who mysteriously disappeared ten years ago and had never been reliably sighted since. Other famous pirates who were no longer around were often said to have retired to Retribution Falls. It made a more romantic story than a slow death by syphilis or alcoholism, or being murdered in the night by your own crew.
But that was all it was: a story. Orkmund was dead. The other pirates were dead. Retribution Falls was a myth.
Pinn saw that nobody was taking up his idea and began to sulk. Frey returned to the same obsessive thoughts that had been keeping him up at night.
New Vardia. Maybe he could go to New Vardia. Leave the fighters behind.
The idea wasn’t appealing. It was a long and dangerous journey to the other side of the world, and once there, there was nowhere to hide. A few small settlements. A frontier lifestyle, lived without luxuries. If his pursuers tracked him to New Vardia, he’d be easily caught.
He ticked off options in his head. Samarla? They wouldn’t last two days, and Silo would never go. Thace? They’d be caught and deported if they tried to stay. Thacians were very defensive of their little utopia. Kurg? Populated by monsters.
Of the countries this side of the Great Storm Belt, only Yortland provided a haven, and it was a cold and bitter one, entirely too close to Vardia. They couldn’t hide there for ever. Not with the Century Knights and Trinica Dracken on their tail.
His eyes fell to the broadsheet spread out on the table. Bitterness curdled in his guts. The sanctimonious tone of the writer, exulting in Frey’s imminent downfall, enraged him. The memory of Crake’s snide dismissal made him grit his teeth. The picture of himself smiling out from the page inspired a deep and intolerable hatred. That they should use that picture. That one!
This was too much. He could take the vagaries of chance that robbed him at cards time and again. He could handle the knowledge that his best efforts at self-improvement were doomed to be thwarted by some indistinct, omnipotent force. He could live with the fact that he was captain of a crew who were only staying with him because they had nowhere else to go.
But to be so thoroughly stitched up, without any idea who was behind it or even what he’d done to deserve it? It was so tremendously, appallingly unfair that it made his blood boil.
‘I can’t run any more,’ he murmured.
‘What’d you say?’ asked Malvery.
He surged to his feet, knocking his flagon aside with the back of his hand, his voice rising to a shout. ‘I said I can’t run any more!’ He snatched up the broadsheet and flung it away, pointing after it. ‘There’s nowhere I can go that she won’t find me! She’ll never stop! Now I’m a man well accustomed to being shat on by fate, but everyone has their limits and I’ve bloody well reached mine!’
The others stared at him as if he was mad. But he wasn’t mad. Suddenly, he felt inspired, empowered, alive! Swept up in the excitement of a resolution, Frey thundered on.
‘I’m damned if I’m going to run halfway round the planet to get away from these people! I’m damned if I’m going to hang for a crime without even knowing what I’ve done! And I’m damned if I’m going to rot out the rest of my days in some icebound wasteland!’ He pounded his fist down on the table. ‘There is one person who might know who’s behind all this. That brass-eyed bastard who gave me the tip: Xandian Quail. We all know his kind never reveal their sources, but he made one big mistake. He left me nothing else to lose. So I’m gonna go back. I’m gonna head right back there even if the whole bloody country is looking for me and I’m gonna find out who did this! I’ll make them sorry they ever heard the name of Darian Frey!’ He thrust his fist in the air. ‘Who’s with me ?’
Malvery, Pinn and Harkins gaped at him. Silo watched him inscrutably. The bartender cleaned flagons. The only sound in the silence that followed was the squeak of cloth against pewter.
‘Oh,
