Ilya Miroshnichenko didn't get to be leader of this crew of scavengers by backing down easily. And he didn't survive the hideous burns whose scars bubble and seam half his face by giving in to a challenge.
Besides, two of his men have guns trained on her, and this is his turf.
"I am thinking," he tells her, "how far the Reds have fallen." The accents of the northern countryside are thick on his tongue, but there's nothing of the farmer in the steel below his deceptively mild tone. "This ambush just a week ago... and now sending out a sorceress alone? No wonder the 'Gorkas are winning the war."
His voice turns flinty, the change abrupt and absolute. "Stay where you are."
Not even a sorceress can dodge a good rain of bullets, and these guns are good Red military issue -- the old kind, built back before the factories were allowed to cut corners. Auto-fire protocols built right in.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-03-29 08:48 am (UTC)Ilya Miroshnichenko didn't get to be leader of this crew of scavengers by backing down easily. And he didn't survive the hideous burns whose scars bubble and seam half his face by giving in to a challenge.
Besides, two of his men have guns trained on her, and this is his turf.
"I am thinking," he tells her, "how far the Reds have fallen." The accents of the northern countryside are thick on his tongue, but there's nothing of the farmer in the steel below his deceptively mild tone. "This ambush just a week ago... and now sending out a sorceress alone? No wonder the 'Gorkas are winning the war."
His voice turns flinty, the change abrupt and absolute. "Stay where you are."
Not even a sorceress can dodge a good rain of bullets, and these guns are good Red military issue -- the old kind, built back before the factories were allowed to cut corners. Auto-fire protocols built right in.
"You're ours now."