The Black Lung Captain (15 page)

Maybe they could stil come out of this rich. But he'd have to keep a close eye on Grist. That was for certain.

You don't know nothin' about me,
Grist had said. That, at least, was the truth.

He thought about heading off to search for Silo and Jez, but decided against it in the end. No sense everybody getting lost. If they weren't back by the time Crake was done, they'd al search together. In the meantime, he daydreamed about the kinds of things he could spend al that money on. This time, he promised himself, he wouldn't fritter it away. He'd do something worthwhile. No blowing it on cards and booze and women.

Maybe he'd build an orphanage. After al, he'd have money to burn. Might ease his conscience a little. It'd go some way to making amends for a squandered life, anyway. Besides, a man could do pretty much what he wanted, as long as he could say he'd built an orphanage. You could shoot someone and it'd be okay. What kind of monster would hang a man who'd built an orphanage? A man who'd helped out al those little kiddies?

Presently he heard footsteps, and saw lanterns. Silo and Jez, back from their travels. He had no idea why Jez had wandered off, and he didn't care to ask. Jez looked a little shaken, but they both appeared unharmed.

'Everything alright?' he asked.

'Fine,' said Jez. 'Just went for a look around.'

'Find anything exciting?'

'A few things,' she said. 'Did Crake get through the door?' Frey noted the rapid change of subject, but he was happy to let it pass for now. 'Yeah. It was some daemonism thing. Apparently Manes are daemons. Did you know that?'

Jez went white. 'No . . .' she said. She swalowed. 'No, Cap'n. I didn't.'

'Are you alright? You look like—'

He was cut off by the sharp sound of gunfire.

Eleven

Gunfire — The Beast-Men Of Kurg — Death Or Glory —

Frey's Mathematics — A Debt Soon Repaid

Frey ran through the antechamber, towards the room where the metal sphere rested on its pedestal. Grist, Crattle and Hodd were coming the other way, faces underlit by their lanterns.

'We heard shots . . .' Crattle began.

'The lookouts,' Frey said. 'Trouble outside.' He pushed past them, into the room where Crake was working. Tuning rods were arranged al around the sphere, linked by cables to the resonator. Crake was squatting in front of it, scribbling down readings in a notebook.

'Tel me that wasn't gunfire,' he murmured.

'Get moving. We need to get back to the others.'

'I'm not leaving my equipment!' Crake protested. 'There's no way I could afford to—'

'Alright! Gather it up! I'l send Silo down to help you.'

On cue, Silo appeared in the doorway. 'Cap'n.'

Frey was wrongfooted by Silo's unusualy fine sense of timing. 'Erm . . . Help Crake,' he said.

'Cap'n,' replied Silo, brandishing the packs they'd brought the equipment in. Crake began franticaly disconnecting everything. Grist loomed into the already crowded room.

'Is that thing safe or not?' he demanded, pointing at the sphere.

'I don't know!' Crake said. 'I haven't had time! It takes tests, procedures, careful study—'

Grist reached past him and snatched up the sphere.

'However,' Crake continued, 'a reckless disregard for one's own life wil do just as wel.'

There was another voley of gunshots from outside, snapping through the silent, empty dreadnought.

'Pack up your junk and catch us up!' Frey snapped at Crake. He ran out of the room, with Grist and Crattle hard on his heels. Grist had the sphere under his arm, which Frey wasn't happy about, but now wasn't the time for arguments. He'd make damned sure he didn't let the captain out of his sight, though.

They found Jez sitting by the doorway, a distant look in her eyes. Shel-shocked. Frey didn't have time to wonder what was wrong with her. He hauled her up.

'On your feet, Jez. You alright to shoot a gun?'

She shook herself and focused on him. Her face firmed. 'Yes, Cap'n.'

'Come on, then.'

They backtracked through the dreadnought. The gunfire intensified as they approached the breach where they'd entered. Finaly they saw daylight ahead. There, crouching among their abandoned packs in the cover of a bulkhead, was Tarworth. He was using the rifle that had been his crutch to fire out into the undergrowth.

Frey reached him first. Tarworth looked up, and his eyes were afraid, but he said nothing.

Frey peered out around the ragged edge of the rip in the dreadnought's hul. Beyond was the forest, steeped in weak daylight. It was alive with movement.

