The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [151]
Frey took him aside. “I know, Silo, I know. But we have to find Grist.”
“Grist! Grist!” he snarled. “What’s so important, Cap’n? What you got to prove that’s so damn important?”
Frey blinked in surprise. “I made a mistake, and I’m trying to make it right,” he said.
Silo stared over his shoulder at the Samarlan, nostrils flaring. His fist was clenched and his arm trembled. He looked as if he wanted to spring on Roke’s “guest” and beat him bloody.
“Can you deal with it? For me?” Frey asked. “You don’t have to speak to him. Just don’t kill him or anything. Please?”
Silo’s mouth was pressed tight, as if tasting something bitter. “I’ll do what you ask, Cap’n,” he said. “But this ain’t right. I want you knowin’ that. Ain’t right.” He hefted his shotgun and pumped the lever-action handle to chamber a round. “Let’s go.”
THE REFINERY FLOOR WAS like something out of a nightmare. A sea of roaring metal noise was punctuated by the shrieking and grinding of gears. Black pistons pumped up and down, shadows lunging against the gory glow of the furnace light. Unoiled mechanisms leaked wisps of acrid smoke. There was a haze in the air that stank of chemicals.
Frey, Trinica, Malvery, and Silo hurried down the aisles between the looming machines, weapons ready, alert for danger. Roke and the Samarlan followed, with Roke providing occasional directions. The Samarlan was frustratingly slow; he seemed reluctant to run and never accelerated above a speedy walk. Malvery was looking distinctly nauseous, still suffering the effects of the previous night. Silo looked as if he wanted to murder someone.
They could hear gunshots somewhere ahead of them and the thumping of Grudge’s autocannon. Between the high, echoing roof and the cacophony all around them, it was hard to pick out their location. Frey was as keen to avoid the Century Knights as he was to avoid the armed workers that were sabotaging the refinery. He didn’t much want to see the look on Samandra Bree’s face when she caught him stealing off with her prisoners.
Frey reached a corner and saw that the coast was clear. He looked back. Once again, the Samarlan was lagging behind, moving with quick steps but not actually breaking into anything that might be described as a jog, let alone a run.
“Will you bleedin’ well hurry?” Frey said.
The Samarlan made no effort to do so. Malvery, who was standing nearby, grabbed his arm and pulled him forward with a rough tug. “Quicken up, eh?”
The Samarlan threw him off angrily, yellow eyes wide in outrage. He began to berate Malvery in his own language: a hissing, harsh tongue that made him sound like a furious snake. Then, realizing that Malvery didn’t understand him or care, he rounded on Silo, who was standing nearby. He unleashed a tirade, pointing at Malvery and then at Silo. Frey had no idea what was being said, but the Samarlan seemed to be indicating that Silo should have intervened.
Frey had had enough by this point. “Tell your friend to shut up,” he said to Roke, “or I’ll break his teeth.”
Roke went over and spoke to the Samarlan in his own tongue. Frey looked around anxiously. This was no place for temper tantrums. That Sammie was trying his patience.
The Samarlan calmed, finishing with a few gestures at Silo. Silo hadn’t spoken the entire time. He turned away with barely suppressed rage.
“I’m sorry,” said Roke, as he returned. “He’s a Samarlan from the noble caste. They don’t run in public. And they certainly don’t get touched.”
“They don’t run?” Frey almost choked in disbelief. “Has anyone explained to him that he’s going to be lynched if he doesn’t? Does he even know that everyone who’s being shot and killed out there is dying on his account?”
Roke gave Frey an apologetic look. “Every day since they’re born, they’re attended to by slaves. They live a life of ridiculous luxury. Manners and etiquette are life and death to someone like him. He won’t run. It’d be a terrible indignity. He’d rather die.”
“Would he run faster with my toe up his arse?”
“You get us both out,