Chris Wooding - The Black Lung Captain

Darian Frey was a man who understood the value of a tactical retreat. It was a gambler's instinct, a keen appreciation of the odds that told him when to take a risk and when to bail out. There was no shame in running as if your heels were on fire when the situation called for it. In Frey's opinion, the only difference between a hero and a coward was the ability to do basic maths.

Malvery was to his left, huffing and puffing through the undergrowth. Alcoholic, overweight and out of shape. Pinn, who was no fitter but a good deal dimmer, ran alongside. Behind them was an outraged horde armed with rifles, pistols and clubs, baying for their blood.

The maths on this one were easy.

A volley of gunfire cut through the forest. Bullets clipped leaves, chipped trees and whined away into the night. Frey swore and ducked his head. He hunched his shoulders, trying to make himself small. More bullets followed, smacking into earth and stone and wood all around them.

Pinn whooped. 'Stupid yokels! Can't shoot worth a damn!' His stumpy legs pumped beneath him like those of an enthusiastic terrier.

Frey didn't share Pinn's excitement. He was sick with a grey fear, waiting for the moment when one of those bullets found flesh, the hard punch of lead in his back. If he was especially unlucky, he might get blinded by a tree branch or break his leg first. Running through a forest in the dark was no one's idea of fun.

He clutched his prize to his chest: a small wooden lockbox, jingling with ducats. Not enough to be worth dying for. Not even worth a medium-sized flesh wound. But he wasn't giving it up now. It was a matter of principle.

'Told you robbing an orphanage was a bad idea,' said Malvery.

'No, it was Crake who said that,' Frey said through gritted teeth. 'That's why he wouldn't come. You thought it was a good idea. In fact, your exact words were: "Orphans don't fight back."'

'Well, they don't,' said the doctor defensively. 'It's the rest of the village you've got to watch out for.'

Frey's reply was cut off as the ground disappeared from under his feet. Suddenly they were tumbling and sliding in a tangle, slithering through cold mud. Frey flailed for purchase as the forest rolled and spun before his eyes. The three of them crashed through a fringe of bracken and bushes, and ended up in a heap on the other side.

Frey extricated himself gingerly from his companions, wincing as a multitude of bumps and scratches announced themselves. The lockbox had bruised his ribs in the fall, but he'd kept hold of it somehow. He looked back at the moonlit slope. It was smaller and shallower than it had seemed while they were falling down it.

Malvery got up and made a half-hearted attempt at wiping the mud off his pullover. He adjusted his round, green-lensed glasses, which had miraculously stayed on his nose.

'Anyway, I've reconsidered my position,' he said, continuing his train of thought as if there had been no interruption. 'I've come to believe that stealing from a bunch of defenceless orphans could be seen as a bit of a low point in our careers.'

Frey tugged at Pinn, who lay groaning on the ground. He'd been on the bottom of the heap, and his chubby face was plastered in muck. 'I'm an orphan!' Frey protested as he struggled with Pinn's weight. 'Who were they collecting for, if not me?'

Malvery smoothed his bushy white moustache and followed Frey's gaze up the slope. The forest was brightening with torchlight as the infuriated mob approached. 'You should tell them that,' he said. 'Might sweeten their disposition a little.'

'Pinn, will you get up?' Frey cried, dragging the pilot to his feet.

Even with the moon overhead, it was hard to see obstacles while they were running. They fended off branches that poked and lashed at their faces. They slipped and cursed and cracked their elbows against tree trunks. It had rained recently, and the ground alternately sucked at their boots or slid treacherously beneath them.

The villagers reached the top of the slope and sent a hopeful barrage of gunfire into the trees. Frey felt something slap against his long coat, near his legs. He gathered up the flapping tail, and saw a bullet hole there.

Too close.

'Give up the money and we'll let you go!' one of the villagers shouted.

Frey didn't waste his breath on a reply. He wasn't coming out of this without something to show for it. He needed that money. Probably a lot more than any bloody orphans did. He had a crew to look after. Seven mouths to feed, if you counted the cat. And that wasn't even including Bess, who didn't have a mouth. Still, she probably needed oiling or something, and oil didn't come for free.

Anyway, he was an orphan. So that made it okay.

'Everything looks different in the dark,' Malvery said. 'You sure this is the way we came?'

Frey skidded to a halt at the edge of a cliff, holding his arms out to warn the others. A river glittered ten metres below, sparkling in the moonlight.

'Er... We might have taken a wrong turn or two,' he ventured.

The precipice ran for some distance to his left and right. Before them was a steely landscape of treetops, rucked with hills and valleys, stretching to the horizon: the vast expanse of the Vardenwood. In the distance stood the Splinters, one of Vardia's two great mountain ranges, which marched all the way north to the Yortland coast thousands of kloms away.

Frey suddenly realised that he had no idea where, in all that woodland, he'd hidden his aircraft and the rest of his crew.

Malvery looked down at the river. 'I don't remember this being here,' he said.

'I'm pretty sure the Ketty Jay is over the other side,' said Frey doubtfully.

'Are you really, Cap'n? Or is that a guess?'

'I've just got a feeling about it.'

Behind them, the cries of the mob were getting louder. They could see the bobbing lights of torches approaching through the forest.

'Any ideas?' Malvery prompted.

'Jump?' suggested Frey. 'There's no way they'd be stupid enough to follow us.'

'Yeah, we'd certainly out-stupid them with that plan.' Malvery rolled up his sleeves. 'Fine. Let's do it.'

Pinn was leaning on his knees, breathing hard. 'Oh, no. Not me. Can't swim.'

'You'd rather stay here?'

'I can't swim!' Pinn insisted.

Frey didn't have time to argue. His eyes met the doctor's. 'Do the honours, please.'

Malvery put his boot to the seat of Pinn's trousers and shoved. Pinn stumbled forward to the edge of the cliff. He teetered on his toes, wheeled his arms in a futile attempt to keep his balance, and then disappeared with a howl.

'Now you'd better go rescue him,' Frey said.

Malvery grinned. 'Bombs away, eh?' He put his glasses in his coat pocket, ran past Frey and jumped off the cliff. Frey followed him, feet first, clutching the box of coins. He was halfway down before he thought to wonder if the river was deep enough, or if there were rocks under the surface.

Hitting the water was a freezing black shock, knocking the wind out of him. Icy spring melt from the Splinters. The sounds of the forest disappeared in a bubbling rush that filled his nose and ears. His plunge took him to the river bed, but the water cushioned him enough to give him a gentle landing. He launched himself back upward, shifting the lockbox to one arm and swimming with the other. Only seconds had passed but his chest was already beginning to hurt. He panicked and struggled for breath, clawing at the twinkles of moonlight above him. Finally, just when it seemed there was no air left inside him, he broke the surface.