unbearable: the broken planes of his nose, the pattern of tattoos over his neck, skull and arms. This man had pulled the trigger that sent the bullet into Silo’s chest. Maybe the quiet Murthian was already dead. Maybe he was even now gasping his last. The one thing worse than the fact that Orkmund had shot him was the fact that he was now preventing Frey from doing anything about it. Every minute was a minute his friend could be bleeding out. Every minute could be the one that ended him.
Silo had taken a bullet for him. He was damned if he’d have that man’s death on his conscience for the rest of his life.
Had it not been for the cutlass Crake had given him, the wildness of his attack would have seen him dead at the hands of a swordsman like Orkmund. But with the blade guiding itself, and his murderous strength behind it, he became formidable. Orkmund parried and blocked, but Frey’s blows were so vicious that he could barely hold on to his weapon. Steel rang again and again, punctuating the distant explosions.
Then Frey’s hands were wrenched back, and his cutlass withdrew of its own volition, in preparation for a mighty strike. Frey panicked, struggling against the wishes of his own blade: he’d been left wide open. Orkmund, seeing the advantage, thrust inside Frey’s guard to skewer him. But then Frey’s cutlass twisted impossibly, almost breaking his wrist as it did so, and Frey felt the blade cut through meat and bone.
Orkmund’s cutlass clattered noisily to the floor. The pirate captain staggered back a step, dazed, gazing at the severed stump of his forearm. Blood fountained with the pulse of his heart. White-faced, he stared at Frey in disbelief.
Frey gritted his teeth and ran him through.
The square in front of Orkmund’s stronghold had become a battle-ground. Shells pounded the grey sky and gunfire cracked and snapped all around. A lumbering pirate frigate was cruising slowly overhead, terrifyingly low and close, its cannons bellowing as it fired at distant Navy frigates. The return barrage exploded deafeningly above the square. Stray artillery ploughed into the town itself, demolishing whatever it hit. A row of buildings along one side of the square had dissolved into rubble and slumped inward after one such misplaced shell.
In the centre of the square sat the Ketty Jay. Its cargo ramp was open and guarded by Bess. Its crew had taken cover inside the mouth of the hold or behind the hydraulic struts, firing on anyone who came close. Pinn and Harkins hovered in support, laying down machine-gun fire from their fighter craft, staying just high enough to avoid potshots from below.
An increasingly desperate group of pirates were shooting from the cover of the rubble. The square was scattered with the bodies of those who had already tried to rush the craft, seeing the Ketty Jay as their only hope of escaping the cataclysm around them.
Frey hurried through the gates of Orkmund’s stronghold with Silo on his back, heedless of the gunfire criss-crossing the air. The ground shook beneath his feet; there was a vast groan of metal from deep below. It felt like the platform they were on might collapse at any moment. He ran low and hunched over in an attempt to keep the Murthian from sliding off. Jez called out at the sight of him and the crew redoubled their fire, keeping the pirates’ heads down as their captain came closer.
Frey was exhausted, running on adrenaline alone. The constant noise of the explosions, the effort of carrying almost ninety kilos of dead weight on his back, and the emotional shock of the past few minutes had put him into a shallow trance. He hardly noticed when a shell obliterated one of the buildings nearby, spraying him with stone chips and pushing him sideways with the force. He staggered, corrected himself, and ran doggedly onward.
Bullets whined past. He didn’t know if they were meant for him. All he wanted was to get to the Ketty Jay.
He stumbled onto the ramp and was met by helping hands from Malvery and Jez, propelling him up into the dim safety of the hold. Bess stepped back onto the ramp, surveying the square threateningly, and Crake pulled the lever to raise it. The pirates screamed with frustration as they saw their chance of escape narrowing, but none of them dared to take on the golem.
All Frey wanted to do was lie down and sleep, but he didn’t have that luxury. He hardened his resolve. This wasn’t over yet.
