Storm Breakers Read Online Free PDF

he was about as far out of his element as she was, here in the snowy dark Northeast. Bayou-born-and-bred as he was, he seemed to have little difficulty coping with any environment in which he found himself.
    They turned to walk in single file down the road, with sec men in front and bringing up the rear. Whatever Ryan thought of that arrangement he kept to himself; he was a man who lived by the principle of picking his fights, and this was a poor one however you looked at it. Anyway, so far as Mildred could tell, the arrangement was as advantageous from the viewpoint of her party’s survival as any other. Despite her years awake and abroad in this harsh new world, she was no tactician yet. Ryan was. So she was content to follow his lead in such matters.
    It had kept them alive, time and again, under the most impossible circumstances.
    To keep her mind from straying back to J.B.’s open wound and the prospect that he might have reached the end of his road, she studied Ryan. Or, rather, his back. He walked at the front of his companions, barely bowed by the weight of his backpack and Scout longblaster at all. She knew that, as much as she loved J.B., his state had to be hitting Ryan harder. They had been best friends for years, since they met while J.B. rode with the enigmatic Trader. They had known each other, saved each other countless times, long before they ever met any of the others. In some ways, the Armorer was closer to Ryan even than his soul mate, Krysty.
    Whatever came, Ryan preferred to meet it with head high and eyes—eye—ever-moving.
    Krysty walked close behind Ryan. Her hood was down, allowing Mildred to see that her prehensile hair was curled into a tight cap on her head. Krysty wondered what their friendly sec men escorts would say when they noticed that little phenomenon; right now, they seemed too stoked to spot the fact they had a mutie in their midst.
    Then came Ricky, J.B.’s apprentice, the group’s newest member. Of all of the companions, he felt closest to J.B.; the Armorer and he were kindred spirits, born tinkerers and gun nuts. He was trying hard not to cry. And not succeeding very well, to judge by the sheen of frozen tears on his pale olive cheeks, even in the faintest of light, every time he turned his head left or right.
    Mildred had a few of those caked on her own cheeks, as well. More than a few.
    After her came Doc, twirling his stick with the concealed sword and humming an absentminded little tune to himself. She was too spent and miserable to snap at him to knock it off.
    Last walked Jak, sharp features grim, his eyes alert and ever-active. He didn’t like being chained to the group, any more than a guard dog liked being chained in a yard. It wasn’t his role; it didn’t accord with his restless spirit. His style was to be a ghost, escorting the others unseen, always patrolling for enemies—something for which his albino pallor ironically suited him in this snowscape.
    But Ryan had told him to fall in, so he had.
    The wind picked up. Mildred heard a strange rushing roar.
    “There it is,” Lucas called. “The castle.”
    Mildred looked up. Her first thought was that the place sure wasn’t making any effort to hide—perched, as it was, forty or fifty yards ahead on a glistening dark crag of rock, swept bare of snow by the wind that had commenced to howl and cut. It had plenty of windows, and yellow light seemed to glare out of each and every one of them, like a dozen lighthouse beacons calling out, Here we are! to the ill-intentioned.
    Beyond it was a darkness only relatively lighter than the damp black rock and the structure itself between the golden-gleaming windows. Mildred could only tell it was a sky full of clouds by the fact she saw no stars.
    She smelled saltwater.
    Her second thought was that it didn’t have to hide. It wasn’t hard at all to see why they called it the castle.
    She could see little detail in the darkness. The glare from the windows made it harder, not