“Smashed his voice box,” J.B. said.
It was like seeing a freeze-frame on a flickering old vid. The giant figure of Jericho, blood trickling from his mouth, looked helplessly up at his slim young destroyer.
“Submit?” Michael called, the raw edge of ragged anger clearly audible. “Can’t hear you, Jericho?”
“Put the blaster away, Guiteau,” Ryan said, not looking around. “Not needed.”
“I can see that, Cawdor. The boy’s going to chill him, ain’t he?”
“I guess he is.”
“I don’t hear you saying anything, Jericho.” He mocked the injured man’s whispering, painful attempts to speak.
“Do it, boy,” Marie shouted, standing up, her hands gripping the arms of her carved oak chair, her knuckles white as chiseled ivory.
Tiring of his revenge, the teenager swiveled, putting all his weight on his left leg. The right foot shot out like a power hammer, the heel driving into Jericho’s face, just below the bridge of the nose.
Ryan heard a noise that he’d heard a few times before in his life.
The noise like a grown man treading square on a large, ripe apple.
A soft, crunching sound.
“Done him,” J.B. commented unnecessarily.
Marie Mandeville was breathing hard, one hand now pressed against her breasts.
“Yes,” she whispered.
The kneeling man fell backward, vivid blood gushing from his mouth. The blow had pulped his nose, driving splinters of bone into the brain.
Jericho lay very still, just one leg kicking for a few seconds in a postmortem neural spasm.
“Well done, outlander!” shouted a young man, wearing the outdoor uniform of the ville.
“Take that person’s name and deal with him, Sergeant,” the baron said, not even bothering to conceal his anger at the overwhelming defeat of his champion.
“Right, Baron.”
Standing close to Marie, Ryan was aware of the tension in her body, her thighs squeezed together in a paroxysm of excitement. Suddenly she relaxed with a great sigh, opening her eyes and smiling at him.
“I shall enjoy dining with that fast boy, outlander,” she said.
Ryan simply nodded, moving away to congratulate Michael on his victory.
Mandeville was on his feet, struggling to readjust the beaming, good-natured mask. “A surprise, there, friends. But more for Jericho, I believe. Now, let us go to the butts for the shooting.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The shooting range was actually outside the fortified walls of Sun Crest. It lay a quarter mile to the east, across the wooden bridge over the narrow river and through a copse of elegant silver birches to an open area that had been painstakingly cleared from raw forest. The rifle butts ran for a full half mile, ending in a high bank of sandy earth. A number of round, colorful straw-padded archery targets stood ready.
“I can’t hardly believe that this is Kansas, bloody Kansas,” Doc muttered. “Granary of the world. Wheat from sunrise to sunset.”
“More like northern Montana or Washington State,” Mildred agreed. “Endless forests.”
Guiteau had deliberately fallen in to walk with Ryan. It was noticeable that the sec presence was much greater once they were outside the ville, all carrying their standard Armalites. All of them were alert.
“Never seen the like of that breed kid of yours,” the sec sergeant commented.
“Not a breed. Think he had a Crow grandfather. Wouldn’t think about calling him a breed, Guiteau.”
“Where’d he learn to fight like that?”
“Don’t know.” Ryan wasn’t about to get himself tangled up in the complex realities of time trawling.
“Jericho never had a chance. Like a spitball up against a gren launcher.”
“Man shouldn’t have tried to blindside the boy.”
Guiteau laughed. “You can sure as shit say that again, Cawdor.” They were near a row of seats set out along a raised dais at one end of the butts.
“Archery first?”
“Yeah. You outlanders don’t have anyone who can put six from six in the gold, have you?”
Both J.B. and Ryan were a lot better than adequate with either longbow or crossbow, but it seemed a good idea not to lay every card down on the table.
“Guiteau!”
“Coming, Baron.” He paused a moment. “Letting that ball-of-fire kid chill Jericho might turn out one of the worst moves you ever made in your life, Cawdor.”