Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (версия книг TXT) 📗
"My hounds!" Barnard yelled. "You are hurting my darlings." With his drawn sword in his hand he rushed to intervene. Again Hal tried to rise, and again the hound pulled him down. Barnard reached them and raised his sword to his full height above Hal's unprotected head. Hal saw the blow coming and rolled aside. The blade struck the flint cobbles beside his ear in a sheet of sparks.
"You bastard!" Barnard roared, and lifted the sword again. Aboli swerved the team of horses and drove them deliberately to Barnard. The overseer's back was turned to the approaching carriage, and he was so engrossed with Hal that he did not see it coming. As he was about to strike again at Hal's head, the rear wheel caught him a glancing blow on the hip and sent him staggering aside.
With a violent effort Hal hauled himself into a sitting position, and before the hound could drag him flat again, he stabbed it in the base of the neck, driving his blade at an angle back between its shoulder blades like the bullfighter's coup, finding the heart. The beast let out an agonized howl and released its grip on his leg, staggered around in a circle then collapsed on the cobbles, kicking feebly.
Hal heaved himself to his feet just as Barnard rushed at him. "You have killed my beauties!" He was maddened with grief, and hacked again at Hal, a wild uncontrolled blow. Hal turned it effortlessly aside and let it fly an inch past his head.
"You filthy pirate, I'll cut you down!" Barnard gathered himself and rushed in again. With the same apparent ease Hal deflected the next thrust, and said softly, "Do you remember what you -and your dogs did to Oliver?" He feinted high left, forcing Barnard to open his guard in the mid-line, and then, like a bolt of lightning, thrust home.
The blade took Barnard just under the sternum, and sprang half its length out of his back. He dropped his sword and fell to his knees.
The debt to Oliver is paid!" Hal said, placed his bare foot on Barnard's chest and, against its resistance, pulled his blade clear. Barnard toppled and lay beside the carcass of his dying hound.
"Come on, Gundwane!"Aboli was struggling to hold the team of greys, for the shouting and the smell of blood had panicked them. "The magazine!" It was only seconds since Hal had lighted the powder train, but when he glanced in that direction he saw clouds of acrid blue smoke billowing from the doorway of the armoury.
"Hurry, Gundwane!" Sukeena called softly. "Oh, please, hurry!" Her voice was so filled with concern for his safety that it spurred him. Even in these dire straits, Hal realized that it was the first time he had ever heard her speak his nickname. He started forward. The dog had bitten deeply into his leg, but its fangs could not have severed nerves or sinews for Hal found that, if he ignored the pain, he could still run on it. He leaped across the yard and grabbed hold of the leading horse's bridle. It tossed its head and rolled its eyes until the pink lining showed, but Hal hung on and Aboli gave the team its head.
The carriage went rocking and clattering under the archway of the gates, across the bridge, over the moat and out onto the open Parade. Suddenly from behind them came a shattering explosion, and a shock-wave of disrupted air swept over them like a tropical line squall. The horses reared and plunged in terror, and Hal was lifted off his feet. He clung desperately to the traces and looked back. A tower of dun-Coloured -smoke rose swiftly from the interior courtyard of the castle, spinning and revolving upon itself, shot through with dark flames and scraps of debris and wreckage. In the midst of this plume of destruction a single human body cartwheeled a hundred feet into the sky.
"For Sir Hal and King Charley!" Big Daniel roared, and the other seamen took up the cheering, beside themselves with excitement at their escape.
However, when Hal looked back again he could see that the massive outer walls of the castle were untouched by the detonation. The barracks had been built of the same heavy stonework, and almost certainly had withstood the blast. Two hundred men were housed in there, three companies of green-jackets, and even now they were probably recovering their wits after the explosion. Soon they would come pouring out through the castle gates in full pursuit and where, he wondered, was Colonel Cornelius Schreuder?
The carriage was pounding across the Parade at a gallop. Ahead ran a mob of escaped convicts. They were scattering in every direction, some leaping over the stone wall of the Company gardens and heading for the mountain, others running for the beach to find a boat in which to make good their flight. Out on the Parade were the few stunned burghers and house slaves who were abroad at this time of the forenoon. They gawked in amazement at the tide of fugitives, then at the rolling cloud of smoke that enveloped the castle and then at the even more extraordinary sight of the advancing Governor's carriage, festooned with a motley array of desperate tatterdemalion outlaws and pirates, screaming like madmen and brandishing their weapons. As the vehicle bore down on them they scattered frantically.
"The pirates have escaped from the castle. Run! Run!" At last they recovered and spread the alarm. The cry was taken up and shouted ahead of them through the huts and hovels of the settlement. Hal could see the burghers and their slaves hurrying to escape the bloodthirsty pirate crew. One or two of the braver souls had armed themselves, and there was a desultory popping of musket fire from some of the cottage windows, but the range was long, the aim hurried and poor. Hal did not even hear the flight of the balls and none of the men or horses were hit. The carriage swept on past the first buildings, following the only road that skirted the curving beach of Table Bay, and headed out into the unknown.
Hal looked back at Aboli. "Slow down, damn you! You'll blow the horses before we've got past the town." Aboli stood upright and pulled the horses back. "Whoa, Royal! Slow down, Cloud!" But the team were bolting and had almost reached the outskirts of the settlement before Aboli was able to wrestle them to a trot. They were all sweating and snorting from the gallop, but were far from spent.
As soon as they were under control, Hal loosed his grip on the harness and turned back to jog beside the carriage. "Althuda," he called, "instead of sitting up there like a gentleman on a Sunday picnic, make sure all the muskets are primed and loaded. Here!" He passed up the pistol with the burning match. "Use this to light the match on all the weapons. They'll be after us soon enough." Then he looked from Althuda to his sister.
