by D. J. Butler
But Cal had fought the Lazars once before. He bumped the other man back with his chest, then dropped, as if he’d tripped.
Berkeley swung for his head, missing for the suddenness of Cal’s fall—
and Cal sliced with the silver knife through the protruding toenails of the Lazar’s lead foot.
The sword came down again, Cal rolled away away, and Berkeley stumbled, his front foot suddenly refusing to move in response to his will.
Berkeley’s attack became awkward, and it caught Cal only lightly across the shoulder as he moved, not cutting through his coat. The Lazar looked astonished and Cal jumped to his feet, twisting to curl the fingers of his wounded arm into the dead man’s long, ragged hair.
Berkeley pulled away and turned, tripping as he moved, pummeling Cal with the hilt of his sword in the chest and arm. The blows hurt and Cal cried out, but he held tight to Berkeley’s mane. The chevalier might kill him afterward, but he couldn’t risk that the Lazar Berkeley would hurt Sarah.
Raising the little silver letter opener, he punched in one quick motion—
slicing all the way through Daniel Berkeley’s hair.
Berkeley dropped like a slaughtered hog.
Cal slipped sideways and almost fell over. He was breathing hard and his muscles ached, but mostly he felt relief.
“Stop right there, boy,” the chevalier commanded him.
Cal winced, tossed aside the handful of greasy hair.
“Well done,” the chevalier said. “Really, I’d much rather deal with you than the Lazars. Dead men can be so irrational.”
“What are you doin’?” Cal asked. Now that Berkeley was down, he had a hard time taking his gaze from Sarah’s face. She looked as if she were concentrating.
Ezekiel Angleton, standing across the plaza, had a similar expression. What in tarnation were they doing?
“Consider this my embassy.” The chevalier took long steps around Cathy and stood on the other side of Sarah to look her in the face, holding his two pistols steady on her the entire time. “How am I received, Your Majesty?”
Sarah said nothing.
The chevalier laughed and looked back to Cal. “Now, you kill the Lazars.”
Cal took a closer look at Tom Long-Knife. The Lazar still stood staring at his feet, mumbling without words and aimlessly scratching the stones of the plaza with his long toenails. Sarah must have done something to the dead man.
Calvin hadn’t yet killed a man, he realized, thinking back to his last private conversation with the Elector, at least not that he was sure, though he’d knocked a few of those gendarmes pretty hard, and it was possible they might have died of it. But he had for certain dispatched a fair number of things that looked like men, and he reckoned the Elector would give him credit.
He raised the silver letter opener.
* * *
Sarah had miscalculated. The chevalier had not swallowed his frustration and peacefully ridden away as she’d hoped. She struggled against Angleton, feeling as if she were pushing with her entire body against a stone wall. There was something behind Angleton, something pushing through him and giving him strength.
She hoped—desperately—she had enough power to intervene against the chevalier, too.
Her hand in the satchel closed around the sticky wad of pine resin and an egg. They would do just fine; she crushed them together and, with only half her conscious mind, put together a final piece of magic.
Pistolas viscosas facio, she spoke in her mind, and she turned a rivulet of power with her will, directing it to gum up the chevalier’s weapons.
Sparks filled her mind. A hammer blow pounded into her, over the entire length of her body all at once and deep into her soul. She cried out and dropped to her knees.
She let go of the flow of the Mississippi’s power.
What was that?
Her spell had failed. Far away, she saw the chevalier laughing as she fell forward onto the ground.
* * *
Sarah crumpled to the dirt.
In that instant, Tom Long-Knife looked up from his feet.
“Jerusalem,” Cal swore, but the Lazar hesitated and Cal plunged the silver knife into his throat.
Black Tom Fairfax’s eyes trembled and jumped in their black-jellied sockets, raining worms down his rotting clothing. The Lazar collapsed in a shower of cold black gore, and when he hit the ground, Cal thought the look on his face was one of relief.
“No!” Ezekiel Angleton cried.
The chevalier laughed mirthlessly and looked down at Sarah. “Some people are born with magical talent. Others hire it.” His body seemed to be covered in a shimmering field of white.
