The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [164]
She’s dead, he told himself. It still didn’t feel true. But, on some level, something had changed. He’d begun to feel that, if he repeated it enough, he’d believe it. That was something, at least. That was hope.
No words were spoken. They simply stood and stared at the grave marker. Silently sharing the emptiness of death.
After a time, Crake stooped and laid a small toy at the foot of the marker. A doll that he’d bought in Tarlock Cove. Bess had always been enchanted by the toys he bought for her. He used to pretend he made them himself, in his secret basement. It explained what he was doing in the wine cellar of her father’s house, night after night. It had been her desire to see his mythical toy workshop that led her to sneak into his sanctum on the night that was to end her life.
He heard the rustle and clank of leather and metal and felt Bess arrive next to him. She looked down at the grave marker, tiny glimmers of light glittering behind her face grille. Then she bent down and put her ball next to the doll.
Crake choked back a sudden sob. He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips and smiled at her as best he could. He put his hand on the cold armor plate of her shoulder and patted it.
“Good girl, Bess,” he said.
Then he turned away from the grave to face the sympathetic gazes of his friends. He pulled in a deep breath, raised his head, and nodded.
“I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s go get Grist.”
MANY ANGLES—“SHE DOESN’T REALLY DO SUBTLE”—A CONFRONTATION
akkan was a city of geometries, all slopes and angles. Situated deep in the frozen duchy of Marduk, it didn’t hide underground like many northern settlements, nor did it shelter in the lee of a mountain. Instead, it stood stern and resilient as the rock of the plateau it was built on. A summer dawn was breaking, hazy cloud choking a sky that was dull and bleached of color. There was no wind and no snow. The cold hung in the still air and seeped like liquid into the bones.
A tractor rumbled and sputtered through the quiet streets, surrounded by a wary escort of fifteen men and two women. It towed a trailer behind it, carrying a large, lumpy shape concealed under a tarpaulin. The men and women moved quickly, with hurried steps, their eyes darting this way and that, hands never far from their guns.
Time was of the essence here. Word of the arrival of the Delirium Trigger and the Ketty Jay would soon spread. The element of surprise would be lost. That wouldn’t do. They needed to hit their target hard and fast.
Frey glanced around the faces of his crew. Harkins had remained behind but Jez, Malvery, Silo, and Crake were with him. They were focused and determined. There was a new confidence about them since Crake had returned and Jez had been accepted back into the fold. Malvery had even muttered about searching for Pinn once they were done with Grist.
Things were different between them now. The sense that their world was unraveling had faded, and that gladdened Frey immensely. The end was in sight. Maybe they would track down that porky idiot Pinn once they’d mopped up here.
He was cold and rather scared, and it was far too early in the morning to get killed. But for all that, he felt a fierce kind of love for his crew right then. There was nothing quite like the camaraderie of men and women who faced danger together. It was a bond stronger than friendship. Going into battle with another person at your side was a level of trust altogether unknown in the world of the aristocrat or the peasant.
Besides, he really liked it when they kicked arse.
Marduk’s second city was built almost entirely from the gray-black stone of the region. It clung to the hilly back of the plateau, rising in grim tiers above them, walled sections linked by sloping roads and winding switchback stairs. Stout towers stood defiantly