Far Called Trilogy 01 - In Dark Service (67 page)

‘Don’t kill Willow,’ pleaded Carter. ‘You want to shoot me, go ahead – but Willow isn’t going to betray you. Kerge won’t snitch either… his people are so strange, no worker would listen if he did.’

Carter felt Willow squeeze his hand. ‘Don’t you make promises for me, Carter Carnehan, not to these filthy traitors.’

‘Nor on my behalf,’ said Kerge. ‘If I can talk plainly enough for you to comprehend me, manling.’

‘It’s ironic isn’t it?’ said Anna. She turned the pistol towards Carter’s head. ‘You arrived here having promised my brother you’d take care of me, and here I am going to take care of you. Nothing personal in this, Northhaven.’

‘Wait a minute!’ barked Owen. He pointed towards Willow. ‘Why did you call us traitors?’

‘What else should I call you?’ said Willow. ‘Selling out your own people to the Vandians for extra rations and light duties.’

‘Or maybe you’re the Vandian infiltrators people in the barracks whisper about,’ spat Carter. ‘That wouldn’t make it treachery – you’re just doing your bit to make your foul, fat emperor even richer.’

‘We’re not traitors!’ said Owen.

Carter raised his fist at the man. ‘Maybe you’re a knitting circle after all, then? Crawling into the dark to swap tunic patterns? I’ve been following you for weeks; seeing who you meet and how you operate. You overheard me talking about the escape. You made sure a tracking beacon was hidden on my transporter. And when we ran for freedom, your masters in the slave patrol were waiting to gun us down in cold blood. Good Weyland blood shed, so you and your friends survive while the rest of us waste away. I’ve buried our people, one body at a time. So it really doesn’t matter to me if you were born in the imperium or born back home.’

Anna’s pistol trembled in her hand. ‘You said you knew who Owen is. What’s going on here?’

‘Damn fools,’ swore Owen. ‘They’re not here to claim the reward. You really don’t know what’s going on here, do you?’

‘You always did like the sound of your own voice,’ said Carter. By his side, Willow appeared equally puzzled. ‘But damned if I know what you’re talking about. What reward?’

‘The reward on bushy tail’s head here, if someone snitches on him to the Vandians,’ said Anna. ‘Hands him over to the imperium.’

The other conspirators shifted uneasily, even the sorting line’s overseer, Kassina Hedgepeth. She spoke up. ‘Every few years we have to get rid of someone who works out the truth and decides that there’s a deal to be done if they head to the radio room and blab to the imperials.’ Kassina pointed to one of the men holding a club. ‘That’s why Burnet is in the circle. He works in the radio centre. Sending out supply requests and monitoring what the snitches are broadcasting back to the empire.’

‘I frequently find myself confused by your nation’s irrational beliefs and unpredictability,’ said Kerge. ‘But in this matter, you have truly surpassed my understanding.’

‘I’m with him,’ said Carter. ‘What in God’s name are you talking about?’

‘Maybe we should kill them anyway,’ said Burnet. ‘How do we know they won’t talk?’

‘The same could have been said of you, once,’ said Owen. ‘We have fallen far, but not so far as to take innocent lives.’ He stared at Duncan, Willow and Kerge and sighed deeply. ‘Sit down. We will talk of why we are here. You and I, and all of the slaves from Weyland working and dying in the sky mines.’ Carter did as the man ordered, Willow following hesitantly along with the gask. He noticed that Anna still kept her ancient pistol to hand, though.

‘Years ago, when I was a child, agents of the imperium arrived in Weyland,’ said Owen. ‘They had a deal to offer our king: large amounts of metal and other resources in return for the one thing our country had in abundance… human flesh. Slaves. The pact had to be secret to prevent the king from being strung up by mobs of his understandably disappointed subjects. Weyland was to be treated like a chicken coop, the empire’s licensed raiders dipping their scaly hands in for fresh meat whenever the imperium needed labour. The pact would last for twenty years. Slave raids would be unopposed by the military and news of the attacks kept as quiet as possible. Then the slavers would move on to another nation that had been bribed to offer human sacrifices in return for a tiny sliver of the imperium’s vast wealth. Weyland would be left rich… if slightly poorer in population.’

‘What are you talking about?’ spat Carter. ‘We’re a member of the league. If the navy finds a ship carrying slaves we free them and burn the damn boat!’

