The Ace of Skulls

Forty

‘The gate! They’ve opened the gate!’

The cry echoed along the streets, punctuated by gunfire. The narrow lanes and courtyards which surrounded the Archduke’s palace were aswarm with men and things other than men. Massive shapes lunged through the rain, metal limbs screeching. Frigates hung close overhead, their enormous hulls filling the grey sky, trailing ropes like catfish tendrils. They wouldn’t bomb the palace; its contents were too valuable. But they could drop Sentinels behind the defenders’ positions.

‘This way!’ someone shouted, and the Coalition soldiers surged in that direction. Crake hurried along an alley with men jostling him on either side. The world seemed to have become very small. He was surrounded by a tiny bubble of reality; beyond it, everything was muffled and suspect. Samandra, Malvery and Ashua appeared at his side now and then, but he’d lose them just as quickly in the tide of soldiers. He spotted Grudge more often, and sometimes Celerity Blane, her blonde ringlets sodden, eyes narrow in a leonine face.

Gunfire pulled him up short at the corner. He pressed himself against the wet stone and peered round into a courtyard. Sentinels were dug in at one end, shooting out from behind a statue of Kendrick Arken, the first of the Archdukes. More of them were pouring in through an arch. The Century Knights didn’t break stride; they raced out into the courtyard, heading for cover of their own. He saw his lover running, rolling, coming up with shotguns blasting. He saw Celerity Blane, astonishingly fast, rotary pistols chattering as they ate up bullets from her gunbelt. Colden Grudge came last with his great autocannon booming, tearing holes through the charging mob.

He wanted to be brave. He wanted to run out there, to fight by Samandra’s side, to protect her. But something had rooted him to the corner. He couldn’t go out into the open with all those bullets flying about. He wasn’t a fighter, not this way. That was her department.

He looked over his shoulder, alerted by the thump and clank of a golem. Not Bess, though. This golem was larger even than her, a hulking armoured brute all rivets and plates. Its head was small and oval and smooth, without mouth or nose or ears. Mechanical eyes glared out from beneath a brow that had been fashioned in a menacing scowl.

It stamped past him, followed by another, and charged into the courtyard, heedless of the bullets. One of the golems headed for the archway, the other for the men behind the statue. The Awakeners tried to run, but the golems ploughed into them like cannonballs. Bones cracked beneath their huge flat feet; they shattered men left and right with their enormous fists. The leg of the statue was smashed away by one wild swing, and the stern figure of Kendrick Arken toppled to the ground in pieces. By the time the dust cleared, the Awakeners had fled.

Malvery came up next to him and gave him a hefty nudge with his elbow. ‘You alright, mate?’

‘Yes,’ said Crake. ‘It’s just. .’ He waved out at the courtyard. ‘All this.’

‘I know,’ said Malvery. ‘Stick it out, eh? We’ll drive ’em off with those golems on our side.’

‘And then what?’ Crake asked. ‘What do we do then?’

Malvery’s face was serious. ‘That don’t matter,’ he said. ‘Just do what you can.’

The crump and rumble of distant explosions could still be heard over the thunder and hissing rain. The ground trembled whenever a particularly big bomb hit. Even up on this crag, high above the city, they could feel Thesk’s death throes through their soles.

Yes, he thought. Just do what you can.

He was frightened, and not only for himself. They could beat back the invaders from the palace, but they couldn’t do it forever. Not with those frigates overhead. The Awakeners could land troops on top of them all day, and if the resistance proved too much, they’d simply forget about preserving Thesk’s seat of power and start bombing. They’d annihilate the golems and bring down the walls.

Don’t think about that. Think about now.

But he couldn’t. He didn’t have his crewmates’ ability to ignore consequences and live in the moment. He’d often envied them that. They were so blithe in the face of danger.

Was that the root of courage? The art of forgetting what you’d lose if you failed?

Bess caught up with them, shambling to a halt nearby. She was dragging a dead Sentinel by his leg like a little girl with a doll. The Sentinel’s head was dented on one side, the face aghast and purple.

‘Put that down, Bess,’ Crake said, faintly nauseated. Bess ignored him, her attention on the golems in the courtyard. She seemed bashful and subdued in their presence. They intimidated her.

Ashua hurried up, scrawny and soaked. She’d been off dealing with Awakeners in the streets behind them. The battle there was done, but only temporarily. No matter how hard they tried to drive the Awakeners out, more of them landed. Many of the Coalition troops had been held back to protect the palace, where the Archduke sheltered. The rest were out to make sure the Awakeners couldn’t bring their ground forces through the streets and up to the palace doors.

‘If they get a steady route up the road from the city, they can bring in armoured vehicles and rot knows what else,’ Malvery growled. He slapped Crake on the shoulder. ‘Come on. Still fightin’ to be done yet.’

They hastened across the courtyard, following the others towards the gate which guarded the streets on the crag top. The Century Knights led the way. Samandra found Crake with her gaze before she disappeared through the arch. He would have liked her by his side, but he understood. She had a job to do. Matters here were too important to let herself be distracted by babysitting.

The fighting around the gate was fierce. A narrow road ran through the arch, lined with stables and shops on either side. Watchtowers stood there, and the battle was thickest near their base. A mob of Awakeners were trying to force their way up the road, driving ahead by sheer weight of numbers. Gun muzzles flashed; the air was punched with pistol reports; men screamed.

