“It’s the best chance we’ve got,” she said quietly. “Fifty is too many. If he gives the order to rush us, they’re going to get inside.”
“He won’t,” Hays said. “Mithraim Tzolk cares more about his own skin than anything else, even catching me. If he loses too many here, he’ll never make it back to Central territory.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” she said. “If I can put a bullet in him and his cronies, we’ll get away clean.”
Hays set his jaw. “Where do you want to set up?”
“Water tower,” Liz said, without hesitation. “They’ll have to come that way, and it’s the best vantage. If I get the drop on them, this could all be over by sundown.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Do it,” Hays said. Then, after a pause, “And don’t forget your last shot.”
Liz snorted and turned away. I swallowed hard, suddenly understanding. You always saved your last shot, Ben had explained to me not long after I’d joined the Red Riders. If it looked like the Centrals might get you, the last shot was for yourself. They said in the papers we were irregulars and spies, and thus outside the rules of civilized war. I figured that meant all kinds of rape and torture if they ever caught us, but that wasn’t the half of it. In the end, they’d take you back and make you into a Nephilim, like they did with all their prisoners, and that was a fate any of us would rather eat a bullet than face.
Hays didn’t think Liz was going to make it back. I glanced at John Plainsman, who was stoically cleaning the action on his carbine, and began checking my own weapons. I saw Liz, towing her long rifle, slip out through a side door before Dogs, at Hays’s instruction, barred all the entrances and blocked them with crates from the wagon. The rest of us lined up at the windows and waited.
WE DIDN’T HAVE TO WAIT long.
Figures slipped through the darkening street, two by two, closing in on the station. On the side facing the tracks, the windows overlooked a wide stretch of open ground, but the other side faced the town. That would be where the Neffies would come. They might be demons, but they weren’t completely stupid.
Or at least, they weren’t completely stupid unless someone had ordered them to be. There was still a whole street between the station and the nearest buildings, and it would become a killing ground if they tried a rush. Human troops might hesitate, but the Neffies would do it, if they were told to. While the two Barrows watched the track side, in case they tried something sneaky, the rest of us lined up next to the narrow windows with carbines raised.
“Stay out of sight,” Hays said, peeking out and then ducking back. “Don’t fire until they do. I don’t want them spooked yet.”
“You all right, Nellie?” This was from Ben, pressed against the bricks beside me. I was breathing fast, I realized, and my heart was pounding like it wanted out of my chest.
“I’m fine,” I muttered, swallowing again.
In the three months I’d been with the Red Riders, this was the closest I’d come to a stand-up fight. When you’re a dozen soldiers in enemy territory, you don’t stay put and shoot it out if you can avoid it. I’d thrown up the first time I’d shot a man, a Central quartermaster who’d gone for his pistol rather than surrender, but that had been months ago. It wasn’t shooting that bothered me now, but the prospect that they were going to be shooting back.
“Hays knows what he’s doing,” Ben said. “He’ll get us out of here.”
Some of us, anyway. I could see what Hays and Liz were up to. Nephilim didn’t tire or scare, and they barely needed food and water. But they couldn’t think for themselves. They needed human commanders to tell them what to do, or they’d stand around and do nothing. There was a story once about a whole battalion of Neffies whose commander had been down with fever, and when one of our patrols started slaughtering them, they’d just waited like beef cattle for the knife.
We wouldn’t get that lucky, I expected. Most Neffies had standing orders to defend themselves. But if Liz could take out the humans—Colonel Tzolk and his officers, if she was right—then it would be a hell of a lot easier to get away. But Tzolk wasn’t likely to put himself in the line of fire, which is why she’d hid herself up the water tower. Hays wanted to let the Neffies get as close as possible, to give her as good a chance as she could get.
The water tower was a dark mass against the sky, light already fading as the sun sank toward the horizon. The lanterns made it obvious where we’d holed up, but there was no hiding the trail our horses and wagon had made anyway. I wanted desperately to look out the window, but any motion now would be asking for a shot. I wanted desperately to piss, too. Why hadn’t I taken care of that beforehand?
