Retribution Falls - Chris Wooding [46]
Go.
Malvery scooped up the doctor’s bag and set off. Rogin’s groans had become low cries of pain now, foul oaths forced through gritted teeth. Malvery passed in front of the gate, halted theatrically as if he’d only just heard the sounds of Rogin’s distress, and then peered through the bars.
Rogin was curled in a ball on the other side, clutching his stomach. His companion, a tall, wiry man with ginger hair and a broken nose, looked up as Malvery hailed him.
“Get lost, old feller!” the guard snapped.
“Is your friend alright?” Malvery inquired.
“Does he look alright?”
“It’s my guts!” Rogin gasped. “My bloody guts! Hurts like a bastard.” He grimaced as another spasm of agony racked him.
“Let me help him. I’m a doctor,” Malvery said. The ginger-haired guard looked up suspiciously. Malvery brandished his doctor’s bag. “See?”
The guard glanced back at the doorway of the house, wondering if he should tell someone inside.
“For shit’s sake! Let him in!” Rogin cried, his voice getting near to hysteria. “I’m dying, damn it!”
The guard fumbled out a set of keys and opened the gate, then stepped back to allow Malvery through.
“Thank you,” said Malvery as he passed. Then, since the guard had one hand on the gate and the other on the key, he drew out a pistol and pressed it to the unfortunate man’s temple. “Why don’t you leave it open, eh?” he suggested.
Frey, Silo, Pinn, and Jez sallied out from the shadows and across the deserted thoroughfare, then slipped through the open gate. Silo went to the fallen man and quickly disarmed him, while Jez did the same to Malvery’s guard. Rogin made a strangled sound of mingled fury and pain, but Silo crouched down next to him and tapped the barrel of a revolver against his skull.
“Shhh,” he said, finger on his lips.
Jez closed the gate, and Frey kept his gun on the ginger-haired guard while Silo and Malvery trussed Rogin up. They gagged him with a length of rag and one of Pinn’s balled-up socks, which Malvery had chosen for additional anesthetic effect. Then they carried him off to the nearby guardhouse.
“Don’t worry, mate,” said Malvery as they went. “The prognosis is good. The pain’ll pass in a few hours, although I’d suggest you send your loved ones out of town before you take your next dump.”
Frey scanned the house quickly. The curtains were drawn across the windows, and no one seemed to have paid any attention to Rogin’s cries. If they’d heard him at all, they probably assumed it was someone on the street outside.
He didn’t dare to hope that all might be going well. That would only put the jinx on him.
“Right, you,” he said to the remaining guard. “I’ve got a job for you. Do it well, and you don’t get hurt. Understand?”
The guard nodded. He was angry and humiliated, but he was mostly terrified. Probably his first time being held at gunpoint. Good. Frey didn’t want to shoot him if he didn’t have to.
Jez tossed Malvery his shotgun as he and Silo returned from the guardhouse. Malvery always felt better with a bit of proper firepower. He didn’t trust pistols; he thought them fiddly.
They assembled on either side of the heavy oak doors, beneath the stone porch. Frey dragged the guard up by his arm and stepped back, pistol trained on him.
“Get them to open the door,” he said. “Don’t try anything, if you want to keep your brains in your head.”
The guard nodded. He took a nervous breath and rapped on the door.
Frey’s hand was trembling, just a little. His throat had gone dry. He wondered if the guard knew how scared he was himself.
I don’t want to die.
“Yeah?” came a voice from inside.
“It’s Jevin. Open the door,” said the guard.
The door opened a little way. It was Codge, he of the long face and the patchy black beard.
“What’s up?”
Frey shoved the guard aside and aimed his revolver point-blank at the white expanse of Codge’s forehead. Codge stared at him in surprise for an instant. Then he went for his gun.
Frey’s reaction was as instinctive as Codge’s had been. He pulled the trigger. Codge’s head snapped back; tiny beads of blood spattered