Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures)

by Terry Kroenung

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “In case they get by me,” Tyrell replied in a preoccupied voice.

  “I can’t shoot somebody,” I whined in my best poor-little-Mary voice. “Give it to Tom.” I pointed to Romulus, who turned his head halfway, keeping an eye on the front.

  You’d have thought I’d asked Tyrell to boil himself alive. “Are you daft, child? Arm a slave?”

  “He raised me from a babe,” I shot back, stamping my foot and pouting like I’d seen spoiled rich plantation girls do in Maryland. “Taken care of me all my life. I don’t think he’s about to kill us and join them renegades.”

  With a shake of his head, the Confederate sighed, “Fool modern notions.” He unhooked the saber from his belt and slid it across the wooden floor to Romulus. “There. That’s as far as I can go.”

  Romulus closed the door, stood, and drew the sword. It looked like a toy in his huge hand. The heavy steel scabbard stayed in his other hand as a handy club. “They’s goin’ ‘round the back, sir. Front’s clear.”

  With a sour laugh Tyrell said, “No it’s not. That’s what they want us to think.” Hammering almost drowned out his words as musket butts pounded on the back door. “I’ve seen this bunch before. Hunted them, in fact.” He picked up his saddle and headed for the stairs. “Hellfiend Legion, they call themselves. Bounty jumpers and deserters. The scum of both armies, raiding on their own. They leave no prisoners as a matter of policy.” As two windows on opposite sides of the house were smashed in, he opened the cellar door and tossed the saddle down. “Land pirates, that’s what they are. Scum. But clever scum all the same. There’s an ambush waiting us out front, I’ll bet my mother on it. No escape that way.”

  Tyrell cocked his pistol and shoved me down the basement steps. He hollered at the top of his lungs, “Upstairs, everyone! We’ll sell our lives dear from up there!” Booted feet stomped across the floors of the empty house. Motioning for Romulus to follow me, he whispered, “That should buy us time to secure this door. Going upstairs is a death trap for us and they know it. They’ll look up there first and they’ll be careful about going up the steps.” He pushed us down the steps, swept our footprints from the floor with his hat, and closed the door. It boasted a strong lock on the inside. I wondered why. If they’d sealed up slaves in the cellar as punishment, or while waiting for a sale, the lock should’ve been on the outside. Determined men would make short work of it, but then they’d have to fight their way down a narrow stair, silhouetted in the doorway if we blew our light out, with no place to hide from that awful gun.

  With the door shut it was black as Hades. Our well-prepared guardian struck a match, though, and soon an oil lamp that had somehow survived the looting showed us our new refuge from a hook at the base of the steps. The basement looked a mess, but not as clean-picked as the rest of the house. An old mattress, boxes of rags, a broken pitchfork, spare bottles of lamp oil, a rack of spoiled pickles in jars, and other assorted junk items cluttered the lumpy dirt floor. No windows, even the usual tiny ones most cellars had, were in the upper walls. Somebody had wanted this place to be tight. And it was…a nice tight prison for us.

  “What now?” I whispered, pausing to listen as heavy feet clumped above us. “Once they see that we ain’t upstairs after all, they’ll have only one other place to look.”

  Nodding in agreement, Tyrell murmured, “Don’t I know it. But this is the best of a lot of bad choices. No way out for us means no way in for them. They won’t be keen to come down those steps one at a time to be picked off. They’re raiders. That means they prefer easy takings and running to fighting skirmishes. If they were lovers of battle they’d never have left the army.”

  “But won’t they just wait us out?”

  “No point. Come dawn they’ll be at risk of being spotted by a cavalry patrol from either army. That volley they fired at you will have piqued someone’s interest, this close to Washington. When the sun comes up they’ll want to be hiding in a patch of woods someplace. The Legion is badly wanted by both sides.” He started tearing rags into long thin strips, indicating that we should do the same. “Besides, they’ll have already noticed that we have no loot worth the fight. Tactical logic dictates that we aren’t worth the casualties they’d take.”

  He tied a rag strip across the railing of the stairs, less than a foot up. I saw what he wanted and added mine. Soon we had a tangle of tripwires ready for anyone who came at us. Romulus soaked the treads in oil to make them slippery, as well. We piled the heavy wooden rag boxes up in a wall at the bottom of the stairs. Throwing the mattress over it, we took shelter behind our barrier. The second we did so the cellar door exploded from a series of mighty kicks. Musket balls splintered the front row of boxes. Crazed voices screamed doom at us and shadowy figures clattered down the steps.

