Retribution Falls (36 page)

The canyon emptied out into a colossal, gloomy sinkhole, a dozen kloms wide, where the ground dropped seventy metres to a water-logged marsh. Streams from all over the mountains, unable to find another way out, ended up here, tipping over the edge in thin waterfalls. Mineral slurry and volcanic sludge, washed down from distant vents, stained the surface of the marsh with metallic slicks of orange, green or blue. Ill-looking plants choked the water. The air smelled acidic and faintly eggy.

But here, in this festering place, was a town.

It was built from wood and rusting metal, a ramshackle sprawl that had evolved without thought to plan or purpose. Most of it was set on platforms that rose out of the water, supported by a scaffolding of girders. The rest was built on what little land the marsh had to offer: soggy banks and hummocks. Each part was linked by bridges to its neighbours, and lit by strings of electric lamps that hung haphazardly across the thoroughfares.

The buildings varied wildly in quality. Some wouldn’t have looked out of place on a country estate in the tropical south. Others had been thrown together with whatever could be found or brought from the outside. They were made of wood and stone, with slate or corrugated iron roofs. Parts of the settlement were a cluster of shanty-town huts, barely fit for habitation, whereas others were more organised and showed an architect’s touch.

Then there were the aircraft. There had to be two hundred or more, crowding around the town. Frigates floated at anchor, secured by strong chains to stop them drifting. Smaller craft ferried their crews to and from the ground. There was one enormous landing pad, occupying the biggest land mass in the marsh, but even that was nowhere near adequate to cope with the number of craft berthed here. Several large landing pads lay on the surface of the marsh. They were temporary-looking things, buoyed up by flaking aerium tanks filled from portable engines to prevent the pads from sinking.

Frey stared at the multitude. He saw freighters, barques, fighters of all description, double-hulled caravels, ironclads, monitors and corvettes. The air above the town was busy with craft taking off and setting down, a restless to and fro. A Rainbird-class hunter-killer, sleek and vicious, slipped past them to their starboard and headed into the canyon they’d just exited.

‘That’s a bit more than just a hideout,’ Malvery murmured, amazed. ‘There’s a whole bloody port down here.’

And suddenly Frey knew where he was. Nothing else matched the picture. He’d always believed this place was a myth, a wistful dream for freebooters all over Vardia. But now it was laid out before his eyes; decaying, shabby, but undoubtedly real. The legendary pirate town, hidden from the Coalition Navy and ruled by the famed pirate Orkmund.

Retribution Falls.

Frey could see no indication of where he was supposed to land, no spotlights to guide him in, so he squeezed into a vacant spot on the main pad. When he and his crew opened the cargo ramp to disembark they found someone waiting for them. He was tall and doughy around the belly and face, with one lazy eye and a gormless smile.

‘You signed in yet?’ he asked Frey.

Frey was momentarily lost for an answer. The man had just watched them set down. He considered asking how he might possibly have got to the dock master’s office and back while still in mid-air, but eventually he settled on an easier response.

‘No.’

‘You should sign in. Orkmund’s orders.’

Frey felt a thrill of excitement at the name. That settled it. This was Retribution Falls alright.

‘Where’s the dock master?’

‘You the captain?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Follow me, I’ll take you.’

Frey told the others to wait by the Ketty Jay, and then trailed after the man towards the dock master’s office. It was a grim, low-ceilinged affair, more like a large shed than an administrative building. Dirty windows were divided into small rectangular panes. The door stuck and had to be wrenched open: the frame had warped in the dank air.

Inside, the gloom was barely leavened by a single oil lantern. The dock master - a thin, old man with a pinched face - was hunched over a desk, writing with a pen. On the other side of the room was a lectern, where a huge book lay open. It was full of names and dates.

Frey waited to be noticed. The man with the lazy eye waited with him. The smell from the swamp lingered in the nostrils, faintly disgusting. Frey suspected that the locals didn’t notice it any more.

After a short time, the dock master looked up. ‘Well, sign in, then!’ he snapped, indicating the book on the lectern. ‘Olric, honestly! Why don’t you just tell him to sign in?’

Olric looked shamefaced. Frey went over to the book and picked up the pen that lay next to it. He scanned over the entries. Each line bore the name of a captain, the name of an aircraft, and the date and time of arrival and, in some cases, departure. At the bottom of each double page the dock master had signed his name and title in crabbed script.

