More puffs of smoke from a French battery, and more sizzles as balls sailed past, some bouncing over their own trenches. One hit, and the aqueduct shook again, and then again. A ball crashed through the upper rim, spraying me with rock splinters. I blinked and looked back. Astiza was hobbling grimly, Mohammad right behind. Another hundred yards! Cannon banged away on both sides, an entire battle swirling around our little trio.
Then Astiza cried out. I turned. Mohammad has jerked upright, stiff, his mouth round with surprise. His chest bloomed red, and he toppled over. I looked back. Najac was just lowering my rifle.
It was all I could do not to run back and kill the bastard.
“Leave him!” I shouted to Astiza instead. I’d wait for her.
But then the aqueduct between us exploded.
It was a perfect shot from big cannon. The French must have brought up new siege guns to replace the ones we’d captured at sea.
The aqueduct heaved, ancient stone exploded in all directions, dust flew, and then there was a yawning gap between piers. Astiza and I were suddenly on opposite sides of a chasm.
“Jump down and I’ll pull you up!”
“No, go, go,” she shouted. “He won’t kill me! I’ll buy you time!” She ripped off part of her gown and began limping back, waving it frantically in surrender. The French fire slackened.
I cursed, but I had no means of stopping her. Heartsick, I turned and sprinted for Acre, fully upright now, gambling that speed would make me an elusive target.
If a longrifle were quicker to reload, Najac might have picked me off even then. But it would take him a full minute to get off another shot, and other bullets flew blind. I was beyond the forward French trenches now, to the point where the aqueduct’s end crumbled into rubble before reaching the walls of Acre, and even as cannon fire rippled on both sides I swung over its broken lip and dropped to the sand. Dust puffed from my boots.
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I heard the thunder of hooves and turned. Najac’s Arabs were riding down the length of the aqueduct for me, I saw, bent over their steeds and heedless of English fire.
I sprinted for the moat. It was fifty yards away, the strategic tower looming like a monolith, soldiers on Acre’s ramparts pointing at me.
It would be a near-run thing. Legs pumping, I ran as I’d never run before, hearing the pursuing horsemen closing the distance. Now men up and down the Acre wall were firing over my head, and I heard horses neighing and crashing as some went down.
At the moat’s end I slid over its edge like a Maine otter on a snow bank, tumbling to the dry bottom. The stench was nauseating. There were rotting bodies, broken ladders, and the abandoned weapons that make up the detritus of war. The breach in the tower had been sealed and there was no way up the wall. Men were peering down at me, but none seemed to realize yet who I was. No rope was offered. Not knowing what else to do, I ran down the moat’s dusty course toward where it joined the Mediterranean. I could see the masts of British ships, and guns continued to go off above my head. Hadn’t Smith said they were building a reservoir of seawater at the moat’s head?
New shouts! I looked back. The damned Arab daredevils had spurred some of their horses down into the moat with me and now they were galloping along, heedless of the soldiers overhead trying to shoot them, determined to take me. Silano clearly knew I had the book! Ahead was the ramp over the moat by the Land Gate, and a black, moist seawall of the new reservoir beyond it. Trapped!
And then there was another explosion, straight ahead. A roar, pieces flying, and the black wall dissolved in front of me. The blast knocked me backward, and I stared stupefied as a wall of green seawater turned to foam and began rushing down the moat at me and my pursuers. I got to my knees just as the flood hit. It knocked me back the way I’d come, carrying me like a leaf in a gutter.
I was in a tumble of foam, unable to get proper breath, unsure what was up and down. I tumbled. The water swept me into a tangle with my pursuers and something big struck me, a horse I guessed, 2 4 6
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fortuitously knocking me toward air. We were being washed down the moat back toward the central tower, all of us tangled with half-decayed corpses and the flotsam of siege debris. I thrashed, coughing.
And then I saw my chain! Or
It plucked me out of the water like a well bucket and began dragging me up the rough tower walls, scraping like sandpaper.
“Hang on, Gage. You’re almost home!”
It was Jericho.
Now bullets began banging off the wall around me and I realized I was a hanging target for the entire French army. One lucky shot and I’d fall off.
I tucked into a ball. If I could have shriveled any smaller I’d have disappeared.
Cannon boomed, and a ball that seemed big as a house crashed into the masonry a few yards from me, dissolving to shrapnel. The entire tower shuddered and I swung like a bead on a string. Grimly, I held on. Then another ball, and another. Each time the entire tower shook and the chain swayed, me dangling. Was this ever going to end?
I looked down. The flow of water was slowing but the Arab horsemen were gone, washed to who knows where. Wreckage dotted the water’s surface. A man floated belly up, like a fish.
“Heave!” Jericho cried.
