The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,30

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