Vance Kegg’s howl of agony echoed through the roaring steam as Nessa Vale’s steel-shod land-mapper’s staff pierced deep into his thigh. The brute collapsed onto the shaking iron grating, thrashing like a wounded boar, his fingers clawing for the fallen valve wrench.
Before Kegg’s fingers could close around the iron handle, a huge shadow surged through the white fog from the narrow high walkway ladder.
Sile Rook crested the platform, his forty-pound heart-oak tall body-shield held like a battering ram. The scarred veteran didn’t hesitate, didn’t issue a warning, and didn’t pause to negotiate. He drove the iron-banded base of the shield straight downward into Kegg’s chest.
CRUNCH.
The breath exploded from Kegg’s lungs in a bloody spray. The sheer driving force of the shield pinned the two-hundred-pound guard flat against the punched holes in iron deck, trapping his arms beneath the seasoned oak face. Sile dropped his full weight onto the top rim of the shield, his scarred neck corded like iron cables, his cold gray eyes glaring down through his leather face-guard.
“Move a finger, Kegg,” Sile rasped through his breathing mask, “and I’ll drive this iron rim through your breastbone. Stay in the muck.”
Kegg gasped, choking on blood and sulfur fumes, fully incapacitated beneath the crushing deadweight of the military tall body-shield.
