The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [122]
“Weapons on the ground! Real slow!” barked the first of the gunmen, a heavyset man with a bushy beard that hung down over his chest.
Trinica looked at Frey, as if expecting him to do something about it. But Frey just shrugged at her. Some guardian I am. That didn’t last long.
“Do it,” he said. He threw his revolvers on the ground before him. His cutlass followed. Then he raised his hands.
Trinica was still staring at him, an expression of frustrated disappointment on her face. As if she couldn’t understand why he’d given up so easily. As if she’d expected him to fight three men who had the drop on them.
Who does she think I am? he thought angrily. I’m not one of the Century bloody Knights.
But he couldn’t hold her gaze, so he turned his head away. After a few moments, he heard her guns clatter down on top of his.
“Bounty’s ours, boys!” crowed the second gunman, a long-faced fellow in a dirty shirt, with suspenders holding up his trousers. “Trinica bleedin’ Dracken!”
“I told you!” said the third one, who’d moved nearer now. He was the youngest of the three, barely old enough to grow a decent stubble on his cheeks. “Cost us every shillie we had, but she’ll be worth it.”
The heavyset man was looking Trinica over. “Aye. The Navy’ll pay us back five times over. You was right: Smult was good as his word.”
Frey felt Trinica tense at the sound of his name. Smult. He’d sold them out twice over. Bleeding all sides for as much money as he could get.
“Your friend Smult,” said Frey under his breath, “is quite a piece of shit.”
“If we ever get out of this,” said Trinica, “I’m going to teach him the meaning of suffering.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that. You take out the two in front, I’ll handle the one behind me.”
“What?” said Trinica. “How can I—”
But he wasn’t talking to her. He was talking to Jez and Silo.
Gunshots. The heavyset man and his long-faced companion wheeled and jerked, eyes wide in shock. Frey was already moving as they fell, turning to face the man behind him. As he did so, he held out his arm, and his cutlass leaped from the ground of its own accord. He felt it slap into his palm just as his opponent raised his pistol and fired at his chest from a distance of two meters. The blade jerked in his hand; the bullet sparked off the metal. His attacker had only a moment to stare in disbelief before Frey cut his hand off at the wrist and beheaded him on the return stroke.
Three corpses slumped to the ground together. Frey turned to Trinica, raised an eyebrow at her, and then walked away toward Jez and Silo. The look of amazement on her face was priceless.
Jez and Silo hurried up to him from the direction of the landing pad. “Everything okay, Cap’n?” Jez asked.
“It is now,” he said. “Should I ask how you found me?”
Jez brandished Crake’s compass. “Followed the needle. We came looking for you after we dealt with the men on the roof. Thought you might need a hand.”
Frey held his hand up before him and studied the ring on his little finger. “I keep forgetting about this thing.”
“I take it things didn’t go so well with the whispermonger?”
“We’ve got enough to be going on with,” said Frey. He spotted Trinica walking over to them and added, “If Trinica asks, I planned this whole crafty counterambush all along.”
“Right you are, Cap’n,” said Jez. Her eyes roamed his face uncertainly. Neither knew quite how to behave around the other. Frey felt that he was supposed to be mad at her, but it didn’t seem right after what had just happened. And yet, when he looked at her, he still saw something he was afraid of.
“Thanks,” he said awkwardly. Then he looked at Silo, where he was on safer ground. “Both of you.”
“Um,” said Jez,