Rebel Fire (31 page)

He had to stop it. He
had
to. He'd seen too much death in his life already. If he could stop people from dying, then he would.

Hydrogen. Inflammable. The answer was there, but how was he going to do anything about it? If he tried to sneak down and set fire to the balloons, then he would be caught and probably shot as a Confederate spy. There were guards placed in a circle around the balloons.

But there were no guards around the campfires on the other side of the camp, and from where he lay he could see that most of the tents had oil lamps in front of them, hanging from poles that had been thrust into the ground.

His mind raced as he began making connections between things that he'd previously seen as being separate. The solution was there in front of him. He had some of the things he needed, and the rest were down there, in the camp.

And the sooner he started, the sooner he would finish.

He made sure that the ends of his horse's reins were secure beneath a rock and began the slow descent to the plain. There was only a thin sliver of sun above the horizon now, and the shadows cast by the scattered rocks were long and black. He found he could manage to keep to them most of the time, scooting across open ground only when he had to.

By the time he got down to the plain the sun had vanished below the horizon and the sky was the colour of a fresh bruise. Most of the balloons were fully inflated, and there was increased activity around them.

Sherlock moved away from the balloons, towards the area where the campfires were clustered. Most of the Army engineers in the camp were over near the balloons, standing just the other side of the cordon of guards, watching and waiting for the launch. Sherlock crept through the tents until he could see out onto the campfires. Meat was roasting, stews were simmering, and nobody was looking his way. He glanced around, straightened himself up, brushed the dirt from his clothes, and then walked over to an unattended tent and unhooked an oil lamp from the pole outside. For good measure, he took a second one from a pole nearby. Not from the tent next door—that would probably be noticed—but from one a little way away. Nobody called out to stop him or ask what he was doing. His heart was beating twice as fast as normal, but he kept his face impassive, and when he turned to walk back he walked slowly, keeping the oil lamps upright but wrapped in his jacket so nobody would see the lights moving.

Once in the safety of the tents he sped up, heading back to the base of the hills. He glanced over towards the balloons as he went. They were all fully inflated now, and he could see activity as the Army aeronauts checked their maps and made their final preparations.

He climbed the hill as fast as he could, aware that he was carrying hot oil and flame, and that if he fell he might set himself alight. The wind was picking up now that the sun had gone down, and without his jacket he was feeling cold.

His horse made a quiet whickering sound, welcoming him back to the flat area where he had left it. He put the oil lamps down, then crossed over to the horse and retrieved the bow and the quiver of arrows that he'd borrowed—well, rented—from the stable keeper.

He was going to need something to keep the flame going while the arrows flew through the air.

Wadding. Some kind of wadding.

He looked around, cursing himself for not having picked something up in the camp. The only things he had up there in the hills were his clothes. He began to rip strips of material off his own jacket, then tied them around the arrowheads. It wasn't as if he was going to be trying to get them to stick in anything, after all.

Once he had ten arrows with their heads wrapped in material, he crossed back over to where he'd left the oil lamps and brought them over to the arrows. He thought for a moment, then snuffed out the flame on one of the lamps and opened it up so that he could dip the wrapped arrowheads in the oil, one by one.

A single lit lamp should be enough. He opened it up so that the flame was exposed. It flickered in the breeze.

He took the bow and stood upright. It was dark enough now that he couldn't be seen, and the flame on the remaining lamp was shielded by the rocks.

He flexed the bow experimentally. The principle seemed obvious. A notch in the base of the arrow slotted onto the cord, and he could pull the cord back with the fingers of his right hand, holding the bow in his left hand and flexing it as far as it could go. Then he would aim—high, because the arrow would follow a ballistic trajectory—and release the cord.

Time to try. Time for action.

He touched the tied-up strip of jacket at the head of the first arrow to the flame inside the oil lamp. The oil-soaked material caught fire instantly. He raised the arrow up and fitted the cord into the notch, then took up the tension, pulling the cord back while holding his left hand straight out in front of him, grasping the bow. He aimed towards the balloon that seemed to have fewest people around it, but he aimed over it so that the arrow would fall down onto it.