He flicked back a few pages, idly searching for someone he knew. Maybe Trinica would be in here.

‘Busy recently, aren’t you?’ he commented. ‘You usually get this much traffic?’

‘Just sign,’ the dock master said impatiently, not looking up from his records.

Frey’s decision to confine most of the crew to the craft wasn’t popular with one man in particular.

‘You stinking bastard, Frey!’ Pinn cried. ‘You didn’t even believe Retribution Falls existed until now! I told you we should come here when we were back in Yortland, but oh, no! You thought: let’s all laugh at Pinn! Well I called it right, and I deserve to come.’

‘Shut your fat meat-hole, Pinn,’ Malvery said. ‘Cap’n’s given you an order.’

‘Oh really? Well he can stuff it up his arse with all the other orders he’s given me!’

Frey looked at Silo. ‘If he tries to leave, shoot him,’ he said, only half-joking.

‘Cap’n,’ Silo replied, priming his shotgun with a crunch.

Pinn looked around at the rest of the crew, finding no support, and then stamped back into the depths of the craft, muttering mutinously.

‘Jez, Malvery, come on,’ he said. ‘We keep a low profile, have a look around, keep our ears open. And don’t anybody call me anything but Cap’n, okay? I don’t want to hear my name spoken outside of the Ketty Jay.’

‘Right-o.’

‘Everyone got revolvers? Good. You never know.’

They headed across the landing pad towards the bridge to the town. Frey was rather pleased with himself for standing firm against Pinn’s outburst. Pinn was envisioning a night out in this pirate haven, but Frey needed to be able to effect a quick escape if necessary, without the need to go searching under bar tables for his drunken crew. Taking the whole group out would be like trying to herd cats.

He reviewed the tactics behind his choice of landing party. Separating Malvery and Pinn was the key. Pinn wouldn’t cause any trouble without the doctor’s back-up, and since Malvery was coming along, he didn’t care what happened to Pinn. Malvery was useful muscle and had a bluff charm that would play well, but the two of them together in a place like Retribution Falls would result in alcoholic carnage, sure as bird shit on statues.

Jez would also be useful. She was smart, observant, and she had eyes like a hawk. Plus she was the only sensible one among them. He didn’t count Crake. Crake dealt with daemons: nobody could say that was sensible.

But he had an ulterior motive in bringing Jez. He wanted to keep an eye on her. As grateful as he was that she’d saved their lives, he was suspicious. It puzzled him that the fumes hadn’t seemed to affect her, and her explanation was weak. He didn’t want to leave her alone on his aircraft. Not now she knew the ignition code. He wasn’t so sure he trusted her.

The others wouldn’t mind staying on the Ketty Jay. Crake, as he was never a freebooter, didn’t understand the legend and allure of Retribution Falls. He had no desire to see the place. Harkins didn’t like crowds or strangers. He’d rather be secure in his quarters, living in terror of the cat, who would wait for him to fall asleep before trying to suffocate him. And it would be too dangerous to take Silo. A Murthian would attract unwanted and hostile attention in a town like this. Besides, Silo had work to do. He needed to check over the Ketty Jay and repair any damage from the mines.

All in all, he had the whole thing figured out.

Not bad, Frey, he thought. That’s the sort of thinking a real captain does. That’s how to handle a crew.

He was in the mood for self-congratulation, despite his near-catastrophic failure to lead them through Rook’s Boneyard. The triumph of finding Retribution Falls outweighed all that. This must have been how Cruwen and Skale felt when they discovered New Vardia. He was an explorer now. Whatever happened after this, he had to admit, he felt more . . . well, more like a man than he ever had before.

In that moment when he pressed down on his guns and blew the Ace of Skulls into a flaming ruin, his life as he knew it had ended. Every day since then had been one clawed back. He’d been forced to fight every step. It was exhausting, and terrifying, and most of the time he hated it. But just sometimes, when he could snatch a rare instant of peace amid the chaos, he felt different. He felt good about himself. And it had been a long, long time since he’d felt like that.

They took the bridge from the landing pad to the nearest platform, and discovered that Retribution Falls was even more unpleasant up close, and a far cry from the legends.