Liz’s rifle cracked, a sound like a huge stick snapping in two. Someone shouted, and a horse screamed, eerily human-like. There was another crack, and then the deeper growl of Neffie rifles, flashes lighting up the street as shadowy figures turned to the water tower.
“Give it to them!” Hays shouted.
In near-unison, the Red Riders slammed the butts of their weapons against the glass in the windows, letting in a sudden draft of cold air and the smell of burning powder. The noise redoubled, louder than the loudest storm that had ever rocked our old farmhouse. Ben leaned out one window, and I peeked around the other, trying to make out a target in a street turned black-and-white by the flash of rifle fire. One Neffie was running for cover, his gun trained on the water tower, and I tried to follow his movement, looking through the sights as Sergeant Dogs had taught me.
Something went pok beside my head, spraying brick dust. It happened again, pok pok pok, but it was only when a bullet thrummed past through the window that I realized it was gunfire hitting the side of the building. My concentration vanished, and I pulled the trigger blindly, feeling the carbine buck against my shoulder. The sound filled the world, rattling my bones. I ducked out of the window, heart slamming in my chest.
My fingers knew what to do next, which was good, as I seemed to have lost the thread of events. I watched as they yanked back the bolt, ejecting a spent copper cartridge, and thumbed in a fresh round from my ammo pouch. When they slammed the bolt closed again, I crashed back into myself, feeling every shot as a shiver running through my body.
Ben was looking at me as he reloaded his own carbine. He mouthed something I couldn’t hear in the noise, but I could see the concern in his eyes. There was enough of me left to think, the hell with that. I gave him my best grin and leaned out the window again, sighting on the flash of a Neffie’s weapon and pulling the trigger.
Sight, fire, duck, reload, sight again. The world contracted around me. I no longer flinched when shots came close, hitting the wall of the building or passing through the window to thunk into the ceiling. My shoulder ached where the carbine slammed against it, and my fingers were getting scorched where they touched the barrel. I sent round after round chasing fleeting shadows. At least once, I saw a Neffie fall, though whether it was my shot or another I couldn’t say. Most of the time, I ducked back before I could tell what had happened.
Jude took a bullet through the throat, in the half-second while he leaned out to fire. He fell backward, kicking, and blood sprayed in a wide arc across the floorboards. Nobody ran to help him; sometimes, one look was enough to tell you when someone ain’t getting back up. Bill dropped his carbine and stumbled back from the window, clutching his arm, and Rob pulled him down and propped him against the wall, then kept firing.
I thought I heard Liz’s rifle crack, twice more. I saw Hays point and shout something, and in the flashes I saw a dozen Neffies rushing the ladder leading up the water tower. The rifle cracked again and one of them collapsed. The others kept on, and then something dropped from the tower, a human shape, arms flailing.
“Liz!” Hays’s shout cut through the gunfire. “You stupid—”
A new round of shooting drowned out the rest, but I could see Neffies moving over to where Liz had fallen. A few moments later, the shooting from the street died
away, and a man’s deep voice could be heard.
“Stop!” he said. “Stop firing, all of you.”
The Neffies stopped. Most of them were in cover now, crouching behind bushes or the corners of nearby houses. There were a half-dozen bodies in the street, and one man crawling determinedly away from the station, leaving a slick of blood in the dirt behind him. Farther up the road, it was harder to see in the dim light, but I thought there were at least a couple more bodies. Then a knot of figures emerged, the one at the center struggling.
“Shit,” Hays said. “Cease fire.”
We had mostly stopped in any case, without much to shoot at once the Neffies had hunkered down. Quiet fell over Hawk Hill, broken by the muffled shrieks of an injured horse somewhere out of view. There was a single pistol shot, and the animal went silent.
“What happened?” Dogs said. “Did you see?”
“The idiot fired her last shot at the Neffies,” Hays said. His voice was thick. “Then I think she jumped off the tower.” He glanced down the line, taking in Jude’s still-twitching body and Rob bent over Bill. “He going to be all right?”
