But not a trained rifleman who could bring down a running rabbit at three hundred yards in the dark.
Sebastian swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. The problem was, why would Jamie Knox want to kill Gabrielle Tennyson s French lieutenant? It made no sense.
If the shooter was indeed Jamie Knox, and if his intended target was actually Arceneaux and not Sebastian himself.
A faint flicker of movement showed above the jagged top of the tower wall, then stilled. The shooter was still there.
Sebastian considered his options. He was essentially pinned down. He had a flintlock in his own pocket, but the pistol was small, its range limited. Against a rifle over any distance, it was useless.
Right now, he was protected by the solid length of the half-constructed cornice that ran along the edge of the bridge. But if the shooter was to shift or if he had a confederate who could come in from the west Sebastian would be as exposed at the end of that long, open bridge as a target in a shooting gallery.
He needed to move.
Shifting his gaze, he assessed the distance from where he lay to a stack of dressed stone that stood perhaps a third of the way back toward the bridgehead. Sebastian had heard enough Baker rifles in his day to know exactly what was shooting at him. The Baker was a single-shot weapon. But a good rifleman could reload and fire four times in a minute.
An exceptional rifleman could make it to five.
Sebastian had no doubt that the man shooting at him was an exceptional rifleman.
That meant that if Sebastian could lure the rifleman into firing, he would have at most twelve seconds to make it to the safety of that pile of stones before the shooter finished reloading and was able to fire again.
He was trying to figure out how he could trick the rifleman into firing without actually getting shot when Chien, who had been lying stretched out whining beside Arceneaux s still body, suddenly stood up.
Down, boy, whispered Sebastian.
The dog hunkered into a lowered stance, eyes alert and fixed as it stared at the near bank.
Chien, cautioned Sebastian. Then he shouted,
Chien! No! as the dog tore into the night, a black and brown streak against the pale stone length of the bridge.
He watched, helpless, as the dog raced up the slope. Chien was nearly to the guard tower when the rifle cracked again, spitting fire into the night.
The dog yelped, then fell silent.
Bloody son of a bitch, swore Sebastian, and took off running.
He could feel the wind off the water whipping at his coattails, the rubble of the roadway shifting dangerously beneath the soles of his boots as he mentally counted off the seconds since the last shot. six, seven
He swerved around a pile of broken stone eight, nine and leapt a small chasm ten, eleven to dive behind the looming stones just as the next rifle shot reverberated across the open waterfront.
A cascade of pulverized grit exploded beside his face.
Hell and the devil confound it, he swore, wiping his sleeve across his bloody cheek. Then he was up and running again, this time for the pile of timbers he could see near the bridgehead. seven, eight
He could hear the inrushing tide slapping against the cofferdam at the base of the first pier, the rumble of what sounded like distant thunder. ten, eleven
The timbers were farther than he d realized. He skittered the last ten feet flat out on his stomach, the rubble of roadway tearing at his clothes as he braced himself for the next shot.
It never came.
Clever bastard.
Sebastian lay stretched out prone behind the pile of timbers, his heart pounding, the blood rushing in his ears. The rifleman had obviously figured out exactly what Sebastian was doing. Rather than wasting his shot, the man now had a loaded weapon; all he needed to do was wait for Sebastian to fully show himself again, and then calmly squeeze the trigger.
He can shoot the head off a running rabbit at three hundred yards in the dark.
The wind gusted up, bringing with it the smells of the river and the creaking of the suspended walkways that ran along both sides of the partially built bridge, just above the summit of the arches. Sebastian hesitated for a moment, his gaze fixed on the darkened ruins, his ears straining to catch the least sound.
Nothing.
Rolling quickly to the far side of the bridge, he lowered himself carefully over the edge until he hung suspended, his fingers digging into a gap in the stonework, feet dangling in space above the narrow suspended walkway, the river rushing far below.
Then he let go.
He landed lightly on the boards of the walkway, the suspension ropes swaying dizzily as the structure took his weight. Then, with the massive stone bulk of the bridge now between him and the shooter, Sebastian sprinted for the riverbank, the walkway dancing and swaying beneath him.
The last arch of the bridge soared high above the tidal mudflats of the riverbed to butt into the rubble-strewn bank. He reached solid ground and paused for a moment, his senses straining to catch any movement, any sound. He scanned the dry, rutted slope of the bank, the matted half-dead weeds, the looming wreck of the ancient palace. He found himself remembering other nights in what seemed like a different lifetime, when death waited in each dark shadow and around every corner, when the rumble in the distance was artillery, not thunder, and the broken walls were Spanish villages blackened by the stains of fires not yet grown cold.
He drew a deep breath, suddenly aware of a powerful, raging thirst. He swallowed hard, his throat aching. Then, hunkering low, he darted across the open ground and ducked behind the broken fragment of the old palace wall.
Once, this section of the palace had overlooked the river, an elegant facade pierced by high, pointed windows and supported by massive buttresses. Now only the one wall remained, stretching eastward to end abruptly just above the small round tower where the shooter waited. Moving as quietly as possible, Sebastian crept through the ruins, painfully aware of the rustle of the long, dry weeds, of each broken stone that shifted beneath the soles of his boots. He passed the yawning opening of what had once been a massive medieval fireplace, an empty doorway, a spiral of steps going nowhere. Through the gaping windows he could see the massive works of the new bridge, the dark, sliding shimmer of the river, the low curve of the old guard tower s stone foundations.
Pausing at the jagged end of the wall, he slipped his flintlock pistol from his pocket and quietly eased back the hammers on both barrels. He could hear the distant clatter of the carriages on the Strand up above, feel the powerful thrumming of his own blood in the veins of his neck. He took a deep breath. Then he burst around the end of the broken wall, his pistol pointing down into the foundations of the guard tower, his finger already tightening on the first trigger.
But the tower was empty, the weeds within it matted and scattered with debris. The shooter had vanished into the night, leaving only the Baker rifle leaning mockingly against the worn, ancient stones.
Chapter 39
Sir Henry Lovejoy was not fond of heights.
He stood well back from the jagged edge of the bridge s last, half-constructed arch, his legs splayed wide against the powerful buffeting of the growing wind. He could see the river far below, the dark waters churning and frothing against the rough temporary coffer dams. The air was thick with the smell of the inrushing tide and the damp mudflats of the nearby bank and the coppery tang of freshly spilled blood.
What did you say his name was? Lovejoy asked, his gaze on the dead man sprawled in the lee of the bridge s half-built cornice.