The Black Lung Captain (50 page)

'Get moving as soon as you hear the first gunshots,' he told the men who were staying behind. They acted as if they hadn't heard. They didn't take orders from anyone but their mistress.

Frey's group headed off the road and through back ways towards the compound. It was too early for many people to be around in this part of the city, so Bess could travel unconcealed. Walking through the heart of Sakkan in the company of an eight-foot golem would have brought the Militia down on them in minutes, but out here in the industrial district there was no one to see her.

One of Trinica's scouts led them, taking them down the hil by routes that kept them out of view of the compound. Soon enough they found themselves in the mouth of an aleyway between two grim storage facilities, looking out across a road at the fence that encircled their target. A warehouse lay just beyond it, blocking most of the compound from view. A guard tower overlooked both fence and compound, but the guards within weren't paying a great deal of attention to their job, being more interested in playing a game that involved punching each other in the arm and laughing a lot. Yort humour, Frey supposed.

Trinica nodded towards the fence. 'Tel your golem to be subtle, hmm? Get us in quietly.'

He cocked his pistol. 'She doesn't realy do subtle.'

He motioned to Crake, who said a few words to Bess. Bess strode out across the road, took hold of the bars of the fence, and with one huge pul she ripped them out. Metal screeched and twisted and snapped as she tugged at the bars, dragging a great section of the fence with her. By the time she'd torn a hole big enough for them to get through, she'd also destroyed the fence for ten metres to either side.

'So I see,' Trinica commented dryly.

The racket had attracted the attention of the Yorts in the guard tower, who were yeling and pointing at her. One of them began taking shots with his rifle. The bulets just bounced off Bess's armoured hump. Other guards on the ground were running over to investigate the source of the disturbance, rounding the edge of the warehouse. They skidded to a halt when they saw her, swore in Yortish, and then scrambled towards what cover they could find.

'Aren't we going to help her?' Crake urged, fidgeting anxiously. They were stil crowded in the aleyway, unnoticed in the commotion.

'Not with those guards stil up above us,' said Frey.

'Bess!'
Crake caled.
'The tower!'

Bess had stamped her way into the compound and was looking this way and that for enemies. The guards had opened up on her in earnest, and the irritating sting of bulets on her metal skin was making her angry. At the sound of Crake's voice she swung towards the tower and charged it with a below.

The tower was a metal scaffold, little more than a frame that supported the platform. It was sturdy enough under normal circumstances, but it hadn't been designed to stand up to an enraged golem. Bess crashed into the base of the scaffold, smashing away one of the four legs and badly damaging another. The Yorts at the top yeled and flailed as the tower tipped slowly sideways. It toppled into the side of the warehouse, colapsing in a heap of mangled metal.

'Now
can we help her?' said Crake.

Frey whistled through his fingers. 'Let's go!' he cried, and they broke cover and ran across the road, past the wrecked fence and into the compound.

The Yorts were slow to see them coming. They were too concerned with Bess, who was chasing around trying to catch them. It gave Frey a chance to find cover behind the wreckage of the guard tower. From there he could see around the side of the warehouse, giving him a good view of the compound. Ahead of him was a graveled expanse with the fence and the front gate to his left. The second guard tower was on the far side, some distance away. The hangar was out of sight, around the other side of the warehouse.

'Fire!' Trinica caled, and the air was filed with the sharp bark of gunshots. A withering voley of bulets cut down the Yorts as they fled Bess's wrath.

Their initial assault took out most of the first group of guards, but more were appearing from inside the buildings. Bulets began flying their way. Frey kept his head down. The crushed and twisted frame of the guard tower was hardly an impenetrable barrier.

'They're coming round the back of us!' said Jez. She heard them before anyone saw them, and that probably saved a few lives. They had precious seconds to line up and aim before a half-dozen Yorts rounded the other side of the warehouse, behind their position in the cover of the guard tower. They were cut down in a blaze of shotgun fire.

