He assessed his options, and found them meagre. It was only a matter of time before the enemy took up positions in the houses across the courtyard and started shooting at them. One of the houses had caught fire, either because of the explosion or because a burning log had spilled from its grate in the chaos. If the fire spread fast, it would make a more effective barrier of those houses than armed defenders ever could. But Silo didn’t think they’d be around long enough for that to happen. Grudge could only hold the Awakeners back for so long, and by the sounds of the gunfire in the house behind him, their attackers were coming through the trees to the north as well.
They were surrounded, reduced to holding a single house. They needed help, and fast.
He shut the door and turned the key to lock it, then followed Malvery. The house had a similar layout to others in the hamlet. There were two rooms taking up the ground floor. At the front was a small living-space with a stove and a table; another doorway led to a bedroom in the back. Upstairs was a separate and larger apartment, with a kitchen and living room, and bedrooms above that. Simple accommodation for the servants and staff.
‘We gotta get out of here!’ Ashua called as he entered. She was in the back room, shooting through the windows.
‘We ain’t goin’ anywhere!’ he snapped. ‘You already left one post, you ain’t leavin’ another!’
She didn’t reply to that, but he could sense her resentment. Silo didn’t care: he was angry at her for running. He’d been the one to vouch for her when the Cap’n wanted to kick her off the crew back in Samarla, and some part of him felt responsible for her behaviour. But much as she seemed intent on staying, he’d always had the sense that she’d drop them if it suited her. She hadn’t the loyalty to the Cap’n that the others did. That made her unreliable.
‘Comin’ up the road!’ called Malvery, who squatted by a window facing the courtyard.
Silo took position at the window next to him. The sight of the defenders abandoning the houses on the south side had encouraged the Awakeners. He could see their blurred shapes moving closer, sticking near the snowdrifts on either side of the road. A few speculative bullets came their way.
‘Save your ammo,’ said Silo. ‘Won’t hit anythin’ at this range.’
‘Right-o,’ said Malvery. He patted the pockets of his coat, to check they were still bulging with shells. Silo glanced back at Ashua, who was covering the rear of the house with Harkins. They had a small ammo box between them. How long would that last, if the Awakeners came at them in force?
‘You heard from the Cap’n?’ he asked Malvery.
‘He doesn’t have his earcuff in, naturally,’ said Malvery. He ducked away as a bullet ricocheted off the stone near his head. ‘Might be in his pocket, but I can’t hear bugger all over the sound of the wind and these pesky bastards trying to kill us.’ He popped up and fired off a round.
‘Ammo, Doc,’ Silo reminded him.
‘Sorry,’ said Malvery. ‘They’re gathering out there.’
Silo cursed in Murthian. Where was the Cap’n? He could understand Frey’s reluctance to use the earcuffs — like Frey, Silo hated the distraction in a gunfight, though it didn’t appear to bother Malvery — but right now he needed to know when, or if, help was coming.
Suppose it don’t matter, he told himself. Ain’t no place to run, anyways. Gonna hold this house as long as we can, and hope that’s long enough.
He heard fresh gunfire from the bedroom. Harkins and Ashua. ‘Watch the road,’ he told Malvery as he hurried through to the back.
‘What in rot’s name are we still doing here?’ Ashua cried. She had her pistol steadied with both hands, and was firing into the trees. ‘We need to fall back!’
Silo pressed himself up against the wall on the other side of the window, leaned out, and took a shot at a ghostly shape out there in the white world beyond. ‘You gonna hold the damn line till I say otherwise,’ he said.
‘I didn’t join this bloody crew to die in some frozen hole in the mountains!’
‘Me neither. But here we are.’
There was a lull in the shooting. Neither of them could see a target. Ashua opened her mouth to protest further, but Silo got in first.
‘Where you gonna go, huh? The mansion? Imperators there. That’s if the gunship don’t shoot us to pieces crossin’ the bridge. The Cap’n’s comin’. You might not believe it, but I do. So stay put.’
Ashua glared at him, a sullen fire in her eyes. Her defiance didn’t fool him. She was afraid. She might be tough, but she’d never been in a war, never been under such sustained fire for so long. You never knew how someone might react when they were pinned down with no way out, not knowing if the next bullet coming would be the one to take them in the skull. She was on edge, liable to do something stupid.
He looked over at Harkins, who was at the next window, furiously concentrating on his task. Ashua needed something more than orders to steady her. Silo took a gamble.
‘How about you, Harkins?’ he called. ‘You wanna run for it?’
‘No, sir!’ Harkins replied, without taking his eyes off the trees. Ashua looked startled.
‘Why not?’ Silo said.
Harkins turned his head. He was addressing Silo, but looking straight at Ashua. ‘Because I’m no chickenshit,’ he said levelly. ‘Sir.’
Ashua spat on the floor and hunkered down to watch the trees again. Shame would keep her where she was. Silo gave Harkins a nod of respect and headed back to Malvery.
He’d seen something in Harkins these last few days. A new distance in his gaze, something firmer in his eye. He snapped to attention when spoken to, he didn’t gripe or bitch like the others as he went about his work. He’d found a way to prop up his courage, and damn if he wasn’t turning out to be useful in a gunfight at last. He still couldn’t hit much with his pistol, but the Awakeners didn’t know that.
Silo crouched next to Malvery, who was looking narrowly out at the road. Silo saw figures moving behind the windows across the courtyard.
‘Don’t like this,’ said Malvery. ‘They’re waiting for something. Could do with getting Grudge to send a few shots their way, keep ’em on their toes.’
‘That feller don’t take no orders from me,’ said Silo.
Malvery glanced at him. ‘Heard what you did back there with Ashua,’ he said. ‘Cap’n made a smart pick having you as first mate. Ain’t anyone else on the crew we’d listen to at a time like this.’
Silo shrugged a shoulder. ‘You my people,’ he said.
The bellow of engines alerted them a moment before the gunship came sweeping out of the blizzard, its cannons pointed right at them. Silo and Malvery scrambled away from the windows and flailed back towards cover as the front of the house was torn up. Splinters and powdered stone and plaster filled the air; the clatter of rotary cannons battered their ears. Silo hunkered in behind the stove. Malvery, having no better option, dived behind the sofa and made himself as small a target as his generous frame would allow.
The assault was over as quickly as it had begun. The gunship swung away and powered off into the blizzard, chased by Grudge’s autocannon. It had been a swift attack, meant to catch them off guard.
Damn nearly did, as well.
‘They’re coming through at the back!’ Ashua called. ‘There’s a lot of ’em!’ Then she opened up with her pistol, and Harkins joined her.
Silo was about to run back there, but Malvery had slipped up to the front of the house and was looking through the ragged hole where one of the windows had been. ‘We’ve got our own problems,’ he said.
‘Hold ’em!’ Silo called back through the doorway.
‘Yeah, I knew you were gonna say that,’ he heard Ashua mutter as he ran over to Malvery. The doctor was already firing. A half-dozen men were spilling from the buildings on the south side and running across the courtyard, using the wreckage of the gunship as cover. Another eight or nine were running in from the road. Silo started shooting.