Iron Jackal (17 page)

‘Er, fellers, I’m not sure I like this . . .’ said Frey, but the sorcerer was strong, and Frey couldn’t work his hand free.

Crake scoffed as white foam began to bubble over the sorcerer’s lips. He’d seen charlatans like this before. Mediums, pretending to contact the dead. Spit and blood, even the Awakeners were nothing more than a bunch of confidence tricksters, when it came down to it. He wouldn’t be fooled so easily.

But despite his doubts, Crake became worried as the sorcerer’s fit worsened. A little scared, even. The man’s contortions were really quite distressing. He was horrible to look at. Frey was frantically tugging away now, but it was like trying to move a rock. Crake looked over at Ashua and Slinkhound, and he thought he saw them exchange a sly and wicked glance. Some kind of conspiracy? What were they up to?

And then he caught himself. He was becoming paranoid and scared. Of course he was. Everyone did, in the presence of daemons. His subconscious was reacting to the unnatural.

Whatever the sorcerer was doing, it was
working
.

He watched with growing amazement. How could it be? Some kind of trickery? A subtle form of hypnotism, to make his audience feel something that wasn’t there? No, that was ridiculous. Crake’s senses were finely honed from years of chasing daemons, and this was exactly the feeling he got when he was in the midst of his experiments. The sense of
wrongness
, the involuntary fear reflex. And it was all being done without machines, without devices.

There was only one explanation. It was all as the reports had said. Somehow, between the drugs and their strange techniques, the Samarlans could deal with daemons without using science at all.

The sorcerer’s fit subsided to shuddering again, making his flesh wobble. He spoke again, howling words through foam-flecked lips. Frey recoiled in disgust as his face was spattered.

‘He says . . .’ said Ashua. ‘He says you took something that didn’t belong to you.’

‘Hey, I didn’t steal anything! I just took it from someone
else
who stole it.’

Ashua shushed him as the sorcerer spoke again. ‘It’s old, he says. Thousands of years. A daemon from before . . .’ She paused, frowning as she worked out the translation. ‘Basically, he’s not sure what it is. He says . . . it builds itself from everything you’re afraid of, whatever that means. He says . . .’ She shrugged, more and more confused. ‘He says to beware the Iron Jackal. Make of that what you will.’

‘There was an emblem on the inside of the relic case, you remember? I thought it was a dog or a wolf.’

‘Reckon you thought wrong, then.’

‘Can he get rid of it? The daemon?’ Frey asked. Ashua put the question to the sorcerer, who had fallen quiet and was breathing heavily.

The sorcerer’s eyes rolled in his head and he spoke again.

‘No,’ said Ashua. ‘He says no one can.’

‘Oh,’ said Frey. ‘Well, that’s just great.’

‘No one but you,’ she added, as the sorcerer kept speaking. His tone drifted from high to low, raspy to breathy, hoarse to sharp, as if he were a signal being tuned in and out. ‘He says you have to take the relic back to the place where it came from.’

‘I don’t even
have
it,’ Frey said.

‘Will you shut up?’ Ashua snapped. ‘I’m listening!’ The sorcerer was talking over them both, as if they weren’t there. ‘Um . . . restore it to its rightful place . . . by full dark of the full moon . . .’ Her face cleared and she smiled in understanding. ‘That’s how you lift the curse! It’s like the legends said: it’s a curse to protect against thieves. The only way to free yourself is to return whatever you stole.’

‘So it
is
a curse?’ Frey said.

‘Yes.’

‘Not just a manky hand, then?’ he added, with a certain amount of triumph.

‘You are bloody impossible,’ Ashua said.

‘What happens if he doesn’t bring it back in time?’ Crake asked.

‘Right, good question,’ said Ashua. She put it to the sorcerer, whose head was lolling back on his neck, milky saliva drooling from the corner of his mouth. The sorcerer crunched at his hookroot twig again, and his head came up, fixing Frey with bloodshot eyes.

