The Black Lung Captain

by Chris Wooding

  '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 hill by routes that kept them out of view of the compound. Soon enough they found themselves in the mouth of an alleyway 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. 'Tell your golem to be subtle, hmm? Get us in quietly.'

  He cocked his pistol. 'She doesn't really 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 pull 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 yelling and pointing at her. One of them began taking shots with his rifle. The bullets 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 still crowded in the alleyway, unnoticed in the commotion.

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

  'Bess!' Crake called. '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 bullets 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 bellow.

  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 yelled and flailed as the tower tipped slowly sideways. It toppled into the side of the warehouse, collapsing 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 gravelled 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 called, and the air was filled with the sharp bark of gunshots. A withering volley of bullets 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. Bullets 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 full tilt down the hill 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 fall out.

  Malvery loosed off a couple of shotgun blasts and then ducked back into cover as a few more bullets 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 meaningfully.

  '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 fallen 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 called. She looked up at the sound of his voice and lumbered over, still 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 followed the warehouse wall 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 wall next to him. Bullets 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 followed by the rest of the crew. He ran after them. Trinica and her men loosed off a few potshots at their attackers and fo
llowed.

  Jez was only a few metres in when she skidded to a stop. The look in her eyes as she turned back told him all 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 levelled. 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 all.

  '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 all the emotion she showed.

  None of it had been real. None. All 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 fallen for it. He'd neglected his crew, he'd ignored their protests, and he'd let her into their lives. All because he thought there was something there still 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 fell 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, pulled 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 especially. 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 pulled 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 yellow teeth. Frey stared levelly 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 all 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'll happily pull 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'll 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?'

  Trinica tilted her head. 'I didn't feel quite so vengeful after I heard his offer,' she said. 'Everyone has a price. He exceeded mine.' When Frey kept on looking at her, she waved him away. 'Don't act hurt, Darian. You'd have done the same. You know as well as I do that your intentions weren't half as noble as you pretended. As soon as you got your hands on that sphere, you were going to sell it to the highest bidder. Your thousands will die wouldn't be quite so important, weighed against a fortune.'

  He laughed bitterly. Laughed because she was so, so wrong. All this time, she'd never even believed him. She thought he was chasing the sphere for his own profit. But for once, on this matter, he knew his own mind absolutely. No amount of money was that important. That was a line he wouldn't cross. Whatever she thought, he had enough honour for that.

  Besides, he could have had ridiculous wealth twice over, first with her and then with Amalicia. The easy path. But both times he'd turned it down. Whatever the hole in his life was, filling it with money wasn't enough.

  'I don't know how many times I've got to tell you, Trinica,' he said. 'You don't know me half as well as you think. You might have a price. I don't.'

  At that, he saw the first flicker of uncertainty on her face. The smallest fracture in her surety.

  Good, he thought bitterly. I hope it hurts, damn you. I hope you take it to your grave, and I hope you end up there real soon. I trusted you. But I reckon you don't know what trust is any more.

  Grist pointed to Jez. 'Take her,' he told his men. 'The Captain too. Everyone else, lock 'em up down below.'

  Jez and Frey were pulled out of the group. 'Hey! She's just a navvie! What do you want with her?' he demanded.

  The end of Grist's cigar glowed. 'She's the reason you're here, Captain Frey. See, I need a Mane. And it just so happens you've got one on your crew. Now ain't that a twist?'

  Thirty-Four

  A Genuine Piece Of History — All Is Revealed —

  Crake And The Pocket Watch — Feline Suspicions — Jez Has To Choose

  Jez stared at Frey's back as they were marched into the depths of the hangar at gunpoint. Grist and Crattle accompanied them, along with several of the Storm Dog's crew. Trinica came, too. Perhaps she wanted to enjoy the fruits of her treachery.

  The Cap'n walked with slumped shoulders, crushed by Trinica's betraya
l. He tried to conceal his pain, but it showed anyway. He'd put every ounce of his faith in that woman, and she'd let him down. Even before the Cap'n had confessed to them that he had a history with Trinica, she'd seen the connection between them. She'd sensed the depth of feeling he carried.

  And Trinica? What did she feel? Nothing at all, it seemed. Nothing at all.

  Damn it, Cap'n. You're a good man, but you make the worst choices.

  It occurred to her that she should be worrying about herself, rather than the Cap'n. It was her that Grist was interested in, not Frey. Because she was a Mane. She wasn't sure why that was important to their enemy, and she wasn't keen on finding out.

  But she'd never known the Cap'n so defeated. It hurt her to see him diminished that way.

  They were led away from the Storm Dog, down several sets of steps, along blank stone corridors lit by electric lights. Frey didn't speak, and neither did anyone else. Presently, they entered a small, chilly cellar, with walls that didn't match the modern construction of the rest of the hangar. It was as if they'd travelled a century back in time. There were two huge oak doors in the cellar floor, with heavy iron pull-rings and a complicated sequence of symbols carved into their surface.

  Jez had been conscious of a growing unease as she drew closer to the cellar, but she hadn't known the source until she saw it. It was coming from those doors. The symbols were a daemonist's work, and though they had no force now, the memory of their power made Jez's skin prickle.

  There was a sense of barely suppressed energy in the air. Something lurked behind those doors. She dreaded it, and didn't want to go further.

  She must have slowed unconsciously, because one of the crewmen jabbed her in the back with the muzzle of his pistol. Ahead of them, two men were pulling the doors open. Beyond were worn stone steps. Crattle pulled a breaker on the wall. A row of lights, strung together with cables, began to glow in the stairway and the room just visible at the bottom.

  'Ladies,' said Grist, bowing to Trinica and Jez. 'Cap'n,' he added, nodding at Frey. 'You're about to see a genuine piece of history.'