The Translated Man and Other Stories - Chris Braak [88]
There was breath down there, and voice, and the thing changed its perspective so that it was now at the bottom of the cave, and could stand comfortably on its ceiling. Voices spoke, but they were fractions of the sound its ears had come to hear, and so unintelligible. None of this mattered. It had come for its home, and no voice or breath would stand in its way.
The Pilot had returned for its ship.
“What are you smiling about?” Wolfgang demanded of Skinner, but she said nothing. He gestured to his men, and they raised their guns. “There’s no way out of this for you. You know that. I can’t let you stop me.”
Dust leapt up in small explosion at this feet, at the same time Alan heard an echoing crack from up the slope of the mountain. Wolfgang stared at the ground in disbelief for a moment, then he and his men all leapt to the sides, their eyes scanning the horizon.
Splinters exploded from the coach. The driver stood up, fumbling under his seat for a weapon. Too late; something hit him in the chest and he tumbled over the back.
While the guards were occupied looking for the sniper, Skinner leapt forward, her telerhythmia whirling around her in a circle, rapping fiercely on men and carriages alike. She snapped her cane down on one man’s revolver, sending it flying from his grasp, then pulled the cane apart…
A sword, Alan thought, she’s got a sword in there! The second guard had turned back towards Skinner as soon as sword was drawn, but it was too late. A flower of blood blossomed in his shirt and he fell back. Wolfgang immediately went for his gun.
Alan sighed, set his shoulder, and charged as hard as he could into the older man’s stomach. Alan was not a large boy, and he could not run fast, but he managed to catch Wolfgang low in the gut and unprepared. The older man gasped and fell back against the carriage, his gun slipping from stunned fingers and clattering away down the mountainside.
Skinner slashed with her sword at her opponent: two strokes, precisely aimed. The first was low, and caused the man to throw his hips back, pulling his stomach out of the way of the blade. The second was at his eyes, and he quickly snapped his head back out of range. The combination of movements—which Skinner must have learned by rote; it was impossible that her telerhythmia was that precise—threw him off balance, and Skinner’s third attack, a thrust directly at the center of his chest, landed home. Five inches of sharp, slender blade sank into his flesh, just below the sternum. The man shivered and convulsed, but the thrust had paralyzed his lungs, and he couldn’t scream.
Wolfgang threw Alan bodily aside; the young man cracked his head against the wheel of the coach, and the world swam for a moment before his eyes. The older man jumped towards Skinner and grabbed her sword-arm. In one smooth motion, he wrenched her around, arm locked up behind her back, and wrapped his free hand tight around her throat; she made a gagging sound, as he pushed her in between himself and where he suspected Harry was shooting from.
“No!” He screamed. “No! Tell him to back the fuck off! Tell him!” Skinner tried to speak, but Wolfgang’s iron grip on her throat choked off all the words. “I know you can communicate with him. Use whatever signal you have to tell him to stand the fuck down before I break your neck!”
No, no, no, thought Alan Charterhouse, as the scene swam back into view. His head throbbed, but his adrenaline was chasing the pain from his system. He crawled away, under the coach, desperately trying to think. He tried to shout at Wolfgang, but the words only came out as a harsh whisper. The older man didn’t hear him anyway; he was too busy whispering furiously in Skinner’s ear. Alan tried to work his voice back into his mouth, while he looked desperately around for something, some weapon that could be hurled against Rowan-Czarnecki’s broad back.
Harry appeared