Pierre Pevel - By The Alchemist in the Shadows Page 0,124
'A rider! Stop him!'
Then he sat back and rapidly came to a decision.
Leaning forward, he opened a compartment beneath the bench opposite him and took out a case which he placed on his knees before opening its inlaid lid. Inside was a flask containing the liqueur of golden henbane.
He would have to transform himself.
His last metamorphosis, in Alsace, had exhausted him to the point that he was still unable to regain his primal form, but even an intermediate stage might be enough to save him now. He removed the stopper from the flask and greedily emptied
its contents before he was overcome by a fit of coughing, shortly followed by violent pains.
Three riders on horseback were escorting the coach, one before and two behind. Warned by the Alchemist, those two slowed down to detain Saint-Lucq who had already caught up with them.
Shots were exchanged, using pistols that had been tucked into the saddle holsters. The half-blood came under fire first and responded in kind. He hit one of the mercenaries, who toppled out of his saddle. His companion fired at the half-blood in turn. The ball narrowly missed Saint-Lucq who drew closer still. The other man then took hold of his second pistol and turned to shoot, but the Blade was quicker and succeeded in lodging a ball in the middle of his brow. The mercenary fell forward and was carried off into the distance by his mount.
Seeing the turn that events were taking, the coachman screamed and was heard by the rider galloping in front. The latter drew aside from the road and, hidden behind a thicket, allowed himself to be passed by. Saint-Lucq remained unaware of this trickery. He drew abreast of the horse belonging to the first mercenary he had shot and only had eyes for the pistol remaining in its saddle holster. He grabbed the weapon as he went by and tucked it into his belt, then spurred his own mount forward.
He caught up with the coach in the long dusty cloud raised by the hooves of the horses and the iron-rimmed wheels. He drew as close as possible, reached out his arm, found a handhold and clambered on to the narrow platform used by the footman. He thought he could then catch his breath, but a detonation sounded and a ball smashed into the coach next to his head. Still hanging on, he turned to see the last escort rider coming up the road at breakneck speed, already brandishing his second pistol. The shot, luckily, misfired, the powder burning without exploding and the weapon only spitting out a jet of flame. The mercenary threw it away and drew his sword. Saint-Lucq did the same. A fight commenced between the two men. The half-blood only had the one handhold and one foot on the platform, and he found himself hanging
hallway out over open space, at the rear of the coach whose jolting caused him to sway back and forth, thumping violently against the cabin. As for the rider, he was making wild slashes with his sword which Saint-Lucq sometimes parried and sometimes evaded by swinging a quarter turn to the left or right. But finally the half-blood struck back. Reaching out as far as he could, he planted the point of his blade into the mercenary's flank, who hiccupped and dropped his weapon in order to hold his belly with both hands. His horse slowed to a trot and then a walk, before coming to a halt as the coach vanished into the night.
Saint-Lucq replaced his rapier in its scabbard and took three deep breaths. He now needed to eliminate the coachman or at least force him to bring the carriage to a halt. Gripping the edge with both hands, he climbed up to the roof of the cabin and crawled over it face down. Unable to leave his station, the coachman tried to drive him away him with blows from his whip. Saint-Lucq protected himself with his forearm before managing to seize the leather cord and pull the whip towards him. The coachman gave it up, too busy trying to negotiate a curve which the vehicle was approaching at excessive speed. It leaned dangerously and the two wheels that lifted off the ground on one side fell back with a thump that shook both the axles and Saint-Lucq. Sliding across the roof, the half-blood caught hold at the last second and found himself once again hanging from the rear of the coach.