'Where are your people, Trinica?' Frey cried in annoyance. No sooner had he said it than there was a loud crash and a squeal of metal. He peeped through the wreckage of the guard tower and saw the front gate hanging by a hinge, with the tractor tangled up in it. Trinica's men had sent it plunging ful tilt down the hil and were now swarming in behind it, shooting at the disoriented guards, who suddenly faced an attack on three fronts. Bess, meanwhile, was having great fun shaking the remaining guard tower and watching the guards fal out.

Malvery loosed off a couple of shotgun blasts and then ducked back into cover as a few more bulets came their way. 'We ought to get inside, Cap'n. Bit likely to get shot out here.' One of Trinica's men wheeled backwards and slumped to the ground, a red hole in his cheek. Malvery pointed at him meaningfuly.

'Head for the hangar!' Trinica said. 'We can't let Grist get away.'

Frey nodded. 'Alright. Stay close to the warehouse. Go!'

They broke cover and ran low across the open ground, hurrying past the corpses of falen Yorts. There were few guards left out here now; most had retreated to more defensible positions, terrified of the roaring golem in their midst. Bess was chasing two of the slower guards across the gravel. She caught one by his trailing leg, picked him up as if he was weightless, and used him to swat the other one into the fence.

'Bess! Come on!' Crake caled. She looked up at the sound of his voice and lumbered over, stil carrying the corpse of her latest victim, dangling by one shattered leg from her massive fist.

Crake eyed the body and turned faintly green. 'I don't think you need that any more,' he said. Bess obediently pitched the dead man into the distance.

They folowed the warehouse wal to the corner. From there, they could see the back end of the hangar where the
Storm Dog
was hidden. An entrance led to a loading bay inside.

'Through there!' said Trinica. Frey scanned the ground before them, saw no guards, and went for it. He was halfway there when a pair of Yorts came running into sight. Silo and Malvery had spotted them, and they were gunned down before they could get a shot off. Frey pressed himself up against the side of the loading bay entrance and peered inside.

Trinica's scouts had been on the money. The hangar was cluttered with piles of supplies and criss-crossed with gantries. In their midst, looming over everything, was the colossal prow of the
Storm Dog.
Frey felt an angry sense of triumph at the sight.

Gotcha, you thieving, psychotic son of a bitch.

The hangar appeared to be empty, but Frey didn't like the look of the loading bay. Before them was a clear space where the tractors entered the building to pick up and deposit cargo. Stacks of crates were piled up on three sides. Perfect territory for an ambush. He hesitated at the door.

'What are you doing? Get inside!' Trinica cried, as she slammed up against the wal next to him. Bulets pocked the brickwork nearby: another group of guards, heading their way from the far side of the compound.

'I don't trust it!' he said. 'It's too easy! Grist's smarter than this!'

'Don't be stupid, Darian! How could there be an ambush waiting for us? He doesn't know we're coming!'

She was right. It was a surprise attack. Grist wouldn't have had time to organise an ambush. Frey was giving him too much credit. They were outside, exposed, and more guards were coming. There was no more time to deliberate.

'Move it!' he shouted, waving them through. Bess went first, closely folowed by the rest of the crew. He ran after them. Trinica and her men loosed off a few potshots at their attackers and folowed.

Jez was only a few metres in when she skidded to a stop. The look in her eyes as she turned back told him al he needed to know. She'd detected something with her heightened Mane senses that Frey had missed. 'Cap'n!' she cried. 'Go back! It's a—'

The loading bay door slammed down, shutting them in. Two dozen men sprang up from behind the crates, weapons leveled. The invaders' assault came to a stumbling halt.

'—trap,' Jez finished, belatedly.

There was the sound of weapons being primed behind them. Frey's heart sank and kept on sinking. He squeezed his eyes closed.

'Yes,' said Trinica. 'I'm afraid it is.'

Frey felt like he was tipping into a yawning void. Her voice seemed to come from far away. It didn't belong to the woman he'd known. It was a creature incalculably more terrible, the dark goddess that the men of the
Delirium. Trigger
worshipped.

No. No, no, no. Not her. Not again!

Frey was no stranger to betrayal, whether suffering it or committing it himself. But this time, this single moment of utter, damnable
loss . . .
this one beat them al.

'Put down your weapons,' he heard himself say. His voice was flat. 'Crake, take care of Bess.'

