Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) (48 page)

Sha’ira didn’t attack them. She just defended herself. At no time did she aim a serious blow meant to cause real damage. Sure, she’d swipe at one of them to get them away from her so she could deal with the other, but no killing blows.
What’s she doin’? Tryin’ to exhaust ‘em so they lie down and take a nap? They’re sure tryin’ to hurt her and no mistake.
That strategy was about to get a real test. Avernapopped up from where I’d knocked her and added her scimitar to the mix. Now Sha’ira had to go to work. The third attacker made things too complicated even for her to manage for long. Her escapes became narrower, her maneuvers harder to accomplish. It looked to be just a matter of time before her sisters would bring her down before we could all get up there to help.

Or so I thought. With the three Shades pressing her up the hill, Sha’ira showed them the other course of study she’d been on besides dreamwriting. That moonstone glow crept into her eyes again, giving her a catlike look. Her long black hair lifted off her head and spread out around her in a sort of halo. Milky mist, resembling the most translucent white silk scarf, rose from her skin and swirled around her like a living thing. Just as she’d done when I’d first laid eyes on her, she rose from the ground without wings, maybe five feet. The Shades all stopped fighting and retreated a couple of steps, as amazed as the rest of us. Our astonishment grew when she began to…
sing
.

More chanting than singing. It sounded more like what I’d heard an Injun chief say around a campfire once when I’d been real small. To this day I can’t tell you why’d he’d been on our Maryland farm, but I recalled it clear as day. Sha’ira’s singing felt like that, raw and ancient, something from a time at the beginning of magick, maybe. I didn’t have time to wonder, because it only lasted about ten seconds. Pale jagged fire flared out of her sword and dagger as she crossed them, knocking all three Shades down like cornstalks in a gale.

My mouth dropped. “What on earth is that?”

“Songline magick,” said Romulus from right next to me. Ernie sat on his shoulder looking all smug. “She told me she’d learned it some.”

“Some?” I said, looking at the felled assassins. “Looks like plenty to me.”

“Can’t hold it long. Says it drains her.”

Sure enough, she’d already floated back down to the marshy ground, the weird light fading from her eyes. The mist had melted away. Sha’ira’s legs gave out and she slumped against a tree. I’d looked like that once as a toddler, after a week of the influenza.

“Quick!” Tyrell shouted. “Before they recover.” The Redeemers spurred their horses forward to prevent the Shades from resuming their attack.

Too late. They sure were quick healers, all right. Morrigan rose first, then Nephthys. Averna rewound her mask and slid her hood back on. With a high yipping cry they charged. Not at the helpless Sha’ira. At me.

They were too close for me to do much, or to think much. The dreamwriter’s magick blast had knocked them within ten feet of me. Romulus drew his Bowie, but I knew he’d just end up on the sand again. With Stone-strength and the calm that it gave me I shoved him away and swung a silvery steel bullwhip at the onrushing assassins. Even their unnatural quickness couldn’t get them out of the way in time. Sha’ira’s spell-cast probably slowed their reflexes some. The Jasper-whip slashed all of them across the head and shoulders, opening up bleeding wounds and shredding their dark costumes. Masks fell away. None of them looked to be past twenty. All were pretty. Morrigan, her long hair the color of dried blood, had a blade scar in precisely the same spot as Sha’ira. I kept the whip moving in a vicious series of figure-eights, not giving them any time to recover. The Redeemers split into two groups, sabers low, one on either side of me. We advanced up the hill, giving them no choice but to head for the trees. Hissing in rage, Morrigan got there first. She grabbed the semi-conscious Sha’ira by the hair and raised one of her short swords.

“Ah, well,” the Shade leader croaked in her Highland burr, “at least the night will no’ be a total loss.”

The sword fell to the ground next to Sha’ira, followed by the other blade. Morrigan rose up into the air, but not from any Songline witchery. Her feet kicked. She yelled, thrashed, cursed. Still the old oak held her.

“Wiggling won’t do you much good,” my new tree friend said in his slow careful voice. “When Langhorne gets them they stays got.”

Nephthys and Averna had been got, too, one by a pine and one by a hemlock. Their struggles proved just as futile. They all hung from the trees like some strange fruit, yowling and threatening. I figured that they’d never learned how to lose all graceful at their Academy.
Probably not even on the curriculum.

