Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [43]
“Retribution Falls,” said Pinn. “That’s what my money’s on. Nobody’d find us in Retribution Falls.”
“Nobody would find us because it’s impossible to find,” explained Frey patiently. “Any ideas how we would find it?”
Pinn thought for a moment and came up blank. “Well, there’s got to be a way,” he muttered. “You hear about all those pirates who’ve been there. You hear about Orkmund, don’t you?”
Frey sighed. Retribution Falls: the legendary hidden pirate town. A place safe from the dangers of the world, where you could fight and drink and screw to your heart’s content and the Navy could never touch you. It was said to be founded by the renowned pirate Orkmund, who mysteriously disappeared fifteen years ago and had never been reliably sighted since. Other famous pirates who were no longer around were often said to have retired to Retribution Falls. It made a more romantic story than a slow death by syphilis or alcoholism or being murdered in the night by your own crew.
But that was all it was: a story. Orkmund was dead. The other pirates were dead. Retribution Falls was a myth.
Pinn saw that nobody was taking up his idea and began to sulk. Frey returned to the same obsessive thoughts that had been keeping him up at night.
New Vardia. Maybe he could go to New Vardia. Leave the fighters behind.
The idea wasn’t appealing. It was a long and dangerous journey to the other side of the world and, once there, there was nowhere to hide. A few small settlements. A frontier lifestyle, lived without luxuries. If his pursuers tracked him to New Vardia, he’d be easily caught.
He ticked off options in his head. Samarla? They wouldn’t last two days, and Silo would never go. Thace? They’d be caught and deported if they tried to stay. Thacians were very defensive of their little utopia. Kurg? Populated by monsters.
Of the countries this side of the Great Storm Belt, only Yortland provided a haven, and it was a cold and bitter one, entirely too close to New Vardia. They couldn’t hide there forever. Not with the Century Knights and Trinica Dracken on their tail.
His eyes fell to the broadsheet spread out on the table. Bitterness curdled in his guts. The sanctimonious tone of the writer, exulting in Frey’s imminent downfall, enraged him. The memory of Crake’s snide dismissal made him grit his teeth. The picture of himself smiling out from the page inspired a deep and intolerable hatred. That they should use that picture. That one!
This was too much. He could take the vagaries of chance that robbed him at cards time and again. He could handle the knowledge that his best efforts at self-improvement were doomed to be thwarted by some indistinct, omnipotent force. He could live with the fact that he was captain of a crew who was staying with him only because they had nowhere else to go.
But to be so thoroughly stitched up, without any idea who was behind it or even what he’d done to deserve it? It was so tremendously, appallingly unfair that it made his blood boil.
“I can’t run anymore,” he murmured.
“What’d you say?” asked Malvery.
He surged to his feet, knocking his flagon aside with the back of his hand, his voice rising to a shout. “I said I can’t run anymore!” He snatched up the broadsheet and flung it away, pointing after it. “There’s nowhere I can go that she won’t find me! She’ll never stop! Now, I’m a man well accustomed to being shat on by fate, but everyone has their limits and I’ve bloody well reached mine!”
The others stared at him as if he was mad. But he wasn’t mad. Suddenly he felt inspired, empowered, alive! Swept up in the excitement of a resolution, Frey thundered on.
“I’m damned if I’m going to run halfway round the planet to get away from these people! I’m damned if I’m going to hang for a crime without even knowing what I’ve done! And I’m damned if I’m going to rot out the rest of my days in some icebound wasteland!” He pounded his fist down on the table. “There is one person who might know who’s behind all this: that brass-eyed bastard who gave me the