The Dark Tower I: Lady Gunslinger
Try as she might, even with her hand clamped tight over her wound, she couldn’t stop the blood from seeping through, occasional drops falling to the snow. Her breath rose up in plumes of mist as she ran, the cold attacking her body, mixing with the pain and blood-loss to drain her strength. Not for the first time that night, she cursed this cowardly retreat as well as her own stupidity; she would much rather have stood her ground and faced her pursuers but there was too much at stake… there was everything at stake.
The long coat pulled tight around her, doing little to stave off the chill but at least hiding the large sandlewood grip pistols on her hips, she made her way across a small city park, trying to reach the cement path that had been cleared of the winter storm’s remnants. It was her only chance of throwing off the trail of the Big Coffin Hunters. However short-lived it might be, it could be just enough to tend her wound and formulate a new plan.
In the two days she’d been here, she’d come to despise this world. The crowded cities, with their large stone and steel structures, most of which lacked any sign that a true artisan had designed them, looking so similar, side-by-side, so harsh and uninviting. The sounds and smells that assaulted her senses from the moment she’d arrived. And the people… so many people. For the most part, there seemed to be two main types: the first of these were in some great rush and too focused to get where they were going to so much as notice the others around them unless one happened to get in their way, then they would become enraged and verbally and/or physically attack the transgressor, and the second type seemed to have given up on life completely, barely more than useless shells devoid of purpose, content to let the winds of ka (or fate, as they called it) push them where it may. She imagined that this might have been what her own her world had been like in the early years of the Old Ones. The type of civilization that had almost wiped itself out; there was a reason it was forbidden to seek out and use the ancient machines left standing from that time.
Now, stumbling through an unfamiliar world, life draining from her by the second, she was furious at the thought that she might die here, so far from home, having failed in her mission. Having forgotten the face of her father. She was the last, having lived far longer than should have been possible. ..No! Ka had chosen her to do this, had granted her this long life so that she could find the tower! She would not die in this forsaken place!
The next hour was a blur of fever-induced nightmare images; the towering structures where these people lived and worked became dark, sheer cliffs that began to close in on the shadow-filled valley she staggered through, threatening to collapse in on top of her, the automated transports they used to rush from one pointless place to another became growling iron beasts that prowled the valley, hunting for her. The Big Coffin Hunters used these transports, so perhaps that part wasn’t a completely unfounded hallucination.
She finally collapsed on the stoop of one of the stone structures that were divided into numerous small homes. She’d heard them referred to as part mints. She’d assumed that mints was another name for home; they were so small that they were considered only a part of a home.
She was completely unconscious when the figured emerged from the structure, inspected her body and then quickly dragged her inside.
The long coat pulled tight around her, doing little to stave off the chill but at least hiding the large sandlewood grip pistols on her hips, she made her way across a small city park, trying to reach the cement path that had been cleared of the winter storm’s remnants. It was her only chance of throwing off the trail of the Big Coffin Hunters. However short-lived it might be, it could be just enough to tend her wound and formulate a new plan.
In the two days she’d been here, she’d come to despise this world. The crowded cities, with their large stone and steel structures, most of which lacked any sign that a true artisan had designed them, looking so similar, side-by-side, so harsh and uninviting. The sounds and smells that assaulted her senses from the moment she’d arrived. And the people… so many people. For the most part, there seemed to be two main types: the first of these were in some great rush and too focused to get where they were going to so much as notice the others around them unless one happened to get in their way, then they would become enraged and verbally and/or physically attack the transgressor, and the second type seemed to have given up on life completely, barely more than useless shells devoid of purpose, content to let the winds of ka (or fate, as they called it) push them where it may. She imagined that this might have been what her own her world had been like in the early years of the Old Ones. The type of civilization that had almost wiped itself out; there was a reason it was forbidden to seek out and use the ancient machines left standing from that time.
Now, stumbling through an unfamiliar world, life draining from her by the second, she was furious at the thought that she might die here, so far from home, having failed in her mission. Having forgotten the face of her father. She was the last, having lived far longer than should have been possible. ..No! Ka had chosen her to do this, had granted her this long life so that she could find the tower! She would not die in this forsaken place!
The next hour was a blur of fever-induced nightmare images; the towering structures where these people lived and worked became dark, sheer cliffs that began to close in on the shadow-filled valley she staggered through, threatening to collapse in on top of her, the automated transports they used to rush from one pointless place to another became growling iron beasts that prowled the valley, hunting for her. The Big Coffin Hunters used these transports, so perhaps that part wasn’t a completely unfounded hallucination.
She finally collapsed on the stoop of one of the stone structures that were divided into numerous small homes. She’d heard them referred to as part mints. She’d assumed that mints was another name for home; they were so small that they were considered only a part of a home.
She was completely unconscious when the figured emerged from the structure, inspected her body and then quickly dragged her inside.