The Dark Tower-Part 1#-2#(72)

Tanya fell on her knees beside her dying husband, raising her hands to the sky. She was screaming at the top of her lungs but Gaskie could barely hear her. Tears of frustration and fear prickled the corners of his eyes. Dirty dogs, he thought. Dirty ambushing dogs!

And-

North of the Algul compound, Susannah broke cover, moving in on the triple run offence. This wasn't in die plan, but the need to keep shooting, to keep knocking them down, was stronger than ever. She simply couldn't help herself, and Roland would have understood. Besides, the billowing smoke from Damli House had momentarily obscured everything at this end of the compound. Red beams from the "lazers" stabbed into it-on and off, on and off, like some sort of neon sign-and Susannah reminded herself not to get in the way of them, not unless she wanted a hole two inches across all the way through her.

She used bullets from the Coyote to cut her end of the fence-outer run, middle run, inner run-and then vanished into the thickening smoke, reloading as she went.

And-

The Breaker named Waverly tried to pull free of Finli. Nar, nar, none of that, may it please ya, Finli thought. He yanked the man-who'd been a bookkeeper or some such thing in his pre-

Algul life-closer to him, then slapped him twice across the face, hard enough to make his hand hurt. Waverly screamed in pain and surprise.

"Who the fuck is back there!" Finli roared. "WHO THE FUCK IS DOING THIS?" The follow-up fire engines had halted in front of Damli House and were pouring streams of water into the smoke. Finli didn't know if it could help, but probably it couldn't hurt. And at least the damned things hadn't crashed into the building they were supposed to save, like the first one.

"Sir, I don't knozv!" Waverly sobbed. Blood was streaming from one of his nostrils and the corner of his mouth. "I don't know, but there has to be fifty, maybe a hundred of the devils! Dinky got us out! God bless Dinky Earnshaw Gaskie O'Tego, meanwhile, wrapped one good-sized hand around James Cagney's neck and the other around Jakli's.

Gaskie had an idea son of a bitching crowheadjakli had been on the verge of running, but there was no time to worry about that now. He needed them both.

And-

"Boss!" Finli shouted. "Boss, grab the Earnshaw kid! Something about this smells!"

And-

With Cag's face pressing against one of his cheeks and Jakli's against the other, the Wease (who thought as clearly as anyone that terrible morning) was finally able to make himself heard.

Gaskie, meanwhile, repeated his command: divide up the armed guards and put them with the retreating Breakers. "Don't try to stop them, but stay with them! And for Christ's sake, keep em from getting electrocuted! Keep em off the fence if they go past Main Stree-"

Before he could finish this admonishment, a figure came plummeting out of the thickening smoke. It was Gangli, the compound doctor, his white coat on fire, his roller skates still on his feet.

And-

Susannah Dean took up a position at the left rear corner of Damli House, coughing. She saw three of die sons of bitches-

Gaskie, Jakli, and Cagney, had she but known it. Before she could draw a bead, eddying smoke blotted them out. When it cleared, Jakli and Cag were gone, rounding up armed guards to act as sheepdogs who would at least try to protect their panicked charges, even if they could not immediately stop them. Gaskie was still there, and Susannah took him with a single headshot.

Pimli didn't see it. It was becoming clear to him that all the confusion was on the surface. Quite likely deliberate. The Breakers"

decision to move away from the attackers north of the Algul had come a little too quickly and was a litde too organized.

Never mind Earnshaw, he thought, Brautigan's the one I want to talk to..

But before he could catch up to Ted, Tassa grabbed the Master in a frantic, terrified hug, babbling that Warden's House was on fire, he was afraid, terribly afraid, that all of Master's clothes, his books-

Pimli Prentiss knocked him aside with a hammer-blow to the side of his head. The pulse of the Breakers' unified thought

(bad-mind now instead of good-mind), yammered

(WITH YOUR HANDS UP YOU WON'T BE)

crazily in his head, threatening to drive out all thought.

Fucking Brautigan had done this, he knew it, and the man was too far ahead …  unless …

Pimli looked at the Peacemaker in his hand, considered it, then jammed it back into the docker's clutch under his left arm.

He wanted fucking Bravitigan alive. Fucking Brautigan had some explaining to do. Not to mention some more goddamned breaking.

Choio-chow-chow. Bullets flicking all around him. Running hume guards, taheen, and can-toi all around him. And Christ, only a few of them were armed, mosdy humes who'd been down for fence-patrol. Those who guarded the Breakers didn't really need guns, by and large the Breakers were as tame as parakeets and the thought of an outside attack had seemed ludicrous until …

Until it happened, he thought, and spied Trampas.

