Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [175]
The others had gathered around him as he knelt down and threw open the chest. Inside was a golden mass of ducats. Thousands upon thousands of coins. Even in the dust-hazed air, it seemed to him that they glimmered.
Bess leaned in over his shoulder to look. She cooed as she saw the wealth within.
Frey could hardly breathe. He had it at last. They had it at last. After all the years of scrabbling in the dirt, they were rich.
He stepped back and looked at the joyous faces of his crew, transfixed by the sight of more money than they’d ever dreamed of.
“Bess, pick that up,” he said. “We’re getting out of here.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
SHELLS—THE DUEL—MALVERY’S HOUR—OUT OF THE MIST
rey didn’t hear the explosion.
It took some seconds for his stunned senses to recover, but even then all he could remember was the sensation of being squashed from above by an enormous force, like an insect trodden on by an invisible boot. After that, there was the taste of grit in his mouth, the stinging in his eyes, and the high-pitched whine in his ears, like the squeal of a turbine.
He looked around. Everything was muffled and clouded. The air was gray with pulverized stone. He was on his hands and knees. Ahead of him, what had once been a corridor was now a wall of broken stone.
A shell, he thought numbly. Orkmund’s stronghold must have taken a direct hit.
Suddenly he was being pulled to his feet. He looked up dazedly to see Silo holding his arm. The Murthian was saying something, but he couldn’t hear. Silo stood him up and spoke with exaggerated volume and clarity, but to Frey it still sounded as if it came from a great distance through the cottony pressure in his ears.
“Cap’n? You hear me?”
“A little bit,” he replied. His voice sounded strange in his own head.
“You hurt?”
Frey checked that he had all his arms and legs. “Don’t think so.”
There was a faint yell. Silo looked toward the rubble that had filled the corridor. Frey followed his gaze.
“Hey!” It was Malvery. Had it not been, Frey probably wouldn’t have heard him, but the doctor’s bellow could wake the dead.
“Doc!” Frey cried. “You okay?”
“Cap’n! We’re fine over here. Cuts and bruises. Silo with you?”
“He’s okay.”
“Okay!”
The conversation faltered. The dust was settling, and now Frey could see the section of ceiling and wall that had collapsed into the corridor. Frey and Silo had been lagging behind, guarding the rear of the retreating group. Frey stared at the tons of rubble in front of him and thought how lucky they were that nobody had been beneath it.
“Wait there!” cried Malvery. Frey glimpsed him momentarily through a gap in the rubble. “We’re going to get Bess to dig through to you!”
Silo grabbed Frey’s shoulder and shook his head. He pointed up at the ceiling. “Ain’t a good plan, Cap’n.”
Frey caught on. “Silo says no!” he cried. “The roof could come down on you.”
Malvery considered that for a moment. “I expect that’d hurt quite a bit,” he said.
“Go on to the Ketty Jay. We’ll find another way round.”
“You sure?”
“You’ve got the treasure with you?”
“Safe and sound.”
“Get it on board. We’ll get there fast as we can.”
“Right-o.”
“And, Malvery? If they start shelling us again, you tell Jez to get her airborne and get you out of there.”
“Without you, Cap’n?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d rather choke on my own shit,” Malvery replied cheerily. “See you on board.”
Frey shook his head to clear it of the ringing. It was about as effective as he’d expected. At least his hearing was getting less muffled with time.
He picked up his revolver from the ground where it had fallen and thumbed in the direction they’d come. “That way, I suppose.”
They hurried back down the corridor and through a doorway, into a crude kitchen. They could see an exterior window, but, even though it had been smashed by the explosion, it was too small to get through. Frey led the way into a simple eating hall with benches and a fireplace. He stayed close to the exterior wall, hoping for a door, but room after room confounded him. Eventually they came out into another corridor like the one