The narrow streets were weathered and worn beyond their years. The marsh air ate through metal, twisted wood, and brought mould to stone. Everything flaked and peeled. Generators buzzed and reeked, providing the power for the lights that hung on wires overhead to stave off the gloom. It was cold, yet their clothes became damp and stuck to them. The smell of the marsh mingled with that of a thousand unwashed bodies.

Retribution Falls was stuffed with every kind of pirate, smuggler, fraudster and criminal that Frey could imagine. Every pub and inn was crammed to capacity. The streets were choked, the whores hollow-eyed and exhausted. Inside, the humidity and the heat of dozens of bodies made things uncomfortable. Drunken men with short tempers fought hard. Guns were drawn, and bodies fell.

There was a wildness here that he found frightening. It was a jostling, stinking pandemonium of rotted teeth and leering faces. Danger surrounded them. He found he actually missed the spectre of the militia. He liked his illegal doings to be conducted within the safety of an orderly civilisation. Total lawlessness meant survival based on strength or cunning, and Frey didn’t have too much of either.

They passed raucous bars and stepped over men lying in the thoroughfares, rum-soaked, unconscious and recently robbed. Malvery eyed up the bars as they passed, but without Pinn as his accomplice, he behaved himself and stuck close to his captain. Occasionally he’d shove someone out of their path; his size and fierce glare discouraged arguments.

‘Not quite the utopia I’d envisioned, Cap’n,’ Jez murmured.

Frey didn’t quite understand what she meant by ‘utopia’ - it sounded like one of Crake’s words - but he got the idea.

‘All those craft, all these people,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t it seem like there’s far more pirates here than this place was built to hold?’

‘Certainly does,’ she said.

‘And what does that say to you?’

‘Says they’re being gathered here for something.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ he replied.

The market was a little less crowded than the streets and bars, but not by much. It sat on a platform all of its own, linked by bridges to several of its neighbours. Oil lamps hung from the awnings of rickety stalls, adding a smoky tang to the already fouled air. Their flickering light mixed uneasily with the electric bulbs hanging overhead, casting a strange glow on the heaving sea of faces that surged beneath.

Malvery pushed his way through the crowd, with Frey and Jez following in his slipstream. The stalls they passed were guarded by shotgun-wielding heavies. There were all manner of wares for sale: trinkets and knick-knacks, hardware, boots and coats, navigational charts. Dubious fried meats were offered to hungry shoppers, and someone was roasting chestnuts nearby. The noise of yelled conversation was deafening.

‘You get the impression that this has all got a little out of control?’ Jez screamed in Frey’s ear.

Frey didn’t hear what she said, so he nodded as if he agreed, and then replied, ‘I think whoever’s running this show, they’ve let things get a bit out of control!’

Jez, who also hadn’t heard him, said, ‘Definitely!’

Frey spotted a stall on the edge of the market platform, where the traffic wasn’t quite so oppressive and it was possible to see the darkening marsh in the background. One of several signs that hung from its pole-and-canvas frontage declared:

Breathe the Free Aire! Filters 8 Shillies!

He tapped Malvery on the shoulder and steered him over. The storekeeper saw them coming and perked up. He was a thin, ginger-haired man with an enormous, puckered patch of scar tissue that ran across one side of his face. It looked like he’d been mauled by a bear.

‘How did you get that?’ Frey asked conversationally, indicating the scar.

‘How did I get what?’ the storekeeper asked, genuinely puzzled.

Frey thought a moment and then let it drop. ‘These filters you’re selling. They’d protect us against the bad air in the canyons?’

The storekeeper grinned. ‘Guaranteed. Did your old ones let you down?’

‘Something like that.’

‘That’s rough, friend. Well, you can rely on these.’ He pulled one out of a crate behind him and put it on. It was a black metal oval with several breathing-slits that fitted over the mouth and nose, secured over the head by a strip of leather. ‘Wo wetter n orb wetwibooshun bawls.’

‘What?’

The shopkeeper took off the mask. ‘I said, no better in all Retribution Falls.’

‘Okay. I need seven.’

‘Eight,’ Jez corrected. When Frey and Malvery both looked at her, she said: ‘The cat.’

‘Right,’ said Frey. ‘Eight. Give me a discount.’