An Awakener gunship hovered overhead, seeking a clear shot at the Coalition forces. More Century Knights were here: Eldrew Grissom, his duster whirling about him and his knives flashing; Graniel Thrate, the Sledgehammer. Golems weighed in, dashing men against the walls. Bess went with them, disregarding Crake’s command to stay. The lure of the fight was too much for her.

Crake stayed close to the buildings and hurried up the street in short bursts. His palm was sweaty on his pistol grip. Ashua was close behind him. He wasn’t sure how comfortable he felt about that. His head told him that she wasn’t to be trusted, that she might well be on the side of the enemy. But it was hard for him to hate someone who’d so recently been a friend. There was too much empathy in him, too much capacity for self-doubt.

Besides, he had bigger things to worry about right now.

A pair of Sentinels appeared at the mouth of an alley behind them, a little way up the street. It was only because Crake was looking back at Ashua that he spotted them. He cried out a warning, thrust out his gun and fired three shots. Two window panes exploded and a nearby door jamb suffered a grievous wound. Other Coalition soldiers took care of the flesh-and-blood opponents.

‘When this is done, I’m gonna teach you how to shoot that thing,’ Ashua muttered, slipping past him to take the lead.

Crake felt himself flushing angrily. He’d take that from Malvery, but it didn’t seem right to be disparaged by someone so recently accused of treachery. He’d expected a little more humility from someone who wanted to get back in his good books; but then, humility wasn’t exactly Ashua’s style.

There was a whine of engines as the gunship overhead adjusted itself, and then a rapid tattoo of cannon fire. Glass smashed, stone puffed, wood splintered as the street was strafed. A few Coalition soldiers, unlucky enough to be out of cover, danced and jerked as they were hit. One of the Coalition golems, undoubtedly the intended target, came apart in a screech of metal, and was left in a ruined, twisted pile on the cobbles.

Crake pressed himself back against the wall and covered his ears. He’d been in gunfights before, but even Sakkan hadn’t been like this. The noise and movement and terror were overwhelming.

Then: a loud thump-thump-thump. An autocannon. The gunship’s prow exploded, and the mutilated remainder slewed away to crash into a nearby rooftop. Men scattered as the building slumped into the street in a landslide of bricks and slate. Dust billowed up, a great cloud obscuring the gate.

Malvery roared with laughter. ‘Seems they didn’t get the memo about Grudge!’ he cried. Passing soldiers smiled at that as they went racing down towards the gate, taking advantage of the cover provided by the dust cloud. Crake looked for Bess and couldn’t find her. He applied himself to reloading his revolver while he had a moment’s grace.

He was still bent over, slotting in the last of the bullets, when the horror came upon him.

Oh, no, he thought. They’re here.

The gunfire stuttered into silence. Faces turned from grim determination to abject fear. Malvery, normally so stout-hearted, began to back away, whimpering. Ashua hunkered down into a ball and clung on to herself.

Crake’s hand went to his chest. Against his skin he felt the chill touch of the metal amulet. One of the devices that he and Kyne had crafted to negate the power of the Imperators.

It doesn’t work, he thought, as panic clutched at him. It doesn’t work!

His legs went weak and he staggered. He put out a hand to steady himself, but his knees gave way. The weight of his failure took him down to the ground. All that they’d risked at the Tarlock mansion, the death of Jez and Pelaru, the Cap’n’s dreams of saving his lover — all of it was worthless. The knowledge they’d gained of the Imperators meant nothing. Because the amulets didn’t work.

In the dust cloud, something moved. A booted foot splashed into a puddle. Out of the rain and the swirling murk, a figure emerged, masked and cloaked, clad head to toe in black.

A golem thundered up the street towards the Imperator. He raised a gloved hand and the golem seized up and went crashing down in a heap.

We can’t fight them. Not the Imperators. We can’t win against them!

Crake spotted Samandra, on the other side of the street, pressed up against the wall where she’d scrambled. She was just visible on the edge of the settling dust, her face distorted in fright. The sight of that struck at him deeply. Those features should never be twisted that way, those eyes never so wide and so afraid. She was so strong and capable, stronger than him; to see her made helpless was an injustice against decency.

The amulet against Crake’s chest was cold. Cold as ice. In fact, his whole body was going cold.

Just like it did when he used his tooth. Because the daemon was leaching his vitality.

Because the amulet was working.

From somewhere, he found strength. This fear was not supernatural. It was just that it was so potent he’d mistaken it for the Imperator’s influence. No, this fear was honest and human, and it could be overcome.

His eyes fixed on Samandra, he gritted his teeth and willed himself to move. The effort was enormous, the distance insurmountable. But somehow, he got up from his knees, and he stood.

The Imperator turned its head slowly towards him, fixing him with its dreadful gaze. He put one foot in front of him, and then another. His throat was dry; his muscles trembled. It was like fighting against a current. But he came on, walking out into the street. Walking towards the Imperator.

The dust cloud was dispersing now, washed down by the rain. Behind the first Imperator, he saw a second one emerging. And behind that one were the Awakeners, a hundred troops with their guns, waiting for the cloud to clear so they could be sure their enemies had been subdued. So they could begin executing their helpless opponents.

The Imperator reached down to his belt and drew out a long black knife. He strode towards Crake with murderously efficient purpose, his sodden cloak flapping around him. The sight of that dark figure bearing down on him, the knowledge that he had seconds to live, almost rendered Crake immobile with fear.

Almost.

