1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [191]
He got near the front, picking his way though the mangled and shattered furniture, and yelled again. There was a sudden stop to the shouting outside. "Say that again," a distant shouted voice from outside called.
"We surrender!" Frank yelled back. "The building is about to collapse!"
There was a long silence, long enough for Piero to make it up next to Frank. "What'd he say?" he whispered.
"Just asked me to repeat it," he whispered back. "He hasn't answered yet, though."
"If they accept, let me go first," Piero said.
"Why?"
"You, they may shoot out of hand. Stay behind me until we are among them. They may not shoot if they do not realize who you are until too late."
"Uh, right," Frank said. There were any number of holes in that argument, not least of which was that if they were going to be shooting captives out of hand they wouldn't be getting picky. That Don Vincente guy had said there was an inquisitor trying to run the show for him out there, and wasn't it the Inquisition who'd come up with Kill them all, God will know his own? Besides, if they wanted to make sure Frank was dead, all they had to do was wait. Maybe toss in a couple of grenades to help matters along a bit. Something cracked in the timbers above, and the ceiling shifted a little, causing a shower of dust and grit. Frank could hear it pattering around him on the floor and on the broken furniture.
"How many of you are there?" came a shout from outside, followed by a white scarf on a stick poked in through a hole in the shattered wall.
"Two," Frank called back. "We're coming out, unarmed."
The white rag was followed by a face under a helmet, who looked into the darkened interior, said something over his shoulder and reached back for a torch. It turned out to be the sergeant Frank had met earlier, once it was lit up. Frank could see that the torch was a chairleg with some rags wrapped around it. Clearly these guys had had to improvise on the spot as well. Half of the sergeant's face was covered in black soot, the way soldiers got to be when they'd been shooting a lot with black-powder weapons. He was grinning, which Frank hoped was a good sign. He shouted something over his shoulder, out of which Frank picked out the word "dos," which he recognized as being Spanish for "two.
"The sergeant vanished, and after a moment—punctuated by another groan from the ceiling timbers—the shout came back: "Come out, one at a time! With your hands up!"
Frank heaved a sigh of relief. "You first, Piero," he said, looking nervously at the ceiling. Yeah, that's right, bartender's last to leave a sinking bar. Tradition.
Piero nodded. "There is nothing left to say, Frank, except that when we meet again after this, the drinks are very much on me, yes?"
"Get gone," Frank said, suddenly remembering what he was walking out into. At least most of the people who came here for shelter got away, he thought. Just me, Giovanna and Piero got caught. Then the little voice added, So long as the falling building doesn't kill the rest of the guys.
"First one coming out!" he yelled, as Piero stepped up to the gap the sergeant had used, his hands in the air.
Frank listened to Piero's scramble over the rubble. There were voices, and then a crash from somewhere up above. The ceiling groaned, and Frank hunkered down into the doubtful shelter of a broken table. He peered upward, nervously, squinting against the falling dust and grit, and then curled up tight with his eyes closed when he saw the ceiling began to drop again. A few seconds, and then he opened them again. In the middle, at the front, the ceiling was maybe five feet from the ground,