Worna grunted. ‘I know that one. Hunting a mark for months or years, and when you finally get the strike, it feels hollow and empty, but there’s more to this, isn’t there, if you don’t mind me asking?’
Molotch glanced at the ancient bounty hunter and smiled an asymmetrical smile. ‘You amuse me, Lucius. For all your brute demeanour, you exhibit a perceptive mind. Yes, there is more to this.’
Molotch looked away as a particularly violent jag of lightning seared the peaks above. It seemed as if he was unwilling to say anything further.
Then he glanced back at Worna and said, ‘There are dark days ahead, you see, Lucius, dark even by our standards. Through Orfeo, I made Ravenor an offer. I have no love for him, you understand, but he was a very capable being. I believed that, together, we might avert the oncoming darkness. Ravenor chose to reject my offer. Now he is dead, and in no position to reconsider it. So, I suppose, I mourn his death as much as I celebrate it.’
Worna shrugged. ‘I dunno,’ he considered, ‘the crippled bastard was the enemy, when all was said and done.’
‘There is another enemy,’ said Molotch. He looked around. ‘Where’s Culzean? He usually enjoys this kind of merriment. I haven’t seen him since the end of the meal.’
Worna shook his scarred head. He felt awkward. Culzean had ordered him firmly not to tell Molotch about the prisoner, and he found it extremely uncomfortable keeping secrets from Molotch. There were very few things in the forsaken galaxy that Lucius Worna was afraid of, but Zygmunt Molotch made the cut.
‘He’ll be back, I’m sure,’ Worna said. ‘He’s probably checking something.’
LEYLA SLADE LEANT over Drouet’s cogitator post in the security control centre, watching the multiple images drifting and switching on the hololithic projection.
‘That’s definitely Thonius,’ she said.
‘Bio-print confirms,’ Drouet said.
‘Pinpoint, please.’
Drouet adjusted some of the cogitator’s controls. West flank of the cliffs, between markers thirty-six and thirty-seven,’ he replied. ‘That’s about sixty metres shy of the summit. I’ve got him painted by three motion and pict scanners. Positive ID. If he continues unchecked, he’ll make west low terrace in under ten minutes. I thought he was supposed to be a principal agent, mam?’
‘Why do you say that?’
Drouet shrugged. ‘He’s not exactly moving with any skill or subtlety. It seems to me it’s taking all his effort just to climb the cliff. Doesn’t he realise we’ve got him cold?’
Leyla leaned in closer. ‘Have we got a gun on him yet?’
‘Sentry 18 will acquire him in about three minutes. He must know we can see him, surely? He must realise Elmingard is locked down tight with scanners and trips?’
‘Apparently not.’ Slade replied. ‘I think our friend Thonius has underestimated our capabilities. Load sentry 18. Track and fix, and fire on my command.’
‘Yes, mam.’ said Drouet.
‘Mam?’ Tzabo called from his machine. She crossed to him. ‘I’ve found another. Confirmed sensor hit. Eastern side, a little closer than target one.’
‘Show me.’
‘He’s in deep shadow, and partially concealed. I’ll punch up night scoping and enhance.’
An image – just a portion of a profile boosted by low-light enhanciles – flickered onto the ’lith projection.
‘Know him?’ asked Tzabo.
‘No, I…’ Slade paused. ‘Shit, that’s Ballack! Frig it, he’s supposed to be dead! Molotch killed him on Tancred!’
‘Not with any lasting success, it would appear,’ said Tzabo.
‘Is he ranged?’ Slade asked.
‘He will be in twenty-five seconds at current rate of advance.’
‘Get me—’ she began. Her link beeped.
‘Slade,’ she answered, pulling the device out of her pocket.
‘Ley, it’s me,’ Culzean’s voice floated back. There was a strange, muffled yelping sound coming through behind him.
