Before the last syllable left her lips, the crew were on the move. William wasted no time in procuring his sword and slinging a musket over his shoulder. Anticipating her need, he tossed her golden cutlass and a rifle to her. Anne caught the two as she rushed to the stairs to the main level of the general store.
She jumped down the steps two at a time and passed through the storage room with a tied-up Jules sitting in the chair where she had left him earlier that night. Alexandre and Victoria were at the front of the store, observing the crewmates losing ground outside as they prepared muskets for an offensive.
Anne slowed her pace for a moment as she took the rifle off her shoulder and handed it to Alexandre in exchange for the loaded musket. With a practiced hand and a bit of black powder from Alexandre, she readied the musket with a few flicks of her thumb. Walking sideways with the musket aimed towards the unknown assailants, she exited the store, found her mark, and shot.
After the shot was away and the acrid smoke surrounded her, she ducked back into the store, confident she had hit her mark, and not wanting to risk getting shot in return.
William was next out the door with a loaded musket in hand. He fired, sending more smoke into the small space, with no wind to take it away. He moved outside the store to a nearby pillar keeping the roof of the store's deck aloft.
Alexandre handed Anne her rifle, now loaded, and took back the spent musket. She bent down below the window of the general store for a moment and closed her eyes. She counted the shots and where they were coming from.
Only two men remained by her estimation, and they were staggering their shots to keep Anne, William, and the others at bay. They were skilled in battle. Three bangs. A thud. Only one man left.
Anne counted down the seconds. She knew the approximate time the last man took to reload based on the time between previous shots. There would also be a momentary hesitation when he moved out of cover to take aim. She aimed for that hesitation.
Anne sprang from her cover like a snake from between two rocks. She flew through the smoke, forcing her eyes open despite the burn and the watering. When the smoke broke, she saw movement to her right. She aimed down the centre of her rifle at the movement and pulled the trigger. The bullet, more accurate than the musket she'd shot before, hit the target right through the neck. The man, just in the middle of aiming, reared back, firing wildly into the air. The last crack sent a wave of smoke in front of the man. Spurts of blood from his neck broke through the grey cloud and splattered on the dirt road.
Anne relaxed but remained on alert. "Any others?" She didn't look away from the direction the enemy had come from but said the words loud enough for her crewmates to hear.
"Two more, headed to the bell tower," one of the crewmates said.
The bell tower. The unknown element. The trigger for something unknown. An alert to others?
Anne's mind raced with questions, but a single thought rose above them all: Stop them.
She dropped her spent rifle and stole William's loaded musket before gliding into a sprint towards the bell tower. She caught a glimpse of the other crewmates coming out of the general store, armed to the teeth, before everything turned into a blur.
Anne was faster than the rest of the crew. Lighter in step, lithe, and catlike, she ran like the wind of a storm beating close to the ground as it swelled up a narrow street. Her feet were a flurry on the dirt road, the sound of a mad dance on the cobbles.
She passed the silent houses with the dead-still villagers resting inside. She fought the silence of that stillness with her beating feet and pounding heart in her ears. She would stomp away that silence any way she had. Until she finished the job, she would not brook any silence.
Figures in the night cut moonlight shadows onto the ground forty paces in front of her, and twenty from the bell tower entrance. The figures, cloaked in brown, ran toward the bell tower at a quick pace, but Anne was quicker.
She slowed a step to aim the musket and fired at the closest figure. Her aim was true, and it hit the man in the back. The man staggered, turned around, and drew a pistol. She ducked, and the bullet rushed over her head. She ran, pulling her cutlass from the sheathe. The man pulled out his own blade, but he was too slow. She sliced his gut open in passing. She moved forward, not looking back and not losing stride, her golden weapon outstretched and gleaming in the moonlight as she ran.
The second man busted through the door of the bell tower and tried to close it behind him. Anne leapt, her legs thrusting at the door just before it closed. The planks splintered and the door burst open, the cloaked man behind it staggering back into the bell tower.
The man fell, grasping for purchase. He found it on the bell's thick rope. His gaze shot up as he realized what his hands gripped. Anne rose from her jumping kick and thrust her blade at him before he had the chance to gain his wits. The man jumped into the air. Her cutlass pierced his chest with a soft thunk. He held tight to the rope, despite the wound, with a preternatural strength for a man soon to be dead. He pushed his full weight back down to complete the pull on the rope. Anne, holding fast to her blade in his chest, couldn't hold his weight.
The rope came down with his desperate pull, and the golden bell sounded overhead,
