The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,142

walk. Malvery was looking distinctly nauseous, still suffering the effects of the previous night. Silo looked like he wanted to murder someone.

They could hear gunshots somewhere ahead of them, and the thumping of Grudge's autocannon. Between the high, echoing roof and the cacophony all around them, it was hard to pick out their location. Frey was as keen to avoid the Century Knights as he was to avoid the armed workers who were sabotaging the refinery. He didn't much want to see the look on Samandra Bree's face when she caught him stealing off with her prisoners.

Frey reached a corner and saw that the coast was clear. He looked back. Once again, the Samarlan was lagging behind, moving with quick steps but not actually breaking into anything that might be described as a jog, let alone a run.

'Will you bleedin' well hurry?' Frey said.

The Samarlan made no effort to do so. Malvery, who was standing nearby, grabbed his arm and pulled him forward with a rough tug. 'Quicken up, eh?'

The Samarlan threw him off angrily, yellow eyes wide in outrage. He began to berate Malvery in his own language: a hissing, harsh tongue that made him sound like a furious snake. Then, realising that Malvery didn't understand him or care, he rounded on Silo, who was standing nearby. He unleashed a tirade, pointing at Malvery and then at Silo. Frey had no idea what was being said, but the Samarlan seemed to be indicating that Silo should have intervened.

Frey had had enough by this point. 'Tell your friend to shut up,' he said to Roke, 'or I'll break his teeth.'

Roke went over and spoke to the Samarlan in his own tongue. Frey looked around anxiously. This was no place for temper tantrums. That Sammie was trying his patience.

The Samarlan calmed, finishing with a few gestures at Silo. Silo hadn't spoken the entire time. He turned away with barely suppressed rage.

'I'm sorry,' said Roke, as he returned. 'He's a Samarlan from the noble caste. They don't run in public. And they certainly don't get touched.'

'They don't run?'' Frey almost choked in disbelief. 'Has anyone explained to him that he's going to be lynched if he doesn't? Does he even know that everyone who's being shot and killed out there is dying on his account?'

Roke gave Frey an apologetic look. 'Every day since they're born, they're attended to by slaves. They live a life of ridiculous luxury. Manners and etiquette are life and death to someone like him. He won't run. It'd be a terrible indignity. He'd rather die.'

'Would he run faster with my toe up his arse?'

'You get us both out, Frey. That's the deal,' Roke reminded him sternly.

Frey rolled his eyes and swore. 'Come on, then.'

They rounded the corner and hurried along a row of vats. Gas flames roared at their bases. Some of them were beginning to bubble. Viscous liquid oozed over the rims and splattered on the floor. The stench made Frey light-headed.

They were halfway along the row when three men ran into view at the far end, carrying shotguns. They were unkempt figures, wearing overalls, their faces lit from below by the gas flames. They paused at the sight of Frey and his group, perhaps thinking that they were on the same side; then one of them raised his shotgun and screamed, 'Sammie!' Even in the half-light, the Samarlan's skin marked him out immediately.

The moment of hesitation was not shared by Frey and his companions. They got off their first volley before the refinery workers even had a chance to shoot. But their accuracy was less impressive than their speed. The workers, alarmed at finding themselves suddenly under fire, shot wildly in the vague direction of their targets, then threw themselves into cover. Frey's group did the same, squeezing into the gaps between the vats.

The Sammie just stood there in the aisle, back straight, an imperious look on his face. Bullets whined through the air around him. He faced them without fear.

'What in blazing shit is that idiot doing?' Frey cried. Presumably, the Samarlan was too dignified to cram himself into the baking hot blackness with the rest of them. 'Malvery, get him out of there!'

Malvery lunged from hiding, grabbed the Samarlan and pulled him into cover. When he began to hiss again, Malvery whacked his head against the side of a vat. He was too shocked to say anything after that.

Frey checked on Trinica, who was pressed up against him in a not entirely unpleasant fashion,