“You want us to pick their arms and legs off?” the pine asked in the voice of a teen-aged boy. “I like that. It’s fun.”

“No!” I blurted, making all the Redeemers turn to stare at me. “I don’t want any more killin’ than there has to be. Just hold ‘em till we’re gone.”

“If you think that’ll endear you to these three---” Tyrell said.

“Oh, I’m not dumb enough to think they’ll turn over a new leaf, so to speak. But there’s too many folks dead cause of me already.”

“This is a mistake,” Jasper told me. “Leaf ‘em for the buzzards. Let the Guild know that they’re barkin’ up the wrong tree if they think they can take the Stone-Warden. Tear ‘em limb-from-limb. Otherwise you’ll be runnin’ from ‘em forever.”

With a sigh I ignored his horrible puns. “Then I’ll just learn to be faster than them, I guess,” I said in my head.

“Can you outrun a cannonball?” he asked.

“Huh?”

A deafening blast knocked me six feet. Spitting out sand, I shook my head to try to clear the ringing. Two Norn horses were down, and three more troopers. The gunboat had us dead to rights now and more shells were on their way. Picking myself up, I probed for bleeding or any other damage. I couldn’t feel any because the entire right side of my body was covered in medieval armor, dented from shrapnel hits. As it melted away and became a tin cup again, Jasper sighed, “Work, work, work, that’s all I ever do for you. I need a vacation.”

“You’ll get one when I do,” I told him.

We ran up the beach to try to get out of range, but the Merchantry gunners just walked the shells after us. South looked no good, either. I could see the Old Guard regiments marching toward us at the double-quick. “Into the trees!” I yelled. “Bring the wounded!” I dashed to the still-limp Sha’ira. Romulus grabbed her without my help and carried her toward the woods like a baby. Tyrell directed his remaining Redeemers to get into the air with the casualties and fly out of range. Langhorne and his friends stayed where they were, but turned away from the beach, still clutching the Shades.

It looked like we were out of time to do that or anything else. More and more shells hit the beach, sending sand and shrapnel everyplace. Some landed ahead of us in the forest, anticipating our flight. The ground shook like a rowboat in a hurricane. I curled into a ball, shield on top of me, and listened to pieces of hot iron rattle off it. If I took a direct hit I felt sure that even Morphageus couldn’t save my hide. My ears took such a pounding that I just knew I’d never be able to hear right again.

Then those ears heard one more big boom. It sounded more distant than the others. No more shells came at us. My whole body quivering from the pounding, I peeped out from under my Jasper-shield to see what went on now.

Smoke and flame rose from the gunboat. I frowned. Was Phelps’s Brigade still shooting at it? Nope, they were moving away south again. Did some fool drop a cigar into the powder magazine? Nope again. The damage would be greater. What, then?

“Boiler blew up, looks like,” Romulus said, Sha’ira in his arms but with her eyes open. She looked better already.

“What’s the chances of that happening just when we needed it?” Tyrell asked while he wrapped a bandage around a trooper’s bleeding leg.

“The way things’re goin’ this week?” asked Ernie.

“Vewy swim,” said Gracchus from somewhere near my foot.

“Swim?” I asked Ernie in a whisper.

“Sure. Swim. As in ‘the odds’re swim to none’.”

At that moment the gunboat, not at all out of commission, started raising its sails while resuming its furious firing. But none of the shells were aimed at us. The Merchantry vessel had begun shooting at something out to sea. Squinting my tired magicked eyes, I saw a sight that made me want to jump and shout. A grey and gold ship under full sail, its guns blazing away at the Yankee gunboat.

“It’s Pitcairn!” cried Ernie. He jumped and shouted for me, waving his tiny black head scarf. “It’s the
Penelope’s Kiss
!”

36/ Penelope’s Kiss

“Mister Nickleby!” cried Pitcairn, “Chastise the so-called Honourable Merchantry, if you please.”

“Aye-aye, sir!” his gunnery officer said. “Love to.”

“How can you know that?” I asked. “I got witched eyes and can barely make out the ship.”

“He took out the engine with the first shot,” Ernie explained. “Pinned him against the shore with the wind to his back. Even if they get those sails up, they’re helpless. That’s classic Pitcairn.”

