Gunpowder

Chapter VIII - Hot Pursuits

There was no time for pointless deliberations. She walked over to the unconscious man lying near the door. Judging by his uniform he was the captain of the guards. She wondered if there was enough time to interrogate this last witness. The screams on the courtyard proved that this was not the case. Her little auric show had been well heard outside the building and aroused much curiosity among the guards patrolling the neighbourhood. The agent, without losing a beat, grabbed the unconscious officer under the armpits and dragged him to the window, from which she then threw him out. She hoped that the defenestration would stop even the most curious for at least a few moments.

Meanwhile, she ran along the narrow corridor and without thinking much she yanked the wall lantern out of its holder. With a flick, she lit the wick and threw the flaming projectile under the askew desk. Another encountered lamp was thrown into the guards' locker room. When she jumped off the last flight of stairs, the top floor of the building was already burning with a merry, roaring fire.

At the door, she almost collided with the soldiers running into the building. She turned on her heel and maintaining her momentum she jumped through the back window into the inner, drill-and-exercise square. She landed softly with a forward roll and without losing any speed, she got up to run as soon as her feet touched the ground. With natural grace, she climbed to the roof of the jail wing, and from there to the roof of the adjacent building. Being already a good twenty-five feet above the square, she turned to take a look at the chase.

Some of the guards chasing her, came out to the square and having taken their weapons off their shoulders were setting up to shoot her down, but they were stopped by their sergeant. He was running in between them and banged their heads with his hat. He was also lifting the barrels of their guns. Iskandriel was a bit surprised, but a moment later she realized she was standing on a munitions' magazine full of gunpowder barrels, and the sergeant did not believe much in his men's marksmanship skills.

She kneeled down and jerked out one of the tar-covered wooden shingles covering the roof. Standing up, she perked her head and looking with a smile at the terrified soldiers, set the shingle alight with a flick of her fingers. She took one last look at the dense clouds of smoke coming from the windows of the main building's ground floor, waved cheerfully to the soldiers, dropped the flaming shingle to the rooftop and jumped off to a side street outside the compound. Pleased with herself, she ran towards the harbour. She came to the waterfront followed by a surrounding sound of bells tolling for fright, but she was disturbed by no one. Behind her, clouds of black smoke were rising up above the city centre, and the first echoes of a powerful explosion rolled through the harbour's narrow streets. The soldiers must have failed to extinguish the fire before it reached the gunpowder, thus causing the city more important problems than the fleeing girl. The distraction worked, no one was chasing her.

Running along the wooden pier, Sparks was already yelling to lose the moors off the quay and put up sails, even when she was still a good few dozen yards away from the "Thunder Led". Fortunately, Kristoff was on board and had prepared to set sail in advance. His experienced smuggling crew performed perfectly. Before the agent came to the ship, the mooring ropes have been thrown and the sailors stood with long poles ready to push the boat away from the pier. The gunners loaded their cannons with grapeshot, to prevent, if necessary, a possible pursuit.

The agent jumped onto the ship, which was already gliding along the pier with half raised sails. She grabbed a rope hanging from the boom and a sharp turn of the rudder dropped her on the deck in the middle of a forestay turn setting the ship on course to leave the harbour. The girl grabbed the sinewy arm of the bosun and stood up on her feet while the gunners accelerated the ship with long oars to give the sailors time to put up the rest of the sails. When they sailed into the departure corridor, the wind intensified, and the ship leaned on tack. The "Thunder Led" passed the head of the breakwater and went beyond the area enclosed by the line of the forts' walls. There, on the battlements such consternation reigned, that the cannons went absolutely silent, forgetting even the occasional salvo to deter the hostile ships.