The Chronicles of Riddick - Alan Dean Foster [70]
At which point a pair of steel spurs snapped out of the heel of her boot, driving upward and back, gaffing him like a trapped fish. The way his eyes bugged out was pretty piscine, too. He was too startled to scream.
That would come later, when he had time to fully comprehend where the steel had struck home.
Rabbit quick, her head snapped straight back to break his nose. Whirling around, she grabbed the maulstick and slammed it into him, driving the already half-unconscious mass into the cell bars. Libido literally crushed, he slid to the hard ground as limp as a sack of Jello.
It was the best she could do. Her intent, her hope, had been to break through and escape to the other side of the cavern, where she could take refuge in the sweltering hideouts of the sulfide collectors. She was not quite fast enough. One of the remaining three guards caught her as she dodged past the other two. Despite taking a solid whack from the purloined maulstick, he held on long enough for his companions to pile in. She crumpled beneath the sheer weight of massed muscle and raging testosterone.
The maulstick was wrenched from her fingers. Behind, as the three of them wrestled her toward a smooth patch of ground, the guard she had gaffed had lapsed into unconsciousness. Too bad, the leader of the remaining trio thought grimly. He was going to miss all the fun. They would make it last as long as they could, of course. But of one thing he was certain: this was one convict who by tomorrow morning would no longer be around to collect her food ration. She’d earned that end for what she’d just done.
Two of them were putting her down on the ground, pinning her with their weight. They ignored her curses and involuntarily moans of pain, not caring if they broke anything in the process. They were all three of them plenty mad: mad at what she had done to their colleague, mad that she had managed to get away with it, and particularly mad that they had been so easily put off their guard. That wouldn’t happen again.
The guard holding her left arm down frowned. Something was hovering in the shadows behind them, in the direction of the central cavern. As he stared, it emerged from the darkness. Just another convict, drinking calmly from a metal cup. Well, no matter how long he lingered or what he saw, the intruder was not going to get any. If he was lucky, the guards would let him disappear back the way he had come, instead of making him disappear permanently. Not that the slam boss was likely to raise an eyebrow over the death of one more prisoner. Especially after being told what she had done to a member of his staff.
The figure spoke. “You should take your wounded and go.” The newcomer nodded in the direction of the guard lying unconscious and bleeding in the cell. “Chalk it up to lessons learned. Take him and get out. While you can.”
Slowly, the guards rose from the slender shape they had been pinning to the ground. Raising her head slightly, Kyra lay there, not getting up. Not wanting to meet the business end of another maulstick. The three guards formed a small semicircle facing Riddick. They were not happy at having their fun interrupted.
The biggest of them sneered at the would-be knight with no horse and no shining armor. “Is there a name for this private little world of yours? The one you seem to be living in at the moment? And what happens there when we don’t just run away, huh? You kill us?” He gestured. “With your soup cup?”
His friends snickered, appreciating their colleague’s wit. For his part, Riddick contemplated the metal cup, as if sizing up its potential.
“Tea, actually,” he murmured.
The big guard frowned, uncertain he’d heard correctly. “Whazzat?”
“I will kill you with a teacup.”
Inverting the container, he set it down just soooo on a nearby rock. No guest at a formal