A Fractured World: A Post Apocalyptic Adventure (Gallen Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

reeked. His hair reeked.
    “Is Tomas your son?” she asked, settling down with him, pulling the blanket tight around her.
    Stone shook his head.
    “I thought he might have been. I mean, kin look the same and you don’t look the same, but he speaks to you the way a son speaks to a father. The way my brother spoke to our father.” Her eyes became glazed as the memories flooded in. “They killed all my kin. Killed everyone in our village. Arrived in cars, on bikes. A tribe, the Blood Sun. The man who led them called himself the Cleric. Gallen is not for you, that’s what he told them, Gallen is not for you. He butchered everyone. My father helped me escape. So now I’m all alone. Only me. And you two.”
    Emil stifled a yawn. Tomas stirred, muttered and then turned over.
    “Do you have any family?” she asked. “A woman? A child?”
    He suddenly picked up his rifle.
    “Where are you both heading?”
    Became more and more agitated.
    “Somewhere quiet,” said Tomas, opening his eyes. “Can you get all the questions out of the way so I …”
    Stone gestured frantically with his hand and Tomas sprang to his feet, alert to impending danger but the warning had come too late. A shower of arrows whistled up through the darkness and peppered the room. Tomas yelled in agony as one ploughed into his chest and slammed him to the floor. Emil screamed as an arrow thudded between her ankles. She pulled the blanket over her head as they continued to fall all around them. A powerful beam of light poured into the confined space, illuminating them. Stone aimed his rifle and opened fire. There were agonised cries as he took down three of them in rapid succession.
    There was another deadly hissing sound as a second wave of arrows was unleashed. Stone ducked. Three arrows lodged into his backpack. Tomas screamed as one drilled into his thigh. He fell to the ground. The light swept across the room in a wide arc and there was shouting on the street. Stone fired until Hugo’s rifle clicked empty. He quickly discarded it. On his feet, he lightly kicked Emil, who tossed aside her blanket. He grabbed Tomas by his collar, the younger man screaming with two arrows stuck in him. His chest and leg were bloody. Stone dragged him into the bowels of the building. Emil followed behind them as a third volley of arrows splintered the now empty room. The search light swung across the face of the pitted building, hunting them down.
    Under the cover of darkness, the bandits put down their bows and ran inside, clutching spears and axes, black markings covering their faces. Emil felt the world spinning as her ears filled with the cries of the men chasing them. Were these more soldiers? She saw the ashen look on Tomas’s face, Stone yanking him through the building, dropping him when he needed to fire off a few rounds from his revolver. They crashed through a door into a large room of round tables thick with dirt. A wall into another room and half the ceiling were missing. A spear wielding bandit on the floor above drew back his throwing arm but Stone stooped and fired twice into his stomach. The man toppled and hit the floor. Another burst into the room, swinging an axe with each fist, and ran at them, his face filled with rage. Stone whirled round and squeezed the trigger, drilling a hole in his forehead.
    Stone found a closed back door that led out into an empty street. Clearing the building, he dropped Tomas to the ground, flicked open the chamber of his revolver and slotted in six bullets from the ammunition belt across his chest. Tomas was drained of colour and tears began to roll down his cheeks. He could see the white lights in the black sky above. He was leaking blood. He was shaking. He was dying.
    Three bandits emerged from behind them, yelling and jabbing with spears. Stone fired until his revolver was empty and the three were dead, chests patched with blood. He tucked the empty revolver into his belt and snatched up one of the spears. He