Chris Wooding - Retribution Falls

‘She won’t,’ said Crake, the words coming out small. ‘I put her to sleep.’

He’d been forced to. He couldn’t trust that Bess would behave when their lives were under threat.

The gunman jabbed Crake with the muzzle of his revolver. Bess didn’t react. ‘She’d better not. Or you’re first to go.’

The crew of the Ketty Jay stood at the top of the ramp, offering no resistance. All except Jez, anyway. Where Jez was, only the captain knew. Crake had seen her speaking urgently with Frey as they were being escorted out of the mountains. Later, after they were instructed to land in the vast wastes of the Blackendraft, she was gone. When Malvery enquired as to her whereabouts, Frey said: ‘She’s got a plan.’

‘Oh,’ said Malvery. ‘What kind of plan?’

‘The kind that won’t work.’

Malvery harumphed. ‘No harm in trying, I suppose.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

They were patted down. None of them were carrying weapons, but Crake’s heart sank a little further when a crewman pulled his skeleton key from the inside pocket of his greatcoat and held it up in front of his face.

‘What’s this for?’ the crewman demanded.

‘My house,’ Crake lied. The crewman snorted and tossed it away. It skidded across the floor of the cargo hold and into a dark corner. With it went any hope that Crake had of escaping from the Delirium Trigger’s brig and saving their hides.

Once the invaders were satisfied they’d been stripped of anything dangerous, Frey and his crew were herded down the ramp at gunpoint. Crake was sweating and his stomach roiled. The future was closing in on him rapidly, arrowing him towards the gallows. He couldn’t see a way out of this one. They were surrounded by overwhelming firepower and completely at Dracken’s mercy. There would be no miraculous rescue this time.

Pinn whistled as he walked down the ramp, totally oblivious to the seriousness of their situation. Even now, he believed in his own heroic myth enough to trust that a hair-raising escape was just around the corner. Crake hated him for that happy ignorance.

Outside, the world was as bleak as their prospects. The ash flats to the east of the Hookhollows were desolate and grim, featureless in every direction. Even the nearby mountains were invisible beneath the rim of the great plateau. From horizon to horizon was a dreary grey expanse, a dead land choked beneath the blanket of dust and flakes that drifted from the west. A chill wind stirred powdery rills from the ground and harried them into the distance. The sky overhead was the colour of slate. The disc of the sun was faint enough to stare at without discomfort.

Looming in the sky to their left was the Delirium Trigger, its massive keel imposingly close, as if it might plunge down and crush them at any moment. Closer by was the small passenger shuttle used to ferry crew from the craft to the ground and back again. The Delirium Trigger was too huge to land anywhere except in specially designed docks.

Their captors halted them at the bottom of the ramp. Standing before them, a short distance away, was a slight figure, dressed head to toe in black. Crake recognised her from Frey’s description: the shockingly white skin, the short, albino-blonde hair torn into clumps, that black, fearsome gaze. She regarded them icily as one of her men walked over to her and whispered something in her ear, then she gave him a short command and he hurried back into the bowels of the Ketty Jay. After that, she walked up to Frey. Mutual loathing simmered in their eyes.

‘The ignition code, please,’ she said.

‘You know that’s not gonna happen,’ he said. ‘You’ve got us. What do you want my aircraft for?’

‘Sentimental value. The code?’

‘She’s not worth anything compared to the reward you’ll get bringing us in. Leave her here.’

‘She’s worth everything to you. Besides, the press will want some ferrotypes of the craft that shot down the Ace of Skulls. Perhaps I’ll present it to the Archduke as a gift. It may encourage him to overlook certain rumours about my activities elsewhere in the future.’

‘This is pointless. You won’t—’

Dracken pulled a revolver in one quick move and pressed the muzzle against his chest, silencing him. ‘It wasn’t a request. Give me the code.’

Frey was shaken; Crake could see it. But he bared his teeth into something approximating a grin and said: ‘Shoot me if you like. You’ll just save the hangman a job.’

Dracken and Frey stared at each other: a test of wills. Dracken’s finger twitched on the trigger. She was sorely tempted. Then she took the gun away and stepped back.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You get to live. Duke Grephen will want a signed confession out of you. Besides, there’s someone else who may be more willing to talk. I understand there was a woman flying the Ketty Jay that night when you stole my charts. I don’t see her here. Where is she, Frey? Won’t she know the codes?’

Frey didn’t reply. Dracken spotted one of her men coming out of the Ketty Jay and heading over to her. ‘Let’s find out,’ she said. She addressed the crewman, a whiskery, heavyset fellow with a steel ear to replace one that had been cut off. ‘Anyone else inside?’

‘One,’ he said. ‘In the infirmary. She’s dead, though I ain’t sure what of.’

Trinica looked at Frey for an instant. ‘You’re sure she’s dead?’

‘Yes, Cap’n. She don’t have a pulse, and she ain’t breathing. I listened at her chest, and her heart ain’t beating. I seen a lot of dead men and women, and she’s dead.’

‘She hit her head,’ said Frey. ‘When you shelled us.’ He indicated Malvery. ‘The doc tried to help her, but he couldn’t do much. All the damage was inside.’

Malvery caught on, and nodded gravely. ‘Terrible thing. Fine young woman,’ he murmured.

Crake felt a chill go through him. He was remembering that night on the Feldspar Islands when they’d gone to Gallian Thade’s ball at Scorchwood Heights. The night when Jez had really fallen and hit her head. Fredger Cordwain, the man from the Shacklemore Agency, had taken her pulse then, too. He’d also been convinced she was dead. At the time, Crake had assumed he was mistaken in the heat of the moment, but now he wondered.

How had she managed to fool them both?

‘You want us to get rid of her?’ the crewman asked Dracken.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Leave her where she is. We’ll need the body to show the Duke. How are they getting on with the golem?’

‘Coming out now, Cap’n,’ he replied, gesturing at the half-dozen men who were manhandling the inert form of Bess down the ramp.

‘What are you doing with her?’ Crake blurted in distress, before good sense could intervene.

Dracken’s black eyes fixed on to him. Crake had a sudden and dreadful feeling that he’d done something very foolish in drawing her attention. ‘That thing is yours, is it?’ she asked. ‘You’re the daemonist? ’

Crake swallowed and tasted ash in the back of his throat. Dracken sauntered over towards him, raking her gaze along the line of prisoners as she went.

‘Very clever, what you did in Rabban,’ she murmured. ‘And surprising, too. I’d have expected a daemonist to abandon their golem and make a new one, but you actually rescued it from my cargo hold.’ She studied him with an intensity that made him squirm. ‘That’s very interesting.’

Crake kept his mouth shut. He had the impression that anything he said would only damn him further.

‘Still, interesting as it is, I’m not stupid enough to fall for the same trick twice,’ she said. ‘And I’m not having that thing wake up on the journey back. So your golem is staying here.’

Crake felt weakness flood through him. The horror of it almost made him stagger. He looked around wildly, taking in the endless, trackless expanse of grey that surrounded them. There were no signs of life anywhere. No civilisation. Nothing but the tiny smudges of aircraft heading for the coast, hopelessly distant.