Retribution Falls Read Online Free PDF

to her feet, clutching her shoulder. ‘I told you they were coming round the side! Where’s the one who . . . ?’ She trailed off as she caught sight of something behind them, coming down the cargo ramp, and her face went slack. ‘What is that?’
    Malvery turned and looked. ‘That? That’s Bess.’
    Eight feet tall and five broad, a half-ton armoured monstrosity loomed out of the darkness into the light of the morning. There was nothing about her to identify her as female. Her torso and limbs were slabbed with moulded plates of tarnished metal, with ragged chain mail weave beneath. She stood in a hunch, the humped ridge of her back rising higher than her enormous shoulders. Her face was a circular grille, a criss-cross of thick bars like the gate of a drain. All that could be seen behind it were two sharp glimmers: the creature’s eyes.
    Jez caught her breath. A golem. She’d only heard of such things.
    A low growl sounded from within the creature, hollow and resonant. Then she came down the ramp, her massive boots pounding the floor as she accelerated. Cries of alarm and dismay rose from the smugglers. She jumped off the side of the ramp and landed with a rattling boom that made the ground tremble. One gloved hand scooped up a barrel that would have herniated the average human, and flung it at a smuggler who was hiding behind a pile of crates. It smashed through the crates and crushed the man behind, burying him under an avalanche of broken wood.
    ‘Well, she’s cranky, alright,’ said Frey. ‘Good old Bess.’
    The golem tore into the smugglers who had been sneaking round the flanks, a roaring tower of fury. Bullets glanced from her armour, leaving only scratches and small dents. One of the smugglers, panicking, made a break from cover. She seized him by the throat with a loud crack and then flung his limp corpse at his companions.
    Another man tried to race past her while her back was turned, but she was quicker than her bulk suggested. She lunged after him, grabbing his arm with massive fingers. Bone splintered in the force of her grip. Her victim’s brief shrieks were cut short as she tore the arm from its socket and clubbed him across the face with it, hard enough to knock him dead.
    The remainder of Macarde’s men suddenly lost their taste for the fight. They turned tail and ran.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Macarde screamed at them, from his hiding place near the rear of the conflict. ‘Get your filthy yellow arses back there and shoot that thing!’
    Bess swung around and fixed her attention on him, a deep rattling sound coming from her chest. He swallowed hard.
    ‘Don’t ever come back here, Frey, you hear me?’ he called, backing off a few steps as he did so. ‘You ever come back, you’re dead! You hear me? Dead! I’ll rip out your eyes, Frey!’
    His parting shot was barely audible, since he was bolting away as he delivered it. Soon he had disappeared, chasing his men back into the tangled lanes of Scarwater.
    ‘Well,’ said Frey. ‘That’s that.’
    ‘She up and ready, Cap’n!’ Silo hollered from the top of the cargo ramp.
    ‘Exquisite timing, as always,’ Frey replied. ‘Malvery, how’s the new recruit?’
    ‘I’m okay,’ Jez said. ‘It went right through.’
    Malvery looked relieved. ‘So you won’t need anything taking out, then. Just a little disinfectant, a bandage, and you’ll be right.’
    Jez gave him an odd look. ‘I suppose so.’
    ‘She’s a tough little mite, Cap’n,’ Malvery declared with a tinge of pride in his voice, as if her courage was some doing of his.
    ‘Next time, try not to get shot,’ Frey advised her.
    ‘I wouldn’t have been shot if you’d bloody listened to me.’
    Frey rolled his eyes. ‘Doc, take her to the infirmary.’
    ‘I’ll be fine,’ Jez protested.
    ‘You just had a bullet put through your shoulder!’ Frey cried.
    ‘It’ll heal.’
    ‘Will you two just get on that damn aircraft?’ Frey said. ‘Crake! Bring Bess.