Hells march, p.25
Hell's March, page 25
“Nunca!” the man shrieked and lunged with his sword.
Sal shot him. “Didn’t think so,” he growled. “Stupido.” He looked at Sessions, standing with a bloody cutlass, white teeth gleaming in his dark, lined face.
“Haven’t had this much fun in thirty years!” crowed Sessions.
Sal nodded. He’d forgotten Sessions was a privateersman in his youth, essentially a legal pirate. “More ‘fun’ ta be had in the barracks an’ other buildings, I expect. Clear ’em out—but secure the magazine first!” He pointed at a reinforced mound of earth and fitted stones with a copper-sheathed door at the end of a barracks. “That looks like the entrance. Be careful! Even if there ain’t a suicidal maniac already in there fixin’ a fuse, one shot from a pistol’ll do it just as well.”
“You don’t say?” Sessions barked ironically before calling some of the men he brought and dashing toward the apparent magazine.
“Yeah, well. Lo siento,” Sal grumbled to himself. Few men were as paranoid about fire—and magazines—as sailors. He looked around. There was still a lot of shooting. Mostly on the other side of the barracks and up on the wall. More men had reinforced Sergeant Sana, and they had a cluster of Doms cornered behind one of the great guns on the wall where it butted up to the tower. Sal had no idea if there was an entrance there, but it was time to check. He’d never been “in charge” of so many men before and felt a little overwhelmed. Everyone seemed to be doing what they were supposed to, however, with virtually no direction from him. He wondered if that meant he’d trained them well or they just didn’t need him. “Corporal Ruaz!” he called, and the Ocelomeh NCO ran up with a small squad of men. “Sir!”
Sal pointed at the tower. “Time for that. Shut the back door ta those men on the wall an’ stop whoever’s up top from sendin’ any signals. That light’s gotta be visible for miles, up an’ down the coast.”
Someone had already tried to take the tower, and bodies were scattered by the doorway, some lying halfway in. Sal was saddened to see two of his own, but whether they’d succeeded or not, they’d kept the door open. This time, revolvers freshly loaded, he led the way. More bodies cluttered the ground floor of the tower, and there were even a few at the base of the stone spiral stairs. Two were wounded, still moving, and a pair of Rangers quickly checked them. One that looked like he might survive was tightly trussed. The other, shot through the chest, was still screaming rage and terror, blood spraying from his lips as he feebly fought to reload his musket. A Ranger almost gently took the weapon and slit his throat. Sal was impressed that his men, so ruthlessly trained to fight and kill and conditioned by a lifetime of hatred and fear of the evil Dominion, could still show such compassion. Our cause is just, we are good, and I’m proud to fight with such men, he thought. Time to be worthy of ’em. “Follow me!” he shouted, taking the steps two at a time.
As suspected, there was a “back door” to the rampart and the next level was full of Doms. They must’ve thought the lower door was secure because all their attention was outward, on Sergeant Sana’s men. Most were loading muskets and passing them through the door to the fighters behind the great gun outside. Sal quickly shot two before he was noticed, then emptied his Colt into the first men to turn. Corporal Ruaz rushed past with two Rangers, Bowie swords flashing in guttering lamplight, stabbing and slashing. Men screamed in terror and pain as others turned to face them and were cut down or shot with pistols. It became hard to breathe in the chamber filled with smoke and the hot copper smell of blood. Sal heard boots chuffing on steps and shot two more men rushing down from above with his second pistol. Underpowered as they were, his Colt Patersons were deadly in his trained hands, and the first Dom fell bonelessly with a small hole in his forehead. The second shot was rushed, exploding the side of the Dom trooper’s face in a shower of gore and teeth. Screaming, he fired his musket even as Sal shot him again. He fell facedown and slid to the bottom of the stairs, kicked aside by a Ranger behind Sal. Another Ranger had fallen back, however, face clenched in pain, arm a shattered, blood-spraying ruin. The big Dom musket ball had hit bone.
“Help that man!” Sal shouted, glancing around. All the enemies on this level were dead, and he had seven or eight more Rangers now. One slammed the parapet door and latched it in the face of a Dom outside. Two shots remained in his revolver, and Sal gestured for their fallen man’s Bowie sword. His only other weapon was a short knife on his pistol belt. Sword in his left hand, Paterson in his right, Sal pushed up the stairs.
