Iron Jackal (49 page)

Below him was a small square, perhaps a drill ground or an exercise yard, bordered on all sides by buildings and the compound wall. Defensible and out of the way. Hydraulics whined as the
Ketty Jay
extended her landing skids.

He killed the thrusters, dumped aerium from the tanks and was already opening the cargo ramp when the
Ketty Jay
hit the ground with a teeth-rattling crash. Then he slumped back in his seat and grinned.

‘There,’ he said.

The force of the landing made the assembled Murthians stagger and stumble. They hung on to bulkheads, cargo netting, whatever they could. The ramp at the back of the hold was gaping slowly open: the Cap’n had timed it perfectly. Its lip hit the ground a couple of seconds after the
Ketty Jay
did. There was a dazed moment, as if no one could quite believe that they were down, and then Ehri’s voice rang out: ‘Go! Go! Go!’

Axes swung, severing the straps that had kept the Rattletraps in place. There was a growl of engines, deafening in the enclosed hold, and two of the buggies skidded forward and down the ramp with their gatlings blazing. With them went Bess, roaring as she thundered into the fray. And after them came everyone else.

They were like an undammed tide. After a long night of anxiety and anticipation, the Murthians were desperate to be unleashed. They were mostly young men, who had chafed under Akkad’s rule and were sick of restraint. Years of anger had brought them to this point. They screamed behind their masks, and flooded out of the
Ketty Jay
with guns in their hands.

There was no subtlety to it. The object was surprise. If they allowed themselves to be hemmed in, pinned inside the
Ketty Jay
by gunfire, they’d all end up dead. The Dak guards had barely realised the enemy had landed amongst them before the Murthians were out with their weapons blazing. Gatlings strafed the surrounding buildings: guards danced and jerked in the windows as they were mown down. Some of them had been caught in the open, and tried to flee from the square to the wider compound beyond. None of them got far. The Murthians flooded into the buildings, faceless warriors in their goggles and masks, mercilessly slaughtering anyone in a uniform. Bess caught up with one unfortunate Dak, pounded him into the earth and tossed his corpse clear over the rooftops.

Ehri was shouting orders amid the chaos, trying to keep the over-enthusiastic youngbloods under control. Silo found himself doing the same. He couldn’t help it. Surrounded by his own language, he felt like the person he’d once been, instead of the impostor he’d become who thought and spoke in Vardic. He felt the savage joy of vengeance, the fury of uncounted generations of slavery and suffering.

It was just like old times.

The Murthians were disorganised, chasing off without thought for cover or tactics. They hadn’t learned much of battle under Akkad. But the wiser heads remembered, and he saw signs of order emerging as the veterans began to rein in their wilder companions.

He grabbed someone nearby – he didn’t recognise them behind the mask – and pointed up at the wall. The guards were reorganising up there. He didn’t want them capable of firing on the square until everyone had a chance to clear out of it.

~ Get three more men. Kill those guards if you can, keep their heads down otherwise. Can you do that?

The young man nodded firmly, glad to be given purpose among the madness. He yelled at someone nearby and pointed up at the wall. Silo left him to it and ran across the square, using the body of the
Ketty Jay
as shelter from the guards.

The Daks had been mostly cleared from the square now, and many had fled the surrounding buildings. The Murthians had been warned not to scatter far, but some needed reminding. Griffden – the Vard who’d been Akkad’s lieutenant – sprinted here and there bellowing, bringing back those who threatened to chase off after the enemy. Silo spotted a few who had thrown themselves into cover, their body language fearful, shocked by their first taste of combat. Overhead, the sky boomed with explosions as the Sammie frigate engaged the
Delirium Trigger
in earnest. Fighters weaved through the poisonous sky with their guns rattling.

It took Silo a few moments to find what he was looking for. A gutshot Dak, his breather mask torn off, gulping in air and coughing back blood. Silo grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and dragged him into the shelter of a doorway.

