Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

He wondered what would have happened if they'd got away from Retribution Falls with all the treasure, instead of the measly portion he ended up with. Would he have used it to buy a tavern, perhaps? Would he have settled down with a sweetheart and raised children? Or would he have wasted it on games of Rake with ever-higher stakes?

It wasn't even a question, really.

His whole life he'd been obsessed with defending his freedom. Freedom from commitments and responsibility. He'd dreamed of a buccaneer's life, of riches and adventure. But somehow the riches always eluded him, and what adventures he had were less than romantic in reality.

Living without anchors had its consequences. It was dangerously easy to drift.

His thoughts were interrupted by the smell of perfume. He looked to his left. There, on a stool, was the pretty redhead who'd been watching him in the other room. She brushed her hair behind one ear and gave him a shy smile.

'Hello,' she said.

Later, when they were together beneath the covers, he tried to make himself care about her. He thought about the hopes and dreams she'd bored him with on the way to her bedroom, and attempted to feel something. That was what a decent man would do, surely?

But whenever he closed his eyes, he saw a corn-haired young woman, as he'd known her before her life turned to death and tragedy. A woman he'd almost married, but ruined instead.

The redhead's slender body moved beneath him, but it was Trinica Dracken he felt there.

Someone was calling Frey's name. He snorted and snuffled and did his best not to wake up. He could smell cigar smoke, but he wasn't curious enough to find out why.omeone was calling Frey's name. He snorted and snuffled and did his best not to wake up. He could smell cigar smoke, but he wasn't curious enough to find out why.

'Cap'n!' Jez's voice. Damn that woman! Whenever she woke him up it meant trouble. The cloying muzziness of sleep and the weight of a mild hangover helped him resist the call to action.

'Cap'n, I know you're awake, and if you don't get up now I'll shoot you.'

Frey sighed and opened his eyes. He was in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar bed. Standing at the end of it were Jez and three strangers. One he recognised as the redhead he'd slept with last night. That explained the room and the bed. He struggled to remember her name and failed.

The other two he'd never seen before. One was a big, burly man with a thick black beard and a fat cigar chomped between yellowed teeth. He had a broken, lumpy nose, smudged black with frostbite at the tip, and a cauliflower ear. A heavy cutlass and a brace of pistols hung from his belt, deliberately visible underneath his dirty greatcoat.

His companion was slightly built and better dressed, with an aristocratic look about him. He wore a finely tailored shirt and trousers, loose and casual, and he had a long face and strong nose. He'd gone prematurely bald on top of his head, which made him look older than his face and eyes suggested.

Frey took stock of the situation. The redhead looked rather alarmed and was chewing her lip. She hadn't dared refuse these strangers entry when they came knocking, but now she wondered what she'd done. The last thing she wanted was someone murdered in her bed. Apart from anything else, the cleaning bill would be horrendous.

Jez was standing behind and to the left of the big man. She had her hand on her pistol butt, to let Frey know she had him covered. She shot her captain a look, but it was too early in the morning to decipher what she meant. Relax? Danger? He couldn't tell.

'Darian Frey,' said the big man with the cigar. He sounded like he was gargling with gravel. 'You're a hard man to find.'

'That's why I'm still alive,' he said, rubbing a hand through his hair. 'Mind telling me how you did it?'

'Heard about the orphanage. Sounded like your handiwork. After that it was just a matter of askin' around.'

Frey gave Jez a baleful glare. 'And how did you find me?'

'Women's intuition, Cap'n,' said Jez, holding up a small compass, out of sight of the others. Frey flopped back against the pillow and groaned. Another of Crake's little devices. The compass was linked to a thin silver ring worn on Frey's little finger. Both were thralled with weak daemons that oscillated at the same frequency. So Crake had told him, anyway. The upshot was that the needle of the compass always pointed towards the ring. Crake had thought it would be a good idea to be able to find their captain in times of emergency, especially as he had a habit of disappearing on three-day drunken Rake sessions without telling anyone where he was. Frey complained that they were treating him like a wayward adolescent, but in the end he agreed because he thought the ring looked good on him.

'Could this not have waited till I got back to the Ketty Jay ?' Frey asked.

Jez shrugged. 'They said it was urgent. Wasn't any telling when you'd be back. Might not have been till next week.'

'And we ain't got that kind of time,' said the big man. He looked at the redhead and sucked on his cigar. 'Forgive the intrusion, ma'am. We'll be out o' your hair shortly.'

'You're not going to hurt him, are you?' the redhead asked anxiously. Damn, what was her name?

The big man chuckled, smoke leaking out between his teeth, rising around his head in a cloud. 'Hurt him? No, ma'am. I'm going to offer him a job.'

*

Thirty minutes later, Frey found himself back in Thornlodge Hollow's only tavern, enjoying a breakfast of chicken, potatoes and a morning beer to shake off the effects of last night's grog.

There were four of them at the table: Frey, Jez and the two strangers. The cigar-smoking man was Harvin Grist, captain of the Storm Dog. His aristocratic companion had introduced himself as an explorer, by the name of Rodley Hodd.-

Frey was enjoying every bite of his breakfast. Food tasted better when it was bought by someone else. 'Seriously,' he said around a mouthful of chicken. 'Why me?'

'You are the Darian Frey, aren't you?' said Hodd. 'The Darian Frey who robbed the Delirium Trigger while she was berthed in a hangar in Rabban? Who stole Trinica Dracken's treasure from right under her nose?'

That story had grown in the telling, it seemed. It had been charts, not treasure, he'd stolen. Charts that showed the location of the hidden pirate town of Retribution Falls. But he was happy to claim the glory either way.

'What if I am?'

'Then you travel with a daemonist, don't you?' said Grist. 'A man who controls a great metal golem.'

Frey was immediately on his guard. Crake had been on the run from somebody or something ever since he'd come on board the Ketty Jay, but Frey had never asked what. There were plenty, like the Awakeners and their followers, who thought daemonists should be hanged for dabbling with strange and terrible entities.

'What if I do?'

'Then I got a proposition for you,' said Grist. 'A dangerous expedition, it's true, but there's vast wealth at the end of it.'

Frey's suspicions abruptly faded into insignificance. 'Vast wealth, you say?'

Grist chewed his cigar and grinned. 'Vast.'

Frey sat back in his chair and took a swig of beer. Well. For once, it was looking like being a day worth getting up for. 'Speak your piece,' he said.

Grist leaned forward, splaying thick, calloused fingers across the table. The smell of sweat and dirt clung to him, old smoke and new. 'I got certain interests ,' he said. 'I'm a smuggler, to be plain. Mostly I run Shine and rumble-dust, but now and then I deal in more unusual bits 'n' bobs. Exotic artefacts and the like. Samarlan antiques, Thacian spices. Been known to steal rare aircraft for collectors, when the mood takes me.'