Leaves rustled. Half-glimpsed figures rushed this way and that. A few dozen metres ahead of him, he could see the ridge they'd clambered down to get to the floor of the defile. That was their only way out, as far as he knew. The other three sides were sheer.

The undergrowth heaved and Pinn and Malvery burst out of it. They raced towards him, firing wildly over their shoulders and yeling. A spear folowed them and buried itself in the ground centimetres from the doctor's foot.

'This way!' Frey cried. He drew Gimble's revolvers and fired covering shots into the undergrowth, aiming at nothing.

'Where do you think we're bloody running to?' Malvery howled back.

They bundled in through the breach and flung themselves into cover, just as Jez, Grist and the others caught up with Frey.

'Where's Ucke?' Grist demanded of his crewman.

'He was out there,' Tarworth said. 'I don't—'

'He's done for,' Malvery panted. 'They got us by surprise. He was the first one. Didn't stand a chance.'

They clustered on either side of the breach, looking out, seeking targets. It wasn't easy. They never stayed visible for long.

'There!' Jez cried.

Frey caught a brief sight of one of their attackers as it loped through the undergrowth. It looked almost like a man, but it must have been seven feet tal, thickly built and covered in black, shaggy hair. It wore beads and was wearing some kind of crude armour, made of hide or leather. In one hand it carried a carved wooden club, decorated with painted symbols and bands of colour; in the other was a spear.

'The beast-men of Kurg,' Hodd breathed, rather unnecessarily.

'Thanks, Hodd,' Frey replied sarcasticaly, reloading his revolvers. 'I wasn't sure for a minute there.'

'We saw some smaler ones,' said Malvery. 'Ugly little things. Red fur instead of brown.'

'Those,' sniffed Hodd, with a disdainful look at Frey, 'are the females.'

'Those
are the native women?' Pinn cried, with the unique anguish of someone whose dreams have just been violently shattered. 'What happened to the sex-crazed tribes of warrior women?'

'Oh, they're rumoured to live in the northern tundra,' said Hodd. 'Actualy, there's quite an interesting story I once heard—'

'Wil you two shut it?' Frey cried. 'I'm trying to think of a way out of this!'

'Think hard, Cap'n. They've cut us off,' Jez muttered. She took a potshot at something moving in the undergrowth. 'We're trapped in the defile. More of 'em moving up al the time.'

'Where?'

'Over there.' She pointed out into the forest. There was a meaty impact, and she puled her hand back with an arrow sticking through the palm. Frey stared at her.

'Ow,' she murmured. She went faint, staggered back and sat down heavily. Malvery went to attend to her just as Silo and Crake came running up the passageway, their packs loaded with Crake's gear.

'What's going on?' Crake demanded of the group in general.

'Beast-men!' said Hodd. 'They appear to have the advantage over us.'

'Can't
you
do something, Crake?' Pinn asked. 'You're a daemonist, aren't you? Make them die or something. Shoot firebals!'

'Daemonism. you bloody dulard, is a science and an art!' Crake declared indignantly. 'I'm not some two-bit stage magician. If you want to make them dead, use your gun. It's what it's there for.'

Fat lot of good
you
are, then,' Pinn muttered.

Frey shook his head in exasperation. Pinn never failed to get a rise out of Crake, even when he was in his blackest humours. He was pleased that his crew were just about capable of working together as a unit nowadays; he just wished they could do it without al the bitching and bickering. But then, he supposed, they wouldn't be his crew.

'Malvery?' he caled. 'How's Jez?'

'She's okay, Cap'n. Won't be playing the piano for a while, though. Now grit your teeth, Jez, that arrow's gotta come out.'

'Why does it have to come ouaaaaaAAARRGH!!’

'There, now. That wasn't so bad.'

Jez was stil whimpering as Malvery applied the bandages. Grist hunkered up next to Frey. 'We can't let 'em shut us in,' he said. 'If we don't move now, there'l be too many of 'em.'

'There's probably
already
too many of them.'

'Wel, then there'l be even more,' said Grist. 'We can't stay here. Might be this breach is the only way in and out of this dreadnought, but might be there are others. We don't know 'em, but maybe the beast-men do. They could get in behind us.'

Frey chewed his lip. 'You're talking about a death-or-glory break for freedom, aren't you?'

'Might be I am.'

'I hate those.'

'Done many?'

'Not lately.'

