you bloody well tell me what’s going on back there?!’ Frey exploded, unable to bear the tension any more.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Crake. He grinned. ‘The doc stopped the bleeding and got the bullet out. He says the patient is going to be alright.’
Jez gasped and gave a little clap, a surprisingly girlish reaction from someone Frey had come to think of as rather unfeminine. Frey slumped back into his seat with a sigh, and a huge sense of relaxation spread through his body. Exhaustion and relief piled in together. At last, it was over. A broad smile spread across his face. Crake laughed and slapped him on the shoulder, leaving a grotesque handprint there.
‘Good work, boys,’ Frey said. ‘Bloody good work.’
‘Well, I’ve got to go and help Malvery finish up,’ said Crake. ‘Just thought I’d let you know.’ He disappeared down the passageway again and into the infirmary.
‘We’re here, Cap’n,’ said Jez. ‘All stop. You can start ascending now.’
Frey brought the Ketty Jay to a halt and set her rising through the fog. The haze gradually thinned and the darkness brightened by degrees. The flanks of the mountains became discernible again as forbidding slabs of shadow.
Frey looked up. A smile was still on his lips. Up there was light and freedom. Up there was the prospect of a new life, a luxurious life, one financed with the chest full of Awakener gold they’d stolen from Orkmund. Up there was a second chance for all of them.
‘Never seen you smiling like that, Cap’n,’ Jez said.
‘It’s just, for once, I really feel that everything’s going to be okay.’
Then they broke free of the mist, and a shattering explosion hammered the Ketty Jay, filling the cockpit with dazzling light, shaking them about like rag dolls.
When no further explosion came, Frey blinked away the shock and pulled himself back into his seat.
A swarm of Norbury Equalisers surrounded them. Looming ahead of them, with all of its considerable arsenal trained on the Ketty Jay, was the Delirium Trigger.
Frey blew out his cheeks and huffed a sigh of resignation. ‘Bollocks!’
Thirty-Nine
‘
A cold wind chased puffs of grey ash across the Blackendraft plains. Frey’s coat flapped restlessly. Bleak horizons encircled them. Overhead, the sky was the colour of an anvil. The Delirium Trigger hung at anchor a short distance away, its hard, cruel lines stark against the emptiness.
The crew of the Ketty Jay stood in a row at the bottom of the cargo ramp. Pinn and Harkins had grounded their craft and been rounded up. Silo, Bess and Slag were missing. Silo was still in the infirmary. Crake had put Bess to sleep to prevent her going berserk and getting them all killed. Slag had vanished into the vents and airways, on some mysterious errand of his own. Nothing would ever separate him from his aircraft.
Facing them was Trinica Dracken and a dozen men from the Delirium Trigger. The men covered Frey and his crew with their pistols while Trinica looked down into the red-lacquered chest that sat at her feet. She stared at the wealth within for a long time, but her ghost-white face and unnatural black eyes revealed nothing of what she was thinking. Finally, she looked up.
‘You did well, Darian,’ she said. ‘Kind of you to carry this all the way from Orkmund’s stronghold, just for me.’
Pinn muttered something unsavoury under his breath. Malvery clipped him round the ear.
‘I