  So much for tactical logic.

  17/ Pickles

  I dove for the room’s opposite corner as my Marshal bodyguard took the head from the nearest foe.

  It bounced into my lap, blood splattering my face.

  Explosions, gun smoke, and curses pretty near overwhelmed my heightened senses. Tyrell took down the first three men with as many shots. Guess they drew the short straws. One fell near the door and got hauled back up by his fellows. The other two rag-dolled down the steps to crash into our box wall, scooting it back a foot and demolishing our careful tripwires. I squeaked, not just to stay in character as pitiful Mary. Men had been shot dead in front of me, their hot blood pooling near my foot. I scrunched back. This wasn’t like skewering Bullies, who most likely weren’t alive the way we’d think of it, or muck monsters. Real red murder was being done in this small space, to protect me. I hoped I’d prove worth all the slaughter.

  As soon as the door had been cleared another pair charged us, hoping that the first wave had undone our defense. They found out different, as both went down to the captain’s deadly aim. A quarter of the Legion had died already, heaped at the foot of the stairs. I thought of the awful battle at Shiloh in Tennessee, where the dead in the Hornet’s Nest were said to have been stacked like cordwood. My young mind boggled at the thought of hundreds, even thousands, being massacred like this. No wonder men desert the army, if they’re exposed to this sort of thing on a regular basis.

  Tyrell had four shots left, by my count, and so did I. Our enemy still had around fifteen men to throw at us, if they had the stomach for it. Maybe they didn’t. The cellar door banged shut and for a few moments we sat in silence, ears ringing. Whispers and scratchings above told us that our foes hadn’t chosen to retreat yet.

  “I guess five was enough to lose,” mused Tyrell. He turned to rummage in a pouch on his saddle. “Time to reload. If they try again it’ll be with something different.”

  Truer words had never been spoken. While his back was to the door it snapped halfway open. Something round and heavy bounced down the steps, sparks spitting out behind it. They’d tossed a shell at us! Before I could think of what I was doing I’d shoved Tyrell face-down into the filthy floor and kept him there with my foot. Ignoring his outraged grunt of surprise, I squared off to the shell, tin cup swinging at it as it bounced one last time, clearing the barrier. By the time I made contact with it Morphageus had answered my wish. A silvery cricket bat swatted the cannonball back at the door, flying through the diminishing opening as the renegades tried to close it.

  The instant the door shut a sharp crack split it down the middle. Screams of pain and fear, muffled by the damaged door, told us that somebody—several somebodies—had been hoisted with their own petard. Stinging smoke snaked through the cracked door. Our odds had improved some more. Maybe now they’d decide to cut their losses and go bother somebody else.

  “What happened?” asked Tyrell, dusting himself off and looking up at the demolished door.

  “They threw a shell, sir,” said Romulus, eyeing my bat in warning. I shrank it back into a cup before Tyrell could think to look my way. “Miss Mary shove you aside and throw i
t right back at ‘em. How ‘bout dat?”

  Giving me a long, hard look, one eyebrow up, the Reb said, “Well, Miss Williams, there’s more sand in you than I first judged to be the case. Well done. But perhaps you should leave the real fighting to the men, hmm?”

  It took a lot of effort to not roll my eyes at that, my experiences of the last couple of days being what they were. But blurting out something like ‘When was the last time you battled poison-spitting demons, Mr. Smarty-pants?’ wasn’t going to help our cause any. Besides, right then another shift in our fortunes drew my attention. While we’d been focused on repelling the assaults down the stairs, our enemies had been flanking us. A hole appeared in the ceiling with a tremendous screeching of nails.

  “They pryin’ up the flo’!” Romulus hollered, launching himself behind us to where a filthy hand waved a Colt revolver in our direction. The saber snapped out at it. Just as the gun fired the hand, still clutching the weapon, flew into a corner of the cellar. Its owner yowled and fell back from the hole. Somebody else jammed a Springfield musket barrel in his place, only to jerk away when he felt the sword’s point in his face. I hoped they were out of cannon shells or our brave defense would have a sudden end.

