Chris Wooding - Retribution Falls

Frey dearly wished for the sanctuary and comfort of his quarters. He remembered the grimy walls and cramped bunk with fondness, the luggage rack that ever threatened to snap and drop an avalanche of cases and trunks on his head. Such luxurious accommodation seemed a distant dream now, after hours of being pummelled by nature. He was woefully underdressed to face the elements. His face felt like it had been flayed raw and his teeth chattered constantly.

He lamented his bad luck at being caught out in the storm. So what if he’d set out completely unprepared? How could he have known the weather would turn bad? He couldn’t see the future.

It seemed like days had passed since he left the Ketty Jay hidden in a dell. He couldn’t risk landing too close to his target for fear of being seen, so he put her down on the other side of a narrow mountain ridge. The journey through the pass should have taken five hours or so. Six at the most.

When he set off the skies had been clear and the stars twinkling as the last light drained from the sky. There had been no hint of the storm to come. Malvery had waved him on his way with a cheery ta-ra and then taken a swig of rum to toast the success of his journey. Crake had been playing with the new toys he’d picked up in Aulenfay. Bess was having fun uprooting trees and tossing them around. Pinn had stolen the theatrical make-up pen that Frey had bought in the South Quarter and painted the Cipher on his forehead—the six connected spheres, icon of the Awakener faith. He was prancing around in the ill-fitting Awakener robes that had been tailored for Frey, pulling faces and acting the clown.

Frey had been unusually full of good cheer as he walked. All of them had come back from Aulenfay. Frey took that as a vote of confidence, even if the truth was they had no better alternatives. But even with the news of Hengar’s death looming over him, he felt positive. Bullying Quail had energised him. Having a name to put to the shadowy conspiracy against him gave him a direction and a purpose. He’d got so used to running away that he’d forgotten how it felt to fight back, and he was surprised to learn that he liked it.

Besides, he thought sunnily, things were about as bad as they could possibly get. After a certain point, it didn’t really matter if they hung him for piracy, mass murder, or for assassinating Earl Hengar, heir to the Archduchy. He’d be just as dead, any way you cut it. That meant he could do pretty much whatever he liked from here on in.

His buoyant mood survived while the first ominous clouds came sliding in from the west, blacking out the moon. He remained persistently jolly as the first spots of rain touched his face. Then the howling wind began, which took the edge off his jauntiness a little. The rain became torrential, he got lost and then realised he had no map. By this time he’d begun to freeze and was desperately searching for shelter, but there was none to be found and, anyway, he didn’t have the supplies to wait out a really bad storm. He decided to keep going. Surely he was almost there by now?

He wasn’t.

Dawn found him exhausted and in bad shape. His face was as dark as the clouds overhead. He stumped along doggedly, head down, forging through the tempest. His good mood had evaporated. It wasn’t positivity but spite that drove him onward now. He refused to stop moving until he’d reached his destination. Every time he crested a rise and saw there was another one ahead, it made him angrier still. The pass had to end eventually. It was him against the mountain, and his pride wouldn’t let him be beaten by a glorified lump of rock, no matter how big it thought it was.

Finally the wind dropped and the rain dwindled to a speckling. Frey’s heart lifted a little. Could it be that the worst was over? He didn’t dare admit the possibility to himself, for fear of inviting a new tempest. Fate had a way of tormenting him like that. The Allsoul punished optimists.

He struggled up another sodden green slope and looked down into the valley beyond. There, at last, he saw the Awakener hermitage where Amalicia Thade was cloistered.

The hermitage sat on the bank of a river, a sprawling square building constructed around a large central quad. It was surrounded by lawns which opened on to fields of bracken and other hardy highland plants. With its stout, vine-laden walls, deeply sunken windows and frowning stone lintels, it looked to Frey like a university or a school. There was a quiet gravity to the place, a weightiness that Frey usually associated with educational institutions. Academia had always impressed him, since he’d only a passing acquaintance with it. All that secret knowledge, waiting to be learned, if only he could ever be bothered.

A little way from the hermitage, linked to it by a gravel path, was a small landing pad. There were no roads into the valley. Like so many places in Vardia, it was only accessible from the air. In a country so massive and with such hostile geography, roads and rail never made much sense once airships were invented. A small cargo craft took up one corner of the pad. It was their only link with the outside world, most likely, although there would certainly be other visitors from time to time.

Frey could see the tiny figures of Awakener Sentinels patrolling the grounds, carrying rifles. They issued from a guardhouse, which had been built outside the hermitage. He’d intended to arrive under cover of deepest night, but getting lost in the storm had put him severely behind schedule. There was no way he could approach the hermitage during the day without being seen.

The last of the rain disappeared, and he saw hints of a break in the clouds. Shafts of sun were beaming down on the mountains in the distance, warm searchlights slowly tracking towards him. There was nothing for it but to find a nook and rest until nightfall. Now that the storm had given up and he’d reached his destination, he was tired enough to die where he stood. A short search revealed a sheltered little dell, where he piled dry bracken around himself and fell asleep in the hollow formed by the roots of a dead tree.

He woke to the sound of engines.

It was night, clear and cold. He extricated himself from the tangle of bracken and stood up. His skin was fouled with old sweat, his clothes were stiff and he desperately needed to piss. His body ached as if he’d been expertly beaten up by a squad of vicious midgets. He stood, groaned and stretched, then spat to clear the rancid taste in his mouth. That done, he went to investigate what that noise was all about.

He looked down into the valley while he relieved himself against the side of a tree. The moon had painted the world in shades of blue and grey. The windows of the hermitage glowed with an inviting light, a suggestion of heat and comfort and shelter. Frey was looking forward to breaking in, if only to get a roof over his head for a while.

The craft he’d heard was a small black barque, bristling with weapons. A squat, mean-looking thing, possibly a Tabington Wolverine or something from that line. It was easing itself down onto the landing pad, lamps on full, a blare of light in the darkness.

A visitor, thought Frey, buttoning himself up. Best get down there while they’re occupied.

He made his way down into the valley, staying low in the bracken when he could, scampering across open ground when he had to. He got to the river, where there was better cover from the bushes that grew on the bank, and followed it up towards the hermitage. There was a lot of activity surrounding the newly arrived vessel. The Sentinels had all but abandoned their patrol duties to guard it. They stationed themselves along the path between the house and the landing pad.

You should leave it alone, he told himself. Take advantage of the distraction. Get inside the building. Do what you came here to do.