The kick against his shoulder when he pulled the trigger felt harder than a musket’s, and the sound was different, a high-pitched crack instead of the smoothbore’s bang. Clouds of acrid smoke billowed from the lock and the end of the barrel, momentarily obscuring his vision as shouting erupted from the street below. Marcus leaned forward and saw that the man he’d been aiming for, the Patriot Guard beside the driver, had slumped from his seat and tumbled into the road. The man on top of the wagon was aiming his musket, sighting on the window gushing powder smoke, and Marcus hurriedly jerked his head back. Two more reports sounded, almost simultaneously, and there was a crash of falling plaster from the rear wall of the abandoned apartment he was holed up in. When he risked another look, the second Patriot was down, swearing and clutching his gut.

With both musketeers out of action, a loud whistle sounded, and attackers appeared at both ends of the alley. Walnut, eschewing weapons in favor of a pair of huge, iron-studded gauntlets and bracers, led one crew while Andy headed the other, waving a long wooden club. Their “troops” were a mix of Leatherbacks and refugee volunteers: Dockmen and women, some of the older boys and old men still hearty enough to swing a cudgel.

Not much of an army. Marcus set the rifle aside and swung out the window. Iron bars hammered into the splintering brick made a kind of ladder, and he climbed down a few rungs before letting go and dropping the rest of the way to the street, yanking his sword free of its scabbard. Just ahead, a white-haired, heavily whiskered man and a boy who could have been his grandson were dodging the wild sweeps of a swearing, club-wielding seedie, trying to get in close enough to land a blow. Marcus stepped up behind the militiaman and smashed him over the back of the head with the hilt of his saber, dropping him like a sack of rocks.

The melee was just about over. One of the seedies had climbed up to the top of the wagon, brandishing a long knife, a crazed look on his face. Walnut tried to grab hold of the edge and pull himself up, then hastily stepped back as the militiaman swiped at his face.

“You’re all going to the Spike for this!” the man shouted. “We’re official, damn you! We work for the Directory!”

“We know,” Marcus said, pulling himself up onto the box.

The seedie spun, knife thrusting, but Marcus interposed his saber in a lazy parry that sent the smaller blade spinning across the alley and left the militiaman cradling a gash on his fingers.

“Now,” Marcus said. “What’s in the wagon, and where’s it going?”

The man blinked. He had deep-set, piggy eyes, and a scraggly beard that didn’t fully hide his sagging jowls.