The Dakota Cipher

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

One moment he was pulling me to the stake, and the next the top of his skull sprayed away in an arc of hair and blood, dropping him like a stone. For just one moment I was stunned, surprised when it finally happened. Then, more out of instinct than thought, I rotated my body and right arm to swing my other escort into the path of Aurora’s gun.

My rifle went off just as he rotated into her aim, and he dropped too.

Another shot and a cry from Red Jacket who spun, clutching his arm. The other warriors seemed paralyzed. I grabbed the muzzle of my empty longrifle and, with more ferocity than I knew I could summon against a woman, shoved Aurora Somerset straight back against the bark wall of a longhouse and through it. I knocked the wind out of her as the butt rammed her midsection and the wall shattered. Then I swung the stock at a charging Cecil and parried the arc of his swinging sword. The rapier sank into the wood with a thwack and stuck there, the aristocrat’s face livid with rage and fear, and I twisted the rifle to snap it. Little Frog meanwhile snatched up Magnus’s axe, which the nobleman had dropped, and cut the Norwegian’s bonds. We were between the Somersets and the other Indians, so Cecil danced backward towards the waiting stakes, stumbling on firewood as he fumbled for the pistol in his belt. I yanked the broken sword clear.

Another shot, and a charging warrior went down, and then Magnus was free and swinging his axe in a great arc, howling like a Viking berserker of old. He waded into the stunned Indians like a maelstrom, the muscles under his torn shirt rippling, and the blades came up red, slain warriors toppling out of his way. They didn’t have their own guns or bows and his weapon whistled as he swung. He paused a moment to stoop and snatch up his map case in determined triumph.

Why did he care if it didn’t hold the map, which was still in Cecil’s belt?

I sprang over the prostrate Aurora and tore off the powder horn she’d draped across her chest. ‘Your whore is dead!’ I lied to Cecil to draw a quick shot, and rolled as he fired. Now! Could I club him with my musket or stab him with his broken sword before he reloaded?

‘This way, my friends! Hurry, my muskets are empty!’

It was the voice of Pierre Radisson, calling from the stockade wall. Namida and I had seen him from the corner of our eyes.

‘Get them!’ Cecil was yelling to the confused Indians even as he retreated farther, struggling to reload his pistol. He kept glancing at the prostrate form of his sister, face twisted.

Time to retreat! I hurled the haft of his sword at him, making him duck, and then Magnus, Namida, Little Frog, and I ran to the other side of the longhouse I’d shoved Aurora through. Pierre had pried an opening in the crude palisade of saplings, and we scrambled through, hauling on Magnus to get his bulk through the tight entry.

‘Praise Odin, what are you doing here?’ the one-eye asked.

‘Saving donkeys!’ Pierre thrust a musket into my arms. ‘Here, until you can reload yours! Norseman, help me plant this keg!’

The Indians were finally shooting back, but the stockade was between us and provided some shelter from the bullets. I fired into the crowd and another warrior went down, making them scatter. I saw Red Jacket sitting, cradling the arm wounded by Pierre’s earlier shot and wished I’d spent the bullet on him. Then there was a flare, and a fuse was sizzling towards the keg.

‘Run, run as if the devil himself is behind you, because he is!’ Pierre cried. Angry braves were darting towards the mouse hole we’d just crawled through, so we sprinted away through a stand of birch, adrenalin coursing. There was a roar.

I looked behind. The powder keg had blown up, turning the Indian stockade into a penumbra of flying splinters. Timbers flew up like spears and tumbled. I heard screams and confused yelling as the debris sprayed our tormentors. Others would dash out the main gate and come around to chase us, I knew, but now we had a lead of a good hundred yards to reach the lake shore.

The stockade and longhouse began to burn.

We ran to the canoe Pierre had snuck ashore and skidded into the water, the women tumbling in first and then me.

‘Magnus! Where are you going?’ The Norwegian was running away from us with his axe, back towards the town, but I soon realised his target was the nearest canoes. One chop, two, and they were wrecked for the moment. There were more down the shore but his sabotage had gained us precious moments.

Bloodhammer came sprinting back, arms pumping, axe head bobbing up and down. He crashed through the shallows, water flying, and threw himself over the rim of our canoe, nearly tipping it. We hauled him in and then we were paddling madly, trying to put distance between us and a village boiling like a disturbed hive. Bullets whined.

The Indians rushed to the canoes, found them wrecked, and set up an even greater clamour. Then they dashed back down the shore, smoke roiling over their home.

For an optimistic mile I hoped we’d thrown them into such confusion that they wouldn’t follow.

But no, here came one, two, three, four canoes on Lake Superior, crowded with warriors, paddles flashing in the sun. I didn’t see a red jacket, but a coatless Cecil was standing in one bow, urging them on.

‘There’s a river to the south that will take us inland,’ Pierre panted, ‘but we need distance to make it work. Norwegian, get up and paddle one side while we three do the other. Gage, load your rifle!’

I had ball in the patchbox in the stock. It was reassuring to have the familiar weapon in my hands again, out of the clutches of Aurora Somerset, but annoying that my acacia wood stock was once more marred, this time by Cecil’s sword blade. I poured powder from the horn I’d yanked off Aurora. As I loaded and looked back I could see Lord Somerset, no doubt furious at my treatment of his sister, pointing with his pistol as if will enough could bring us within range.

The distance was one hundred and fifty yards, far too great for a handgun. The occasional shot from the trade muskets of our pursuers went wide. But I had a rifle, crafted for accuracy, and even as we rocked with every paddle stroke I aimed. His white shirt was a tiny flake in my sight. I held my breath and squeezed, my enemy silhouetted against the sky.

Hammer hit pan, a flash, the kick of the butt against my shoulder and then a long second to judge my accuracy.

Cecil Somerset jerked and then pitched neatly over the side, falling into the lake with a splash.

A great cry went up and our pursuers slowed and stopped, demoralised by the dispatch of their leader. They drifted where he’d fallen, hands reaching down to seize him. And then there was a shriek, a female wail of grief that echoed across the water like the midnight cry of a flying witch, an awful keening that carried under it the breath of undying hatred.

Aurora wasn’t dead.

And if I’d killed her brother she would, I guessed, cling as remorsefully as a shadow until she killed me. Or I, her. We were bound now, joined with permanence far deeper than mere lust. Married by hatred.

I put down my rifle, picked up a paddle, and stroked as if my life depended on it. Because it did.