The fight in the tower seemed over, however, and Sal met no one on the next two levels, though he noted a trail of blood spatters on the steps. Only at the top, in the glare and tremendous heat of a large, bright flame backed by polished silver panels and encased in glass to protect the huge “lamp” from the wind, did he encounter a final Dom soldier. This one was an officer, shot or stabbed in the belly. One hand pressed a red-soaked rag against his wound, and the other supported a finely made brass-barreled pistol, its impressively large muzzle weaving slightly but generally pointing at Sal’s face. “Stay back, muchachos,” Sal called below. “The tower’s ours, but I’d like a moment ta . . . reason with a fella up here.”
“Razón?” the man gasped hotly, young face beaded with sweat and squeezed by a grimace of pain. “Razonar conmigo?” he scoffed.
“Si es posible,” Sal replied calmly, nodding at the pistol and continuing in Spanish, “Do you command here? Put that down and we’ll tend your wound.”
“You would have me surrender? To you?” the Dom demanded with a rasping laugh. “I don’t even know who you are! But to attack a city of the Holy Dominion, you must be crazed heretics, pagan animals . . . who knows? And what does it matter, after all? I will stop you!”
“By yourself?” Sal asked. The sound of fighting in the fort was fading. There was more fighting elsewhere, he could hear it, but he hadn’t had an opportunity to look around. “Your fort has fallen,” he said. “You might kill me, but you won’t stop us.”
The Dom shifted his aim to an enormous copper drum below the great lamp. “I’ll shoot that.”
Sal didn’t know what was in the drum—some kind of animal or vegetable oil, he guessed, and it must burn like hell to light the great lamp so brightly. “So you’ll burn us up—you an’ me. What’ll that accomplish?”
“I’ll go to heaven, enshrouded in purifying grace!” the Dom officer exclaimed. “You will go to hell, of course, but more important, the flare of the flaming tower will be seen for a dozen leguas. Even if no one sees that, the later darkness will bring loyal troops from all over!”
Sal sighed. “Maybe so,” he agreed absently, vaguely saddened he had no choice but to kill this young man, suddenly likening his delusions—and those of all his people—to those of intensely cruel children. Still, he’d already begun narrowing all his focus on the T-shaped target formed by the bridge of the man’s nose and brow ridge. That’s where his bullet would hit. An instant before he would’ve fired, however, the Dom surprised him and pulled his trigger.
Time seemed to slow, and Sal watched the ornate pistol’s cock leap forward, the flint in its jaws striking the frizzen and kicking it back with a shower of sparks. He clenched his teeth, waiting for the flash of priming powder, the blast of the charge that would spit a large ball to blow an even bigger hole in the tank. It would only be a matter of moments before the splattering stream found the flames.
But there was no flash, no blast. Either the weapon was empty or had lost its prime. The Dom officer looked at his pistol, enraged, and Sal didn’t shoot.
“Guess you ain’t goin’ to heaven just now,” Sal said in English. The Dom didn’t understand the words, but the irony in Sal’s tone was clear. He snarled in fury and hurled the pistol at Sal’s head. He missed, and the pistol clattered down the steps even as Sal raised his own weapon again. But the Dom didn’t attack. Instead of drawing his sword, as Sal expected, he just turned . . . and jumped out the opening behind him. “Vaya!” Sal hissed and blinked. He thought he heard a thud below, but there’d been no scream. Some of his men were behind him now, and Corporal Ruaz handed Sal the pistol. It was a nice piece and, aside from a few new dents in the inlaid stock and engraved barrel, didn’t seem damaged.
“Don’t know why it didn’t go off. It must be loaded. Powder fell out the vent,” Ruaz said softly. He must’ve seen it all.
“Lucky,” Sal whispered.
Ruaz nodded briskly and said, “Looks like we do have the fort, but only God knows what’s happening elsewhere.”
