The smirk on the face of the leader increased as Ryder made that one step forward with open and empty hands. He saw submission. The other pair of thugs slackened their positions, and the one bearing the rifle dropped his weapon a little, which seemed to have fulfilled his task.
It was the mistake that cost them their lives.
They expected a farmer. They found a ghost.
Ryder did not swing like a telegraphed spring of a fighter, but with the awful economy of a machine that is cleared of all unnecessary action. He did not run, but glided along, making the ten yards to the brute in front gain on him in a breath. The smirk in the face of the man had not yet quite disappeared, when the left hand of Ryder, the fingers of which are as straight as a blade, crashed into his throat, above the vox-unit.
A horrible sound, wet, crunching, dreadful to the silence. The gurgle of cartilage ruptured and cut breath. The shocked eye of the brute swelled, one good eye, and the sudden and unconditional conviction of his own mortality. He fell, scratching at his neck, it was like a dying engine spitting.
The other two stood still a half-second in the grip of incredulity. Ryder had just the time it took.
His body was already whirling with a low whirlwind. The other thug, the one with the rifle, dropped his rifle, trying to draw it up. There was a snapping vicious, rising arc of Ryder letting go of the man on the elbow. The joint cracking was as much like the sound of a dry twig snapping. The rifle rattled to the floor, and the scream of the man. Ryder did not allow the scream to end. He caught the back of the head of the man and thrust his own face on his rising knee. The scream was rounded off with a last, appalling crunch.
The third of the thugs, younger and wilder, had at length grown bold. With a guttural scream he sprang, a sharp, ash-metal shiv in his fist. Ryder didn't dodge. He bristled the lunge with his left forearm and pushed the shiv-thrust inwards, beyond his ribs. Meanwhile his right hand had propounded, palm up, and hit the youth full on the nose. It was not a punch, it was a shove, which gave the entire strength of his body upwards.
The cartilage ruptured and sent boned fragments into the brain. The young man was killed before his figure had fallen in the dust.
The whole battle had taken not much more than six seconds.
The stillness came back again, interrupted by the feeble, spasmodic gulps of the leader, who was suffocating on dry water. Ryder was standing over the three bodies, with his chest swelling and falling but slightly. His eyes consisted of cold, surgical nothing. He readjusted and looked at once in the direction of the greenhouse.
And in his heart a stone in his chest broke.
The tumbling body of the leader had fallen backwards in the turmoil. His braced and girded boot had smashed through the rest of the glass which still stood in the bottom of the dome. His death spasms had been wild, jerking, lunatic ball of murder, and rushing the raised beds, plowing the invaluable damageable plants into the earth.
Ryder nailed his eyes to the center pot. The Aethelbloom.
It was crushed. The white flowers were a streak of pulp and dirt upon the black soil. The stem was broken, its blood draining on the poisoned soil. The final image of Elara, the final spot of color in the gray world, disappeared. Erased.
A moan came out of the lips of Ryder, a moan of a low and hurt animal. The cold sharpness that had been moving him died away, leaving a shell behind to look into. He made a fumbling venture towards the wreck.
The dying leader gave a wet, choking laugh. The man was leaning against a broken planter, with blood running at his lips, and his photoelectric eye twisting wildly. He observed the ravages on the face of Ryder and it gave him a last, malicious delight.
"The... Prophet..." he gurgled, word by word. "He... knew. Know your heart... was... in the dirt.
He had spat out a gob of blood and phlegm on the ground, and stared at Ryder.
"He sends... his regards."
The light in his one good eye ceased and sank. The message was already passed along.
Ryder Graves did not move. He was rooted in the blood right down at the heart of the destruction, the bodies of the men he had killed beneath his feet, the corpse of his hope before his face. The wind increased, and swept the ash, and brought the smell of blood and death into the broached greenhouse.
He looked at his hands. They were clean, and he could sense the appearance of the impacts, the recollection of the murders. The cage that he had so faithfully constructed, the walls of thought and habit, were ruined as certainly as the glass dome.
Marek had not only dispatched murderers. He had sent a statement. A lesson. There is no peace. There is only me.
The spark of revenge, kept so long smoldering, experienced a puff of air. It didn't roar to life, not yet. It was less evident, more horrifying. It was one crystallized thought, that was cold and stinging like a bit of glass.
He was right.
The match had been struck. The long, cold night was over.