The Iron jackal

Thirty-Five

Jez lay on the operating table in the Ketty Jay ’s infirmary. If he ignored the fact that she was covered head to foot in other people’s blood, Frey would never have guessed that she’d been tearing people’s throats out an hour ago.

She lay serenely, unmoving. Her chest didn’t rise or fall. She wasn’t dead, as far as he could tell. Well, no more dead than normal. It was just that she wouldn’t wake up.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asked Malvery.

‘Dunno,’ said the doctor. ‘She passed out the first time she did this. Was out for a while, as I recall. Second time she didn’t, but I reckon she had it a bit more under control then. This time…’ He shrugged. ‘Can’t do much but wait and see.’

It was lucky they’d found her at all. One of the Murthian slaves had rescued her, in fact. He’d tripped over her, lying unconscious on the quarry floor. Seeing that she wasn’t a Dak or Sammie, he figured her for an ally and helped her. Nobody equated her with the shrieking horror that had terrorised the enemy; most of them had only seen her in shadowy glimpses, if at all.

Frey felt bad that he hadn’t thought to search for her. He’d just assumed she’d be alright once it passed, that she’d take care of herself. It only now occurred to him that maybe, in this state, she couldn’t.

‘What is she?’ asked Ashua, who was the only other person in Malvery’s cramped, squalid infirmary.

Frey reckoned there was no percentage in keeping the secret. Ashua had seen her flip, after all. In fact, she’d been remarkably calm about it. He liked that. A level head was a rarity on the Ketty Jay. It was almost a shame he had to boot her off.

‘Jez is a half-Mane,’ he said. ‘Long story.’

‘A Mane?’ she asked. ‘I thought they were just stories.’

‘Maybe in the south,’ said Frey. ‘Up north, they’re pretty bloody real.’ He gave her a sharp look. ‘Mention this to anyone and Bess will punt you into the sea.’

‘No one would believe me anyway,’ she said.

Frey was satisfied enough with that. He turned to Malvery again, who was stroking his moustache and examining Jez, as if the key to her recovery might be visible somewhere on her body.

‘What about Pinn?’

‘He’s okay. I slipped him something to knock him out. Give us all some peace. Where’s the Yort?’

‘Eating out the pantry in the mess. That feller can put it away. He was making a fuss about how he couldn’t eat “unblessed meat” or some such rubbish, so I left him to it.’

‘Oh, that’s a Yort thing,’ said Malvery. ‘They only eat wild meat, and it’s gotta have some ritual done over it right after the kill.’

Frey shrugged. ‘More meat for us.’

‘What’s the plan now, Cap’n?’ said Ashua. It still sounded faintly like she was taking the piss when she called him Cap’n, but it was hard to tell through the mask.

‘Soon as it gets dark, we get out of this fog. Ugrik’s given me coordinates. He reckons he can navigate if Jez can’t.’

‘You trust him?’

‘Not a great deal of choice,’ said Frey. ‘Besides, if he’s messing us around, I’ll only have a day or so to regret it.’

Crake appeared in the door of the infirmary. ‘Visitor for you, Cap’n,’ he said. ‘She’s in the cockpit.’

Frey’s shoulders tensed. He’d been hoping to put off this moment as long as possible. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’

The door between the cockpit and the Ketty Jay ’s main passageway was closed, which was unusual. He opened the door with some foreboding.

Trinica was sitting in the pilot’s seat, looking out through the windglass. Outside, the day was rapidly dimming. The Delirium Trigger hung malevolently at anchor in the yellow murk. Shuttles flew back and forth, ferrying the Murthian slaves from the ground.

‘Shut the door,’ she said. He did so. That was when he noticed that the air in here was clear, and that she didn’t appear to be wearing a mask. There was a whirring sound. He looked about for its source. gn="just‘It’s an air filtration system,’ she said. ‘It removes the smoke in case of a cockpit fire.’

Frey was bewildered. He took off his mask and inhaled. ‘How long’s that been there?’

‘Since I had the Ketty Jay overhauled for you in Iktak.’

He knew that voice. The words came out slow and tired, as if the act of speaking them was an effort. It was the voice that came from the blackest depths of her darkest moods.

‘Trinica…’ he began.

‘Five men,’ she said. ‘Two went down in Equalisers. The rest were killed on board, when the frigate got a shot past our armour.’

Frey had that inadequate, paralysed feeling he got when he had nothing to say that would make things better. He tried anyway.

‘We got our man,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t have done that without you. I’ve got a chance, now. You gave me that.’

‘Five men died to give you a chance?’ Her voice had sharpened.

Frey listened to his instincts this time, and stayed quiet.

