A metauh rod swept toward him, and the albino’s steel-spring legs propelled him into a one-handed cartwheel. As his feet spun over his head, the Colt belched flame and thunder again, the recoil only slightly affecting his balance as he landed lithely in a crouch.
The bug-headed Incarnate shrieked, slapping at his right shoulder as the bullet bit a chunk of meat and muscle out of it amid a spray of blood.
Ryan kept moving, never still for a microsecond, ducking and weaving, dodging the flashing crackiles of energy. The metauh rods flailed at him like whips, and the helmeted men wielding them cursed in frustrated anger.
His eye caught a flicker a motion from behind him, and a double-pronged tip stabbed toward the barrel of his blaster. Just as it touched the steel, wreathing it in a momentary shower of sparks, Ryan opened his hand. Before the SIG-Sauer hit the ground, he snatched the eighteen-inch panga from its sheath.
The long, razor-edged blade, a flash of silver in the sun, slashed in a flat horizontal arc, his whole body powering the stroke. The shock of impact shivered up his right arm into his shoulder socket, and a head encased in a bird-beaked helmet tumbled like an awkward ball to the flagstones.
As the blood-spouting trunk of the Incarnate toppled forward, Ryan whirled to face a hippopotamus-headed man who gaped at him in open-mouthed horror.
“Come and die,” Ryan invited, beckoning to him with the crimson-streaked knife.
J.B.’s Uzi suddenly stopped chattering, and Mildred shouted out wordlessly in fear and anger. Ryan spun on his heel in the direction of the chariot, then he was flat on his face in the dust, wondering aloofly what he was doing there.
His arms and legs were filled with half-frozen mud, and his thoughts stumbled and staggered, finally succumbing to the brief, almost subliminal image of a nimbus of energy jumping from metal prongs.
Something hard and unyielding insinuated itself between Ryan’s ribs and the ground. He felt no pain, only a steady pressure. He realized a foot was lifting him, turning him, rolling him onto his back.
A mahogany giant towered over him, a conical jeweled headpiece bisecting the sun and adding another six inches to his height. The hard beauty of his face had none of the softness of youth left in it. He wore a magnificent, gem-encrusted leather harness over his muscular torso. Sunlight gleamed from the golden threads worked into the white fabric of his short kilt.
The giant’s eyes, under straight black brows, were like drops of hot blood.
“So,” he said in a deep, melodic voice, “I didn’t frighten you away, after all. Perhaps I’ll have to try harder next time.”
The sound of his voice touched off sweet vibrations somewhere deep inside of Ryan. He was hungry to hear more of it.
Then, smiling, the bronzed giant kicked him in the head, kicked him down into a spiraling black hole.
Chapter Thirteen
Ryan opened his eye and at first saw nothing. He felt a surge of panic, wondering if he had been struck blind, but when he shifted his head, he caught a yellow glimmer of dim light. He stirred feebly, and the motion sent a hot bore of pain drilling through his chest to his back. Sweat broke out on his forehead. His mouth was dirt dry, he felt feverish and nausea was a clawed beast trying to tear its way out of his stomach.
Gritting his teeth, he lay quietly for a long time, listening to the slow, steady thud of his heart. Then, by degrees, he turned his head and again caught the glow of light, and by it, he squinted at his surroundings. He was in a tiny, bare-walled chamber, hardly large enough to accommodate the narrow, very hard cot he was lying on. It was made of woven reeds that exuded a musty vegetable odor. Craning his neck, he saw that one wall of the room was covered by a latticework of wooden bars, the crosspieces bound with rawhide thongs. The door was hinged on the outside and secured by a crude padlock and hasp. He smiled humorlessly. Not a room—a cell. The floor and walls were of old stone. A bucket occupied one corner.