Hanging Judge (Deathlands) by Axler James

Author:Axler, James [Axler, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2014-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

“Krysty!” Ryan shouted. He lunged toward her, shouldering a startled Doc out of the way.

He was already too late.

It was as if boobies had been set off in the vines to both sides of the clearing, blasting out bodies instead of shrapnel, long, sinuous, feathery bodies with long tails and long snouts full of razor teeth. Spears and clubs were clutched in taloned hands. In the blink of Ryan’s eye they filled the space between him and the redheaded beauty.

He heard his other friends shout in warning and alarm. He only had thoughts for Krysty, the love of his life, who was wounded and who needed him. The rest would have to fend for themselves right now.

Dino-muties turned toward him and jabbed the air with spears. They opened their long jaws. Inside, their mouths were bright red and full of sawlike teeth. They hissed as if they were angry catamounts.

Ryan’s survival instincts overrode his concern for Krysty. The muties were being a little too blatant with their threats, meaning they really wanted him to look at them.

Meaning...

He snapped his head left. A mutie was bounding at him with big steps of its powerful hind legs. It thrust a spear at him.

Ryan stepped back with his right foot and pivoted clockwise. His left hand batted the spear just behind the end, steering it safely by his side.

The dino-mutie was either going too fast to stop, or just intended to get close and finish Ryan with its claws; it kept coming. The one-eyed man swung his left elbow back into the creature’s face.

The mutie ran right into it. A tick later Ryan realized he might have been sticking his arm into the razor-toothed maw—better than his head, but non-optimal. Instead, it was coming so fast the point of his elbow took it right on the side of the head.

Ryan heard bones break with a crackle like a big man stepping on a stack of dry twigs. The dino-mutie squawked, fell on its tail, then dropped onto its side kicking feebly. It seemed to be in its death throes.

Light bones, Ryan thought.

From behind him he heard the boom of the stub-barreled shotgun mounted on Doc’s LeMat revolver.

“I have your back, Ryan!” the old man shouted. “J.B. and Ricky are coming!”

Ryan drew his panga as he looked rapidly left and right. There was no reaching the women; the muties had him blocked. Doc’s handblaster cracked again, firing conventional bullets this time. The thunder of J.B.’s shotgun joined in.

And still the muties kept pouring from the Wild, jaws snapping, yellow eyes rolling with fury and hate.

* * *

THE BUCKSHOT CHARGE from Doc’s short-barreled shotgun, slung beneath the longer barrel of his LeMat revolver, crumpled the mutie in midleap and dropped it like a wing-shot mourning dove. It landed near his right boot.

He whipped his head left, knowing what he’d see, more of the feathered fiends springing forth from the vines with jaws agape and murder in their yellow eyes.

He fired four .44 rounds from the revolver’s outsized cylinder.

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