Gabriel Hunt - Hunt at World's End

“Get him out of here,” Gabriel shouted to Joyce. “I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

“We can’t leave,” Joyce shouted back.

“Don’t be a hero, Joyce, just go,” Gabriel said, but glancing back he saw she wasn’t being a hero, she was just describing the situation. The rear wall of the restaurant blocked their escape. They were penned in.

Chapter 21

Gabriel got to his feet fast and, ducking under the swinging sword of the cult member closest to him, rushed to a side wall of the restaurant where one of the pairs of spears was held crossed in a metal bracket. He wrenched them out of their mounting and threw one to Joyce. She caught it in both hands and swung it like a staff to parry another swordsman’s attack. Daniel, meanwhile, had grabbed one of the leopard-skin shields off the wall and was hiding behind it while another cultist battered it with his blade.

Gabriel’s attention was swiftly brought back to his own situation when the attacker whose last blow he’d ducked came back for a second try. Gabriel made as if to duck it again, but then stepped back and plunged the spear downward, like a primitive fisherman spearing a catch in a stream. The catch in this case being the cult member’s foot. The man howled in pain as the blade plunged through his boot, pinning him to the deck, and Gabriel breathed a silent thanks to the decorator whose taste he’d been mentally condemning earlier. It was still poor taste—but at least the man had gone as far as investing in real spears, not plastic or cast-resin fakes.

The swordsman sank to one knee, both hands going to the shaft of the spear in order to pull it out, and Gabriel snatched up the man’s sword as it fell to the deck. Spinning when he heard racing footsteps behind him, Gabriel swept it upward to meet the descending blade of one of the speared man’s compatriots. The blades struck in midair with a clang of metal against metal. Gabriel brought his down and under for a riposte that caught the other man across his unprotected wrist. A spray of blood jetted out.

But more of them kept coming. Good god, how many were there?

Gabriel fired his Colt twice more and he saw two more men fall. But he’d be out of bullets before they’d be out of men. He looked around desperately. Where could he get away from them…?

The hut. There had to be an exit there, leading to a belowdecks galley if nothing else. He ran for it, hooking a chair with one foot as he sprinted and kicking it backward into the knees of the man closest behind him. The man went over in a tangle of robes.

Gabriel plunged into the hut—and found his way blocked by a figure he had hoped never to see again. The high priest of the Cult of Ulikummis, wearing his red and gold tunic and tall, rectangular headdress, whirled the bronze-bladed staff in his hands. Gabriel fell back as the blade sliced past his face. He blocked the next blow with his sword, though just barely—the man was attacking fiercely and with more strength than Gabriel found himself able to muster. And probably without a glass of Montepulciano in him, either.

Gabriel raised his gun and fired—only to hear the hammer land on an empty chamber. He saw a vicious smile blossom on the high priest’s face at the sound.

Holstering his gun, Gabriel swung the sword in his other hand in a huge arc, not expecting to hit the high priest, just buying himself room to back out of the hut. The high priest shrank back, then came after him as he retreated.

Out in the open again, Gabriel shot a glance over at Joyce. She and Daniel were surrounded by the remaining cultists. Joyce had pulled a second shield off the wall and together with Daniel had formed an approximation of a phalanx, shield to shield, as a barrier against the swords crashing down on them.

The high priest advanced on Gabriel once more.

A loud crack followed by a clatter of wooden boards drew both men’s attention. Joyce, apparently having decided they were hopelessly outnumbered, had kicked a hole in the latticed wooden wall at the back of the restaurant and she and Daniel were backing out through it, still blocking incoming blows with their shields. The shields were too large to fit through the hole, but they were perfect for covering it, and Joyce wedged them into place in front of the hole as they made their escape along the deck behind it.

But the shields didn’t hold the swordsmen for long. One of them kicked them out of the way and plunged through the hole in pursuit while two others retrieved the bows and half-full quivers from their fallen comrades and let fly with new shots that carried over the lattice wall in deadly arcs.

Gabriel and the high priest watched all this in the handful of instants it took and then looked back at each other. “It’s just you and me now,” Gabriel said. The high priest howled in rage and swung his staff at Gabriel’s head.

Gabriel watched the point race toward him through the air. Timing his movement carefully—carefully!—he grabbed at the shaft as it neared, managing to get a grip just below the blade. He pivoted swiftly, drawing the high priest along with the staff. But the man was too savvy to be caught by the same trick twice. He let go of the staff before Gabriel could use it to drag him to the edge of the deck and over the railing. Gabriel had expected this. He punched backward with the butt end of the staff, knocking the man’s wind out of him with a firm blow to the belly. The high priest dropped to his knees gasping.

It was tempting to finish him off. But some distance away Gabriel heard Joyce shouting as she continued fighting off the attackers. She needed help—that had to come first. Gabriel ran toward the hole in the lattice wall, crawled through, and then took stock of the scene before him. Some fifty feet away, Joyce and Daniel were huddled behind a couple of upended lounge chairs and the bowmen, who had somehow gotten to the other side of them, were letting fly with arrows. Gabriel lifted the high priest’s staff like a javelin and heaved it in the direction of the larger of the two bowmen. The man didn’t spot it sailing toward him until the instant before it buried itself in his chest. But as soon as he fell, one of the remaining swordsmen ran to take up his bow.

At that moment, the aft stairwell door burst open, and three of the ship’s security guards ran out onto the deck, their guns drawn, shouting for everyone to freeze. The new bowman turned and reached for an arrow. The guards yelled at the cult members to drop their weapons. A pair of arrows shrieked through the air, piercing the torso of one guard and the neck of another. The third dropped to one knee and opened fire. Two white-robed men fell, and the others—few in number at last—pulled back. But one aimed and fired an arrow, and it found its mark. The third guard joined the first two in death.

In the distance, Gabriel saw Joyce and Daniel duck down behind the lounge chairs again. Gabriel sprinted across the deck toward them, the Death’s Head Key bouncing heavily against his chest under his shirt. An arrow zipped past him, striking the wall behind the sundeck. He darted over, dodging with one arm up to protect his head, and dropped to the ground beside Joyce. He glanced over the top of the lounge chair. The high priest was on his feet again and striding toward the three remaining cult members, two of whom were loading their bows with fresh arrows. He had his staff in hand once more, its blade red with the blood of the man from whose chest he’d drawn it.

“Something you need to know,” Gabriel said. “I’m out of bullets.”

“I figured,” Joyce said, “from how little shooting you were doing.”

The door leading to the stairwell was only forty feet behind them. Gabriel nodded toward it. “Think you can make it?” he whispered.