Iron Jackal (47 page)

‘I’m getting to that. For hundreds of years after the Juggernauts, the gods were silent, and the scattered tribes reunited. In that time, a man called Nezzuath appeared, and he—’

‘Wait,’ said Frey. ‘Let me guess. He claimed he could speak to the gods.’

‘Oh, Darian. So cynical. You think you’re so wise in the ways of the world.’

‘Hey, I
know
the ways of the world. Let’s not forget, I wasn’t the one born with a silver spoon in my arse.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Just a colossal chip on your shoulder.’

‘Touché.’

‘Do you want to know about the Nameless Ones or not?’

‘Not really,’ he said. Then he grinned. ‘But I do love to hear you talk.’

‘Well, shut up and be educated, then.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, falsely contrite.

She composed herself again. ‘Nezzuath,’ she said, ‘claimed he could speak with the gods.’

Frey cracked up. She swatted him, but he couldn’t stop, so eventually she had to hustle him out for fear of offending the locals.

‘You’re a terrible student, you know,’ she said, as they walked down the steps towards a street that ran along the river bank. The parasol rested against her shoulder, casting her into the shade. She couldn’t stop smiling, and that made him smile too.

‘I’ve been told,’ he replied. Then he stopped and frowned, looking off into the distance.

‘What is it?’ she asked, catching the change in him.

‘Nothing, I . . .’ he said, still staring. Then he shook his head. ‘Sorry. There was a woman over there, a moment ago. I thought . . .’

He thought it was Samandra Bree.

No, it couldn’t have been. He’d only seen her from the back, for an instant, as she disappeared round a corner. It could have been anyone. She’d been wearing light travel clothes instead of a greatcoat, and she’d been bareheaded, with thick dark hair spilling down her back. She was a Vard, but there were plenty of Vards in Shasiith.

But still, something about the way she moved had caught his eye.

‘Darian? I’m still here,’ said Trinica.

He shook himself.
Getting paranoid, Darian. No way Bree could have found you here.
‘Sorry. Nezzwozz-whatever could speak to the gods, yes. Then what?’

She gave him a look to check he was taking it seriously. He put on his best serious face. She closed her eyes and shook her head in mock despair.

‘Well,
he
claimed that the gods were still angry with the people for their ancestor’s faithlessness. He said they weren’t worthy to speak the names of the gods or look upon their faces, and they certainly weren’t worthy to worship them. The gods’ names would be stricken from the records and forgotten, their images erased. But there was hope: the gods had told him that they would choose one representative on Atalon to be their voice, and when they died the mantle would be passed on to their first son or daughter. Nezzuath, and his descendants. The people were meant to obey and worship him in their stead. And one day, when they were judged obedient and contrite enough, the gods would return and bring paradise again.’

‘But in the meantime, they had to do everything he said.’

‘Exactly. That was the first of the God-Emperors. The line’s remained unbroken for thousands of years since.’

Frey stopped at the bottom of the steps and looked back up at the shrine. ‘So that place isn’t really a shrine at all, then? It’s a reminder.’

‘Yes. It’s forbidden to worship there.’

‘Huh,’ said Frey. He sniffed. ‘I know I should find this culturally fascinating and all, but actually, it’s just a bit weird.’

‘You’re hopeless. I give up. Someone else will have to civilise you.’

‘Good luck to ’em.’

Standing there, the river flowing before them and the sun blazing in an azure sky, she put her arm around his waist and laid her head against his shoulder. It was done so casually, and felt so natural, that it took him a few seconds before his mind caught up with the implications. His heart began to pump hard. He looked down at the top of her head, nestled against his collar. Her eyes were closed.

She’s holding me
, he thought in disbelief.

She gave a little sigh. ‘Darian?’

‘Yes?’

‘You really stink.’

He burst out laughing, and the tension of the moment was gone. ‘You always did know just the right thing to say.’