  “Lunacy!” Tyrell shouted, aiming up at the opening. “This makes no sense. Why do they want us so much? What do they think we have?”

  Before he could take that thought far enough to start asking direct embarrassing questions of me, the door crashed open again and more renegades fired muskets at us. They missed as we hurled ourselves against the walls, but that just gave those above their chance. More boards wrenched free and three screaming men dropped amongst us.

  Tyrell shouted for Romulus to deal with the falling attackers. I dove for the room’s opposite corner as my Marshal bodyguard took the head from the nearest foe. It bounced into my lap, blood splattering my face. Kicking it away, I lost my meager dinner beneath the pickle jars with a sour belly-lurch. The captain’s pistol roared four times. From the pained sounds that resulted it must have hit as many targets. Then I heard the hammer hit nothing. Reinforcements skidding down the oil-stairs shouted with malicious glee. Oh-oh.

  Another of the enemies from above went down, smashed into a wall by Romulus. That left one more, but another pair dropped down to his aid. All were armed with Bowie knives or hatchets. A ferocious four-way fight commenced, almost too fast for me to follow. Romulus snapped the knee of one man with a vicious whip of the scabbard, then used the shrieking fellow as a shield while he fought the other three. Blades gleamed in the weak lamplight from thrusts parried and cuts dodged. No one spoke taunting words like you read in novels. They only grunted from their efforts.

  At the base of the stairs Tyrell defended himself with the old pitchfork against two attackers with bayonets, their muskets empty. His new weapon missed a tine and over a foot of its handle, but was serviceable. The Legion fighters weren’t used to close-quarter bayonet work and kept interfering with one another, to the Reb’s advantage. He managed to grab the barrel of one musket. When its owner tried to jerk it back, Tyrell pushed as hard as he could. The unexpected shove, added to the enemy’s own force, jabbed the musket’s butt into his belly. He sat down with an oof. Tyrell tried to take the gun from his stunned hands, but just then the other man lunged at him and he had to leap away.

  While the vicious fighting continued I tried to think what I could do. Scurrying farther back into my corner was the first tactic I came up with. I bumped hard into the pickle rack. Luckily, none of the jars fell on my head. In fact, they didn’t budge an inch. One of Romulus’ opponents flew past me, his arm opened to the bone by the saber. More legs appeared in the ceiling hole and in the upstairs doorway. We were about to be overwhelmed. I gripped my pepperbox harder and thought about how best to use it, much as I didn’t want to shoot a man. Its legendary inaccuracy would make it as dangerous to friend as to foe.

  That was when it registered that the pickle jars should have moved…at least a little.

  I peered hard at the rack they stood on, then wiggled it. Hmmm. All of the jars were pinned to their shelves with angled nails at the base and copper wire at the top. My fingers traced up the side of the rack, feeling behind it. Ah, a latch! I thought so. With a quick jerk I freed the catch. The whole rack swung open on a well-oiled hinge on the far side. I peered in with my magicked eyes. A tunnel. An honest-to-goodness tunnel. I could see food stores and smell fresh air. So that’s why the locals hated you folks so much. I bet this used to be an Underground Railroad station.Good for you, whoever you were. You’ve just saved our bacon.

  “Hold!” a deep harsh voice hollered. I turned my head to see who it was. At the top of the stairs stood the leader of the men I’d bested earlier, during the first assault. His face was unexceptional, but scarred and cruel. The oil lamp swung back-and-forth from being bumped during the fighting, making his features even eerier. He wore a Union general’s hat, a Confederate artillery major’s shell jacket, and heavy civilian pants like I’d seen on teamsters. At his rough command the renegades ceased fighting. They had us all dead to rights anyway. Muskets poked through the doorway and through the ceiling gap. Our brave defense had failed.

  No one looked my way yet. I closed the secret door until it just about latched again. A quick yank would open it. Romulus lowered his sword and Tyrell dropped his makeshift weapon. His pistol pointed straight at the leader’s face. The man didn’t blink. In fact, he grinned. It wasn’t one of those happy grins, though. More like the ones boys at school make just before they dip your pigtails in an inkwell.

  “Nice try, but we all heard your hammer hit air. Drop it, if you please.”