“Tore up my arm pretty good,” Bill said, sounding a little shaky. “Got it bandaged, but I’m not going to be much help.”
“Hays!” said the man outside. He had a strong Central accent. “You in there, Hays?”
“That’s Tzolk,” Ben muttered. “Damn.”
“What if I am?” Hays shouted back.
“Your whore here shot my boy!” Tzolk said. “Blasted his brains all over me.”
“Your lot always had few enough of those,” Hays said. “Should be easy to clean up.”
“You fucking pile of dogshit,” Tzolk said. “That’s two sons you owe me now.”
“Come on out, and I’ll give you what I owe you,” Hays said.
There was a commotion, and for a moment I thought Tzolk was actually going to give Hays what he wanted. Instead, a pair of Neffies came forward, holding Liz between them. She struggled, but weakly. One of her legs hung limp at an odd angle, obviously broken.
“This your girl?” Tzolk said. “Fuck if I can see what anyone would see in her, but ain’t no accounting for taste.”
Hays was silent. Tzolk’s voice, still thick with anger, took on a mocking tone.
“I wouldn’t touch her with a long-handled pole myself, so let me tell you how this is going to go. I’m gonna let every Neffie in the company have a go at her, and you can watch. You ever seen a Neffie fuck? Sometimes I make ‘em do it, just for the laugh. It’s like watching a steam piston making love. They don’t enjoy it, and she sure as hell won’t. And when they’re all done, I’m gonna take her back home and watch pers’nally as they carve out her soul and make a Neffie out of her.”
“Fuck off, Tzolk,” Liz called weakly. “How many sons you got left? I’m running out of bullets.”
“I’m tempted to just get started,” Tzolk said. “But you know I’m a reasonable man. You come out here, and I’ll put a bullet in you both, right here and right now, no fuss. I’ll even let the rest of your little thieves skulk back home. Have to drag your body home to get my just reward, of course, but that ain’t gonna matter to you at that point.”
We all had our eyes on Hays. He lifted his carbine, slowly, and closed the bolt. It was Dogs who figured out what he was up to first.
“Captain, no,” he said. “That’s too long a shot. And every Neffie out there’s watching the windows.”
“At least let me do it,” Ben said. Several others chimed in.
“Do what?” I said, quietly.
“Last shot,” Ben said.
Shit. I pressed myself against the wall. Shit, shit, shit.
“Come on, Hays,” Tzolk said. “You know you aren’t walking away from this. It’s the best deal you’re likely to get.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Liz said, her voice cracking. “Kill this bastard and every one of his fucking diseased family—”
Hays let out a breath, raised the carbine to his shoulder, and sighted. It seemed to take an eternity before he pulled the trigger. The report of the weapon was simultaneous with several shots from outside. Liz broke off abruptly, and Hays stumbled away from the window, dropping the gun. Dogs scrambled to his side.
Ben risked a look, just for a moment. “I think he got her,” he said, a little bit of awe in his tone. “God Above.”
“He’s hit,” Dogs said. “Shoulder. Rob, bandages, now.”
“God fucking damn it, Hays,” Tzolk said. “You always have to do things the hard way, don’t you?”
AFTER THAT, I EXPECTED THE firing to start again, but it stayed quiet. The Barrows kept watch at one set of windows, John Plainsman at the other, while the rest of us pulled back out of view. Dogs carried Jude’s body upstairs, leaving a trail of blood drying on the dusty floor, while Rob did what he could for the unconscious captain.
“It didn’t shatter the bone,” he told Dogs when he came back down. “He’ll probably be all right, if we can get a surgeon to dig the bullet out and it doesn’t fester.” He made a face. “He’s finished if it goes bad, though. It’s too high up to amputate.”
“He’ll make it,” the sergeant said. “If getting shot through the eye didn’t kill him, this sure as hell won’t. We just have to make sure we get out of here.”
I slipped up the stairs, carbine under my arm, to take care of a need that had abruptly become urgent. When I came back down, the company was circled a few yards away from where the captain lay with his head propped up on a wadded jacket. Dogs sat on his haunches, for all the world like an enormous version of his namesake, and Rob was cross-legged beside Bill, who was hunched shivering under a blanket. I slipped in between Gid and Ben.
