CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Steady. Steady,’ Drekki said. ‘We’re not here to do anything other than to claim salvage rights, Artycle–’
‘Don’t you quote the funti Code at me, you thieving bozdok,’ the duardin snarled. He squeezed Uzki harder.
‘He’s strangling me!’ gasped Uzki.
‘Well I might! Mhornar did this! Blew up the endrins,’ the duardin barked.
‘Master endrineer, we’re not from Mhornar.’
The duardin thumbed off the safety mechanism of his gun. Drekki spoke faster.
‘We’re from Barak-Thrund, here in the Skyshoals!’
‘Liar. This one’s from Mhornar, he has the pasty look of a mist skulker.’
‘Uzki is, that’s true. We have been there recently. But we’re from Thrund ourselves. We had nothing to do with whatever happened here.’
The monkey glared at them with dead-button eyes. The other duardin looked uncertain.
‘Thrund Kharadron are dark-skinned,’ he said.
‘By that measure, you can see that Adrimm here hails from Thrund.’
‘Aye, maybe he does.’ He jabbed his gun towards Drekki. ‘Show me your face. Let’s see if that’s true for you.’
‘Obligingly,’ said Drekki.
‘Slowly!’ growled the duardin.
Drekki took off his helmet, tucked it under one arm, then flipped out his brilliant white beard from his suit with his free hand, a motion so habitual he didn’t realise he was doing it. The gold ornaments on his braids tinkled on his armour.
‘I said slowly!’
‘Ooooh-oooh aaaah!’ the monkey shrieked, or words to that effect.
‘Force of habit,’ Drekki said.
‘And him too! Slowly!’ The duardin jabbed his gun at Kedren. ‘I don’t like the look of him one bit.’
Kedren slowly took off his helm, revealing his ruddy features.
‘Ah, he’s no Kharadron at all, but Dispossessed, a runesmith of the old blood of the karaks,’ Drekki explained. ‘I favour an eclectic crew.’ He smiled. It didn’t do to show fear in situations like this.
‘Who are you?’ the duardin said.
Drekki grinned. ‘Why, I’m Drekki Flynt. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?’
‘Drekki Flynt?’ said the duardin. The barrels of the aethergun drooped a little. He lowered Uzki to the floor, though he didn’t let him go completely. The beardling took in a sucking breath. ‘The Drekki Flynt?’
Drekki smiled from ear to ear. ‘Well, so far as I know there is only the one, and I am he.’ He executed a fancy bow.
The duardin looked at him coldly.
‘Um, I don’t owe you money, do I?’ said Drekki.
‘We’ve never met. But I have heard of you. Drekki Flynt, eh?’ He rested his gun on his shoulder.
‘That’s better! Perhaps you might let my beardling go?’
‘No,’ said the duardin. He came forward, dragging Uzki with him. Now he wasn’t facing the business end of a volley gun, Drekki saw that the endrineer was missing two fingers as well as being blind in one eye. He looked Drekki up and down.
‘You’re not as tall as they make out. You look older too.’
‘Because I am older. Thirty years older. Why, Aelsling and I would have been at the start of our careers when Minoz went missing.’
‘Thirty years?’ the duardin said quietly. ‘Has it really been that long?’ His face hardened again. ‘Can you prove you are who you say? You could be anyone.’
‘Does anyone have this gun?’ said Drekki, pulling Karon slowly from her holster at his belt. ‘Karon. Named for me dear old ma, whose words were as sharp as bullets. See? Distinctive, ain’t she. Here’s the name.’ He rolled the gun over so the duardin could see the inscription on the grip. ‘I liberated this off Rogi Throkk. You must know that story.’
‘Daughter, ship and prototype gun, stolen from under his nose. Aye, everyone knows that one,’ said the endrineer. ‘Maybe it is you.’ His frown smoothed, though not completely. ‘Salvage, you say?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Then you’re not looking for me? This isn’t a rescue party?’
Drekki and Kedren shared a look.
‘Not exactly,’ said Drekki carefully.
‘No one’s looking for you,’ Kedren said. ‘We were looking for the barak, but we only knew that it survived because one of our crew fell into the Eye, and came out in the middle of the Dead Air. He saw it, got picked up, we found him, he told us. All by chance. We didn’t know that Barak-Minoz had survived before that.’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘Nobody knew,’ said Drekki. ‘That’s why you’ve been here so long. It was thought lost, with all hands.’
‘Surely you must have known. All the people. They got away.’ The endrineer’s face went hard. ‘I’ve heard some stories about you, Flynt. I also heard you’re a liar.’
‘There’s not been a single registered survivor from Barak-Minoz. Not anywhere. Come on now, please let Uzki go, he’s a harmless beardling.’
‘No survivors?’ The duardin’s face went ashen grey. He let his arm drop from Uzki’s neck. ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen.’
The beardling stumbled forward. Drekki caught him. The duardin moaned, and his hand went out to the wall.
‘You’re sure? No one?’
‘Not a one,’ said Drekki. ‘Only the aetherfleet crews came back to Nar. They said that they returned to Minoz and found it gone. They were none the wiser about what happened.’
The stranger slipped down to the floor.
‘All those dawi…’ He bowed his head. The ape scuttled closer in concern. The duardin took his little leathery hand in his own.
‘Who are you?’ Drekki asked gently. ‘Let’s finish our introduction, like civilised duardin.’
The duardin looked up, eyes red-rimmed, nose glowing with held-back tears.
‘I am Duzrekar, chief endrineer and last survivor of Barak-Minoz. Thank the brother gods you are here.’
‘What happened?’ Drekki asked, when the situation had calmed down. They’d pulled out the tailor’s chairs so they could sit, though there wasn’t one for Uzki.
