City of the Saints by D.J. Butler

Author:D.J. Butler [Butler, D.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, monofilamentSteampunk, Weird West, Adventure, Historical Fantasy, Science Fiction
Publisher: Word Fire Press
Published: 2015-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

The nincompoop Fearnley-Standish missed, of course. The heavy man he’d aimed at ducked, Fearnley-Standish didn’t adjust his aim in the slightest, and his bullet shattered the windscreen of the flaming steam-truck.

Burton would have liked to have the luxury of time in which to throttle the whiny little weasel, but he didn’t, as the Danite with the shapeless hat who’d just been shot at took objection to his treatment. He grabbed the hilt of a knife tied to his thigh and Burton had to step in to protect the resources—however impoverished, dysfunctional and unworthy—of Her Majesty’s Foreign Office.

He punched the Danite right across the jaw, dropping him like a sack of grain.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Guns went off all around Burton. Thank Krishna most people, even professional killers, were terrible shots. He drew his 1851 Navy and looked for an efficient target.

The Danites fired and withdrew into the house. Burton saw a lean, bent, lazy-eyed rogue who appeared to be shouting orders at the others and took aim at him. Hickman, wasn’t that his name? Burton had already faced him down once, in the Shoshone stockade.

Bang! Bang!

“Helldammit!” The Danite grabbed at his arm where Burton had hit him and ducked out of sight into a doorway.

“Burton, get down!” Poe shouted.

Out of the corner of his eye, Burton saw that he was alone. Fearnley-Standish had flat-out turned and run, sprinting away into the desert. His other companions had retreated more modestly, into the hotel’s stable. Poe was waving an arm to summon him.

“Like hell!” Burton shouted, and charged the porch. He knew it looked like recklessness but he didn’t want to give the Danites a chance to settle in and get comfortable. If Fearnley-Standish’s idiotic and premature assault had any virtue, it was that it had taken the enemy by surprise. To surrender that advantage now would be a foolish waste.

A Danite ran across the porch to meet him, raising a thick-knotted club. Burton ducked under the man’s swing and pistol-whipped him across the face, sending him crashing onto the smooth boards.

He really wished he had his sword with him.

A man loomed into view through a window beside Burton, pumping a rifle in both hands. “Follow up!” Burton shouted. “I mean, follow me!”

He jumped into the window.

Crash!

A cloud of flying glass shards came with Burton into a small sitting room and together they pounded into the rifleman, banging his head against the hardwood back of a sofa and then knocking him to the floor.

“Get that animal!” Hickman yelled in a high-pitched, nasal voice, but his troops were in disarray. As Burton had hoped, surprise and initiative were still with him.

The downed rifleman grunted and tried to raise his weapon to shoot at Burton. Burton pinned his wrist to the floor with a sharp stab of his heel, happy to be wearing heavy boots. He felt the wrist shatter, but didn’t hear it in the din.

Bang!

Burton spared a bullet for the Danite leader, forcing him to duck back again, out of the small parlor in which they stood.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.