His arm leaden, his senses muffled, he raised his gun and pulled the trigger. The report was deafening in the silence.

The Imperator jerked and stopped mid-stride. For a moment, he just stood there. Then he staggered back a step, and looked down at the small hole in his chest. It wasn’t bleeding.

When the Imperator looked up again, Crake had the gun aimed point-blank at his forehead. He pulled the trigger again. The Imperator’s head whiplashed back and he crumpled to the ground.

Crake breathed in, breathed out, and felt his fear turn to bitter and triumphant hatred. Then he turned hard eyes on the second Imperator, and went stalking across the street towards him.

Crake had never seen an Imperator display uncertainty before. His enemy looked around for help, drew his knife, held it without conviction. They relied so heavily on their fear-inducing powers that they had no other way to fight, and here was someone the Imperator had no power to affect. Crake felt his confidence rising with every step. He’d killed two Imperators now, three if he counted the one that died in the summoning circle. Usually he was a man with a surplus of conscience, but not where these creatures were concerned. They were less than animals to him. He found great satisfaction in exterminating them.

The Imperator lunged, but not at Crake. He darted to the side of the road, seized Samandra by the wrist, pulled her roughly to her feet. In a moment, he had his arm round her neck, her body held before him as a shield, the point of his knife against her nape.

Crake stopped dead. The Imperator glared at him, only his head and arm visible behind Samandra. He had no tongue to speak, but his intention was clear. Come closer, and I’ll kill her. Five metres separated them: too far to reach her before he drove the knife home. Samandra whimpered, limp and unresisting, her courage destroyed by the Imperator’s influence.

Crake’s world had seemed close and confined during the fight; now it narrowed to a single moment. He was aware of many things: the pulse at Samandra’s throat; the beating of his own heart; the falling rain and the Imperator’s birdlike, yellow-irised eyes. And he knew that the dust cloud had become little more than a haze, and that Sentinels were already squinting through, wondering who the figure in the middle of the street was. They’d aim their guns and shoot, and he’d fall, and it would all be over.

Unless.

Crake was a meticulous man, a thoughtful man, a man who considered consequences and disdained recklessness. But in that instant, he knew what it was to be like the Cap’n, or Pinn, or even Malvery. To know nothing of the future, to spurn it entirely, to be as careless and instinctive as an animal. To simply do, and nothing more.

In one quick movement, he raised his pistol and fired. The Imperator’s head snapped back and smacked against the stone wall behind him. Then he slid to the ground, dead.

Crake saw Samandra’s face clear as the Imperator’s influence was broken. Her expression changed from fear to amazement. She looked down at the dead thing at her feet, then up at Crake, who was still aiming the revolver, his expression as amazed as hers.

‘Good shot!’ she said.

Suddenly there were thrusters overhead, and a hot downdraft blew around them and whipped about the streets, blasting the last of the dust away. Samandra’s tricorn hat flapped and she had to grab it to keep it from flying off. She reached out and pulled Crake up against the wall, just before the air filled with bullets. But the bullets were not aimed at them; they were aimed at the gate, where the Awakeners had gathered. Crake heard the screams of the Sentinels as a hail of bullets cut through them.

‘It’s the Ketty Jay!’ Malvery bellowed over the noise, and then laughed heartily and pointed to the sky. ‘The Cap’n’s back!’

The Sentinels quailed under the assault from the Ketty Jay’s machine guns. They saw the dead Imperators, saw the Coalition forces stirring back to life, and their dismay turned into a rout. They crowded back through the gate and began to run along the road that led off the crag. Frey let up on his guns, and the Coalition forces pushed the gates closed with a loud boom. A great cheer went up as the mechanical locks crashed back into place.

Crake staggered out into the street, dazed and weakened by his ordeal and the daemon in the amulet. He shielded his eyes from the rain and looked up, but the Ketty Jay was already turning, heading for the palace. Frey didn’t seem to have noticed them down there among the ruin and the carnage.

Malvery slapped him on the back as he ran past, with Ashua chasing after him. ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘Let’s go see what he’s got in mind!’ And he ran off up the road towards the palace, cackling to himself. ‘I knew he wouldn’t let us down!’ he cried, which Crake suspected was a lie.

Samandra appeared next to him, her eyes alight. ‘Might not be such a bad idea at that,’ she said. She tugged his arm and they made off after Malvery.

As the dizziness of the moment subsided, Crake suffered a moment of mild disappointment. The Cap’n’s appearance had meant his own heroics had gone virtually unnoticed. But then, that was a daemonist’s lot, he supposed: most of his triumphs happened in secret. Anyway, he’d never wanted for glory. All that mattered to him was that the woman he loved, the lusty, brash Samandra, was back as if she’d never gone.

Then she gave him a sidelong look and a smile of thanks. An acknowledgement, as from one comrade in battle to another. And that was enough.

‘Cease fire!’ Kedmund Drave was yelling, as Malvery burst into the courtyard. ‘Cease fire!’

The soldiers put up their rifles uncertainly. Their bullets had done little good against the Ketty Jay’s armoured underbelly anyway, although they’d shot out a few of her floods. Now that he was no longer under attack, Frey began to descend. The soldiers watched with wary eyes as an aircraft painted with Awakener decals lowered itself into the heart of the palace grounds. Two aircraft hovered overhead. One was undoubtedly Harkins’ Firecrow, which was incredible enough. The other. .

Could that be Pinn?

