The Black Lung Captain

Seven

Frey dreamed of a meadow on a hill. He dreamed of a young woman with long blond hair and a smile of such innocent beauty that it melted him to see it.

Trinica was her name. They were mad with the joy of first love, swept up in each other. He chased her through the tall grass, but she was always one step ahead of him, laughing. Finally he caught her, and she turned in his arms, her nose an inch from his as she leaned forward to kiss him . . .

Then she was screaming. Her mouth stretched open, grotesquely wide, exposing rotted teeth. Her breath stank of decay. Her green eyes darkened to black. Hair came away from her head in clumps, the dying locks slithering to the ground. He struggled frantically to let go of her, but his upper arms were gripped by some invisible force. She shrieked in his face, features distorted with horror, her skin white, corpse-like. Frey shrieked with her.

He thrashed awake to the sound of screams, shouting, rain. His arms were trapped inside his sleeping bag. Trinica's howling still echoed in his mind.

Rain hammered against the tarpaulin overhead. A fire flickered nearby, smoking up the air beneath their little shelter. Dark figures moved beyond it, barely visible in the downpour. Frey looked about, trying to reassemble his memories, and found himself in a lumpy, tangled landscape of empty sleeping bags. He'd gone to sleep as soon as he'd had his dinner, exhausted by the afternoon's trek.

What in damnation is going on?

'Over there!' someone cried. One of Grist's men.

'Over where?'

'That way!'

'I can't bloody see where you're pointing!'

'That way!'

'Which way is that way, shit-wit?'

Frey scrambled out of his sleeping bag, pulled on his boots and snatched up his revolver. Then he pulled his cutlass from where he'd lain next to it in the night, and thrust it into his belt. It wasn't the smartest thing to sleep with a naked blade - he didn't want any accidents where bits of his insides ended up on the outside - but he was paranoid about someone stealing it. That cutlass was his most precious possession after the Ketty Jay. a daemon-thralled weapon given to him by Crake as price for his passage. It made even an amateur swordsman into a champion. Which was good, since Frey was very, very amateur.

He emerged from the shelter into the open and was soaked to the skin in seconds. Wiping hair back from his forehead, revolver at the ready, he cast around for signs of his crew. It was dark beyond the firelight, and the rain made it seem as if everything was constantly in motion. A pistol shot rang out, making him jump. He turned towards the sound, but the trees and shadows foiled his sight.

'Sound your names, damn you all!' Grist cried from somewhere.

'Crattle!'

'Ucke!'

'Tarworth, sir! I'm shot!' The young crewman's voice wavered fearfully.

'Hodd! Where are you?' Grist demanded.

'Here!' the explorer replied.

'Gimble?'

Frey heard a rustle to his left and Pinn emerged from the undergrowth, eyes bright, chubby face flushed with excitement.

'I saw it, Cap'n! It's huge!'

' What is?' he asked, but then Grist yelled again.

'Gimble? Are you there?'

'Malvery!' This time it was Jez's voice. 'Someone get the doc over here!'

Malvery appeared out of the rain, hurrying past Pinn and Frey, a lever-action shotgun in one meaty hand, his doctor's bag in the other. 'Malvery!' Frey said. 'What in bastardy is happening?'

'Can't stop. Duty calls,' Malvery replied, heading off in the direction of Jez's voice.

'We're coming with you,' Frey decided. 'Come on, Pinn. Everyone, stay together.' They followed Malvery into the trees, slipping through the mud, pushing wet branches aside. 'Jez! Keep shouting!'

'This way!'

Frey's heart was pounding against his ribs as they forged through the forest. The sense of threat was overwhelming. The further they went from the fire, the worse it got. He could barely see far enough to avoid the trees in front of him. Everything was slick with rain. In seconds, the camp was nothing more than a faint smear of light in the distance.

They followed Jez's voice, and found her with Silo. The two of them were smeared in mud and kneeling over a fallen figure. Frey felt a surge of relief at seeing they were unhurt, but it faded as he remembered that Crake was still unaccounted for. That figure on the ground . . .

Don't be Crake. Don't be Crake.

It was Gimble, the scrawny, bad-humoured crewman from the Storm Dog. He was trembling, eyes glassy. One arm had been torn off at the socket. A knob of bone glistened there, washed clean by the rain. Three ragged, parallel claw-strokes were carved into his belly. Vile blue loops of intestine poked through the rips. Blood washed into the mud, coming from everywhere. He hadn't even had time to pull his revolvers from his belt.

