The Ace of Skulls totkj-4 Read online

  ‘Come on, it must be something,’ she said. ‘What was different back then? What did life in the Navy have that life on the Ketty Jay doesn’t?’ She tried to think of the most obvious thing. ‘Discipline?’ she guessed.

  Crake snapped his fingers and pointed at her. ‘Discipline,’ he said, as if she’d just solved a puzzle.

  ‘Discipline. .’ Harkins said thoughtfully. ‘Er. . yes, actually. I mean. . you know, getting up at the same time every day, I sort of liked that. Train with your squad, everybody together. Nobody in the spotlight, nobody better than anyone else.’ A little smile broke out on his face. ‘And people like Pinn. . They’d never let someone like him in. I mean, they would at first, but the sergeant would knock all that stupid cockiness out of him. He’d stick to formation or he’d be cleaning latrines! Back then we were a team; you cheered your teammates on instead of trying to steal all the glory. And when you were out there on a mission together, I mean, they had your life in their hands, and you had theirs in yours, and it was. . I don’t know, it was just. .’ He shrugged. ‘Safe. Not like safe safe, I mean, we were at war, right? But safe like home. Everything in its place and you knew what you had to do and you knew who everyone was and they knew you.’

  He took a quick sip from his flagon and nodded to himself. ‘Yeah. Safe. That’s what it was.’

  Crake was staring at Ashua in amazement. ‘You know he’s never spoken that much about anything, ever?’

  ‘Maybe you never bothered asking?’ she said cheerily. She felt rather pleased with herself. No one paid attention to Harkins, except Pinn, who tormented him. Ashua had an affinity for outsiders and underdogs, especially when she’d had a few.

  She slapped Harkins on the shoulder and for once he didn’t flinch. ‘Harkins, your idea of happiness sounds like my worst nightmare, but I’ll drink to it anyway.’

  They all raised their mugs, and afterwards Harkins looked a little bewildered. But he was smiling, and none of them saw that too often.

  She left Harkins with Crake and went to relieve herself, swaying a little as she wound her way through the crowded room. She was feeling good, still on a high from last night’s victory, and there was nothing to concern her in the future. Life on the Ketty Jay had turned out better than expected. She’d bargained her way on board in order to evade her enemies, but she’d always intended to leave when the moment was right. These days, she wondered if she really wanted to.

  They were a good lot, in all. She was fond of Malvery and liked Crake, and the others were a decent bunch too, even the Cap’n. She’d pegged him as a bit of a sleaze when they first met, but to her surprise he hadn’t made any advances on her since she’d joined. In fact, she’d warmed to him as a person, against her better instincts.

  Careful, she told herself. Don’t get too attached to this crew. You know what’ll happen, sooner or later. What always happens.

  Ashua was used to looking out for herself. It was how she’d survived as an orphan child on the bomb-torn streets of Rabban. She made alliances when it suited her and ducked out when things got rough. The only one she’d ever put her trust in was Maddeus Brink, a dissolute aristocrat and drug dealer who’d adopted her in a fit of drunken charity. He’d been like a father to her for many years until, with characteristic callousness, he exiled her from his home and sent her out on her own again.

  She learned her lesson from that.

  Maddeus, she thought, and a heavy sadness came upon her. Maddeus, rotting in the heat of Shasiith, his poisoned blood killing him slowly as he passed his last weeks in a narcotic haze. Was he dead now? Perhaps. But he’d made his wishes clear, and she had enough respect for him to keep away. Besides, he’d sent her out of Shasiith for her own safety; she wasn’t foolish enough to go back.

  Respectable ladies might have found the toilet of the Broken Anchor disgusting, but it took a lot to disgust Ashua. When she was done, she pushed her way out and back into the noisy bar.

  ‘Ashua Vode?’ said a voice by her side.

  She had her pistol out and pressed into the man’s belly in half a heartbeat. Being recognised was rarely good, in her experience.

  She didn’t know him. He had a plain, nondescript face, folded and rucked with middle age. But it was his scent that alarmed her. A smoky, woody blend of spices and blossoms. The kind of smell that often clung to rich Samarlan merchants.