“—split up,” Gid was saying. “Ride for it.”
“There’s too many Neffies,” Rob said. “They’d run us down.”
“Not all of us,” Gid said.
“You scared of a few Neffies, boy?” Rob said.
“Four dozen ain’t a few,” Gid said. “And I ain’t scared, I’m just telling it straight.”
“The hell you are.”
“Rob,” Bill said, sounded shaky. “He might be right.”
Rob looked at his lover and bit his lip. I could see his thoughts like they were written on his forehead; if we had to ride for bit, hell-for-leather, there was no way that Bill would get away.
“The captain ain’t going to be able to ride for it,” Dogs rumbled. “Which means I’m staying right here until we can take him with us. An’ that means the rest of you are, too, since I’m in charge until he wakes up. That clear?”
He looked from Rob to Gid. Rob nodded, and Gid blushed a furious crimson.
“Right,” he said. “I didn’t think about that.”
“‘Course you didn’t.” Dogs clapped him on the shoulder. “Nobody’s mad at ya. We just got to think a little harder.”
“It’s nearly full dark,” Ben said, glancing at the window. “Unless they start shooting or come near the lanterns, there’s not much we can do.”
“They can’t wait around forever, can they?” I said. I don’t speak up much, and the others all looked surprised to hear my voice. “Stripped garrisons or no, someone has to know they’re here. We’re only a half-day from Forganville by train if they’ve got an engine there, or a day’s march for a cavalry company. A hundred troopers would put paid to Tzolk.”
“She’s right,” Ben said. “Tzolk must know it, too.”
“Then what’s he waiting for?” Dogs said.
“He knows he’d lose half his company if they rush the building. The more Neffies that go down, the slimmer his chances of making it back to claim that bounty.” Ben shook his head. “He can’t know Hays is hurt, either. He might be afraid we’d try to ride for it.”
“So he can’t attack,” Gid said. “And he can’t stick around. Doesn’t that mean all we’ve got to do is wait him out?”
“Don’t mean he can’t attack,” Dogs said. “Just
means it’d be a risk. And he’s already thrown the dice just coming here. I’d wager that if it comes to it, he’ll send the Neffies in to get us and the hell with the odds.”
“And once the sun comes up, that’ll get harder,” Ben said. “So he’ll do it before dawn. Maybe with a distraction, try to catch us off guard.”
There was a long silence. I looked over at Hays, his good eye closed, his breathing ragged.
“I don’t much like the idea of sitting around here until Tzolk decides he’s good and ready,” Dogs said.
“Neither do I,” Ben said. “But what else can we do?”
“Take him out,” Rob said, his tone low and dangerous. “Like Liz tried to do.”
Ben looked skeptical. “Tzolk himself?”
“Sure.” Rob warmed to his subject. “Gid, you said you only saw three riders, right?”
“Right,” the boy said. “All together.”
“That means we’ve got Tzolk and two other humans commanding the Neffies,” Rob said. “We know Liz killed one, so that leaves two. We get to them, and if they’ve told the Neffies to wait, they’ll keep waiting forever.”
“Sure,” Dogs said. “But they ain’t likely to just walk up the windows and wave hello.”
“I saw one of them,” John Plainsman said.
Dogs jerked around so fast he lost his balance and fell on his ass. All the rest of us looked at the windows, where John was standing. He had a way of standing so still and quiet you almost forgot he was there.
“Where?” Ben said, while Dogs sorted himself out.
“In the house over there,” John said, pointing. “There’s several Neffies in there, but there’s a human, too.”
“Tzolk?” Dogs said.
“Doubt it. Too short.”
“How do you know it wasn’t another Neffie?” Ben said.
“Neffies don’t drink,” John said. “I saw him with a bottle in his hand.”
“Must be the third man,” Rob said. “If we can get to him, that’ll leave Tzolk alone.”
“I only saw him for a moment,” John said. “He won’t give us a shot from here.”
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