Stuffing the pistol in his belt, Sal finally took a moment to look around. In front of the lamp, it was hard to see anything beyond the roof support columns of the tower, but easing back behind the silver reflector he looked again. There was still a glare, and he couldn’t have seen stars, but burning buildings along the city waterfront and flash of many muskets were unmistakable. So was the flaring shape of the first Dom galleon Sergeant Tinez boarded. The forward half of the ship seemed fully engulfed in flames, and boats full of men were pulling away—the boats intended to bring their reinforcements, no doubt. Just then, the Dom ship exploded with a yellow-red flash that seared Sal’s vision, and he barely saw the flaming debris shower down for hundreds of yards in the periphery of the afterimage. A huge boooom! rumbled over them and echoed around the anchorage.
Sal clenched his eyes shut while Ruaz and others excitedly jabbered about what they’d seen or worried aloud about friends. When Sal finally opened his eyes, his vision was still dominated by a ghost of the blast, but he thought the fighting on the second ship had ceased, at least long enough for men to throw flaming wreckage over the side. Rising steam shrouded the ship like gunsmoke. Only a huge cloud of orange smoke, lit by floating, burning debris, marked where the first ship had been.
“Look at the city docks!” one of the Rangers cried. Sal squinted. It seemed like the fighting there was spreading out, going farther from shore, but there were obviously more troops—or people willing to fight—in Vera Cruz than Capitan Razine had expected. Sal looked at the light. “You’ve still got the flag, Ruaz?” he asked.
“I do,” the corporal answered, requiring some effort to pull a tightly folded flag that once flew over the wrecked USS Commissary from his haversack.
“Tie it up there, in front of the light,” Sal told him, pointing at an iron arrangement over the seaward opening in the tower. The devices were above and below every opening and must’ve been intended to hold shutters or heavy panels to protect the big lamp in bad storms. Minutes later, an oversize American flag was hanging down, the Stars and Stripes brightly lit by the light behind, rippling quite visibly in the gentle night breeze. “Be interestin’ ta see what the Doms in the city do when they take notice o’ that,” Sal said.
Second Lieutenant Sessions huffed up the stairs, splattered with blood and still gripping his cutlass. “Fort an’ Isidra are both secure,” he reported officially. “So’s the ship that didn’t blow up. Got a few prisoners in her.” He frowned. “Slaves, poor bastards. The navy Doms our lads didn’t kill all jumped over the side.” He had to repress a shudder.
“Casualties?” Sal asked.
“Seven o’ our lads—your Rangers—killed. Eleven hurt. I’ve no count from the ships yet, but the boats are landin’ your men that boarded ’em over here. I expect the cost was higher for those lads,” he predicted bleakly. “Surprise or not, they had a stiff fight. Worst of all . . .” He lowered his voice. “One of the boats was swamped by the blast. Still,” he continued, “your Rangers took or destroyed every objective they were given. Not bad for their first action together, I’d say.”
“What about the reinforcements?”
“Got diverted to the city. I saw the signal,” Sessions replied. “Those boats’ll bring more sailors over to Isidra when they return.”
Sal was looking toward the city. It seemed like the fighting was starting to fade a little, or is it just still spreadin’ out? “What’s goin’ on over there?”
Sessions shook his head. “No idea. My job’s Isidra. Yours was the warships an’ fort. We did our part. The city’s up to Cap’n Holland.”
Suddenly decisive, Sal shook his head. “Your job is now Isidra an’ the fort. I’ll leave half my men with you, under Sergeant Sana.” He nodded across the water. “But some o’ my Rangers’re still in the fight an’ I’m takin’ the rest over there. I’ll use the boats bringin’ your sailors.”
Sessions wiped blood and gushing sweat off his face with his sleeve. The heat on the lamp platform was unbearable. “Fine. If the boats don’t bring one, see if Holland’ll send us a healer. Ours got knocked on the head.”
“Go down an’ catch all the boats, Corporal. Don’t let any leave unless they’re full of wounded an’ headin’ for the ships.”
To Sal’s mortification, Ruaz actually saluted, but then hesitated a moment. “You think we’re really doing it?” he almost whispered, asking for himself and his men as he glanced at the city, then the fluttering flag. “You think maybe we’re . . . taking Vera Cruz? A DOM city?” His voice was growing louder with excitement.