‘What’s going on?’ Slade asked. ‘I can hear—’
‘Ignore the background fuss.’ Culzean replied. ‘The lovely Kara just had an epiphany, and she’s getting over it. Ley, tell me quickly, have you confirmed Thonius?’
‘Bio-trace and visual,’ she said. ‘Definitive match. Palpable. Get this, we’ve also got Ballack coming up for a visit.’
‘Ballack? Really?’
‘I’d wager my reputation, sir.’
‘Listen to me, Leyla, and listen carefully. I want them taken alive, especially Thonius.’
‘What?’
‘I’m deadly serious, Ley. Do this for me, and do it discreetly. Knock your systems back to passive before they realise they’re being targeted.’
‘Orfeo, that’s madness! The sentry guns are seconds away from acquiring them both. I can hose them off the rocks!’
‘No! I want Thonius brought in alive, you understand me? Alive. Do it personally, if you have to. Get him into custody, immediately and quietly. Make sure Zygmunt doesn’t know anything about it.’
‘This has a bad feel to me,’ she warned.
‘Leyla, I love you, but this is one of those times when you act like a good girl and do exactly what I frigging well tell you. Go passive, shut the system back, get Thonius alive. Ballack too, the silly little fool, but I don’t care so much if you have to top him. Are we clear?’
Leyla Slade breathed tightly. ‘Totally, sir.’ she said.
She clicked off her link, and put it away.
‘Cut to passive running,’ she told Drouet and Tzabo. ‘Turn off the sentries.’
They looked at her. ‘Mam, are you sure?’ asked Tzabo.
‘We’ve got Throne agents crawling up the rock face,’ Drouet added.
‘I know what I’ve been told,’ snapped Slade, pulling her handgun out and arming it. ‘Do as I say.’
Eyebrows raised, the two security experts obliged, throwing a series of switches that set the Elmingard defences to passive. The powerful sentry gun servitors went to dormant status.
‘Now what?’ asked Tzabo.
‘Get two guns up here to join me. I’m going to greet Master Thonius. Drouet, can you handle Ballack when he shows his face?’
Drouet got to his feet and checked his laspistol. ‘Certainly,’ he said. ‘Alive?’
‘If possible,’ she said.
SIX
THE RAIN WAS in his face, and the whole world was black. Shuddering with cold and effort, Carl Thonius clambered a few metres more up the steep rock track. It was a sheer climb in places where the path fell away, nothing like the simple ascent he had envisioned. The laughing, buzzing thing in his soul had lied about that.
He hauled himself up over an overhang, straining with arms alone, his legs dangling. The darkness yawned below him. If his numb fingers let go, it would be a long, final drop. Overhead, the breaking storm boomed. The rock was wet.
Heh heh heh.
He pulled himself up onto the overhang and lay there for a moment, panting. Rain fell on his face.
He’d lost touch with the others. At the base of the crag, they’d split up, deciding to optimise their chances. Thonius had gone up the western path he’d identified. Ballack had taken the east face. Plyton and Belknap had chosen to work their way up the ravine behind the Elmingard plateau, to see if they could find a way up from the north.
Thonius resumed his climb. Conditions were awful and getting worse, inside and out. The storm was closing in. His own storm was closing in. Fire and buzzing laughter licked at his mind. He tried to force it back, but it sizzled at his thoughts and burned back his memories. Pain shot through him, making him gag and lose his grip. Nausea yawned. He could hear a voice inside him sniggering at his puny, mortal efforts to survive and stay human. Buzzing, buzzing… heh heh heh.
His scanner pad bipped, and he pulled it out to check it. The pad showed him the contact prints of several scanner pods built into the rock face above. They read as passive.
That was good. Lucky, in fact. He’d expected serious electronic countermeasures, an active system, probing and stabbing at them as they came up, but a passive system was easy to beat.
Perhaps Molotch was getting slack in his old age. No one was expecting them. Thonius drew himself up and clambered on.