The new ship had sailed closer even as we spoke. Now I could see how long and low she was, a sleek frigate similar to the
Constitution
, our navy’s famous vessel from the War of 1812. Her three masts were full of ivory canvas, including the long bowsprit sticking out of her front like a wasp’s sting. She’d been painted a rich velvety gray, with a deep gold stripe running the length of her. That stripe looked like a checkerboard now, with black squares marking the open gun ports. Matching golden accents decorated the figurehead, the masts, the yardarms, the rudder, even the longboats which hung at her sides.

“Pretty,” I said.

“Pretty? Bloody beautiful, you mean.”

The beautiful ship showed just how bloody she could be. Getting in close enough to spit on the Honourable Merchantry’s false Federal gunboat, she reduced it to a smoking wreck in minutes. Dozens of cannonballs streaked orange in the night like little meteors, each of them thudding into the gunboat’s hull. Even this far away I could smell the powder smoke. With no engine left to move her away from the fast frigate, and with the wind blowing toward shore making her sails nearly useless, our mutual enemy ceased firing. A moment later she struck her fraudulent colors.

But that didn’t end our troubles. Musket balls whizzing past our ears at long range reminded me that the Old Guard still advanced on us. At least now I had someplace to go and a way to get there. While Tyrell reorganized the remnants of his Redeemers, all of whom had some sort of wound, I ran over to Romulus. He still held the woozy Sha’ira, who clutched his neck in a familiar way that I’d have to talk to him about later.

“Can you get her and yourself to the
Kiss
? On one horse?” I asked.

“I expects so,” he nodded. A limping trooper brought Sha’ira her over-robe and bow. The scimitar and matching dagger were already sheathed on her.

“Good. I’ll get Tyrell to take me over on Al. Where’s Ernie?”

The giant Marshal turned his eyes farther up the beach, where the Marines and my mouse friend held a burial service for their lost comrades. From what I could tell, the rites consisted of a lot of singing and manly boasting of great deeds.

“Ah. Better wait, then.” I got Captain Tyrell’s attention. “Looks like it’s time for me to move on. Is Al okay to fly me over to Pitcairn’s ship?”

He almost looked insulted, as did his horse. “Alcibiades makes regular flights into the Underworld.”

“I guess that’s a yes, then?” I smiled. “Thanks for helpin’ me. You and yours went through a lot to make this happen.”

“My pleasure, Miss Verity. There’s still a war to fight. We’ll go through worse than this.”

That didn’t bear thinking about, both his fighting to defeat my country and that he could somehow get into a scarier scrape than tonight’s. I chose not to bring up either one. “Let me gather up the rest of my crew and we’ll be off. Those Gaulles don’t look like they want to give up.”

Ernie saw that I was ready to go. Bringing the rats over, he climbed onto my shoulder. “Might have to reappraise me opinion o’ rats after this,” he confided in a whisper.

“I’ll bet that hurt to say.”

“Missy, yer have no idea.” He shouted to the Marines, who were hopping aboard Romulus’ horse and clinging to whatever they could. “Men, when we get to the
Kiss
, the cheese is on me!”

“Hoo-wah!” the Marines hollered.

Tyrell pulled me in front of him, onto that miserable saddle. The Reb captain gave some final orders to his sergeant-major, whose arm hung in a sling. All the Redeemers would fly back a mile into the woods, leaving Langhorne to muzzle the still-cursing Shades and keep watch when the Old Guard arrived. With the Gaulles only two or three hundred yards away, we all took to the air. With a last glance at the descending beach I caught sight of Langhorne waving to me with the limb that held Morrigan. She bounced about like a broken marionette. Two of the brave Norn horses lay in the sand, unmoving, felled by the artillery. That made me as sad as anything else that had occurred.

Seeing me look down, and guessing what weighed on my mind, Tyrell said, “Don’t cry too much for them. Their friends will take them home soon. Warriors of all kinds go to Valhalla, not just men.”

I smiled at the thought of horsie afterlife. Nobody riding you. Just galloping free and easy, when you weren’t munching apples and sugar. “That’s good.”

We flapped up nice and high, so that the Gaulles couldn’t elevate their field pieces enough to take potshots at us. Behind us, the Redeemers were already out of sight in their forest hideaway, waiting for their commander’s return. To my right Romulus guided his Valkyrie mount with one hand while holding Sha’ira with the other, though she didn’t look like she needed the help any more. Rats hung all over his horse like fuzzy barnacles, their tails blowing in the breeze. Ernie did the same, nestled between Al’s ears as if he were the captain of his own ship.