The cord bit into the fingers of his right hand. He could feel the bow trembling under the tension. The glowing material caused a bright spot in his vision that almost blanked out everything else.

Was he doing the right thing?

Too late to wonder about that now.

He released the cord. The arrow arced high in the air, reaching a peak and seeming to hang there for a moment before falling like a tiny meteor straight down onto the top surface of the balloon.

Nothing happened for several heartbeats; long enough that Sherlock was convinced that the burning material had somehow extinguished itself, or the arrowhead had failed to connect with the varnished silk, or that the gas in the balloon wasn't hydrogen at all but something else, something non-flammable, but then the material around the top of the balloon seemed to peel back like the petals of a flower, and Sherlock's vision was blinded by a ball of flame that leaped up from the balloon and reached towards the sky.

A tremendous shout welled up from the area of the camp. People were running around, throwing buckets of water and trying to douse whatever burning material was raining down on them, but the inferno was rising
up
, not falling down. Hydrogen was lighter than air, after all.

Sherlock grabbed another arrow and lit it, then quickly aimed at another balloon and fired. The tiny spark of the flaming arrowhead described a glowing line in the air as it flew, first up into the darkness and then down onto the sloping side of the second balloon.

This time he couldn't see the material peel back, but the resulting fireball was equally as impressive as the first.

As chaos reigned in the camp below, Sherlock fired arrow after arrow at the remaining balloons. By the time he had run out, the air was filled with smoke and the ground was littered with the smouldering remnants of the varnished silk. And nobody had been hurt! He marvelled at the thought, but he couldn't see a single person injured. Frantic and frightened, yes, but not hurt. The incandescent hydrogen had risen into the air, and whatever burning fragments of material had fallen to earth had been easily avoided.

He took a deep breath. The balloons would not be flying tonight, and it would take days, perhaps weeks, to get more balloons to the area. By that time, Balthassar's army would either have dispersed or marched on Canada and been intercepted by the Unionist army. He had succeeded.

Part of him wanted to do something about the pile of explosive devices that sat at one side of the camp. They had survived unscathed. Sherlock had been worried that scraps of burning material might have fallen on them, setting them off and causing general carnage, but either they were more difficult to ignite than he thought or they were sufficiently far way from any falling sparks or flaming cloth. He supposed he could creep back down and pull their fuses out, or something, but what would be the point? They were useless, now there was no means of delivering them.

A shout went up from below. He glanced down, towards the camp. A man was pointing at him. The light from the burning hydrogen had revealed his presence. More people stared up at him. Some of them started running towards the slope that led up to his hiding place. Most of them were holding guns.

Ah. He was holding the bow.

Time to leave.

He turned and ran across to where his horse was tethered. It was nervous and skittish—the reins to its bridle were pulled tight as it had tried to back away—but it wasn't panicking yet. Quickly he retrieved the ends of the reins from underneath the rock that held them and pulled himself up into the saddle.

With luck, he could get back to town and pretend that he'd been there all the time. Nobody need know what he'd done.

He pulled the horse's head around and headed away.

The journey down out of the hills was easier than the way up. The horse seemed more sure-footed now, and it was glad to be getting away from the fire and the smoke.

The horse could see its way by the light of the stars, now the sun had set, and Sherlock let it choose its own path down. Once they got to the flat grasslands he could work out a course back to town.

As the horse picked its way through the rock-strewn landscape of the foothills, Sherlock found that the gentle rocking motion was causing him to nod off. The tension was draining away from him, leaving him empty and melancholic. He wasn't looking forward to the long trek back to Perseverance.

Doubts began to set in as he rode. What if the Unionist army failed to intercept the Confederate invasion force? What if the invasion went ahead and he'd facilitated it?