“Some of us jest do without,” Cal said sourly.
The little Dutchman had stood up from where he watched over the dying Creole and now moved over to stand by the chevalier. He looked nervous, an expression Cal hadn’t seen on that face before. If he wasn’t Simon Sword anymore, who was he? Hop held something in his hand, hidden against his wrist and in the end of his sleeve so Cal couldn’t get a good look at it. The chevalier gave him a look of contempt and then returned his attention to his targets.
“Drop the knife,” the chevalier said to Cal.
Jacob Hop attacked.
The thing hidden in his sleeve glinted strangely as he pulled it out and spun it around, and Cal just had time before the little Dutchman stabbed the object into the chevalier’s side to see that it was a knife.
A silver knife, from the shine of it.
Sparks and blood showered from the wound and the chevalier roared. He jerked away from the blond man and turned, aiming his pistols—
and Cal jumped, crashing into him from the side, bowling him over—
and knocking the aim of his two pistols awry.
Bang! Bang!
The chevalier’s guns went off, and the Dutchman fell back, dropping his knife; he’d been hit.
“Cathy!” Cal shouted. He tossed her the silver letter opener and yanked his tomahawk from his belt.
* * *
Bill pulled a long pistol from the pocket of his coat as he ran down the hill. He would go out fighting.
Honor in defense of innocence!
The first of the Blues were only a hundred feet away. They saw him and didn’t slow, spurring their horses to gallop faster up the stone road. They had fixed bayonets to their Paget carbines, which could be devastating in a foot battle, but here worked to Bill’s advantage. The riders had no good way to carry the carbines with the bayonets attached (the blades would slice through the long holsters that ordinarily held the guns on the horses’ shoulders), other than to hold them in their hands. So the Blues could shoot at Bill with their carbines (less than ideal; a dragoon rode to the battle, but dismounted to shoot), or use them like short lances (also not very effective), but they couldn’t draw their pistols or sabers to get at him without abandoning their carbines.
It would at least buy him a few precious seconds while his enemies switched weapons. It wasn’t much, but given that he was charging a line of twenty-four mounted soldiers, Bill was happy for any edge he could get.
He hoped some of the dragoons might remember him and feel loyalty, or might have taken to heart what they’d seen and heard in the St. Louis Cathedral. Every soldier who peeled away and left the fight was one less soldier who could make it to the top of the bluff.
Or one less Bill would have to kill.
Also, the sun was on Bill’s shoulder; maybe it would get in the eyes of the dragoons.
And he was certainly glad he had his hat back.
Behind the Blues, Bill saw the beastmen had overtaken the chevalier’s men and were routing them. Guns still fired, and there were wounded beastkind, perhaps even dead ones, but the gendarmes were decimated and in retreat.
Bill skidded to a halt. If he could only slow down the Blues long enough for the beastmen to catch them, together they might stop the dragoons from reaching Sarah. He raised his pistol and shot at the first dragoon.
Bang!
Or at least, at his horse. The bullet hit the animal in the chest and at its next bound its legs failed, and the great beast crashed cheek-first to the stones. Its rider was crushed beneath it, trapped by a leg that was mangled in the fall, but Bill had no time for his howls.
His first gun discharged, Bill tossed it aside—there would be no reloading in this brawl—and yanked the other horse pistol from his pocket. The second dragoon had his carbine raised in one hand, clamping the stock under his arm to try to steady the ungainly weapon.
Bang! The musketball went wide, plunking into the earth and throwing up tufts of grass.
Bang! Bill’s shot was true. He tossed his second pistol aside, too, as the second horse shuddered to the earth, its blood spilling out.
The first wounded soldier struggled to reach his carbine, which had fallen just out of his grasp. Bill would have liked to save a shot and use his saber, but he had no time, and Obadiah’s pistol, drawn and aimed at the dragoon’s head, was quicker.
Bang! Bill dropped Obadiah’s pistol and picked up the carbine. He regretted killing the man, but it was unavoidable, and then he had no more time for regret.
