Chris Wooding - The Ace of Skulls

‘ Lisinda! ’ cried Pinn.

‘I think. . er. . I think that’s his sweetheart,’ said Frey. ‘Like, the original one.’

‘Didn’t he abandon her five years ago or something?’ Trinica asked.

‘Yeah,’ said Frey. ‘Well, I mean, he left her a note saying he’d be back when he was famous and rich or something, but we all thought. . Well. .’ Frey just stared. ‘Do you think she really just. . I mean, she actually waited for him? For him ?’ He threw up his hands. ‘I dunno. I give up.’

There was a brief debacle as Lisinda was dragged away by the guards, with Pinn still attached to her, noisily trying to slurp at her face. After that, the ceremony resumed, and Frey got restless again.

‘What happens next?’ he asked Samandra.

‘Next? Oh, there’s a drinks reception in the palace with the great and good. Dukes and duchesses waitin’ to congratulate you, Chancellors shakin’ hands, the Press takin’ your picture, wine, lobsters, all o’ that.’

‘Ah,’ said Frey. He shuffled his feet, looked from one lady to the other, scratched his cheek. ‘You wanna just round everyone up, find a bar and get slaughtered?’

‘I’m in,’ said Trinica immediately.

‘Thought you’d never say it,’ Samandra added, already on her way out the door.

Malvery roared with laughter and crashed his mug of ale so hard against Samandra’s that he showered everyone in the booth.

‘And that’s for the Century bloody Knights! Legends, the lot o’ you!’

‘Adrek! Keep ’em coming!’ Samandra hollered.

Adrek, barman and proprietor of The Wayfarers tavern, was already on his way with another tray. ‘Steady now!’ he said, as he put down their drinks.

‘Ah, come on, Adrek!’ Samandra cried. ‘How many times you get this many heroes in your bar all at once? Look at all them medals!’

‘You hear that?’ Pinn asked Lisinda, who was nestled inside his arm. ‘Heroes!’

There was another cheer, and they swept up their drinks from the tray and crashed them together, wasting half the round immediately.

Arkin chuckled. Despite having a Century Knight as a regular patron, the barman seemed rather star-struck. Or maybe it was just that he was relieved his establishment was still standing, and was prepared to indulge those he held responsible for saving it. Either way, he was in a good mood, and the drinks were on him tonight.

The Wayfarers was Samandra’s drinking hole, a place that managed to be simultaneously large and cramped, with walls panelled in dark wood and many niches and secluded booths. Fires kept the winter chill away, and yellow light glittered on rippled green glass in the partitions. They’d changed from formal wear into clothes more suited to the occasion, but those who had medals still wore them anyway, pinned to coats and shirts. They’d earned them, and they were damned well going to show them off.

They toasted the Coalition, and themselves, and then gave a more solemn toast to absent friends and absent pets. They told each other stories of their adventures as if they hadn’t all been there, and fell about at the punchlines. They even half-listened as Pinn extolled the virtues of his sweetheart, pointing out her flawless skin, her depthless eyes, her bountiful bosom. She giggled and hiccupped and seemed not the slightest bit embarrassed by it all.

‘Well, of course I waited for him!’ she told them. ‘He went off to find fame and fortune, all to be worthy of me! So romantic! But when the broadsheets put up the list of who was going to get a medal, and I saw his name there, well. . I had to see! So I thought I’d surprise him!’

‘And you know what else?’ Pinn cried incredulously. ‘You know that letter I got from her ages ago, the one that said she was married? Well, it wasn’t even from her! She was never even married!’

Frey looked at Malvery. ‘Fancy,’ he said, deadpan. Malvery coughed into his fist and concentrated very hard on his pint.

They drank and they laughed until Frey thought he’d burst with joy. To be here now, with his friends and with Trinica by his side — it was more than he could ever have hoped for. There was Ashua, her eyes bright; there was Crake, cracking a joke. Malvery guffawed and Pinn japed. Even Harkins and Silo were having fun. And though Jez wasn’t with them, he imagined her out there somewhere, with her people, and he wondered if she might be happier than they could ever have made her.

Balomon Crund wasn’t with them. He’d signed on with the first freebooter crew out of Thesk. It was enough for him that Trinica was safe; he couldn’t bear seeing her in anyone else’s arms. That wasn’t what she was to him. But Frey raised a mug to the scarred bosun anyway, and the rest did too. Without him, none of them would have been here.

For a time, it was if they floated in a sphere of perfect contentment, and everything outside was fuzzy and unimportant. And then Crake said:

‘So what are you all going to do now, then?’

His words brought them back to earth. The spectre of the future cut into the moment, the carefree atmosphere was gone, and they became serious. This drunken celebration wouldn’t last for ever. At least some of the crew of the Ketty Jay would be departing. An era was at an end.

They all knew about Crake. He’d declared that he was staying in Thesk, to study daemonism under Morben Kyne, and to be with Samandra. He’d evolved his field daemonism method while on the crew of the Ketty Jay , but now he believed he’d reached the limit of what he could do with a makeshift sanctum. The chance to learn from Kyne was too good to pass up.

Plus, there was the question of Bess, and Thesk was a better environment for her than the Ketty Jay . There was even talk of having her socialise with the other golems of the Archduke’s army. She’d taken to hanging around them whenever she could, and they seemed to accept her.

‘The daemons in the golems talk to each other, and to her,’ Crake had told them. ‘I think she might actually be able to make friends with them, in some way.’

So the question of Crake was settled. Now Frey looked around the faces of the people at the booth to see who else had outgrown him and his aircraft.

‘The, er, the Navy wants to take me back,’ said Harkins. ‘Turns out I’m one of the most experienced pilots they’ve got, now. Might be I’ll be an instructor.’ He looked downcast. ‘Sorry, Cap’n. I think I want that. Think I work better with rules and discipline, and the Ketty Jay . .’

‘Yeah,’ said Frey, with a rueful grin. ‘We don’t have much of either.’

The others laughed uneasily. But Frey put a hand across the table. ‘I’ll be sorry to see you go, Harkins. You can keep the Firecrow, if you want. Won’t be much good to me, and you thrashed it so hard I can’t even sell it anyhow.’

‘Thanks for understanding, Cap’n,’ said Harkins, and he shook Frey by his good hand.

‘I’m going back home with Lisinda!’ Pinn declared loudly, oblivious to the sombre mood. ‘Done my stuff! I’m a bona fide hero! Reckon it’s time to settle down with a good woman.’ He looked into Lisinda’s adoring eyes. ‘Maybe even raise a couple of kids.’

Malvery spluttered into his mug of ale and covered his face in froth.

Crake, Pinn, Harkins . ‘How about the rest of you?’ Frey asked. He felt Trinica take his hand under the table. He didn’t know what he wanted them to say. He didn’t know what he wanted to do. His whole life had been a game of Rake, with steadily ascending stakes; he’d never thought about what would happen after he won.

Malvery spoke up first. ‘Well, that sorta depends on you, Cap’n.’ He inclined his head towards Trinica. ‘Seems like your circumstances changed more than most. There’s your lady; you got her. So what are you gonna do?’