There were two more blurs in the smoky air, as the teenager drew a pair of his concealed throwing knives, hurling the leaf-shaped blades with murderous force and accuracy.
One sliced into the taller man’s neck as he staggered backward, his hands lifted to the darts that stuck out of his face. It opened up the artery beneath his ear, blood spraying thickly, splattering on the ceiling, dappling the torn frock of a screaming whore.
The other knife was also aimed at the throat, penetrating the front of the second man’s neck, through his larynx, opening his windpipe, flooding his lungs with a drowning torrent of his own blood.
The gaudy saloon erupted into panic and dying.
Tables went over, poker chips and jack flying through the air in seeming slow motion. Virtually all of the men hit the floor, yelling, some of them struggling to draw blasters and knives as they went down. Whores flopped among them like helpless, wailing, landed fish.
Clinkerscales instantly had his sawed-down Bernardelli Italia in his hands, standing four-square behind the bar, his face streaming with sweat, jaw jutting angrily. He shouted for calm at the top of his voice, but failed to get himself heard above the yelping, shrieking panic.
It was impossible to obtain an overall picture of the heart of the fight, which was basically Ryan and his companions against the nine-strong gang, which had suddenly become a seven-strong gang.
The man that Ryan had been watching had a long-barreled pistol out and cocked, aiming it at Jak. But a burst of lead from the Armorer’s Uzi converted his skull into a mist of blood, splintered bone and ragged slices of brain.
Doc had drawn his J. E. B. Stuart Commemorative gold-plated Le Mat as soon as the situation began to develop, trying to edge his way through the crowd toward Jak’s side. But the crush of people made movement almost impossible. He noticed that a skinny balding man standing next to him had pulled out a small beat-up automatic pistol and was aiming it at Ryan.
“I think not,” Doc said quietly, pushing the barrel of the Le Mat into the man’s ribs, expecting him to immediately drop the blaster and surrender.
To his amazement, the shootist spit a florid curse at him and began to swing his own gun around, ready to put a bullet into Doc’s chest.
“I am not.” Doc began, considering remonstrating with the fellow for his extreme foolishness, then he realized that this wasn’t a time for talking.
It was a time for shooting.
He immediately squeezed the slender trigger on the massive handblaster, firing the.63-caliber shotgun round from the gaping barrel.
The explosion was muffled by the blaster being pressed into the man’s body, but the effect was devastating.
The shot almost cut the balding killer in two, ripping through his entrails, smashing his spine, reducing liver and kidneys to tatters of bloodied pulp. He dropped at Doc’s feet, blood pouring from his open mouth, the blaster clattering onto the splintered floor.
Which still left five of the gang of would-be assassins on their feet.
Ryan shot down one who’d drawn a Saturday-night special from a holster inside his long jacket, the bullet going neatly in one ear, coming out a lot less neatly through the angle of the jaw, exiting in a gusher of blood and shards of teeth.
The crimson fountain hit one of the kneeling sluts in the head, the sharp pieces of bone cutting her across the forehead, a curtain of her own blood blinding her. She erupted into thrashing hysterics, one of her ankle boots hitting a crouching trapper in the face and breaking his nose.
There was another of the gang near the bar. His left ear had been hacked away and a chunk of his cheek had vanished with it. The old scar pulled the corner of his mouth up into a fearsome grin, also tugging down his left eye into an angry snarl.
He had a derringer up each sleeve, on spring releases, and they popped into his hands. To gain a better shot at Ryan’s group he began to clamber onto the bar, ignoring Clinkerscales and his sawed-down, which was the last mistake he ever got to make.