Malvery knelt down next to him, wiped his round glasses, looked him over.

'He's done,' Malvery announced. 'Soon as the shock wears off.'

'Can't you do anything?' Jez pleaded.

Malvery grimaced regretfully and patted his shotgun. 'Best I could do is make it quick.'

'Anyone seen Crake?' Frey asked, panicked. Something was out there, in the forest, and his crewman - his friend - was missing. He didn't give a toss about Grist's folk, but Crake was a different matter. He called into the night. There was no reply.

Crattle appeared, having followed Jez's calls. He stared down at Gimble, then at Frey.

'We need your doctor,' he said. 'Tarworth's shot.'

Malvery got to his feet. 'Lead on.'

'We need to stay together!' Frey insisted.

'They've got wounded,' Malvery said. 'I can't help this feller, but I might be able to help the other. You lot find Crake.'

'I'll make sure he gets back to you safe,' Crattle told Frey.

'What about your crewman? You're just gonna leave him here in the mud?' Frey demanded of Crattle, slightly appalled.

Crattle gave Frey a hard look. 'Don't matter what anyone does for Gimble now. My concern's with the living.'

Jez looked up from where she knelt by Gimble. His ragged breathing had stopped while they argued. 'He's dead anyway,' she said, her voice flat. She got up. 'Let's find Crake.'

'Good luck, eh?'Malvery said. He went off with Crattle and was swallowed up by the rain.

Frey rubbed water out of his eyes. The forest looked the same in every direction, but he could still vaguely see the firelight from the camp. 'Alright,' he said. 'He can't have gone far. We circle the camp. Keep that light on your left. And stay together. I'm not losing anyone to this forest, you all hear me?'

'Yes, Cap'n,' mumbled Pinn, who'd been rather sobered by the sight of Gimble's guts.

Frey led them away from the dead man. His mouth was dry and his temples throbbed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this exposed. The rain, the dark and the cacophony of animals and insects conspired to foil his senses. If something was out there, they'd never see it coming.

When he was a child, he'd go sneaking through the corridors of the orphanage at night. Usually it was for a dare; sometimes it was because he needed the toilet and he hadn't gone before bedtime. Either way, the punishment for being caught out of bed was severe. But it was never the staff that he feared, or the prospect of a thrashing. It was the monsters that came out when the orphanage was dark and quiet. The whispering things that scraped and creaked and stalked him, waiting behind every door, hiding in the corners.

That kind of fear, that unreasonable, primal, overwhelming fear, he thought he'd left behind with his childhood. But here it was again. And this time, there was no doubt the monsters were real.

Damn it, Crake, where are you? he thought.

Why wasn't he answering? Crake was a smart fellow, the smartest among them. He'd have a good reason for keeping his mouth shut. Was he being stalked, even now, and he didn't dare call out? Was he lying unconscious somewhere, having slipped on a rock or fallen down a hole?

Or was he like Gimble, lying in a muddy tangle of himself, rain falling on his blind, open eyes?

Frey's mind flinched away from the image. He didn't want to think about that. It was he who brought them to this place, and they were his responsibility. Time was, his crew would have told him to stuff it if they didn't feel like risking their hides on a treasure hunt. But that time was past now. They trusted him to lead them, and he felt the weight of that trust. Coming to Kurg had been his choice. If Crake died, it was on his shoulders.

He called out Crake's name, but he got only silence.

Answer me, you bastard.

'Er, Cap'n, should you really be yelling like that when there's a gigantic horror out there wanting to tear out your kidneys?' Jez asked.

Frey reluctantly conceded the logic of that. 'Can you see anything?' he asked. 'You've got better eyes than the rest of us.'

'Not much,' Jez replied. 'Rain and trees.'

'We should—' he began, but then something lunged across their path in a flurry- of leaves. Pinn, who was standing behind Frey, fired reflexively. They caught a glimpse of something furry and fat, the size of a large dog, burrowing into the undergrowth.

Frey looked down at himself. There were two holes in the armpit of his coat, where the bullet had gone in and out. He looked back at Pinn, who grinned sheepishly.

'I'm pretty sure that wasn't the thing that did for Gimble,' Frey said. 'Now that we've established there are other creatures and people in this forest, let's all think about aiming before we fire, shall we?'

