Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

Slaughter's guts if he had to. Slaughter followed, like a man who smells a particularly juicy cut of steak.

Slaughter feinted and drew back. He moved to the right, the knife carving slow circles in the air. Slaughter's eyes never left Matthew's. There came another feint followed by a fast strike toward Matthew's chest, which he recognized and dodged almost a second too late. He struck out with his own knife, intending to get under Slaughter's guard arm as the man righted himself, but then realized with sickening certainty that he was far too slow, for Slaughter's free hand clamped hard on his wrist. The horn-handled knife rose up. Matthew grasped the arm before it fell. They struggled, slamming back against the wall. A set of shelves collapsed, and with them a box of wooden tools and three or four oak buckets that rolled about the room.

As they fought, straining against each other, Slaughter's dust-streaked face came in toward Matthew's. Closer, and closer still, until Matthew feared the man would try to bite his nose off. Then Slaughter began to laugh, deeply and slowly, as the increasing pressure from his grip numbed Matthew's fingers. The ragged fingernails dug into his wrist. Matthew felt the knife began to slip.

'Just a little more, now,' Slaughter whispered, right up in his face. 'Starting to break, isn't it? Listen for the bones to snap!'

And then Slaughter twisted Matthew's wrist so fiercely searing pain coursed along the tortured arm through his neck and paralyzed him. He cried out, equally in panic as well as pain, as the knife fell from his frozen hand to the floor. Slaughter released Matthew's wrist to jab at his eyes with the fingernails, an effort Matthew was able to deflect even as he clung desperately to Slaughter's knife arm. Slaughter then grasped the front of Matthew's buckskin jacket, and with a display of awesome one-handed strength whirled around and flung him across the chamber to crash heavily into the base of the opposite wall.

Matthew got up on his knees. He tasted blood. The room swam about him.

Slaughter came toward him almost leisurely, the knife at his side. He was hardly breathing heavily. 'Dear Matthew! Don't you know by now? It would take two of you to polish me off. Alas, there is only-'

One of the wooden buckets was within Matthew's reach. He picked it up and hurled it at the man's head.

Slaughter dodged, snake-quick, but not quick enough that the bucket didn't glance off his wounded scalp. Its passage tore the bandage away, brought a hiss from between Slaughter's teeth and caused blood to stream anew from the hideous, raw red furrow above his ear. 'Damn it!' he shouted, staggering back and clasping a hand to the injury. How dare you, was his tone of voice. He blinked rapidly; blood was in his eye. 'Damn-'

He never finished the second oath, because Matthew had gotten to his feet and now he hit the man in the mouth as hard as he could. Even falling, Slaughter swung out with the knife; it slashed across Matthew's chest, carving through buckskin, waistcoat cloth and shirt linen as cleanly as it had cut through the burnt crust of a ham.

Slaughter went down on his back, making the planks squeal and tremble. Matthew had no time to worry about a slashed chest. He stomped on the knife hand; once, twice, again did the man have a grip of iron? Slaughter was trying to grab Matthew's leg, and then he reached up and caught the jacket, but the fingers of his other hand had sprung their knuckles and the knife was loose. Matthew bent down to get it but again Slaughter's nails came at his face. He kicked at the knife, if only to remove it from the killer's immediate choices, and the weapon of murderous destruction slid up under one of the revolving wheels.

Slaughter was on his knees. The arrow wound was running crimson through his hair. Matthew hit him in the mouth again, but Slaughter just grinned with bloody teeth. A fist struck Matthew in the chest and made his lungs hitch for air, another blow smashed him on the right cheekbone and a third hit his jaw and rocked his head back, and then the killer was up and driving him across the floor toward the mechanisms, where a set of pyramid-shaped teeth in one of the groaning gearwheels could very well scrape a face from a skull.

That was Slaughter's intent. He bent Matthew's face toward the teeth, put a hand on the back of his head and pushed. Matthew resisted, the cords and muscles of his neck straining. He thrashed to escape, frantically throwing both elbows, but the man's grip was just too strong. Matthew knew that in another few seconds his fast- dwindling strength would be history, and so too would he be when Slaughter polished him off. Still he fought, and still he knew he was losing. He heard Slaughter grunt when an elbow crashed against his chest, but it was only a matter of time.

Matthew felt himself going. Felt himself giving up, whether he wanted to or not. Try? He had tried. Tried all he could. It was not to be. And all those deaths all for nothing

Slaughter released one hand to pound him across the back of the head, which made red comets shoot through his brain. And from the gloom that was closing in on him Matthew imagined that Slaughter leaned forward, as Matthew's face hung inches over the revolving teeth, and whispered something in his ear that was strangely familiar:

'With a shove and a shriek I pass through the town, and what fast horse might ride me down?'

Very soon, now. Very soon.

Try. I'm sorry, he thought. I am all tried out.

Something hit the wheel.

Not his face. Something that sounded like pebbles. Someone had just thrown a handful of pebbles into the room, is what it sounded like. Matthew heard them-four or five, it might have been-hit the wheel and bounce off; one struck the side of his neck and gave him a sting.

All at once Slaughter cast him aside like dirty laundry. Matthew fell to his knees. He stared down at the floor where his own blood was dripping. He was used up, nothing left. He thought he was going to pass out in another few seconds, and lie here like a lamb for the well, yes.

'Who's there?' he heard Slaughter roar. The man stalked to the nearest window, which looked toward the woods. 'Who's there, please?' The diplomat at work. 'This is a private matter!'

Matthew saw something roll past his face. His eyes followed it.

It was a marble.

Green, it appeared to be. No, not altogether green. It had within it a swirl of blue.

Matthew was dazed. He had seen that before. Hadn't he? Somewhere.

'Show yourself!' Slaughter shouted. He reached into his haversack again-his bottomless bag of horrors, it seemed-and this time brought out the razor, which had an evil glint about it that Matthew had never noted in his own shaving-glass.

'Somebody's spying on us,' he heard the man mutter. 'I'll fix 'em, just you wait there. I'll fix 'em.' And then, louder, 'Come on in! Where are you?'

Matthew didn't wish to stay for the cutting party. He looked over his shoulder. At one of the windows on the opposite side of the mill.

If he was going, it was time to get.

Matthew hauled himself up.

With the desperate urgency of someone fleeing Satan Incarnate he ran or hobbled or somehow got to the window. As he heard Slaughter bellow and start after him, he flung himself through the frame.

For a few seconds he was actually riding on top of the watermill's wheel, for he had come out amid the blades. Then he was on the downward slope, he banged the right side of his head on a slat, and suddenly he was in cold water that rushed him away from the mill. How deep the stream was he didn't know, but if his feet dragged the bottom he wasn't aware of it. The chill of the water had given him a start, but now everything was darkening once more, getting hazy around the edges. He went past several half-submerged rocks that he tried to grasp, but the stream was fast and his reflexes seemed to be several seconds behind his intentions. The stream curved to the right, spun him around in white water eddies and picked up more speed.

If Greathouse could see him now, he thought. It was to laugh at, really. To laugh at until one wept. He had the strength of a wet feather. His vision was fading; everything was giving out on him, he had blood in his mouth and a knot on his head and maybe, he thought, this was the end of it. Because his face kept going down into the water, and he couldn't seem to keep his head up.

His chance to get Slaughter was gone. That was to laugh at, as well. Had he ever possessed a chance to