Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [152]
It took her several days to find another settlement, following charts she’d salvaged. Since she felt perfectly healthy, she didn’t question how she’d survived at first. She assumed her snowy tomb had kept her warm. It was only when she was far out in the wilderness that she noticed her heart had stopped. That was when she began to be afraid.
By the time she reached the settlement, she had a story, and a plan.
Keep moving. Keep your secret. Survive, as much as you can be said to live at all.
But it had been a long and lonely three years since that day.
SHE PASSED OVER THE southern part of the Hookhollows, their glowing magma vents making bright scribbles in the dark. The Eastern Plateau rose up before her, and she took the Ketty Jay down through the black, filthy clouds. Her engines were robust enough to take a little ash. Once she’d broken through, she brought the Ketty Jay to a few dozen meters above ground level and skimmed over the Blackendraft flats. She glanced at the navigational charts she was following—charts that had been meticulously kept by Dracken’s navigator since they’d commandeered the Ketty Jay.
Trust me, she’d said to Frey, when he demanded to know how she was going to fool Dracken’s men into thinking she was dead. The kind of trust he’d shown when he gave her the ignition code to his precious aircraft, the one thing he could be said to love. Even though he was afraid she might steal it and fly off forever, he’d trusted her.
And he trusted her to come back and save him. She wouldn’t let him down.
She was under no illusion that she was risking her own life, and she knew that even if she succeeded, she’d probably be despised. They couldn’t be her friends. She’d never belong to that crew. If they learned how she was slowly, steadily becoming a Mane, they’d be forced to destroy her. She couldn’t blame them for that.
Yet she’d try anyway. Perhaps afterward she’d go to the north, to the Manes; but first, she’d try.
It made no sense. But, sometimes, humans did things that made no sense.
There was one last thing to do before she set off. Though she’d been lying in the infirmary with all the appearance of a corpse, she’d been wide awake. And she’d heard Dracken’s men talk. Not all the crew of the Ketty Jay had been taken on board the Delirium Trigger.
She slowed the Ketty Jay to a hover and consulted the charts again. She wanted to get this right the first time. It was a small challenge to herself. She adjusted the craft’s heading, pushed her on half a klom, then stopped again. When she was satisfied, she engaged the belly lights. The ashen, dusty waste below her was flooded in dazzling light. She smiled.
Damn it, Jez. You’re good.
There, right where they’d left her, was Bess.
Chapter Thirty-four
MALVERY’S STORY—SOMETHING WORSE THAN CRAMP—FREY GOES TO THE GALLOWS
ortengrace, ancestral home of Duke Grephen of Lapin, stood out white among the trees like an unearthed bone. It was set amid the folds and pleats of heavily forested coastal hills in the western arm of the Vardenwood, overlooking the sparkling blue waters of the Ordic Abyssal to the south. High walls surrounded it, enclosing a landing pad for aircraft, expansive gardens, and the grand manse where the Duke and his family resided. Among the half-dozen outbuildings were an engineer’s workshop, a barracks for the resident militia, and a gaol. The latter was rarely used in these more peaceable times, but it had found employment over the last two days, since Trinica Dracken had delivered six of the most wanted men in Vardia.
Crake sat in his cell, with Malvery and Silo, and he waited. It was all that was left to do now. He waited for the noose.
The cell was small and clean, with stone walls plastered off-white. There were hard benches to sleep on and a barred window, high up, that let in the salty tang of the sea. The temperature was mild on the south coast of Lapin, even in midwinter. A heavy wooden door, banded with iron, prevented their escape. There was a flap at the bottom,