'Sorry, Cap'n,' Pinn said.

'Well, I reckon we solved the mystery of how Tarworth got shot,' Jez said.

'That wasn't me!' said Pinn. Then he thought for a moment and a guilty expression crossed his face. 'Or maybe it was,' he added.

'Let's keep that between us, eh?' Frey said. 'And you'd better hope that poor bloke isn't dead.'

'No, I reckon I only shot him in the leg,' said Pinn cheerily.

Frey was about to reply when Jez seized his arm. 'Cap'n!' she whispered.

The urgency in her voice made him freeze. She was looking off to their left. Slowly she raised her hand and pointed. 'Over there.'

Silo moved around the side of them, crouching, shotgun held in both hands. He was staring at the same point as Jez. Frey peered into the forest, following Silo's line of sight.

The leaves swayed under the pounding of the rain, but nothing moved except the shadows. At first, he couldn't see anything. But then he saw what was not moving.

Eyes. Eyes, set half a metre apart. The eyes of something huge.

It burst out of the foliage with a roar. Massive and shaggy, a monstrous approximation of a bear, but much larger than any Frey had ever heard of. Short tusks thrust forward on either side of a mouth that was all fangs and no lips. There was no snout to be seen, just that pair of eyes. Shark's eyes, round and dead and soulless.

Its sheer, unstoppable size panicked them. Frey heard Silo's shotgun, but they were already scattering out of the way of its charge. Frey flailed through branches, slipped and went face-down in the mud, landing chest-first on a tree root. Gasping at the pain, he rolled on to his back.

The creature had reared on its hind legs, pawing the air, twice Frey's height or more. To his right, he could see Pinn behind a tree, taking aim with his pistol. The creature screeched as the bullet found its mark. It thumped down on to its forepaws, shook itself, then lifted its head and fixed Frey with a glare of terrible intent.

'It wasn't bloody me!' Frey protested. Then he got to his feet and ran.

He could hear the creature pounding after him, and he sprinted with all the strength in his body. 'Cap'n!' someone shouted, but it sounded like it came from kloms away. Rain-lashed boughs flashed past. His boots skidded on ground that was alternately slick and sucking. The creature came crashing in his wake with a rattling growl. It had its sights on prey now, and it wasn't going to give him up.

Pinn, you bastard, I'm gonna get you for this!

He stuck his revolver out behind him, glanced over his shoulder. and took a potshot at the monstrous shadow surging through the sodden dark. If it hit, it had little effect. He turned back just in time to catch a branch across his forehead. Stars exploded before his eyes. He staggered back from the surprise impact, dazed and blinking.

The creature smashed through the foliage behind him. He spun to face it. It came to a halt with a roar. Close enough to smell its bad-meat breath and the musky, wet stench of its fur. He flung himself through a screen of leaves as a massive paw swiped at him. He scrambled to his feet on the other side, his revolver lost somewhere in the mud. He didn't stop to collect it.

'Cap'n! Cap'n!' Jez, Pinn and the others. Too distant to be any help. He was on his own now. Just him and the creature.

His pursuer was slow to pick up the chase again, giving him a precious few seconds' lead. His lungs burned and his skin felt red-hot. He looked around desperately for some route of escape. A ravine too narrow for the creature, a stream that might carry him away, anything like that. But the trees blocked his view on all sides, reducing his world to a flurry of rain and bark and leaves.

Damn trees, he thought. Then, a moment later, realisation struck. Trees were high. He could climb one. He felt a bit stupid for not having thought of it before, actually.

Spotting a likely candidate, he leaped up and grabbed a sturdy branch. Fear lent him assistance. He clambered on to the branch and reached up for the next. Cold hands gripped wet bark. Leaves cascaded rainwater down on to his face as he disturbed them. He pulled himself up, and blundered through a spiderweb so thick it felt like it was made of rope. Something heavy and leggy dropped on to his shoulder; he let out an involuntary squeal. The unseen thing scrabbled for purchase and then slipped off his back. He got his legs up on to the branch, felt for another, and climbed higher.

By the time the creature arrived at the foot of the tree, he felt relatively safe. It snarled up at him through the branches, and reared up on its hind legs. But he was out of reach.

'Let's see you get me up here!' Frey taunted, drunk with the thrill of his escape.