THE RAIN HAD begun in earnest, driving the partygoers indoors. Out on the lower north terrace, the tapers sputtered and fizzled as the downpour extinguished them. Siskind’s first mate, Ornales, closed and bolted the double doors once they were inside.
Siskind was ordering more drinks, and there was laughter in the room. Off in one corner, Molotch had been drawn into deep conversation with two of Culzean’s most learned savants. They were ancient, robed individuals, their bald heads like heavy ivory balls.
Worna stayed outside the activity, watching. He had never been one for hellraising and drink, unless it was with his own kind, and the members of his team that he’d managed to pull out of the Utochre mess were all still aboard Siskind’s ship. These people were not his type: intellectuals, savants, Culzean’s brand of people. Even the hard-bodied men in blue wool suits with silver buttons who acted as security were not Worna’s sort. They were good, Worna acknowledged, but they were young. Guard-vets mostly, a few high-end underworld recruits, well drilled and well made. None of them had the grizzled edge of experience that a bounty life provided. They regarded him with curiosity, but he knew they thought he was low-life scum. ‘Scum’ barely covered what Lucius Worna thought of them.
The only person around that he had the vaguest sense of connection with was Culzean’s minder, Slade. He liked her. She hadn’t had the same career path as him, but she was good, professional and dedicated. He’d seen her work. She was a kindred spirit, or as close to a kindred spirit as he was likely to find in this blasted house at the end of the world.
He left Siskind’s party quietly and slipped out into the draughty corridor. He’d been privately scanning the vox net for the past few minutes, and he’d heard some tantalising stuff on the back and forth. Something was up.
GALL BALLACK HAULED himself up over the lip wall of one of the eastern terraces. The rain was sheeting down, like a white curtain. He was soaked, and chilled to the bone. His long white hair hung lank and wet, and water streamed down his face.
The place was empty and unlit. He could smell wet stone and wet earth, and hear nothing but the hiss of the rain.
He rose, and glanced around. His pad showed no sign of active sensor noise. Parched rosebushes nearby fluttered and shook in the night’s wind and rain. He looked up. Several levels above him, in the inner knot of the ancient house, lights glowed behind shuttered windows. He stepped forwards across flagstones so worn and uneven that rainwater had collected in deep, angular puddles.
Another step, another. It looked like there was a staircase ahead, a flight of steps cut in the terrace side, which might afford him access to the next level of the haphazard palace.
‘I suggest you stop there,’ said Drouet, stepping out of the rain and the shadows behind him, a laspistol raised and aimed.
Ballack froze and slowly, resignedly, raised his hands. ‘Throne, you’re good. I didn’t even hear you,’ he said.
Drouet came closer. ‘On the ground. Down on the ground, face down,’ he instructed sharply. ‘Hands where I can see them!’
‘Hands?’ asked Ballack, bitterly.
‘Get down!’
Ballack lay down on his face, smelling the wet rock close up. Rainwater streaked off him.
‘I have to see Molotch,’ Ballack said.
‘Shut up.’
‘It’s a matter of the most pleasant fraternal confidence,’ Ballack tried. It stood to reason that Molotch might employ other Cognitae.
‘Whatever you say,’ said Drouet. Clearly, he was not of the brotherhood.
‘Tell him that, then,’ said Ballack. ‘Use those exact words, and he’ll—’
‘Shut up,’ Drouet spat, standing over him. He bent down and began to frisk Ballack. The interrogator felt the muzzle of the laspistol poke at the back of his head.
‘One move from you I don’t like,’ Drouet told him, ‘you’ll be scraping your brains up with a trowel.’
‘You paint a vivid picture.’ Ballack grunted. Unamused, Drouet pushed harder with the gun and Ballack’s face banged into the flags, chipping one of his teeth. The lip cut Belknap had given him began to bleed again.
Drouet found Ballack’s weapon, tugged it out, and tossed it away into the rain and darkness over the wall.
‘Roll over,’ Drouet instructed.
Ballack obeyed. Flat on his back, he stared up into the sheeting downpour at the man standing over him. Ballack blinked the rain away.