  It was a smell from Shasiith, from her past. And that meant trouble.

  ‘I’m no enemy, Miss Vode,’ said the man, calmly. She was standing close to him, her body concealing the weapon in her hand. The other patrons of the bar were oblivious.

  ‘I’ll decide that,’ she said.

  ‘I bring news. Jakeley Screed is dead.’

  ‘That’s a lie.’

  ‘I assure you it’s not.’

  ‘Then who are you?’

  ‘My name is Bargo Ocken. You remember Dager Toyle, of course?’

  ‘Of course. I also remember that Screed killed him. What’s he to you?’

  ‘I’m his replacement.’

  Ashua stared into his eyes. ‘So you say.’

  ‘Miss Vode,’ he said levelly. ‘If I wanted to kill you, there are better ways than approaching you in a crowded bar. I don’t work for Screed. I work for the people who killed him.’

  She sized him up. He was Vardic, educated, probably from minor nobility by his accent. If the softness of his belly was anything to go by, he wasn’t much of a physical threat.

  She put the gun away. Ocken let out a little breath of relief. It was the only sign that he’d been tense at all.

  ‘Over here,’ he said, gesturing towards a small table tucked in the corner. She followed him, and made him wait while she checked the table and chairs for concealed weapons. Danger had sobered her up fast.

  ‘You’re very suspicious,’ he observed.

  ‘So would you be,’ she said. ‘Sit.’

  They settled themselves. She regarded him in the dim light of the gas lamps. Night had fallen over the town now, and the windows were dark. She could feel a slight tremor though her legs: the thundering falls nearby.

  ‘How did he die?’ she asked, as quietly as she could over the noise in the bar.

  ‘Our people caught up with him. You don’t need to worry about him any more.’

  ‘The others?’ Ocken gave her a blank look. ‘The others that worked for Dager Toyle,’ she elaborated.

  ‘I hope you don’t expect me to name names.’

  ‘Are they all dead?’

  ‘Not all.’

  She drummed her fingers restlessly, thinking over the implications of Ocken’s news, wondering whether to believe him. It had been Screed she’d been hiding from when Frey first encountered her, skulking in a den of drug addicts. Her hired muscle proved to be a useless defence. If Screed had found her before Frey, she’d be dead by now.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ she asked.

  ‘I want to resume our relationship,’ said Ocken. ‘Toyle might be dead, but the organisation is not. Cut off a limb’ — he spread his arms as if to say: Here I am — ‘and it grows again.’

  She sat back in her chair, never taking her gaze from him. ‘I’ve got a new thing now,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, the Ketty Jay. I hear they’re doing moderately well these days. Don’t worry. It rather suits our purpose that you stay on the crew. Look on us as, well, something on the side. Insurance. In case it all goes wrong somewhere down the line.’

  Ashua thought about that for a time, but in the end she shook her head. ‘You let me down before. Screed wouldn’t have been after me if you hadn’t screwed up.’

  ‘We understand. You deserve compensation for what you’ve been through. That’s why we intend to treble your retainer.’

  That was enough to give her pause. Money had never been the guiding force in Ashua’s life, but it was a lot of money to someone who’d never had much.

  ‘First payment up front?’ she asked.

  ‘Naturally. And subsequ
ent payments every quarter-year, for as long as we need you. And as long as you provide what we want.’

  Tempting. A little insurance never hurt anyone. And after all, what did she know about what the future held? She might be kicked off the Ketty Jay tomorrow, and then where would she be? She knew from experience that it was naïve to rely on others. They all let you down in the end.

  She leaned forward across the table. ‘Keep talking,’ she said, and Ocken smiled.

  Four

  The Thacian amp; Jez — A Necessary Change — A Meadow — The Small Hours

  Pelaru the whispermonger lived on the most exclusive of Timberjack Falls’ three islands. Frey and his companions were taken there by motorised carriage, after first picking up their delivery from the Ketty Jay. The bridge guards eyed the scruffy passengers suspiciously as they approached the gates to the island, but they knew Pelaru’s man and waved them through.

