Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [148]
She felt a gloved hand on her upper arm and turned. She knew it was Riss, the expedition’s pilot, even though his face was hidden behind a fur-lined hood, mask, and goggles. Nobody else touched her arm like that.
“Are you alright?” he shouted over the whistling wind. His voice was muffled.
“Of course I’m alright. The explosion was over there.”
But then someone pointed to a dark shape approaching through the gray chaos in the sky, and the cries of alarm began. Jez felt the strength drain out of her as it took on form, huge and ragged and black. The drone of its engines was drowned out by the piercing, unearthly howling coming from its decks. It was a mass of dirty iron, oil, and smoke, all spikes and rivets and shredded black pennants. A dreadnought, come from the Wrack, across the Poleward Sea to the shores of Yortland.
The destruction of the aircraft on the landing pad had been no accident. The attackers wanted to be sure nobody got away.
The Manes were here, searching for fresh victims.
Ropes snaked down as the dreadnought loomed closer, its massive hull swelling as it descended, until its keel was only a few meters above the rooftops. By the time the Manes came slipping and sliding to the ground, people were already scattering in terror. They’d all heard the stories. The appearance of the dreadnought, the sheer force of its presence, panicked them like goats.
Jez panicked with them, fleeing up the thoroughfare, thinking only of escape. It was Riss who grabbed her arm, more forcefully this time, and tugged her into a doorway. He hurried her down some steps and into a circular underground room full of crates of scientific equipment and boxes of food and clothing. It was cold down here, but not as bad as outside. The sound of their boots echoed from the gray stone walls.
As soon as she was released, she bolted into a corner and huddled there, hugging herself and whimpering. She’d always prided herself on being a levelheaded sort, but the sight of the dreadnought was too much for her. The craft exuded terror, an animal sense of wrongness that appealed to the most basic instincts. Whatever the Manes were, her intuition shrieked at their mere presence.
Riss was faring better. He was obviously scared out of his wits, but he was moving with a purpose. He’d grabbed two packs and was shoving dried food and blankets into them.
“We can’t stay here,” he said, in response to her unspoken question. “They’ll go through the whole town. It’s what they do.”
“We … I’m not … I’m not going out there!” Jez said through juddering lips. She could hear screams and sporadic gunfire from outside.
He pulled the packs tight, hurried over, and shoved one toward her. She could see his eyes through the glass of the goggles. He was staring at her, hard.
“Listen,” he said. “When the Manes hit a town, they don’t leave people to tell the tale. The ones who aren’t taken are killed. You understand? We can’t avoid them by hiding down here.”
“Where can we go?”
“The excavation. The ice caves. We can survive there for a night. If we get out of town, we can wait ’til they’re gone.”
Jez calmed a little as his words sank in. Professor Malstrom, their employer, was obsessed with the search for a lost race he’d dubbed the Azryx, who he believed had once possessed great and mysterious technology. Based on slender evidence and some cryptic writings, he’d divined that they died out suddenly, many thousands of years ago, and their civilization had been swallowed by the ice. He’d persuaded the university to fund him on various digs over the past year, hoping to uncover relics of that ancient people. So far, he’d not found a thing. But the excavation would provide them with the shelter they needed, and the