Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [173]
The Windblade had realized its mistake and was peeling away to search for fresh targets. Pinn craned around in his seat to look for Harkins and spotted him a klom away, shooting skyward at an angle close to vertical. Three aircraft chased him, sending weaving lines of tracer fire ahead of them.
Pinn hit the throttle and the Skylance responded. He streaked across the dull sky, the battle beneath him and the mists above, his eyes fixed on the steadily ascending quartet of aircraft. Harkins was jinking and twisting as best he could, but the sheer volume of gunfire made it unlikely he could evade them long enough to make it to cover.
Pinn found himself in the grip of an unfamiliar sensation. He was worried. As much as he scorned Harkins, he didn’t want to be without him. Harkins was just about the only person on the crew he could push around.
You better not get shot down, you stuttering old lunatic.
Smoke began to pour from the Firecrow’s wing.
“I’m hit! I’m hit!” Harkins screeched.
Pinn thumbed his trigger and his machine guns clattered, tearing through the foremost of Harkins’s pursuers. The aircraft exploded in midair, sending chunks of itself flying away. The others were too close to avoid the debris: a slab of wing, spinning end over end, whipped through the air and into the cockpit of another pirate, smashing him out of the sky. The third aircraft went into evasive maneuvers immediately, searching for the author of the surprise attack, and then decided that the chase wasn’t worth it and plunged back down toward the main mass of the fighting.
Pinn whooped and slapped the side of the cockpit, then scooped up the ferrotype of Lisinda and gave her a kiss. “Harkins!” he called. “How bad is it?”
Harkins leveled out and then banked experimentally. He looked wobbly, but the smoke had stopped.
“I … er … I lost one of my thrusters … had to shut it down. Not good, really, then.”
Pinn looked regretfully at the combat going on below them. “We’re done here. You’re not gonna last another skirmish. Let’s go help out the Cap’n.” He matched Harkins’s turn and fell into position behind him.
“Hey, Pinn? Hey?”
“What?”
There was a pause. “Umm … thanks.”
Pinn smiled to himself. “Didn’t I tell you to clam it?” he said.
“WHERE’S THE TREASURE KEPT?” Malvery demanded. The pirate’s reply was incoherent, mouthed as it was around the barrel of a shotgun.
“Take the gun out?” Crake suggested.
Malvery withdrew the shotgun a little way. The pirate—still shocked at being collared by the bulky doctor—bent over and gagged. By the time he’d recovered, there was sullen defiance in his glare.
“The treasure. Where?” Malvery demanded again.
The pirate suggested some anatomically improbable places where Malvery could shove his mother. Malvery broke his nose with the butt of the shotgun, then looked around at his companions and shrugged. “That’s me out of ideas,” he said.
Silo and Jez were covering either end of the corridor. The stronghold was mostly deserted—the pirates had evidently fled—but Frey was taking no chances. The pounding of the guns outside seemed worryingly close now, echoing through the empty spaces, bouncing off the unadorned walls. Dust shook from the ceiling, bringing new cracks.
“We haven’t got time for this,” he muttered. He seized the pirate, who was holding his bloodied nose, and pointed at Crake.
“This is my friend Grayther Crake. He’s got quite a remarkable smile. Why don’t you show him, Crake?”
Crake grinned. The pirate stared at him for a moment. His gore-streaked hands came away from his face, the pain of his nose forgotten, and he craned forward in admiration.
“Here,” he said. “That’s a nice tooth.”
Half a minute later they were on their way, newly furnished with directions. Malvery had insisted on clubbing the pirate once more for that crack about his mother, but afterward they let him go, minus his pistols and several molars.
They hurried through the corridors, keyed up to