The pistol hit the same wall Billy was near. Wheel-locks were even touchier than old automatic pistols once they were cocked. The weapon discharged. The bullet hit the bowl of fruit and sent the apples flying everywhere.
I . . . do . . . not . . . fucking . . . believe . . . this . . . shit.
* * *
Frantically, Sharon tried to get a bead on someone. But it was impossible. The way Ruy was dancing back and forth, she’d be as likely to shoot him as one of his opponents. Even at this range, Sharon had no confidence at all in her marksmanship. She’d only gone to the firing range at Grantville—then, later, at Wismar—when her father or Hans had absolutely insisted. She didn’t like guns and felt no affinity for the things whatsoever. Especially a great big heavy monster like this one, whatever the hell it was.
There was another of those sudden, terrifying clashes between Ruy and his opponents. Like watching men turn into sharks for an instant. It was all too quick for Sharon to follow clearly. When it was over, though, another of Ducos’ agents was stumbling back against the far wall, his sword spilling to the floor. Blood spurted through the hands clutching his throat. That was pure reflex, though. As soon as the man smashed against the wall his eyes rolled up and he slumped lifelessly. Ruy must have severed the spine as well as the throat with that stab.
There were only two French agents left standing, now. But to her horror, Sharon saw that Ruy had been injured again himself. She hadn’t seen it happen, but one of Ducos’ men must have stabbed Ruy in the leg. Not the fatal kind of strike Ruy had landed at the beginning of the fracas, no; just a cut to the meat of the thigh. As wounds went, from a purely medical perspective, nothing much to worry about. Sharon was a lot more concerned about the wound that had now spread blood across the left side of the Catalan’s doublet.
However, what was dangerous in a hospital was not the same thing as what was dangerous in a fight. Ruy was limping, now, pretty badly. And he’d lost a lot of blood, and—Sanchez or no Sanchez—he was a man in his late fifties. He couldn’t possibly last much longer.
The two surviving Frenchmen sensed it. They started moving in for the kill. Slowly and carefully, to be sure.
Sharon glanced to her left. Billy was scrabbling on the floor for apples. No help there.
She took a very deep breath. She’d never smoked, was a big woman—and had a pair of lungs to match the rest of her chest.
“GODAMMIT RUY SANCHEZ GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY! LISTEN TO YOUR WOMAN!”
Sanchez instantly flung himself aside, coming to rest on his rump plastered against the wall right below his hat. He gave Sharon a grin that, for all the strain in his face, seemed genuinely cheerful.
“A request from my intended is like a command from God,” he pronounced.
Sharon snorted. Took another breath and drew a bead. The two agents were staring at her now.
She decided marksmanship was pointless. She really had no idea what she was doing. On the other hand, she understood why they called these damn things “automatics.”
* * *
“It was frickin’ amazing,” Billy would tell his friend Conrad later. “Truly awesome. She emptied the whole clip. Musta set some kinda time record, too. Sounded like it was on full auto.”
A shake of the head, another quaff of beer. “A Colt .45 M-1911A1, to boot. Sure, it’s an old warhorse—none of the fancy few modern ones we’ve got for plebes like you and me, Conrad old buddy—but it’s still got enough firepower to shred a bull.”
Another shake of the head, another quaff. “Point-blank range. Couldna been more than twenty feet. Frickin’ amazing. She never hit the one guy at all and only managed to hit the other once. I grant you, in the chest, perfect center mass shot. Killed him deader’n a doornail. But. Still.”
* * *