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jerked his arms and dragged his hands over the heels and soles of his boots.
Thrashing over, he sprang for the fallen sword, deftly plucking it from the floor
by the blade and opening a small cut on the palm of his glove. He came to his
feet in a yelling rush. His yell was echoed by a shout of anger and dismay from
the black-faced bodyguards. They piled forward in a mob.
He tossed the sword in the air, caught the grip in both hands and flicked out the
blade, the tip dragging across a throat. The man stumbled back, a hand clapped
to the side of his neck. A bright arterial jet spurted from between his fingers,
splashing one of the glowing light panels with an artless crimson pattern.
"Kane!" Grant's lionlike roar filled the yurt. He struggled to get to his feet.
Sverdlovosk towered behind him, a handblaster held high. He slashed the barrel
viciously across the back of Grant's skull. Even over the cries of fright and
anger, the sound of metal striking bone was loud and ugly.
Grant flopped face first to the floor, and Kane acted with the desperate swiftness
of a man who has long lived by the speed of hand and eye. He swung the sword
in a backward arc, the razor edge of the blade chopping into the horizontal
wooden pole from which the door flap hung. Hands still bound, he tore the
heavy square of hide down, and before the bodyguards could reach him with
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
their swords, he swung the flap over their heads.
As the Mongols slashed at the folds of yak skin, Kane flung himself out of the
yurt and into the courtyard, happy on the one hand to see it full of lengthening
shadows, cursing himself on the other hand for leaving Grant. But they had
worked together long enough to subscribe to the discretion-is-the-better-of-valor
school of survival.
Kane ran, using the sword blade to slice through the strips of rawhide binding his
wrists. He didn't waste time trying to claw his Sin Eater free of its holster. He
rushed toward where Sverdlovosk had parked the truck, acting on the impulse to
free Brigid.
When he reached it, he saw he was too late. A line of clansmen unloaded the
cargo, stacking the crates on a low-slung, wooden-runnered sledge harnessed to
a pair of ponies. The Russian troopers stood by, overseeing the labor.
Sverdlovosk's voice penetrated the din in the courtyard, bellowing commands in
Russian. Kane swerved away from the truck, racing toward a tumble of stone,
his body curved in a half crouch. The shadowy form of a man loomed up in front
of him, and he saw the glint of steel.
Kane tried to sidestep and felt the dull impact of the sword point as the man
stabbed at him, targeting his heart. The tough fabric of his coat resisted the steel
tip, and though he was pushed off balance, Kane returned the thrust with his own
weapon.
The eighteen-inch blade struck his attacker at an upward angle, sliding between
his ribs, grating on bone. The man coughed and convulsed in a death spasm,
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
folding over the sword and wrenching it from Kane's hand. He didn't bother
trying to withdraw the sword. He spun on his heel, running toward the area
where the horses were picketed.
Vaulting over a cracked block of basalt, he heard shrill, keening cries from
behind him. The stone walls of Kharo-Khoto threw them back in wailing echoes.
He glanced back over his shoulder. Through the milling crowd of Mongols and
Russian soldiers dashing after him, he glimpsed a blank jade face.
He unbuttoned his coat, fingers groping over the grens clipped to his combat
harness. Sverdlovosk could have defused them, but Kane had no choice but to
hope they would serve the purpose.
He gripped a metal-shelled egg, detaching it from the harness, thumb flipping
the priming pin away. He did it all by feel, not knowing if he had an incend, an
implode or a fragger in his hand. Under the circumstances he really didn't give a
damn.
He lobbed it back in a looping overhead throw and he heard it clink twice against
rock.
A blaze of light suddenly illuminated the area in front of him with a white,
incandescent glare. A tremendous cracking roar, half explosion, half windstorm,
slammed against his eardrums. The shock wave of the concussion was slight, but
he felt invisible hands tugging at his coat-tails, trying to yank him backward.
A spout of oxygen, dust, rock particles and powdery sand swirled around his
face, irresistibly sucked back toward the wedge of instant vacuum created by the
detonation of the implode gren.
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Axler, James - Outlanders 02 - Destiny Run
He lunged over a toppled statue, and for an eerie split second, his body hung
motionless in midair, suspended perpendicular to the fallen sculpture. Then the
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