The Sea Peoples(33)
Deor looked into the masked man’s eyes and decided. He leveled the weapon, felt his finger squeeze carefully on the trigger. There was a loud crack and the pistol bucked painfully against his hand, startling him with its suddenness and the brutal power. A jet of flame split the night from its muzzle, and a black spot appeared between the brows of the masked man with the whip. The back of his head exploded in a spray of brain and blood and bone splinters, spattering into the faces behind him. The impact jerked the man he’d killed like no bow he knew, as if he’d been kicked in the head by a horse or hit with a war-hammer.
Reflexes he didn’t know he owned brought the pistol down again to aim, but Thora had her own pointed already. She fanned the spur of the hammer with the heel of her other hand, an astonishingly swift strobing crack-crack-crack-crack-crack and then click. Men twisted and fell under the brutal impact of the heavy bullets, and one struck the gallon can of rock-oil. It ignited in a gout of crimson flame that sprayed burning liquid across a dozen more.
Screams and blood and fire in the night, and one woman tossing aside the noose she’d been waving aloft and running away beating at hair like a flaming torch itself.
“Come!”
It was the dark-clad man they’d rescued. He plucked at Deor’s jacket. “In His name, come with me now or you die! Don’t run, but walk quickly.”
Deor did, and the others followed; the man guiding them sank back behind the scop, looking at them in bewilderment then shaking his head as if putting something aside in a greater urgency. Deor found that he’d thrust the weapon back into its holster.
“Grab me by the collar,” the stranger hissed, when they were among crowds who had only heard the brief fight in the distance. “As if you dragged me along. Now, or someone will suspect!”
Quick-witted, Deor thought, as he obeyed.
The man led them away from the brightly lit thoroughfare, randomly at first to throw off any pursuit. Their path ran through streets like the first they’d found; the buildings grew taller and shabbier and the ways between them narrower as they went on. At last he turned down an alleyway where sagging iron stairs zigzagged up the sides of the buildings between blank windows, and thumped at a metal door in what Deor’s musician’s ear recognized as a complex rhythm.
It opened. A man’s face showed in a dim blue light, with the same strange hairstyle and a family resemblance to their guide, though his locks were a frizzy reddish-brown.
“These are Righteous Ones, Jacob,” the man said. “They saved me from the servants of the faceless.”
“Praise Him, Moses.”
Jacob’s hand came out from under his coat and he stood back. They all hurried down the stairs within into a damp cellar. A lamp was lit as soon as the door was shut and bolted behind them, honest flame rather than the eerie legendary brightness of electricity. Faces peered up at them from pallets on the floor, divided by blankets hung from cords. There was a heavy smell of wet brick and misery. A child began to cry, and was quickly hushed. The man his friend had named Moses unbuttoned his coat and handed out the parcels underneath, which turned out to be loaves of heavy dark bread and blocks of some pungent-smelling cheese.
The faces that had looked at Deor and his companions with fear now focused on the food with an intensity he recognized, that of folk very hungry indeed. Moses looked at him, weighing a chunk of the rye bread, and Deor shook his head.
“Thank you, but we have no need and you do.”
There were murmured blessings, and the food was divided with haste but scrupulous care. The children began to eat as their mothers handed out portions.
“What can we do to repay you, then?” Moses asked. “You’re welcome to share what refuge we have.”
“Guide us,” Deor said, trusting instinct. “Help us to escape.”
The man’s full-lipped mouth quirked. “Where is escape, in the world as it is? But I will do what I can, if you want to get out of the city before the end. Our little ones will have food today, at least.”
He turned to his companion. “Get them all down to the sub-basement, Jacob.”
“We shouldn’t wait for the warning sirens?”
Moses shook his head. “That might be too late. It can’t be long now. Make sure of the water, and the tools for digging out.”
He turned to the strangers. “Come, follow me.”
Lantern light showed a stairway; they went down, and through a series of doors. From the way the levels varied and the look of the walls of narrow parts, they were being taken through a maze made by digging passages between the cellars of buildings. Once from the stink and the round shape, through a disused sewer.
Moses frowned. “Odd. There’s fog . . . well, the ladder and cover are just ahead. May the blessings of the Lord, King of the Universe, go with you.”
“And with you, my friend,” Deor said, and waved the others forward.
Their guide turned and disappeared around a corner, the light bobbing and fading. Near-total blackness fell.
“Link hands?” Pip suggested. “And let me go first. I’ve got good night vision.”
“Sees like a cat,” Toa agreed.
They did; Deor felt one hand vanish in the Maori’s huge paw, and the other grip Thora’s familiar long-fingered callused strength. Occasionally he could hear the chink of Pip’s cane against a wall, then a more metallic sound.