Ashua translated as he spoke. ‘He says . . . the daemon that guards the relic . . . it will get stronger with every passing day. You’ve seen it once. It will come for you . . . three more times. The third time will be at full dark on the night of the full moon. If it hasn’t killed you already by then . . . it will become fully . . . er . . . manifest . . . to reclaim the property of its master.’ She paused, and looked at Frey, and Crake saw genuine concern on her face. ‘And that night will be your last.’

Frey stared at the sorcerer for a moment. Then he pulled his hand away violently, and this time it came free. The sorcerer cried out and fell back, flopping to the ground where he lay gasping like some vast, blubbery creature of the deep dragged on to dry land. Frey ignored him, getting angrily to his feet.

‘Nobody tells
me
which is my last night alive,’ he said. He looked at Crake and frowned. ‘Wait, which is my last night alive?’

‘Full moon’s in twelve nights’ time, if you don’t count tonight.’

‘Right!’ said Frey. ‘Well, I plan to live a lot longer than twelve more nights.’ He pulled out a compass from his pocket. Crake recognised it: it used to be his. Months ago, he’d thralled a daemon to it so that it always pointed towards Frey’s silver ring, which Frey had since given to Trinica. ‘All we need to do is find Trinica and get that relic back.’

‘And then we need to find out where it came from in the first place,’ said Ashua. ‘And then we need to go there and put it back.’

‘Yeah, yeah, one thing a time,’ said Frey. ‘Let’s get hold of it first. She’s not gonna be pleased when I come asking for it.’

‘Hey, I’m not returning my share!’ Ashua warned. ‘No refunds from
this
girl.’

Frey was gearing up for a retort when the curtain in the door of the hut was pulled aside and Malvery stuck his head in. ‘Everyone having fun in here?’ he asked. ‘Good. We got trouble.’

‘You have no idea,’ said Crake, and they hurried out to see what else fate could possibly pile on their shoulders tonight.

Twelve

A Massacre – Well and Truly Trapped – Slinkhound Leads the Way – Property Damage – Partings

‘W
hat’s up?’ Frey asked as he emerged from the sorcerer’s hut, with Crake, Ashua and Slinkhound close behind him.

Jez, who was checking her rifle, looked up and nodded back the way they’d come. Frey followed her gaze up the rocky slope to the place where they’d entered the cavern. There was a commotion there. A mob of untouchables was gathering, their voices raised in a hubbub. They sounded angry, defiant, outraged. More and more of them hurrying to join in.

At first Frey couldn’t work out what had caused all the excitement. Then the crowd parted, and he caught a glimpse of a uniform and a rifle, a blond-haired man.

A Dakkadian soldier.

‘Ashua! Ask your mate if there’s another way out of here,’ Frey said, drawing his revolver and backing away.

The soldier was holding up his weapon, fending off the grasping hands of an untouchable. The crowd were piling in now, haranguing the intruders, flocking around them like angry birds defending their nest.
Go away
,
go back
,
this is ours
,
we don’t want you here!

Frey knew what was about to happen. The inevitability of it all made his heart sink.

There was the sharp crack of a gunshot and the crowd scattered, their yells turning to screams. Suddenly Frey could see them. Not one soldier but twelve. They were all Dakkadians, clad in white uniforms with gold trim, except for one. He was a Samarlan, taller and more slender than the others. Judging by the beautifully crafted black armour that he wore, he was their leader.

The crowd was running, but the soldiers weren’t done. They aimed their rifles at the fleeing untouchables and shot them down. Men and women flailed and pitched to the ground as they were punched in the back by gunfire. They scrambled towards cover, but the soldiers were intent on a show of strength, and they picked off the runners long after it was clear they presented no further threat.

Frey was appalled. He was no stranger to killing, or to killers, but it was their manner that sickened him. The cold, precise way they decimated the beggar folk, as if they were putting down animals; the speed and severity of their response when the crowd began to gather.

