The gunslinger turned and fired a single shot, dropping the gun to his hip, aware that he might miss with the first shot because of his unfamiliarity with the weapon, but unwilling to injure any of the customers standing frozen behind the would-be hero [....] The shot was a good one, chopping through the man's knife at the base of the blade, leaving him holding nothing but the hilt.
He had progressed through the khef over many years, and had reached the fifth level [... ]He was not seventh or eighth. He was fifth. So he was thirsty, although he had no particular urge to drink. In a vague way, this all pleased him.
No answer. He drew back and kicked in the door with one hard shot of his right boot. A small bolt on the inside ripped free. The door banged against a haphazardly planked wall
"Sure." But Kennerly did not turn away, merely stood as if searching for something further to say, grinning his groveling, hate-filled grin, and his eyes flicked up and over the gunslinger's shoulder.
The gunslinger sidestepped and turned at the same time, and the heavy stick of stovewodd that the girl Soobie held swished through the air, grazing his elbow only. She lost hold of it with the force of her swing...
He blasted his way through the middle of them, running as the bodies fell, his hands picking the targets with dreadful accuracy. Two men and a woman went down, and he ran through the hole they left.
[...]
They never hesitated or faltered, although every shot he fired found a vital spot and although they had probably never even seen a gun except for pictures in old magazines.
He retreated, moving his body like a dancer to avoid the flying missiles.
They all stared at her for a moment in tableau, while the gunslinger's fingers did their reloading trick. The tips of his fingers sizzled and burned. Neat circles were branded into the tips each one.
The hilt struck him squarely between the eyes and knocked him over. They ran at him in a reaching, vicious clot. He fired his guns empty again, lying in his own spent shells. His head hurt and he saw large brown circles in front of his eyes. He missed one shot, downed eleven.
He was stabbed in the shoulder. He was stabbed in the back. He was hit across the ribs. He was stabbed in the ass. A small boy squirmed at him and made the only deep cut, across the bulge of his calf. The gunslinger blew his head off.
[...]
The gunslinger was bleeding from perhaps twenty different wounds, all of them shallow except for the cut across his calf. He bound it with a strip of shirt and then straightened and examined his kill.
The gunslinger shook his head and looked for a lie on the boy's face. He saw none.