“Quién sabe?” Sal replied. “Seems we’ve got a chunk of it. For now, anyway. Long enough to get Isidra out.” He gazed out to sea, wondering if Tiger would come in now or stay out of sight, on watch. He’d prefer the latter. Looking back at Ruaz, he let a smile spread under his huge, black mustache. “That’s what we came for, ain’t it? Any more is molasses on the flapjacks—an’ I never turned that down. C’mon, Corporal,” he added brusquely, heading for the stairs. “As long as we’ve got any Rangers in the fight, our chore ain’t done. Maybe Cap’n Holland’s found us some horses. I hate fightin’ on foot!”
CHAPTER 14
Don Hurac had taken a long, luxuriant bath (awakened by one of his madres before possibly drowning), drowsily eaten a small meal with several glasses of his favorite wine, and was half carried into his bedchamber. He remembered nothing more. That made him feel even more fuzzy and muddled when . . . something snatched him from the depths of a blissfully dreamless sleep. What a time for someone to clean in my room! was his first muddled thought. They’re not even using a lamp! Probably don’t want to wake me, he imagined tolerantly, but they’ve dropped a large book on the floor. That was the only explanation that came at once for the loud thump he thought he heard. But it seemed he’d felt it as well.
“Please don’t trouble yourself now, my dear,” he murmured into his pillow. There was no response, and he found that odd but was already drifting back down when he became aware of excited, garbled voices in another part of the villa, accompanied by a strange sort of . . . crackling sound he thought he should know. Then there was a lamp, its meager light dwarfed in the expanse of the chamber, and the fine, gauzy netting surrounding his bed was pushed aside. His bleary eyes slitted, then widened at once when he saw Zyan and two more of his madres all fully dressed in practical, lightweight “working” robes, belted around their waists. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d entered his bedchamber wearing anything at all, and he felt vaguely disappointed.
Zyan held forth a steaming cup of honey-sweetened chocolate. “Drink that,” she commanded. She alone dared speak to him so. “Your Holiness must rise at once. There have been . . . alarming events.” Don Hurac sat up with a groan and took the cup while one of the madres fetched him a clean robe, identical to those he always wore. “Bring another of the sort we keep for guests,” Zyan told her. “As plain as possible.”
Intrigued and growing worried, Don Hurac gulped his chocolate and allowed himself to be dressed. There was no more heavy “thumping,” but the distant “crackle” was near continuous, along with a strange whooshing roar. “What’s happening? What part of the night is it?” he asked as Zyan pushed shoes on his feet and helped him stand.
“Not yet midnight,” Zyan replied. “I don’t know what’s happening. Come and see.”
Outside in the courtyard, on the raised platform where he and Obispo El Consuelo spoke only hours ago, Blood Cardinal Don Hurac el Bendito, a large percentage of his madres, and half a dozen household guards beheld a sight none ever imagined in their nightmares. The great “thump” that awakened Don Hurac was immediately obvious; one of the warships between the city and the island fort had exploded, leaving only burning debris on the water. The other ship’s smoldering, misshapen outline had moved, now in danger of crashing into the dock at the base of the fort. Something about that didn’t seem right. . . . The wind is wrong, is it not? At least the fort seemed fully awake and a signal flag of some sort was streaming from the light tower.
Don Hurac’s gaze was drawn to the glare of the Vera Cruz waterfront, and he saw that it was burning. Worse, the flames were spreading, uncontrolled. He supposed at first the exploding ship caused the fire, casting burning bits all about, but then he saw the “crackling” sound, the unmistakable flashes of muskets. Clear volleys slashed back and forth in the city, where dozens, perhaps hundreds of troops exchanged them, but some of the flashes were scattered, almost as far as the base of the mountains on the Actopan Road he’d descended that day, and he thought he saw more on the Camino Militar leading southeast to Oaxaca. There was nothing on the road north to Tecolotla as yet, but it came very near his villa. It would make a fine bastion for defenders—or whoever their attackers might be. He whipped his gaze back to the distant light tower standing over the fort. “Zyan, my dear, you have better eyes than I do. Can you describe the signal flying in front of the great lamp?”
“Of course, Your Holiness. A portion of it appears blue or black—the light behind makes it difficult to tell—but there are red and yellow—perhaps white?—stripes as well.” She paused. “I’ve seen nothing like it.”
“Nor I,” Don Hurac replied grimly, “but I’ve heard it described.” He turned to the commander of his household guards. “Call out your men and any of the lancers that might be in barracks.” He nodded at the city. “I suspect most are in the middle of that, however. Drunk and helpless, no doubt.”
