The Black Lung Captain - By Chris Wooding Page 0,33

thick enough to resist Slag's claws. With it, he'd smother that damned moggy, and stuff him in the box.

He took a deep breath. Scratch scratch scratch.

A huge black rat darted out of the gap. Harkins yelped in fright. It stared at him and scurried away.

Harkins let his breath out. He was trembling. False alarm. He turned to Bess and managed a nervous smile.

'That was close, eh?'

The cat dropped from the pipes above, landing on his head in a frantic scurry of claws. Harkins shrieked in panic, wheeling away down the aisle, beating at his head as if his cap were on fire. He spun past Bess, still trying to get a grip on his yowling adversary, then tripped over his feet and smashed his head against the corner of a crate.

The next few moments were a blur. He was lying on his back, unable to move, too stunned to work out what had happened. The cat padded over and leaned into his field of vision, peering into his eyes. Satisfied its foe was vanquished, it wandered away.

Jez ... he thought. Jez, I failed you . . .

The last thing he remembered was Bess squatting next to him and poking him, evidently wondering why he wasn't getting up. After that, everything went dark. It was better that way.

It was on a damp, cold morning that they buried Gimble.

The rain had stopped at dawn but the cloud cover was still unbroken, a low grey roof over the land. They put the dead man into the earth in the spot where they'd made last night's camp. An anonymous place among the trees and creepers, where the air was chill and fresh, rich with the scent of soil and leaf.

Grist said a few words in Gimble's memory while the others stood around sniffling and coughing. Most of them had caught colds in the night, and several were sipping a hot remedy that Malvery had whipped up. When Grist was done, they laid on Gimble's chest the severed claw of the creature that had killed him. It seemed fitting, somehow, to show that his death had been avenged.

Not that the poor sod'll know anything about it, Frey thought, as Gimble's crewmates began to fill in the grave.

Last night's other casualty, the eager young Tarworth, was in better shape. He was limping along, using a rifle as a makeshift crutch, but his spirits seemed high. Frey saw him joking with Ucke as they set out. Ucke grinned, showing his uneven mouthful of scavenged teeth.

Pinn looked shifty all morning, but nobody said a word about his little mishap with a pistol. Frey's own pistol had been lost during his flight from the beast, so he'd taken Gimble's twin revolvers. Nobody seemed to mind, and Gimble wouldn't need them.

Their pace was slow, for Tarworth's sake. Hodd assured them they'd be at the crash site by mid-afternoon, but even that seemed too long. Last night's attack had made them wary, and they jumped at every rusde of leaves. Yet despite the sound of animals all around them, they caught barely a glimpse of the local wildlife. The animals heard or smelled them long before they arrived, and made themselves scarce.

'See, boys?' said Grist. 'They're more afraid of us than we are of them!'

Speak for yourself, thought Frey. You didn't see what attacked the camp.

At midday, they found the village.

It was dug into a hillside, half-buried by the slope of the land. The trees had thinned out and there was little undergrowth. Sunken trenches with walls of stone blocks formed enclosures and yards. Oversized doorways led into passages, tunnelling into the hill. Scattered about were crude huts of rock and packed mud, their roofs fallen in. It was an abandoned place, empty of life.

'Your lost tribe?' Grist asked Hodd.

'Sadly not,' said the explorer. He blew his nose on a handkerchief. 'This is a beast-man village. Home to the savages that inhabit this island. I passed it last time I was here.' He swept the buildings with a disinterested gaze. 'They have been well documented by explorers before me. Come on. The craft isn't much further.'

They ignored him. Several of them wandered off to investigate the huts. Frey stayed back. Dead as it was, the village was uncomfortably roomy, built for people much bigger than the average Vard. He didn't like the size of some of those doorways. 'So there are beast-men?' he asked Hodd. 'That much is true?'

'Oh, indeed,' said Hodd. 'I have seen some from afar. They walk like