Samandra came striding past Malvery and through the soldiers towards Drave. ‘Convinced they’re on our side yet?’ she snapped at him scornfully. Drave just gave her a look and motioned at someone behind him. Morben Kyne appeared at the doorway to the courtyard, with the Archduke and his family. They waited at a safe distance as the Ketty Jay settled on her struts.

‘That’s the Cap’n! He’ll always come back for his own!’ Malvery declared to Ashua, as if it was something he’d said all along. He felt glad enough to forget Ashua’s trespasses for the moment, and favoured her with grin. The grin she gave him in return warmed his heart more than he’d expected.

Suddenly, beyond all expectation, they were all back together again. Even Jez, in a way.

The cargo ramp came down. Forty soldiers and a half dozen Century Knights primed their weapons. It seemed a bit much for the lone figure that came walking out onto the rain-wet flagstones. But Frey walked taller than when he’d left, and there was something in his eye that hadn’t been there before.

The thunder overhead had gone silent. The storm had moved on, and only the driving rain was left. Beyond the courtyard, battles still raged, bombs still dropped and dark frigates ploughed the dreary sky. But here was a hush deep enough that Frey’s boot heels could be heard scraping on the stone as he came to a halt.

Drave took a step forward, glaring imperiously at the newcomer. ‘Captain Frey!’ he said. ‘In the name of the Archduke, I’m commandeering your aircraft. The Archduke and his family must be taken to safety. That’s the highest priori-’

Frey spat on the ground at his feet. It was a blunt enough display of disrespect to render even Drave speechless.

‘This is my aircraft, and she goes where I take her,’ he said. ‘So unless you’ve got a spare couple of hours to torture the ignition codes out of me — and the way this battle’s going, I don’t reckon you do — you’d best shut your mouth and listen up.’

Drave visibly expanded with rage. He sucked in a breath, and seemed like he was about to lunge; but Samandra slapped an open hand against his breastplate.

‘Drave,’ she said. ‘Enough being an arsehole for one day, eh?’

Drave’s eyes bulged. His face reddened. A vein at his temple pulsed. But though she was half a foot shorter than him, she stared him down. And Drave swallowed his fury and stepped back.

Frey gave him a look of disgust, then turned his head away dismissively, addressing the crowd. ‘The Azryx device is on board the Delirium Trigger,’ he said, his voice ringing out over the silent courtyard. ‘That’s where I’m going. If I can storm that frigate and take out the Azryx device, Thesk’s anti-aircraft guns will be operational again. I figure with the entire Awakener convoy sitting over the city as they are, we’ll be able to wipe them out with a surprise attack before they can get away. After that, there’ll just be the troops on the ground to deal with, and I think we can handle them. What I need from you lot is one thing: take back the anti-aircraft emplacements, and be ready when they come back on. We’ll get one shot at this. Don’t screw it up.’ He swept the assembled soldiers with a commanding gaze. ‘Any questions?’

Malvery felt his chest swell with pride, and he wasn’t ashamed to find a tear gathering in his eye. ‘That’s the Cap’n,’ he said again.

The soldiers stirred uneasily, exchanging glances with one another. The silence gathered and became oppressive. Then the crowd parted, and the Archduke walked through to stand next to Drave and Samandra in the rain, his flame-red hair plastered to his skull and his neat beard dripping. He gave Frey a long look. Frey looked back at him.

‘Your Grace,’ said Drave. ‘This could all still be a trick to divide our forces. You and your family need to get to safety. The continuation of the Arken line is paramount.’

But the Archduke laid his hand on Drave’s shoulder, and never took his eyes from Frey. ‘No, old friend,’ he said. ‘If we lose here, we lose everything. I’ll not leave my people to the mercy of daemons.’

He stepped forward, raised his voice, and spoke to Frey. ‘Take what men and golems you need. Some of my Knights will accompany you. We will take care of matters on the ground.’ Then he turned and addressed his troops, his voice becoming louder still. ‘The battle is not yet lost! There is still hope to turn the tide! Will you fight now with us? Will you fight for Thesk, and the Coalition, and your mothers and brothers and friends?’

The cheer that went up at that shook the windows of the palace. Malvery, overwhelmed by the moment, gathered Ashua in his arms and hugged her. She gave a surprised little squeak as she was crushed and dumped breathlessly back to earth.

‘I’ll go with you!’ called Samandra to Frey.

‘You’ll need me!’ said Crake, hurrying out of the crowd. ‘And Bess! And one of these!’ He held up a tarnished brass amulet. ‘My equipment’s all still inside, right?’

‘You’re taking on Trinica, you’ll need me too,’ said Kyne. ‘We’ll bring golems.’

Others were volunteering now, more than they’d even need. Frey left Silo to sort them out. He embraced first Crake and then Malvery, who gave him a broad grin and laughed as he swept him up in a bear hug.

‘Steady on, mate!’ Frey said. ‘Need all my ribs.’ When Malvery had put him back down, he said: ‘You coming too?’

Malvery gave him an apologetic shake of the head. ‘Love to, Cap’n. But I’m gonna be more use down here. Gonna be a lot of wounded to tend to. We’ll see about them guns.’

Frey seemed to understand. ‘What about you?’ he said to Ashua.

‘Reckon I’ll stick with this ox,’ she said.

Frey looked at Malvery. ‘She alright?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ Malvery said. ‘She’s alright.’

