The Black Lung Captain

Thirty-Three

Sakkan was a city of geometries, all slopes and angles. Situated deep in the frozen Duchy of Marduk, it didn't hide underground like many northern settlements, nor did it shelter in the lee of a mountain. Instead, it stood stern and resilient as the rock of the plateau it was built on. A summer dawn was breaking, hazy cloud choking a sky that was dull and bleached of colour. There was no wind, and no snow. The cold hung in the still air and seeped like liquid into the bones.

A tractor rumbled and sputtered through the quiet streets, surrounded by a wary escort of fifteen men and two women. It towed a trailer behind it, carrying a large, lumpy shape, concealed under a tarpaulin. The men and women moved quickly, with hurried steps, their eyes darting this way and that, hands never far from their guns.

Time was of the essence here. Word of the arrival of the Delirium Trigger and the Ketty Jay would soon spread. The element of surprise would be lost. That wouldn't do. They needed to hit their target hard and fast.

Frey glanced around the faces of his crew. Harkins had remained behind but Jez, Malvery, Silo and Crake were with him. They were focused and determined. There was a new confidence about them since Crake had returned and Jez had been accepted back into the fold. Malvery had even muttered about searching for Pinn once they were done with Grist.

Things were different between them now. The sense that their world was unravelling had faded, and that gladdened Frey immensely. The end was in sight. Maybe they would track down that porky idiot Pinn once they'd mopped up here.

He was cold, and rather scared, and it was far too early in the morning to get killed. But for all that, he felt a fierce kind of love for his crew right then. There was nothing quite like the cameraderie of men and women who faced danger together. It was a bond stronger than friendship. Going into battle with another person at your side was a level of trust altogether unknown in the world of the aristocrat or the peasant.

Besides, he really liked it when they kicked arse.

Marduk's second city was built almost entirely from the grey-black stone of the region. It clung to the hilly back of the plateau, rising in grim tiers above them, walled sections linked by sloping roads and winding switchback stairs. Stout towers stood defiantly against the threat of winter gales. The streets were austere but not bare. Monuments and statues of dukes and explorers looked down on neat squares and wide boulevards. Banks and powerful trading houses competed for the most impressive premises. Sakkan was a dark and hard place, but it hadn't forgotten how to be grand.

The tractor's engine sounded eerily loud in the quiet of the dawn. The man driving it was Balomon Crund, Trinica's bosun. He was a squat, ugly man with dirty, matted hair and a burn scar on his neck. Not too easy on the eye, but Trinica thought highly of him. He'd been her most loyal supporter in the mutiny that deposed the Delirium Trigger's previous captain.

Frey could see why she trusted him. Though he was a taciturn sort, the signs were clear to a man of Frey's experience. Crund adored her. He'd seen it on the faces of several of her men: a certain sort of veneration, somewhere between affection, respect and awe. She'd made herself untouchable, put herself on a pedestal, and made them love and fear her. She couldn't rule by raw strength, so she'd fashioned them a cruel goddess, and let them come to her altar.

But the woman they knew wasn't the one Frey knew. That one had disappeared, it seemed, just as he feared she would.

The sight of Trinica in her make-up and black attire was jarring after a month of seeing her without it. But worse was the change in her behaviour. She was distant now, closed off from him. Her black eyes were empty and showed nothing. He told himself she had to be that way in front of her men, but he wasn't sure that was the whole truth. Perhaps she wore her personalities like a coat, to take off and put on as necessary. Perhaps the feelings he'd thought were growing between them had been the same: another woman's feelings, not those of a pirate queen.

He caught himself. Damn, what was happening to him? Since when had he spent this much time fretting about a woman? Don't be such a sap! he told himself.

The streets began to thin out as they came to the eastern edge of the city. Trinica's men led the way. She'd sent scouts ahead while Frey was off picking up Crake, and their reports had been encouraging. They'd found the warehouses Roke had spoken of, and apparently they'd seen Grist as well, and spotted the Storm Dog in its hangar.

The news made Frey restless with excitement. He'd wanted to fly in there and blast the place to pieces. Trinica had persuaded him otherwise. The Coalition Navy might not take kindly to an aerial assault on one of their major cities, she pointed out. Better to make it a ground assault. Take them by surprise. Catch Grist before he could even get his craft into the sky.

There were five in the assault team from the Ketty Jay, the rest from the Delirium Trigger. Harkins had been left with the aircraft, and instructed to stay in contact via the earcuffs. Frey would need the pilot's eyes in case things went airborne. The Delirium Trigger stood ready to take off at a moment's notice, at a signal from a flare gun Trinica carried. Just in case the Storm Dog got out of its hangar. Grist wasn't going to slip away again.

They passed early risers and late revellers, drifting through the streets. Many had heard of Trinica Dracken, and recognised her. They kept their distance, sensing trouble.

There'll be trouble for someone, alright, Frey thought.

The further from the landing pad they went, the more the city flattened and spread out. Eventually, they reached an industrial district of factories and warehouses. The roads became narrow, bleak and dirty. Walls crumbled, cracked by frost. The air smelled of chemicals, and the buildings were sooty with residue.

Crund brought the tractor to a halt just before the crest of a rise. Beyond, the road dipped down towards a group of blank brick warehouses huddled round a large aircraft hangar. The warehouses were surrounded by a formidable metal fence, ten feet high and tipped with spikes. A pair of guard towers stood overlooking the compound.

Frey got a better view with his spyglass. They were Yorts, their beards and hair knotted and braided, faces tattooed and pierced in several uncomfortable-looking places. They were carrying heavy repeater rifles, and appeared generally unfriendly.

He scanned the compound while the others pulled the tarpaulin off the trailer and checked their weapons. There were fifteen guards that he could see. One guard each.

Not good enough. Fair fights were for suckers. It was time to employ their secret weapon.

He walked around the side of the trailer, where Bess now lay uncovered. 'Wake her up, Crake,' he said.

Crake put a brass whistle to his lips and blew it. No sound was made, but Bess stirred and sat up. Trinica's men stepped back uneasily. Some of them remembered the golem from her rampage through the Delirium Trigger when she was berthed in Rabban during the Retribution Falls affair.

'Come on, Bess,' said Crake. The golem clambered down and the trailer groaned in relief. Trinica's men set about detaching it from the tractor they'd hired from the landing pad.

'Are your people ready?' Frey asked Trinica.

Trinica gazed at him in that cool, half-amused way she had. 'They'll do their part.'

The group split into two. Five of Trinica's men were staying behind with the tractor. The rest were coming with Frey and his crew, Trinica and her bosun included. Frey didn't feel good about Trinica fighting alongside him - he'd have preferred her safe and out of the way - but she wouldn't be dissuaded and he knew better than to try. She was hungry to get her own back on Grist. She wanted to be there in person when the big man went down.

'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 followed.

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?'