 |
|
| |
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Then Hatcher's voice rolled out from within the pass. "Listen to me, you dumb shits.
Listen to reason! There's no escape. I have more men than you can ever kill!"
"Bullshit," J.B. muttered, his face streaked with soot and dirt. "I bet he's out of grens, or
down to his last one."
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...athlands%20037%20-%20Demons%20of%20Eden.html (73 of 258) [12/30/2004 8:13:12 PM]
Dlands 37- Demons of Eden
"I can blow you out of there, but let's end this now!"
No one responded to Hatcher's words.
"The outlander, Cawdor, knows what I want! All he has to do is give it to me, and this is
over. You have my word!"
"Do you all want to die," he went on, "all your women, your children? You want your
houses burned, your animals slaughtered, your crops stomped flat? Is that what you
want?"
Hatcher barely waited for a response. His hoarse, maddened voice roared, "If that's what
you fuckers want, we'll give it to you!"
A volley of shots ripped out of the gorge mouth. Everyone ducked, and the bullets
flattened themselves against rock. Then the bugle sounded, playing a familiar series of
melancholy rising and falling notes.
"No quarter," Doc said with a bleak smile.
"Good," Ryan replied. "That's just the way I want it."
Chapter Ten
Wincing in pain, Autry said, "Even if he's out of grens, he still holds the pass. We're still
boxed in."
Ryan laughed, a low, harsh chuckle without humor. "Not as boxed in as he's about to be."
Rising, he and his friends conducted a quick inspection of the fortifications, Autry
shuffling along behind them. Of the thirty-six defenders, only eleven remained on their
feet. More than a dozen were injured so severely that they could only lie on the ground,
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...athlands%20037%20-%20Demons%20of%20Eden.html (74 of 258) [12/30/2004 8:13:12 PM]
Dlands 37- Demons of Eden
bleeding and groaning.
Making a quick head count, Ryan counted at least nineteen Cadre casualties, both in and
outside the perimeter. He could only guess at how many wounded were within the pass.
The young man named Allen sat upright against the rock wall, his legs stretched in front
of him. Both hands were clasped over a hole in his stomach, and pink-gray entrails
showed between bloody fingers. When Doc knelt beside him, he stared up at him through
unfocused eyes reflecting the sure awareness of imminent death.
Face white beneath its coating of soot, Doc patted him on the shoulder and murmured a
few words to him. As he did so, Allen expired quietly, his body relaxing and slowly
sliding to one side.
With gentle fingers Doc closed the lids over the young man's staring eyes and rose,
turning away from the others.
After completing the circuit, Ryan said to Autry, "When I get over the wall, I want you to
pin down the Cadre inside the pass. Shoot at them, throw rocks, anything to stop them
from coming through it again."
"Get over the wall?" Autry asked. "Where are you going?"
Ryan holstered his blaster and didn't reply. He handed the Steyr to Krysty and vaulted
over the barricade and sprinted toward the foot of the right-side hill. He had run only a
few yards when musket balls began to strike around him. He saw the winks of several
muzzle flashes in the shadows of the gorge's mouth.
Heavier fire answered from the barricades behind him: a triple burst from the Uzi, the
door-slamming bang of Mildred's ZKR, then deeper reports from Krysty's and Jak's
handblasters, as well as a few softer pops from flintlocks.
A couple of musket balls plucked at his clothes, but he kept running. His eye was fixed
on the powder-impregnated fuse that stretched down from the top of the hill.
But even as he looked at it, the length of line suddenly quivered, was drawn upward in a
jerky fashion, then came flying back down, looping and coiling.
Ryan snarled and scrambled up the slope, grabbing at rocks and tufts of grass. When he
file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Ja...athlands%20037%20-%20Demons%20of%20Eden.html (75 of 258) [12/30/2004 8:13:12 PM]
Dlands 37- Demons of Eden
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plcs-sysunia.htw.pl
|
| |
|
|
|
| Podobne |
| |
|
| |
|