But they had never come across any group of outlanders like Ryan Cawdor and his companions.
It had been easy taking the guns away. They were large and easily spotted. Dean’s turquoise-hilted knife had been sheathed at his belt, and the guards had removed that. J.B. had surrendered his own blade to them, as had Abe.
But they had totally overlooked Doc’s Toledo rapier, concealed within the ebony case, and a quick pat-down had missed all of Jak Lauren’s hidden throwing knives.
Ellison, the sec boss, had been keeping a close personal eye on them, swaggering in, proudly wearing Doc’s beloved Le Mat in his belt. The twisted scar at the corner of his mouth curling in derision every time he visited the prisoners.
Now, not long before noon, he came into their prison ward, past the two men with their scatterguns who were on watch in the passage outside.
“Snow’s stopped,” he said. “Sure you don’t want to break the window and jump out to join your dead friends? One-eye and the old-timer?”
Though he didn’t know it, that had been one of the options that they’d been discussing only a few minutes earlier, rejecting it mainly on account of the noise it would entail. The glass was very thick, and it would take enormous force to splinter it. Then you had to clear away the loose shards or you’d cut yourself to ribbons going through. A rope of sheets might’ve reached the ground, but it would have taken at least five minutes for all of them to have gotten away down the face of the building, past the windows of the busily occupied first floor.
The chances of being caught were too great.
So, they’d selected what seemed to be the best of the alternatives. Or what J.B. had called, quoting Trader, “The least worst option.”
“We’d like to see Krysty,” Mildred said, standing by the window, as far away as possible from the door, gazing mournfully out at the bleak landscape.
“Sure you would, lady.”
“When can we?”
It was said so quietly that the sec boss took a couple of steps across the room toward her.
“What?”
Mildred looked away from him, muttering something in an undertone.
Ellison was aggrieved. “Can’t you fucking outlanders speak up?” He walked to stand right by her, grabbing her by the shoulder. “Can’t you do anything properly?”
Jak stood in the center of the room. “Do chilling properly,” he stated.
As Ellison turned, the albino hurled the leaf-bladed, weighted knife from his right hand, with a crisp snap of the wrist. At a range of less than twelve feet, with a stationary target, he couldn’t miss.
Jak’s target had been the red-veined right eye of the senior sec man, bulging in instant shock as he saw his death slicing toward him.
The honed steel thudded wetly home, bursting the right eye open in a flourish of clear liquid, followed instantly by a wave of bright blood. The taped hilt of the thrown knife protruded from the ruptured socket like some obscene ornament, the ultimate in facial decoration.
Ellison gasped in pain, letting go of the Mossberg. Dean was right at his side, prepared for that, and grabbed the blaster before it could clatter to the tiles. As the sec man’s mouth opened, ready to scream,
Mildred moved from behind him and clamped both hands over his mouth, shutting off the cry.
The point of the knife had searched out the front part of Ellison’s brain, and he was dying.
As his strength failed, Mildred and Abe supported him, laying him gently on the floor. One foot was jerking, beating out a rhythmic tattoo for several seconds, before Jak himself knelt down and held the leg still.
“Done,” J.R said.
“One of them down, and only five or six dozen more to go,” Doc added, stooping to pluck his Le Mat from the dead man’s belt. “Mine, I think.”
The scarred mouth was twisted in a rictus of horror, the one good eye staring blankly at the ceiling.
“The end of friend Ellison.” Mildred looked down at him. “Ugly son of a bitch, wasn’t he?”
Precisely at that moment the door of their room was flung open and in strode the sec boss, Ellison. He slammed the door shut behind him and walked toward the group of friends, their bodies hiding the corpse on the floor from him.