The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [117]
“Best find your countermeasures,” she managed. “Red Shoes and I will be busy for a time.”
Franklin could already see that, in the way they both stared off into space, watching things he could not—probably did not want to —see.
That meant, too, that Red Shoes would not be able to perform one of his little miracles and kill Sterne through the steel hull.
So be it. Despite Tug's warning, someone had to go up through the hatch.
Tug himself was slumped on the floor, as Grief moved on to doctor him. Robert was wounded, and Don Pedro—
Don Pedro was going up the ladder.
Franklin's warning caught in his throat—if he shouted it would only warn Sterne.
Instead he drew his sword and leapt up the ladder after the Apalachee. Now that his mind was slightly clearer, he knew it wouldn't do to go firing into a hold full of munitions.
Don Pedro banged the hatch, but it only gave an inch or so.
“He must have piled things upon it,” Franklin said.
“Very well,” Don Pedro said. “But there is another hatch on top of the ship, yes?”
“What a blockhead I am! Of course there is!”
“And we get to it how?”
“Go out the front of the cabin and climb, I suppose.”
“I go, then,” he said. He hurried to the front, past the dead form of Flint Shouting. The glass there was on hinges, and it swung inward. He looked around, positioned himself on the prow, and leapt up.
Franklin followed. By the time he got there, the Apa-lachee's moccasins were vanishing over the top. Swearing, Franklin went up the rungs.
Outside was strange. The aegis bent light and matter, but not perfectly. Being within its protection was like being in a prism, everything tinted rainbow—the sky, the clouds, the distant, maplike earth. He was actually grateful, for it disguised, in some measure, the reality of the fall awaiting him if he slipped.
In some small measure, he reflected, looking down again.
He came over onto the top of the ship just in time to see Don Pedro lift the upper hatch and a funnel of flame leap out. The Don had been careful, but not careful enough. Though he wasn't caught in the flame itself, the superheated air scorched him, and he fell, clutching his eyes.
“Don't roll!” Ben shouted. “You'll fall over!” He ran to help the Apalachee.
At which point Sterne emerged, grinning like death, a glowing red orb floating above his head.
“Well, Mr. Franklin,” he said. “It looks like just the two of us, doesn't it?”
“My friends will be here in a second.”
“Maybe they will. But you shall be dead.” And he raised a gun with his left hand.
Oglethorpe blinked at the men standing over him.
They were Commonwealth.
“General?” A youth with a shock of nearly orange hair sticking out from under his cap knelt next to him.
“We've taken the artillery line?”
“Yes, sir, we have. The wing ships rifted it a little farther down, so we managed to cut through and come about.”
“Thank God.”
He sat up and turned back to Tomochichi. “Did you hear that, chief?”
But the chief of the Yamacraw was listening beyond the world, not in it. His days, as he might say, were all broken. Oglethorpe kissed the old man on the head and reached to close the open lids. He had to switch hands to do it.
“You're hurt, sir,” one of the rangers said.
“Yes, my hand …” He looked again at the bloody stumps of the digits, wondering exactly when he had lost them.
He examined the rest of his body. The shot that had come through Tomochichi had been stopped by his cuirass, though his back throbbed like the devil. To his surprise, he also found that something had left a neat hole through the meaty part of his thigh, but fortunately missed the bone.
“We're sending you back to the surgeon, sir,” the ranger said. “We'll carry on, never you fear.”
“I shan't fear, for I shall be there to see it. Is there one horse left amongst us?”
“Sir—”
“Now. I mean it.”
“We'll find you one, General.”
Sterne raised the weapon he held. Franklin's heart did a flip flop when he saw it.
“You don't even know what you have there,” he said.
“I'll take my chances,” Sterne replied. “Did you invent it?”
“Indeed I did.”
“Well,