Sal shot him. “Didn’t think so,” he growled. “Stupido.” He looked at Sessions, standing with a bloody cutlass, white teeth gleaming in his dark, lined face.
“Haven’t had this much fun in thirty years!” crowed Sessions.
Sal nodded. He’d forgotten Sessions was a privateersman in his youth, essentially a legal pirate. “More ‘fun’ ta be had in the barracks an’ other buildings, I expect. Clear ’em out—but secure the magazine first!” He pointed at a reinforced mound of earth and fitted stones with a copper-sheathed door at the end of a barracks. “That looks like the entrance. Be careful! Even if there ain’t a suicidal maniac already in there fixin’ a fuse, one shot from a pistol’ll do it just as well.”
“You don’t say?” Sessions barked ironically before calling some of the men he brought and dashing toward the apparent magazine.
“Yeah, well. Lo siento,” Sal grumbled to himself. Few men were as paranoid about fire—and magazines—as sailors. He looked around. There was still a lot of shooting. Mostly on the other side of the barracks and up on the wall. More men had reinforced Sergeant Sana, and they had a cluster of Doms cornered behind one of the great guns on the wall where it butted up to the tower. Sal had no idea if there was an entrance there, but it was time to check. He’d never been “in charge” of so many men before and felt a little overwhelmed. Everyone seemed to be doing what they were supposed to, however, with virtually no direction from him. He wondered if that meant he’d trained them well or they just didn’t need him. “Corporal Ruaz!” he called, and the Ocelomeh NCO ran up with a small squad of men. “Sir!”
Sal pointed at the tower. “Time for that. Shut the back door ta those men on the wall an’ stop whoever’s up top from sendin’ any signals. That light’s gotta be visible for miles, up an’ down the coast.”
Someone had already tried to take the tower, and bodies were scattered by the doorway, some lying halfway in. Sal was saddened to see two of his own, but whether they’d succeeded or not, they’d kept the door open. This time, revolvers freshly loaded, he led the way. More bodies cluttered the ground floor of the tower, and there were even a few at the base of the stone spiral stairs. Two were wounded, still moving, and a pair of Rangers quickly checked them. One that looked like he might survive was tightly trussed. The other, shot through the chest, was still screaming rage and terror, blood spraying from his lips as he feebly fought to reload his musket. A Ranger almost gently took the weapon and slit his throat. Sal was impressed that his men, so ruthlessly trained to fight and kill and conditioned by a lifetime of hatred and fear of the evil Dominion, could still show such compassion. Our cause is just, we are good, and I’m proud to fight with such men, he thought. Time to be worthy of ’em. “Follow me!” he shouted, taking the steps two at a time.
As suspected, there was a “back door” to the rampart and the next level was full of Doms. They must’ve thought the lower door was secure because all their attention was outward, on Sergeant Sana’s men. Most were loading muskets and passing them through the door to the fighters behind the great gun outside. Sal quickly shot two before he was noticed, then emptied his Colt into the first men to turn. Corporal Ruaz rushed past with two Rangers, Bowie swords flashing in guttering lamplight, stabbing and slashing. Men screamed in terror and pain as others turned to face them and were cut down or shot with pistols. It became hard to breathe in the chamber filled with smoke and the hot copper smell of blood. Sal heard boots chuffing on steps and shot two more men rushing down from above with his second pistol. Underpowered as they were, his Colt Patersons were deadly in his trained hands, and the first Dom fell bonelessly with a small hole in his forehead. The second shot was rushed, exploding the side of the Dom trooper’s face in a shower of gore and teeth. Screaming, he fired his musket even as Sal shot him again. He fell facedown and slid to the bottom of the stairs, kicked aside by a Ranger behind Sal. Another Ranger had fallen back, however, face clenched in pain, arm a shattered, blood-spraying ruin. The big Dom musket ball had hit bone.
“Help that man!” Sal shouted, glancing around. All the enemies on this level were dead, and he had seven or eight more Rangers now. One slammed the parapet door and latched it in the face of a Dom outside. Two shots remained in his revolver, and Sal gestured for their fallen man’s Bowie sword. His only other weapon was a short knife on his pistol belt. Sword in his left hand, Paterson in his right, Sal pushed up the stairs.