The second dragoon had landed better than his comrade, rolling away from his collapsed mount, and raced at Bill now, saber in his hand. Behind him, two mounted men had reached the unnatural bank now blocking the road, formed of the corpses of two horses, and they split. One rode uphill to get around the horseflesh blockade and come at Bill from his left, and the other skirted the corpses on the downhill side to come at Bill’s right. Guns boomed downhill, but the advantage of being surrounded by his enemy was that Bill had become a very difficult target to see, much less hit.
The beastmen had almost overtaken the hindmost of the Blues.
Bill raised the carbine to his shoulder and fired into the saber-wielding man’s chest, dropping his assailant in his tracks. Without missing a beat he turned and hurled the weapon at the attacker to his right; it was too heavy to throw like a javelin, but Bill managed a sort of caber toss that sent the bladed gun whirling like a pinwheel at its target.
Then he dove to the body of the first dragoon, scrabbling for the man’s pistols. He came up with guns in both hands, just in time to see that his uphill attacker had tossed aside his bayonet-carbine in favor of his long sword, which he now sent slashing down at Bill’s head—
Bill swung at the blade with the pistol in his left hand; he caught the sword with a wooden-metallic chink! and knocked the attack slightly, just slightly, to the side—
the saber bit into Bill’s already-wounded shoulder and he fell back, crying out in pain.
“Damn your eyes!” Bang!
Bill’s shot caught the man under his chin, knocking him out of the saddle. The dragoon’s horse reared riderless over Bill, hooves lashing out in all directions. Bill’s downhill attacker cursed, his way blocked by the panicked horse, and sheathed his saber, reaching instead for one of his pistols.
Bill pulled the trigger on his second gun—
nothing happened. Bill risked a quick look at the weapon and saw that in parrying the saber blow, its hammer had been sheared off. Bill lurched forward to his knees and threw himself at another dead soldier, grabbing for guns.
Bang!
The downhill attacker’s pistol shot bit Bill in the thigh. Bill grunted in pain and silently thanked Heaven for the distraction of the rearing stallion, knowing the ball could easily have hit him between the shoulderblades instead. He jerked a long handgun clean of its holster and turned to take a careful shot, blowing his assailant out of his saddle and stone cold dead while the man struggled to draw his second pistol.
A volley of gunfire downhill told Bill the beastmen had overtaken the Blues. He drew another dead man’s pistol and rolled onto his back, facing down the road at the charging Blues.
Bang!
A pistol ball hit Bill in the chest like a hammer, knocking the air out of him. Bill held his fire and sucked wind back into his lungs for a few doubtful seconds until his vision stopped swimming and he could see his new attacker, an older dragoon who was drawing a bead on Bill with a second pistol. Behind the man, the other dragoons were turning back, and a growling, snarling wall of beast-headed death was swallowing up the unit.
BANG!
The two guns fired simultaneously.
Bill smiled as the soldier’s ball took him in his unwounded right arm, and he lost consciousness.
His last waking thought was how much he’d like just one shot of whisky.
He deserved it.
* * *
Hitting the chevalier hurt Cal, but it knocked the other man off balance.
The chevalier staggered away, dropping his pistols and fumbling at the sword hanging at his belt; Cal leaped forward again with his tomahawk in motion, bringing the war axe down on the chevalier’s arm.
The tomahawk struck the shimmering, glowing chevalier and snapped back. A shock that burned like fire and tingled in his bones jolted through Cal’s arm and into his shoulder, and in its bouncing back, he narrowly avoided being brained by his own weapon. The axe sprang across the plaza and clattered onto the stones.
Cal had given away the silver knife too soon.
“Jerusalem!” He grabbed at the braided leather lariat. He’d roped that Mocker on the Natchez Trace, so why not the Chevalier of New Orleans?
Cal slipped open the loop just as the chevalier’s blade cleared its scabbard and jumped to a defensive position. “I’ll gut you, boy,” the nobleman snarled.
“Mebbe.” Cal circled left, trying to get outside the man’s guard.
The little Dutchman struggled for breath on his knees, and Cathy seemed to be helping him. There were all the silver daggers.
The chevalier slashed and slashed again. Calvin fell back, feeling the inadequacy of his weapon. “Do you seriously intend to rope me?” the chevalier asked, an amused and incredulous smile on his face. “As if I were cattle?”
