The Rosetta Key

I got up, hands scraped raw, and ran back to the other two. More shots, balls humming past.

“The aqueduct, effendi! We can use it for cover!” I nodded, pulling Astiza ruthlessly to keep up. She was wincing, her ankle twisted, but determined.

There was a stack of scaling ladders assembled for the next assault, and Mohammad and I seized one and threw it up against the old Roman engineering work. I pushed Astiza up from behind, rolling her over the top so we could collapse in the channel where water had run. It was a scrap of protection. Bullets pinged off the stone. “Stay low and follow this until we’re under the British guns,” I said. “Astiza, you go first with the scarf to signal them.” The plucky woman had held onto the thing even when her horse went down.

She shoved it at me. “No, it’s you they’ll recognize. Run and get help. I’ll follow as fast as I can.”

“I’ll stay with her,” Mohammad promised.

I looked over the edge of the aqueduct. The entire French camp was boiling. Silano had talked his way in and was pointing. Najac appeared to be loading my rifle.

No time to tarry.

I ran, the channel less than three feet deep, shots whining and pinging. Astiza and Mohammad followed at a pained crouch. Thank Thoth a musket can barely hit the side of a barn! Ahead, more French soldiers in advance trenches were turning to the commotion and raising their own guns.

Then an English cannon boomed from Acre, throwing up a gout of earth, and the French instinctively ducked back into their own trenches. Then another gun, and another. No doubt the defenders had no idea yet who they were shooting to benefit, but had decided that any French enemy must be their friend.

Then there was another bark, a scream, and a ball struck the pillars of the aqueduct. French cannon! The entire structure quaked.

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“Hurry,” I yelled back at other two. I ran at a duck, waving the scarf like a madman and hoping for a miracle.

More puffs of smoke from a French battery, and more sizzles as balls sailed past, some bouncing over their own trenches. One hit, and the aqueduct shook again, and then again. A ball crashed through the upper rim, spraying me with rock splinters. I blinked and looked back. Astiza was hobbling grimly, Mohammad right behind. Another hundred yards! Cannon banged away on both sides, an entire battle swirling around our little trio.

Then Astiza cried out. I turned. Mohammad has jerked upright, stiff, his mouth round with surprise. His chest bloomed red, and he toppled over. I looked back. Najac was just lowering my rifle.

It was all I could do not to run back and kill the bastard.

“Leave him!” I shouted to Astiza instead. I’d wait for her.

But then the aqueduct between us exploded.

It was a perfect shot from big cannon. The French must have brought up new siege guns to replace the ones we’d captured at sea.

The aqueduct heaved, ancient stone exploded in all directions, dust flew, and then there was a yawning gap between piers. Astiza and I were suddenly on opposite sides of a chasm.

“Jump down and I’ll pull you up!”

“No, go, go,” she shouted. “He won’t kill me! I’ll buy you time!” She ripped off part of her gown and began limping back, waving it frantically in surrender. The French fire slackened.

I cursed, but I had no means of stopping her. Heartsick, I turned and sprinted for Acre, fully upright now, gambling that speed would make me an elusive target.

If a longrifle were quicker to reload, Najac might have picked me off even then. But it would take him a full minute to get off another shot, and other bullets flew blind. I was beyond the forward French trenches now, to the point where the aqueduct’s end crumbled into rubble before reaching the walls of Acre, and even as cannon fire rippled on both sides I swung over its broken lip and dropped to the sand. Dust puffed from my boots.

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I heard the thunder of hooves and turned. Najac’s Arabs were riding down the length of the aqueduct for me, I saw, bent over their steeds and heedless of English fire.

I sprinted for the moat. It was fifty yards away, the strategic tower looming like a monolith, soldiers on Acre’s ramparts pointing at me.

It would be a near-run thing. Legs pumping, I ran as I’d never run before, hearing the pursuing horsemen closing the distance. Now men up and down the Acre wall were firing over my head, and I heard horses neighing and crashing as some went down.