Summoning his resolve, the Annorer grimly waded into the massed figures, punching and jabbing, kidneys, groins. This was no boxing contest with referee and bell, but a fight to the death using every weapon Mother Nature armed people with.
Two more sec men darted around Ryan and charged at Doc. Undaunted, the old man yanked a saber blade from a still warm body and swung it in a glittering arc to parry a vicious knife cut. Swiveling his own blade inward to protect his vulnerable wrist, Doc thrust his arm forward, the razor-sharp edge slicing one man across the cheek and opening the throat of another. Then two men tackled his arm and wrestled away the blade. Doc drew his blasters, killed one and wounded another.
Yelling as dramatically as possible, Mildred dashed across the cellar, hoping at least one of the sec men would follow her. Three did. But upon turning the corner and reaching a clear area, instead of collapsing in a faint or cringing in fear, Mildred drew her pistols and gunned them all down ruthlessly. Hastily, she reloaded.
Clumsily, Shard clubbed the sec men with his rifle, doing little damage. Then he froze as Doc raised a sword and lunged straight for his throat! The shiny blade went past Shard’s head, missing by the thickness of a shave, and for one terrible instant, Shard saw a distorted version of himself reflected in the polished metal. Then the blade withdrew streaked with red, somebody gagged behind him and a sec man went crashing to the littered floor.
“Thanks,” Shard panted, his heart pounding in his chest.
“Fight or get out of the way,” Doc snapped.
Grimly renewed, the former prisoner waded into the fray, punching, biting, stabbing and clubbing like a wild beast
With the sound of splintering wood. J.B. shattered a rifle stock over a sec man’s skull. The Armorer retreated to the wall as a knife wielder moved in for the kill. At the last instant, he danced out of the way, the blade shattering as it struck the stone wall. J.B. threw his arm forward, two stiff fingers going directly into the ocular cavity, crushing the man’s eyeball like a ripe grape. He screamed.
The whole building shook as the hack room violently exploded, the door blowing off its hinges. Dust rained from the rafters and glass shattered in a hundred windows. Startled, the remaining sec men stumbled from the concussion, confused and dazed. Prepared for the expected blast, the companions finished them off with ruthless efficiency.
Doc dropped the saber and reclaimed his dropped pistols.
J.B. found the tommy gun and checked its cheese-wheel clip. “Thought you liked swords.”
“My sword,” Doc answered, dumping out spent shells and rummaging in his pockets for live rounds. “Not some rusty, bent saber.”
“What’s the difference?” J.B. asked, working the sidebolt on the Thompson.
“Blade man knows,” Jak answered, pulling a knife from a cooling form. He and Doc exchanged glances and nodded.
“Where’s the exit?” Ryan demanded, holding his aching side as he reloaded, the rifle held steady between his thighs.
Mildred saw the action and made a mental note to keep a watch on the man. If those ribs were broken, he could easily puncture a lung with too much exertion.
“What? Oh, yes. This way,” Shard said, starting off.
J.B. stopped him with his gun barrel. “Is that the nearest exit?”
“Yes,” he replied calmly.
Krysty nudged him with her rifle. “Then show us some other way out. They’ll be expecting us to try that.”
The former prisoner nodded. “Of course. Follow me.”
It started soffly at first, a distant yowl that steadily grew in power and volume until it was a banshee keen, a mechanical scream of strident power that built to a thundering howl and stayed there.
“The escape alarm,” Shard said, trembling.
“Every sec men will be rushing to protect the ward.”
“And his kids,” Ryan said, shoving him forward. “Good. Our plan is to leave, not start a revolution.”
With J.B. on point, they took the other branch of the T-shaped intersection. A long corridor branched again, and then again in a confusing maze, which led them to a stairwell and a laundry. Clothes were boiling in big caldrons and drying on lines, but not a soul was in sight He guessed that when the alarm sounded servants and slaves not in chains scampered for safety.