‘Sabotage, pure and simple,’ said Duzrekar. ‘Though we thought it was an accident at first. They did it when our krontanker fleet were unloading the latest haul of aether for refining. There was an almighty bang. Before we knew it, we’d lost endrin five. Six went up a moment later. They knew what they were doing. They disengaged the fail-safes, hit us hard and fast when we were most vulnerable.’
He looked at his fingers. They were gloveless, seamed with oil.
‘That’s a big accusation, saying that the agents of one sky-port blew up the outpost of another,’ said Drekki.
‘I know it for a fact!’ Duzrekar said, revealing a sudden rage. It blew out as soon as it ignited, like an aetherlamp bursting. A flash, fire, then gone. ‘I’m sorry.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘I don’t know how to be around people any more. Thirty years…’
‘I’ve been shipwrecked, it’s not fun,’ said Drekki, though the longest that he’d been shipwrecked for was less than a week.
‘We mobilised everyone to save the city. I went down to the endrin rooms. That’s when I found it was no accident. There was an infiltration team, Mhornar bozdoks. I knew as soon as I saw them. They were disguised, course they were, but I knew. They were setting the bombs on endrin four when we came upon them. They cut down a dozen of my lads before we could even think – it was a runk[57] until we got ourselves back in order.’ He shook his head. ‘Worse fight I’ve ever been in. Duardin fighting duardin, shouldn’t happen. You ever fought another duardin?’
Drekki spread his hands and inclined his head. Of course he had.
‘Their leader was a good fighter. That’s how I lost this.’ Duzrekar pointed to his milky eye. ‘A slash from his cutter, and the light went out forever. He lost his life in return. When I got up, injured, blinded, everyone else was down. The saboteurs, and my lads, all of them, killed. I couldn’t see, not properly. Blood and gunk running down my face, I had no time to disarm the bombs. Twin gods forgive me, but I turned tail and ran out of the room while another of the endrins blew. It got most of the endrinriggers. When I got to the upper decks, lifeboats were going off everywhere. I saw the last launch, leaving me behind.’ He cast his gaze down. ‘Then more explosions, the Eye coming at me. It looks like water up close, purple water, racing. You know that?’
‘We have been very close to the Eye ourselves,’ said Adrimm.
‘Nothing to boast about,’ said Duzrekar, making Adrimm bristle. ‘So you know what it looks like. What you’ll not know is what it’s like to go through, like I did. Me, and this whole city. It felt like my mind was being ripped apart. When I came to, we were in this cloud of debris. The Dead Air. I have been ever since. I waited for someone to come, until I gave up hope. I never thought anyone would find me, but you did.’
‘You say we. Does that mean you’re not alone?’ asked Drekki. ‘Are there other survivors?’
Duzrekar’s expression darkened a moment. ‘There were a few of us to begin with. They didn’t last. So it’s been me and him,’ he said, nodding at the ape. ‘I found him one day on the deck, near starved to death. You get all kinds dropping in here from the Eye.’ He ruffled the hair under the ape’s chin, and Duzrekar’s hard demeanour softened. ‘My only companion. Arkarugen.’[58] The ape closed his eyes and purred happily. Uzki reached out a tentative hand.
‘Hey there, Arkarugen.’
The monkey bared his teeth and hissed.
Drekki pulled Uzki away. ‘Leave the nice monkey alone now.’
‘He’s just not used to you, that’s all,’ said Duzrekar.
‘I’m sure,’ said Drekki, eyeing the monkey’s teeth.
‘You’re a master endrineer!’ said Kedren, who was never one to leave a difficult question unasked. ‘You skybeards are always bragging about your skill with machines. This place is full of them. Why didn’t you do something to rescue yourself?’
‘You doubt me?’ Again there was a flash of that terrible anger. ‘We had the fight of our lives on our hands trying to keep this place a-faring. It was listing badly, way worse than this. Our whole endrinrigger corps taken out… We managed to get it level, keep it flying, then they came…’ Duzrekar’s face went tight, he shook his head. ‘As for the rest of this junk, it’s all beyond use, and the forges went in the explosion.’
Drekki, Kedren and Adrimm looked at each other. Adrimm bit his moustache nervously.
‘Are the stories true? Do you mean the dead?’
‘Aye, the dead. Nighthaunt. The tales are true. You’re fools to come here.’
‘We’re here now,’ said Drekki. ‘We’ll salvage as much aether as we can, then we’ll get you and ourselves out of here.’
Duzrekar’s head snapped back up. ‘We have to leave now.’
‘No can do, I’m afraid. I’ve a boatload of impoverished privateers who want some money. We took a lot of risks to get here.’
‘I for one am not leaving empty-handed,’ said Adrimm.
‘He’s not the only one to feel like that,’ said Kedren.
‘You fool. The Dead Air moves. You’ve got days, at best. If you knew what was coming, you’d forget all about aether-gold and flee! This place is heading out past the Perimeter Inimical.’
‘The perimeter… Oh, you skybeards,’ said Kedren, shaking his head. ‘What have you got me into this time?’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Are you calling me a liar, Captain Flynt?’ growled Duzrekar. ‘I’m sure. I’ve plotted this thing’s movements for the last decade. There’s a gate here, at the centre of the mass, a relic of the Age of Myth. You can’t see it, but it’s there. It’s unstable, and it translocates. It’s linked somehow to the Eye – I don’t know how, but I do know that the Dead Air moves around it. It gets closer to the edge of Chamon, then crosses it, then it all starts again.’
‘Cursed,’ said Adrimm. ‘Typical.’
Duzrekar got up. ‘You don’t know the least of it.’
‘What now?’ moaned Adrimm.
‘Night is coming. The dead will awaken soon. You need to come with me now, or you’ll be dead too.’