By now the Cap’n had made his way out of the
Ketty Jay
and was sealing up the cargo hold behind him, locking it with the external keypad located on one of the rear landing struts. The rest of the crew were clustered around him, except for Ashua, who had seen what Silo was up to and was hurrying over towards him.

Silo made a quick check of the room – bullet holes, bodies and wrecked office equipment – then returned his attention to his prisoner. He tore off the man’s goggles so he could look him in the eyes. Just the sight of a Dakkadian face close up ignited a killing hate. The Samarlans were the authors of Murthian misery, but they were distant and remote, glimpsed occasionally as overseers in the pens. It was the Daks who were the guards, who doled out the brutality, who killed with impunity. It was the Daks who were the ever-present danger, and he’d learned to despise and fear their pale skin, their blond hair, their narrow eyes and broad faces.

The Sammies had beaten the Murthians long ago. But the Daks were slaves, who’d never bested anyone. Slaves killing other slaves to assert their superiority, in a sick little tangle engineered by their masters.

He didn’t feel anything for the suffering of the dying man in front of him. They had been the unquestioned enemy for so long that empathy was impossible.

((Where is the Yort?)) he demanded. He hadn’t spoken Samarlan for a very long time. It brought ugly memories.

The Dak just gazed at him, wide-eyed. Ashua scampered up and crouched next to him. He ignored her and slapped the Dak around the side of the head to focus him.

((The Yort. He is here. You know where. The prison?))

The dying man coughed fresh blood onto his chin, bright and glittering against the whiteness of his skin. ((Solitary)) he said, and began to cough again. ((No one . . . sees . . . ))

((Where?))

((The quarry. In the quarry. Away from the others.))

Silo looked at Ashua, who nodded to indicate that she’d understood. Then, abruptly, he stood up, lifted his shotgun and fired it into the prisoner’s chest. Ashua got to her feet, unconcerned, turning away as if the Dak had never existed. Death was nothing new to her, it seemed. It didn’t appal her in the least.

Frey joined them. He looked over Ashua’s shoulder at the body on the floor, glanced at Silo, and then said ‘Find anything?’

‘He in solitary. Down in the quarry.’

‘The quarry. Right.’

Ehri came running up behind him, and looked in at Silo. Fal was hastily organising people in the background.

~ The pens! she snapped. Then she gave him a hard stare. ~ Are you coming, or not?

He met her eyes steadily. For all the new distance between them, there was something in her look that spoke of past days. The savage certainty of purpose that they’d once shared. A solidarity forged in the heat of terrible risk. They were people who’d known slavery, and who’d needed to prove again and again that nobody shackled them anymore. Silo, perhaps, had forgotten that of late. But he remembered it now. He was nobody’s slave.

He turned to Frey. ‘I gotta go, Cap’n. The pens.’

‘Reckoned you would,’ said Frey. ‘Good luck.’

Silo grunted. For a long moment, he studied the man who’d pulled him out of Samarla, who’d sheltered him for nine years, who’d been his leader and, in a way, his friend all that time. He reckoned he could have picked a worse man to throw his lot in with.

Then Ehri hissed at him to get moving, and he followed her out into the square, where his people were waiting.

Thirty-Two

Frey Plans a Betrayal – Mortification – The Murk – An Ambush – Stalemate

F
rey cast one last look at the
Ketty Jay
as his crew hurried past him, down a passageway between the buildings. It pained him to leave her there sitting in the middle of the square, even sealed tight as she was. But then, he supposed, unless they pulled this off he wouldn’t be alive to come back to her anyway.

That was a heartening thought.

He’d memorised the layout of the compound as best he could from a distance, but the quarry wouldn’t be hard to find. Compared to the camp itself, it was massive. They slipped from building to building, shooting at any guard that came near, heading in the direction of their target. The drifting murk turned distant men into shadows and helped to conceal them.