She got up and turned away from the windglass, but she still didn’t look at him. She was wearing a grey cloak over her black outfit, a deep cowl gathered around her shoulders. A breather mask hung from her hand, the kind that covered the whole face, with lenses for eyes. Her own eyes were that awful, empty black of the pirate queen that had stolen the woman he’d once loved. The black of the Iron Jackal’s eye.

‘You shouldn’t have asked me,’ she said.

‘You’d rather I died?’

‘Those were my men. Men who trusted me.’

‘Men who knew the risks,’ Frey pointed out.

She shook her head. ‘I see it in them, Darian. The doubt. Even Balomon. Even my bosun.’

‘You’ve led them all this time. They’ll forgive you.’

‘It’s not about forgiveness,’ she hissed. A flash of anger, quickly gone. ‘They’re not stupid. They know why I did it.’ Her eyes tightened. ‘You made me weak.’

Frey bridled at the accusation. He couldn’t help it. Diplomacy went out the window w the winhen he argued with Trinica.

‘Hey, I did exactly the same for you, back in Sakkan!’ he snapped. ‘I put my crew at risk to save your neck, and at considerably greater bloody odds.’

He was surprised to see her flinch at his tone. It took the sting out of him.

‘They owe me,’ he added, more gently. ‘Don’t they get it?’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Trinica. He hated when she did that.

‘So explain better,’ he said, the edge creeping back into his tone.

‘They see what’s going on between us!’ she cried. ‘And now people have died for it! People who they respected, people who were friends and companions!’ She caught herself before her anger could get out of control, and suddenly she was tired and mournful again, the fire doused. ‘I’m in charge of fifty cut-throat men. Men like that don’t take orders from women. But they take orders from me. You know why? Because I don’t let them think of me that way. They want me ruthless, Darian. They want me cruel.’

She met his gaze, and he saw tears glittering in her black eyes. ‘You’re taking that away from me,’ she whispered.

Something terrible was coming. He sensed it. Suddenly it was hard to breathe.

‘I know you, Trinica. That isn’t how you are.’

‘No,’ she said, and she held out a gloved hand to him. ‘You knew me.’

Lying in her palm was a silver ring. A ring he’d given her once, in place of the one he should have given her all those years ago. The ring that linked them together.

‘Take it,’ she said, her voice cracking.

‘No,’ he said. The words sounded distant. Blood was beating in his ears. ‘It’s yours.’

Then she tipped her hand, and the ring slid from her palm and fell to the floor of the cockpit. ‘I don’t want it.’

He felt suddenly weak, and sat against the edge of the metal desk at the navigator’s station. He couldn’t take his gaze from the ring on the floor. It felt as if something dark was thundering towards him. He was shocked that anything would unbalance him so much.

When he looked up at Trinica, she was wearing the breather mask, and pulling the cowl over her head. She turned her face towards him, and he couldn’t see anything of her any more.

‘I’ll deliver the slaves to the camp, as we agreed,’ she said. ‘You have more pressing issues to deal with.’

She walked to the door and slid it open. There she stopped, her head bowed slightly.

‘Consider us even for Sakkan, Captain Frey. I doubt we’ll meet again.’

And then she was gone, walking up the passageway.

Frey crouched down slowly. He was suddenly unsure whether his legs would support him. His stomach felt like it wanted to cramp, to pull him into a ball. He reached out, picked up the ring, and stood up again.

I don’t want it.

He turned it over in his hand. His corrupted hand. Then he slipped it on to his little finger, where he’d worn it before he gave it to her.

Footsteps were coming up the corridor. He swallowed down the nameless feeling that was swelling in his gut, crushing it back. He pulled on his breather mask, stared hard into the middle distance. Control, control. Be the captain. No time for this.

It was Silo. He stuck his head in through the open door of the cockpit. ‘Cap’n?’ he said.

Frey nodded at him.

‘Last shuttle up to the Delirium Trigger ’s about to leave.’

‘Trinica’s gone,’ he said. The double meaning almost broke him, but he firmed his mouth behind his mask.

‘Yuh,’ he said. ‘Passed her. Just thought you’d want to know.’

‘You’re…’ he began, then stopped. Did he really want to ask the question? ‘You’re not going with them?’

Silo’s face showed nothing. ‘Man can’t go back, I reckon,’ he said. ‘It’s Ehri’s show now.’

Frey walked over to stand behind the pilot’s seat and looked out through the windglass at the Delirium Trigger and the fog-shrouded buildings of Gagriisk.

‘We did some good here, right?’ he said.

‘Some,’ said Silo.

Frey let out a breath, with only the slightest of trembles in it. ‘Being a hero really bites shit, huh?’ he said.

‘Wouldn’t know, Cap’n,’ said Silo.

‘No,’ said Frey. ‘Me, neither.’