Iron Jackal (50 page)

‘He can share it with Frey!’ Ashua beamed.

‘Why do
I
need a dictionary?’ Frey complained.

‘No reason,’ said Ashua. ‘Now let’s get down there and mortify some guards.’

Frey was caught in one of those moments when he didn’t know what somebody meant and couldn’t decide whether to pretend he did or not.

Pinn groaned, as if explaining things to Frey was extraordinarily tiresome. ‘Mordant means dead, don’t it? So mortify means
kill
, obviously. They even sound the same. Right?’ He looked at Ashua, who nodded encouragingly.

‘Oh,’ said Frey. ‘
Oh
! Let’s
mortify
some guards. I’m with you now. Didn’t hear you right the first time, that’s all.’

Crake and Ashua exchanged a glance, though it was hard to tell its meaning behind their goggles. Malvery tutted to himself. Frey had the distinct impression that a joke was being had at his expense, but he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what it was.

Something exploded just overhead, making them all duck. One of the
Delirium Trigger
’s Equalisers shrieked through the air.

‘Probably shouldn’t be hanging around in the open like this,’ Jez pointed out.

‘That’s why I told you to stay in cover,’ said Frey. ‘Don’t want to see anyone get mortified.’

He suspected that was Crake stifling a laugh as they headed along the lip of the quarry, but the daemonist might have been just coughing behind his mask.

They caught sight of several guards running away from them, towards the almighty firefight in the middle of the camp, but they managed to reach the nearest ramp unnoticed. The stony slope was wide and built for vehicles. They made their way down it, and on to the first tier. The quarry wall hid them from sight from the rest of the camp, making Frey feel marginally safer. There were no guards in sight, and they followed the shelf to another ramp, which took them further down into the quarry.

The fog closed in around them, stifling the sounds of conflict. The sound of machine guns faded to a distant rapping. Explosions became dulled and lost their threat. Little noises were amplified by this new quiet: Frey could hear the rustle of clothes, the creak of Bess’s joints, Harkins trying not to hyperventilate. They could hear faint cries down in the quarry. Guards were calling to one another in Samarlan.

‘They’re down there somewhere,’ said Malvery. ‘Could be they don’t know we’re here. But I reckon some of them’ll be heading up to the camp to find out what all the commotion is.’

‘Right. Eyes peeled, everyone,’ said Frey.

‘For all the good
that
’ll do,’ Ashua muttered.

Frey took her point. They really couldn’t see a great deal. Anything more than ten metres away was only a shadow, and anything past twenty was invisible. ‘Well, y’know. Do what you can.’

They made their way down to the next tier. On the way, they passed sinister, hulking shapes, sitting motionless and silent. Earth-moving vehicles, with drills and scoops and tracked wheels as tall as a man. There was something about the brute scale of industrial machinery that intimidated Frey. He felt very small in comparison.

‘Footsteps,’ whispered Jez. She held up her hand to halt everyone – for some reason they understood when
she
did it – and then slid through the fog to the edge of the tier. Frey went with her. They squatted, and she pointed.

On the next tier, fifteen metres below, a dozen shadowy figures hustled through the murk. Frey could just about make out the rifles in their hands, the Dak bayonets fixed to the barrels. He felt a chill, and waited till they passed by.

‘I reckon, if they’re going that way, we should go the other,’ Frey opined.

‘Sounds like a good plan, Cap’n.’

They returned to the others and moved off in the opposite direction to the guards. This quarry was so big that there had to be more than one ramp between each shelf. Shortly afterwards, and with a smug glow of self-congratulation, it turned out he was right. They slipped down to the level below, evading the guards on the way.

The lights on the quarry floor were much closer now, but they still had no idea how far they had to go. It was hard to know where anything was in this ghostly netherworld. The sounds of the battle above were a fuzzy percussion, coming to them as if in a dream.

They were moving along the shelf, searching for the next ramp down, when Jez suddenly put her hand on his chest to stop him. The rest of the group halted with him, some more silently than others.

