Free The Shattered Gates by Ginn Hale Page B

“I’ll damn well kill you!”
    The other man barely had time to look up before the bearded man hammered a fist into the side of his head. The slim man fell, and the bearded man kicked him hard, knocking over chairs.
    The other patrons drew back as the bearded man continued cursing and kicking the slim man. The singer went silent and stepped back from the edge of the stage. The slim man curled up, attempting to protect himself while the much bigger bearded man stomped at him furiously.
    “I’ll kill you, you light-fingered fucker!” The bearded man’s face had gone red with anger.
    Kahlil pushed himself up to his feet. He knew he was going to regret this, but he couldn’t let the man on the floor take a beating for him. He shoved his way past the other tavern patrons and grabbed the bearded man’s shoulder.
    “Stop it,” Kahlil said.
    “Go to hell!” the bearded man roared, and Kahlil could smell the sharp tang of wine on the man’s breath. Then he swung his fist up to smack Kahlil aside. Reflexively, Kahlil ducked and drove his own fist into the bearded man’s nose. A hot gush of blood spilled across his left hand.
    The bearded man staggered back and then threw himself at Kahlil. Out of the corner of his eye, Kahlil saw the bloodied, slim man being lifted from the floor by two other patrons. That was good.
    Then he crumpled to the ground beneath the immense weight of his bearded opponent. The man’s thick hands locked around his throat. Kahlil twisted beneath the man’s bulk, but his left arm was pinned tight. His right arm lay stretched out against the wooden floor, but Kahlil could hardly make it move. The pain was simply too great. And now he couldn’t breathe.
    For a moment, out of pure animal reflex, he fought for air, spitting and gasping. The bearded man leaned over him, tightening his grip on Kahlil’s throat.
    “No man alive fucks with me, boy,” the bearded man whispered. He grinned, and Kahlil saw that blood from his nose had dripped through his blonde mustache and into his mouth.
     Kahlil clawed at the man’s chest with his left hand. His fingers only gripped into the man’s coat. His lungs ached. This man truly intended to kill him.
     The little air in Kahlil’s lungs felt dead. His lips were numb, and a pulse of blackness edged in over his vision. Then Kahlil felt a desperate, burning force suddenly flash up from deep within him. A surge of power and rage scorched out from his bones. His muscles felt molten. His skin was like fire.
    The pain of his injuries seared away to vapor.
    He relaxed. Without thinking, he flicked the fingers of his left hand apart. Instantly an edge of Gray Space tore open. Kahlil pushed the edge of it up into the bearded man’s chest. His hand slid into the hot, wet cavity of the man’s body as easily as if he were slipping on a glove. With a flick of his hand, he slid the edge of the Gray Space upward, using it like a razor.
    The bearded man hardly had a moment to look astonished before his body split open from sternum to jaw bone. His blood, steaming hot and nearly black with oxygen, gushed from the gaping wound. The bearded man spilled onto Kahlil, who lay still pinned beneath his massive bulk.
    He couldn’t sit up; he couldn’t move. He felt sick and exhausted. It was all so familiar.
    People stood all around him. Their faces appeared soft and distorted, as if he were peering through warped glass. His eyesight was getting worse, he thought. It seemed much darker now, nearly black. He could discern only indistinct shadows of movement above him. Someone laid a hand on his shoulder.
    “It’s going to be all right,” a man whispered close to his face. Farther away, someone else laughed.
     Then a vast darkness, like a new door into a space he had never crossed before, opened up and swallowed him whole.

    Arc Two: In the Shadow of  the White Mountain

Chapter Seven

    Flurries of snow rolled up in little curls as a sudden wind swept down from the distant,