“They are here already, Senor,” amended a new voice, in English, but with a heavy Spanish accent. “Drop your weapons. All of you.”
Owen and his Wild Geese turned. Standing wide-legged and with a clear field of fire upon both groups of intruders, was a young Spanish officer flanked by two guards, all with guns out and ready. They had evidently followed along right behind Owen and his men over the front grounds and through the small arboretum.
Owen calculated. If he rushed the Spanish, his own men would certainly have time to take cover and then their pepperboxes would carry the day, at this range. If he was less suicidally minded, Owen might live by dropping flat, but then some of his own men would surely get cut down, possibly leaving the newcomers in charge of the situation. And if he waited Spaniard lifted his snaplock pistol impatiently: “Senores, I will have either your weapons, or you, on the ground-now. Juan, inform Sergeant Juarez that we have discovered a plot to-”
A hint of movement-a tall, stealthy figure-flitted up to the rear of the young Spanish officer, who must have seen the quick shift of focus in Owen’s eyes; he spun.
Or tried to. Behind the triad of Spaniards, the wraithlike form resolved into a man, up-time pistol already hovering at the rear of one guard’s head. There was sharp report, then, as the gun re-angled slightly, another report. The first man had barely started falling as the second bullet exited the young officer’s skull just above his ear, a jet of blood tracing the projectile’s trajectory.
The second guard, his rifle turning through a longer arc, had almost completed spinning about when another weapon spoke twice from farther down the arboretum’s path. The last of the three Spaniards doubled up around the first slug, and slumped over limply when hit by the second.
The unseen gunman emerged from the concealment of the arboretum’s vines. But no, Owen realized: it wasn’t a gun man.
It was a gun woman. The realization of which made Owen’s jaw sag.
Sherrilyn almost grinned when she saw the look on the faces of the pepperbox-armed gang that had sneaked in just ahead of them. “Keep those hands up, mister,” she said to the one who had been talking. “Same goes for your pals.”
“Eh?” he answered.
Thomas North pushed past the still-stunned down-time leader, nine-millimeter pistol secured in both hands as he moved quickly to link up with the rest of the Crew and Harry — Who sounded genuinely grateful. “Well, Thomas, you sure are a sight for sore-”
“Make your apologies, later, Harry. Right now, we-”
“Hey, I wasn’t apologiz-!”
“Well, you should be. First things first: what the bloody hell is going on here?”
Sherrilyn waved Felix and Gerd-whom they’d met just south of the rendezvous site-toward the guns of the nine buff-coated intruders: Irishmen, from the sound of them. As the two of them collected the weapons and held the Irish at gunpoint, Sherrilyn joined the group clustered around the door into the rectory.
Things had gone deadly quiet as soon as Thomas had opened his mouth. The other Irish fellow in the rectory-medium-sized, built square and deep in the chest, but light in the hips and legs-was looking at Thomas as if he had just devoured a newborn infant. “Feckin’ sassenach. Of course. Here with some up-time mercenaries to assassinate Father Luke, using the chaos of the moment to sneak in and kill ’im.”
For a moment, the whole Wrecking Crew was speechless. “What?” Sherrilyn finally squawked, “What the hell is he talking about?”
But the Irishman wasn’t finished. “Well, yeh bastards, you’ve put your foot in it now. Drop your weapons or I’ll call the rest of the Spanish on you so fast that-”
Harry didn’t shout often, but when he did, it was a sharp, cutting baritone: “Shut up! Those gunshots have called the Spanish better than you could have. Now, the way I figure it, we’ve got maybe ten seconds. So hear this: I don’t know what the hell a sassenach is, but I’m here on orders from the USE. And I’m not here to kill the priest. Hell, I don’t even know who he is. But you want him out? Fine by me. Because right now, if we don’t work together, we’re all going to die together.”
The irate Irish earl frowned more deeply but looked less homicidal. On the other hand, at the arctic rate his mood was changing “Agreed!” barked the other Irish leader, the taller one who had been in Sherrilyn’s sights. “We work together, leave together, sort it out afterwards.”
“Done,” said Harry — Just as the first of the Spanish came charging in through the same doorway that Harry had used, the one that led back to the staff quarters and the kitchen in St. Isidore’s annex.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
John O’Neill, still half-blind with rage and distrust, had taken a step closer to the sassenach — who turned away, and leveled his up-time pistol at the oncoming Spanish. Two ear-splitting snaps-reports, but so unlike the hoarse, throaty roars of muzzle-loaders-dropped the first Spaniard who came through the door, a middle-aged man with a sergeant’s sash. The three with him brought up their own pieces, but the wide-barreled carbines of Lefferts and one of his men were already trained on the doorway. Their discharge was thunderous, painful within the close, walled space-and John checked to be sure that the weapons had not, in fact, exploded. But the effects were clear enough: the cuirass of the first Spanish soldier was riddled by holes, and, as he went backward, a wide spray of blood preceded his fall. One of the two behind him must have picked up a ball, as well; his left arm buckling as the impact pulled him in that direction, the Spaniard’s own piece discharged, sending a lead ball spalling off the antechamber floor, through a window and whining out into the arboretum. The discharge of the second up-time weapon-another of these slim yet monstrously powerful musketoons-followed an eye blink behind the first. It made a red ruin of the wounded soldier’s head and arms, and must have clipped the third in the leg; he dropped with a moan. That sound was cut short by a single shot from the woman-the woman? — with Lefferts’ band; the Spaniard crumpled backward.
John knew he should act, should do something productive, but for the moment, all he could do was think: A woman? John had heard the rumors, but refused to believe them. A woman? Traveling with soldiers-no, raiders-in the field? How did they all-?
Noise. It came from just beyond the side-door of the rectory, the one that led out into the small garden that was tucked into a small niche between buildings of the annex. The Spanish would have had to climb a wall to get there this quickly, but “Lefferts, Owen-here!” John was moving as he snapped the order, leaping to the side of the door, drawing his sword in the same motion.
The door burst open even as he landed beside it. He saw a pistol in his face, snapped his wrist to convert his sword’s unsheathing into an abbreviated back-handed cut. Blood sprayed into his face at the same moment that thunder and powder-grit exploded against his reflex-shut eyes, and sent a bolt of searing lightning across the top of his right ear.
Which no longer worked.
He noticed.
As he fell.
Backward.
And landed with a crash that he felt rather than heard, but it jarred him out of his daze.
Just in time to gasp as someone fell on top of him. Weapons were discharging above and around John as he pushed the person-well, the body-off of him. Judging from its half-severed hand, it was the corpse of the Spaniard- the captain of the guard, from the look of his blood-spattered gear-who had almost shot him in the face. But John’s sword slice had not been what had killed the hidalgo: three perfectly round holes in his cuirass were clearly the cause of death. And the only person near enough to have done the shooting was the woman, who was already stepping sideways to get a better angle out into the garden. Staggering forward one step, John surveyed the situation out there, saw a knot of swordsmen entangled just beyond the door, and smiled.
At last: the perfectly uncomplicated and spine-tingling rush of combat. Oh, how I’ve missed it he thought, as he headed for the melee with great, bounding strides…
At least that bigoted Irish bastard isn’t dead; there would’ve been hell to pay for that, reflected Thomas as he swapped magazines and took stock of the situation.
