The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [52]
Frey was ready for them this time. He calmly aimed and shot one of them in the head.
Three bullets left.
He shifted his aim to the other, sighted, and pulled the trigger again.
The revolver clicked as the hammer fell on an empty chamber.
There was a moment of cold realization as the flaw in Frey’s math revealed itself. He had ten bullets in two revolvers, but he hadn’t been firing them equally. He’d been favoring the one in his right hand. And now it was out of bullets.
He raised the gun in his left hand, but the beast-man was too close. It swung its club down at him. He half-dodged at the last moment and caught a glancing blow on his outstretched forearm, hard enough to numb his hand. His revolver fired uselessly into the ground—two left—and dropped from his nerveless fingers.
The beast-man was startled by the noise of the revolver, long enough for Frey to back off a few paces. He sized up his options. The pistol in his right hand was empty, and he needed that hand free so he could draw his cutlass. But it seemed a shame to waste a good weapon, so he flipped it into the air, caught it neatly by the barrel, and sent it spinning toward his attacker. It cracked the beast-man hard on the forehead and flew away into the undergrowth. The beast-man staggered backward, lost its footing, and plunged off the lip of the ridge.
“Oy!” cried Malvery from below. “Don’t send ’em down to us! We’ve got enough of our own!” His complaint was followed by a gunshot as he executed the bewildered beast-man somewhere out of sight.
Frey drew his cutlass as another beast-man came growling into view. It lunged at him, and he let the blade draw his arm into a parry. The blow from the club came hard, jolting his arm. Another blow came, and another. Frey blocked them, but each time his block was weaker. Even with the strength of the sword to aid him, the beast-man’s raw power was overwhelming. It attacked in a frenzy, battering at Frey’s guard. He tried a counterthrust but only opened himself up to a swing that he just barely evaded. Teeth gritted, sweating, he backed off under the fierce rain of blows.
I can’t hold it off! he thought, panicking. I can’t …
There was a tremendous boom to his left, and a gory hole was punched through the beast-man’s chest, flinging it away. Frey looked over his shoulder and saw Grist clambering awkwardly over the lip of the ridge, lever-action shotgun in one hand, sphere tucked into his elbow, cigar still clamped firmly in his mouth. Frey was astounded that he’d managed to climb at all, carrying all that. Grist picked up the pistol Frey had dropped and held it out to him.
“You owe me one, Cap’n Frey,” he said.
There was a sharp hiss as an arrow slipped through the undergrowth. Frey heard it, swung his arm, and the cutlass did the rest. He cut the shaft in half an instant before it reached Grist’s chest, then spun on his heel and flung his cutlass like a spear into the undergrowth. There was an animal shriek, and a beast-woman staggered out into the open, the cutlass buried in its chest. Blood soaked through the coarse fibers of its smock, and it toppled to the earth.
“Not anymore,” said Frey, taking the pistol.
Grist gaped, staring down at the halves of the arrow that had bounced harmlessly off his coat. “How …?”
“It’s all in the wrist,” he said. He hurried over to the fallen beast-woman, planted his foot on its shoulder, and wrenched the bloody cutlass free with his left hand. He was getting the feeling back in his arm and fingers now. They hurt like buggery, but at least they still worked. He thought about looking for the other pistol, but it was lost in the undergrowth, and he didn’t fancy seaching for it while surrounded by murderous savages.