  The villa was set back from a woody lane on a steep hill. Evergreens rustled in the night; nocturnal animals chirruped and hooted from the undergrowth. The carriage was met at the entrance to the grounds by several men who checked Frey and his crew for weapons. After that, they were taken up a sharply sloping drive which wound past ornamental rock pools and skeletal arbours to the house itself.

  The villa was designed in what Frey vaguely recognised as a foreign style, adorned with domes and porticoes. It was asymmetrical to accommodate the rise in the land, and surrounded by multi-layered gardens containing fountains and sculptures bizarre to his eye. A summer place, built for warmer times. On a still winter night in Aulenfay, it just looked bleak.

  Pelaru was waiting for them outside the main door, along with a pair of discreetly armed bodyguards. He was a tall, straight-backed man in his thirties, with the statuesque, arrogant features typical of Thacians. He had olive skin and neat black hair, and was wearing fashionable trousers and a waistcoat that looked far too light for the weather.

  The carriage pulled to a stop and Frey stepped down from the passenger seat. Pelaru walked over to greet him.

  ‘Captain Frey,’ he began, in the lilting accent of his people. ‘It’s my pleasure to-’

  He trailed off as he caught sight of something over Frey’s shoulder. Frey looked back, following his gaze to the carriage. Malvery and Silo were climbing down, but it wasn’t them he was staring at. It was Jez. And Jez was staring at him, an intense, mesmerised stare, and oh, damn it her eyes were shining in the moonlight.

  I knew I shouldn’t have brought her.

  ‘You want to see your payment?’ Frey prompted quickly, to distract him. ‘Silo, Malvery, show the man what we brought him.’

  Pelaru seemed to notice he was there again. ‘Ah, er. . Forgive me, I don’t seem to be. . quite myself tonight.’ He shook it off and focused. ‘Captain Frey, we must talk. Walk with me.’

  ‘Don’t you, er. . the relics, though?’ Frey motioned towards the heavy chest which Silo and Malvery were manhandling out of the trunk.

  ‘Ah, yes, the relics,’ said Pelaru, not in the least bit interested. He put his hand on Frey’s arm and steered him away. ‘Come. We have things to discuss.’ He took one last look at Jez, who’d evidently unsettled him, and then led Frey towards the side of the villa, leaving Malvery and Silo holding the chest between them.

  ‘Oi!’ Malvery yelled after them. ‘What are we supposed to do with this?’

  Frey gave him a helpless shrug. Your guess is as good as mine.

  ‘Well, that’s just great,’ Malvery grumbled. He was sobering up and getting ratty. Frey winced as he dumped his side of the chest on the ground. The crash that followed probably halved the value of its contents.

  He followed Pelaru along a path through the courtyards and round to the back of the villa. The whispermonger seemed deep in thought. Frey hoped he hadn’t been too disturbed by the sight of Jez. He’d known she might be a risk, but he’d needed her along in case things went bad. They might not be able to carry weapons into a whispermonger’s house, but Jez was a weapon herself.

  Behind the house was a tiered cliff garden overlooking the vast, rushing river. The sound of the falls was loud, rumble and hiss, and when the wind blew against him Frey could feel water mist on his face. He could see another island half a klom away, a black hump in the water, dotted with friendly lights.

  Out here, it was hard to imagine there was a civil war going on at all. But the war was young, and Vardia was vast. Frey wondered how long it would be before it reached even remote spots like Timberjack Falls.

  Pelaru walked to the edge of the garden, where a twisted metal railing guarded against the drop. Frey joined him warily. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew one thing: if the whispermonger tried to pitch him over that cliff, he was bloody well coming too.

  ‘There a problem?’ he asked. ‘I thought we had a deal.’

  ‘We did,’ said Pelaru. His face was impassive and serene as he gazed out across the water. ‘I’m changing it.’

  ‘You’re changing it,’ said Frey flatly.

  ‘Yes.’

  Frey looked out over the vista and took a long breath. The beauty of his surroundings did little to calm the anger boiling up inside him. The whole reason he’d started dealing with high-level people was to avoid situations like this. He’d had enough of betrayals.

  ‘You’re a whispermonger,’ he said. ‘A whispermonger. You’re expensive as gold-plated cowshit and you live and die on your reputation. That means you don’t spread secrets you aren’t paid for, and you don’t change deals.’

