The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [33]
“It wasn’t bloody me!” Frey protested. Then he got to his feet and ran.
He could hear the creature pounding after him, and he sprinted with all the strength in his body. “Cap’n!” someone shouted, but it sounded as if it came from kloms away. Rain-lashed boughs flashed past. His boots skidded on ground that was alternately slick and sucking. The creature came crashing in his wake with a rattling growl. It had its sights on prey now, and it wasn’t going to give him up.
Pinn, you bastard, I’m gonna get you for this!
He stuck his revolver out behind him, glanced over his shoulder, and took a potshot at the monstrous shadow surging through the sodden dark. If it hit, it had little effect. He turned back just in time to catch a branch across his forehead. Stars exploded before his eyes. He staggered back from the surprise impact, dazed and blinking.
The creature smashed through the foliage behind him. He spun to face it. It came to a halt with a roar. Close enough to smell its bad-meat breath and the musky, wet stench of its fur. He flung himself through a screen of leaves as a massive paw swiped at him. He scrambled to his feet on the other side, his revolver lost somewhere in the mud. He didn’t stop to collect it.
“Cap’n! Cap’n!” Jez, Pinn, and the others. Too distant to be any help. He was on his own now. Just him and the creature.
His pursuer was slow to pick up the chase again, giving him a precious few seconds’ lead. His lungs burned and his skin felt red-hot. He looked around desperately for some route of escape. A ravine too narrow for the creature, a stream that might carry him away, anything like that. But the trees blocked his view on all sides, reducing his world to a flurry of rain and bark and leaves.
Damn trees, he thought. Then, a moment later, realization struck. Trees were high. He could climb one. He felt a bit stupid for not having thought of it before, actually.
Spotting a likely candidate, he leaped up and grabbed a sturdy branch. Fear lent him assistance. He clambered onto the branch and reached up for the next. Cold hands gripped wet bark. Leaves cascaded rainwater down onto his face as he disturbed them. He pulled himself up and blundered through a spiderweb so thick it felt like it was made of rope. Something heavy and leggy dropped onto his shoulder; he let out an involuntary squeal. The unseen thing scrabbled for purchase and then slipped off his back. He got his legs up onto the branch, felt for another, and climbed higher.
By the time the creature arrived at the foot of the tree, he felt relatively safe. It snarled up at him through the branches and reared up on its hind legs. But he was out of reach.
“Let’s see you get me up here!” Frey taunted, drunk with the thrill of his escape.
The beast tottered back on its hind legs, balanced itself, and shoulder-charged the tree. Frey frantically grabbed on as his perch trembled violently. Some unidentified small animal plunged past him with a squeak and bounced off a lower branch.
“Er …” said Frey. “Don’t do that.”
The creature smashed into the tree again, with more force this time. Now there was an ominous splintering noise and an unpleasant sensation of tipping.
“Shit,” Frey murmured.
The next few seconds were a mayhem of whipping and hissing branches and the sickening anticipation of impact. Something smacked the back of his head. He felt himself jolted, thrown, rolling. Suddenly the leaves weren’t there anymore. He ended up on the ground, in the open, gazing at the nodding canopy overhead. His whole body felt like one big bruise.
He lay there for a moment, relieved to be alive, before he remembered the creature.
He staggered to his feet, drew his cutlass, and looked around wildly. The fallen tree was nearby, but he saw no sign of his enemy. His head was still spinning from the tumble. He shook it, but that only made things worse. His eyes kept trying to double everything.
A thrashing of leaves behind him. He turned and saw the creature rearing,