‘What is it?’ he whispered.

She narrowed her eyes in concentration. ‘Not sure. Hard to tell where the sounds are coming from.’ She listened. ‘I think they’re trying to be quiet.’

‘They?’ He peered into the gloom. He could just about make out the looming shape of another bulky vehicle ahead.

Pinn joined them. ‘Why’ve we stopped?’

Jez shushed him. ‘They’re above us,’ she whispered, looking up at the ridge. ‘I think they know where we—’

The silence was destroyed by the bellow of an engine, and the fog filled with dazzling light. The vehicle ahead had come to life. Powerful headlamps and floods beamed through the haze. In their glare, Frey saw the outline of some kind of enormous bulldozer, a monster of black iron, seeping smoke. There was a shout, and suddenly rifles were firing, sharp flashes in the gloom.

Caught out in the open, the crew scattered in panic. Frey’s first instinct was to run back in the direction they’d come, but then he caught sight of figures running along the ridge overhead, setting themselves in position to fire down on their targets. They’d be cut to pieces, unless—

‘Up against the wall! Take cover against the wall!’ he yelled.

The crew, thankfully, listened. The wall to their left was roughly carved and deeply rucked, and there was an overhang at the top, which meant that the guards above wouldn’t be able to hit them without leaning out over the edge. Bullets pinged and sparked around them as they crammed themselves into whatever niches they could find. Most of the shots were aimed at Bess, who was counted as the biggest threat, but they had no effect on her other than to make her angry.

‘Bess! You need to shield us!’ Crake called to her. She squatted down with them, putting her metal body between the crew and the bulldozer.

Frey leaned out of the fold of rock where he’d stashed himself and fired off a few shots in the general direction of the enemy. The lights made it impossible to see his targets, but it lit the crew up nicely for the guards.

Crake and Harkins were panicking, fumbling with their guns and covering their heads whenever a bullet came their way. The rest of the crew were calmer in returning fire, but their situation wasn’t good. The enemy had the high ground, which meant they couldn’t move. And there was nothing stopping the Daks coming down the ramp and round the back of them. If that happened, their cover would mean bugger all: they’d be sitting ducks.

Then, just when he thought things had got quite bad enough for the moment, the bulldozer started to move forward.

Frey’s heart sank. The tier was only a dozen metres wide. Getting past the enemy would mean running onto their guns – onto their
bayonets
– down the narrow space to either side of the bulldozer. A choice between a wall or a steep drop. But if the vehicle got too close, the enemy would get an angle on them, and they would have to flee their cover. Which meant the soldiers above could pick them off with ease.

He muttered a string of swear words under his breath. He took a shot at where he thought the cab might be, to see if he could get the driver, but he only heard the long whine of a ricochet.

‘Cap’n? Any ideas?’ Jez asked.

‘Nope,’ he said. And that meant they were in deep, deep trouble.

Pushing on, out from the cluster of buildings that surrounded the
Ketty Jay
, across the open spaces of the camp. Silo’s boots pounded the packed earth as he ran, his shotgun cradled in his arms. The metal tower of the gas derrick rose high above him. Huge storage tanks rested at its base, inside a tangle of pipes and distillation apparatus.

Bullets picked at the ground, sending up scuffs of poisoned dirt. Men were running around him, forging through the foetid air and the stench of rotten eggs. Someone to his right was hit in the chest and went down in a tumble, rolling to a stop. His companions jumped over him and carried on.

On the far side of the open ground were the barracks and more administrative buildings, and beyond them, the gates to the pens. The Daks still hadn’t got themselves organised. Most retreated before the attack. Others took cover and attempted to resist, but without the coordination of their fellows, they were soon overwhelmed. The Murthians were not well drilled, but they had a clear purpose and the advantage of surprise. Bodies fell on both sides, but many more Daks than Murthians.

