‘Hey, I’m not returning my share!’ Ashua warned. ‘No refunds from this girl.’
Frey was gearing up for a retort when the curtain in the door of the hut was pulled aside and Malvery stuck his head in. ‘Everyone having fun in here?’ he asked. ‘Good. We got trouble.’
‘You have no idea,’ said Crake, and they hurried out to see what else fate could possibly pile on their shoulders tonight.
Twelve
‘What’s up?’ Frey asked as he emerged from the sorcerer’s hut, with Crake, Ashua and Slinkhound close behind him.
Jez, who was checking her rifle, looked up and nodded back the way they’d come. Frey followed her gaze up the rocky slope to the place where they’d entered the cavern. There was a commotion there. A mob of untouchables was gathering, their voices raised in a hubbub. They sounded angry, defiant, outraged. More and more of them hurrying to join in.
At first Frey couldn’t work out what had caused all the excitement. Then the crowd parted, and he caught a glimpse of a uniform and a rifle, a blond-haired man.
A Dakkadian soldier.
‘Ashua! Ask your mate if there’s another way out of here,’ Frey said, drawing his revolver and backing away.
The soldier was holding up his weapon, fending off the grasping hands of an untouchable. The crowd were piling in now, haranguing the intruders, flocking around them like angry birds defending their nest. Go away, go back, this is ours, we don’t want you here!
Frey knew what was about to happen. The inevitability of it all made his heart sink.
There was the sharp crack of a gunshot and the crowd scattered, their yells turning to screams. Suddenly Frey could see them. Not one soldier but twelve. They were all Dakkadians, clad in white uniforms with gold trim, except for one. He was a Samarlan, taller and more slender than the others. Judging by the beautifully crafted black armour that he wore, he was their leader.
The crowd was running, but the soldiers weren’t done. They aimed their rifles at the fleeing untouchables and shot them down. Men and women flailed and pitched to the ground as they were punched in the back by gunfire. They scrambled towards cover, but the soldiers were intent on a show of strength, and they picked off the runners long after it was clear they presented no further threat.
Frey was appalled. He was no stranger to killing, or to killers, but it was their manner that sickened him. The cold, precise way they decimated the beggar folk, as if they were putting down animals; the speed and severity of their response when the crowd began to gather.
‘This way!’ Ashua said, as Slinkhound pulled on her arm. Just at that moment, the Samarlan general, who hadn’t even drawn his weapon during the slaughter, turned his head and saw them. He pointed, gave an order, and the soldiers began hurrying down the slope.
‘Time to be elsewhere,’ Frey said, and they ran in the opposite direction.
Beyond the sorcerer’s hut was a stretch of open ground, with the cavern wall to the left and a steep drop some distance to the right. A scuffed foot-trail led upslope to a flat area that was dense with huts and shacks.
The soldiers opened fire, shooting from the hip. Bullets rang off the stone around Frey an srouched td his crew. Only the luckiest shot would hit at that range, but Frey didn’t much like the way his luck was running tonight.
His fears were confirmed when Malvery tripped over his own feet after a few dozen metres. They wasted precious seconds hauling the drink-sodden doctor to his feet, while Pinn jigged on the spot, anxious to be away again. Jez provided covering fire, since she had the best eye at long range, but the Daks didn’t slow at all. Their leader, the Samarlan, was striding down the hill in their wake, not in the least bit hurried. His arrogant confidence annoyed Frey. He was tempted to chance a bullet just to knock him down a peg.
‘I’m okay, I’m okay,’ said Malvery, accelerating to an inebriated waddle. Frey loosed a couple of shots over his shoulder, to give the Daks something to think about, but his attempts were as ineffective as Jez’s had been.
By the time they were moving again, the Daks had caught up enough to be dangerous. Frey took a bullet through the sleeve of his coat, close enough to graze his wrist.
Damn it, where’s Bess when you need her? She’d make short work of these son of bitches.
They crested the top of the slope and reached the flat ground. Crude buildings of metal and wood were heaped against the wall in a clutter, as if driven there by a bulldozer. Shacks were scattered nearby. The untouchables fled to their houses as Frey and his crew approached. At first he thought it was because they were afraid of him, but he soon saw that the danger came from another direction.
There was another entrance to the cavern beyond the buildings. Sallying through it was a second group of soldiers, also with a Samarlan at their head.
Both groups saw each other at the same time. Frey’s crew didn’t trouble to wait for an order; they raised their guns and blazed away.
Suddenly everything was scuff and scramble, a rush of hot blood, the firecracker staccato of a gunfight. Frey had replaced the revolver he lost on the train; he held one in each hand as he fired at the newcomers. The soldiers scattered towards cover, taking shelter behind the huts that surrounded the entrance.
Frey and his crew couldn’t go forward into the guns, and they couldn’t go back, so everyone instinctively began moving in the same direction: sideways. The entrance was in a corner, where the cavern wall curved to the right and continued sloping upwards. They followed the slope, crabstepping as they fired, keeping their enemies’ heads down.
‘I thought you said not to worry about that guy who was following us,’ Frey said to Ashua.
‘Turns out I’m not perfect,’ said Ashua. ‘Who’d have thought?’
‘More from upslope!’ Jez said.
Frey swore as he spotted a third group of soldiers, blocking their escape. They were well and truly trapped now.
‘Oi, Cap’n!’ Malvery cried. Frey looked over his shoulder and saw Malvery pointing at a long rope bridge that launched off from a precipice nearby. It reached across the cavern, passing over a dense cluster of dwellings, and ended at a group of huts perched on the lip of a cliff.
Frey didn’t much like the look of it, but then he didn’t much like taking a bullet in the kidney either. The bridge seemed the lesser of two evils.
They began backing towards it, providing covering fire for each other as they went. They’d seen enough gunfights to keep their cool in this one, except Crake, who would presumably never learn. They timed their reloads to make sure that everyone didn’t do it at once. They looked, in fact, surprisingly like a team.
But the soldiers in cover had reorganised themselves and were shooting back. The range was long, but not long enough for Frey’s liking. The other soldiers were closing in fast. It was only a matter of time before someone got hit, out in the open like they were.
‘Alright, bugger this tactical retreat lark,’ said Frey. ‘Run for it! ’
They broke into a disorganised mass and fled for the bridge. Bullets whispered and whined through the air, little invisible messengers of death.
Frey had a superstition about bullets: thinking about them attracted them. As long as he never stopped to consider the danger, as long as he never really thought about all the luck and chance that made the difference between surviving a gunfight and getting killed, then everything would be alright.
It helped to get him through.
Frey reached the bridge in the middle of the pack. He wasn’t so honourable as to go last; it was every man for himself right now. The ropes were thick and it was surprisingly sturdy, even under Malvery’s weight. They raced along the bridge, heads down, horribly exposed. Their only cover was their distance from the enemy’s guns.