Philip Reeve - Predator's gold

“Then come with me,” said Hester, and said it with such an air of command that it never occurred to Freya to disobey.

The hardest part so far had been getting rid of Tom. She did not want to lead him into danger, and she could not be Valentine’s daughter if he was with her. In the dark of the Aakiuqs’ parlour she had pulled him close to her and said, “Do you know any back ways into that Winter Palace? If the place is crawling with Huntsmen we can’t just walk up to the main entrance and announce we’re here to see Masgard.”

Tom thought for a moment, then fumbled in the pockets of his coat and drew out a small, shining object that she’d never seen before. “It’s a lock-pick from Grimsby. Caul’s people gave it to me. I bet I can get in through the little heat-lock behind the Wunderkammer!”

He looked so excited and pleased with himself that Hester couldn’t stop herself from kissing him. When she’d finished she said, “Go, then. Wait for me in the Wunderkammer.”

“What? Aren’t you coming?” He didn’t look excited now, only scared.

She touched her fingers to his mouth to hush him. “I’m going to scout round by the airship.”

“But the guards-”

She tried to look as if she wasn’t frightened. “I was Shrike’s apprentice, remember? He taught me a lot of stuff I’ve never got round to using. I’ll be all right. Now go.”

He started to say something and then gave up, hugged her and hurried away. For a second or two she felt relieved to be alone; then she suddenly needed very badly to have Tom back, to be in his arms and tell him all sorts of things she should have said before. She ran to the back door, but he was already out of sight, following some secret route towards the palace.

She whispered his name to the snow. She did not expect to see him again. She felt as if she were sliding too fast towards an abyss.

Pennyroyal was still crouching at the bottom of the stairs. Hester pushed her way back past him into the kitchen and took an oil lamp from a cupboard above the sink. “What are you doing?” he hissed as she lit it. The yellow glow gathered slowly behind the smoky glass, then spread, lapping across the walls and windows and Pennyroyal’s soap-pale face. “Masgard’s men will see!”

“That’s the idea,” said Hester.

“I won’t help you!” the explorer quavered. “You can’t make me! This is madness!”

She didn’t bother with the knife this time, just pushed her gargoyle face close to his and said, “It was me, Pennyroyal.” She wanted him to understand just how ruthless she could be. “Not you. I’m the one who sent the Huntsmen here.”

“You? But Great Poskitt Almighty, why? ”

“For Tom,” said Hester simply. “Because I wanted Tom for myself again. He was to be my predator’s gold. Only it didn’t go how I planned, and now I’ve got to try and put things right.”

Footsteps crunched through the snow outside the kitchen window, and there was a sigh as the outer heat-seal was tugged open. Hester slid backwards into the shadows beside the door as the sentry from the docking-pans pushed his way into the room, so close that she could feel the breath of cold coming off his snow-caked furs.

“On your feet!” he barked at Pennyroyal, and turned to check for other fugitives. In the instant before he saw her Hester stuck out her arm and pushed her knife into the gap between the top of his armour and the bottom of his cold-mask. He made a gargling noise and the twisting of his big body dragged the knife-handle out of Hester’s grasp. She flinched sideways as his crossbow went off, and heard the bolt slam through a cupboard door behind her. The Huntsman was groping at his belt for his own knife. She grabbed his arm and tried to stop him. There was no sound but their harsh breathing and the crunch of crockery under their feet as they stumbled to and fro, with Pennyroyal scrambling to keep out of their way. The Huntsman’s wide green eyes stared out at Hester through the windows in his mask, furious and indignant, until at last he seemed to focus on something very far away beyond her, and his gargling stopped and he fell sideways, almost pulling her down with him. His feet kicked for a while; then he was still.

Hester had never killed anyone before. She had expected to feel guilty, but she didn’t. She didn’t feel anything. This is what it was like for my father, she thought, helping herself to the dead man’s cloak and fur hat and pulling on his cold-mask. Just a job that had to be done to keep his city and his loved one safe. This is how he felt after he killed Mum and Dad. Clear and hard and clean, like glass. She took the Huntsman’s crossbow and its quiver of bolts and said to Pennyroyal, “Bring the lamp.”

“But, but, but — !”

Outside, snow swarmed like white moths under the harbour lamps. Crossing the docking-pans, shoving the terrified Pennyroyal ahead of her, she glanced through a slot between two hangars and saw a big, far-off smudge of light on the eastern sky.

The hatchway of the Clear Air Turbulence stood open. Another Huntsman was waiting there. “What is it, Garstang?” he shouted. “Who’ve you found?”

“Just an old geezer,” Hester yelled back, hoping that the cold-mask would muffle her voice, the fur cloak disguise her skinny outline.

“Just some old man,” the Huntsman said, turning to speak to someone inside the gondola. Then, louder, “Take him to the palace, Garstang! Shove him in with the others! We don’t want him.”

“Please, Mr Huntsman!” Pennyroyal shouted suddenly. “It’s a trap! She’s-”

Hester swung the crossbow up and squeezed the trigger and the Huntsman went screaming backwards. As his comrades tried to push their way out past his thrashing body Hester grabbed the oil lamp from Pennyroyal and lobbed it in through the hatch. A Huntsman’s cloak caught light, and fire blazed up inside the gondola. Pennyroyal shrieked in terror and fled. Hester turned to follow, but after two steps she found that she was flying, lifted up by a hot wind from behind and dumped into snow that was white no longer but a Halloween dazzle of saffron and red. There was no bang, just a great, soft “woof” as the gas-cells caught. She rolled over in the snow and looked back. Men were scrambling from the burning gondola, slapping at the sparks which burrowed through the fur of their coats and cloaks. There were only two of them. One ran towards Hester, making her fumble for her fallen crossbow, but he didn’t look at her, just clumped past shouting something about saboteurs, and she had plenty of time to slip another bolt into the bow and shoot him in the back. There was no sign of Pennyroyal. She circled the burning airship, and met the last of the Huntsmen in a place where the smoke was thick and dark. Took the sword from his hand while he was dying. Thrust it through her belt. Ran towards Rasmussen Prospekt and the lights of the Winter Palace.

Uncle’s device made tiny clicking sounds in the keyhole, and the heat-lock opened. Tom slipped inside, breathing in the familiar smells of the palace. The corridor was deserted; not even a footprint in the thick dust. He hurried through shadows to the Wunderkammer, where the Stalker skeletons scared him all over again, but the lock-pick worked on that door too and he padded into the cobwebby silence between the display cases feeling shaky, but proud of himself.

The square of foil shone with a soft light, reminding him very clearly of Freya, and of the crab-cam that had watched from one of those grilles in the heat-ducts overhead as he kissed her. “Caul?” he said hopefully, peering up into the dark. But there were no burglars aboard Anchorage now, just Huntsmen. He felt suddenly, suffocatingly afraid about what Hester was doing. He hated to think of her out there, in danger, while he waited here. There was a flickery glow in the sky, somewhere near the harbour. What was happening? Should he go and look?