Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [126]
“You know where Orkmund’s place is?” He indicated a distant platform. It was too dark to make out anything but a sprinkle of lights. “Ask anyone, you’ll find it. Be there tomorrow at midday.”
“What’s happening?”
“Orkmund’s got something to say. Reckon it might be time.”
Malvery did a passable job of pretending he knew what the man was talking about. “You think so?”
“Well, look around,” said the storekeeper. “Some of these boys are going stir crazy. Can’t keep a bunch of pirates cooped up like this. They came to fight, and if they can’t fight someone else, they’ll fight one another. I reckon he’s gonna give the word to start the attack.”
“Let me at ’em,” said Frey. “Can’t wait to show that lot.”
“You know who we’re fighting?” the storekeeper gasped, which wrong-footed Frey totally.
“Er … what?”
“You know where Orkmund’s sending us?”
“Don’t you?”
“Nobody knows. That’s what we’re all waiting to find out.”
Frey backpedaled. “No, I meant, you know … the general them. Let me at them. Whoever they are.…” He trailed off lamely.
The storekeeper gave him an odd look, then snatched the coins off the counter and called out to a passerby, trying to lure him over. Dismissed, Frey and the others moved away, distributing the filters among them.
“Orkmund’s got himself a pirate fleet,” Jez said. “That’s how Grephen’s going to do it. That’s how he’ll seize power. He’s made a deal with the king of the pirates.”
“But there’s one last thing I don’t understand,” Frey replied. “How’d Duke Grephen get Orkmund on his side?”
“Paid him, probably,” Malvery opined.
“With what? Grephen doesn’t have the money to support an army. Or at least Crake doesn’t think so, and he should know.”
“Crake could be wrong,” Jez said. “Just because he has the accent doesn’t mean he has some great insight into the aristocracy. There’s a lot you don’t know about him.”
Frey frowned. He was getting heartily sick of this tension between Jez and Crake. They’d been barely able to work together when he needed them to navigate through the canyons of Rook’s Boneyard. Something needed to be done.
“Back to the Ketty Jay,” he said. “We’ve learned enough for now. Let’s see what Orkmund says tomorrow.”
“We’re not going to have a drink?” Malvery asked, horrified. “I mean, in the interest of gathering information?”
“Not this time. Early start in the morning. I’m not having any trouble tonight.”
He started off back toward the landing pad. Malvery trudged behind. “I miss the old Cap’n,” he grumbled.
Frey had almost all the information he needed. He was missing only one piece. Someone was backing Duke Grephen, providing the money to build an army of mercenaries big enough to fight the Coalition Navy and take the capital of Vardia. He needed to know who. When that last piece fell into place, he’d understand the conspiracy he was tangled up in. Then he could do something about it.
A serene and peaceful feeling settled on him as they made their way back toward the Ketty Jay. Tomorrow would bring an answer. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was certain of it.
Tomorrow. That’s when we start turning this around.
Chapter Twenty-nine
INTERVENTION—THE CONFESSIONS OF GRAYTHER CRAKE—AN EXPERIMENT, AND THE TRAGEDY THAT FOLLOWS
rake was shaken out of sleep by Frey’s hand on his shoulder.
“Get up,” Frey said.
“What is it?” he murmured.
“Come on,” insisted the captain. “I need you in the mess.” Crake swung his legs off the bunk. He was still fully clothed, having gone to sleep as soon as Frey left the Ketty Jay. He’d hoped to shake off the headache he’d picked up from breathing the lava fumes. It hadn’t worked.
“What’s so urgent, Frey? Stove making spooky noises? Daemonic activity in the stew?”
“There’s just something we need to sort out, that’s all.” Something in his tone told Crake that Frey wasn’t going to let this go, so he got to his feet with a sigh and shambled after his captain, out into the passageway. But instead of going down the ladder to the mess, Frey walked past it and knocked on the door of the navigator’s quarters. Jez opened up. She