She let him go. He was surprised at how sharp his disappointment was. She danced a few steps away from him, then gave him a childish frown. ‘I have a question.’

‘Which is?’

‘You are aware that it’s hot enough to fry a fish out here, aren’t you?’

‘I’d noticed, yeah.’

‘So why are you wearing a glove?’

Frey looked down at his hand, and the fingerless glove that covered it. His good mood faltered. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘About that . . .’

He wouldn’t show her in public, so they went into a nearby water garden where there would be privacy. On the way, he explained everything that had happened to him. The moment when he’d handled the relic and been bitten by it. The Samarlan sorcerer’s prophecy. His meeting with Crickslint and how they’d robbed the Mentenforth Institute. Silo’s homecoming.

He told her about the Iron Jackal, too, how it had appeared to him three times now. But he left out any mention of how the daemon was a patchwork of his subconscious; and how it had one of her eyes, the black eye of the pirate queen, and it was plated in pieces of the
Delirium Trigger
’s hull.

He told her all that, but he didn’t think it hit home until he took off his glove and showed her his hand.

She sucked in her breath sharply. ‘Oh, Darian,’ she murmured.

The corruption was no worse than it had been the first day he saw it, but it never got any easier to look at. The black spot still sat in the centre of his palm, gangrenous tendrils radiating out from it. It didn’t hurt, and it didn’t restrict the movement of his hand, but he could feel its presence in his flesh. The daemonic mark, condemning him to death.

Unless he returned the relic to its rightful place. Unless he gave back what was stolen.

They sat on a bench in a stone arbour, beneath a ceiling of vines. Water trickled over rocky miniature waterfalls nearby. A lily pond spread out before them, and trees rose up beyond. Dragonflies darted through the air in jerks, and birds flitted from branch to branch. The water garden was a many-tiered maze of hideaways: a place of calm in the chaos of the city. Frey needed a bit of calm right now.

Trinica held his hand in hers, her gaze flickering anxiously over the mark, as if searching for a way to prove it a fake.

‘How long?’ she asked.

‘Three nights.’

‘And you have the relic?’

‘Back on the
Ketty Jay
. Still have no idea where it came from, though.’

‘What will you do?’ She sounded helpless.

‘There’s a place down south. A facility, like a work camp or a mine or something, hidden in the Choke Bowl.’

‘Gagriisk. I know of it.’

‘That’s where they’re keeping him.’

‘Who?’

‘The Yort explorer feller. The one who found the relic. Reckon he can tell us where it came from.’

‘So you have to get him out?’

‘Right. Basically, we’re gonna plough in there, shoot everyone, and rescue his arse so he can rescue mine.’

She let his hand go, and sat forward, staring out over the lily pond, her elbows on her knees. Her fingers twisted and knotted themselves. He wasn’t used to seeing her so agitated.

‘It’s a fortified target, Darian,’ she said. ‘Have you thought it through?’

‘We’ll have help,’ he said. ‘Fifty-odd Murthians. Revolutionaries or whatever.’ He shrugged. ‘They sound like they can fight better than my lot, anyway.’

‘You don’t have any more subtle way of doing it?’

‘I don’t have time for subtle.’

She looked down at the ground between her pale forearms. ‘Three nights,’ she said quietly.

‘Hey.’ He touched her shoulder, and she met his gaze. ‘I’m not dead yet, you know.’

She held his eyes for a moment, then turned away and nodded. ‘What can I do?’

‘I need the
Delirium Trigger
.’

Her brow creased. ‘You need . . . Why?’

‘The compound keeps a few aircraft on hand. A few fighters and a small frigate. Not much, but it’s too much for the
Ketty Jay
to handle, and both my outflyers are out of action. Fact is, if we launch a ground assault on that place, they’ll take to the sky and decimate us. But if the
Delirium Tr—’

‘No,’ she said.

He was taken aback by her bluntness. ‘No?’

