Robin grinned and sprinted toward the next building, ten feet away and six feet lower. He’d lead them a merry chase, all right. He reached the edge, leaped, and hung over thirty feet of emptiness. Then, with a grunt, he hit
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the other building’s roof and scrambled for purchase. His feet slipped on the wood shingles and he fell forward, grasping for a handhold. He slid six feet before he found one.
Pulling himself up, he glanced over the edge. Twenty or thirty guards were watching for him, swords drawn. A cry went up, and Robin began to run again.
He led them from rooftop to rooftop. Over the next ten minutes, he found the number of guards had grown alarmingly—there were at least a hundred men following him below, waiting for him to slip or get himself trapped.
At last he reached the end of his chase, as he found himself on the roof of a meeting hall. He stood on the top of the roof, looking around in seeming confusion, as if he didn’t know where to go from there. Then he climbed down to an open window in the second story and climbed inside.
The guards rushed the building en masse. As they entered, Robin dashed across the balcony that overlooked the ground floor, drawing their attention.
Then in the center of the balcony, Robin held up his hands and shouted for their silence. A bit to his surprise, the guards paused and stared at him.
“I have come,” he shouted, “to free this city from tyranny! Look around you—you are surrounded by my men! Lay down your weapons or you will all be killed!”
For the first time, Capone’s men began to look around the meeting hall. Robin’s archers had been waiting motionlessly up against the walls. Now forty-five of them stepped forward, arrows nocked.
A sudden, confused babble of voices rose from the guards. Bewildered questions—puzzled demands—angry threats.
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Robin shouted them down. “Drop your weapons and put your hands on your heads!” he instructed. “This is your last warning!”
One by one swords began to thud against the floorboards. Two of Robin’s men moved forward and began collecting them, while the others kept the guards covered.
Chuckling, Robin descended to take charge.
Outside, he could already hear scattered gunshots, as the smiths and their apprentices took care of what other guards remained. It would only be a matter of mopping up after this.
The city had completely fallen to Robin and his men. By noon the last of the fighting had ended, as the few holdouts among Capone’s men were disarmed and locked into the meeting hall with the others. All told, three hundred and forty-four of Capone’s guards and lieutenants had been rounded up. Another sixteen lay dead, and eighteen more were wounded and not expected to live through the night… mostly due to New Chicagoans settling old grudges with their former captors. The whole city had joined in the revolt at the end. Robin hadn’t lost a single man.
Of Capone, though, there was no sign. Robin assumed he’d somehow made his way from the city and fled. With such complete victory in hand, though, it seemed a minor detail. They’d send out patrols to try to find him later. Considering all he’d done to the land and people, Robin thought Capone would have few friends willing to aid his escape.
That afternoon, as the Belle Dame sailed close under its skeleton crew, Robin’s men raised a red flag over the
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council building as a signal that all was well. A long whistle blared from the Belle Dame in reply.
Musicians were already playing in the streets, and men and women were dancing in the plaza with joyous abandon. The gates to the city had been thrown wide; most of the population of New Chicago and Pisstown had come in to join the celebration.
Emile van Deskol and the other gunsmiths and their apprentices had organized themselves into a police force, and the threat of their guns kept order. Truly, a new age had come to New Chicago.
“Look!” Mutch said, grabbing Robin’s arm and pointing toward the River.
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