The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [32]
That kind of fear, that unreasonable, primal, overwhelming fear, he thought he’d left behind with his childhood. But here it was again. And this time, there was no doubt the monsters were real.
Damn it, Crake, where are you? he thought.
Why wasn’t he answering? Crake was a smart fellow, the smartest among them. He’d have a good reason for keeping his mouth shut. Was he being stalked, even now, and he didn’t dare call out? Was he lying unconscious somewhere, having slipped on a rock or fallen down a hole?
Or was he like Gimble, lying in a muddy tangle of himself, rain falling on his blind, open eyes?
Frey’s mind flinched away from the image. He didn’t want to think about that. It was he who brought them to this place, and they were his responsibility. Time was, his crew would have told him to stuff it if they didn’t feel like risking their hides on a treasure hunt. But that time was past now. They trusted him to lead them, and he felt the weight of that trust. Coming to Kurg had been his choice. If Crake died, it was on his shoulders.
He called out Crake’s name, but he got only silence.
Answer me, you bastard.
“Er, Cap’n, should you really be yelling like that when there’s a gigantic horror out there wanting to tear out your kidneys?” Jez asked.
Frey reluctantly conceded the logic of that. “Can you see anything?” he asked. “You’ve got better eyes than the rest of us.”
“Not much,” Jez replied. “Rain and trees.”
“We should—” he began, but then something lunged across their path in a flurry of leaves. Pinn, who was standing behind Frey, fired reflexively. They caught a glimpse of something furry and fat, the size of a large dog, burrowing into the undergrowth.
Frey looked down at himself. There were two holes in the armpit of his coat, where the bullet had gone in and out. He looked back at Pinn, who grinned sheepishly.
“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the thing that did in Gimble,” Frey said. “Now that we’ve established there are other creatures and people in this forest, let’s all think about aiming before we fire, shall we?”
“Sorry, Cap’n,” Pinn said.
“Well, I reckon we solved the mystery of how Tarworth got shot,” Jez said.
“That wasn’t me!” said Pinn. Then he thought for a moment and a guilty expression crossed his face. “Or maybe it was,” he added.
“Let’s keep that between us, eh?” Frey said. “And you’d better hope that poor bloke isn’t dead.”
“No, I reckon I only shot him in the leg,” said Pinn cheerily.
Frey was about to reply when Jez seized his arm. “Cap’n!” she whispered.
The urgency in her voice made him freeze. She was looking off to their left. Slowly she raised her hand and pointed. “Over there.”
Silo moved around the side of them, crouching, shotgun held in both hands. He was staring at the same point as Jez. Frey peered into the forest, following Silo’s line of sight.
The leaves swayed under the pounding of the rain, but nothing moved except the shadows. At first he couldn’t see anything. But then he saw what was not moving.
Eyes. Eyes, set half a meter apart. The eyes of something huge.
It burst out of the foliage with a roar. Massive and shaggy, a monstrous approximation of a bear, but much larger than any Frey had ever heard of. Short tusks thrust forward on either side of a mouth that was all fangs and no lips. There was no snout to be seen, just that pair of eyes. Shark’s eyes, round and dead and soulless.
Its sheer, unstoppable size panicked them. Frey heard Silo’s shotgun, but they were already scattering out of the way of its charge. Frey flailed through branches, slipped, and went facedown in the mud, landing chest-first on a tree root. Gasping at the pain, he rolled onto his back.
The creature had reared on its hind legs, pawing the air, twice Frey’s height or more. To his right, he could see Pinn behind a tree, taking aim with his pistol. The creature screeched as the bullet found its mark. It thumped down onto