CHAPTER 21
FORGE AND SMOKE
Nero’s gaze moved between the grotesque impaled body of the Hidebehind and the desperate eyes of Commander Volkov.
The hunter’s logic was pragmatic, stripped of pride and of moralizing.
If they were locked in the cells, they would die when the walls came down.
If they fought, they had a chance. And, more importantly, Mia was inside.
Slowly, Nero put out his gloved hand to Volkov.
“We have an arrangement, Commander. But I want my Colts. Now.”
Volkov’s shoulders visibly loosened, and he let out a breath he seemed to have been holding for weeks.
He signalled to the scouting officer, who reluctantly handed Nero the belt with the heavy holsters and the cavalry sabre.
The hunter buckled the belt at his waist with a familiar and comforting click.
The weight of the modified Patersons brought a sense of order to the imminent chaos.
Elena got her double-barrelled pistol and her whip back, and settled them with a grim expression. She looked at Gideon, who was still trembling slightly but already had his eyes fixed on the rotating reaper with a calculating gleam.
“Gideon,” Nero said, putting a hand on the inventor’s shoulder. “You heard the Commander. They have powder and lead, but they have no compatible ammunition. Solve it.”
Gideon settled the goggles on his forehead and straightened his posture, the fear giving way to the adrenaline of engineering.
“I need to see their foundry,” Gideon said, turning to Volkov.
“And I need access to every scrap of brass and lead you have. If your powder is of good quality, I can adapt the casting moulds. It won’t be pretty, and the rounds may jam if we fire too fast, but I can make this beauty spit lead again.
” Volkov smiled, a rare and genuine gesture.
“Captain Petrov,” he ordered the scouting officer, “take Mr Gideon
to the main foundry. Give him everything he asks for.
If he wants to melt down my wife’s silver cutlery to make bullets, then so be it.
” While Gideon was led into the hot and noisy bowels of the Fort Ross foundry, Nero and Elena were taken up onto the top of the timber walls.
The Pacific fog was thickening, creeping over the bluffs and swallowing the redwood forest inch by inch.
The air was freezing and silent. The only sounds were the hammering of the Russian soldiers reinforcing the gates and the rhythmic clatter of metal coming from the foundry, where Gideon was working against time.
Nero took a position in an octagonal watchtower facing the forest. He drew a whetstone out of his pocket and began putting an edge on the sabre, the rhythmic metallic sound carrying into the fog.
His eyes did not blink as they swept the tree line.
Elena stood beside him, checking the charge in her pistol and fastening the whip at her waist.
“Do you think Gideon can do it?” she asked, her voice low.
“He has no choice,” Nero answered, without stopping his work on the sabre. “And neither do we.”
The First Whisper
Night came down over Fort Ross like a shroud of lead.
Visibility beyond the walls was zero. The Russian soldiers were positioned along the perimeter, with lit torches that showed no more than a few metres ahead.
The silence was so heavy that the sound of the men breathing seemed like a roar.
Suddenly, from somewhere deep in the fog beyond the western wall, a high and melodic sound cut the night.
A whistle. Nero stopped honing the sabre instantly.
The Russian soldiers around him shuddered, cocking their Berdan rifles with shaking hands.
Commander Volkov appeared at the top of the wall with the Smith & Wesson in his hand, his face livid.
The whistle stopped. And then a familiar, sweet voice echoed out of the darkness, imitating the American accent of Bitter Creek perfectly:
“Nero… Elena… come and play, it’s me, it’s Mia, it’s cold out here…”
Elena felt her blood freeze in her veins and took an involuntary step toward the voice, her eyes wide with horror. Nero seized her arm hard, holding her back.
“That isn’t her, Elena,” Nero said, his voice cold and cutting, his glacial blue eyes fixed on the fog.
“It’s the Hidebehind. And it has just told us the siege has started.”
“Your sister is upstairs in the main house, locked in with my wife!” Volkov shouted, forcing his way along the parapet. “It is the most protected room in this fort. Oak door, iron bolt, and two men on guard at the stair. See to what is outside, vaquera. Inside, I answer for it.”
From the top of the main watchtower a Russian soldier shouted, pointing at the base of the wall.
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