The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [98]
Hiding among the ruination were Sentinels, wearing gray high-collared cassocks and carrying rifles. The Sentinels were Awakeners who didn’t have the talent or the intelligence to become Speakers—those who preached and practiced the Awakeners’ craft—so they expressed their faith in other ways, by taking up weapons in defense of their organization. Crake thought them mindless brainwashed fools, but he supposed a bullet from a fool’s gun hurt just as much as any other, so he kept his head down and ran for cover.
Bullets clipped through the air, but nobody was shooting at him: all attention was on Bess. The Sentinels scurried away or took frightened potshots from a distance as she plowed into the room. Bullets bounced from her scratched and pitted armor, but some penetrated the soft parts at her joints, which only enraged her. She hefted a huge girder and lobbed it at her tormentors, mangling two Sentinels who were making a break for safety. The act of picking it up revealed a third Sentinel, who’d been hiding behind it. He was crouched in a ball, head in his arms, trembling. Bess looked down at him with a quizzical purr and booted him across the chamber.
Crake winced. He didn’t like seeing her this way. She was a child, and she had a child’s way with violence: thoughtless, gleeful, malevolent. Her good nature turned so easily to viciousness.
Frey and Silo scampered across the room, sniping at the retreating Sentinels. Crake stuck close to Jez and Malvery, who provided covering fire. They moved between the debris, keeping low. Crake squeezed off a shot now and then, without much expectation of hitting anything. Occasional bullets came their way, but the resistance from the Sentinels had crumbled quickly at the sight of the golem, and they were too busy running to put up much of a fight.
Bess lunged among them like a cat in a flock of pigeons, snatching up those she could. She was quick and terrible when angry. Crake saw her grab one man by the head, clamping her massive fingers round his skull and picking him up off the ground. She shook him like a doll and then, satisfied he was broken, she flung his corpse at his panicked fellows.
Frey whistled. “This way!” he cried, beckoning them toward a doorway that led into a wide corridor.
“Why that way?” Malvery asked as they hurried over.
Frey looked lost for an answer. “Just because,” he offered at length. “Crake, call your golem, eh? She’s had her fun.”
“Bess! Come on!” Crake shouted. Bess came pounding eagerly through the debris. He patted her on the shoulder and pointed up the corridor. She lumbered off, and they followed.
The smoke was thicker in the corridors, and it was hard to see more than a few dozen meters. Crake’s eyes stung and he wanted to cough. Figures stumbled through the gloom ahead of them, calling out for help, asking questions, shouting orders. They fled at the sight of Bess.
The crew of the All Our Yesterdays was in disarray. The Awakeners didn’t have the martial discipline of the Navy or the combat instincts of pirates and freebooters. They were scholars and preachers, who relied on their Sentinels for protection. This was not a craft intended for battle, and hardly anyone carried weapons or knew how to use them.
A short way along the corridor, they came across a wounded man lying against the wall. He was small and bald, wearing glasses with one lens cracked. Blood leaked from a gash in his forehead, staining his collar. He wore a white cassock with red piping, the uniform of a Speaker, the Awakeners’ rank and file.
Frey crouched down in front of him. The man looked up at him, dazed.
“You’re carrying a special cargo,” said Frey. “Where is it?”
The Awakener focused, and his eyes hardened as he realized who they were. “I’ll never talk. The Allsoul will protect m—”
Frey pistol-whipped him round the head with shocking speed. The man fell on his side, wailing and blubbering,