the fourth man with a single shot. He saw a severed hand still holding on to the torch.
Lights and activity ahead: the warehouse. A long line of white shirts crowded its broad front entrance, black shirts inside at a stack of crates, passing out a rifle and a box of bullets to each man that passed. Frank followed Kanazuchi to the rear door and they entered the warehouse.
White shirts swarmed over the interior; a chain of them relaying crates forward to the distribution area. Taking cover at the rear, ahead to their right they saw teams of men in black loading the machine guns onto the back of caissons; two of the four guns already being wheeled toward the front.
'Gatling guns,' said Frank. 'Shit. You weren't kidding.'
'This is bad.'
'Bad don't quite cover it.'
'Can you work one of these guns?' asked Kanazuchi.
'Yup.'
As they turned to go, two guards in black came through the door, pistols drawn; they reacted quickly, raising the guns to fire. Kanazuchi rolled to the floor and as he came to his knees the long knife flew between them and pinned one guard's forearm to the door. His finger pulled the trigger before the gun dropped; the bullet shot harmlessly into the ceiling. Kanazuchi killed him with the Grass Cutter before he could scream.
The second man had the drop on Frank; no time to raise the Henry, Frank spanked out his Colt and fired. The man went down but his single shot creased Frank's face, skidding across his cheek, chipping the bone. Blood slipped from the wound in freshets; pain seared his nerves. Frank raised a hand to it and realized the damage was slight.
But at the sharp report of the guns, all work in the warehouse stopped, a hundred eyes searching for the source. Kanazuchi yanked the
Frank stumbled trying to keep pace with Kanazuchi; he had the night vision of a cat. Fifty steps ahead, Kanazuchi pushed him into a cramped chicken coop, hens scattering. Frank gasped for air; Kanazuchi closed his eyes, breathed deeply, drew his energy inward, and listened. One group rushed by outside, shouting to another. A minute later, a second group passed them, heading in the other direction.
The roar and crackle of the fire advanced on them; distant screams twisted in the wind, crashes as a ruined building came down. Clusters of ash drifted, black snowflakes. A dim red glow lit the coop's interior; Frank could just make out the hard line of Kanazuchi's face, staring out at the night. Out of habit, Frank reloaded the Colt. He looked up at another sound, shocking, completely unexpected.
Children singing. A chorus of voices.
'What the hell...' whispered Frank.
Kanazuchi instantly alert. 'Come.'
They left the hiding place and followed the voices down the alley to the next street; ahead of them, marching together, herded by white shirts ringed around them, at least a hundred children, the ones Kanazuchi had seen in the holding pen, singing 'Old McDonald Had a Farm.' A few of the small ones crying, frightened; most of them skipping along, strings of them holding hands, laughing happily.
'Only kids I've seen here,' said Frank.
For the first time, Frank saw anger in Kanazuchi's eyes.
'What are they doing?' asked Frank.
'Taking them to the church. They are all going to the church.'
Miles before they reached the town, they saw the fire. The blistering pace Jack set in the lead spread them out over a quarter of a mile, but as he drew within sight of the guardhouse and gate, he slowed and waited for Walks Alone to catch him. Off to their right, strangled formations of rock glowed in the moonlight.
As she drew alongside, Jack whispered, 'Three men.'
'To the right,' she said.
Jack nodded.
Doyle and the others still lagged a half mile behind. Jack and Walks Alone skirted the gate and rode on until the rocks were behind them, then doubled back, tied the horses near the entrance to a narrow passage, and entered on foot, drawing their knives.
In a clearing at the center of the formation, they found three horses and the cold remains of a campfire. Using gestures to communicate, they split up and stalked silently toward two openings at the guardhouse end of the clearing. Jack scaled a high rock to survey while Walks Alone waited below for direction.
Three men wearing loose black clothes stationed across a hundred-yard stretch at the edge of the rocks. Sniper rifles in hand. One held a pair of field glasses, watching Doyle and the others arrive at the guardhouse. Jack pointed Walks Alone toward the one to the left, jumped down softly, and moved in on the man in the middle.
Walks Alone tossed a handful of pebbles against the rocks to the man's left. As he turned, she ran in from the right and slashed his throat with one downward stroke of her knife. The man slammed her back against the rocks with a powerful blow, raised a hand to his throat, and realized the artery had been cut. Calmly pressing one hand to the spurting wound, he pulled his pistol with the other. She ducked under his arm before he could fire, plunged the blade in below the center of his ribs and ripped upward. Letting go of the handle, she covered the man's mouth with one hand and wrestled the gun from him with the other. He sank slowly to the dirt and died.
The guard in the middle heard faint sounds of the scuffle to his left, then something scraped the rocks behind him; all he saw was a deadly descending shadow.
Walks Alone joined Jack at the center position; together they approached the third guard. All they found was a pile of cigarette butts in the sand. Both sprinted back to the clearing; the guard was already on his horse, riding toward the passage. Walks Alone threw her knife; it clattered off the rock near the man's head.
They ran after him, losing ground; by the time they reached their horses, the black shirt was back on the road, riding low, heading for The New City. Jack pulled his rifle from the saddle, ran forward, steadied the barrel against a rock, and drew a bead on the disappearing figure.
Doyle and the other men were examining the telegraph key in the guardhouse when they heard two rifle shots crack the night. They ran out to the road; Jack and Walks Alone galloped toward them out of the darkness.
'After us,' shouted Jack. 'One of them got away.'
Both of them covered in blood.
Jack and Walks Alone wheeled and took off down the road.
'Jack's back,' said Doyle.
'I couldn't help but notice,' answered Innes.
'Lionel,' said Doyle, 'perhaps you ought to wait here.... '
'By myself?' said Lionel, launching himself into the sad-die like a veteran. 'Are you crazy? Let's ride.'
They followed Jack's hell-bent pace. The sky grew red; the violent bouncing of the saddles blurred their vision, giving the horizon a shimmering miragelike surreality, until The New City itself finally came into view; the entire southern half of the town was engulfed in fire, wind gusts fanning sheets of flame to towering heights. On the north side of Main Street, most of the buildings remained intact.
They heard church bells ringing, and at the far end of that street, for the first time they saw the black tower stark against the sky, lit up by the inferno, marbled in a dozen hues of swirling red reflections. A sea of torches swarmed around its base above an undulating mass of white that they realized was a crowd of people.
A second gate blocked the road in a fence that ringed the settlement; Jack and Walks Alone steadied their horses' strides on approach and cleared it with a jump. Two black-shirted guards jumped out of the guardhouse and took aim at their backs. Presto and Innes quickly dismounted and cut the guards down with a volley before they could shoot.
'This is it!' shouted Innes, running forward, opening the gate while Presto covered him.
'Leave the horses here,' said Doyle, climbing down.
'But they've already gone on,' said Lionel, pointing to Main Street where Jack and Walks Alone had ridden