“Yessir, pretty much jest like that.” Cal lacked the confidence of his words. He would need a lucky throw to get in over the chevalier’s defense. He thought he might do it, if he could lure the chevalier into a miss, and then throw the loop while the man was extended. Of course, he’d still have his sword in his hand and he’d still be dangerous. And for all Calvin knew, the chevalier’s defensive shield would repulse his lariat, too.
“Is this out of mercy,” the chevalier mocked him, “or incompetence?” He stepped forward for another slash, and Cal almost took his chance, but the swordsman quickly pulled back and the moment passed. Cal saw then that the chevalier bled from his side, where the Dutchman had stabbed him.
“You might get mercy from young Calvin, My Lord.” Cathy Filmer closed in on the chevalier too, to Cal’s left, and in her hand she held Chigozie Ukwu’s little silver letter opener. “I, on the other hand, will happily kill you if you don’t lay down your arms.” She wiped blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.
Cal could have kissed her.
Then the Dutchman climbed to his feet, behind the chevalier, and brandished his own silver weapon. “Ja,” said the Dutchman Jacob Hop, startling the chevalier into a sideways stumble to avoid being completely encircled. “Ik ook, Mynheer Chevalier.”
The chevalier snarled a fierce look of anger, and Cal braced himself for a fight. Instead, the chevalier suddenly turned on his heel to run—
Cal threw. His lariat settled over the nobleman’s shoulders, pinned the man’s arms to his sides and brought him to the ground as neatly as any calf. Jacob Hop rushed forward to thrust his silver knife in the chevalier’s face, and tossed the Frenchman’s weapon aside.
“Jest like a little bull calf.” Cal dropped a second loop around the chevalier’s ankles to hogtie him. As he worked, he cast a worried glance at Sarah. She lay unconscious, her crown upside down on the stones before her.
Behind her, the Martinite Ezekiel Angleton knelt over the body of the dead Creole. He leaned
over the man, as if he were going to kiss him.
“Hey!” Cal looked around for his tomahawk.
“Merde!” the chevalier grumbled as Cal tightened the knot.
Cathy Filmer crossed the plaza, heading for Ezekiel Angleton.
“The odds were but twenty-four to one, ma’am. They never had a chance.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cathy Filmer shoved the silver knife into Ezekiel Angleton’s thigh.
BOOM!
Light and noise threw her and the Martinite priest apart and knocked Calvin, on the other side of the plaza, to the ground.
He was blinded and deafened, and for a time only the feel of cold stone on his palms and knees reassured him he hadn’t been killed. Eventually the coruscating whorls around his head resolved themselves into vision, blurry but serviceable, and Cal rose to his feet.
He staggered over to Sarah and knelt beside her. She was breathing, though her breaths came uneven and shallow. Her skin burned to the touch, and felt scaly; her lips were cracked, there was dried blood in her ears and at the corners of her eyes and under her fingernails.
But she lived. Cal carried her to the long grass and tried to make her comfortable, draping his coat over her.
He checked Cathy Filmer next, and found her conscious. “I’ll live, Calvin.” He helped her to sit up. “What about the Martinite?”
Angleton had disappeared.
By this time the Dutchman had regained his feet, and stood guard again over the chevalier, silver blade resolutely pointed at the Frenchman’s throat. Cal offered his hand in friendship and they shook.
“How long’ve you…I dunno, been awake?” Cal asked.
“Ja,” Jacob Hop said, “het’s strange for you. Natuurlijk, het’s all strange ook for me. Ik have been awake, as you say, all along. The other…Simon Sword…took my body after Ik first saw Bill, on the Incroyable, and he controlled me, but het left me able to see. And ook to hear.”
“I see.” Cal thought he’d most likely understood the Dutchman.
“Nee, maybe you see niet,” Hop contradicted him. “Ik was a deaf-mute, from a long time ago. Since Simon Sword took me, Ik have been able, for the first time in many years, to hear and ook to speak. And not only did het open my mouth, het gave me ook the gift of speaking English, a thing which Ik never before have done het.”