'Don't worry.' Grist laid a heavy hand on Frey's shoulder. 'I've done a few. They always work out.'

'Wel, 'course they do,' said Frey. 'If they hadn't, you wouldn't be here to talk about it.'

Grist chewed over the logic of that. 'You want to live for ever or somethin'?'

'I told you. Yes.'

'Sirs,' said Hodd, breaking into their debate. 'Might I make a suggestion?'

'What is it?' Frey asked impatiently. But he lost al interest in a response the moment he saw a shaggy figure running up the passageway behind Hodd, a spear raised in its hand.

He reacted instinctively, lunging towards Hodd and shoving him out of the way, aiming with his other hand. He squeezed the trigger too late to stop the beast-man releasing the spear, but he saw it coming and puled his shoulder back just in time to avoid being impaled. The spear flew past them al and clattered harmlessly down the passageway. The beast-man staggered, dropped to one knee, and keeled over.

Lucky shot,
thought Frey.
Lucky dodge. Lucky all round, really.

Hodd was staring at him with awe. 'You saved my—'

'Yeah, yeah. Anyone see any more coming?' He ducked as an arrow from outside flew in through the breach and bounced off the metal wal.

'Can't see any right now,' Malvery replied.

'I hear them,' said Jez. She'd taken on that trance-like, distant look that she got more and more lately. Or it might just have been the shock of getting an arrow puled out of her hand. 'A dozen or so. They're inside the craft.'

Frey turned to Grist, and saw the captain staring intently at Jez, a frown on his face. 'She's got good ears,' he said quickly. 'Seems like you were right. There
is
another way in. We can't stay here.'

Grist stuck a fresh cigar in his mouth and lit it with a match. 'Death or glory, then?'

Frey sighed. 'I suppose so.'

They spiled from the breach in a disorganised mass, guns pointing everywhere, firing randomly and shouting insults. The rainforest hid their assailants. Arrows thumped into the ground at their feet or hissed through the air, coming from nowhere. They ran headlong towards the enemy, racing for the low ridge which was the only way out of the trap. It was just visible through the trees, a craggy wal three or four times the height of a man. They'd have to climb it, while those bloody beast-men were doing their level best to kil them.

Frey was terrified. Ful-frontal assaults were among his least favourite ways to spend a day.

Two revolvers,
he thought.
Five chambers each. That's ten bullets. One of them is in that hairy bastard back in the dreadnought. That leaves nine.

Something moved at the periphery of his vision. He saw a red-furred creature squatting on a tree branch overhead, aiming a bow down at them. It was flat-faced and heavy-browed, with hardly any nose to speak of. It wore a tangle of bone jewelery and a crudely patterned smock. He shot it and it flew backwards off the branch, the arrow going wide.

Eight.

'Hey!'

He glanced over his shoulder. The cry had come from Tarworth, the crewman Pinn had shot in the leg. He was limping after them with his rifle as a crutch, but he was unable to keep up. Frey didn't have the slightest intention of slowing down for him, but he thought Grist and Crattle might have spared a moment to consider their crewman. Apparently not. That wasn't how it worked under Grist's command.

'Hey, wait for me!' Tarworth caled, fear giving his voice a touch of hysteria. Two arrows hit him, almost simultaneously. One in the chest, one in the eye. His crutch slipped under him and he went down in a clumsy tumble.

Frey looked away. No time to give a damn. Men died al the time. His concern was protecting his own.

The beast-men came out of the foliage, rushing in with their carved wooden clubs, ready to crack skuls. Frey was crushed amid a chaotic melee. Shotguns roared at close range. Hot blood spattered his face. He saw Silo, pistol in one hand, machete in the other. He swung and split the jaw of a beast-man. Malvery fired wildly and blew off one of their assailant's legs at the knee.

Suddenly the group of defenders surged and Frey found himself out on the edge. One of the creatures was coming at him, a thing out of nightmare, a monstrous pile of muscle, lips skinned back, yelowed teeth like tombstones. Nobody to hide behind now. Frey stuck out both revolvers and fired. The savage crumpled, but its momentum carried it forward into him, knocking him to the ground. He struggled franticaly under its weight, its rank stink filing his nostrils. Feet stamped al around, threatening to trample him. With a huge effort, he shoved the dead thing aside, scooped up his revolvers and got to his feet.

Six bullets left.