Only the metal cocoon of the Firecrow kept him together. The sense of safety it afforded stopped him panicking completely.
It seemed so long ago that they’d left the Firecrow hidden in a remote cave next to Pinn’s Skylance. The Cap’n had deemed it too dangerous to travel into Rook’s Boneyard in convoy. He’d been right: without masks, the deadly fumes from the lava river would have caused both Harkins and Pinn to crash.
Their fortunes hadn’t gone too well since then, though. The Firecrow was Harkins’ only security, and without it he was lost. He’d spent most of the subsequent days in blubbering fear; first hiding in the Ketty Jay so as not to venture into Retribution Falls, then trembling in Dracken’s brig on the Delirium Trigger, and later waiting to die in his cell at Mortengrace. Superstitiously, he blamed his bad luck on his separation from the Firecrow. He should never have deserted her. He wouldn’t do so again if he could help it.
Vast, angular shapes glided past to port and starboard like undersea leviathans. Smaller fighters hove between them, their lights bright bruises against the serene fog. Harkins made minute course corrections and fretted about a frigate clipping his wing and sending him spiralling to a fiery death.
The mines petered out after the lava river. Presumably the pirates reasoned that anyone without a compass to detect them would be dead by that point. He’d hoped that leaving the mines behind would ease the tension a little, but he found that it increased it instead. They were on the final leg of the journey. Soon they’d reach the enormous, marshy sinkhole where Retribution Falls lay. Soon the fight would begin.
Survive, said Frey. That’s all you have to do. Don’t take any risks. Look out for each other.
The Cap’n had persuaded Kedmund Drave to let them bring the Ketty Jay’s outflyers. They were invaluable pilots, he’d said, and they’d need every craft in the fight. Harkins and Pinn were useless sitting on board the Ketty Jay. Since their fighters didn’t have Navy markings, they could sow havoc among the pirates, who would be unable to tell them apart from their allies.
Harkins had pointed out that this worked both ways, but Frey had assured him the Navy would know who they were and what they looked like. Harkins wasn’t quite so certain. He could just see a Navy frigate firing a shell up his exhaust in the heat of the moment.
The flotilla was packed in tight, a tentative train behind the Ketty Jay. Harkins was tucked inside it, with Pinn somewhere nearby. The mist was beginning to thin out noticeably. He could make out the detail on the nearest frigates, their gun turrets and armoured keels.
He fingered his silver earcuff. Having a daemon clipped to his ear only added to his unease, but Crake had offered them and Frey had insisted.
‘Anybody out there?’ he said. ‘This is . . . um . . . this is Harkins. Just wondering if anybody’s out there. Say something if you are.’
‘Clam it, Harkins,’ said Pinn’s voice in his ear, making him jump. ‘Crake said to use these things only when we had to. They’ll drain you if you start gibbering.’
‘Oh. I was just testing it, that’s all. You think the Cap’n can hear?’
‘He’s too far ahead. They’ve got a short range. Now shut up.’
Harkins snapped his mouth closed. His ear was tingling where the cuff touched his skin. He didn’t really understand all this daemonism business, but it made him feel a little better to hear a familiar voice.
Ahead, the fleet was beginning to break up and spread out as visibility improved and they dipped below the mist into clear air. Harkins’ heart thumped against his thin ribs as craft started to accelerate around him. Beneath them was a river, running along the canyon floor. The last stage of the journey. The moment was imminent. He wanted to curl up and hide.
Then at last the canyon gave out and the river plunged away down the sheer wall of the sinkhole. They’d arrived at Retribution Falls.
It lay as the Ketty Jay had left it, a shabby assemblage of scaffolded platforms and ramshackle buildings, steeped in the rancid marsh air. The great sinkhole, many kloms across, was ribboned in slicks of metallic ooze. Where the earth broke through the water, rotting dwellings grew like scabs.
But Harkins wasn’t looking at the town. He was looking at the aircraft. Hundreds of aircraft.
The fleet had grown in their absence. The landing pads were choked with fighters and heavy attack craft. Battered frigates floated at anchor; clusters of caravels and corvettes hung pensively over the town; shuttles and small personal craft hummed through the air.
There must have been three hundred, at least. Harkins felt his stomach clench and his gorge rise. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t eaten anything that morning.
A swarm of fighters was already scrambling to meet them as Harkins came out of the canyon. They’d been alerted by the sight of the first Navy craft at the head of the convoy. Retribution Falls kept a standing defence force, it seemed, ready to go at a moment’s notice. But those few craft aside, the pirate army had been caught completely by surprise.
The guns of the Navy frigates bellowed in a deafening cascade, making Harkins shriek inside his cockpit. Their opening salvo ripped a flaming scar across the sprawling town.
The primary target was the main landing pad, where the greatest number of smaller craft were clustered. It was obliterated in a cataclysm of fire. The other, more temporary landing pads that floated on the marsh were also struck. Those that weren’t destroyed outright began to list as their aerium tanks were holed, sending dozens of craft sliding into the sucking bog beneath.
Two of the nearest pirate frigates, anchored close to one another, were smashed with explosive shells. One of them split along its keel in a smoky red bloom, and sank to the ground in two halves. There were enough unpunctured aerium tanks to make the descent slow and terrible, like a ship being pulled to the bottom of the sea.
After the initial assault there was a pause to reload, and the Navy fighters came racing out of the cover of the fleet. Harkins saw the sleek Windblades shoot past him like darts, heading to meet the fighters rising from Retribution Falls. He gritted his teeth. He wanted, more than anything, to stay concealed behind the flanks of the enormous frigates. This wasn’t his fight, after alclass="underline" the pirates weren’t his enemies.
But the heavy guns of the pirate craft would start up soon, blasting at the fleet, and a tiny craft like his would be dashed to pieces in the shellfire.
The safest thing to do was attack.
He heard Pinn whoop in his ear, and cursed him for his absurd courage. He could already picture that moron racing ahead of the pack, desperate for the first kill, heedless of the danger. He was the kind that would evade death for ever, simply because he didn’t realise it was there. The fearless always survived. It was one of the great unfairnesses of life, in Harkins’ opinion.
Well, he was damned if he’d let Pinn mock him for being the last one into the battle. The thought of that chubby-cheeked face screwed up in laughter made his blood boil. He hit the throttle and plunged out of the flotilla, pursuing the Navy Windblades into the fray.
The pirate fighters were a motley of different models from different workshops, representing the last thirty years of aviation technology. They came on like a cloud of flies, without discipline or any hint of a formation. The Navy fighters were tighter, punching towards them like an arrow. Harkins slipped in near the back.
The Firecrow’s engines roared, encompassing him in sound. The craft shook and trembled. Through the windglass bubble on its nose, Harkins could see the vile colours of the marsh blurring beneath him. Two Windblades hung on his wings, their pilots wearing identical Navy-grey helmets, their attention focused on the attack. Harkins swallowed and hunched forward, his finger hovering over the trigger.