Frey nodded. ‘Silo!’ he called. The Murthian came over. ‘I’ve got Century Knights, golems and daemonists coming up there with me. Need you to keep an eye on these two. Bring ’em back to me safe.’ There was a question in Silo’s eyes, but Frey was resolute. ‘They’re my crew,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t trust ’em to anyone else’s command but yours.’

Silo dipped his head gravely. ‘Understood, Cap’n.’

‘Who’s got that other earcuff?’ Frey asked.

Malvery dug it out of his pocket and handed it to Silo. ‘Reckon you ought to hold on to this,’ he said. ‘Let’s all of us try not to lose touch again, eh?’

A cry went up from the south side of the courtyard. Soldiers pointed at the sky. Malvery hurried over as others gathered. Above the wall, near the horizon, a dark line could be seen against the clouds.

One of the soldiers had a spyglass to his eye. ‘Aircraft!’ he yelled. ‘Hundreds of aircraft!’

‘The rest of the Navy?’ someone asked. ‘We can’t have had every craft here!’ ‘There ain’t enough left of the Navy for that.’

‘It’s the Awakeners! They’re bringing reinforcements!’

‘Where did they get that many?’

But Morben Kyne stepped forward, peering into the sky with his mechanical eyes. ‘It’s not the Navy, and it’s not the Awakeners either,’ he said, his voice humming with strange harmonics. He lowered his head, and his hood fell across his face. ‘It’s the Samarlans.’

Forty-One

Dream Come True — A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing — The Casket — Fighting on Deck — Bad Memories

‘Cap’n,’ said Pinn. ‘Are you seeing what I’m seeing?’

‘I see ’em, Pinn,’ Frey said in his ear. ‘Stay where you are, we’ll be airborne in a sec.’

Pinn watched the approaching fleet from his vantage point above the palace, his forehead creased in a frown. He and Harkins were making slow circles while the Cap’n loaded up men in the courtyard below. They could have simply hovered, but it was too dangerous to hang still in the air. There were Awakener craft flying about, and frigates cruising nearby.

The sight of the Samarlan fleet was faintly dizzying. He’d seen Sammie craft before, over the Free Trade Zone, but never more than a few at a time. The aerium shortage in Samarla meant they couldn’t afford to keep too many in the air. But how many were out there now? A thousand? More? They must have squeezed every last drop out of their reserves to raise this many craft.

‘Why are the Sammies here?’ he asked.

‘That,’ said Frey, ‘is a bloody good question.’

He could make out the shape of the bigger craft now. They were smooth-sided, with sleek lines and pointed ends, and they slipped through the sky like sharks. The Sammies built their craft for beauty first and practicality second, and their elegant designs came at the expense of armour and aerodynamics. Theirs was an aesthetic culture; even their war-making was pretty.

The Awakeners had seen them too. The electroheliograph masts of their frigates were flashing. Pinn had never troubled to learn EHG code to any proficient degree, but every pilot understood the basic signals. From what he could make out, the Awakeners were just as puzzled as he was.

Pinn wasn’t much for politics, but he dimly understood that the Sammies and the Awakeners were working together. The Sammies had sold the Azryx device to the Awakeners, after all. They wanted the Coalition gone so the new rulers would sell them aerium again.

Which was why it all came as a bit of a surprise when the Sammies opened fire.

Pinn stared in amazement as a row of silent flashes rippled along the length of the Sammie line, and the battered cargo freighters that guarded the flank of the Awakeners’ convoy lit up in great blasts of flame. The Awakeners barely had time to register the attack before another salvo ripped into them, this one reaching deeper, hammering the frigates further in. Fighters went spinning away in pieces, blasted apart by the concussion of the heavy guns.

‘Will someone tell me what in the name of buggery is going on?’ Harkins yelled.

By the time the third salvo reached them, the Awakeners were reacting at last, but there was no organisation in their response. They had no plan for this, and no way to communicate orders fast enough. Some frigates broke formation, angling themselves to return fire. Other craft — those whose captains hadn’t been turned into Imperators — made a break for escape. The fighters and bombers who’d been attacking the city swooped and swung about, their pilots confused and panicked.

‘Are the Samarlans on our side now, or what?’ Pinn asked.

‘They’re on their own side,’ said Frey in exasperation. The Ketty Jay was lifting off from the courtyard now. ‘And you two need to keep them off my back till I get to the Delirium Trigger.’

‘What have they got against us? We’re not even Awakeners!’ Harkins cried.

‘You’ve got Ciphers painted on your wings. Think they’ll be able to tell the difference?’

But Pinn was hardly listening now. A sense of mounting excitement was building up within him. He could see a mass of Samarlan fighters racing towards the edge of the convoy, flying ahead of the big frigates, deadly darts shot at the heart of the Awakener ranks. He didn’t care about the why and the what, or who was allied with who. All he cared about was one thing.

Once, there’d been a young man who wanted to go to war. He’d played with planes till he was old enough to fly them. He’d fantasised about being a hero. He’d dreamed of shooting the enemy out of the sky. But then the war had ended too soon, the enemy called it off, and that young man’s dreams had been shattered.

And now at last, after all this time, the enemy had come to make amends.

A huge grin split his pudgy face. His piggy eyes twinkled. A hysterical cackle bubbled up out of his guts, and he threw back his head and let it out. Then he hit the throttle and yanked the flight stick, swinging his aircraft away from the palace and off through the rain.

Finally, finally, Pinn was going to get to kill him some Sammies.

‘On the left! On the left!’