The beast tottered back on its hind legs, balanced itself, and shoulder-charged the tree. Frey frantically grabbed on as his perch trembled violently. Some unidentified small animal plunged past him with a squeak and bounced off a lower branch.

'Er . . .' said Frey. 'Don't do that.'

The creature smashed into the tree again, with more force this time. Now there was an ominous splintering noise, and an unpleasant sensation of tipping.

'Shit,' Frey murmured.

The next few seconds were a mayhem of whipping and hissing branches, and the sickening anticipation of impact. Something smacked the back of his head. He felt himself jolted, thrown, rolling. Suddenly the leaves weren't there any more. He ended up on the ground, in the open, gazing at the nodding canopy overhead. His whole body felt like one big bruise.

He lay there for a moment, relieved to be alive, before he remembered the creature.

He staggered to his feet, drew his cutlass and looked around wildly. The fallen tree was nearby, but he saw no sign of his enemy. His head was still spinning from the tumble. He shook it, but that only made things worse. His eyes kept trying to double everything.

A thrashing of leaves behind him. He turned and saw the creature rearing, one huge paw drawn back for a swipe that would take his head off.

Then his cutlass moved, pulling his hand with it. The blade flashed in the rain and there was a shiver of impact. The paw splashed into the mud, detached from its owner.

The creature shrieked and flailed backwards in clumsy retreat, the remains of its forelimb tucked against its shaggy chest. Blood spewed from the severed stump as it turned and fled.

And then Frey was alone in the forest. Soaked, covered in mud and blood. He stood there, breathing in and out, just because he could.

'Not bad,' he said to himself. 'Not bad.'

Distantly, he heard his crew calling his name. 'I'm here!' he called. 'I'm okay!' Then his eyes fell on the monstrous paw lying next to him, and he grinned. 'Better than that,' he said to himself. 'I'm a bloody hero!'

Frey dumped the paw in front of his amazed audience and then sat down by the fire, feigning nonchalance. They gathered beneath the tarpaulin, out of the rain. Grist was working on a fresh cigar. Hodd was wide-eyed with awe.

'That,' said Grist, 'is a big paw.'

'You . . .' Hodd gaped. 'You . . . That's tremendous!'

'I wouldn't go that far,' said Malvery, eyeing the paw. 'It would have been tremendous if he killed the rest of it.'

'Ah, clam it, Malvery,' said Jez. beaming. 'The Cap'n just slaved his first monster!'

'It's probably not even dead!' Malvery protested, but nobody listened.

'How's your man?' Frey asked Grist.

'He'll live. Flesh wound. Bled a lot, but no real harm.'

'That's good news, at least,' he said. He got to his feet. 'Speaking of crew, I'd better go see to mine.'

'He's over here,' said Jez. She led him to the far side of the shelter; Malvery and Silo came trailing after. Hidden among the packs, trussed up in a sleeping bag, was Crake. Snoring. No one had seen him in the confusion.

Frey leaned close. The stink of rum was on his breath. He pulled open the neck of the bag and saw that Crake was clutching an empty bottle.

'He slept through the whole thing,' said Jez.

Frey harumphed and scratched the back of his neck. It should have been a relief to see him unhurt, but somehow it wasn't. Not like this.

'Can you talk to him, Jez?' he said.

'I'll talk to him,' she promised.

'Me, too,' said Malvery. He thumbed at Jez. 'After all, what does she know about being an alcoholic?'

'Alright,' said Frey. 'I'll leave it to you two. Fix him, or something.' He waved a hand vaguely. 'You're all better at this stuff than I am.'

'Will do, Cap'n,' said Jez. Frey saw her exchange a glance with Silo. The Murthian nodded gravely at her.

Something meaningful there? He didn't know. He didn't know what half his crew were thinking. Talking about feelings - real feelings - had never been something he was comfortable with.

His hand fell to the hilt of his cutlass. Even blind drunk, the daemonist had saved his life. He desperately wanted the old Crake back. He just didn't know what to do about it. But maybe Jez and Malvery did.

They're looking out for each other, Frey thought to himself. By damn, my crew are actually looking out for each other. Could you have ever imagined it, a year ago? I must be doing something right.

Well, perhaps and perhaps not. He was just glad that no one had died. But there was still a good distance to go before they could count themselves safe again.

Some things are worth riskin' everythin' for, Grist had said to him. After the close shave they'd just had, Frey was beginning to wonder if this expedition was really one of them.