Eric Flint - 1635 - The Papal Stakes

Except not all those lethal projections were clearly snow-marked, Miro realized. “Virgilio-!”

Franchetti saw the daggerlike horn of dark-gray rock that jumped out of the shadows at them. Probably the morning sunlight had melted it clean, allowing it to lurk, camouflaged, in the shadows of dusk. As they sped sideways to meet its disemboweling slice, sure to shred the gondola and drop them thousands of feet to their collective deaths, Miro watched Franchetti struggle to get the airship down and out of the cross-valley draft. And that was when he realized that, instead, they had to “Climb!” shouted Miro. “Pitch engines for rapid ascent; throttles wide open!”

“Wha-?”

“Do it!” roared Miro, who leaped over to the burner and opened its choke to full burn.

No longer trying to fight back down into and through the cross-current, the sudden increase in both lift and upward thrust pushed the dirigible suddenly higher with what seemed like a hop. Piz Calderas’ granite claw reached out for them — and bumped lightly against the bottom of the gondola, before they soared up beyond it. They were still angling toward the higher reaches of Piz Calderas, but without the same powerful side draft. They had also climbed over the most intense core of the winds. Behind Miro, people began to breathe again.

Franchetti turned; his brow was as wet as if he emerged from the lake they were now angling back toward. “Don Estuban, I-thank you. Merde! Just thank you.” From the other end of the gondola, Miro was pretty sure he could hear the robed passenger murmuring what sounded like a prayer of thanks.

Miro sank back into a seat and then felt something thump against his back. He turned around just as George Sutherland’s big, meaty paw landed for a second friendly pat. “Not half bad, Don Estuban, not half bad.”

Harry, too, was smiling at him. Indeed, they all were. Miro nodded, smiled back and stared once again across the valley at the alps that had almost killed them.

North watched the light dying in the narrow strip of sky that looked down at them from between peaks that soared up and away like walls reaching to Heaven itself. Then he lowered his gaze to peer beyond the edge of their sheltering copse, following the track that descended toward the western extent of the Val Bregaglia.

But before the valley dipped down to where the Mera picked up speed and spread wider and shallower, the wagon track passed before the door of the humble church and cottages that comprised the hamlet of Castagena. Where, evidently, a wedding had run late; a dozen revelers were still milling about. Half seemed to be trying to tidy up the area and hush the other half. Who, for their part, seemed unwilling to realize that the festivities had ended.

North drew a deep breath. “Pass the word: as soon as the last of these bloody merrymakers have cleared off, we travel weapons out and at the trot. We have to move swiftly to the extraction site and establish our defensive perimeter in the dark. Not a simple exercise.”

“And still no way to know if there will be anyone there to be extracted.”

“Yes, a bit problematic, that.”

“How long do we wait at the extraction site, Colonel?”

North gave Hastings a sour look. “Until it’s time to leave. How the hell do I know how long we’ll have to wait?”

Nichols put a hand on Tom Simpson’s arm. “Hold up, there. Let me look at that wound, again.”

“Doc, we don’t have the time-”

“There’s a lot of things we don’t have the time for. You bleeding to death is on the top of the list. Now stand still.”

The rest of the group moved on ahead. Melissa’s iron determination had kept her going-that and the decreased pace that Tom had set. Rita and Arco were taking turns all but carrying Ginetti as they made their way upslope around a hamlet that made tiny Piuro look like a bustling metropolis.

Tom looked over his shoulder. “Is it bad?”

“Not bad but messy. And unlucky. This musket ball reopened the grenade wound you picked up while rescuing Urban. I’ve got no way to stop the bleeding out here.”

“Can’t you-I don’t know-bind it?” Tom felt idiotic even as he said it.

James Nichols’ long silence made him feel even more stupid. “Tom, just how would you propose I bind a lateral wound on a single buttock?”

“Okay, dumb idea. Look, we don’t have much farther to go. On the far side of the hamlet-Villa, I think they call it-the Mera widens out. There’s a light forest hugging the north bank. When we get beyond that forest, we’re at the rendezvous point. So listen: you go on ahead and-”

Tom felt James’ shoulder muscles, corded with age but still strong, slip under his right armpit and hoist. “Nope. You’re coming with us.” Tom rose to his feet, wobbled.

“Pain?” asked Nichols.

“Naw, just dizzy.”

“That’s the blood loss.”

“Blood loss? What, do I have an artery in my ass?”

“No, Tom. But you’ve been pushing yourself over hill and dale for hours now, and even slow bleeding is going to make you light-headed and weak.”

“Not a good time for those symptoms,” Tom observed, trying to move without Nichols’ help, but not succeeding brilliantly.

James Nichols paused, lifted his head to hear over the Gallegione cataract crashing down from the heights ahead and to the north. “No, not a good time at all.”

Tom had heard it too: the fraction of a shouted order. In Spanish, and farther back along the wagon track they had been following.

It had become so dark that Miro was uncertain how Franchetti was flying. The last light glimmered off the Lunghinsee, far to the left. The lake was the source of the River Inn, a distinction that conjured images of a broad expanse of water, cascading over rocks in a flume that would eventually reach the sea. But in actuality, the Lunghinsee was a puddle compared to the Marmelsee. It was small, stark, and alien: an absolutely unrippled mirror surface, held in the grip of mountains as barren as those of the moon.

The dirigible dipped sharply; Miro and the other passengers braced themselves, but Franchetti’s explanation-shouted over the engines-put them back at ease. “We have gone over the Septimer Pass, which is just above seven thousand, two hundred feet. The last alps of the Oberhalbstein Range are now behind us to the left, the west. We now head down into the Val Bregaglia by turning west at Vicosoprano.”

“And we should be at the rendezvous in how long?”

“I cannot say until we see what the winds are like in the valley. But about half an hour. Sooner, if conditions are good.”

Miro turned to the Wrecking Crew. “Ready your weapons.”

North hissed at Hastings as he went past. “Keep your squad away from the banks of the river; there isn’t enough tree-cover there.”

Hastings looked dubiously overhead at the stars that were beginning to shine through the dusty-rose and mauve of late dusk.

North grumbled as Hastings opened his mouth to reply. “No, Lieutenant, it’s not as dark as you think. Not so dark that buckles and barrels won’t catch a bit of light and alert the Spanish. That’s why our men’s rifles went back in their cases for the nonce. The Spaniard is not always imaginative, but he’s a steady, seasoned soldier. If you get lazy, he will teach you the error of your ways: a lesson that might end with you waking up in Heaven. Or in slightly less lofty regions, in your case.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No heroics, Hastings. When you get to the edge of the woods overlooking the cataract, set up a loose skirmish line that extends upslope thirty yards from the cart-track.”

“Sir, this being spring in the Alps, there could be several mountain run-offs, so how can I tell which-?”