“Gar Malone. I’m his brother, Rolf.”
His eyes widened. At first I thought it was surprise at what I’d said, but then I saw he was staring beyond me, at something behind me, possibly out in the street. Before I could move, the shooting started.
I heard the first two shots. Number one caught Lastus in the right shoulder, spun him half around like a weathervane when the wind shifts. Number two plunged like an invisible spike into the back of his head, plummeting his corpse down the stairs he’d just come up.
I didn’t hear the third shot, I felt it, in the middle of my back; a blunt punch from a hard metal fist. I opened my mouth, but I had no air. I tried to stand erect, but I had no will. The punch drove me forward and I saw myself hurtle down after Lastus into the darkness below. Then a greater darkness overtook me, and I ceased to know.
XIII
Violent pain in my right hand shocked me awake. I sat up, yelling, into dusty red semi-darkness, a powerful stink, a dirt floor, and a scrawny youth with the third finger of my right hand in his mouth. He hadn’t been able to get Gar’s ring off me any other way, so he’d decided to bite my finger off entirely and take it with him.
I hit him, reflexively, and he fell back, more surprised than hurt, but immediately leaped at me again, his hands going for my throat. The two of us scuffled in the dust.
There was sudden surprised movement in the darkness around us, and a man’s amused shout: “Hey, Alfie! This one’s alive!” And then laughter from the same voice, and, “Hold him, little one! Don’t let him get away!”
But he did let me get away. I flung him off, and scrambled across the floor till I hit a dirt wall. I rolled onto my back — my body was an anthology of pains, too numerous to separate into individual aches — and saw the youth leaping for me again, his eyes wide, his face rigid with terror and determination. I kicked him away with both feet and clawed in my pockets for my weapons.
They were still there! The youth and his friends must have been sure I was dead, so they hadn’t bothered to disarm me before going for my ring. I pulled the pistol from my pocket and fired it into the youth’s face as he came leaping at me yet again. He died in mid-air and crumpled into my lap.
There was a yelp from across the room, and shouting: “He’s got a gun! Alfie, he’s got a gun!” It was the same voice as before, but no longer amused.
I looked toward the sound, and saw a tall rectangle of rusty light where the steps led up to the street. A bulky figure abruptly dashed into that rectangle, bent on escape: my shouter.
I fired at him and he yelped like a stray dog hit with a stone. He ran into the wall beside the door, half-turned, and sprawled backwards onto the ground, yelping all the while. He lay there on his back, making a lot of noise and waving his arms around. He looked like a turtle flipped over onto its shell.
The dead youth was bleeding in my lap. I pushed him away and took stock of myself, trying to organize my thoughts and understand what had happened.
The finger that had been bitten was bleeding a little, but unless infection set in it shouldn’t be anything to worry about. There was an abrasion on my forehead that stung to the touch, probably the result of my fall down the steps. The other aches and scrapes on my arms and legs were either from the same fall or from the scuffle with the youth.
But these were minor. The pain that drew my attention was in the middle of my back, between my shoulderblades, a wearying ache, a pressure on my back that dulled my movements and hampered my breathing. It was, so far as I knew, the result of a gunshot wound that should have killed me.
I didn’t entirely have my wits about me yet, and was stupid enough to look at my chest to see if the bullet had passed all the way through and come out the other side, but of course it hadn’t. I was afraid to touch that spot behind me, both because it hurt more when I reached back there and because of what I might find, but it had to be done, and so very cautiously I put my left hand behind my back, and slid it up toward the ache, and felt the crumpled remains of my sheathed knife, still in what was left of the sheath.
That was why I was alive. The bullet had hit the knife, and so hadn’t penetrated my back. But the knife had curled like the edges of a piece of paper at the impact, making sharp creases on the inner side, against my skin, and the force of the bullet had driven those creases into the flesh, cutting a random design into my back as though I’d been engraved. Or branded.
That whole area was bruised and battered, the flesh sensitive to the touch, the back of my shirt sticky with blood. From the pressure I felt when I breathed it seemed to me I might have broken a rib or two besides. If I wasn’t careful how I moved, I was liable to puncture a lung.
Across the way, the turtle shape had begun to slacken, the arm and leg movements getting feebler, the yelps softer, but all at once he screamed, “Alfie! Alfie, come get me!”
We both waited. Nothing happened. The turtle shape began to groan, loud, windy, melodramatic sighs.
I began very cautiously to move, turning over at first onto my hands and knees, then moving my hands up onto the wall in front of me and slowly easing myself up the wall till I was on my feet. Then I tucked the pistol away in my pocket, undid the thong of the sheath around my neck, and carefully removed the knife that had saved me, slipping it up from inside my shirt. Moving it that way made quick stinging pains in my back, but I ignored them and looked instead in the dim red light at the knife.
It was a crumpled mess. The side of the sheath that had been against my back was cut and full of blood, and the other side had been almost completely sheared away by the bullet. The crater of the bullet’s impact was there in the knife, plus a long groove where it had deflected and scratched its way up as far as the hilt. The lip of the hilt was bent back where the scratch met it, but from that point bullet and knife had parted company.
I tossed the knife away and looked around, for the first time paying real attention to the room itself. It was sparsely furnished with a cot against one wall, a few ramshackle chairs, a battered trunk, a homemade table. Floor and walls were dirt. There were no decorations of any kind. Oh, brave new world!
There was a thin blanket on the cot. I took it and ripped off several strips, six inches wide, and wrapped two of the strips tightly around my chest, relieving the feeling of pressure and giving some support to my ribs. I thought I could dare to move more freely now.
Lastus lay on his side near the steps, not far from where the groaner lay on his back and made his noises. I went over and checked Lastus and he was dead, as I’d known he must be, his eyes wide open and full of surprise. I searched him, and then searched the room, and found nothing of interest.
The dead youth was dressed in rags so filthy I hardly searched his body at all. I hadn’t expected to find anything noteworthy on him and I didn’t.
I went over and squatted down beside the groaner and slapped his face, saying, “Shut up and listen to me.”
He blinked several times, very rapidly, and stared at me in astonishment. I believe he’d forgotten about me. When he remembered, he shouted, “You killed my boy!” He waved his arms as though he wanted to get at me.
I took out the can of blinding gas and showed it to him and said, “Do you see what this is?”
He just kept waving his arms and glaring at me.
I slapped him again, to attract his attention. “I asked you, do you see what this is I’m holding in my hand?”
“I see it, you rotten thing. I know what it is.”
“It will be the last thing you see,” I told him, “if you don’t tell me what I want to know.”
“Rotter.”