The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1) - M. R. Carey Page 0,169

sit down on the bank near to the top of that place. My legs was dangling down so the water almost touched the heels of my boots from time to time, then crept low down and away again.

I thought about Spinner making them boots, and all over again I felt the ache of being faceless and far from home. I tried to balance the message and the hope it brung me against them feelings and fell into a deepness of pondering that was not going anywhere except around and around.

“Would you like some music, Koli?” Monono asked.

“I’m fine as I am, Monono,” I said. “Thanks, though.”

“Then maybe I’ll go on stand-by for a while. Grab some me-time. Call me if anything—”

I didn’t hear no more after that. Something hit me on the side of the head real hard. Then I was down among them stones, on my hands and knees, and there was blood dripping off of my face, that straight was carried away by the rushing water.

55

Sometimes when a thing happens that’s a surprise to you, and comes at you fast, you kind of quicken up so you can meet it. Your brain gets into another way of thinking, and you’re moving before you even know you’ve decided to. Other times, you look at the surprising thing like your head is filled up with sodden meal, and you move so slow it’s all finished before you say any word or do one thing.

The thing that was happening to me now was a thing of that second kind.

I was kneeling in the water, feeling the cold of it bite into me and looking at my own blood running away down the rocks. And I thought I had better get up, because something just hit me hard and hitting me probably wasn’t the end of it. Then I was slammed down flat into the water as something heavy landed on my back. A hand grabbed my hair, tilting my head right back, and something pricked the skin at my neck.

“Now, you bastard,” a voice said, from about an inch away from my ear. Hot breath come with it, and some spit.

I heard Monono’s voice right after through the induction field. “Hold on tight, Koli-bou. I can’t use the alarm while she’s got that knife to your throat, but the drudge is moving up. She must have tripped a sensor or something. It can take her out with one shot.”

“No!” I said. My voice come out thick and strangled because of the leaning back and because of the knife that made me afraid to move too much.

“Beg all you like. I don’t mind.” That come from right on top of me, and then Monono chipped in with, “The drudge is in position, but your head is in the way. Can you move to the right, an inch or two?”

“No!” I said again. I shouted it this time. “Don’t! Cup, set your knife down or you’re like to die.”

I knowed her voice right away. And if it was anyone else I maybe would of closed my eyes and waited, hoping the drudge’s gun would do what it done to Sky and them before the knife was drawed across and ended me.

But Cup was just a girl. If we was in Mythen Rood, she wouldn’t of gone Waiting yet. The memory of the people the drudge had killed come into my mind so strong I almost throwed up. I didn’t want to see her all shot through with bolts. Nor I didn’t think she had made up her mind to kill me, for if she did she was going all the wrong way about – talking instead of cutting. I thought it was more like she set the knife to my throat to find out what would happen. To see if she was going to turn out to be a killer or not.

“It’s you that’s gonna die, Koli Faceless,” she says. But she still didn’t cut. Keeping the knife right where it was, she let go my hair so she could punch me, again and again, on my back and on my shoulder.

“Koli, it’s an easy shot. Just duck your head down, dopey boy.”

“No,” I says for the third time.

“What, you think you’re quicker than a knife?” Cup yelled. “You think you got armour on your dead-god-damned neck? You don’t! You don’t!”

It was easier to breathe since she stopped grabbing my head like that. Easier to talk too. “Did you see what happened to