  ‘I think my reputation will survive one disgruntled freebooter,’ Pelaru said. ‘But for all that, I am sorry. It is necessary.’

  His infuriating calm broke through Frey’s last shreds of restraint. ‘Necessary?’ he shouted. ‘I couldn’t give half a damn about necessary! Tell me where she is!’

  His voice rang out into the night and was swallowed by the churning waters. He shut his mouth, feeling suddenly exposed. Had his crew heard that on the other side of the house? Had Jez, with her inhuman perception?

  As far as any of them knew, he was busy locating their next target, just like he’d located the last. In a way, they were right. But the target wasn’t what they imagined.

  It wasn’t riches he was hunting. It was Trinica Dracken.

  Pelaru was studying him with new interest after his outburst. ‘She means a great deal to you,’ he observed. ‘I didn’t see that before.’

  Frey gave him a hateful glare, then turned his head and spat over the railing. He’d given himself away. She’d always had the power to make him do that.

  ‘She owes me money,’ he lied.

  Pelaru didn’t say anything.

  ‘What do you want?’ Frey asked at length.

  ‘You can keep the relics,’ said Pelaru. ‘Sell them as you wish. Instead, I want your help. If you play this right, you’ll not only come away with the information you seek, you’ll be a great deal richer.’

  ‘Or I could just go to another whispermonger,’ said Frey.

  ‘You could,’ said the Thacian. ‘You could give up the money you’ve already paid me and leave. But Trinica Dracken is a hard woman to find. She is a pirate, after all, with a hefty price on her head. Suffice to say there was a certain amount of good fortune involved in tracking her down. Another whispermonger might take longer than I did. By then, she may be somewhere you’ll never find her.’ He turned his pale green eyes on Frey. ‘I suspect you don’t want to take that risk.’

  He suspected right. The past three months had been dedicated to the search for her, even if the crew weren’t aware of it. But Trinica could be anywhere in the known world by now, and having a civil war to deal with didn’t help. His chances of finding her by chasing rumours were close to zero. That was why he’d employed Pelaru.

  Since they returned from Samarla, every score had been made to bring them closer to this moment. First he had to raise the money to set Pelaru on the trail. Then he’d paid a different whispermonger
for the tip-off on their last job, in order to get the remainder of Pelaru’s fee. He’d done it right, damn it, he’d done everything right! But now this. And three months was already too long.

  ‘What’s the deal?’ he asked.

  Pelaru walked away from the cliff edge, wandering slowly into the gardens, where marble statues waited in the moonlight. Frey rolled his eyes and followed, as he was meant to. Everything about this man annoyed him. He was so damned poised. Frey wanted to trip him, just to see him stumble.

  ‘You may have surmised that I have an interest in Awakener artefacts,’ Pelaru said. ‘You would be wrong. I think they’re childish junk, relics of a transparently manufactured religion created by Royalists in order to make a hero of their last mad King.’ He shook his head. ‘You people and your Kings and Dukes and Oracles.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Frey in a bored tone. ‘Thace and its wonderful republic, I know. Except while you’ve all been sitting on your arses playing lutes and drawing each other naked, your neighbours in Samarla have been tooling up to invade the rest of the world. Lot of good all that culture’s gonna do you in chains.’

  Pelaru ignored the insult. ‘My business partner is the collector,’ he said, as if he hadn’t been interrupted. ‘Two days ago, he located a site where he believed there was a cache of great value. He immediately set out with a group of men to find it. He has not returned.’

  Frey waited. ‘So?’

  ‘So I need you to go after him.’

  ‘You’re serious? This is a rescue?’

  ‘If he’s alive.’

  ‘And if he’s not?’

  ‘Then I want to know.’

  Frey thought this over. ‘Y’know, if one of my crew was a day or two late coming home, I’d just assume they were drunk or they’d found a willing member of the opposite sex to have a bit of fun with. I think you’re just overprotective. You’d better hire someone else to do your babysitting.’

  ‘I can’t!’ Pelaru snapped.

  Frey allowed himself a small smile. A crack in that armour of serenity. Frey had a talent for pissing people off.