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He began to shoot a heartbeat before her.
Doc was awash with sweat, his hand and right sleeve sodden with spilled blood.
It had been a lifetime since he'd been coached by Adelmo Sicilio at the Boston
Athletic Club in the fine points of epee, foil and saber, and he had been so
much younger then.
His arm was exhausted.
The muties hardly even tried to parry his repeated lunges, and three more were
down on the floor, being trampled on by their fellows. One was choking, pink
froth bubbling from the narrow wound in his chest.
Despite all Doc's endeavors, they still pressed forward against him, knives
flailing as they tried to peck at him. Their efforts were so clumsy that he
noticed several had cuts on hands and arms from the weapons of others.
But none of that counted.
When he heard the snap of gunfire, Doc could hardly believe it, not until the
press of bodies seemed to weaken, heads turning to stare behind them.
The shots were calm and measured.
"Not head shots," Ryan shouted to Krysty. "Might ricochet and hit Doc. If he's
still alive in there."
"Hang on, Doc!" Krysty yelled.
"By the Three Kennedys! Is that the Seventh Cavalry coming over the hill in
the last reel?"
The guttural bellowing of hatred for the white-haired outlander had almost
stopped, replaced by a thin, anxious piping. Those at the head of the crowd
were aware of the attack from the rear and were trying to
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Deathlands - Cold Asylum push out of the death trap of the steel elevator,
while those caught helplessly at the back were seeking cover from the
remorseless hail of lead by elbowing their way toward the front. It was bloody
chaos.
Ryan leveled his blaster, picking his targets with great care. At such close
range it was impossible to miss, but it was important to try to make every
round a killing shot, going for the center of the spine, level with the heart
and lungs. Or, if the muties had turned, to drill them neatly through the
middle of the chest. Of his first eight bullets, seven were instant clean
kills. The eighth was just ducking away and got hit under the left arm, the
full-metal-jacket round angling up off the ribs, exiting through the side of
the neck.
Krysty was equally careful.
Her Smith amp; Wesson 640 held only five rounds, so she used four, taking out
four cannies, obeying the great Deathlands rule that Ryan had drummed into
her, about not using your last bullet unless you had to.
Doc leaned against the scuffed wall of the cage, watching the miraculous
dissolution of his enemies.
Bodies tumbled and, literally, gallons of blood poured across the floor,
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lapping at the toes of his boots.
The muties cracked and finally turned to run, moving with exaggerated
clumsiness, their arms flapping like penguins, heads wobbling on weak-muscled
necks. They dropped their weapons as they lumbered from the killing ground,
scattering, disappearing down the other passages.
"Reload," Ryan instructed, watching them flee. He waved a hand at the figure
of Doc Tanner, towering above the mound of twitching corpses that blocked off
the entrance to the elevator. "You all right in there?"
"Never better, my dear fellow."
From behind Ryan he heard the voice of J.B., raised in concern. "Need help?"
The Armorer would never use three words when two would do the job.
"No. Chilled some. Rest gone." He smiled as he matched J.B. at his own game.
Doc had wiped his rapier, picking up the polished ebony sheath that converted
it into a walking stick. He climbed carefully over the bodies, unable to avoid
stepping on the chest of one of the two mutie women chilled, forcing a gasp of
crimson froth from between her blue lips.
"Do I assume that we are all united again, Ryan? Then that is the finest news
a man could have. My thanks to you and the exquisite Mistress Wroth for your
well-timed rescue." He hesitated. "Though, if I
may be forgiven for nitpicking, I would appreciate it next time if you could
arrange to save my life a little more quickly. It was a damnably close-run
thing, friends."
Ryan grinned, clasping him by the hand.
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Life, which had seemed unbearably bleak and desolate only a couple of hours
ago, was now filled with the warmth and affection of good companions.
And the love of his son.
And Krysty.
Chapter Thirteen
They all stood together, ringing the map of the redoubt that Ryan had noticed
earlier.
Mildred pointed at the various sections, delineated in different colors,
shaking her head. "The whole of this floor and the one above it, toward the
main entrance, seem to have been one great big mortuary. If all of them were
filled with bodies, a century ago, then"
"What is the difference, pray, Dr. Wyeth, between a morgue and a mortuary?"
She stared at Doc. "The one good thing about this redoubt was that it looked
like you weren't in it. But, if you really want to be educated, Dr. Tanner,
then I can enlighten you, though I admit the distinction is a touch subtle."
"I can scarcely wait to hear you exhibiting subtlety, Madam," he countered.
"A morgue has the connotation of a place where the bodies of the unidentified
dead, or the victims of some accident, are first taken. While a mortuary is
more generally the building where bodies wait before being taken to the
cemetery for burial or on for cremation."
"What's the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard, Mildred?" Dean
asked.
"One's enough for today, young man. I'll have to think about that and tell you
some other time."
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"We going to hang around in here?" Michael asked. "The smell makes me feel
like throwing up. It would be good to breathe some fresh air."
"I will second that. It seems a most pleasant idea to be able to use this" he
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flourished his sword stick "as a walking aid for my frail old legs rather than
to spill the unclean blood of the ungodly."
"Show it to me, Doc," Dean begged.
"We've got to move on, son," his father said.
"Just a quick look. I never saw it properly before, and Doc chilled them so
well."
"Doc, save him from making himself a pain in the ass, would you?"
"Surely." A twist of the lion's-head hilt released the blade of Toledo steel.
The rapier flashed in the stark overhead lamps of the redoubt.
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