‘I’ll go with you if you want. I’ll fight with you if you need me to. Ask anything you like of me. But not my crew.’

‘You’re their captain,’ he said. ‘They’ll do what you say.’

‘Exactly. I’m their captain. And this isn’t their fight. They don’t know you, Darian. Most of them don’t even
like
you. What am I to tell them? That I’m leading them into battle for no reward? Risking their lives for no purpose that they care about?’

Frey felt suddenly exasperated. Her qualms didn’t seem all that important in the wake of the terror he’d recently experienced. ‘Don’t tell them anything!’ he said. ‘Last I heard, the
Delirium Trigger
wasn’t a democracy. If you say fight, they’ll fight.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And that’s why I can’t ask them. Don’t you understand, Darian? Being a leader is a position of
trust
.’

‘I get that, Trinica!’ he said. He was getting frustrated and angry. ‘I’m taking my
own
crew into the firefight, remember? You don’t think I feel guilty enough as it is?’

‘But they’re your friends. They’re willing to stay at your side. They have a reason that my men don’t.’

‘Trinica, look at my hand,’ he said, holding it up.

‘I’ve seen it.’

‘Look again!’ he snapped.

She glared at him sharply, then did as he asked. She couldn’t do it for long.

‘There’s no other way,’ he said slowly. ‘If you say no, I’m gonna die. It’s that simple.’

She didn’t say anything. Her jaw was clenched, the muscles of her neck tight.

‘It’s only a few aircraft,’ he said, softening his tone. ‘Your men won’t even have to break a sweat. Shoot ’em down. Drive ’em off. Whatever. We’ll be doing the dirty work on the ground.’

‘Don’t ask me to do this, Darian,’ she said. ‘Don’t make me choose between my crew and you.’

He closed his hand. ‘I don’t want to die, Trinica,’ he said. ‘The question is, do
you
want me to?’

Thirty-One

The Choke Bowl – Observers – A Carefully Timed Approach –The Charge – Silo Interrogates

T
he fouled air stirred and turned in slow coils. Overhead was a dirty yellow murk, thickening as it descended until it lay leaden on the ground in a soupy mist. The earth was poisoned and dead. Sulphurous vents were open wounds, seeping fumes; geysers and craters were smoking pustules. There were sad marshes, their waters streaked with metallic greens and greys. The silence was huge, broken only by dull and distant booming sounds.

The Choke Bowl.

Frey lay on the lip of a desolate ridge, squinting through the spyglass. It was hard to see through his goggles, but taking them off would only make his eyes itch and tear. His breather mask was sweaty and uncomfortable, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and rasping against the stubble on his chin. Everything reeked of rotten eggs.

‘They couldn’t have built it somewhere a bit less horrible, then?’ he asked.

Ehri was lying next to him on the ridge. ‘Sulphurous lowlands. Only place for mining allium. Rare and expensive. They use it for jewellery.’ The sneer in her voice was detectable even through her mask.

Beyond her was Fal, and on Frey’s other side was Silo. The Rattletrap that had brought them here was parked downslope. A klom away, on a flat and desolate plain, was Gagriisk.

The compound encompassed dozens of buildings and a small quarry, surrounded by a high wall dotted with guard-posts. It was roughly divided into three sections. The first looked like administrative buildings and guards’ quarters and so on. The second was the pens, a compound within the compound. There he could see rows of long buildings: sleeping quarters for the slaves. The third section was the quarry, which was almost invisible at this distance, a kidney-shaped smear that took up three-quarters of the space inside the wall. Standing amidst the buildings was a tall metal tower, a gas derrick, surrounded at its base by a complex apparatus of pipes and enormous tanks.

A frigate hovered at anchor on the far side of the compound, a hulking shadow at the limit of his vision. There was a landing pad outside the walls with a cargo freighter sitting there, but no sign of the fighters Ashua had mentioned. Presumably they were stashed in the belly of the frigate, ready to deploy.