BODY IN THE ROAD

1558 4D

A scuff-sound on the road below stiffened Ezzar to wariness. At last. She eased from the crevice, her hyperflechette gun out and ready in its flat black sleeve. She let him pass, dropped silently to the road, and said, “Marmion.”

He froze. “Ezzar.”

“On your knees.”

In answer he whirled and fired a beamer, but she reacted instantly, moving counter to his turn; his shot went past her side and lit the rock behind her. Her first shot took him in the gut; he doubled over and fell on his side. His breath came once, ragged, and she moved behind him, bent low, and fired her next hyperflechette into the base of his skull, just like all the others.

After eight years of stalking and killing her family’s killers, he was the last. She took his weapon and his ring, and left his body in the road.