The Last Legion: Book One of the Last Legion Series Read Online Free Page B

when he picked up the new cards.
    “Dealer takes one.”
    “I’ll fly these,” Kipchak said, and stood pat.
    The woman took two, the remaining man three.
    “Another hundred,” the dealer said.
    The woman dropped out, the remaining man increased the bet.
    “I think I’m lucky,” Jaansma said. “Up two hundred.”
    “And a hundred back at you,” Petr said.
    “Like I said, expensive,” the dealer said. “ ‘Sides, it’s getting late. Don’t want to spoil my complexion with late hours.” He counted. “Up five … six hundred.”
    “The kid’s going to be foolish,” Garvin said, and peeled bills into the stack. “And up two hundred on you.”
    “I’m short,” Petr said.
    “No problem,” Njangu said, coming away from the bulkhead and taking notes from his pocket. “Your credit’s good.”
    “Thanks.”
    The dealer laughed unpleasantly. “I think I’m gonna sleep real, real good.” He flipped his hand onto the table. All five were of a single color.
    “Guess that does it,” and he reached for the money. “High to the Protector.”
    “Not quite.” And Petr slowly tossed cards faceup on the blanket. “Ruler … Ruler … Ruler … Ruler … and the Alien for a fifth.”
    The dealer’s eyes went wide. “You weren’t — ” and his hand went for his back pocket.
    “Rube!” Garvin snapped, coming to his feet.
    Light glinted as a tiny steel dart flickered across the blanket, buried itself in the dealer’s forearm. He yelped, and blood spurted.
    The lookout came forward, a short length of pipe appearing in her hand. Njangu sidestepped into her, and snapped a backhand strike into her temple. She tumbled across a player, lay still.
    Another man was getting up, and Garvin drove a punch into his solar plexus, then smashed the back of his hand into the man’s skull, and he went down.
    The dealer stared at his blood-runneling arm, the knife still buried near his elbow. Petr pulled the dart free, and again the man screeched.
    The other players were motionless, arms raised to their shoulders, fingers splayed.
    Yoshitaro glanced into the troop bay. “Nobody heard anything,” he reported.
    Peter wiped the tiny knife clean, made it vanish. “Don’t like cheaters,” he said. “Maybe I oughta slice your tendons for you. Play hell with your card game.”
    The dealer moaned, shook his head pleadingly.
    “You people see anything tonight, or did you go to bed early?” Kipchak asked.
    Heads were vigorously shaken.
    The lookout got to her knees, coughed, and threw up. She staggered toward a toilet. The man Garvin had hit lay motionless.
    “You kill him?” Petr asked, not sounding worried.
    “No,” Jaansma said. “He’ll wake up in an hour, and be sick like she is, but nothing lasting.”
    “Good. We don’t need any courts-martial,” Petr said. “Now, isn’t it bedtime for you folks?”
    The players hurried out.
    Petr pulled the dealer to his feet. “You go on sick call, and swear you slipped and fell against a hatch dog. Got it? Anything different, and there’ll be two witnesses who’ll call you liar when we get to D-Cumbre.
    “And then you’d better grow eyes in the back of your head, which I understand makes a feller nervous after a while.”
    “Nothin’ happened,” the dealer babbled. “It’s like you said. I swear, I swear.”
    “Good. Here. Take this towel and go find a medic.”
    “Not quite yet,” Garvin said. “For there’s still a lesson to be learned before we offer our final benedictions.” He spoke in measured, liturgical tones. “My man here has not yet learned how we discovered his villainy, and perhaps he could benefit from that information.”
    “Don’t tell the bastard,” Kipchak said. “Then he’ll do better next time, and rook another set of fools.”
    “Not to worry,” Jaansma said lightly. “For knaves such as he, there’s never a lesson to be learned until the final one.
    “I first noted this man because of the sound. Sound, you say, looking