Free A Study in Darkness by Emma Jane Holloway Page B

inarticulate cry behind him, and he whirled, ducking slightly for balance as the wounded man fell to the ground. A third assailant was there, raising his weapon to shoot. Nick kicked that one in the head hard enough to hear his jawbone snap.
    The Schoolmaster was trading gunfire with another three. He’d produced a second weapon from somewhere and was shooting two-handed, the ends of his scarf flipping with the recoils. Using the bloody knife in his hand, Nick reduced the man’s opponents from three to two.
    Suddenly, there was quiet. It had only taken a matter of minutes to end six lives. Nick’s knees trembled slightly as tension seeped out of his muscles. The Schoolmaster tipped his hat back with the barrel of one pistol. “Damned fine work. Do you always fight with knives?”
    “No.” Once, he’d entertained with them, made people laugh and gasp with admiration. Nick slammed an iron door on those memories. “But I like the quiet.”
    The man’s laugh was uneasy. “Well, good luck, Captain. I think we had best go.”
    But Nick caught his arm. “How did they know we were here?”
    The Schoolmaster stiffened. “A traitor, obviously.”
    That was barely an answer, and not nearly enough to satisfy Nick.
    The man must have read it in his silence. “I don’t know any more than that, but I’ll make it my business to find answers.” The Schoolmaster’s voice was furred with anger.
    Nick released his grip. That was still not good enough, but he had to get to the ship. Then he felt the slippery heat on his fingers. “You’re bleeding.”
    “So I noticed,” the Schoolmaster drawled. “Though it’s nothing that will keep me from carrying a well-deserved brandy to my lips. Good night, Captain Niccolo.”
    “Good night, Schoolmaster.”
    The man was hurt, but was already walking quickly away,so it couldn’t have been any more serious than the sting the bullet had left in Nick’s leg. Annoying, but not bad enough to hold him up. Nick paused long enough to collect his knives, then turned and sprinted in the direction of the
Red Jack
. The road looped to the left, but he cut through the rutted field that he and Striker had crossed to reach the tannery. It had been plowed and left in furrows, turning his stride into an ungainly lope. To make matters worse, recent rain had turned the dirt into a boot-sucking mud, but going this way gave him the best chance to catch up to the Steamer. As he crested a rise, he got a clear view of the land.
    Straight ahead, where the road jogged, Striker had abandoned the Steamer. The strange-looking vehicle, with two enormous wheels in back and a smaller one in front, looked like nothing so much as a solid-sided birdcage big enough for two people. The engine sat in front beneath a metallic hump that reminded Nick of a snout. A single smokestack puffed out the top, and a round-topped oaken trunk was strapped on at the back for luggage. To date, Nick had declined to ride in one of the vehicles, mostly for aesthetic reasons.
    Striker had left the Steamer at the point where the road could take him no closer to the
Red Jack
. Now he had the parcel draped over his shoulders and was trudging toward the far side of the hill where the ship was hovering in a shallow valley. No other airship, however clever the design, could have snuggled out of sight quite so easily, but the
Jack
had a distinct advantage in both its captain and Athena’s capabilities.
    Nick climbed over a stone stile into another field. This one had a handful of heavy workhorses sleeping in a loose huddle. He ghosted past the animals, breathing in the familiar scent, and then climbed over the fence at the other side of the enclosure.
    Now he was standing to the south of the
Red Jack
, with Striker to the west. The Scarlet King’s soldiers were crawling over the hills to the northeast, right where the ship’swatch would have the most difficulty seeing them. The same little bird that had told them where Nick and the