‘And Weyland’s king had much the same reaction. The imperium’s agents were thrown out on their ear and told never to return on pain of death. If any slavers given letters of marque by the empire dared to darken our skies, Weyland would invoke the pact of the league. To attack one is to attack all. The Rodalian skyguard would be ordered to pursue every hostile carrier violating our airspace; our cities and towns would be transformed into armed camps, protecting every prefecture as best it could.’

‘That was not the Northhaven I was raised in,’ said Willow.

‘It would have been,’ said Owen. ‘But the king’s brother heard about the terms of the deal. And when he did, he thought the king a sentimental fool. Let us be kind, maybe the brother told himself that with such resources at his command he could industrialise the country. Bring a similar standard of living to Weyland enjoyed by the richer countries of the south. And all he had to do was to make sure that the king and his more “immediate” heirs to the throne died in an avalanche, when such accidents were common in winter. He didn’t even need the help of the Vandians’ network of spies to arrange it. The royal guardsmen on duty were the brother’s men, the rest of the staff at the winter lodge either bribed or silenced.’

‘You’re talking about the
last
king,’ said Carter.

‘And the brother is the man we now call King Marcus.’

‘So that’s why we’re here?’ said Carter, furiously. ‘Why our regiment was out at sea on manoeuvres with the navy and the skyguard when the skels attacked us? Traded like horse flesh on market day by our own damn ruler!’

‘Look on it as Weyland’s small contribution to running the sky mines,’ said Owen, irony but no trace of humour in his voice. ‘Repaid in kind by the imperium, and all for the greater good.’

‘How can you be so certain of this?’ demanded Kerge.

‘Because there were three survivors of the avalanche,’ said Owen. ‘Three young boy princes. They were discovered long after they should have been dead, by a guardsman who was a little less bribed and corrupt than the rest of his company. He couldn’t let the children live, but he couldn’t bring himself to slit their throats either. So he washed his hands by arranging for them to be in the next town raided by the skels, after which they would never be heard of again.’

Carter could hardly bring himself to ask the next question. ‘And…?’

‘Two of the princes died when the last sky mine was blown apart. Sabotaged, in all likelihood, by Helrena’s rivals.’

‘And the third,’ said Anna, ‘is protected by a circle of loyal Weylanders who keep his identity hidden. From traitors and snitches. From the Vandians who’d execute him in a second if they ever realised who he really was. The same circle who try to make sure we don’t all die out here from hunger and overwork; say, by trying damn fool escape attempts with not a chance of success.’

‘We didn’t betray your escape, Carter,’ said Owen. ‘I warned you off it because it was obvious you were going to get yourself killed and bring punishment down on the rest of the station. Nobody can cross the dead zone in a transporter. The volcano’s plains are littered with the bones of slaves who spent their final days drinking engine oil.’

Carter looked around the small cavern in shock. At these people who had survived against all the odds inside the sky mines for so long, ragged and hungry, but still bound together with a singular purpose.

‘So, Mister Carnehan,’ said Owen. ‘That’s why we are here. Both in the narrow sense of this cave and the wider sense of our predicament as slaves of the imperium. And that is the nature of the conspiracy you have unravelled so keenly. What do you have to say?’

Carter fell to his knee and bowed down before Owen, Willow touching the rock by his side. Not before Owen Paterson, but before Owen Hawkins. The true King of Weyland. ‘Your
Majesty
.’