The fight in the tower seemed over, however, and Sal met no one on the next two levels, though he noted a trail of blood spatters on the steps. Only at the top, in the glare and tremendous heat of a large, bright flame backed by polished silver panels and encased in glass to protect the huge “lamp” from the wind, did he encounter a final Dom soldier. This one was an officer, shot or stabbed in the belly. One hand pressed a red-soaked rag against his wound, and the other supported a finely made brass-barreled pistol, its impressively large muzzle weaving slightly but generally pointing at Sal’s face. “Stay back, muchachos,” Sal called below. “The tower’s ours, but I’d like a moment ta . . . reason with a fella up here.”
“Razón?” the man gasped hotly, young face beaded with sweat and squeezed by a grimace of pain. “Razonar conmigo?” he scoffed.
“Si es posible,” Sal replied calmly, nodding at the pistol and continuing in Spanish, “Do you command here? Put that down and we’ll tend your wound.”
“You would have me surrender? To you?” the Dom demanded with a rasping laugh. “I don’t even know who you are! But to attack a city of the Holy Dominion, you must be crazed heretics, pagan animals . . . who knows? And what does it matter, after all? I will stop you!”
“By yourself?” Sal asked. The sound of fighting in the fort was fading. There was more fighting elsewhere, he could hear it, but he hadn’t had an opportunity to look around. “Your fort has fallen,” he said. “You might kill me, but you won’t stop us.”
The Dom shifted his aim to an enormous copper drum below the great lamp. “I’ll shoot that.”
Sal didn’t know what was in the drum—some kind of animal or vegetable oil, he guessed, and it must burn like hell to light the great lamp so brightly. “So you’ll burn us up—you an’ me. What’ll that accomplish?”
“I’ll go to heaven, enshrouded in purifying grace!” the Dom officer exclaimed. “You will go to hell, of course, but more important, the flare of the flaming tower will be seen for a dozen leguas. Even if no one sees that, the later darkness will bring loyal troops from all over!”
Sal sighed. “Maybe so,” he agreed absently, vaguely saddened he had no choice but to kill this young man, suddenly likening his delusions—and those of all his people—to those of intensely cruel children. Still, he’d already begun narrowing all his focus on the T-shaped target formed by the bridge of the man’s nose and brow ridge. That’s where his bullet would hit. An instant before he would’ve fired, however, the Dom surprised him and pulled his trigger.
Time seemed to slow, and Sal watched the ornate pistol’s cock leap forward, the flint in its jaws striking the frizzen and kicking it back with a shower of sparks. He clenched his teeth, waiting for the flash of priming powder, the blast of the charge that would spit a large ball to blow an even bigger hole in the tank. It would only be a matter of moments before the splattering stream found the flames.
But there was no flash, no blast. Either the weapon was empty or had lost its prime. The Dom officer looked at his pistol, enraged, and Sal didn’t shoot.
“Guess you ain’t goin’ to heaven just now,” Sal said in English. The Dom didn’t understand the words, but the irony in Sal’s tone was clear. He snarled in fury and hurled the pistol at Sal’s head. He missed, and the pistol clattered down the steps even as Sal raised his own weapon again. But the Dom didn’t attack. Instead of drawing his sword, as Sal expected, he just turned . . . and jumped out the opening behind him. “Vaya!” Sal hissed and blinked. He thought he heard a thud below, but there’d been no scream. Some of his men were behind him now, and Corporal Ruaz handed Sal the pistol. It was a nice piece and, aside from a few new dents in the inlaid stock and engraved barrel, didn’t seem damaged.
“Don’t know why it didn’t go off. It must be loaded. Powder fell out the vent,” Ruaz said softly. He must’ve seen it all.
“Lucky,” Sal whispered.
Ruaz nodded briskly and said, “Looks like we do have the fort, but only God knows what’s happening elsewhere.”
Stuffing the pistol in his belt, Sal finally took a moment to look around. In front of the lamp, it was hard to see anything beyond the roof support columns of the tower, but easing back behind the silver reflector he looked again. There was still a glare, and he couldn’t have seen stars, but burning buildings along the city waterfront and flash of many muskets were unmistakable. So was the flaring shape of the first Dom galleon Sergeant Tinez boarded. The forward half of the ship seemed fully engulfed in flames, and boats full of men were pulling away—the boats intended to bring their reinforcements, no doubt. Just then, the Dom ship exploded with a yellow-red flash that seared Sal’s vision, and he barely saw the flaming debris shower down for hundreds of yards in the periphery of the afterimage. A huge boooom! rumbled over them and echoed around the anchorage.
