Chris Wooding: Retribution Falls

‘Sales patter. You know how it is.’

‘It must have been through the engines of every freebooter from here to the coast!’ Macarde growled. ‘I’d have got better quality stuff siphoning it off the wrecks in a junkyard!’

Crake gave Frey a fleeting look of guilt. ‘Actually,’ grinned Frey, ‘it’d have been about the same.’

Macarde was a stocky man, and overweight, but his punch came blindingly fast, snapping Frey’s head back so it cracked against the wall. Frey groaned and put his hands to his face. His fingertips came away bloody from a split lip.

‘Little less attitude will make this all go a lot smoother,’ Macarde advised.

‘Right,’ said Frey. ‘Now you listen. If there’s some way I can make this up to you, some job I can do, something I can steal, whatever you want . . . well, that’s one thing. But you will never get my craft, you hear? You can stuff whatever you like in my ears. The Ketty Jay is mine.’

‘I don’t think you’re in much of a position to negotiate,’ Macarde said.

‘Really? ’Cause the way I see it, the Ketty Jay is useless without the ignition code, and the only one who knows it is me. That puts me in a pretty strong position as long as I don’t tell you.’

Macarde made a terse gesture towards Droop-Eye. ‘Cut off his thumbs.’

Droop-Eye left his shotgun atop the barrel he’d been leaning on and drew a dagger.

‘Whoa, wait!’ said Frey quickly. ‘I’m talking compensation. I’m talking giving you more than the value of your craft. You cut off my thumbs and I can’t fly. Believe me, you do that and I take the code to my grave.’

‘I had five men on that craft,’ said Macarde, as Droop-Eye came over. ‘They were pulling up out of a canyon. I saw it. The pilot tried to get the lift and suddenly it just wasn’t there. Bad aerium, see? Couldn’t clear the lip of the canyon. Tore the belly off and the rest of it went up in flames. Five men dead. You going to compensate me for them, too?’

‘Listen, there’s got to be something you want.’ He motioned suddenly at Crake. ‘Here, I know! He’s got a gold tooth. Solid gold. Show them, Crake.’

Crake stared at the captain in disbelief.

‘I don’t want a gold tooth, Frey,’ said Macarde patiently. ‘Give me your thumbs.’

‘It’s a start!’ Frey cried. He glared hard and meaningfully at Crake. ‘Crake, why don’t you show them your gold tooth?’

‘Here, let us have a look,’ Rat said, leaning closer to Crake. ‘Show us a smile, you little nancy.’

Crake took a deep, steadying breath, and gave Rat his most dazzling grin. It was a picture-pose he’d perfected in response to a mortifying ferrotype taken by the family photographer. After that, he vowed he’d never be embarrassed by a picture again.

‘Hey! That’s not half bad,’ Rat commented, peering at his reflection in the shiny tooth. And Crake grinned, harder than he’d ever grinned in his life.

Droop-Eye pulled Frey away from the wall over to a set of cob-webbed shelves. He swept away a few empty jars with his arm, and then forced Frey’s bound hands down onto the shelf. Frey had balled his fists and was refusing to extend his thumbs. Droop-Eye hammered him in the kidney, but he still held fast.

‘What I’m saying, Macarde, is that we can both come out ahead,’ he argued through gritted teeth. ‘We’ll work off the debt, me and my crew.’

‘You’ll be halfway to New Vardia the second I take my eyes off you,’ Macarde replied.

‘What about collateral? What if I leave you one of the fighters? Pinn has a Skylance, that thing’s faster than greased owl shit. You ought to see it go!’

Droop-Eye drove a knee into his thigh, making him grunt, but he still wouldn’t extend his thumbs. The thug by the door smirked at his companion’s attempts to make Frey co-operate.

‘Here, listen!’ Rat shouted. Everyone stopped and turned to look at him, surprised by the volume of his voice. A strange expression crossed his face, as if he was puzzled to find himself the centre of attention. Then it disappeared beneath a dawning revelation.

‘Why don’t we let them go?’ he suggested.

Macarde gave him a reptilian glare. ‘What?’ he said slowly.

‘No, wait, hear me out,’ said Rat, with the attitude of one caught up in an idea so brilliant that it would require careful explanation to his benighted audience. ‘I mean, killing ’em won’t do no good to us. They don’t look like they’ve got a shillie to their name anyways. If we let ’em go, they could, you know, spread the good word and stuff: “That Lawsen Macarde is a reasonable man. The kind of man you can do business with.” ’

Macarde had been steadily reddening as Rat’s speech went on, and now his unshaven jowls were trembling with fury. Droop-Eye and Bruiser exchanged wary glances. Neither of them knew what had possessed their companion to pipe up with his opinion, but they both knew the inevitable outcome. Macarde’s hand twitched towards the hilt of Frey’s cutlass.

‘You should listen to the man,’ said Crake. ‘He talks a lot of sense.’

Macarde’s murderous gaze switched to Crake. Absurdly, Crake was still smiling. He flashed his toothy grin at Macarde now, looking for all the world like some oily salesman instead of a man facing his imminent demise.

But then Macarde noticed something. The anger drained from his face and he craned in to look a little closer.

‘That’s a nice tooth,’ he murmured.

Yes, keep looking, you ugly bag of piss, Crake thought. You just keep looking.

Crake directed every ounce of his willpower at the smuggler. Rat’s idea wasn’t so bad, when you thought about it. A show of generosity now could only increase Macarde’s standing in the eyes of his customers. They’d come flocking to him with their deals, offering the best cuts for the privilege of working with him. He could own this town!

But Macarde was smarter than Rat. The tooth only worked on the weak-minded. He was resisting; Crake could see it on his face. Even bewitched as he was by the tooth, he sensed that something was amiss.

A chill spread through Crake’s body, something icier and more insidious than simple fear. The tooth was draining him. Hungover and weak as he was, he couldn’t keep up the fight for long, and he’d already used his best efforts on Rat.

Give it up, he silently begged Macarde. Just give it up.

Then the smuggler blinked, and his gaze cleared. He stared at Crake, shocked. Crake’s grin faded slowly.

‘He’s a daemonist!’ Macarde cried, then pulled the pistol from his holster, put it to Crake’s head and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Macarde was as surprised as Crake was. He’d forgotten that he’d loaded his pistol with only a single bullet. There was an instant’s pause, then everything happened at once.

Frey’s cutlass flew out of Macarde’s belt, leaping ten feet across the room, past Droop-Eye and into the captain’s waiting hands. Droop-Eye’s final moments were spent staring in incomprehension as Frey drove the cutlass double-handed into his belly.

Macarde’s bewilderment at having his cutlass stolen by invisible hands gave Crake the time he needed to gather himself. He drove a knee hard into the fat man’s groin. Macarde’s eyes bulged and he staggered back a step, making a faint squealing noise like a distressed piglet.

His hands still bound, Crake wrestled the revolver from Macarde’s beefy fingers just as Rat shook off the effects of the tooth and drew his cutlass back for a thrust. Crake swung the gun about and squeezed the trigger. This time the hammer found the bullet. It discharged point-blank in Rat’s face, blowing a geyser of red mist from the back of his skull with a deafening bang. He tottered a few steps on his heels and collapsed onto a heap of rope.