"Trampas!" he bawled. "Trampas! Hey, cowboy! Grab Earnshaw and bring him to me! Grab Earnshaw!"

Here in the middle of the Mall it was a litde less noisy and Trampas heard sai Prentiss quite clearly. He sprinted after Dinky and grabbed the young man by one arm.

And-

Eleven-year-old Daneeka Rostov came out of the rolling smoke that now entirely obscured the lower half of Damli House, pulling two red wagons behind her. Daneeka's face was red and swollen; tears were streaming from her eyes; she was bent over almost double with the effort it was taking her to keep pulling Baj, who sat in one Radio Flyer wagon, and Sej, who sat in the other. Both had the huge heads and tiny, wise eyes of hydrocephalic savants, but Sej was equipped with waving stubs of arms while Baj had none. Both were now foaming at the mouth and making hoarse gagging sounds.

"Help me!" Dani managed, coughing harder than ever.

"Help me, someone, before they choke!"

Dinky saw her and started in that direction. Trampas restrained him, although it was clear his heart wasn't in it. "No,

Dink," he said. His tone was apologetic but firm. "Let someone else do it. Boss wants to talk to-"

Then Brautigan was there again, face pale, mouth a single stitched line in his lower face. "Let him go, Trampas. I like you, dog, but you don't want to get in our business today."

"Ted? What-"

Dink started toward Dani again. Trampas pulled him back again. Beyond them, Baj fainted and tumbled headfirst from his wagon. Although he landed on the soft grass, his head made a dreadful rotten splitting sound, and Dani Rostov shrieked.

Dinky lunged for her. Trampas yanked him back once more, and hard. At the same time he pulled the.38 Colt Woodsman he was wearing in his own docker's clutch.

There was no more time to reason with him. Ted Brautigan hadn't thrown the mind-spear since using it against the walletthief in Akron, back in 1935; hadn't even used it when the low men took him prisoner again in the Bridgeport, Connecticut, of 1960, although he'd been sorely tempted. He had promised himself he'd never use it again, and he certainly didn't want to throw it at

(smile when you say that)

Trampas, who had always treated him decently. But he had to get to the south end of the compound before order was restored, and he meant to have Dinky with him when he arrived.

Also, he was furious. Poor little Baj, who always had a smile for anyone and everyone!

He concentrated and felt a sick pain rip through his head.

The mind-spear flew. Trampas let go of Dinky and gave Ted a look of unbelieving reproach that Ted would remember to the end of his life. Then Trampas grabbed the sides of his head like a man with the worst Excedrin Headache in the universe, and fell dead on the grass with his throat swollen and his tongue sticking out of his mouth.

"Come on!" Ted cried, and grabbed Dinky's arm. Prentiss was looking away for the time being, thank God, distracted by another explosion.

"ButDani … andSej!"

"She can get Sej!" Sending the rest of it mentally:

(now that she doesn't have to pull Baj too)

Ted and Dinky fled while behind them Pimli Prentiss turned, looked unbelievingly at Trampas, and bawled for them to stop-to stop in the name of the Crimson King.

Finli O'Tego unlimbered his own gun, but before he could fire, Daneeka Rostov was on him, biting and scratching. She weighed almost nothing, but for a moment he was so surprised to be attacked from this unexpected quarter that she almost bowled him over. He curled a strong, furry arm around her neck and threw her aside, but by then Ted and Dinky were almost out of range, cutting to the left side of Warden's House and disappearing into the smoke.

Finli steadied his pistol in both hands, took in a breath, held it, and squeezed off a single shot. Blood flew from the old man's arm; Finli heard him cry out and saw him swerve. Then the young pup grabbed the old cur and they cut around the corner of the house.

"I'm coming for you!" Finli bellowed after them. "Yar I am, and when I catch you, I'll make you wish you were never born!"

But the threat felt horribly empty, somehow.

Now the entire population of Algul Siento-Breakers, taheen, hurae guards, can-toi with bloody red spots glaring on their foreheads like third eyes-was in tidal motion, flowing south. And Finli saw something he really did not like at all: the Breakers and only the Breakers were moving that way with their arms raised. If there were more harriers down there, they'd have no trouble at all telling which ones to shoot, would they?

And-

In his room on the third floor of Corbett Hall, still on his knees at the foot of his glass-covered bed, coughing on the smoke rfiat was drifting in through his broken window, Sheemie Ruiz had his revelation …  or was spoken to by his imagination, take your pick. In either case, he leaped to his feet. His eyes, normally friendly but always puzzled by a world he could not quite understand, were clear and full of joy.