Sal clenched his eyes shut while Ruaz and others excitedly jabbered about what they’d seen or worried aloud about friends. When Sal finally opened his eyes, his vision was still dominated by a ghost of the blast, but he thought the fighting on the second ship had ceased, at least long enough for men to throw flaming wreckage over the side. Rising steam shrouded the ship like gunsmoke. Only a huge cloud of orange smoke, lit by floating, burning debris, marked where the first ship had been.
“Look at the city docks!” one of the Rangers cried. Sal squinted. It seemed like the fighting there was spreading out, going farther from shore, but there were obviously more troops—or people willing to fight—in Vera Cruz than Capitan Razine had expected. Sal looked at the light. “You’ve still got the flag, Ruaz?” he asked.
“I do,” the corporal answered, requiring some effort to pull a tightly folded flag that once flew over the wrecked USS Commissary from his haversack.
“Tie it up there, in front of the light,” Sal told him, pointing at an iron arrangement over the seaward opening in the tower. The devices were above and below every opening and must’ve been intended to hold shutters or heavy panels to protect the big lamp in bad storms. Minutes later, an oversize American flag was hanging down, the Stars and Stripes brightly lit by the light behind, rippling quite visibly in the gentle night breeze. “Be interestin’ ta see what the Doms in the city do when they take notice o’ that,” Sal said.
Second Lieutenant Sessions huffed up the stairs, splattered with blood and still gripping his cutlass. “Fort an’ Isidra are both secure,” he reported officially. “So’s the ship that didn’t blow up. Got a few prisoners in her.” He frowned. “Slaves, poor bastards. The navy Doms our lads didn’t kill all jumped over the side.” He had to repress a shudder.
“Casualties?” Sal asked.
“Seven o’ our lads—your Rangers—killed. Eleven hurt. I’ve no count from the ships yet, but the boats are landin’ your men that boarded ’em over here. I expect the cost was higher for those lads,” he predicted bleakly. “Surprise or not, they had a stiff fight. Worst of all . . .” He lowered his voice. “One of the boats was swamped by the blast. Still,” he continued, “your Rangers took or destroyed every objective they were given. Not bad for their first action together, I’d say.”
“What about the reinforcements?”
“Got diverted to the city. I saw the signal,” Sessions replied. “Those boats’ll bring more sailors over to Isidra when they return.”
Sal was looking toward the city. It seemed like the fighting was starting to fade a little, or is it just still spreadin’ out? “What’s goin’ on over there?”
Sessions shook his head. “No idea. My job’s Isidra. Yours was the warships an’ fort. We did our part. The city’s up to Cap’n Holland.”
Suddenly decisive, Sal shook his head. “Your job is now Isidra an’ the fort. I’ll leave half my men with you, under Sergeant Sana.” He nodded across the water. “But some o’ my Rangers’re still in the fight an’ I’m takin’ the rest over there. I’ll use the boats bringin’ your sailors.”
Sessions wiped blood and gushing sweat off his face with his sleeve. The heat on the lamp platform was unbearable. “Fine. If the boats don’t bring one, see if Holland’ll send us a healer. Ours got knocked on the head.”
“Go down an’ catch all the boats, Corporal. Don’t let any leave unless they’re full of wounded an’ headin’ for the ships.”
To Sal’s mortification, Ruaz actually saluted, but then hesitated a moment. “You think we’re really doing it?” he almost whispered, asking for himself and his men as he glanced at the city, then the fluttering flag. “You think maybe we’re . . . taking Vera Cruz? A DOM city?” His voice was growing louder with excitement.
“Quién sabe?” Sal replied. “Seems we’ve got a chunk of it. For now, anyway. Long enough to get Isidra out.” He gazed out to sea, wondering if Tiger would come in now or stay out of sight, on watch. He’d prefer the latter. Looking back at Ruaz, he let a smile spread under his huge, black mustache. “That’s what we came for, ain’t it? Any more is molasses on the flapjacks—an’ I never turned that down. C’mon, Corporal,” he added brusquely, heading for the stairs. “As long as we’ve got any Rangers in the fight, our chore ain’t done. Maybe Cap’n Holland’s found us some horses. I hate fightin’ on foot!”