Frey threw the Ketty Jay to starboard, banking hard as a Sammie fighter swept past him, machine guns blazing. Samandra, who’d given the warning, went skidding across the cockpit and almost fetched up underneath the navigator’s desk. She clambered back to her feet as Frey levelled up. The thumping of an autocannon sounded from above and behind them, and something exploded nearby. There was a Coalition soldier in the cupola, a trained gunner whose accuracy put Malvery and Samandra to shame. Frey never thought he’d see the day when he’d let Coalition hands touch any of the Ketty Jay’s controls, but these were strange times.

Fighter craft flitted about, whipping past like bullets. Sammies built their craft fragile but quick, and they were damned hard to get a bead on. The sky was dangerously crowded with big craft and little ones alike, everyone on their own trajectory, a panicked herd harassed by nimble predators. Aircraft smashed into each other. Shellfire detonated all around him.

Frey kept his head down and concentrated on threading the Ketty Jay safely through the chaos. Sammies or Awakeners, his mission hadn’t changed. His object was the Delirium Trigger and Trinica. Let the world throw what obstacles it would in his path. He had one last chance to save her, and everyone else with her. His previous despair had fallen away; hope had lit a fire inside. Nothing was going to stop him now.

The Samarlans’ betrayal was a master stroke. Their fleet was too precious to risk even a small part of it, their aerium too limited for even a short campaign in the air. So they’d sold the Azryx device to the Awakeners, and they’d let the Awakeners do all the work for them. The Awakeners had torn the country apart; the Awakeners had suffered the losses necessary to lure the Coalition Navy within range of the device.

And now the Samarlans came in with a surprise attack, having travelled unopposed across Vardic skies. A fleet of well-armed, highly-trained pilots against a group of mercenaries and volunteers, their forces already damaged and weakened. The Sammies had the same countermeasures as the Awakeners and the Ketty Jay, so the Azryx device didn’t work on them. And if their timing seemed near-perfect, that was probably because someone on the inside had told them when and where the Awakener attack would occur.

That would be Ashua, then.

The Sammies weren’t going to give Vardia to the Awakeners. That was never their plan. They didn’t want to trade for their aerium any more. They were going to take it for themselves. And with the Coalition Navy out of the way, there wasn’t a lot anyone could do about it.

If this was what future generations would call the Third Aerium War, it would be the shortest war in history.

The Ketty Jay’s thrusters screamed as Frey drove her towards the heart of the convoy, where the Delirium Trigger hung like a spider at the centre of a web. Pinn and Harkins swept around him, now ahead and now behind, chasing off Sammies, shooting them down when they could. Pinn’s maniacal cackling was getting wearisome, but Frey kept the earcuff in all the same. For once he was glad of the noise in his ear. He hadn’t realised what a comfort his crew were until he’d almost lost them.

The other frigates had gathered around the flagship and the Delirium Trigger, a hard core of artillery to defend the Lord High Cryptographer and his Azryx device. Cannons boomed, machine guns spat and autocannons pounded, tracking Sammie fighters as they lashed past in the rain. The sheer noise of it was terrifying. The Ketty Jay shook and shuddered as Frey fought to see through the rain sliding off the windglass.

Don’t worry about me, he told them silently. I’m an Awakener.

And as far as they knew, he was. The Ketty Jay, with its Cipher decals showing proudly, slipped through the bombardment. The frigates had other targets.

‘Pinn! Harkins! You’ve done your bit! Get out of here!’ he said.

‘No, sir!’ said Harkins. ‘Not while there’s Sammies and Awakeners in the sky over Thesk!’

‘I’m not even halfway done killin’ these losers yet!’ Pinn cried, with an edge of happy delirium in his voice.

‘Alright,’ said Frey. ‘Stay safe. I want to see you both on the other side.’

Now he was above the core of the convoy, and he tipped the Ketty Jay into a dive and plunged in. The gathered frigates were like dark metal islands, floating in the sky. He darted between them; their flanks thundered past in a blur. Other Awakener fighters were in here with him, buzzing about like flies, sheltering behind the bigger craft. They ignored him, and he ignored them.

And then there she was, below him. A black shape in the rain, her huge bow emerging from behind another frigate, cannons roaring as she sent shells out towards the Sammies’ capital craft. He closed in with reckless speed, coming in aft of her, and hit the airbrakes hard while dumping aerium from his tanks. Samandra grabbed the navigator’s desk as the Ketty Jay decelerated, dropping down towards the Delirium’s main deck.

Either the gunners were busy with other matters, or they thought that nobody was foolish enough to try what Frey had in mind. By the time someone realised and swivelled one of the deck guns towards him, it was too late.

The Ketty Jay landed heavily and too fast, throwing Frey forward in his chair. She slammed onto her skids with a scream of metal, and magnetic clamps locked on. Frey felt a blaze of pain in his back as his spine was jolted, and Samandra went sprawling on her hands and knees. The Ketty Jay’s hydraulics howled as residual forward momentum threatened to rip her from her skids, and for a moment Frey thought she’d topple forward and collapse in a heap of twisted metal.

But then, just when it seemed she couldn’t strain any further, she rocked back again and settled. When they looked up, the deck of the Delirium Trigger spread out before them, big enough for a dozen of his craft. Despite the gunner’s best efforts, they were too low to be shot at: safety mechanisms prevented the cannons firing when they might hit their own aircraft.

‘We’re down,’ said Frey.

