Dark Tower VI, The by Stephen King & Darrel Anderson

Author:Stephen King & Darrel Anderson [King, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: SOC035000
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2004-06-08T04:00:00+00:00

7TH STANZA

THE AMBUSH

ONE

Roland Deschain was the last of Gilead’s last great band of warriors, for good reason; with his queerly romantic nature, his lack of imagination, and his deadly hands, he had ever been the best of them. Now he had been invaded by arthritis, but there was no dry twist in his ears or eyes. He heard the thud of Eddie’s head against the side of the Unfound Door as they were sucked through (and, ducking down at the last split second, only just avoided having his own skull broken in by the Door’s top jamb). He heard the sound of birds, at first strange and distant, like birds singing in a dream, then immediate and prosaic and completely there. Sunlight struck his face and should have dazzled him blind, coming as he was from the dimness of the cave. But Roland had turned his eyes into slits the moment he’d seen that bright light, had done it without thinking. Had he not, he surely would have missed the circular flash from two o’clock as they landed on hard-packed, oil-darkened earth. Eddie would have died for sure. Maybe both of them would have died. In Roland’s experience, only two things glared with that perfect brilliant circularity: eyeglasses and the long sight of a weapon.

The gunslinger grabbed Eddie beneath the arm as unthinkingly as he’d slitted his eyes against the glare of onrushing sunlight. He’d felt the tension in the younger man’s muscles as their feet left the rock-and bone-littered floor of the Doorway Cave, and he felt them go slack when Eddie’s head connected with the side of the Unfound Door. But Eddie was groaning, still trying to talk, so he was at least partly aware.

“Eddie, to me!” Roland bellowed, scrambling to his feet. Bitter agony exploded in his right hip and raced almost all the way down to his knee, but he gave no sign. Barely registered it, in fact. He hauled Eddie with him toward a building, some building, and past what even Roland recognized as oil or gasoline pumps. These were marked MOBIL instead of CITGO or SUNOCO, two other names with which the gunslinger was familiar.

Eddie was semiconscious at best. His left cheek was drenched with blood from a laceration in his scalp. Nevertheless, he put his legs to work as best he could and stumbled up three wooden steps to what Roland now recognized as a general store. It was quite a bit smaller than Took’s, but otherwise not much d—

A limber whipcrack of sound came from behind and slightly to the right. The shooter was close enough for Roland to feel confident that if he had heard the sound of the shot, the man with the rifle had already missed.

Something passed within an inch of his ear, making its own perfectly clear sound: Mizzzzzz! The glass in the little mercantile’s front door shattered inward. The sign which had been hanging there (WE’RE OPEN, SO COME IN ’N VISIT) jumped and twisted.

“Rolan …” Eddie’s voice, weak and distant, sounded as if it were coming through a mouthful of mush.

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