Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [56]
He reached over and flipped the final card.
The Ace of Skulls grinned at him.
Chapter Thirteen
FREY IS BELEAGUERED—A MYSTERIOUS AIRCRAFT—IMPERATORS
rey stumbled through the mountain pass, his coat clutched tight to his body, freezing rain lashing his face. The wind keened and skirled and pushed against him while he kept up the string of mumbled oaths and curses that had sustained him for several kloms now. On a good day, the Andusian Highlands at dawn could be described as dramatic—stunning, even—with their wild green slopes and deep lakes nestling between peaks of grim black rock. Today was not a good day.
Frey dearly wished for the sanctuary and comfort of his quarters. He remembered the grimy walls and cramped bunk with fondness, the luggage rack that ever threatened to snap and drop an avalanche of cases and trunks on his head. Such luxurious accommodation seemed a distant dream now, after hours of being pummeled by nature. He was woefully under-dressed to face the elements. His face felt like it had been flayed raw, and his teeth chattered constantly.
He lamented his bad luck at being caught out in the storm. So what if he’d set out completely unprepared? How could he have known the weather would turn bad? He couldn’t see the future.
It seemed as if days had passed since he left the Ketty Jay hidden in a dell. He couldn’t risk landing too close to his target for fear of being seen, so he put her down on the other side of a narrow mountain ridge. The journey through the pass should have taken five hours or so. Six at the most.
When he set off, the skies had been clear and the stars twinkling as the last light drained from the sky. There had been no hint of the storm to come. Malvery had waved him on his way with a cheery ta-ra and then taken a swig of rum to toast the success of his journey. Crake had been playing with the new toys he’d picked up in Aulenfay. Bess was having fun uprooting trees and tossing them around. Pinn had stolen the theatrical makeup pen that Frey had bought in the South Quarter and painted the Cipher on his forehead—the six connected spheres, icon of the Awakener faith. He was prancing around in the ill-fitting Awakener robes that had been tailored for Frey, pulling faces and acting the clown.
Frey had been unusually full of good cheer as he walked. All of them had come back from Aulenfay. Frey took that as a vote of confidence, even if the truth was they had no better alternatives. And despite the news of Hengar’s death looming over him, he felt positive. Bullying Quail had energized him. Having a name to put to the shadowy conspiracy against him gave him a direction and a purpose. He’d gotten so used to running away that he’d forgotten how it felt to fight back, and he was surprised to learn that he liked it.
Besides, he thought sunnily, things were about as bad as they could possibly get. After a certain point, it didn’t really matter if they hung him for piracy, mass murder, or for assassinating Earl Hengar, heir to the archduchy. He’d be just as dead, any way you cut it. That meant he could do pretty much whatever he liked from here on in.
His buoyant mood survived while the first ominous clouds came sliding in from the west, blacking out the moon. He remained persistently jolly as the first spots of rain touched his face. Then the howling wind began, which took the edge off his jauntiness a little. The rain became torrential; he got lost and then realized he had no map. By this time he’d begun to freeze and was desperately searching for shelter, but there was none to be found and, anyway, he didn’t have the supplies to wait out a really bad storm. He decided to keep going. Surely he was almost there by now?
He wasn’t.
Dawn found him exhausted and in bad shape. His face was as dark as the clouds overhead. He stumped along doggedly, head down, forging through the tempest. His good mood had evaporated as he got more and more soaked. It wasn’t positivity but spite that drove him