The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,173
at the enemy. 'Deal with 'em!' Then he aimed with the pistol in his right hand.
Three Manes. One was slow, one was damned fast, and the other one shifted restlessly from place to place like a jumpy kinetoscope he'd seen once in a travelling show. One moment it was there, the next a half-metre to the left, then back again in the blink of an eye. He'd seen Jez flicker the same way, back on the All Our Yesterdays.
He sighted on the slower one: a bulky, muscular monster, skin stretched like parchment over taut muscle, wearing little more than tatters and rags in the arctic chill. His own hands were freezing and numb, but he still squeezed off a shot. Non-lethal wounds didn't seem to slow them, and he knew from experience with Jez that they didn't need a heart. Aim for the head, then.
He did, and he missed.
Bess pounded up the street to cover their retreat. She tackled the Manes fearlessly. The Manes faltered. Presumably, they were accustomed to their enemies being afraid of them; but Bess was afraid of nothing. Frey took another shot at the bulky one, who was too occupied with Bess to evade. The shot wasn't good - his fingers slipped a little as he fired - but he got lucky. There was a small puff of red mist from the Mane's head, and its legs crumpled beneath it.
The two remaining Manes swarmed over Bess. They battered and scratched at her uselessly. She flailed about like a bear who'd disturbed a wasp's nest. The others aimed, but none fired. They couldn't shoot without hitting the golem.
'Fall back!' he yelled at the others. 'Bess can handle them! They can't hurt her!'
They obeyed gladly. Nobody wanted to get into a stand-up fight with the Manes. They just wanted to get back to the Ketty Jay alive. Malvery, Crake and Silo backed off while Frey and Jez covered them.
He cast a quick glance at Jez, who was standing next to him, sighting along a rifle. She'd shaken off the daze that had taken her after she'd activated the sphere, and now she was hard-faced and sharp.
'You okay?' he muttered to her.
'You mean, am I okay with shooting at my own kind?'
'Right.'
One of the Manes, a female with long, tangled hair, jumped off Bess's back, giving up on her. It came running up the street towards them. Jez narrowed her eye and squeezed the trigger. The Mane flickered, shifting left and right so rapidly that seemed it was in three places at once. Jez hit it anyway, dead in the forehead. It spun off its feet and crashed to the cobbles.
'I've picked my side,' she said.
The final Mane was quick, but it couldn't dodge Bess's grasping hands forever. She snagged its ankle, pulled it writhing into the air, then grabbed its head in one metal hand and pulled it off, dragging a length of bloody spine with it.
They headed off in the direction of the landing pad. The sloping, angled streets of Sakkan were in chaos. People ran with no destination in mind. The unnatural fear brought on by the dreadnoughts had turned them into panicking sheep, fleeing the wolves among them. A man bolted screaming across their path, closely pursued by a Mane, which ignored them totally as it chased its prey into a side alley.
They didn't intervene. There was nothing they could do. They had enough on their hands.
I tried to stop this! Frey thought angrily. I tried my best! But now it's every man for himself.
The Manes were up above them, springing from roof to roof. Strange, feral howls drifted over the city, punctuated by gunfire and the shrieks of the unfortunate citizens. Frey's crew were spotted from time to time, but the Manes sought easier prey than an armed gang. They hunted the vulnerable, those who were alone and unarmed. That was how they worked, according to the stories. They took the ones they could, and killed the ones they couldn't. The few who got away lived to spread the stories.
Frey's mouth was dry. Were it not for Bess, they'd have been dead by now. The Manes were coming from all directions, and they weren't like ordinary opponents. They had no weapons but they attacked without fear, running on to their enemies' guns. They were relentless, confident in their speed, able to absorb most wounds with impunity. But Bess was an obstacle they couldn't handle. They hadn't found a way to hurt her yet.