No, Amyus Crowe had told him that the Unionist forces were already preparing to stop the Confederates if they advanced, but that Secretary of War Stanton had personally decided that he wanted the Confederates slaughtered. Unless something went badly wrong, Sherlock's actions had only saved lives. They wouldn't lead to a diplomatic incident.

Somewhere in the darkness an animal screamed. The sound startled him. It sounded too much like a person screaming. It didn't sound like a coyote. More like a big cat of some kind.

The horse was picking its way along the bottom of a gully between two steep slopes now. Sherlock thought they were close to the bottom of the hills, nearly ready to make their way across the open grasslands towards the town. The sides of the gully were just black shapes, with only the stars shining in the sky above marking where their jagged edges cut the night sky.

One of the jagged edges moved.

Sherlock jerked awake. Part of what he'd thought was the top of the gully had suddenly shifted sideways and pulled back.

Something was up there. Something was tracking him.

Nerves stretched and quivering, Sherlock looked around. Nothing. Just darkness, thrown into sharp relief by the starlight filtering down from above.

A pebble skittered down the steep slope, bouncing off the floor of the gully.

Sherlock's horse was looking around now. It knew there was something else out there. Its ears were pricked up, and Sherlock could feel its muscles quivering beneath his legs.

The gully began to broaden out ahead of them, opening onto a flat section of rock with a sheer drop down to the grasslands at the far side. In the light from the low moon that cut across from one side like a spotlight, Sherlock recognized where they were. Despite the appearance of a sheer drop straight ahead, he remembered there was a path off to one side, sloping down to the grasslands, that he and the horse had come up earlier.

Another pebble fell, bouncing from rock to rock. Sherlock's horse edged sideways and sped up. It wanted to be out on the plains as badly as he did.

Something above Sherlock's head screamed and leaped down on them from the blackness.

 

S
EVENTEEN

The horse leaped sideways in shock, saving both of them. Whatever it was that had jumped towards them fell past and hit the ground off balance in a flash of slashing claws, stumbling to one side but immediately springing back up to its feet. Sherlock had a momentary confused impression of eyes reflecting moonlight and pointed fangs wet with saliva gleaming in a slavering mouth.

He ripped the knife from his belt and held it out. It wasn't much consolation, but it was all he had.

A voice from up ahead said something guttural in a language Sherlock didn't recognize, and the animal retreated towards it, hissing in frustration at Sherlock and the horse.

He recognized it now. It was one of Duke Balthassar's cougars. That meant the other one was probably out there somewhere. And that meant Duke Balthassar was out there too.

His horse was paralysed with shock: eyes wide and lips pulled back over exposed teeth. It wasn't going anywhere; not with the cougars around. Sherlock slipped from the saddle, heart pounding in his chest. He was tired, he was hungry, and he was thirsty. He didn't want this. Not now. Not here.

But he didn't think he had a choice.

He walked forward, into the moonlight at the mouth of the rocky gully.

Duke Balthassar stood a few feet to one side. He was still wearing his white suit, white hat, and white porcelain mask, but he had a revolver strapped to his thigh. Behind his right ear Sherlock could see the red leech gleaming wetly in the moonlight, the only spot of colour in the entire scene. It seemed to pulse slightly as Sherlock watched.

The cougar that had leaped for Sherlock and his horse was by Balthassar's side, tail flicking restlessly. Sherlock noticed how it kept casting glances up at the red leech. It seemed nervous, frightened even. The other cougar wasn't in sight.

“Sherlock Scott Holmes,” Balthassar said, his voice barely perceptible over the sound of the wind. “I fear we are fated to keep meeting, like Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers.”

“What are you doing here?” Sherlock asked simply.

“I was looking for you,” Balthassar replied. “When I found my dear reptiles still hungry and my observation gallery flooded, I could only assume you and your plucky friends had escaped. You know too much: I had to track you down and deal with you. My cougars picked up your scent just outside the town and we followed you here, to the hills.” He paused, head cocked to one side. “I must admit, I had expected you to go into the town, but instead you came out here. Why?”