The Murthians had driven most of the resistance back towards the centre of the camp, pushing the Daks before them. The guards hadn’t been ready for a ground assault of these proportions. Still, it was only a matter of time before they regrouped and realised they had twice the numbers the Murthians did. Frey hoped the Murthians would get to the pens before that. And he hoped the slaves were up for a fight when they were freed.

Well, it would play out however it played. No time to worry. He had his own agenda.

Bess clunked along ahead of them, terrifying – and occasionally maiming – anyone who crossed their path. The rest of his crew, except Silo, were with him. That was unusual. He almost never managed a full muster, and he wished his engineer had been there to complete it. He missed Silo’s taciturn presence by his side, and belatedly realised he should have given him an earcuff to stay in touch. But he’d had to let him go. He knew well enough how a man sometimes had to do a thing, regardless of anybody else. He’d seen that need in Silo ever since they went back to his old camp.

Malvery had taken Pinn’s burned arm from its sling after confessing that he’d only bound it up to piss him off, so Pinn could manage a revolver again. Harkins had come too, although he was jumping at every loud noise. Well, if he wanted to get himself killed to impress a woman, Frey could hardly turn him down. Frey had done similarly stupid things in his time.

Then there was Ashua. She was a problem he’d have to deal with later. He’d said she could be part of his crew, but he’d have agreed to anything at that point, if it meant saving his neck. She’d find out soon enough that a man’s word wasn’t worth shit if his life was in the balance. As soon as this was all over, he fully intended to kick her off.

The crew would thank him, in the end. Especially the more longstanding members, who would recall the disastrous tenures of previous females on board. Granted, Frey had tended to favour attractiveness over competence in those days, but even the competent ones were kicked off or left behind in the end. It was only a matter of time before Frey got drunk and made a move on them, and whether it was successful or not, life would be unbearable for everyone until she was gone. The
Ketty Jay
was far too small for sexual tension, but Frey was simply incapable of restraining himself.

It was alright having Jez aboard, because he didn’t fancy her, and she was dead. A live, warm woman, and one that made him unaccountably frisky, was a complication he didn’t need.

Ah, spit on it. You can give her the boot when the time comes. Let’s just try and survive the next few days, eh?

The buildings came to an end near the lip of the quarry. Frey checked the coast was clear and then waved his companions down, indicating that they should stay put. Then he hurried across the open ground to the edge, where he crouched to scout the lie of the land below.

After a few moments, the crew followed him in a flock, crouching all around him. Bess settled herself with a creak of leather and a clash of metal.

Frey sighed. ‘I told you to wait by the buildings.’

‘Was that what that was?’ Malvery asked, waving his hand in the air in a poor imitation of Frey. ‘Sorry, Cap’n.’

‘Maybe next time you could use words, instead of interpretive dance?’ Crake suggested.

Pinn spluttered a laugh. ‘Interpretive,’ he leered, as if it was something lewd. What Pinn found funny about it was a mystery.

‘Can’t see bugger all down there,’ Malvery commented, squinting.

Frey had come to the same conclusion. The toxic fog that hazed the upper atmosphere thickened near the ground, and the quarry was like an enormous collecting bowl. Tiers were cut out of the rock, with ramps and ladders between them, but he could only see the uppermost shelf, and a hint of the next. After that, they disappeared entirely. All he could see of the bottom was a yellow bleary blankness, with a few smudges of light.

Frey sighed. Another handicap. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Everyone stick together down there. We don’t want anybody shooting anybody by accident. That means you, Pinn.’

‘Hey! Is that ’cause I shot that feller in the rainforest that time? He didn’t even die!’ Pinn was indignant. ‘That’s victiming!’

Crake turned his head slowly towards Pinn. ‘That’s
what
?’ he said, his voice dripping scorn.

‘Uh . . . Victiming?’ Pinn said, as if talking to a child. ‘Like when someone’s picking on you? Ring any bells, Mr Education?’

Crake gave a weary sigh. ‘One day I’m going to buy you a dictionary,’ he said.