Sunset Warrior #01 - The Sunset Warrior by Eric Van Lustbader

Author:Eric Van Lustbader [Lustbader, Eric Van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780345466785
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 1977-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Sunset Warrior

Dim and smoky. Rooms much smaller than Upshaft. Three rooms to a quarters, two or three families. The rooms were a shambles. Broken furniture, shards of pottery, ripped fabric, the floor slippery-sticky with an indistinguishable amalgam of liquids. Nothing moved here and they went on into the second.

Ronin saw an arm protruding from a pile of refuse. He drew his blade and uncovered the body. It was a Worker, thick chest and arms, squat. By his outstretched hand was a heavy lever, ripped from a Machine, obviously used as a club. He turned the body. The Worker’s chest was a pulpy mass and there was so much blood that they could not count the number of times he had been stabbed.

‘Frost!’ he muttered. ‘Have they all gone mad?’

G’fand turned his head away.

They moved into the last room. A lamp burned, hung from the ceiling, swaying slightly so that shadows moved and perspective was shattered.

The woman knelt on a bed at the rear wall. A washstand had been knocked over. The woman grasped the sobbing girl in one hand, and with the other arm, the hand still gripping the blade so hard that the knuckles were white, she held a limp figure to her. Her eyes were wide and staring blankly. A thin line of spittle drooled from a corner of her mouth. They paused just inside the doorway.

‘Fiends!’ she cried. ‘One more step an’ you’ll get what your friend out there got!’

G’fand stared at her and choked. ‘You did that?’

She laughed, a throaty, chilling sound, and her eyes rolled madly in their sockets. The girl strug¬gled to get free. ‘Aye, that. Surprised, are ya, well so was he!’ Her eyes wavered and dropped for an instant to the head of the small figure she was cradling.

‘See,’ she wailed. ‘Look upon your work! Fiends’ work!’ And she turned the limp figure, and they saw a thin young boy, perhaps somewhat older than the girl, same dark pinched features. ‘See how you have defiled my son! See how you have taken his life!’ Her voice rose, and quickly she clutched the boy back to her. Strength seemed to flood into her then, and she drew herself up defiantly. ‘You’ll get no satisfaction here! Not this time!’

Too late Ronin realized that she had spied his drawn sword. Too late he divined her intent. She pulled the girl to her, the child’s eyes round and staring, a high keening coming from her open mouth, and as Ronin leapt she drew the long curving blade across the girl’s trembling throat. A gout of blood erupted and the keening became a thick gurgle, and she twisted the body behind her so that he fell atop her.

But the blade was now behind him, out of his line of vision. He dropped his sword to free his hands. He twisted to find the knife before it found him.

He was aware of her arm moving swiftly and then he felt her convulse violently under him, arched and stiffened. A smile came to her face at the same time the trickle of blood did.

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