[Agatha]

The peasants' tables ran parallel along the length of the dining hall, with the shorter VIP table close to the inner wall, below the portrait of King Bruce. I marched straight to the middle of the central table. Mildly curious gazes from the monks and nuns since I was actually walking away from the serving table.

I lifted my robe up to my waist, exposing my knickers for all the world to see. Totally unladylike, but there was really no other way, and besides the Library-issue knickers were more like long johns than underwear.

No harm, no foul.

I drew both revolvers out of my belt, lifted them skywards and pulled both triggers. The twin booms shook the hall as the recoil almost slammed me to the ground. Rubble and plasterwork rained on my head.

Without breaking stride, Jack and I jumped on the table and positioned ourselves back to back, arms outstretched and guns aimed at eye level, Jack facing the table under the stained-glass windows, and I facing the VIP table.

"Everybody sit still!" I shouted at the top of my lungs.

Jack pointed his guns at the monks sitting inches from our feet.

"You! Leave your seats! Get on the ground!", he barked. "NOW!"

The monks stood up, knelt down and lay on the floor with their faces to the ground, too dazed to react.

"What do you think you're doing?" the abbess asked coldly.

"Shut up," I snarled.

"You don't know who you're dealing with."

"I said shut up!"

I pulled the trigger of the gun in my right hand. The lowermost right-hand corner of King Bruce's portrait disintegrated in a puff of debris. The bullet had passed close enough to the abbess' head to ruffle her hair.

"The Marines are coming," Abbot Edevane said, voice slightly trembling.

"They better be. I'm counting on that." I grinned. "Now, abbot and abbess, please stand up."

"What..."

"Stand the hell up!" I shouted, aiming both guns at them. "Do you know what I'm gonna do if you don't obey and someone plays at being a hero?"

"Shoot at everybody in sight until you run out of bullets?" the abbess asked, raising her eyebrow.

"Wrong. Leave everyone alone and shoot at you and your damn husband until I run out of bullets."

***

[Tristan]

"What the hell is going on?" Captain Shaikh shouted. He was red-faced and a little out of breath, but the big rifle in his hands wasn't shaking at all. He was ready, right hand holding the grip, elbow pointing out, butt of the rifle snugly against his shoulder, finger on the trigger.

The eight Royal Marines on his sides had the same exact stance.

Almost all of the rifles were aimed at Agatha and me, save for a lonely Marine who had noticed Jack beside the door and was keeping him in his sights. Not that there was much need for sights, we were virtually at point blank range.

I silently thanked the gods that my bladder was already empty.

"Captain Shaikh, please arrest these punks." The abbess' tone was of mild annoyance. "Or shoot them. I don't really care. Just get rid of them."

"Please don't," I chimed in. "Agatha has the abbot and the abbess in her cross hairs, and you must shoot me down first to hit Agatha. If you shoot, they die."

Agatha cocked both hammers to drive the point home.

The silence stretched on.

"What's your point, kids?" Captain Shaikh asked at last. "Have you the slightest idea of what you're doing?"

"We are leaving," Agatha replied. "Captain Shaikh, I have to inform you that the abbot and the abbess, along with Doctor Godefray and Doctor Estrada, are traitors plotting to hand over all the research extracted from the Cheetah Library and Echidna Library survivors to the Awakening League."

"This poor girl is raving, I'm afraid," the abbess purred. "Please stop this insanity, Captain."

"Go check the Library's storeroom," Agatha said. "Send one of your Marines. You will find three crates with all the stuff inside, nicely packaged and ready to be shipped away."

"I have not been notified about a pickup," the captain said.

"No, because it's not your people who're gonna do it, you moron. It's the League."

"You won't believe this little scoundrel." Abbess Litvin.

"If I were you, I'd listen to the crazy girl," Saoirse chimed in from under the table. I barely repressed a smile.

"Captain?" the abbess asked. "Are you still thinking about it?"

"The girl's accusations are weirdly specific," Captain Shaikh said slowly. "How do you know this, Miss...?"

"Agatha." I felt her shoulders shrugging against my back. "A little bird told me."