‘This way!’ Ashua said, as Slinkhound pulled on her arm. Just at that moment, the Samarlan general, who hadn’t even drawn his weapon during the slaughter, turned his head and saw them. He pointed, gave an order, and the soldiers began hurrying down the slope.

‘Time to be elsewhere,’ Frey said, and they ran in the opposite direction.

Beyond the sorcerer’s hut was a stretch of open ground, with the cavern wall to the left and a steep drop some distance to the right. A scuffed foot-trail led upslope to a flat area that was dense with huts and shacks.

The soldiers opened fire, shooting from the hip. Bullets rang off the stone around Frey and his crew. Only the luckiest shot would hit at that range, but Frey didn’t much like the way his luck was running tonight.

His fears were confirmed when Malvery tripped over his own feet after a few dozen metres. They wasted precious seconds hauling the drink-sodden doctor to his feet, while Pinn jigged on the spot, anxious to be away again. Jez provided covering fire, since she had the best eye at long range, but the Daks didn’t slow at all. Their leader, the Samarlan, was striding down the hill in their wake, not in the least bit hurried. His arrogant confidence annoyed Frey. He was tempted to chance a bullet just to knock him down a peg.

‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ said Malvery, accelerating to an inebriated waddle. Frey loosed a couple of shots over his shoulder, to give the Daks something to think about, but his attempts were as ineffective as Jez’s had been.

By the time they were moving again, the Daks had caught up enough to be dangerous. Frey took a bullet through the sleeve of his coat, close enough to graze his wrist.

Damn it
,
where’s Bess when you need her? She’d make short work of these son of bitches
.

They crested the top of the slope and reached the flat ground. Crude buildings of metal and wood were heaped against the wall in a clutter, as if driven there by a bulldozer. Shacks were scattered nearby. The untouchables fled to their houses as Frey and his crew approached. At first he thought it was because they were afraid of him, but he soon saw that the danger came from another direction.

There was another entrance to the cavern beyond the buildings. Sallying through it was a second group of soldiers, also with a Samarlan at their head.

Both groups saw each other at the same time. Frey’s crew didn’t trouble to wait for an order; they raised their guns and blazed away.

Suddenly everything was scuff and scramble, a rush of hot blood, the firecracker staccato of a gunfight. Frey had replaced the revolver he lost on the train; he held one in each hand as he fired at the newcomers. The soldiers scattered towards cover, taking shelter behind the huts that surrounded the entrance.

Frey and his crew couldn’t go forward into the guns, and they couldn’t go back, so everyone instinctively began moving in the same direction: sideways. The entrance was in a corner, where the cavern wall curved to the right and continued sloping upwards. They followed the slope, crabstepping as they fired, keeping their enemies’ heads down.

‘I thought you said not to worry about that guy who was following us,’ Frey said to Ashua.

‘Turns out I’m not perfect,’ said Ashua. ‘Who’d have thought?’

‘More from upslope!’ Jez said.

Frey swore as he spotted a third group of soldiers, blocking their escape. They were well and truly trapped now.

‘Oi, Cap’n!’ Malvery cried. Frey looked over his shoulder and saw Malvery pointing at a long rope bridge that launched off from a precipice nearby. It reached across the cavern, passing over a dense cluster of dwellings, and ended at a group of huts perched on the lip of a cliff.

Frey didn’t much like the look of it, but then he didn’t much like taking a bullet in the kidney either. The bridge seemed the lesser of two evils.

They began backing towards it, providing covering fire for each other as they went. They’d seen enough gunfights to keep their cool in this one, except Crake, who would presumably never learn. They timed their reloads to make sure that everyone didn’t do it at once. They looked, in fact, surprisingly like a team.

But the soldiers in cover had reorganised themselves and were shooting back. The range was long, but not long enough for Frey’s liking. The other soldiers were closing in fast. It was only a matter of time before someone got hit, out in the open like they were.

‘Alright, bugger this tactical retreat lark,’ said Frey.
‘Run for it!
’

They broke into a disorganised mass and fled for the bridge. Bullets whispered and whined through the air, little invisible messengers of death.