Rynason stayed pressed to the
stone floor, waiting. The wind whipped in a rising moan through the
upper reaches of the building.
Another of the men slipped over the edge of the massive stairs, hugging
the deeper darkness at the side of the stair-wall, and slowly inched his
way up the newly-flattened ramp. Rynason watched him coldly, through a
grey haze of fury which was yet tinged with despair. What use was all
this, the killing, the blood and sweat and pain? It disgusted him--yet
by its perverse senselessness it angered him too.
He cut a swathe through the crawling man, through head and neck and
back. A gory shell-like hulk slid back to the foot of the ramp.
And abruptly the remaining men broke and ran. One of them rose and
stumbled down the steep levels of the stairs, heedless of his exposure;
with a shock, Rynason saw that it was Rene Malhomme. Another followed
... and another. There were almost a dozen of them on the stairs; they
all broke and ran. Rynason sent one beam after them, biting a depression
into the rock wall beside them.
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