Silo pressed himself up against the side of a long narrow building, grateful to be out of the firing line for a moment. The buildings in Gagriisk were low, ugly and practical, with a temporary feel about them. Their windows were sealed with bubbles of windglass and their doors were stout and metal.

He heard a hiss. The door of the building opposite popped ajar with a rush of air that stirred the surrounding fog. Silo crossed over and hid behind it as it came open. He heard muffled voices, the scuff of booted feet. Two of them.

He kicked the door closed and fired twice.

They were Samarlan officers in uniform, wearing masks that covered their whole head instead of just goggles and a breather. It made them faceless and machine-like. Still, they died like everyone else when you shot them.

Silo stepped past their bodies and looked into the doorway. There was another sealed door beyond the open one. An airlock, to keep the atmosphere clean inside. So that was how they endured this toxic place. There’d be no such luxuries for the slaves.

Two Murthians ran past him, sparing him barely a glance as they headed towards the pens. Silo hurried after them. There was the sound of machine gun fire ahead, audible over the booming of the anti-aircraft gun and the scream of engines in the sky.

The two Murthians ran out of the cover of the buildings, into the open, carried on by the momentum of vengeance. A machine gun rattled; bullets chipped and puffed at the ground and walls. One of them jerked like a badly-handled marionette and went down; the other skidded to a halt and fled back into cover. Silo caught up with him at the edge of the building. He was breathing hard and whimpering, staring at his dead companion, eyes shocked behind his goggles.

Silo had no words of comfort for him. He’d learn, just as Silo had. Or he’d die.

Around the corner of the building was an area of clear ground in front of the gates to the slave pens. The Daks were dug in deep here. There were machine gun emplacements on the walls, and bunkers surrounded by stone barriers at ground level. A pair of tracked flatbed vehicles were parked near the gates, for transporting the slaves from pen to quarry. Plenty of cover for the thirty or forty guards that defended the gates, but almost none for the Murthians if they tried a frontal assault.

This is where the Daks were going, he realised. This was their emergency plan. They knew that if anyone invaded the camp, they were either coming to free the men in the prison, or the slaves from the pens. Since the invaders were Murthians, it was obvious which they’d go for. The Daks had been caught off-guard by the Cap’n’s plan, but they’d regrouped here, and Silo couldn’t see any way to winkle them out that didn’t end in a shitload of dead Murthians.

His gaze roamed the surrounding area, and then settled.

Unless . . .

He caught sight of Ehri and Fal, hiding close by. He made his way back through the buildings towards them, avoiding the open ground. There were still Murthians and Daks battling here and there, but he avoided the gunfights and soon reached Ehri’s side. She looked back at him, her expression unreadable.

~ We cannot attack with those guns there, she said.

~ We have to get through somehow, said Fal urgently. ~ Listen to them.

Silo could hear something between the sporadic rattle of gunfire and the explosions from overheard. A distant hubbub of shouted voices. The slaves on the other side of the gate. They sensed the chance at freedom, and they’d roused.

He felt a surge of fierce pride at the sound. The Murthians weren’t like the Daks; they would never lie down and submit to slavery under the Sammies. So many generations they’d been under the yoke, yet they were still angry, still eager for the fight. Once, he’d thought a more subtle approach might have been more sensible, that their mulelike resistance to being ruled would be the very thing that kept them in chains for ever. But, hearing those voices, he knew he’d been wrong. The smallest compromise would have been the first step to giving up. And his people never gave up.

He surveyed the ground in front of the gates. Several bodies lay there, Daks and Murthians, blood seeping into the dirt. Too many had fallen on the Murthian side already, some of them barely adults, killed in the first battle they ever saw. All of them here on his account, because of his plan to attack Gagriisk.

He thought he should feel something, but he didn’t. Where was the crushing weight of responsibility? Where was the guilt he’d been so terrified of all these years? He’d never wanted to be a leader again after his failed coup against Akkad. He’d become a follower instead, for fear of repeating the same mistake and inviting another tragedy. But now here they were. People were dying because of him. And he looked on their bodies, and nothing happened.