Chapter 171: Wee Noise, Big Fire
The crew kept to the fort’s quarters in short bursts, with Sam always a stretch ahead, waving them on only after he’d looked the way over and decided it was safe.
Twice their luck nearly ran out before it had any business doing so. Some servant girl carrying a stack of folded linen came within a hand’s width of walking straight into them before the whole party hauled sideways into a doorway.
Farther on, two off-duty soldiers passed so close behind them that nobody took a proper breath until their voices had faded completely. It was not a grand escape so far, but it had all the charm of one.
At last they reached the wall, a high stretch of battlement running along the fort’s exterior, and there Tomás’s words finally became what a man could see instead of merely hear.
The rooftops beyond were packed close together, red clay tiles shoulder to shoulder, the way a city built too quickly and with too little money for decent streets generally ended up building itself.
They leaned against the cold stone to wait, Kit’s limp body still heavy against Jim’s chest, his breathing no more than a thin, uneven thread.
None of them cared to listen too closely for what might happen to that thread next.
Then, the bell rang somewhere inside the wall, high and ragged, with none of the steady march the muster drum had beaten at dawn. There was no rhythm to it at all, except the simple and rather unfortunate message that shite had gone badly wrong.
Everything a bell like that was meant to summon rose beneath it.
The officers bellowed orders, some musket cracked flatly and steel struck steel, loud enough to carry plainly across the fort.
From their place on the battlement, they could see the courtyard spread beneath them, and what swarmed over it was every bit the chaos they had hoped for, only considerably worse than any of them had imagined.
Pirates wearing whatever rags a cell had left them, along with freed slaves rushed with a purpose no soldier below had prepared for, poured across the open ground. The muster yard had become a slaughter pen in a matter of moments.
Near the far wall, a lamp had been knocked over, or perhaps a torch had found some dry straw, because a thin ribbon of smoke was already climbing black into the morning.
Two floors below, a soldier disappeared beneath three men at once. Beyond him, a length of chain still fastened to some poor man’s wrist swung wide and knocked another soldier flat before he had even raised his blade.
Every sentry within sight had turned toward the noise, including the men posted along the nearest watch towers. Their muskets were pointed down into the yard, and not one of them spared a glance for the empty stretch of stone where the merry band of fools happened to be standing.
James had the opportunity and no intention of wasting it. He caught Sam’s eye, and no word was necessary.
Sam jumped first. The distance was no wider than a ship’s quarterdeck, but there were two floors of empty air beneath it and an alley of stone waiting a long way down.
He took a short run, pushed off the parapet, and landed on the nearest roof with room to spare.
Milagros followed without the slightest hesitation.
Jim passed Kit to James and went last of the three. His nerve pushed him farther than skill, and his jump had enough raggedness to make a priest nervous. Somewhere in the middle of it, he still found breath for a half-strangled joke.
"Glad it’s you luggin’ him across, Cap’n, and not me!"
He struck the far roof hard enough to stumble, caught himself against a low chimney, and made no attempt to pretend the landing had been graceful.
Some lies are too much work for too little reward.
That left James alone, Kit against his chest, one arm beneath the boy’s knees and the other locked across his back.
His wounded shoulder screamed before his boots had even left the stone. The wound had only healed for a few days, and his body had not been consulted before being given this particular piece of work.
He jumped regardless.
The distance itself gave him no trouble.
But for one, ugly heartbeat, Kit’s limp body swung against him in mid-flight and dragged James’s balance somewhere it had no business to go.
The landing went as badly, as the sudden weight of Kit threw him forward the instant his boots found the tiles, and his footing vanished instantly.
Sam’s hand closed hard around his collar while Jim’s arm caught beneath his other side a heartbeat later, and between them they dragged James back from the edge before gravity could complete the job.
Kit groaned against his shoulder, low and thick. His head lolled once against James’s neck, then went still again.
From there, things got easier, though calling them easy would have been a lie.
Each distance was narrower than the last, with the roofs packed so tightly together that most could be crossed with a long step and a hand on the far ledge. There was hardly any jumping left to do at all, which was a welcome improvement for men who had already spent enough time flying through the air for one morning.
The old clay betrayed them more than once, cracking and sliding under a boot, and more than once a gutter or low parapet caught a hand that had no earthly reason to find anything solid there.
Fortune had apparently decided it was willing to help, provided nobody asked too much of it.
Behind them, the fort’s noise grew thinner with distance, but it did not disappear. The smoke still climbed black over her walls, and the bell kept ringing underneath it all, carrying the news of trouble long after the merry band making the trouble had become too far away to see.
Ahead, the rooftops finally opened onto a wider view.
The harbor spread below them, with masts packed so thick across the water that counting them would have been a fine occupation for a man with nothing better to do.
El Morro and La Punta stood on either side of the channel in their pale stone, apparently unimpressed by the morning’s excitement.
The crew stopped on one last building, close enough to the water that they could finally call the run finished.
For a moment, none of them did anything but breathe. There are times when breathing was quite enough of an accomplishment by itself.
Sam planted both hands on his knees and dragged air into his lungs desperately.
"Right, then."
He straightened and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of one wrist. "We’ve made it this far, what now, Calloway? Find somewhere near the docks to hide and pray Esperanza finds us before some patrol does?"
James eyes had already found something better.
A galleon rode docked a fair way below them, her gunports open along one side. There was hardly a soul moving on deck.
A bored watch stood about, and one man had fallen asleep against the deck, which was a fine example of naval discipline if anybody happened to be writing it down.
Twenty guns at least. Perhaps more.
Then the grin came.
It spread slowly across James’s face, and there was nothing reassuring about it. It was far too pleased with itself for a man who was supposed to be thinking about where to hide.
He was not thinking about hiding.
Not even a little.