Homeward Bound

Chapter Twenty-Seven

With a short, stabbing blow from the heel of her hand, Krysty Wroth crushed Jabez's larynx, rendering his vocal cords useless. It was a savage and crippling attack that flung him onto the floor, his mouth flopping open in a silent, anguished scream. His eyes opened wide, the drooping lid flicking up like a window blind suddenly released.

Krysty's most awesome mutie trait was her ability, under certain circumstances, to call on a reserve of incredible muscular power for a short time. The cost was dreadful, and always left her exhausted and drained for hours after. Therefore it was an ability she hardly ever used. But she knew the baron's son intended to rape her in the most violent and humiliating way, and then kill her. She didn't have to be a doomie to see that.

Her right hand jabbed at the arm that held the dart gun, snapping both radius and ulna above the wrist. One splintered end of bone protruded through the skin, surrounded by flags of torn and bloody flesh. The fingers opened in a spasm of shock and pain, dropping the dart gun to the stones, where it landed with a hollow, metallic clang.

Krysty was barely in control of her own body. The devastating power of the Earth Mother was released in such a rush that it almost blanked her mind: all that registered was that she had to kill this man in the most absolute and total manner.

Jabez struggled to his feet, chest heaving as he battled for breath. His eyes stared blankly at the staggeringly beautiful woman who stood across the bed from him.

He shook his head in disbelief at her speed and brutal strength. Jabez had always relished giving a good beating to a serving maid, smiling at her screams as his whip cut patterned welts over the soft skin. They were so weak, women.

Krysty punched out at his other arm, snapping it like a dry twig at the elbow joint.

Now a red killing mist swamped her mind, closing off any reason or sense.

Or mercy.

Short jabs with fists clenched broke five ribs on the left side of Jabez's chest and four on the right. None of the savage punches traveled more than six inches. The man staggered back against the wall and tried to scream for help, only managing to make a sound like a newborn lamb bleating weakly for its mother.

Krysty grabbed his dangling left hand and crushed it between her palms.

At this point, Jabez Pendragon Cawdor fainted, slumping in her arms, his blood smearing the stone floor. He lay on his back, legs outstretched. Krysty looked down at him, eyes blank and cold, breathing faster.

As though in a trance, she measured her aim, leaped high and came down with both heels on either side of the left knee, springing the joint so that the patella popped out like a metal bearing between finger and thumb.

Jabez stirred at the appalling pain of the injury, but before he was jerked back into consciousness, Krysty repeated the attack on his other knee, destroying the joint.

Had he lived, Jabez would have been a helpless cripple, unable even to crawl.

Had he lived.

Krysty stood, panting. Her eyes were half-closed, and she was swaying on her bare, blood-smeared feet. She glanced down at the naked, broken, unconscious man lying crookedly on the gray stones of the bedroom floor.

If any of Krysty's friends had seen her at that moment, they would have backed away from her, horrified that she'd been seized by a killing frenzy. She touched Jabez with a toe, and he jerked away from her. She laughed quietly, an ugly, tinkling little noise, like a cracked silver bell.

Jabez's eyes flickered open, and she heard a choked groan of purest pain. She could see the pulse that fluttered unevenly in his throat, just beneath the ear.

As she stared at him, the mutie power of her mind stripped him to the soul. She saw the stunted, evil core of Jabez's being, when pleasure came only through the pain and suffering of others. She saw the festering slime that a religious person might have called the soul. And was appalled.

Jabez Cawdor stirred, head rolling to one side. A thin trickle of bile, tinted with blood, drooled from his open mouth.

Krysty lashed out with her heel, hitting the heir to the ville of Front Royal at the base of the nose. Cartilage burst, and the septum shattered into a dozen splinters of jagged bone. Gouts of blood spewed in the air and all over Jabez's naked chest. The power of the kick jammed the shards of bone high into the soft spaces of the skull, driving them into the brain.

Ryan heard nothing of Krysty's fury from where he lay in his own room, watching the light fade away. He'd heard the clattering of hooves on the cobbles in the morning and the excited yapping of the hounds. A bowl of gruel and some crusts of dry bread had been his only meal, given to him so cautiously that he'd lapped at it like an animal. He knew nothing of the disastrous and farcical entry of Doc Tanner and Lori Quint into the ville.

