Wretched Earth Read Online Free PDF

crowd. Then she
slammed her head back into the face of the man who held her.
    Krysty’s skull was stronger than his jaw was. She felt
something crunch at the impact, and he squalled and let her go. She gripped her
hands together and turned into him fast, driving the point of her elbow into the
pit of his stomach. The air burst out of him.
    As he jackknifed, Krysty was already responding to the men
rushing in on her. She whipped herself upright, bringing her elbow under the
chin of one of them. His jaws clacked together, then he screamed, revealing red
teeth that had bitten deeply into his tongue.
    She caught a glimpse of Mildred. Surrounded, the stocky black
woman had turned into a whirling dervish of fists, boots and elbows. She was
peaceful by nature but could fight when she had to. And years of Deathlands
living had taught her to hold nothing back. She was giving her attackers all
they wanted and a double load more.
    Krysty didn’t regret stepping in to help Mildred. The woman was
too softhearted and shouldn’t have intervened. Krysty understood intellectually
that Ryan was right about the need to keep out of fights that weren’t theirs, no
matter how her own compassionate nature rebelled. But there were times when bad
behavior had to be resisted.
    Whatever the cost.
    Her arms were grabbed from both sides. She sagged toward the
closer assailant, who had caught her right arm. Cocking her knee, she turned and
fired her left leg back in a powerful kick that caught the man who held her
other arm between navel and crotch. It knocked his legs out from under him, and
he slammed into the merciless ground face-first.
    Krysty swung back around, driving her left knee toward the
groin of the man who still held her arm. He twisted his own hips. And her knee
drove hard into the big muscle of his thigh. It had to have hurt like rad fire,
but he grinned in triumph that she’d missed pulping his balls, and made to grab
her with his other hand.
    She got her foot down, turned back and, grounding her powerful
legs, pistoned a blow against his ribs. Bone cracked like a pistol shot. He
gasped and sagged.
    Another man was already closing in from behind. Krysty snapped
her left leg straight back, then whipped it up and around. Her heel thwacked the
new attacker’s left cheek and spun him away.
    There were too many of them; she and Mildred could never win.
But Krysty put that knowledge from her mind and gave herself totally over to
fighting.
    * * *
    A TALL MAN IN A JACKET with tarnished
silver studs and frayed gray patches spun toward Ryan, and away from an
ill-considered attack on Krysty, which had earned him a wheel kick in the
cheek.
    He almost stumbled into Ryan. “I’m gonna teach that bitch,” he
said. “Get my back!”
    He wheeled to charge the flailing, fighting redhead. Recalling
a lesson from Trader, back in the day, Ryan folded his right hand into what the
cagey old man had called a “phoenix-eye fist,” with the forefinger knuckle
protruding, braced by the thumb. It wasn’t a shot Ryan had had many
opportunities to make. He was interested to see how it would pan out.
    It panned out ace. Grabbing the wag driver’s shoulder, Ryan dug
a brutal uppercut into the man’s right kidney, putting plenty of hip twist and
leg drive into the short, sweet, savage stroke. The guy squeaked like a
stepped-on deer mouse and slumped to the ground. There he curled up into a knot
of pain and lay mewling and drooling into the hardscrabble dirt.
    “What seems to be the problem here?” Ryan said, raising his
voice.
    Nobody paid any attention. Instead, peristaltic waves of mob
closed in and over the two women. Setting his jaw, Ryan prepared to wade in.
    A colossal boom roared out behind him, and a garish
yellow-white flash lit the whole courtyard.
    Everybody froze, then pale, surprised faces turned in Ryan’s
direction.
    But they weren’t gazing at him. He looked around to see Doc
standing tall in his frock coat, grinning hugely. Bluish smoke