“You mean you can’t figure it out, smart as you are, and everything?”
At that moment, even though the judge had not given the signal, Del Azarchel raised his massive pistol. “Treachery! Trickery!” he called out. “The Learned Montrose is—” But his voice was drowned out by the sound of his own cloud of chaff erupting from his pistol with a roar like a whirlwind. Black smoke rushed up and shrouded the figure.
Montrose was already within his own cloud of smoke, with his pistol raised, and flickers of light of aiming or misleading beams, shining briefly with rainbow colors as they passed up or down through the visible spectrum, were now visible where they caught the oily motes of the rapidly-spreading chaff.
But Father Reyes (showing far more courage or perhaps witlessness than Montrose would have credited him) stepped between the two duelists, and the aiming beams fixed on him. “Halt! Halt! This is not regular! Do the gentlemen wish to annul the meeting, and meet again upon some other day, or other terms? On peril of your honor, do not fire!”
Both men held their fire, even though their chaff clouds were now spreading and thinning. This was dangerous for the both of them, since every moment that the clouds thinned before fire was exchanged, the less protection they offered the men inside.
Montrose opened his palm. “I am ready to exchange fire!”
Del Azarchel made a fist and shouted, “He is planning to topple the topless tower!”
Montrose was impressed and disappointed that Blackie had figured it out. He blamed his own weakness, however, for giving Blackie the clues to do it. He should have just killed the damn soldiers without giving them a chance.
“Call off your men, and I won’t,” Montrose called out.
“If you’re dead, you won’t!” and Del Azarchel opened his palm as well.
Father Reyes said, “Gentlemen, there has been a premature spread of chaff. Do you still agree, on peril of your honor, to be bound by the outcome of the exchange, and speak no ill of it?”
Montrose said, “X! Tell Blackie that if he postpones, I’ll kill his men.”
Exarchel said, “The Learned D’Aragó points out that both of you are covered by thin and insufficient chaff, and the duel may be mutually mortal. Do you agree to continue?”
“I am ready,” said Montrose. There was nothing else to say. He still had his palm open.
Del Azarchel stood, his massy pistol pointing at Montrose, and his left palm above his shoulder, open and showing a black palm with white fingers.
Reyes stepped out of the line of fire and released the handkerchief.
He had not heard the noise. Montrose was on his back, numb from shock, not certain what had struck him. Blood was in his mouth, and a din in his ears that drowned all earthly noises.
Chaff too thin. We’re both dead.
He thought it was strange there was no pain, but instead a sensation like a burning wire penetrating his chest, abdomen, and upper right leg. Gutshot, he thought. I’m dead. Funny there’s no pain. Am I in shock?
He heard a ringing in his ears, and wondered if he had gone deaf.
“Incoming call,” announced his wristband.
Ah, Rania! Montrose knew such joy then, that the last word he was to hear would be from her.
It was not Rania. Del Azarchel’s voice, breathy and ragged, issued from speakers in the wristband, and Montrose could hear it clearly echoing inside his suit. “Don’t ignite! Don’t ignite!”
Montrose coughed, but he did not otherwise answer. He wondered where the hell the medics were? There were supposed to be doctors standing by.
He must have uttered the question aloud, for Del Azarchel said, “No medics are coming. I’ve ordered my men back, until I know—” (Then Del Azarchel was coughing, and Montrose recognized from his war days that ragged noise. It was the particular sound of a punctured lung. Good. He assumed it was his number-five escort bullet, which he had programmed to feint left and correct right. Good old number five had not be confounded by the chaff.) “—until I know you are not going to set off an explosive. That’s what they are, aren’t they? The unaccounted-for mass from her cargo manifest. She mined the tower. Right? Right? Well—” (another bout of coughing, this more severe than the last) “—make you a deal, Cowhand. A deal. You tell me you’ve disarmed—” (coughing) “—and I’ll call in the medics.”
Montrose thought idly that they were only supposed to talk through their Seconds.
“—Those are good men, loyal. Have wives and children—never done anything to you—cold-blooded murder if you kill them—”
Montrose must have said something at that point, because Del Azarchel said, “I’m not calling them back! Rania will not escape me!”
By this point, Montrose managed, even though he could not feel his hands, to work the thumb-switch to turn his gun’s muzzle-camera back on. He could not raise his head, but now, from one of the camera’s view, he could see the thick and grotesque trail of blood leading from where Blackie had fallen in a crooked line toward where he was fallen.
Blackie, in his armor, bleeding from all its joints, was crawling on his belly like a snake with a broken back, and in his hand he was still hauling his foot-long four-pound gun. From the tilted way it hung, Montrose could see that Blackie had held back the shot in the upper secondary barrel.
Father Reyes and D’Aragó and the others were merely standing, faces held like masks, but eyes bulging, doing nothing to interfere. Handsome young Melchor de Ulloa was leaning forward, as if to rush toward the prone and supine bodies, but huge Sarmento i Illa d’Or was holding him back by both arms.
Since Blackie still had a shot left, the duel was not over. The caliber of the secondary bullet would not penetrate armor except at point-blank range. Blackie was pulling himself by his hands, both legs limp and trailing behind, trying to get close enough to press the barrel up against Montrose’s gorget, and ignite his last shot.
Holding back a shot is madness in a duel fought with these weapons, since each escort bullet had to stop an enemy escort in flight, or else the enemy shot would clear a path for the main payload, and ensure you’d be hit. Blackie had let himself get shot, just for the chance to deliver this final blow.
But he was slowing down. His right arm dragged him a foot forward. His left arm dragged him six inches forward. And then he scraped some dust from the road toward himself. He clawed at the road surface once, twice, again and again, but was not moving. He did not give up. Over the radio, Montrose could hear his hissing and gasping, the sound of a man drowning in his own blood. Puncture wound. Bad way to die.
Montrose spat, and blood scattered across the inside of his helmet, but his mouth was clear. “Delope.”
“—Hell you say—”
“Fire your last. Call the medics.”
Not through the camera, but with his eyes, Montrose could see the bend in the tower: it was farther up, higher, than it had been.
“—Don’t ignite!—It is what she wants, you know. She is smarter than you, smarter than me, smarter than all of us. She used you, used your—affection—like a toy on a string. Just a game. We’re just trained chimpanzees to her. Why do you trust her? I trusted her, too. Those explosives—did you know they were there? I bet you did not. Not until just the right moment. All arranged. All planned. Call her, why don’t you? She’s blocking your calls, because she does not want to speak to you, does not want to explain—”
“Liar. You’re blocking it.”
“—Not me—”
“Liar. Or not. Pox. Exarchel. You on this line?”
The cold, unemotional voice of the machine rang in his ear. “Your conclusion is correct.”
“Bastard. You’re blocking the signal. You set the sniper, not him. The outcome you wanted. Both of us dead.”