And he knew nothing at all of the visit of Jabez Pendragon Cawdor to Krysty Wroth. Not a hint of the young man's hideously violent chilling.

The sec men hadn't bothered to leave Ryan any lamps lit in his prison room. Despite the discomfort of his binding and the imminence of his departure from life, Ryan still managed some sleep, dozing until the links of the chain around his neck jerked him awake.

But something else had disturbed him. He lay still, eye open, straining to listen. It had been a creaking noise, like a piece of wood being slowly split in two. There was silence, and then another, sharper sound. In the blackness, Ryan could make out a narrow strip of golden light shining in the middle of the shelves.

Where he knew the secret door was hidden!

A figure moved against the thin rectangle of pale yellow, then the door closed and the chamber was in total blackness. Ryan tried to wriggle into a position where he might at least try a kick at whoever had entered the chamber.

"Come on," he whispered. "Come on, you bastard! Come on."

His hearing was better than most, and he strained to listen to the pounding stillness. Bare feet moved with an infinite caution on the cold, dusty stones of the room. And the ragged breathing sounded like that of a man at the farthest edge of exhaustion, only a knife blade from collapse. The steps hesitated again, and then stopped about five paces from him.

"Ryan."

The touch of a moth's feathery wing brushed at his hearing — Krysty's voice, seeming to come from a great distance, from somewhere in the deeps of the ville.

"Lover?" he said. "What is it?"

"The power of... of the Earth Mother came... to... to me. Was as though Gaia herself took possession of..."

The words faded away.

"What is it? What happened? Fireblast! If only I was free I could... Krysty, tell me what's happened. Tell me."

She came closer, and he finally felt her hand on his arm. "Ryan. Oh, but... I've killed Jabez Cawdor."

Since he already anticipated death within the next few hours, Ryan wasn't too shaken by her words. The murder of his brother's only child didn't make a whole lot of difference. The Trader used to say that a man could only get himself chilled once.

"How? No, make that why?"

"Came in to rape me. He was the most evil... evil bastard I ever met, Ryan. So I took him. Wasted him."

"Had it coming, lover," he said.

Then she broke down, lying across him, hanging on as if she were drowning, her tears wetting through his clothes. The girl's whole body was shaken by sobbing, the sound muffled as she pressed her face to his chest. Despite being bound and helpless, Ryan tried to comfort his woman, muttering softly and kissing the side of her neck. He could feel that her long, sentient hair was coiled tightly at the back of her head in a defensive bundle.

"Tell me 'bout it."

Krysty fought for self-control, sitting back on her heels, trying to steady her breathing. "Chilled him. But... that isn't all. The power was worse than I ever knew."

"How d'you mean? Worse?"

Her voice was so quiet that Ryan could barely hear it, but he eventually made out what she was saying. And the flesh crawled on his nape at the horror of it. She hadn't just killed the young man. She'd slipped into a blind frenzy and ripped his body apart.

Ryan tried to speak and found that his voice had gone, choked in a fearful dryness. He'd seen Krysty use her power before, and witnessed the awesome strength at such times. But to rend a corpse limb from limb... He swallowed hard and found words again.

"Don't ever get angry with me, lover," he whispered.

He felt her relax a little, the hair loosening at her neck. She even managed a muffled giggle at his weak joke. "Try not to, Ryan. If we live that long. What can we do?"

"Nobody outside in the passage heard?"

"No. I'm good at it, lover."

"I know. Are there bars on your window?"

"Some. You can lean out, but I doubt you could escape that way."

"They fear magic in the Shens. Always talk of shamans and wizards. I know that Harvey was always terrified of such things. You could sink the... the body in the moat and say you fell into a deep sleep and babble about demons and spirits possessing Jabez. The door's locked?"

"Yes. On the inside. And there's some old shrouds and some chunks of iron in a chest. I could weight the bits."

"Do it. At least it might take the blame away from you. Who knows, lover? Can you do it? You're not too weak?"

"I can try. By Gaia! What I want most is to sleep for a month. With you, Ryan."

"Don't forget. He came in and was babbling some sort of shit that sounded bad. You blacked out, and when you came around Jabez was gone. Just a lot of blood on the floor."

"I'll try, lover. Will Harvey and his bitch-wife fall for it?"

Ryan smiled in the darkness. "If they don't, things can't be worse for us. And if they do... Who knows, Krysty? Who knows?"