ahead of them, Awakeners were getting out of the way as best they could. The gate was still open.

She heard a bumping up above. Pelaru. Next time she looked, the other Overlander had acquired a new passenger. The Thacian was on top of the other vehicle, clinging on grimly, his hair blown back against his skull. All his elegance and poise was gone now: he was a primal thing, animal, savage. He crawled along the back of the Overlander with inhuman dexterity, fighting through the wind towards the cockpit.

Fascinated by the sight, Ashua was almost caught out when the other Overlander swung sharply towards her again. She met the swipe with one of her own, but hers was weaker and she was knocked away. She swung towards the edge of the road and bounced off the side of a building with a crash. Her head whipped to the side as she was flung; she almost lost the wheel. Driving more by instinct than conscious thought, she fought the Overlander’s skid and somehow came out of it still on the road, and still neck-and-neck with her opponent.

Dazed but awash with adrenaline, she struggled to focus. She was close enough to the gate to see the guards running about. She looked across and saw that Pelaru had reached the front of the Overlander. The other driver seemed unaware that he was there. They realised pretty quickly when Pelaru dropped down onto the nose of the Overlander and glared in at them through the windglass.

The driver panicked and jerked the wheel. The Overlander swung wildly away from Ashua, off the side of the road, carving a shallow arc through a stack of crates and a small mess tent. She saw the vehicle coming back towards her hard as the driver over-corrected, Pelaru still hanging on to the front. She hit the brakes and turned into it.

The Overlander crossed the road in front of her, and she slammed into its rear corner, right on the sweet spot to force a fishtail. It swung right around, its back end skidding wildly, and smashed hard into the side of a building, facing the other way. Ashua raced past it. An instant later she heard a thump on the roof of the Overlander, and looked up.

Pelaru. She couldn’t imagine the agility it must have taken to leap off one wildly spinning vehicle and land on the roof of another that was moving at speed. She shook her head. Manes. What a world.

They were coming up on the gate now. The gate guards were swarming. She’d expected some resistance, but there was something odd about their behaviour. Their response to her approach was chaotic rather than coordinated. It took her a moment to realise they were shooting outwards, down the road, beyond the gate. And then she twigged.

Silo. Silo was shooting at them from the cover of the swamp.

She looked back at Frey and realised he was still wearing his earcuff. Silo also had one. Despite the interference from the daemonic machine, the Murthian must have picked up enough scraps of what was going on, and decided to weigh in.

That’s it. Keep them busy. A few seconds is all we need.

She saw one guard running for the gatehouse on the inside of the wall, where she presumed the gate controls to be. He went down, clutching his leg, chopped down by a shotgun shell. A second man ran past him: this one made it inside.

Ashua put her foot to the floor. The way was clear now. It was a straight shot to the gates. The engine roared, drowning out all sound beyond the armoured shell of the Overlander.

She saw cogs begin to turn on the inner wall. Pulleys strained. The gates started to roll shut.

‘Brace yourselves!’ she shouted. She turned to glare at Malvery over her shoulder. ‘I really bloody mean it this time!’

Malvery had Jez as secure as he could make her by now. The others hung on to whatever they could with as much strength as they were able. Ashua spared a thought for Pelaru, up on the roof, but she couldn’t worry about him now. Besides, if they hit that gate at full speed, she wouldn’t need to worry about anything ever again.

Come on, damn it! she urged the vehicle, willing it onward.

Bullets pinged off the Overlander’s armour as some of the guards turned their attention to her. One hit the windglass, causing a spiderweb crack, making her flinch. The gap between the doors of the gate was narrowing by the second, closing in on her, and no matter how hard she pushed the Overlander it seemed like it couldn’t possibly be enough. She angled them towards the centre of the gap, heedless of anything else, concentrating only on that. They rushed towards it, the gates clanking in on either side, thick walls of steel like slow jaws.

Here it comes! she thought with a sickening terror.

And the Overlander roared through the gap, its tail striking sparks from the gate as it passed. Ashua hit the brakes, half to control the skid and half because they couldn’t leave Silo here. The gates crashed shut a few metres from their tail.

‘Whoo-hoo!’ Pinn yelled from the back, and slapped his thigh.

Frey was up in an instant, pulling open the side door, calling out to his first mate. Ashua slumped back in her seat, heart thumping in her chest. Malvery blew out his moustaches in relief.

‘That was some driving,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘That was some bloody driving.’

Bullets came down on their roof from the guards up on the wall. Were they shooting at Pelaru? Was he still up there? She didn’t care; they couldn’t get to her. There was a commotion behind and Silo bundled in. Frey slammed the door behind him.

‘Reckon we might have outstayed our welcome, fellers,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘What say we get out of here?’

She put her foot down and the Overlander tore away down the road, back towards the Ketty Jay.