Chris Wooding: The Iron jackal

She gave him a nervous smile. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘This is nice.’

‘Can we talk now?’ he asked, in carefully measured tones.

‘You’re really not going to kill me?’

‘No.’

‘Jakeley Screed didn’t send you?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I feel a bit of an idiot, now.’

‘You should.’

‘That’s, er, one man dead and another man maimed because of that little misunderstanding.’

‘Not to mention the fact that I fell off a building!’ Frey was unable to keep a note of strangled rage out of his voice.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You don’t look too bad, though, considering.’

‘It hurts,’ he said. ‘A lot.’

‘Sorry.’ She looked down her nose at the cutlass. ‘Could you get off me? I won’t run away again.’

‘If you do,’ said Frey. ‘I swear I’ll kill you so hard your entire family will die from the shock.’

‘You’re a little late for that,’ she said. ‘But I get the point.’

He released her, stood up and stepped back. She got unsteadily to her feet as he put his cutlass away. He pointed meaningfully at the pistols in his belt.

‘Yeah, yeah. I see ’em,’ she said. She staggered over to the low wall that separated the street from the river bank, and leaned against it. The Samarlan boy, judging that the danger had passed, scampered out of hiding to collect the spilled fruit and seeds. He loaded them quickly into his cart and wheeled it away.

‘Right, then,’ sai d Ashua. ‘What was it you wanted?’

Frey pushed his way into the tavern, and let the heat and smell and noise enfold him. The room was crowded with men, mostly Vards, with a few clusters of young Samarlans and Dakkadians brave enough to mix with foreigners. The air was muggy with sweat and the fumes from pipes, cheroots and roll-ups. Shutters had been thrown open, looking out over the street, but the night was thick and still and there was little wind. Conversation was conducted at shouting pitch. Gas lamps lit the corners, fending off the gathering shadows. p›‹

He took a deep, contented breath. Taverns weren’t the most fragrant of places, but to Frey they meant happiness, good humour and good times. The company of friends. A place where you didn’t have to care. Walking into a lively tavern felt like coming home.

The others followed him in. Malvery, who let nothing stand between him and his grog, pushed past Frey and began muscling his way to the bar. Crake and Pinn trailed in his wake.

Jez, who’d stayed by his side, surveyed the place. ‘You really do pick ’em, Cap’n,’ she said distastefully.

‘I used to hang out here all the time when I was sixteen,’ Ashua put in.

Frey gave her a curious look. ‘When was that? Yesterday? How old are you, anyway?’

‘Younger than you,’ she replied.

‘Well, you certainly don’t look a day over thirty.’

‘You do. Many, many days.’

He raised an eyebrow at Jez. ‘She’s a vicious little sprite, isn’t she?’

‘Kids,’ Jez commiserated.

Ashua rolled her eyes. ‘Are you done with the condescension? You’re boring me, and I’m busy.’

‘You’re from Rabban, right? Out of the slums?’ Frey asked, as they made their way through the tavern. ‘Where’d you learn a word like condescension?’

‘I had a good teacher,’ Ashua replied, and something in her tone told Frey not to push it any further.

‘Hey! It’s Cap’n Frey!’

Frey turned to see a grizzled, wiry-looking man grinning eagerly at him.

‘You are, ain’t ya?’ the man persisted. ‘I’d recognise that mug anywhere! Even with all them bruises on it!’

One of his friends had joined him now, and was squinting at Frey like a jeweller studying a suspect diamond. After a moment, his face cleared and he beamed, showing a mouthful of crooked teeth.

‘You’re right!’ he declared. ‘Rot my socks, it is ’im! What ’appened to you?’

Frey delayed his response as long as he could, to milk their amazement to its limit. ‘Have we met befo/di we metre?’ he asked innocently, ignoring the question.

‘Naw! I seen your picture!’ cackled the first man. ‘The hero of Sakkan, that’s what they calls you! The man what took on the Manes to save-’ He suddenly stopped, and his eyes widened. ‘Wait a minute. Is that ’oo you’re ’ere for? It is, ain’t it?’

Frey gave them his best I-couldn’t-possibly-say smile. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, touching his forehead in a farewell salute.

‘Oh, yes! Don’t mind us, Cap’n. You got business, I see,’ said his admirer, grinning again as he backed away. ‘A treat to meet you. A real treat.’

‘You too,’ said Frey, with all the appearance of meaning it.

Ashua scoffed to herself, but Frey was too pleased to notice. He didn’t think he’d ever tire of the thrill of being recognised. Ever since that reporter from the broadsheets had asked him to pose for a ferrotype, he could scarcely walk into a tavern without being accosted by drunken admirers. Even here, in Samarla. They all wanted to hear the tale of that day over Sakkan, when he’d chased the Storm Dog through a hole in the sky and found himself at the North Pole, the home of the terrible Manes. In a short few months he’d gone from a nobody to a minor celebrity. He still hadn’t got used to the way people stared at him with awe, hung on his every word, and acted as if they were blessed when he deigned to sit with them.

Still, ridiculous as it all seemed, it was getting to be like a drug. He craved the attention. He liked to feel impressive. And it had other advantages, too. Frey had never been a man who needed much help to get women into bed, but since the whole incident at Sakkan it had become so absurdly easy that he almost felt sorry for them.

Thoughts of other women fled his mind as he rounded the bar and spotted the one he was here to meet. She was sitting in a large private booth, separated from the rest of the room by elaborately carved wooden dividers. Half a dozen burly pirates made sure none of the rabble got anywhere near her. She drank alone at a table, a thin, startling figure dressed in black with her skin and hair white as chalk.

Trinica Dracken, captain of the Delirium Trigger.

He recognised Balomon Crund among the guards, the Delirium Trigger ’s bosun and Trinica’s right-hand man. He was a stumpy, ugly fellow with a scarred neck and matted black hair. Frey nodded at him as he approached, and Crund nodded back, though not without a certain reservation. Trinica’s crew were intensely protective of her.

‘Just you and her,’ he said, thrusting his chin at Ashua. ‘Your navvie stays out here.’

Frey looked over at the bar, where Malvery was calling for booze with a bellow like a wounded ox. ‘You want to wait with the others?’

‘I’ll stay here,’ said Jez. ‘Someone’s got to keep an eye on you.’

The bodyguards parted to let Frey and Ashua pass. The dividers cut out some of the sound, and the gas lamp had been turned down to minimum, filling the booth with shadows. They sat down opposite Trinica. Frey tried not to wince as he manoeuvred his bruised body into the chair. He was acutely aware that he wasn’t looking his best at the moment, but Trinica showed no sign of even noticing.

There were three mugs on the table. Trinica filled the empty ones from the bottle. Frey’s eyes flickered to the silver ring she wore. She noted his attention, and regarded him with a black gaze. Contact lenses made her pupils unnaturally large, giving her a frightening aspect. Her hair had been hacked into short clumps. She looked like she’d recently escaped from an asylum.