Samandra looked up from the floor and tipped her tricorn hat back from where it had fallen over her face. ‘You don’t say,’ she replied drily.

Frey released himself from the pilot’s seat and snatched up his cutlass and pistols. Samandra was already out the door, heading down to the hold where the others waited ready. It would only be moments before the crew of the Delirium Trigger came swarming out on to the deck.

Frey took a breath. It wasn’t the thought of the fight to come that scared him. It was the thought of facing Trinica.

Time to do this.

He went out into the corridor. Dull explosions from the battle outside rang through the Ketty Jay’s hull. The soldier in the cupola had descended the ladder and was disappearing down the stairs into the hold. Frey was about to follow him when something caught his eye further down the corridor.

The door of the infirmary was open. Something black was poking through the doorway, moving slightly.

Frey knew he didn’t have time for it, but there was something urgent in the sight, something that needed investigating. He walked closer, warily, until it became clear that the black thing was a strip of tarp, quivering under the influence of the Ketty Jay’s air filters. He went to the doorway and looked inside.

The strip of tarp was part of a larger piece, a sack that lay on the floor near the door, which had been ripped open. It took him a moment to realise that it was the remains of the body bag they’d stored Jez’s charred corpse in. Events had moved so fast that there hadn’t even been time to bury her, so they’d left her on the operating table.

Frey looked from the empty table to the ripped body bag and back again. She wasn’t there now.

He turned and ran, heading down to the hold, his mind awhirl. What did it mean? Had somebody been aboard and taken her while they were imprisoned?

Had she got up and walked away?

The cargo ramp was opening as he hurried down the stairs. Crake and Kyne were near the back of the assembled forces, wearing big backpacks and weighed down with daemonist paraphernalia. The Coalition soldiers clutched their weapons, taut with anticipation. Other Century Knights stood among them: Samandra Bree with her tricorn hat and her shotguns; Celerity Blane with her rotary machine-pistols, her face dirtied and eyes fierce; Eldrew Grissom, with his straggly grey hair and his duster full of blades. Colden Grudge had stayed behind; autocannons would be useless here, where the fighting would be at close quarters.

And then there were the golems, in the vanguard. Four of them, not counting Bess, who stood shyly at their side. Pale light from outside spilled onto metal skin as the ramp lowered and the sound of shellfire became louder and more immediate.

The ramp thumped down onto the deck, and they charged.

When the echoes of their battle-cries had died away, when the ramp had closed behind them and the hold stood empty and silent, then she emerged from the shadows.

Everything was pain. Every movement stabbed her with a dozen hot knives. Her vision was a blur, blobs of weak colour and nothing more. She existed in a state of torment.

And yet, she existed.

Jez took a shuffling step out into the light. Red eyes with yellow irises squinted out from a mask of carbonised flesh. One trembling arm was held uselessly before her chest, mottled and weeping with sores. Her overalls — more fireproof than her flesh — still clung to her in pieces. Bits of burnt skin flaked away from her as she moved.

All but the vestiges of reason had fled, driven away by agony. But there was purpose in her, a single goal that pushed her on. It was instinct that guided her now. She put one foot in front of the other, and made her excruciating way forward.

The damage had almost been too much, the shock to her system too great. She’d burned; her flesh had cooked. Had she been living, she would have been overwhelmed. As it was, she’d come within a hair’s breadth of extinction.

But the damage, great as it was, was mostly on the outside. Manes whose bodies had become useless or inoperable were abandoned by the entity that linked them together, severed from the network. Jez’s had just enough left to salvage.

So the daemon began rebuilding her patiently, replacing what needed replacing, changing what needed to be changed. Cell by cell it reconstructed her from the inside out. Even now, it was working: dead nerves were coming back to life; eyes that had boiled and split were swimming back into focus.

She was healing.

In her mind she heard the howls of her brethren. They called encouragement to her, they shared her pain. They told her she was not alone. Their voices gave her the strength to keep going.

Hidden in the dark recesses of the Ketty Jay’s cavernous hold, behind crates of machine parts and who knew what else, she found a vent. The grate was loose, but stiff enough to defeat her at first, weakened as she was. She slid her nails into the tiny gap between the grate and the bulkhead, nails that had grown longer and stronger than ever before. The second time she pulled, there was more strength in her. The vent came away with a shriek.

No breath inflated her thin chest. Her heart was still. She reached into the vent, and took hold of a large grey metal casket. It crashed to the floor as she pulled it out, too heavy for her to hold up.

A pair of eyes glittered in the blackness at the end of the vent. Already her eyesight had sharpened enough to make them out. There was a scrabble of claws, and the eyes disappeared.

A cat. She fought to concentrate through the singing in her head. Was it Slag? Slag, who’d guided her to this treasure in the first place? No, not him. He had departed; his mind was silent. Then it was the other cat. The female.

She couldn’t hold on to the thought. It didn’t seem important. All that was important was what was in the box, the thing that Osger had died looking for, that Pelaru had wanted to destroy. What a repellent idea that seemed now. She could no more destroy what was in the box than she could destroy herself. It was part of her, just as her brethren were part of her. Pelaru had never seen that. And though he’d died attempting to save her, she felt nothing for him. He’d chosen to remain apart, too fearful to embrace what he was. He didn’t deserve her lament.

She opened the casket. Inside was a smooth sphere of deepest black. Silver lines ran all across its surface in curves and circles, crafted without symmetry or any pattern that the human mind could grasp. But she saw the pattern, and it was beautiful.

