Read Online Ketty Jay 04 - The Ace of Skulls by Chris Wooding - Free Book Online
Authors: Chris Wooding
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Five
The Ghost City – Reunions – Morben Kyne – An Island in a Sea of Ruin – Unwelcome Allies
T he city of Korrene lay at the feet of the Hookhollow mountains, on a stony hill that afforded a commanding view of the plains to the west. In the days before the Third Age of Aviation and mass-manufactured aircraft, it had been an important gateway for travellers and merchants making their perilous way up to Vardia’s vast Eastern Plateau.
Those days were long gone.
‘Damn,’ said Frey, peering through the windglass of the Ketty Jay ’s cockpit. He looked across at Ashua. ‘And I thought your city was a piece of shit.’
Crake couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. Rabban, where Ashua grew up, had been bombed to rubble during the Aerium Wars and still hadn’t been adequately rebuilt. But the destruction in Korrene was of another order of magnitude altogether.
The ancient city had been literally ripped apart. An enormous crooked chasm ran through the heart of it, separating the western third. Smaller cracks radiated outwards; the streets slumped into them. Broken stubs of towers jutted from the wreckage of palaces, shattered arches lay in pieces, winding lanes and terraces had folded and crumbled. The river that had run through the city was dry now, choked off by the cataclysm.
Fifty years since the final quake. The city had endured many shocks over thousands of years, but this last one had been the end of it. The survivors left and never returned. Once the scavengers had picked it over, not even the pirates wanted to stay. It became a ghost city, a bitter reminder of the savage nature of the land they lived in.
But the ghosts had been stirred up by the civil war, and the city wasn’t so empty any more.
‘Somebody tell me why they’re fighting over that heap of bricks?’ Ashua asked. She was leaning against a bulkhead, hands in one of her many pockets. Her expression, as was usual, suggested she was deeply unimpressed by everything. A black tattoo swirled around her left eye, reaching over her cheek and onto her forehead. Rabban gang fashion, from a time when the borders of that smashed city were the limit of her world.
When nobody answered her question, she looked at Pelaru, who was standing near the doorway. The cockpit was crowded, as it often was these days. Usually the Cap’n was easily annoyed by people pestering him while he was flying, but Crake got the sense that Frey didn’t like being alone with Jez. Nor did any of them, for that matter.
‘How about you?’ she asked the whispermonger. ‘Isn’t it your job to know everything?’
Pelaru gave her a faint smile. ‘And if I gave it away for free, how would I eat?’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’d eat just fine,’ said Frey, with the merest hint of sulkiness. ‘Fighters coming in.’
There was a Navy frigate to the south of the city, hanging in the early evening sky. Several small shapes had detached from it and were approaching. They were hard to make out against the mountains, but since it was a Navy frigate, it was a safe bet they were Windblades.
Frey touched his earcuff. ‘Nice and easy, Pinn. We’re all friends here, remember? Stay off the trigger.’
Crake shifted uneasily and his gaze returned to the city. He didn’t like the idea of going down there, and not only because of his lifelong aversion to getting shot. It was something deeper than that, something that had been nagging him for weeks now.
It wasn’t the idea of stealing from the Awakeners that bothered him. It was the aristocratic sense of honour that had been instilled in him by a stern and industrious father. There was a clear enemy here, a threat to the nation and his way of life. He felt he should be participating in this war rather than living off it.
Besides, it was in his own interests to see the Awakeners defeated. They’d persecuted daemonists for more than a century and poisoned the populace against them,
Five
The Ghost City – Reunions – Morben Kyne – An Island in a Sea of Ruin – Unwelcome Allies
T he city of Korrene lay at the feet of the Hookhollow mountains, on a stony hill that afforded a commanding view of the plains to the west. In the days before the Third Age of Aviation and mass-manufactured aircraft, it had been an important gateway for travellers and merchants making their perilous way up to Vardia’s vast Eastern Plateau.
Those days were long gone.
‘Damn,’ said Frey, peering through the windglass of the Ketty Jay ’s cockpit. He looked across at Ashua. ‘And I thought your city was a piece of shit.’
Crake couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. Rabban, where Ashua grew up, had been bombed to rubble during the Aerium Wars and still hadn’t been adequately rebuilt. But the destruction in Korrene was of another order of magnitude altogether.
The ancient city had been literally ripped apart. An enormous crooked chasm ran through the heart of it, separating the western third. Smaller cracks radiated outwards; the streets slumped into them. Broken stubs of towers jutted from the wreckage of palaces, shattered arches lay in pieces, winding lanes and terraces had folded and crumbled. The river that had run through the city was dry now, choked off by the cataclysm.
Fifty years since the final quake. The city had endured many shocks over thousands of years, but this last one had been the end of it. The survivors left and never returned. Once the scavengers had picked it over, not even the pirates wanted to stay. It became a ghost city, a bitter reminder of the savage nature of the land they lived in.
But the ghosts had been stirred up by the civil war, and the city wasn’t so empty any more.
‘Somebody tell me why they’re fighting over that heap of bricks?’ Ashua asked. She was leaning against a bulkhead, hands in one of her many pockets. Her expression, as was usual, suggested she was deeply unimpressed by everything. A black tattoo swirled around her left eye, reaching over her cheek and onto her forehead. Rabban gang fashion, from a time when the borders of that smashed city were the limit of her world.
When nobody answered her question, she looked at Pelaru, who was standing near the doorway. The cockpit was crowded, as it often was these days. Usually the Cap’n was easily annoyed by people pestering him while he was flying, but Crake got the sense that Frey didn’t like being alone with Jez. Nor did any of them, for that matter.
‘How about you?’ she asked the whispermonger. ‘Isn’t it your job to know everything?’
Pelaru gave her a faint smile. ‘And if I gave it away for free, how would I eat?’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’d eat just fine,’ said Frey, with the merest hint of sulkiness. ‘Fighters coming in.’
There was a Navy frigate to the south of the city, hanging in the early evening sky. Several small shapes had detached from it and were approaching. They were hard to make out against the mountains, but since it was a Navy frigate, it was a safe bet they were Windblades.
Frey touched his earcuff. ‘Nice and easy, Pinn. We’re all friends here, remember? Stay off the trigger.’
Crake shifted uneasily and his gaze returned to the city. He didn’t like the idea of going down there, and not only because of his lifelong aversion to getting shot. It was something deeper than that, something that had been nagging him for weeks now.
It wasn’t the idea of stealing from the Awakeners that bothered him. It was the aristocratic sense of honour that had been instilled in him by a stern and industrious father. There was a clear enemy here, a threat to the nation and his way of life. He felt he should be participating in this war rather than living off it.
Besides, it was in his own interests to see the Awakeners defeated. They’d persecuted daemonists for more than a century and poisoned the populace against them,
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