WebNovels

Chapter 42 - 42: The Duel and the Hidden Compartment

Henry looked toward the main gate. It was still shrouded in darkness; nothing had been set on fire.

He checked his status. The charge through the machine gun fire had only cost him four of his green pearl husks. He still had plenty of protection. He stored the granite block and began to move forward, low and fast, toward the manor gate.

The sky was a shade brighter now; he could make out silhouettes at twenty meters. The two massive iron gates had been blown from their hinges. He knew the layout of the grounds from his earlier reconnaissance. He slipped past the ruined gate and moved silently toward a stone statue twenty meters to his left.

Huh?

The silhouette of the statue seemed to shimmer, to shift.

Two double-action revolvers appeared in Henry's hands. He fired.

BANG!

A cry of pain from behind the statue, the silhouette now clearly visible.

BANG!

A second shot, and the figure collapsed.

At the same instant, muzzle flashes erupted from his right, thirty meters away, followed by the crack of two rifles. Three more flashes bloomed in front of him, a trio of shots ringing out in quick succession.

Two white pearl husks and one grey one shattered without a sound.

The moment he saw the muzzle flashes, Henry returned fire, his movements fluid and instinctive, like shooting at moving targets in a gallery.

BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG.

A series of pained cries answered his shots. In less than a second, he had emptied the remaining ten rounds from his two revolvers.

Then, from a 120-degree arc in the distance, eleven more muzzle flashes lit up the darkness.

Henry stood his ground, swapping his empty revolvers for two fresh ones, and returned fire, aiming for the lingering afterglow of their shots.

The quiet manor grounds erupted in a deafening, continuous roar, like a string of firecrackers being lit all at once. The air filled with the acrid smell of gunpowder and the coppery tang of blood, a black, swirling fog in the pre-dawn gloom.

Three more white pearl husks shattered.

Henry emptied his second pair of revolvers, then swapped to a rifle, putting two rounds into each of the two remaining muzzle flashes.

Another white husk shattered.

Four more shots, and then, silence.

He hadn't moved a muscle during the entire exchange, so as not to lose track of his targets' positions. At this range, a hair's breadth of an error meant a clean miss. In a firefight this fast, death was measured in milliseconds. He hadn't even had time to pull out his granite shield. No tactical expert would ever fight so recklessly.

He took cover behind the statue and waited.

A few minutes later, the sky began to brighten. For Henry, it was as bright as day.

He stepped out from behind the statue and, relying on his perfect memory of the firefight, walked to each of the fallen guards and delivered a final, merciful shot. He stored each body as he went.

Three of the men were still alive, struggling to raise their own weapons, but it was a futile effort. Their senses and reflexes were a fraction of his, and they were grievously wounded. They stood no chance.

When he reached the last guard, the man was already dying, a rifle bullet in his gut.

"…devil… impossible…" the man gurgled, his eyes already blind to the world. Henry figured he must have been the commander. He put a bullet in his chest—he had no interest in letting his enemies die with any understanding—and stored the body.

He walked to the main house. The front door was unlocked. He pushed it open and stepped inside. The grand hall was silent, filled with elegant, European-style furniture.

In the center of the room, on a large sofa, sat Sean McKinley. He looked at the masked figure of Henry with an expression of profound regret, and then, without a word, he pulled the trigger of the pistol in his hand.

BANG!

Sean's temple erupted in a spray of red and white, and he slumped sideways onto the sofa.

Ruthless to the end, Henry thought. If he had said a single word, if he had tried to aim at Henry, he would have had the gun shot from his hand. The men who dared to cross him were all of a similar breed.

Henry ignored the body and began to search the house. There was no one else there. He remembered from his observation the day before that he hadn't seen any women or children. Sean must have sent them away. He stored Sean's body and continued his search.

In the servants' quarters, over forty staff, including Sean's butler, Elliot, were huddled together, trembling and praying as they listened to the sounds of the battle.

After half an hour, Henry had collected eight oil paintings and sixteen miscellaneous ornaments. Still not satisfied, he went back to the master bedroom and the study, tapping on the walls and floors, searching for hidden compartments.

Finally, his LV 3 Theft skill paid off. He noticed something off about the space behind a large bookcase in the study. He found the hidden switch and the wall swung open, revealing a secret room.

"I knew it," Henry muttered to himself. "No way a place this large doesn't have cash on hand." He gathered up the stacks of bills and coins, along with twelve 100-ounce gold bars. The deed to the manor was there as well.

He took everything, closed the hidden compartment, and then went back outside to the warehouses.

From his earlier reconnaissance, he knew one was for general supplies, the other for weapons. He picked the lock on the smaller warehouse and found the armory. He took two more Gatling guns, 52 Winchester rifles, 124 Colt double-action revolvers, 36 single-action revolvers, roughly 50,000 rounds of .44 ammunition, 50,000 rounds of machine gun ammunition, 82 miscellaneous knives, 1,100 pounds of TNT, and 2,300 pounds of dynamite, along with hundreds of blasting caps.

By the time he was finished, it was nearly 7 AM. He opened the larger warehouse and helped himself to 120 bottles of whiskey, 240 Macanudo and Punch cigars, and other various supplies.

He left the doors of both warehouses wide open, then went and collected the bodies of the ten sentries from the watchtowers and the gate.

Finally, he went to the stable, chose an unmarked, saddled horse, and rode away.

Since the servants had been so cooperative as to stay hidden, he saw no reason to silence them. Besides, their terrified accounts of the battle would only add to his legend. No one would believe it was the work of a single man. Some of them were surely Sean's loyal men, but with their master dead and a warehouse full of supplies and a stable full of horses at their disposal… well, this was the West. Anything could happen.

As he rode out onto the main road, he saw that the horse he had left there hours ago was gone. He didn't give it a second thought and spurred his new mount toward Frisco.

He was back home by 7:30. He stabled the horse, checked the leaf in his door, and then went inside and took a long, hot shower, washing away the lingering stench of gunpowder.

More Chapters