Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 94582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Torin pulled the trigger of his hand-cannon, blasting a hole in the creature’s side. Unlike a blaster, his weapon fired disrupter rounds—extra large caliber ammo that would take down a Forthian ox if necessary.
As it turned out, it would take down a Trollox too. With a bellow of pain, the enormous monster came crashing to the ground, all three of its heads howling in confusion and fury.
“You’ll pay!” the center head was bellowing. “You hurt Shazzer and you’ll pay!”
“Take this as payment then,” Torin snarled and pulled the trigger three more times. In quick succession he shot all three heads, watching them explode like rotten melons, flinging the Trollox’s black brains everywhere.
He would have liked to rip all three heads off instead and then proceed to dismantle the body, but the scent of spilled blood was getting stronger and he knew he couldn’t let the Rage completely control him. If he did, he would spend too much time with the Trollox and what he needed to concentrate on now was Sky’lar.
Holstering the cannon, he stepped over the enormous sprawled body of the Trollox and knelt beside her on the dirty pavement.
“Sky’lar? Darlin’? Come on—let’s get you out of here!”
Despite the fact that it was now indisputably dead, the Trollox’s tight grip on her waist and rib cage hadn’t lessened. Torin had to pry open its thick, sausage fingers—breaking several in the process—to finally free her. But even when he managed to get her loose, she still didn’t wake up.
The sight of her lying there so still wiped the last of the Rage from his mind.
“Sky’lar, baby…please!” he whispered, lifting her into his arms. He cradled her limp form to his chest. He needed to get her back to the ship but just then he heard more shouting coming from just outside the alley.
“This way—I saw them go this way!”
“Lookit—there’s Brunce and Jowls. They’re hurt bad! They hurt our brothers!”
“Shit!” Torin muttered under his breath. The last thing he needed was more cast-offs coming after him for killing their “brothers.” He couldn’t fight off another hoard of them and still get Sky’lar to the ship in time to save her.
If she can still be saved. She’s awfully still and limp, isn’t she? whispered a worried voice in his head.
Torin did his best to push the inner pessimist away. Sky’lar would be all right—she had to be! And if he had to fight his way out while carrying her, by the Goddess, that’s what the fuck he was going to do!
Rising with her cradled in his arms, Torin was just debating if he should sling her over one shoulder in order to shoot more accurately when he heard the creak of metal on metal behind him.
“Hey!” a voice called—a soft, feminine voice, he noted. “Hey, over here—hurry!”
TWENTY-ONE
TORIN
Turning his head, Torin saw a small, oval face peering out from the darkness of the building on his left.
“Over here!” the girl said again. “Hurry or they’ll get you!”
She nodded at the mouth of the tunnel and Torin saw that a mob of males was gathering there. They seemed especially upset to find that the Trollox was dead.
“Shazzer! They killed Shazzer!” one of them was shouting.
“Gonna fuck ‘em up,” snarled another.
“Hurry!” the girl said again, gesturing for him to come in. “Get in here!”
She held the door for Torin and he slipped inside the dark building just as the mob was coming down the alley.
The girl slammed the door shut behind him and triple bolted it. Then she let two thick iron bars, which were tilted up on their ends, clang into the reinforced brackets on either side of the door, effectively barring it from the inside.
“There,” she said to Torin. “That will keep anything but a sub-nuclear blast out—I know because my Aunt told me so.”
Torin wanted to ask questions but just then, Sky’lar stirred faintly in his arms. Or he thought he felt her stir—maybe it was more of a twitch. At any rate, he needed to get her wound tended—wherever it was.
“Do you have a med aid kit?” he asked the girl urgently. “She’s hurt badly—I need to help her.”
“This way.”
The girl—who had light brown skin and long curly hair—led him deeper into the building. Behind them, Torin could hear banging on the door, but she didn’t seem concerned about it. He hoped she was right about how much force it could withstand. The last thing they needed was a hoard of angry cast-offs storming into the building.
But as they girl led him deeper and deeper, through a maze of metal corridors, the banging was fainter and fainter. Torin wondered how she knew her way—it was like a maze with different halls leading off in every direction. But the girl—who he was beginning to think was Mistress Mirabella—seemed to have no doubt which way she was going. She led him unerringly until at last she reached another thick metal door like the one he’d first come through.