CHAPTER 14
Don Hurac had taken a long, luxuriant bath (awakened by one of his madres before possibly drowning), drowsily eaten a small meal with several glasses of his favorite wine, and was half carried into his bedchamber. He remembered nothing more. That made him feel even more fuzzy and muddled when . . . something snatched him from the depths of a blissfully dreamless sleep. What a time for someone to clean in my room! was his first muddled thought. They’re not even using a lamp! Probably don’t want to wake me, he imagined tolerantly, but they’ve dropped a large book on the floor. That was the only explanation that came at once for the loud thump he thought he heard. But it seemed he’d felt it as well.
“Please don’t trouble yourself now, my dear,” he murmured into his pillow. There was no response, and he found that odd but was already drifting back down when he became aware of excited, garbled voices in another part of the villa, accompanied by a strange sort of . . . crackling sound he thought he should know. Then there was a lamp, its meager light dwarfed in the expanse of the chamber, and the fine, gauzy netting surrounding his bed was pushed aside. His bleary eyes slitted, then widened at once when he saw Zyan and two more of his madres all fully dressed in practical, lightweight “working” robes, belted around their waists. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d entered his bedchamber wearing anything at all, and he felt vaguely disappointed.
Zyan held forth a steaming cup of honey-sweetened chocolate. “Drink that,” she commanded. She alone dared speak to him so. “Your Holiness must rise at once. There have been . . . alarming events.” Don Hurac sat up with a groan and took the cup while one of the madres fetched him a clean robe, identical to those he always wore. “Bring another of the sort we keep for guests,” Zyan told her. “As plain as possible.”
Intrigued and growing worried, Don Hurac gulped his chocolate and allowed himself to be dressed. There was no more heavy “thumping,” but the distant “crackle” was near continuous, along with a strange whooshing roar. “What’s happening? What part of the night is it?” he asked as Zyan pushed shoes on his feet and helped him stand.
“Not yet midnight,” Zyan replied. “I don’t know what’s happening. Come and see.”
Outside in the courtyard, on the raised platform where he and Obispo El Consuelo spoke only hours ago, Blood Cardinal Don Hurac el Bendito, a large percentage of his madres, and half a dozen household guards beheld a sight none ever imagined in their nightmares. The great “thump” that awakened Don Hurac was immediately obvious; one of the warships between the city and the island fort had exploded, leaving only burning debris on the water. The other ship’s smoldering, misshapen outline had moved, now in danger of crashing into the dock at the base of the fort. Something about that didn’t seem right. . . . The wind is wrong, is it not? At least the fort seemed fully awake and a signal flag of some sort was streaming from the light tower.
Don Hurac’s gaze was drawn to the glare of the Vera Cruz waterfront, and he saw that it was burning. Worse, the flames were spreading, uncontrolled. He supposed at first the exploding ship caused the fire, casting burning bits all about, but then he saw the “crackling” sound, the unmistakable flashes of muskets. Clear volleys slashed back and forth in the city, where dozens, perhaps hundreds of troops exchanged them, but some of the flashes were scattered, almost as far as the base of the mountains on the Actopan Road he’d descended that day, and he thought he saw more on the Camino Militar leading southeast to Oaxaca. There was nothing on the road north to Tecolotla as yet, but it came very near his villa. It would make a fine bastion for defenders—or whoever their attackers might be. He whipped his gaze back to the distant light tower standing over the fort. “Zyan, my dear, you have better eyes than I do. Can you describe the signal flying in front of the great lamp?”
“Of course, Your Holiness. A portion of it appears blue or black—the light behind makes it difficult to tell—but there are red and yellow—perhaps white?—stripes as well.” She paused. “I’ve seen nothing like it.”
“Nor I,” Don Hurac replied grimly, “but I’ve heard it described.” He turned to the commander of his household guards. “Call out your men and any of the lancers that might be in barracks.” He nodded at the city. “I suspect most are in the middle of that, however. Drunk and helpless, no doubt.”
