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By Root 549 0

They flew through the air in blurs, hitting Gilfillan on his cheek, his forehead and his left eye. He threw up his hands to his face, dropping the rifle. It bounced once, twice on the ground. Sherlock rushed forward to grab it, but the man kicked it out of the way. His hand caught in Sherlock’s hair and he twisted. Sherlock cried out in a mixture of anger and pain, and lashed out with his foot. His boot connected with Gilfillan’s shin, and the grip on his hair suddenly released. Sherlock sprang back, looking for the rifle. He caught sight of it at the same time as the American, and they both dived for it. Sherlock got there first, fingers clutching at the stock and body rolling out of the way as the man cursed.

They both stood there for a moment, breathing heavily. The man wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

‘You ain’t got the moxie,’ he said. ‘Ah’m goin’ to come for that gun an’ ah’m goin’ to wrap it around your throat an’ choke the life from your scrawny body!’

He moved forward, and Sherlock raised the rifle menacingly.

‘Don’t . . .’ he said.

The man kept coming, a grimace stretching across his face and his dirty hands reaching forward for Sherlock.

CHAPTER SIX

Knowing that he had no choice, Sherlock pointed the rifle at the man’s chest and pulled the trigger, bracing himself for the resulting recoil.

Nothing happened. The rifle failed to fire.

Gilfillan grinned triumphantly. ‘Grit in the mechanism,’ he said. ‘Got to treat them old rifles right. Smallest thing can stop ’em from firin’.’ He reached into a trouser pocket and pulled out something small and dark. He flicked his hand, and suddenly there was a blade in it, a wickedly curved blade. ‘Not like a knife. Knives work under most circumstances, I find. Slower than a rifle, but a lot more fun.’

He stepped forward and slashed the knife sideways, aiming for Sherlock’s eyes. The boy stumbled back, feeling the cold breeze following in the wake of the blade as it brushed his eyelashes. The low rays of the sun, reflected from the sharp point at the end of the blade, traced a red line across Sherlock’s vision that persisted even when the knife had gone.

Gilfillan stepped forward, jerking the knife upward, trying to get it into Sherlock’s stomach, but Sherlock blocked it with the stock of the rifle. The impact knocked him backwards, but Gilfillan held his wrist and swore.

‘That’s it,’ he snarled. ‘I ain’t goin’ to treat you like an equal any more. I’m goin’ to slaughter you like cattle.’

He reached out and grabbed Sherlock by the ear, before the boy could get away, pulling him closer even as he raised the knife towards Sherlock’s throat. Instinctively, Sherlock bought the rifle up between them, trying to block the blade, but as the barrel passed his face he had a sudden inspiration and he jabbed it straight upward into Gilfillan’s right eye.

The American screamed and staggered backwards, clutching at his face. Blood streamed from between his fingers. Sherlock expected him to fall to the ground, incapacitated, but his intact eye fixed on Sherlock and he screamed again, a sound of pure rage that echoed through the woods and sent pigeons flying from the trees. Lurching forward, he held the knife extended, reaching out for Sherlock. Still holding the rifle, Sherlock swung it at the American’s head. It connected with the bandage, an impact that echoed all the way down the stock, through Sherlock’s hands and up into his shoulders. The American fell like a carelessly thrown sack of corn; gracelessly and shapelessly to the ground

Sherlock watched him for a few moments, half expecting him to climb back to his feet and try again, but he just lay there, unmoving apart from the laboured rise and fall of his chest. His right eye, from what Sherlock could see of it, was a crater of red flesh, while blood seeped through the bandage on his head, which was rising up as the flesh beneath it swelled even as Sherlock watched.

The man was like some supernatural force, impervious to pain and injuries that would fell a normal man. Sherlock felt his breath burning in