In the stillness he suddenly heard the sound of violent, muffled coughing, as Doc, in the cabin, had another of his bad turns.
They couldn’t try any sort of an escape with Doc, not in his present sickly health, and they surely couldn’t run for safety without him. The bones had to lie where they fell.
Krysty was speaking, her words sounding like they came from an infinite way off.
“I’ll do what you want, Sister Sprite. And all the gods, yours and mine, can decide who has the right.”
“To the death,” the huge woman shouted.
Krysty nodded. “If that’s what you wish.”
Ryan knew that this was terminally serious, and that he should try to stop the fight.
But Krysty’s hand was still on his arm, the touch of her flesh on his warm and reassuring.
Reading his thoughts, she half smiled into his face. “No, lover,” she breathed. “Not this time.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It wasn’t like it had been with Jak and the Burrows boys.
Ryan would have wagered a panful of jack against a dead skunk that the teenager would easily take out the two bulky, muscle-bound good old boys. And he’d have accepted odds of fifty to one for Jak.
This was something else.
The big woman emanated a genuine aura of power and midnight evil.
The name of Sprite conjured up a picture of someone light, blond, blue eyed and delicate, small boned and skinny with flounced hair and a rose pink complexion.
Sister Sprite, Hopeville’s finest, was the exact antithesis of that.
Ryan was as good a judge as existed in Deathlands of someone’s fighting potential. It wasn’t necessarily the biggest and strongest that won the day. Jak’s lethal performance against the gigantic Burrows boys had shown that only too clearly. But Sister Sprite was something else.
Her whole body breathed violence, and her small piggy eyes flared with the desire to torture and murder. Her strong, stubby fingers, with chipped and jagged nails, clenched and unclenched as she waited for Wolfe to give the signal of approval for the testing with Krysty to begin.
“Come on,” she grated impatiently.
Ryan tried one last time, touching the redheaded woman on the arm, but she shook her head and pulled away. “No, lover,” she said firmly.
“Combat between Sister Sprite and the outlander woman, known as Krysty Wroth. No blasters or blades to be used. Anything else allowed. That includes kicking and gouging, hair pulling and thumb twisting. May the blessed apostles all watch and lend their support for a clean fight. With the right to lie, as always, with the winner. Ready?”
Krysty nodded solemnly. “Ready.”
Sister Sprite spit in the dirt, rubbing her booted feet back and forth to ensure a good grip. “Yeah, I’m fuckin’ ready.”
“Then get to it. No quarter to be asked or given. To the death.”
Sister Sprite didn’t come rushing in, charging in a clumsy manner at the slighter build of Krysty Wroth. She edged in toward her adversary, her arms held loosely at her waist, ready to grip or to counter. The shouting was all for the big woman, though Ryan led a countercheer from J.B., Mildred, Dean and Jak.
Sister Sprite spit again. “Come on, you ginger bitch! Come to Momma.”
Krysty saved her breath, circling counterclockwise, keeping out of reach of Sister Sprite. She was so much outweighed that she knew to try to fight at close quarters could, literally, prove fatal.
The champion of Hopeville made several feints at Krysty in the first few minutes of the mortal combat, once nearly managing to grab her slender wrist and draw her into her embrace.
Ryan’s heart leaped to his throat, his breath whistling between his parted lips at the narrow escape.
“Keep off her, lover,” he shouted.
“Mind your own business,” Jim Owsley yelled, fingering the butt of his Hawes Montana Marshal blaster.
Krysty tried an attack of her own, feinting to lunge, straight armed, stiff fingered, at Sprite’s face, altering the angle at the last nanosecond to try to kick at the woman’s knees. But Sprite laughed mockingly at her attempt, moving easily out of range, like a huge cat, perfectly balanced.
“So far, so bad,” the Armorer muttered.