"Captain Shaikh, I'm shocked by your lack of sense of hierarchy." Poison was dripping from the abbot's words.

"Novikov?" Captain Shaikh called without turning.

"Sir?"

"Go check the Library storeroom. Come back as soon as possible to confirm if you have found the crates. And confirm the contents too. You have my permission to damage Library property if you deem it necessary."

***

Private Novikov, or whatever his rank was, was back in a few minutes, red-faced and breathing hard. My arms were beginning to feel sore. The guns weighed easily over three pounds each. Keeping my arms straight was getting harder by the minute. I could hardly imagine the effort this was costing to Agatha, with her gaunt physique. I was feeling her back muscles trembling.

Private Novikov reached Captain Shaikh and whispered something in his ear, then fished a couple of folded sheets from his chest pocket and held them before the captain's eye, slightly to the left to avoid blocking his field of view.

The captain studied the sheets for a few moments, then nodded.

"Miss Agatha's version checks out," he declared finally. "Abbot, abbess, you are under arrest. There's a lot of explanations you have to give, I suppose."

I didn't get to see their expressions, but I was pretty sure they weren't happy.

"Wonderful," Agatha breathed out. "Now, if you could just..."

"Not so easy, Miss Agatha."

I felt my blood freezing in my veins. Agatha too tensed up.

"I have to contact the headquarters in Camp Kelpie and ask for instructions."

"Good luck with that, pal," Agatha sniggered. "The telegraph lines have been rerouted to a League Army listening post. You'd be getting orders straight from Count Delauney's minions. Oh, I almost forgot. There's a League Army bunch of thugs approaching. ETA tomorrow."

"Bloody hell."

"May we go now?"

"I'm afraid not, Miss Agatha. We have suspects and clues, but I'm not a court martial. I need guidance from the headquarters for this."

"You can't contact your damn headquarters, you moron. The telegraph is in the enemy's hands."

"I'll send a dispatch rider."

"Hell of an idea, dude. The round-trip is gonna take just a couple of weeks."

The captain sighed. "So, what are you suggesting?"

"You let us go. The airship captain takes us away on Cloudswimmer..."

"Like hell I will," the airship captain growled. "I have cargo to deliver. We don't take passengers."

"You would leave us here at the League's mercy?"

"Not my problem. Besides, we have only your word about this matter. Shoot me if you want. I won't take you punks anywhere."

Agatha snorted. "All right, I've had enough. Is everybody listening to me?"

Chorus of assent murmurs.

"Wonderful. We are taking the airship. Cloudswimmer. Tristan, Jack, Saoirse and I. Saoirse is the little carrot under the table, in case you were wondering. Saoirse, say hello."

A small hand popped up from under the table. "Hello everybody. As I already said, you better listen to the crazy girl. She's usually right. And besides, you know, she's crazy."

"Thanks." I could hear the grin in Agatha's words. "Anyone wants to join us, you're welcome. We'll drop some cargo to make room for everybody. All the others, feel free to stay here and get butchered by the League."

"My crew stays here," the captain declared. "I'm curious to see how you are going to steer an airship by yourself."

Me too, pal, I thought.

"Guess I shall not bother asking the Royal Marines," Agatha snorted.

"You guess right." But there was a vein of admiration in Captain Shaikh's voice.

"All the others, do as you like. But be quick. Who wants to join us, please stand up and go to the end of the hall on my left."

I held my breath.

In the corner of my eye, I saw Sister Hinewai stand up.

"How do you dare, you greaseball," the abbess hissed.

She shook her big shoulders. "You're way too skinny to be a nice gal. And I'm not fat. I am big-boned."

"You people, you all got a death wish?" Agatha asked after a few moments, seeing nobody was moving.

No answer.

"All right, your choice. Let's go."

***

[Agatha]

The exit from the dining hall was way clumsier than I hoped for, but at least we were all still alive, and the only damages had been to the plasterwork of the hall, and to the pride of the abbot and the abbess.

"Now everybody get on the ground," I said loudly. "Slow and easy. Remember, I'm a crazy girl with large caliber revolvers and a bad temper. Is it okay for you, Captain Shaikh?"

