Grantville Gazette, Volume 45 by Eric Flint

Author:Eric Flint [Flint, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Action & Adventure, Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Space Opera
ISBN: 9781618248701
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2012-12-31T18:30:00+00:00

Windmill at the road from Bechstedt to Isseroda

Near Weimar, New United States, CPE

Next morning

Maria Becker left the windmill where the Hessian murderer and his cronies kept their supplies. With all the power of her twelve-year-old muscles, she dragged a sack of flour down the ramp. The thugs wanted bread for breakfast, so she had to start the dough now.

Suddenly she saw a man on a horse. A tall, haggard man, wearing a strange kind of suit. He had something like a lance in his right hand, and a hat with a big brim on his head. The bandits had apparently noticed him, too. Schöntal had already gotten up and now went to meet the strange man, holding a pistol casually in his hand.

****

Marshall slowly approached the windmill on his horse. The bandits were sitting at a campfire, where something was cooking in a pot. Their horses were tied to some stakes in a meadow nearby.

Most of their guns could be seen strapped to their saddles some yards away, but some of the men nevertheless had wheel lock pistols and sabers lying close at hand.

When they noticed Marshall, they grabbed their weapons. A short, sturdy man with an enormous black mustachio and a pistol in his hand rose and took several steps forward.

Noticing that Marshall was obviously unarmed apart from the ranging pole he had removed from its sheath and now was holding upright like a lance, he started to smile. It was a sneering, arrogant grin.

He bowed deeply before Marshall. "Guillaume de Beauvallée, a votre service," he said, but the following words gave away his thick Hessian dialect. "Whom do I have the honor to meet on this wonderful morning?"

"I'm Marshall Ambler, and I've come—" He pointed to the young girl, who had just left the windmill, and who hauled a large sack. "—to retrieve your captive."

"Oh, yes." The bandit's grin was now only sardonic. "You, and which army?" He waved about with his pistol. His cronies laughed joyfully.

"Mr. Bill Bo-valley, I don't need an army, as long as I have my magical instruments with me." He lowered the ranging pole; its point was still several yards away from Schöntal, but now pointing to his forehead. "So please drop all your guns and make your way back into whatever rat-hole you have crawled out of."

"Oh, so you are one of these mythical 'Américains.'" He lifted his pistol and carefully aimed at Marshall's upper body. "But do you know what I think? I think—"

Nobody would ever learn what thoughts really crossed his mind at that moment. A muffled crack split the quietness of the morning, and a red flower bloomed on Schöntal's forehead.

The fact that the back of his head blew away at the same time added to the absurdity of the event. Marshall could still see a kind of puzzlement in his eyes, when Schöntal slowly fell on his back. The same puzzlement now showed on the faces of his cronies.

Marshall changed the aim of his pole to the next of the bandits, who had not yet brought his pistol to the ready.

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