At least he was still alive, which had to be a good sign. If they’d simply wanted to rob him, they’d have killed him there and then, and left his body in the sand for the vultures and wolves to eat. But the fact they’d bound him and brought him along for the ride meant… what? That they wanted to take him somewhere? Question him?
Torture him?
No, no, he wouldn’t countenance that. He’d win their trust somehow; make them understand how invaluable he’d be as an ally, how much they could help each other.
Lying on his side on the sand, Ballard squirmed, trying to get comfortable. His feet had been tied together, his hands bound tightly behind him, and a thick wad of brightly-colored but filthy material had been crammed into his mouth, then secured with a strip of brown cloth that stank of sweat and worse. He tensed as a scorpion scuttled towards him from behind a nearby rock, seemed to regard him for a moment, its pincers poised and its sting raised like a question mark above its head, and then, when he twitched, darted away.
Fifteen feet in front of Ballard, just close enough that the warmth of it took the edge off the cold night air, was a freshly built camp fire. Two of the three brigands who had captured him were now sitting around it, warming themselves and roasting lumps of meat on metal skewers. The third brigand was some distance away, tethering the six horses tightly together. He was the youngest of the trio, with a full set of teeth and only a straggle of facial hair.
Ballard had come to think of this man as Brigand 3; he was very much the junior member of the group and performed most of the menial tasks. Brigand 1, who was now biting into the fatty meat on the end of his skewer, making slobbering noises as he chewed, was plump and sweaty with a growling voice. Brigand 2, sitting beside him, was older, skinny and almost toothless. He had a full beard and a jagged red scar down the left side of his face. All three men stank of unwashed flesh and were dressed in dark robes over layers of rags. Ballard had seen them laugh, but only at his discomfort. Most of the time they conversed in guttural, staccato phrases that he didn’t understand.
He was hoping that once they removed his gag so that he could eat—which they surely must at some point—he could talk to them, draw them into his confidence. They were unintelligent, uneducated men. Like Pero, they would be malleable, easy to manipulate. All he had to do was bide his time…
His eyes widened in concern as Brigand 3 trudged back over to the camp fire carrying a couple of Ballard’s saddlebags, which he had removed from the pack horse. Ballard knew that the saddlebags contained Wang’s copious notes about black powder, as well as various black powder based weapons and, of course, large quantities of the stuff itself.
He was worried enough about the notes—he’d need them if he was going to make a long-term profit from his windfall—but what made him far more anxious was the prospect of large quantities of black powder so close to the fire. If it wasn’t handled with care they could all be blown to Kingdom Come. But how could he communicate such information to these primitive savages in his current state? He wriggled like a worm on the ground, making frantic sounds in the back of his throat to draw their attention. Brigand 3, firelight playing across his face and across the leather saddlebags he was carrying, glanced his way briefly, but then turned his head dismissively away and sat down next to his companions.
Ballard watched in horror as Brigand 3 opened the first of the saddlebags and began to scrabble at the contents. He pulled out Wang’s notes with abandon, tearing the delicate parchment, glanced at them a moment, and then—clearly unable to read or understand them—tossed them away. Some of the rolls of parchment landed on the sand nearby, some were picked up and blown into the surrounding darkness by the wind, and some drifted into the camp fire, where they shriveled and were quickly consumed.
Ballard glared at the man, as if hoping the sheer force of his fury could stop his hand. He wanted to rage at him and his companions, ridicule them for their ignorance, punish them for their presumption, their effrontery, their willful destruction of his precious property. But he was helpless to do anything. All he could do was watch as Wang’s black powder formulas, his painstaking research notes, his diagrams of potential weapons, were scattered to the wind, or burned, or crumpled. He felt like weeping in frustration. There was even a part of him that wished Pero would magically appear and dispatch these three filthy primitives, lopping their heads off where they sat.
When Brigand 3 tossed the first saddlebag aside with a snort of disgust and opened the second, Ballard really began to sweat. He saw the man delve inside and rummage about. Then he saw his hand emerge clutching one of Wang’s black powder grenades.
In many ways, Ballard knew the worst thing he could do was react, but he couldn’t help it. He managed to remain silent as Brigand 3 examined the grenade with a puzzled expression, but when he casually tossed the grenade to Brigand 2, and when Brigand 2 fumbled it, causing it to drop in the sand close to the fire, Ballard screamed. Or at least, he made a shrill, panicked sound behind his gag, which drew his captors’ attention. They looked at him at first curiously, and then with amusement, as he attempted to squirm back from the fire, his eyes bulging. They said something to one another, and burst into uproarious laughter. Even when Ballard shook his head frantically from side to side, trying to communicate to them the terrible danger they were in, they only laughed and mocked him.
Brigand 2 picked up the grenade, looked at it, then handed it to Brigand 1, who was grasping for it with greasy fingers. Brigand 1 sniffed the grenade, as if hoping it was something to eat, and then leaned forward with a groan, holding it close to the fire for a better look.
In his mind, as he frantically wriggled backwards until he was squashed up against a sheltering outcrop of rock and could wriggle no further, Ballard was screaming at them. In truth, though, he could only make shrill and muffled noises beneath his gag—noises which they either ignored or laughed at.
When Brigand 3 pulled one of the small leather bags of black powder out of the saddlebag, opened it and tipped a quantity of the powder into his cupped hand, Ballard felt as if the panic trapped inside him would make his heart explode. Then Brigand 1 barked something at Brigand 3, causing Brigand 3 to swing round so quickly that some of the black powder blew out of his hand and drifted towards the fire.
Next instant there was a sound like the world splitting apart and a burst of blinding light. Ballard experienced a brief, agonizing blast of pain and heat, and then he felt no more.
Pero was marching in the moonlight, following the direction Ballard had taken. The scowl and dead-eyed stare on his face had been in place for the past eight hours. He marched steadily and with great determination, energized by a survival instinct that was second to none and a seething desire for revenge. Horses or no horses, he would track Ballard down. And when he did he would take the black powder from him—but not before he had ripped the man’s head off with his bare hands.
Aside from the soft chirruping of desert insects and the occasional faraway howl of a wolf, the night was silent. Suddenly, though, the peace was shattered by a muffled explosion that echoed flatly from the mountains and seemed to cause the very air to ripple.
Immediately Pero’s head snapped up. His lips curved in a scimitar-like grin. And then, feeling very like a desert wolf himself—one with the smell of his prey’s blood in his nostrils—he broke into a smooth and tireless run.
William and Wang stood side by side, watching as the final balloon was inflated. In a few moments it would be time to climb aboard, and then there would be no turning back.