Ryan hung out over the road, gripping the rail with his left hand, knowing that one slip would send him under the wheels of the hearse. Even with the SIG-Sauer, his problem was similar to J.B.’s. A miss would likely chill the animal. It could go down between the shafts and tip the hearse, still moving at a fast canter, over in a tangle of dead horses and splintered wood and glass.
“Keep ’em straight, Abe!”
Worried about shooting too low, Ryan fired the first bullet well over the head of the skinny man, adjusting his aim and putting the full-metal jacket round through the left shoulder. It drilled apart the scapula, angled down and smashed three ribs before exiting in a welter of blood and bone through the lungs.
The man screamed and dropped the knife. He slumped between the leaders, screaming once more as he was pounded by the horses, then pulped into endless silence under the wheels of the hearse.
The leap made by the rig as it ran over the dying man nearly threw Ryan off.
Warned by the demise of his colleague, the last of the horse thieves had slipped farther down, out of range, hanging around the neck of the animal, still trying to use his knife to cut it free from the traces.
“Mine,” Ryan shouted. He bolstered the blaster and drew the panga, gripping it between his teeth, the steel cold and bitter on his tongue.
He steadied himself for a moment in front of the box, both feet on the bucking center shaft. The ground rushed by below him at what seemed a murderous rate, and he was deafened by the pounding of the hooves on the road.
“Don’t let him take you with him, Ryan,” J.B. called.
The sweat of the animals was rank in Ryan’s nostrils as he dived forward, fighting for balance, steadying himself on the backs of the rear pair of horses. He saw his adversary, crouched in front of him, a wizened face like a monkey leering back, the knife blade waved menacingly in his direction.
Abe was still tugging on the reins, but the team was, if anything, going ever faster, thrown into a blind panic by the shooting and the smell of human blood that bad sprayed over their flanks.
“Come on, outlander!” the figure raged. “Come on, get gizzard sliced.”
Ryan could see that he’d almost succeeded in cutting the lead horse free. Another few seconds and the last of the traces would have been hacked through.
In any knife fight, the relative positions of the combatants were often crucially important. Hunched over between the animals, the little man had the distinct advantage. Ryan had to come at him, with no protection, facing the threat of the lethal upward cut at his stomach.
He stayed where he was, staring at his opponent, trying to work out the best way of attacking him.
“Come on, you bastard.” Seeing Ryan hesitating, the small man took the opportunity to reach down to start cutting through the last inch or so of soft leather, to free the horse.
It wasn’t much of a chance, but Ryan realized that it was the best he was likely to get.
He flung himself forward, the eighteen-inch blade adding to his longer reach. The wildwooder attempted to parry it, the sharp steel opening up a bone-deep gash in his left arm. It deflected the lunge from his throat, the point entering the side of his face, just below the right eye.
Ryan felt the jarring shock run up his arm as the blade grated against the flat plane of the cheekbone, then slipped upward into the wet softness of the eye socket. The man screamed once, shrill and thin.
Before the steel could be withdrawn for another, positively fatal stroke, Ryan had to duck quickly away from a savage upward thrust, nearly losing his grip on the blood-slick hilt of the heavy panga.
“You fuckin'” his opponent grunted, a river of watery crimson flowing from the blinded eye.
Ryan jerked the blade free, slashing sideways at the man’s throat, but it was again blocked by the desperate use of the forearm.
Totally panicked, the all-black team was raging along like the wind, hooves pounding, heads thrown back, eyes rolling white in scarlet sockets. Ryan was vaguely aware of angry yelling from J.B. and Abe, but they were a thousand miles away in some alternate universe.