Sean looked at the girl. Despite her words, she still sounded so… calm that it worried him. He fished in his pouch and handed her a portion of a paperlike insect’s nest. “Those’re not men,” he snarled. “Ram more waddin’ ta hold the balls in place, lass,” he added. “Ye have a few fixed charges with which to reload. Do ye not?”
The princess nodded. The riders were coming hard now and were barely half a mile away. Sean clasped the long pistol to his side with the stump of his left arm and proceeded to load it. The process may have looked odd, but he managed it quickly enough.
“How… what you want to do? How we do this?” Ruik asked. With the excitement, his normally excellent English had slipped a bit.
“Well, clearly we must kill ’em or drive ’em off. Don’t fire till I give the word, but then choose yer target wi’ care. We’ll not fire a volley! Princess, yours an’ mine’ll be the least-accurate shots, an’ we must save ’em till they’re nearly on us.”
“I don’t think I can hit a man on a running horse!” the boy cried.
“Are ye daft? Ye an’ Lieutenant Ruik’ll shoot at the horses! Surely ye can hit a target such as that! Wi’ luck, ye’ll dump the riders, an’ p’raps goad the others into firin’!”
Even Ruik knew it would be next to impossible for the riders to hit a mark at a gallop-more difficult than deliberately striking a distant ship with a single, aimed shot from the pitching deck of his own Simms. Walker could do it, but she had advantages no other ship-or man-could match. “I hate to shoot horse,” he said sadly. “They not want to hurt us.”
“Aye,” Sean agreed, “but ye’ve no choice.” He’d seen how delighted Lemurians were to “discover” horses. Most, except possibly some he’d heard of on the Great Southern Isle, had never imagined forming communicative, even emotional bonds with any animal. But so far, every Lemurian he’d seen meet horses automatically liked them and considered them almost people. “Make ready!” he warned.
With a terrified squawk, Petey bolted upslope, running and soaring as fast as he could. “Useless bugger,” Sean said with a grunt. “But maybe smarter than I thought.”
Ruik took a knee to aim his piece, and the boy followed his example.
The six horsemen galloped in against the four of them, short capes flowing behind them. Most apparently carried pistols or some kind of shortened musket, but two had long, heavy swords in their hands. Sean warned tersely that those might be the most dangerous. The range closed rapidly and the tension mounted.
“They coming right at us,” Ruik advised the young man beside him, his pronounced accent the only sign of his nervousness. “That make it easy. Just aim high.” The gamekeeper’s fowler had no rear sight to adjust for elevation, and he’d heard that one of the problems the Imperials had with training novices for their expanding forces was that they tended to jerk their shots low.
“H-how high?” the fellow stuttered.
“That depends,” Ruik confessed. “Faactor Bates know better the range to… trip a horse. I tell you when he say!”
Just waiting for the charge was one of the most terrifying things Princess Rebecca had ever faced. She knew they had to stand their ground, but the fearsome horses and the killers atop them came on with an energetic, remorseless purpose. She knew Sean Bates loved her as his own and would give his life to save her. She also knew he was a skilled and confident fighter, despite his handicap-but, oh, what she would give to have Dennis Silva with them at that moment! The range narrowed inexorably, the horses gasping as they barreled up the slope, hooves thundering, spraying damp clods of earth high in the air.
“At yer convenience, Lieutenant Ruik!” Sean cried at about a hundred paces. For an instant, nothing happened, and in that time, their enemy advanced another twenty or thirty yards. Then Ruik fired, and Rebecca thought she actually saw the vapor trail of his ball cross the humid gap. A deep thwack! followed the sound of the report, and one of the horses staggered and slowed.
“At its nose!” Ruik shouted, and the boy fired next. His ball had an even more dramatic, if accidental, effect. It struck another onrushing horse square in the knee, and it shrieked hideously and tumbled, likely crushing its rider, who was thrown clear, but couldn’t move before the horse rolled over him. The other four assasins sank their spurs and charged in, almost on top of them, pistols aimed and swords raised to strike. Rebecca and Sean took careful aim. Pistols barked, but the balls vroop ed harmlessly past, and Rebecca fired at a man. She missed! Maybe the pistol shots had rattled her-but she was already rattled! Despite what Sean had said, her target was a man! Determination swept her fear aside and she squeezed the rear trigger, blowing the same man backward out of his saddle. A terrible scream drew her gaze to the left. Ruik had avoided a sword stroke with an ease that had to have disconcerted his attacker, and with a powerful leap, he snatched the man from his horse. The loyal beater wasn’t as skillful or agile, and another sword had slammed diagonally across his chest as its wielder galloped past.
Without thinking, Princess Rebecca dropped her fine fowler and pulled her short hunting sword from the leather sheath at her side. She charged the mounted murderer as he yanked his reins back and turned for another pass. She knew she didn’t have a chance, but in that instant, her fury overrode all other concerns. A heavy boom roared behind her and the target of her rage pitched and dropped his weapon with a yelp. The horse bolted, but after only a few strides the rider toppled from his lurching mount and lay still in the scrub. Princess Rebecca whirled and saw Sean toss his long pistol aside.
That quickly, somehow, only one mounted assassin remained. His horse stood still, perhaps forty paces away, and the rider was jamming his empty pistol into his belt.
“You are the very spawn of Satan!” he screamed at her. “Cast forth from the underworld, from the chambers of fire and darkness to do his bidding! On behalf of His Supreme Holiness, Emperor of the World by the Grace of God, I shall strike you down yet!” He wrenched his own sword from its scabbard then and came for her, urging his horse to a gallop. Princess Rebecca merely stood there, unable to run, her short sword raised to deflect the blow she knew she couldn’t stop. She felt small and all alone in the face of utter evil-until Sean Bates stepped in front of her, raising his own sword.
At that moment, another shot sounded-deeper, louder-and the assassin fell, wailing, to the ground. The horse passed by harmlessly, and the princess and Bates rushed to the fallen man. An instant later, they were joined by Lieutenant Ruik. He was covered in blood and his musket stock was dark and slick. A wisp of smoke still curled from the muzzle of the weapon. Together they regarded the would-be killer. He’d spoken without the accent of the Holy Dominion, but clearly he was a devout follower of its twisted faith. The man had a gaping, bloody hole in his lower-left chest and he spat blood at them.
“You will all die.” He coughed. “This entire land, and yes, even that of your unholy, demon friends will be washed clean with your own blood!”
“Yer makin’ quite the putrid puddle on this land now,” Sean said coldly. “Nothin’ll ever grow on this spot again!”
“I am dying,” the man conceded, “but soon I will be in paradise. You will burn in the lowest chamber of hell!”
“I just may,” Sean conceded, “But I’ll tear yer black heart out wi’ me teeth when I find you there!” He paused, vaguely disappointed, suspecting the assassin hadn’t heard him. He was dead. Briefly, he hugged Princess Rebecca close, then turned to Ruik. “A fine, timely shot!” he complimented. “But how did ye get ta be such a mess?”
“I needed to reload,” Ruik replied, flicking his ears toward the man he’d dragged down. “He not let me.”
Sean stared at the bloody heap Ruik indicated. “What did ye do? Tear ’im limb from limb?” Ruik didn’t answer, but Sean knew many Lemurians had amazing upper-body strength, particularly sea folk-from which the Navy drew nearly all its officers. “Aye. Well, he’s dead, then. Did we take any alive?”