Duncan remembered the advice of the territorial regiment training sergeant as the assassin closed in on him, the paltry electrical cable sparking in his hand his sole defence; the one way to disarm an expert knife fighter that an opponent never expected – mainly because the move was completely insane. He ignored the grunts and yells behind him as Cassandra and Paetro struggled against impossible numbers, lunging forward and feinting with the cable, using the split second of uncertainty to catch the assassin’s blade in his shoulder. Raw red pain flared as the dagger drove home, passing through his flesh and glancing against his scapular.
Better the shoulder than your heart
. His attacker couldn’t withdraw the blade quick enough to stop Duncan breaking the man’s hold on the hilt, then shoving the cable into the killer’s chest, the assassin’s turn to yell as Duncan hurled him backwards with a thousand volts coursing through his body. The killer hit the wall, pitching forward as the surge of energy dissipated, collapsing at the feet of his two clan brothers hauling a struggling, belligerent Doctor Horvak towards the plant lab. Their masks glanced down at their dead comrade, a goading present laid at their feet, before moving up towards Duncan. Both blades came up as one, signalling their contempt at delaying the inevitable just as the laboratory’s main entrance exploded. Duncan was thrown to the floor by the shockwave, the assassins scattered and the doctor’s bound form landing hard against him. Duncan’s ears rang like a cathedral bell tower in full peel, his vision blurred. His thumping mind tried to focus on a group of hoodsmen rushing into the room, their leader, Apolleon, converted from a sly courtier into a terrible fury, leaping and thrusting with twin daggers, disordered assassins falling to the secret police’s blades. Duncan could see from where he had collapsed that Paetro and Cassandra had also fallen to the floor.
From the blast, or put there by the assassins’ blades
?
Please let them be alive
. Duncan tried to pick himself up. Doctor Horvak’s body trapped his legs, the scientist moaning as Duncan attempted to push him off.
Not dead, not yet
. More murdisto joined the fray down the plant lab’s corridor, far enough from the blast to still be combat effective, three or four killers rushing the counterattack’s commander. Duncan must be badly concussed. Apolleon moved far too fast, his daggers growing longer, becoming part of his arms, twin sabre limbs, impaling and decapitating men quicker than Duncan’s blinking eyes could comprehend. Murdisto assailants fell away, cut apart by the crazed butcher. Duncan finally managed to wriggle out from beneath the doctor and crawled towards Cassandra, the boots of Apolleon’s men dancing by his side as they thrust and parried with assassins, corpses from both sides tumbling around him as he inched towards the young girl. The house’s defenders finally turned the assault, pushing the raiders back down the corridor, a distant whine of the assassins’ shields deflecting knife and sword strikes, howls and cries as they retreated. Duncan reached Cassandra and rested the back of his hand against her mouth. He could feel the intermittent sigh of warm breath.
Still alive!
He ran his hands across her body. All the blood on Cassandra’s clothes appeared to belong to the assassins rather than the young noblewoman.

Paetro emerged out of the blurred edge of Duncan’s vision, bleeding from multiple wounds. ‘She lives?’

‘Yes,’ coughed Duncan, his throat on fire as though he had swallowed the explosion.

‘Thank the stars!’ gasped Paetro.

Duncan turned to gaze behind him. Apolleon knelt beside one of the assassins. And Duncan swore that for a brief second the nobleman’s right hand had been a silvery spike withdrawing from the corpse’s skull. He blinked, not believing the evidence of his eyes. When Duncan looked again the secret police chief appeared as normal as any of them. Two of his hoodsmen held Doctor Horvak in their arms, keeping him upright while they cut the bonds from the stunned doctor’s hands. A team of medics ran in and began carefully examining the scientist. Shots sounded from the direction of the greenhouse, the slow measured burst of an execution being carried out.

‘Don’t you want to interrogate the prisoners?’ said Paetro.

‘They don’t have tongues I can order pulled out. I know all I need to know,’ said Apolleon. ‘Circae does not understand the game she is playing. But she
will
.’

Duncan thought of the nobleman’s twisted hand, reaching deep inside the corpse’s skull. Could a dead man’s mind cling to his secrets, before he became food for the worms?
I know all I need to know
. What manner of dark sorcery probed a mind so easily?

Paetro stalked out to the plant laboratory, returning seconds later with the news that the officer he had been trading insults with had fled down the rappel line. Then he limped back towards Duncan and Cassandra. ‘You arrived just in time to save the young Highness, my lord Apolleon. Another few seconds and we could have been measured for burial shrouds.’

Apolleon looked down at the young noblewoman, as if noticing her for the first time. ‘Of course.’ He turned to the medics attending Doctor Horvak. ‘The doctor is uninjured. See to
her
, you dolts.’ He turned to Paetro and Duncan. ‘But you are too modest; we only just arrived in time to finish off the raiders. This valiant defence was led by Lady Cassandra’s gallant tutor and her staff.’ He announced his verdict as though rewriting history, before staring sadly at the bodies of the two lab assistants. ‘And many of you paid the price with your lives.’ There was something about the way he said it that made Duncan’s skin crawl. As though the two men had been ants scraped off the underside of his boot.

Paetro picked his pistol up from the floor. ‘Aye, we merely did the duty we were sworn to.’