Ring of Fire III(6)

She was tempted for a moment to head that way, but stifled the impulse. She and her party would just get in the way and be a distraction for Tom. The best way she could help her husband under these circumstances was simply to get herself out of the city.

The Pelican was hangared just outside the city walls near the northwest gate. She set off in that direction, with her shotgun held at the ready. Estelle came right behind her with the revolver, followed by the three other women. Johann Heinrich Böcler brought up the rear.

The scholar and clerk seemed to be holding up well, a bit to Rita’s surprise and certainly to her relief. He was a studious young man, straightlaced to the point of being something of a prig. But he hadn’t gotten badly rattled at any point, and had even had the presence of mind to pick up one of the assailants’ pistols and the ammunition pouch he’d had on his belt. Rita had no idea if Böcler knew how to use the weapon, but the fact that he’d thought to take it was a good sign in itself.

* * *

There was only one incident along the way. As they came around a corner, they found a couple of soldiers breaking into a shop. One of them was smashing in the window with the butt of his musket while his companion watched.

As was more often the case than not with seventeenth-century soldiers, neither of them was wearing a uniform. So Rita had no way of knowing offhand which side they were on. But she figured the act of vandalism and presumed looting was a good enough indication and she didn’t dare hesitate for long.

Remembering the wild misses in the earlier gunfight, though, she controlled herself enough to aim carefully before she fired. The man she aimed at was the one watching, not the one smashing the window, since she figured he was the one who’d be able to react more quickly. He was standing perhaps thirty feet away and not looking anywhere near her. She took a breath, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.

He went down as if he’d been hit by a truck. At close enough range where marksmanship wasn’t a big issue, it was hard to beat slugs fired out of a 12 gauge. They had all the stopping power of heavy caliber seventeenth-century muskets but without the slow rate of fire.

In a hurry, but doing her best not to move frantically, Rita pumped in another round and aimed again. Luckily, the remaining soldier was either dim-witted or—quite likely—too drunk to react quickly. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was staring down at his companion, who was now sprawled against the wall of the building.

She fired. And...almost missed, even at that range. Her shot did strike the soldier’s musket, however. The bullet not only knocked the weapon out of his hand but some sort of ricochet struck him in the face. From the minimal damage done, it was probably a small piece of the firing mechanism or possibly just a splinter from the stock.

But the soldier was startled enough to clasp his face with his hands rather than deal with her. She jacked in another round. Not trusting her reactions—she had to be practically afloat in adrenaline—she strode forward a few steps, almost running, until she was no more than six feet away from him.

The soldier’s hands came down from a bloody face. His mouth was wide open as he stared at her. She fired. At his chest, and this time the bullet struck where she wanted it to. The soldier was knocked off his feet and back into the window he’d been smashing, taking what was left of the glass mostly with him.

Rita did her best to blank out the horror from her mind as she reloaded. She’d never killed anyone before tonight, and now she’d killed no fewer than four men. She’d never even been in a gunfight, for that matter, except for the escape from the Tower of London. But she hadn’t been directly involved in the fighting there.

Maydene came up to her. “You all right?” she asked softly.

Rita nodded. “Right enough.” She’d probably have some bad reactions later, but there was no time to worry about that now.

The shotgun reloaded, she set off again. “Let’s go, folks.”





Chapter 3





Hearing another burst of gunfire, Stefano Franchetti was distracted from his work with the airship’s burners. Nervously, he glanced in the direction the gunfire was coming from. Insofar as he could determine the direction, at least, which he couldn’t with any precision. There was a three-quarter moon in the sky, but he still couldn’t see very far. A line of trees at the edge of the clearing where they’d set up the airship station impeded his view of Ingolstadt.

The State of Thuringia-Franconia had leased one of the blimps built by Estuban Miro in order to carry out a thorough survey of Thuringia, Franconia and the Oberpfalz. They’d wanted Filippo Franchetti for a pilot, but since he was Miro’s foreman he’d declined and offered his nephew Stefano in his stead. As it was, Miro was simply breaking even on the operation. The rates he normally charged were far higher than the SoTF would have been willing to pay. He’d cut them drastically in the interests of maintaining good relations with the authorities.