Good.
'What the hell is this?' asked Cornelius.
They came together and stopped three feet apart.
'One of the intruders,' said Kanazuchi.
'Hi, Cornelius,' said Frank. 'Remember me?'
Cornelius stared at him, eyebrows wriggling like caterpillars. Frank saw the pupils in the man's eyes constrict: Cornelius's gun started up.
'You dumb fuck,' said Frank.
Frank drew the Colt and fired six times, punching a circle around his heart.
Kanazuchi turned and emptied the rifle on the men at the Gatling, killing all three. Before the men in the line on either side could react Kanazuchi pulled the Grass Cutter and attacked to his right.
Frank jumped to the Gatling and swung it back left; he caught a glimpse through the doors of a sea of white shirts down on the cathedral floor, a splash of red moonlight shining on them through a round glass window. His hand found the crank and he let the Gatling rip; a stream of bullets kicked up a cloud of dust, hitting the ground to the left of the line— damn thing wasn't calibrated; fucking army didn't know how to fucking maintain its fucking equipment.
Men in black in the line returned fire. Frank found the balance in the gun as it continued to fire and wrestled it to the right. Now bullets ripped directly down the flank of their line, chewing it up, tossing men back and to the sides; ones in the rear ran for cover as they saw the others fall.
A shot smashed through Frank's boot; his left ankle shattered. He staggered but kept cranking; heard a bullet clip his ear. Another ripped clean through his right upper thigh.
Missed the bone, thought Frank. He kept his right hand glued to the crank and screamed through the pain.
Behind Frank, Kanazuchi barreled into the right side of the line; the Grass Cutter never stopped. The men had trouble distinguishing him from one of their own, and the ferocity of his assault drew their attention away from the machine gun. All they knew before he was on top of them was that this man had a sword and he moved like the wind. Their bullets struck each other as they fired wildly, others taken down by shots that missed the man at the Gatling. Highly disciplined soldiers, all of them, but their panicked cries testified that they'd never faced this hot a fight before. Their bullets whistled through the man but didn't seem to strike him. They saw limbs fly off their comrades. Heads dropped from necks, bodies opened, and the sword mowed through them as if it possessed a life of its own.
Ten men died before the others dropped their weapons and ran, and still the man with the blood-red sword came after them. One stroke apiece; he finished the assault with a terrible economy of violence. When the last man fell, without hesitation Kanazuchi disappeared around the right side of the church, zeroing in on the team stationed at the second gun.
Frank erased the last of the black shirts on his side with a burst that cut through a mound of dirt the man had sought shelter behind. He released the crank as the last cartridge fed through the gun. He reached down for more ammunition. His hand burned as it grazed the barrel.
A hail of bullets cut the air over his head; Frank glanced through the cathedral and saw muzzle bursts from the open front doors at the far end. Shit, the other machine gun, shooting at him clear through the church. White shirts inside screaming. They were being slaughtered down there.
A bullet bit a chunk out of his left shoulder and Frank went into the dirt. Most of their shots still going high. His shoulder wouldn't cooperate, so he stayed low, coaxed a cartridge out of the crate and up to the feeder with his good hand. He hit the crank and a burst shattered the window above the doors. Red glass rained down.
The shooting started. Doyle placed it at the rear of the cathedral: machine gun fire. The team at the Gatling in front of the church struggled go get theirs working; the rest of the black shirts took aim and shot their rifles down into the church. Desperate screams from inside reached them over the crack of the guns.
Innes had trouble steadying the gun with his wounded arm and he grunted painfully with each shot, but among the three of them, taking their time and shooting accurately they knocked out the team at the machine gun before it could lay down a steady field of fire. When two other men jumped in to take their place they picked them off as well, then began to direct their fire at the men with the rifles.
No one spoke, minds focused on the bloody business. As he reloaded, Doyle glanced at Eileen; she had definitely not forgotten how to shoot.
The first bursts of the guns from above echoed metallically down through the grillwork over Jacob's head. Reverend Day wheeled around the circle, frantic, an open watch in his hand.
'No, no! Where are the bells?
The gunfire steadily increased in intensity, deafening as it reverberated through the chamber. Jacob did not move or speak; he dared not draw the Reverend's attention now because he was almost certain that he had heard his son's voice calling his name out of the darkness of the maze.
He heard a sound above him like a rushing of water and raised his head to look. A trickle of blood seeped through the grills and dripped down around him.
With both blades in his hands, Kanazuchi charged the machine gun at the side of the church. Only three men stationed here, concentrating the deadly fire of the Gatling into the cathedral. They never heard him coming.
Kanazuchi cut off the hand of the man on the crank, backhanded the ammunition feeder away with the knife, and drove the Grass Cutter through the throat of the last man. He took control of the gun, raised the muzzle, and fired until the feeder emptied, wiping out the machine gun position at the opposite side door.
He looked down at the dark spreading stains on the arms of his tunic and pants; he had been hit three times. No vital organs struck, but he was losing blood rapidly.
Now all the Gatlings stopped firing; only rifles somewhere to the front.
Kanazuchi hurried to the edge of the church and looked inside. White shirts cowered and huddled together, horrible moans coming from every direction; a thousand bodies covering the stone floor. He could not tell how many had died; he did not know how long the guns had fired, but he could see a great deal of blood. Moonlight through the broken frame of the window illuminated the center of the room in a stark circle of white. He listened for the children. Heard them to his right.
He descended the stairs to the floor. White shirts moving now that the gunfire had ended, crawling over each other. Bitter sounds; shock, fear, and dreadful suffering. Kanazuchi saw many discarded rifles; the militia had been sent to the slaughter with the rest of them.
The children's cries led him farther right; he found them huddled behind a row of columns, a niche in the wall, a chapel. The guns could not reach this area; the hundred children were alive.
Kanazuchi walked into their midst, speaking softly, encouragingly, gathering the children around him, lifting stragglers to their feet, holding them together. He gently led them back to the stairs through which he'd entered. The children followed meekly, weeping quietly, stumbling and stepping over bodies that had fallen. The adult survivors they passed paid no attention, staring dully ahead with glassy uncomprehending eyes.
Walks Alone stopped when she heard the others call for Jacob, and then the sound of many guns began somewhere above. She reached another intersection, twenty steps beyond where they had separated, and realized that this section ahead was honeycombed with passages; ten more steps and she would be hopelessly lost. She headed back to the meeting place occupied with many thoughts, and when the smell of the one-eyed man and the rush of movement in the air reached her senses, she was a second slow to react.
Half-turned, she cried out as the first blade cut her left shoulder to the bone. She felt his other hand slash past her right, glancing off her hip; he had a knife in that hand too. She dropped to the ground, grabbed the handle of her knife with both hands, and thrust up into the darkness, felt the tip of the blade connect and enter, heard the man grunt in pain and surprise.
He struck down at her with both hands; the knives missed by fractions of an inch; one sliced her hair, sparks flew off the wall beside her head. She slashed back, felt the blade cut tendoned flesh on the back of his leg. He bellowed and fell to his knees.