She reached inside and lifted it up, cupping it with both hands. It seemed to throb with energy. Her nerves crackled; the touch of it filled her with exhilaration. The voices in her head were overwhelming now, drowning out everything else. An immense compulsion came over her. The power in the sphere demanded to be used, demanded to be let free. She had no reason to deny it. And she knew how to do it, too.

This wasn’t the first time she’d held a device like this in her hands. She’d used one before, in Sakkan, at the insistence of Captain Grist.

The Awakeners hadn’t realised what they had in their shrine at Korrene until it was too late. By the time they did, by the time their spies had dug out the details of the tale of Captain Grist, the shrine was already lost, the city destroyed by an earthquake. Then the shrine had been found again, and the Awakeners rushed to reclaim it. But Osger had found it first. In following him, Pelaru obtained it. And now it had come to Jez.

It was a distress beacon, an alarm, taken from a Mane dreadnought some time in the distant past. It was a summons, a call to arms. It was Jez’s way home.

They wanted to fight. She sensed it. As she lay dormant, the daemon had picked through her thoughts and divined what she knew. It had learned of a deadly threat, the potential of a daemon nation to the south. If the Awakeners took Vardia, they’d be within striking distance of the Wrack. And that was something that would not be borne.

Call us, they urged her. Bring us. We are ready.

She held the sphere to her scorched breast and bowed her head over it, gathering it to her like the most precious of infants. Come and get me, she thought, and she let the wild power loose.

The golems roared and raged, smashing through the crew of the Delirium Trigger as they fought on the rain-slick deck. Bess roared with them, stamping here and there on her stubby legs, swinging her huge arms. She tore away limbs and crushed the fallen. Bullets bounced off her armour, and slowed her not a bit. One of Trinica’s pirates got the back of her hand and went sailing over the gunwale and out into the sky.

Frey aimed and fired, aimed and fired. His pistol was in one hand, his cutlass in the other. He shot at those men he couldn’t reach and cut down those he could, his blade guided expertly by the daemon within. Overhead and around him, great frigates slid through the downpour, engines rumbling and cannons blasting away. Frey hacked and killed and shoved, teeth gritted. These men were in his path; that was all he cared about.

The pirates boiled up through a half-dozen hatches and doors that led belowdecks. Some of them tried to turn back when they saw the invaders, cowed by the sight of the raging metal monstrosities and the Century Knights that darted between them. They were pushed forward by the weight of people behind, and found themselves on the battlefield anyway. For most, fear of their mistress drove them up into the fight, careless of the odds. They were many, and they fought with the savagery of desperate men; but against the soldiers of the Coalition, the golems and the Knights, they were outmatched.

Frey heard Celerity Blane’s pistols chattering. She never stopped moving, performing rolls and flips and aerials with a speed and skill verging on inhuman. Kyne lobbed something through the air at a group of pirates who’d taken cover on a higher deck. It was X-shaped, the size of a hand, and magnetic. It stuck to the hull where it hit, adhering to the barrier the pirates hid behind. An instant later there was a low pulse of bass sound, so deep that it was felt in the chest rather than heard through the ears. The pirates fell dead; they went out like lights.

‘Over there!’ Frey cried, pointing towards a nearby doorway that led down into the depths of the craft. It was crowded with corpses, but nobody defended it now.

He’d meant the shout for Crake and Kyne, but Samandra took it up too, and she went running over in that direction, shotguns crossed in front of her, firing to either side. Frey scampered low across the deck; Crake came scurrying behind him, labouring under his cumbersome pack. Most of the pirates were too busy with the golems to notice them.

Kyne met up with them at the doorway, along with several Coalition soldiers. Narrow stairs led to a dimly lit corridor below.

‘Stand back,’ said Kyne, and he sent another of his X-shaped devices spinning down there. It stuck to the floor; there was a dull bass pulse. ‘Clear,’ he said, and the soldiers began hurrying through. Frey was about to follow him when Crake grabbed his arm.

‘What?’ he said irritably, angry that anything should delay him in his mission to get to Trinica.

The expression on Crake’s face stopped him. Crake was looking at the sky; Frey followed his gaze. A slow chill crept through him.

There was a disturbance in the layer of grey overhead. The clouds were darkening, swirling in a colossal slow circle, accelerating as they neared the centre. Here and there, pulses of light flashed in the blackness.

‘Oh, you’ve got to be bloody joking me,’ Frey murmured.

Some of the combatants on deck had stopped fighting and were staring upwards, transfixed. Like Frey, recognised it. They’d been at Sakkan that fateful day.

Lightning jumped across the maelstrom. The clouds churned faster, and the pulses of light got faster with them, gathering towards the centre. Faster the pulses came, and faster still until they were a dazzling flicker, and finally they burst in a blinding light too bright to bear.

When the light had faded, the clouds had collapsed inward, and there was a hole in the sky, a great swirling tunnel at the heart of the vortex. Frey felt fear then, for he knew what was at the other end. An icy waste, thousands of miles to the north behind the forbidding cloud-wall of the Wrack that shrouded the pole. A place where dead things built strange cities, from which few men had returned alive.

Frey ran down the stairs, into the belly of the Delirium Trigger, where his daemonic love waited for him in the gloom. He didn’t wait to see the first of the dreadnoughts come sailing through the gap. He didn’t need to. They’d be here, as inevitable as fate. And they’d bring death and terror with them.

The Manes were coming.