"As long as you put people out of the line of fire, I'm happy."

"Jolly good. Abbot, abbess, not you. You keep standing where you are."

I stepped down from the table carefully, keeping my guns aimed squarely at them. Tristan too got off the table, avoiding sudden movements, lest a trigger-happy Marine saw some imaginary threat.

I moved slowly, crab-like, to the end of the table close to the exit door where Sister Hinewai was waiting, shadowed by Tristan along the other side of the table. Jack too followed us slowly.

I nodded at the abbot and the abbess, who were still looking into the barrels of my guns. "Come here."

They obeyed without objection.

"Sister Hinewai," I called without turning as soon as we were all together.

"Yes?"

"Are you any good with a gun?"

"You gotta be kidding, scarecrow. I learned to shoot when I was six. How do you think we could keep the wild boars away from our garden back at the farm otherwise?"

I grinned. "That's my girl. Tristan?"

"Yeah." Tristan handed Sister Hinewai one of his guns, butt-first. In the corner of my eye, I saw the big novice holding the gun with a natural gesture. We had decided to leave Jack unarmed to take care of his sister.

"Now comes the difficult part," I said. "Captain Shaikh, my people and I will go out of this hall and get to the airship. You will stay here with the clerics. And you will not follow us."

"Otherwise?"

I made a step to Abbess Litvin and put the muzzle of one gun to her forehead. "The old bat here dies." I did the same with Abbot Edevane. He flinched. "Then her despicable husband follows. You want a trial, you let us go. If you follow us, if we see you behind our backs, if we see you getting out of this hall before we have taken off, you'll just have to settle for scraping their brains away from the walls."

"Deal," Captain Shaikh snorted. I had a feeling he wouldn't have minded the sight of the brains of the turncoats splattered on the walls.

***

We closed the door behind our backs, locked it and broke the key inside the keyhole. And with we, I mean that Tristan tried, but couldn't even bend the big brass key, Jack too tried, with the same result, and finally Sister Hinewai snorted and broke it in two pieces without apparent effort. I made a mental note to avoid confrontations with her, or at least to equip myself with a cannon beforehand.

We got out of the cloister, crossed the inner courtyard that surrounded the central spire and entered the reading hall. Cloudswimmer was a big dark shape hanging three hundred feet above our heads, swinging softly in the wind.

"Great job, you punks," Abbess Litvin grunted. "I'll enjoy the show of seeing you drifting away on that airship. Our League allies will be grateful for the free target practice."

"Shut up," I growled, jabbing harshly at her nape with the muzzle of my gun.

Tristan put his mouth to my ear.

"She has a point. We're an airship crew short of what we need."

"I'll come up with something," I growled.

"Agatha, I mean it," he whispered again. "How can we steer an airship if none of us is an airman?"

You can ask kindly.

I flinched and let out a small shriek.

A voice in my head.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Who the hell is this?

"Agatha, are you all right?" Tristan inquired, frowning.

I put a finger to my lips and nodded at Abbess Litvin, who had frozen. Tristan got the hint and aimed his gun at her head.

I am The One Who Swims Among Clouds, the voice replied. The Helmsman of the airship you know as Cloudswimmer.

Bloody hell. I didn't know it was a wet airship. So, we have to kidnap you too to get out of here?

Not at all, Agatha. I'm willing to help you.

You know my name? Dude, I can't understand what's going on anymore.

"Hey, what's up?" Sister Hinewai asked from behind Abbot Edevane, gun to the abbot's nape.

"Nothing. Shut up," I shot back.

My brothers The One Who Gazes At The Stars and The One Who Dreams About The Sea told me about you. You are Agatha Manticore, Friend of the Many Armed Folk. It will be my pleasure to help you.

It suddenly came to my mind that I had never said my surname to Stargazer or Seadreamer, but let it go for the moment.

That's it? You agree to take us away?

"Agatha?" This time it was Jack.

"Give me a minute."

No, you'll have to kidnap me first.

I frowned. Dude, you just said...

Agatha, if we were face to face and I were a human, now I'd be winking.

***

NEXT UP: Agatha and her friends manage to get out of Typhon Library, but they aren't home free just yet