  With a shrug the captain gave him a little ‘Oh, well’ smile and tossed the Lemat away, about three feet in front of me. Romulus did the same with the cavalryman’s saber. Now. Do it now. I jumped up and ran to Tyrell, hugging him tight from behind and whimpering.

  “Mister! Mister!” I blubbered, “whatever will happen to us now?”

  His eyes grew wide for a split-second as he stared at me. I tried to send him a message with my own eyes, but couldn’t be sure it’d worked. He ducked under the swinging lamp, which nearly thunked him in the head.

  “Mind the lamp, sir,” I added with a wink. Think, Tyrell, think.

  His mouth twitched as if holding back a smile. His hand squeezed mine, then his face grew nasty. “Stupid brat! What do you mean ‘us’? Look at the trouble you’ve got me into!” He shoved me away from him.

  Right onto the Lemat. I rolled hard as if he’d pushed me with great force, which he hadn’t. I ended up by the pickle rack, Tyrell’s gun beneath my jacket. I howled in feigned misery. Romulus moved like he’d step to my aid, but I stopped him with a waggled finger. Then I looked at Tyrell. I read it in his eyes. He’d seen me take the gun. I just hoped he knew what happened next.

  “Trouble!” said the enemy leader, not moving from his high vantage point. “Trouble’s right. I’ve lost better than half my force because of you. Bested by a Reb, a darky, and a little girl. Good thing the reward’s worth it.”

  Tyrell frowned. “Reward? For me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, grayback. Fer her.” He nodded toward me. “Somebody wants that kid real bad. And they’re payin’ a chest of gold to whoever gets her.”

  Oops…now I knew why they’d fought so hard to get to us. Should’ve known this was no accident. The Merchantry sure had a long arm.

  Tyrell gave him a shrewd eye. “And my people will pay just as much to get me back in one piece.”

  His people? Who were his people, I wondered. His rich family in Williamsburg? The Confederate government? Or somebody else?

  The Legion commander laughed like an executioner who’d been offered a penny to just forget the whole thing. “Oh, I hardly think so. Any other time I might oblige you, but I’ve lost too many men. The boys here are itchin’ for a bit o’ retribution. Though fer you I might make it quick, fer a consideration. Call it professional courtesy.”
He glared at Romulus. “Afraid this buck ain’t gonna get off so easy. Darky that size’ll make fer fine sport in the woods. We’ll hunt him like a bear the rest o’ the night. Might wear his skin fer a while. That’ll make an impression at our next raid.”

  Everyone except Romulus thought that was mighty funny. While all of them laughed and pointed at him, I took advantage of their eyes being elsewhere. I stood, reached under my jacket, and pulled out the pistol. It felt heavy as an anvil in my little hands.

  “No!” I barked, aiming the gun at the leader. “You won’t!”

  Dead silence fell on the whole group. You could’ve cut it with the proverbial knife. Then it roared back into life again.

  “Kid, you should leave fightin’ to the professionals,” the hard man at the top of the stairs warned me, wiping away a tear of mirth. “There ain’t no bullets in that gun.”

  I pulled the trigger for effect, knowing that nothing would happen. The loud click sent them all off into giggles again, but it also served to distract them while I thumb-flipped a lever on the hammer to its lower position and cocked it again. The Hellfiend Legion was about to get a lesson in Rebel weaponry…and in overconfidence.

  “And y’all should pay more attention to Confederate pistol design.” Tyrell inched backwards, knowing what was coming. “This here’s a LeMat revolver. Clever-designed pistol, it is. See, this here gun revolves around a tube, instead of a pin like you have on a Colt. And that tube happens to be, in this instance, a 16-guage shotgun barrel.”

  With that I pulled the trigger. The kick nearly knocked me off my feet. The explosion of 00 buckshot made my sensitive ears ring. I hit my target dead center…not the man who’d taunted me, but the blazing oil lamp hanging just above the last stair. Flaming oil splashed onto the steps, setting the oil we’d spread on them alight. Fire swooshed up, along with black smoke. White gun smoke also filled the cellar. Together it all blinded and panicked the renegades. That was all the help we needed. Romulus dove for the saber, rolling up to a knee with it. He pushed me toward the pickle rack and began swinging the heavy blade at enemy shins. Men swore and howled. Guns fell to the floor.