“Out the back, now,” Ryan said, slinging the Steyr onto his shoulder, crouching as he sprinted for the door. He slipped the catch and glanced outside.
J.B. was at his heels, snapping off single shots from the Uzi to keep their attackers cringing in the farthest part of the exhibition.
As the exit door opened, there was the crack of a firearm, and a musket ball flattened itself on the frame scant inches from Ryan’s face.
He could make out a narrow path, fringed with overgrown ornamental bushes. The shot had come from behind the cover, and a cloud of black-powder smoke still hung in the afternoon air. Ryan stuck the SIG-Sauer around the edge of the door and put five spaced shots into the center of the cloud.
There was a shrill scream and a thrashing in the undergrowth. Ryan risked another look and saw the body of a young man roll out onto the path, blood streaking from two wounds, one in the groin, the other high in the chest. His Kentucky musket was still clutched in his right hand.
“Let’s go,” Ryan said.
The youth had obviously been placed there as a last-resort stopper to try to prevent the outlanders from making a break out the back. As Ryan darted out and sprinted to his right, away from the center of the ville, toward a narrow draw, there was no more shooting.
The massacre inside had taken away all enthusiasm for pursuit, and nobody came after them.
Ryan slithered down the rocky side of the draw, boots splashing into a narrow stream that ran along the bottom, flattening himself and looking back. The Armorer was only moments behind him, taking up a defensive position, staring behind them toward the squat shape of the Burgess gallery.
“Looks like we kicked the balls out of them,” he said. “Stupes!”
Ryan nodded. “It was our blasters they wanted. Saw it in their greedy little dirt-poor eyes.”
There was a single piercing scream from behind them, from one of the wounded men.
“Best get going,” Ryan said. “No point staying around here. Head north.”
They followed the ravine as it snaked in roughly the direction they wanted, toward the distant fortress of the Magus and Gert Wolfram.
The map showed that the blacktop ran parallel to the stream, but they figured that any possible pursuit from the ville would come along the road. After an hour’s fast progress across the broken country, Ryan guessed that it was safe to assume they were away free, and he and the Armorer cut through some low, thorny scrub and picked up the highway again.
“MAP SHOWS WE’RE GETTING close to the section of the forest that they mined and laid traps,” the Armorer said as they paused for a five-minute break in the middle of the afternoon.
The highway doglegged to the left, away west, leaving only a faint hunting trail to keep them heading in the direction they wanted.
There was a large camp site near a shallow, clear pool, and they sat there, lapping up the water to ease their thirst. Ryan scuffed his boot through a pile of ashes, turning up the rusted relic of an old Randall knife, bone hilt burned away, long blade still keen-edged.
“Wonder how long that’s been there,” he said, peering at it, rubbing the steel with his finger, revealing the initials G.C.
“Big fire,” J.B. commented, head on one side. “Think it could be stickies?”
“Could be.” He sat on a fallen log and stared at the calm pool, watching a foot-long dragonfly, colored a brilliant turquoise, darting back and forth. “Wonder how the others are getting on?”
J.B. pushed back the brim of his fedora, blinking at the shafts of bright sunlight that speared through the overhanging branches. “Got to hope they’re fine.”
Ryan glanced up at the sky, calculating time and distance and light. “Find a place for the night in about three more hours. Reckon that should put us something like halfway to their ville. All being well, we could recce late afternoon. Go in and try the rescue some time during the night.”
“They’ll be looking for us.” J.B. yawned. “No way of walking around that.”