Chris Wooding - Retribution Falls

These two were among the most famous, and they attracted stares from passers-by as they approached. The smaller Knight was Samandra Bree, wearing a long, battered coat and loose hide trousers that flared over her boots. Perched on her head was her trademark tricorn hat. Her coat flapped back in the wind as she strode along, offering glimpses of twin lever-action shotguns and a cutlass at her belt. Young, dark-haired and beautiful, Samandra was a darling of the press. By all accounts she did little to encourage their attention, which only made the people love her more and the press chase her harder.

Her companion was Colden Grudge, who wasn’t quite so photogenic. He was a man of bruising size with a face like a cliff. Thick, shaggy brown hair and an unkempt beard gave him a spiteful, simian look. Beneath a hooded cloak, time-dulled plates of armour had been strapped over his massive limbs and chest. He bore the insignia of the Century Knights on his breastplate. Two double-bladed hand-axes hung at his waist, and an autocannon was slung across his back.

Crake’s mouth went dry and he almost fled. It took him a few moments to realise that they weren’t heading for him at all, but for the tavern he was standing in front of. They were going to Old One-Eye’s.

He didn’t have time to think. In moments they’d be inside. Before he knew what he was doing, he thrust the handbill at them and blurted: ‘Excuse me. You’re looking for this man, aren’t you?’

The Knights stopped. Grudge glared at him, tiny eyes peering out from beneath a beetling brow. Samandra tipped back her tricorn hat and smiled. Crake found himself thinking that she really was quite strikingly gorgeous in person.

‘Why, yes we are, sir,’ she said. ‘Seen him?’

‘I just . . . yes, I just did, yes,’ he stammered. ‘At least I think it was him.’

‘And where was that?’ Samandra asked, with a faintly amused expression. She took his nervousness to be the reaction of a man intimidated by a pretty woman, instead of someone strangled by the fear of discovery.

‘In a tavern . . . that way!’ Crake improvised, pointing up the road.

‘Which tavern?’ Grudge demanded impatiently.

Crake grasped for a name. ‘Oh, it’s the one with lanterns out front, you know . . . The Howling Wolf or something . . . The Prowling Wolf! That’s it! That’s where I saw him!’

‘You sure about that?’ Grudge asked, unconvinced.

‘You’re not from around here, are you?’ Samandra asked, in that charmingly soft voice that made Crake feel like pond scum for lying to her.

‘Does it show?’ he said, with a grin. He gave them a smile, a glimpse of the golden tooth. Putting just a little power into it, letting the daemon suck a tiny fraction of his vital essence, just enough to allay their suspicions, just enough to say: believe him. ‘I’m visiting a friend.’

Samandra’s eyes had flicked to his tooth for just an instant, drawn by the glimmer. Now they were back on him.

‘Be where we can find you,’ she said.

Crake looked at her blankly.

‘The reward!’ she said, pointing at the handbill. ‘You do want the reward?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Crake said, recovering. ‘I’ll just be in here.’ He thumbed towards Old One-Eye’s.

Samandra and Grudge exchanged glances, then they hurried off up the road in the direction of The Prowling Wolf. Crake let out a slow, shaky breath and plunged into the tavern.

Frey was having a rare old time. He was exhausted from laughing and perfectly drunk, hovering in that elusive zone of inebriation where everything was in balance and all was right with the world. He never wanted this night to end. He loved Malvery and Pinn and even silent Harkins as brothers in arms. And if things began to wind down, well, the waitress had been giving him looks. She had a homely sort of face, but he liked her red hair and the freckles on her button nose, and he was in the mood for something curvy and soft tonight.

What a life it was! A fine thing to be a captain, a freebooter, a lord of the skies.

Crake’s arrival was something of a downer. ‘We’re getting out of here,’ he said, slapping the handbill onto the table and thrusting a finger at the picture of Frey. ‘Now!’

Frey, a little slow off the mark, was more surprised by the picture than the danger it represented. He recognised it immediately. How did they get their hands on that one? Who gave it to them?

Crake snatched the handbill away and stuffed it in his pocket. ‘I just had to head off Samandra Bree and Colden Grudge. They’re looking for us. They’ll be back in a few minutes. I suggest we not be here when they do.’

‘You met Samandra Bree?’ Pinn gaped. ‘You lucky turd!’

‘Spit and blood! Get moving, you idiots!’

The penny had finally dropped. They surged up and pushed their way through the crowd towards the door.

By the time they emerged from the tavern, Frey’s mood had seesawed from elation to cold, hard fear. The Century Knights? The Century Knights were on his tail? What had he done to deserve that?

‘Back to the Ketty Jay?’ Malvery suggested, scanning the street.

‘Bloody right,’ Frey muttered. ‘This is one more town we’re not coming back to.’

‘Why don’t we just emigrate and be done with it?’

‘Not a bad idea at that,’ Frey said over his shoulder, as he hurried away in the direction of the docks.

The town’s landing pad was situated halfway along one of the mountainous arms that sheltered the bay. Houses became sparser as they approached, and the streets were whittled down to a single wide path that dipped and curved with the land. It was flanked by storage sheds, the occasional tavern and a customs house. The vast, moist breathing of the sea was loud here. Waves crashed and spumed on the rocks far below.

Frey hugged his coat tight around him as he led his crew along the stony path. The previously welcoming town seemed suddenly threatening and nightmarish. He glanced over his shoulder for signs of pursuit, but nobody came running after them. Perhaps they’d given the Knights the slip.

Wanted for murder? Piracy, fine, he’d own up to that (to himself, at least. Damned if he’d admit it to a judge). But murder? He was no murderer! What happened to the Ace of Skulls wasn’t his fault!

It didn’t matter that piracy and murder carried the same penalty of hanging. In real terms, whether he did both or only one was moot: his end would be the same. But it was the principle of the thing. It was all so tragically unfair.

He slowed as they spotted a trio of Ducal Militiamen coming towards them. They were striding along the road from the docks, clad in the brown uniform of the Aulenfay Duchy, all buttoned-up jackets and flat-topped caps. The path afforded nowhere to duck away without looking suspicious.

‘Cap’n . . .’ Malvery warned.

‘I see them,’ Frey said. ‘Keep walking. It’s only me they’ll recognise. ’

Frey tucked his head down into his collar and shoved his hands into his pockets, playing the frozen traveller hurrying to get somewhere warm. He dropped back into the group, keeping Malvery’s bulk between him and the militiamen.

Their boots crunched on the path as they approached. Frey and his crew moved to the side of the path to let them pass. Their eyes swept the group as they neared.

‘Bloody chilly when the sun goes down, eh?’ Malvery hailed them with his usual booming good humour.

They grunted and walked on. So did Frey and his men.

The landing pad was busy with craft and their crews, loading the day’s catch onto the vessels for the overnight flight inland. A freighter was rising slowly into the air, belly-lights bright. Its aerium engines pulsed as electromagnets pulverised refined aerium into ultralight gas, flooding the ballast tanks.