Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [135]
And that was it. The final piece fell into place.
“Everyone!” he said. “We’re leaving.”
Pinn whined in complaint. Malvery raised a threatening hand to cuff him. “Fine,” Pinn sulked. “Let’s go.”
Frey let Jez down to the floor. “Seen enough, Cap’n?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’ve seen enough.”
THE STREETS WERE RELATIVELY quiet on their way back. Retribution Falls seemed cold and bleak without the din of drunken revelry. Frey stepped through the sludge of debris and bodily fluids from the night before, setting a quick pace. He was eager to get to the Ketty Jay. There was a purpose in his walk.
“What’s the story, Cap’n?” Jez asked. “Are we getting out of here?”
“That’s right,” he said. “There’s no reason to stay anymore.”
“I can think of lots,” said Pinn. “Most of them come in pints or bottles; the rest have big wobbling tits. Come on, how about a little shore leave?”
“I’m trying to save us all from the noose, Pinn,” Frey replied. “Stay chaste for a day. Think of your sweetheart.”
“Thinking of her just makes me want to bang a whore even worse.” Pinn grinned, then held his hands up in submission. “Okay, okay. Yes, Cap’n. Back to the Ketty Jay like a good little pilot. But I still don’t get what’s going on.”
“Alright, I’ll tell you,” said Frey. “We knew that Duke Grephen was planning a coup against the Archduke. What he didn’t have was an army big enough to take on the Navy, or the money to pay for it. Orkmund’s providing the army, and now we know who’s providing the money.”
“Do we?” Jez asked. “Who?”
“The Awakeners.”
“What makes you think that?”
“That chest on the podium. I saw them bringing it out of the hermitage where Amalicia was being kept. I didn’t know what was in it then, but now we do. Money. And look where it ended up: here in Retribution Falls.”
“The Awakeners are financing the pirates?” Pinn asked.
“Why?”
“Because they want the Archduke out. Him and his wife.”
“What’s his wife got to do with it?”
“The Archduchess is the one who’s got him talking about all these new laws to limit the power of the Awakeners,” Frey said. He was aware that he was losing Pinn already. “Look, the Awakeners run themselves like a business. And there’s no question they make bucketloads of money from the superstitious. Now, if someone as powerful as the Archduke starts saying that the whole idea of the Allsoul is rubbish, people are going to start listening to him. And that means the Awakeners start going the way of all the other religions they crushed a century ago.”
“You’re remarkably well informed these days, Cap’n,” Jez commented.
“Been talking to Crake,” he said.
“You know he’s not exactly impartial, don’t you?” she said. When she spoke of the daemonist, he noted that her tone wasn’t as obviously scornful as it had been yesterday.
“So why are the Awakeners funding Duke Grephen?” Pinn piped up.
Frey sighed. This would require careful explanation for Pinn to understand. “Because Grephen’s an Awakener. Just like Gallian Thade. If he becomes the Archduke, then the Awakeners gain power instead of losing it. In fact, they’d become pretty much unstoppable.”
Pinn frowned, pondering that for a moment as they hurried through the narrow, filthy lanes, past peeling walls and rusted steps. “And the Awakeners hired Dracken to catch us?”
“No!” Frey and Malvery cried in unison. It was Frey who continued: “Grephen hired her to catch us. Because he didn’t want us talking to anyone and blowing his plan before he could put it into action.”
Pinn thought some more. Frey had a feeling of dread in his stomach, anticipating the inevitable follow-up question.
“So who hired the Century Knights?”
Malvery covered his face with a hand in despair.
“What?” Pinn protested. “It’s complicated!”
“I swear, mate, you have the brains of half a rock.”
“Nobody hired the Century Knights,” Jez said. “They’re loyal to the Archduke. Nothing to do with Grephen. They’re after us because they think we’re the villains here.”
“We did kill the Archduke’s son,” Malvery pointed out.
“Accidentally!” Frey said. “And, besides, we were set up. That