He surveyed the faces of the men behind the crates. The men of the
Storm Dog.
He recognised the bald head and bulbous eyes of Grist's bosun, Crattle. He heard the clatter of weapons being thrown down, and threw down his own. Crake was muttering soothing words to the golem, who was making threatening movements towards the men.

He looked over his shoulder. Trinica was there, her pistol trained on his back. He might have been looking at a statue, for al the emotion she showed.

None of it had been real. None. Al this time he'd been fooling himself. He should have listened to sense. He should have learned his lesson on Kurg, when she stole the sphere and dismissed him with barely a word. She was a fake, a ghost, a wreck. The ruined husk of the woman he'd almost married. Just because she knew how to act the way she once had, it didn't mean the emotions were real.

But he'd falen for it. He'd neglected his crew, he'd ignored their protests, and he'd let her into their lives. Al because he thought there was something there stil worth fighting for. Some remnant of the past that he could kindle into life. A relic of the time before he'd run out on her, when things seemed honest and straightforward. When he'd loved with abandon, unafraid.

His eyes fel to the ring on her finger. Then he turned back towards the men training guns on them. He'd gone beyond fury or grief, into a numb kind of calm.

'I suggest you let my daemonist deactivate his golem,' he said, loudly. 'Otherwise she's liable to tear someone's head off.'

Crattle waved his gun at them. Crake held up one hand. 'Nobody shoot me, okay?' He slowly reached into his pocket, puled out his whistle, put it to his lips and blew. Once again there was no sound, but Bess drooped and stopped moving, the life gone from her.

Trinica and her men walked around in front of them, and she took the whisde from Crake's mouth. 'Search them,' she ordered her men. 'The daemonist especialy. He may have various devices about his person.'

She reached up and took the silver cuff from Frey's ear. Their eyes met, but she looked through him as if he was a stranger. 'Watch out for his cutlass,' she told her men. 'Keep it away from him. It's dangerous.' Then she moved to Jez and took her earcuff, too.

'The compass,' she said, holding out her hand. Jez gave her a glare of pure hatred and puled the compass from her pocket. Trinica consulted it, checking that it did indeed point towards the ring on her finger, then tossed it to her bosun.

'Keep hold of that,' she instructed him, and he slipped it into the pocket of his coat.

'Found these,' said another of her men, holding up Crake's pocket watch and his skeleton key that could unlock any door. Trinica held out her hand and took them, too, putting them away with the earcuffs and the whistle.

Then they stepped back to make way for the man who'd come out from behind the crates and was walking towards them, a cigar clamped between his grinning yelow teeth. Frey stared levely at him. Harvin Grist, of course. The bastard might have outsmarted them again, but Frey wasn't about to show an ounce of humility, or bitterness, or sadness at the way this had al turned out. He wouldn't give them that satisfaction.

'Captain Frey,' he beamed, then launched into an explosive coughing fit that left him red-faced and wheezing, somewhat undermining his moment of glory.

'Captain Grist,' said Frey. 'You know, I have a doctor here if you want him to take a look at that cough.'

'I'l happily pul your lungs out your arse for you,' Malvery added. 'Cure your cough in a jiffy.'

Grist recovered and slapped Malvery on the arm. 'Aye, I don't think that'l be necessary, but thanks anyway.' He straightened and took another drag on his cigar. 'Now where were we?'

'You were warming up for a good, hearty gloat,' Frey replied. 'But under the circumstances, y'know, just skip it and shoot us, eh?'

'Oh, there might not be any need for that,' said Grist. 'I could've had Trinica blow you out of the sky if I wanted you dead.'

'Yes,' said Frey, turning a slow gaze on her. 'I'm sure she'd have been delighted to do that.'

'Don't be a child, Darian,' she said. 'It's business. Grist made me an offer. I accepted.'

'Heard from Osric Smult that you two were lookin' for me,' Grist said, through a cloud of smoke. 'Couldn't find Captain Dracken, but I found the
Delirium
Trigger
in Iktak. I reckoned she'd come back sooner or later, so I left a man there to make her a proposition when she returned.'

'What happened to revenge, Trinica?' said Frey coldly. 'What about
thousands will die?'