He searched for a way to delay the inevitable, and found a door he didn’t recognise. It took him a moment to pull it from his memory. It had been repainted since he saw it last. He’d walked past it a thousand times, but had gone inside only once. He’d been a child, and he’d been beaten for his trouble.
There!
He seized the handle and turned it. It was locked. In desperation, he put his boot into it, hard. He kicked twice more, until the door frame split and it hung by a hinge. With one last kick, he was through.
The door to the servants’ stairwell opened at the same time. A bearded man aimed a gun at him and loosed off a wild shot. Crake darted into the room he’d opened.
It was tiny, barely big enough to contain half a dozen boxes of tools and sundries. A wooden ladder, fixed to the wall, led up to a hatch. The roof access. He climbed the ladder, shoved the hatch.
Locked.
No, no, no!
There was a bolt on the inside. Sense cut through his panic. He slid the bolt across, pushed the hatch, and it came open. Up he went, and out into the night. He dropped the hatch behind him and backed away, looking about for something to pile on top of it.
He was near the edge of the roof. A mountainous landscape of skylights and chimneys, lit from beneath, blocked his view. Down below he could see that the grounds were aswarm, the invaders racing over the lawns. There was the occasional crack of gunfire, but the Shacklemores were nowhere to be seen.
Closer by was Condred’s house. The lower windows had been smashed, and smoke was churning out of them.
They’re burning the place. Those ignorant bastards are burning my home.
The sound of rising engines drew his attention to the landing pad. Already several craft were high in the sky, small with distance. The last one was taking off, under fire from a few villagers who took pot-shots at it with their pistols.
Sudden hope ignited inside him at the sight. Surely one of the Shacklemores he’d met would remember that Crake was at the mansion? Surely Condred would tell them? He ran along the edge of the roof, waving his arms.
‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Heeey! I’m still here!’
The aircraft swung around lazily above the landing pad, turning towards him, and for a moment he’d thought they’d seen him. But it kept on turning, swinging round to follow the other craft towards Thesk, and its thrusters lit and pushed it away. Crake watched it dwindle, and the hope in his breast burned to ashes.
The hatch burst open behind him. Crake turned and aimed his empty pistol at the burly man who came climbing through. The man hesitated at the sight; but when Crake didn’t fire, a slow and wicked leer spread across his face. He kept on coming, slowly, as if to say: I dare you.
Crake lowered his weapon. It had suddenly become too heavy for him. His limbs were leaden. He couldn’t run any more. He didn’t see the point.
I should never have left the Ketty Jay, he thought. I should never have left my friends.
He walked to the edge of the building and let his pistol fall from his hand, over the side. It tumbled through the air and smashed to pieces on the driveway.
He closed his eyes. More men were coming through the hatch, but he didn’t care. They were too far away; they wouldn’t have him. He’d not be meat for the savages.
The wind blew his hair across his forehead. He felt it keenly, as if for the first time. He’d miss the wind. It seemed to get louder as he listened to it, rising to a scream in his ears as the world narrowed to a single sharp moment and his senses focused on one final and all-consuming task.
Take a step, he thought, and he felt himself become light. Even in the exquisite sadness of the end, he knew this was the right thing to do.
He sucked in his breath, put out his foot over the edge, and then the roar of the biggest damn autocannon he’d ever heard scared the shit out of him.
His eyes flew open and he recoiled from the edge, throwing himself down with his hands over his head. The rooftop was chewed up all around him; slates and gutters were smashed, skylights exploded, shards of stone went wheeling into the sky. The wind whipped at him and the bellow of engines filled his ears. He saw the men from the village throw down their weapons and flee wildly from the onslaught.
Then the cannon stopped, and he heard a voice over the chaos.
‘Are you comin’ or what?’
He raised his head. Hovering just beyond the edge of the roof was a shuttle. He saw the masked and hooded face of Morben Kyne through the cockpit windglass. The side door was open, and the huge bearded figure of Colden Grudge stood there, his legs planted apart and an autocannon at his hip. Next to him, leaning out and reaching with one gloved hand, was the owner of the voice.
Samandra Bree.
The sight of her brought new strength to his limbs. He surged to his feet. The shuttle swayed alarmingly towards him, driven by a gust of wind; but Samandra’s hand found his and they clasped. She yanked him up with a strength greater than her size would suggest. His feet found a step, and Colden grabbed him by the shoulder. He was pulled inside, where he tumbled to the floor in a heap, tangled with Samandra.
‘Shift it, Kyne!’ she yelled, and the shuttle pulled away. Samandra kept an arm tight around Crake’s chest as they ascended. Grudge kept his autocannon trained on the villagers on the roof until the mansion had dwindled beneath them. Then he reached across and flung the door shut, sealing them in with the sound of the engines.
Crake climbed to his feet dazedly, still disorientated. He’d committed himself to death; it wasn’t easy to pull back from that. He staggered to the side door, slapped one hand against it to steady himself, and stared out of the window. Beneath him, the Crake family manor was getting smaller. He could see smoke coming from his father’s mansion now, as well as Condred’s house. They hadn’t even waited for their companions to get off the roof before they started burning.
‘You okay?’ Samandra asked, picking herself up. Grudge watched him steadily.
‘They’re burning my home,’ Crake said, his voice hoarse. Then, because he knew it had to be true, he added:
‘They killed my father.’
Samandra walked over to stand next him. She looked out, following his gaze. ‘Rough,’ she said at length.
He turned his head towards her. In amid the shock and the numbness, he felt something new, breaching the waters of his mind with a clear and inarguable certainty. He knew there was no time to waste, no time for anyone to waste, and that all things might be snatched away in a moment.
‘I’m in love with you,’ he told her then. ‘I want you to know that.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Duh,’ she said, and put an arm round his waist.
Twenty-One
It was all Frey could do not to run headlong down the corridor. He could hear her through the earcuff, her voice getting louder as he got closer. He’d heard her shriek — spit and pus, an actual shriek from her lips — and it had almost broken him. But he hadn’t entirely forgotten the danger he was in. His disguise wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny, and running full pelt would alert everyone he passed.
What were those sons of bitches doing to her? He needed to find her, and find her now.
Two female Speakers were coming the other way. He checked his stride, walked by with a quick bow in their direction. They bowed back without a flicker of suspicion. As soon as they were gone he accelerated again.