Ring of Fire II(224)

Noelle stood very straight. "My name is Noelle Stull. I am an official for the USE government. Well, the State of Thuringia-Franconia. And I—me and my partner, Eddie Junker, over there—"



She pointed toward the demolished wagon, some distance away. "—are in pursuit of the criminals whom we believed to have been in possession of that vehicle. Please either assist us in that task or, at the very least, do not impede us in our duty."



Bold as brass. Mentally, Denise doffed her hat in salute. Not that she ever wore a hat.



The Drugeth fellow gave Noelle a sorrowful smile. "I will not dispute your characterization of the individuals in question. But I am afraid I cannot respond as you wish to either of your requests. Not only may I not assist you, I am afraid I shall have to detain you myself."



He slid the sword back into its scabbard. The motion was swift, easy, practiced. He hadn't even looked at the sword and scabbard as he did it, just letting his left thumb and forefinger guide the blade into the opening. The fact that he'd chosen to sheathe the weapon while explaining what he was going to do just emphasized his complete confidence that nobody would think to dispute the matter.



Which . . .



In point of fact, nobody would. Sure as hell not Denise. That sword could come out just as quickly and smoothly as it went in. And leaving that aside, the other guy still had the shotgun in his hands and didn't seem to be in the least inclined to emulate his leader's example and put it away. True, he didn't have the barrel pointed at anybody, but it was obvious he could in a split-second. That was just good gun-handling, not carelessness.



He didn't look like a rock star, either. More like a record producer. Shoot you as quick as he'd shell out payola or cheat singers out of their royalties.



To Denise's alarm, she saw that Noelle's hand had moved to the vicinity of her holster.



That was crazy. First, that was no quick-draw holster. It was a safe-and-sound holster with a flap, and the flap was buckled. By the time Noelle got the pistol out, the older guy with the shotgun could kill them all. Assuming the Hungarian nomad-cum-rock-star hadn't sliced them up already.



And even if Noelle had been a quick-draw whizzeroo, so fucking what? The pistol was a dinky little .32 caliber and her marksmanship was something of a legend, in Grantville. The anti-Julie Sims. There were two schools of thought on the subject. The optimists insisted Noelle could hit the side of a barn. The other view was that she could only do it if she were inside the barn to begin with.



"Uh, Noelle . . ."



Fortunately, Noelle reconsidered. Her hand moved away. "This is an outrage!" she snapped. "You are on USE soil here, not Austrian. You have no right—"



"Please," said Drugeth, holding up his hand. "You are wasting our time, and I believe you know it perfectly well. Although there have been no open hostilities in some time, Austria and the USE are enemies. I have been given the task of escorting the individuals in question to Vienna, and I intend to complete it successfully."



Noelle glared at him. "And you won't stop at outright abduction."



"Hardly 'abduction,' I think." He shrugged. Like the dark eyes, the gesture was sorrowful. Not really-sad sorrowful, just what you might call philosophically sorrowful. Exactly the same way, Denise imagined, the guy contemplated the bodies of his foes after he sliced them up.



"I will set you free, unharmed, as soon as we have reached a place where I can be confident you cannot bring troops in time to prevent our escape. If you will give me your parole, I shall not even disarm you. And please do not delay the matter any further. I point out"—here, he nodded toward Lannie and Keenan, and then toward the wagon—"that you have injured persons in your party, who should get medical attention. And I will also point out that none of the injuries were caused by me and my men."



Noelle shifted the glare to Denise.



"Hey, look, I said I was sorry. And he's right, Noelle."



For a moment, she even thought Noelle might start cussing. But she didn't, of course.





By the time they got back to the wagon, Keenan and Denise propping up Lannie along the way—he turned out to be okay except for a sprained ankle—Eddie Junker was up and moving.



Well. Sitting up and fiddling uselessly with his busted arm. There was another shotgun-toting sidekick of Drugeth's there, watching Eddie carefully but making no effort to assist him. Drugeth had probably told him to do that, and by now it was clear enough that anybody who worked for Drugeth followed orders.



"Cut it out, Eddie," said Noelle crossly, kneeling next to him. "It's broken. Denise, give me a hand."