-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
always relished giving a good beating to a serving maid, smiling at her
screams as his whip cut patterned welts over the soft skin. They were so weak,
women.
Krysty punched out at his other arm, snapping it like a dry twig at the elbow
joint.
Now a red killing mist swamped her mind, closing off any reason or sense.
Or mercy.
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%...20Bound%20-%20Laurence%20James%201
.0.html (217 of 277) [12/24/2004 11:20:49 PM]
Page 121
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Axler,%20Ja...)/005%20-%20H
omeward%20Bound%20-%20Laurence%20James%201.0.html
Short jabs with fists clenched broke five ribs on the left side of Jabez's
chest and four on the right. None of the savage punches traveled more than six
inches. The man staggered back against the wall and tried to scream for help,
only managing to make a sound like a newborn lamb bleating weakly for its
mother.
Krysty grabbed his dangling left hand and crushed it between her palms.
At this point, Jabez Pendragon Cawdor fainted, slumping in her arms, his blood
smearing the stone floor. He lay on his back, legs outstretched. Krysty looked
down at him, eyes blank and cold, breathing faster.
As though in a trance, she measured her aim, leaped high and came down with
both heels on either side of the left knee, springing the joint so that the
patella popped out like a metal bearing between finger and thumb.
Jabez stirred at the appalling pain of the injury, but before he was jerked
back into consciousness, Krysty repeated the attack on his other knee,
destroying the joint.
Had he lived, Jabez would have been a helpless cripple, unable even to crawl.
Had he lived.
Krysty stood, panting. Her eyes were half-closed, and she was swaying on her
bare, blood-smeared feet. She glanced down at the naked, broken, unconscious
man lying crookedly on the gray stones of the bedroom floor.
If any of Krysty's friends had seen her at that moment, they would have backed
away from her, horrified that she'd been seized by a killing frenzy. She
touched
Jabez with a toe, and he jerked away from her. She laughed quietly, an ugly,
tinkling little noise, like a cracked silver bell.
Jabez's eyes flickered open, and she heard a choked groan of purest pain. She
could see the pulse that fluttered unevenly in his throat, just beneath the
ear.
As she stared at him, the mutie power of her mind stripped him to the soul.
She saw the stunted, evil core of Jabez's being, when pleasure came only
through the
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%...20Bound%20-%20Laurence%20James%201
.0.html (218 of 277) [12/24/2004 11:20:49 PM]
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Axler,%20Ja...)/005%20-%20H
omeward%20Bound%20-%20Laurence%20James%201.0.html pain and suffering of
others. She saw the festering slime that a religious person might have called
the soul. And was appalled.
Jabez Cawdor stirred, head rolling to one side. A thin trickle of bile, tinted
with blood, drooled from his open mouth.
Krysty lashed out with her heel, hitting the heir to the ville of Front Royal
at the base of the nose. Cartilage burst, and the septum shattered into a
dozen splinters of jagged bone. Gouts of blood spewed in the air and all over
Jabez's naked chest.
The power of the kick jammed the shards of bone high into the soft spaces of
the skull, driving them into the brain.
RYAN HEARD NOTHING of Krysty's fury from where he lay in his own room,
watching the light fade away. He'd heard the clattering of hooves on the
cobbles in the morning and the excited yapping of the hounds. A bowl of gruel
and some crusts of dry bread had been his only meal, given to him so
cautiously that he'd lapped at it like an animal. He knew nothing of the
disastrous and farcical entry of
Doc Tanner and Lori Quint into the ville.
And he knew nothing at all of the visit of Jabez Pen-dragon Cawdor to Krysty
Wroth. Not a hint of the young man's hideously violent chilling.
The sec men hadn't bothered to leave Ryan any lamps lit in his prison room.
Page 122
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Despite the discomfort of his binding and the imminence of his departure from
life, Ryan still managed some sleep, dozing until the links of the chain
around his neck jerked him awake.
But something else had disturbed him. He lay still, eye open, straining to
listen. It had been a creaking noise, like a piece of wood being slowly split
in two. There was silence, and then another, sharper sound. In the blackness,
Ryan could make out a narrow strip of golden light shining in the middle of
the shelves.
Where he knew the secret door was hidden!
A figure moved against the thin rectangle of pale yellow, then the door closed
and the chamber was in total blackness. Ryan tried to wriggle into a position
where he
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%...20Bound%20-%20Laurence%20James%201
.0.html (219 of 277) [12/24/2004 11:20:49 PM]
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Axler,%20Ja...)/005%20-%20H
omeward%20Bound%20-%20Laurence%20James%201.0.html might at least try a kick at
whoever had entered the chamber.
"Come on," he whispered. "Come on, you bastard! Come on."
His hearing was better than most, and he strained to listen to the pounding
stillness. Bare feet moved with an infinite caution on the cold, dusty stones
of the room. And the ragged breathing sounded like that of a man at the
farthest edge of exhaustion, only a knife blade from collapse. The steps
hesitated again, and then stopped about five paces from him.
"Ryan."
The touch of a moth's feathery wing brushed at his hearing Krysty's voice,
seeming to come from a great distance, from somewhere in the deeps of the
ville.
"Lover?" he said. "What is it?"
"The power of& of the Earth Mother came& to& to me. Was as though Gaia herself
took possession of& "
The words faded away.
"What is it? What happened? Fireblast! If only I was free I could& Krysty,
tell me what's happened. Tell me."
She came closer, and he finally felt her hand on his arm. "Ryan. Oh, but& I've
killed Jabez Cawdor."
Since he already anticipated death within the next few hours, Ryan wasn't too
shaken by her words. The murder of his brother's only child didn't make a
whole lot of difference. The Trader used to say that a man could only get
himself chilled once.
"
How? No, make that why
?"
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%...20Bound%20-%20Laurence%20James%201
.0.html (220 of 277) [12/24/2004 11:20:49 PM]
file:///C|/2590%20Sci-Fi%20and%20Fantasy%20E-books/Axler,%20Ja...)/005%20-%20H
omeward%20Bound%20-%20Laurence%20James%201.0.html
"Came in to rape me. He was the most evil& evil bastard I ever met, Ryan. So I
took him. Wasted him."
"Had it coming, lover," he said.
Then she broke down, lying across him, hanging on as if she were drowning, her
tears wetting through his clothes. The girl's whole body was shaken by
sobbing, the sound muffled as she pressed her face to his chest. Despite being [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- zambezia2013.opx.pl