‘Get me inside,’ he said. ‘Take me to whoever is in charge.’
‘Shut the frig up,’ said Drouet, aiming his weapon and taking out his link.
The one-shot las was a small device, just a tube, and Ballack had fitted it to the stump of his wrist, just behind the cuff. It was so small that a cursory pat down wouldn’t find it. He swung his arm up, popped the tube forwards on its spring catch with a flex of his forearm, and fired the shot. Its bark was lost in a thump of thunder.
Drouet smacked backwards. The shot had punched in under his chin and gone up through his skull. The entry wound made a neat, fleeting black hole that closed again into a tiny blemish as tissue shock rippled across the flesh of his throat. The back of his head came off in a spray of blood and tissue.
He fell back, slumping against the terrace wall and almost pitching off. Then he fell down heavily. Thick, acrid smoke billowed up from the exit wound in the back of his cranium. What remained of his ruptured brain was still cooking and burning. His limp legs began to spasm and thump.
Ballack got up. He took hold of Drouet, dragged the twitching corpse upright, and then pushed it over the wall into the night.
Drouet plummeted away into the blackness below.
Ballack retrieved Drouet’s pistol, and snapped the one-shot back into its holder. I’ll recharge it later, he thought as he turned.
A steel fist ploughed him down. It came out of nowhere and piled into the side of his face, smashing most of his teeth. Ballack went over so violently that he almost inverted, his legs flying up. He crunched onto the puddled flagstones.
Gasping, blood pouring from his mouth, he reached out to grab his fallen weapon. The moment his fingers took hold of it, a pearl-armoured boot stamped on it and crushed it to pieces. The laspistol cracked and fractured, its power cell shorting wildly as it met the rain. All the bones in Ballack’s remaining hand broke and mashed.
Ballack screamed in agony, aspirating blood out into the drenching downpour.
‘Ballack,’ said Lucius Worna. ‘We meet again.’
‘Nyaaaahh!’ Ballack wailed as Worna ground his boot down harder to emphasise the point.
‘Guess what?’ asked Worna, drawing his bolter.
‘Hnhhh?’
‘End of story.’
CARL THONIUS CLAMBERED over the west wall and dropped two metres onto the flagged yard. The rain was extreme, affording zero visibility. Lightning flashed, brighter than even lightning ought to be. A second later, thunder smashed like a daemon’s drum.
Beating for me, beating for me…
He pulled out his weapon. It was going to be a tight call, but he was here. This was where it would play out. Molotch would save him, or Molotch would—
Carl blinked. His gun was no longer in his hand. It had been kicked out of his grip. A woman came at him through the streaming rain. He side-stepped, and they circled one another.
‘Hello,’ she said, brightly. ‘You’re Carl, right? Carl Thonius?’
‘Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?’ he replied, courteous to the end.
‘My name is Leyla Slade. I’d like you to come with me, Carl. Quietly.’
‘Oh, dear,’ he said. ‘I might not be able to do that.’
She shrugged and wheeled i
mmediately into a spin kick that almost took his head off.
No wonder his gun had gone flying.
Thonius ducked the kick, and circled again. The woman, Slade, kicked out twice in a rotating one-two, her powerful legs punching like pistons, but he evaded both strikes.
‘Come on, Carl,’ she taunted. ‘I thought you were good?’
‘I am,’ he answered.
He threw a side-kick feint at her, followed by a lateral jab. She back-stepped out of the former, reading the feint for what it was, and blocked the latter, but he had momentum, and he drove a rapid sequence of killing punches at her. She blocked them all with stinging claps of skin on skin, and managed to wrong-foot him. Pirouetting off the ground, she kicked out a response and caught him square in the chest.
His breath left him in a bark and he staggered backwards. Then he dropped into a quick defensive stance, trying to recover. His chest hurt. He lunged forwards, low and fast, risking a sternum punch.
She met the punch with a high, deflecting kick, and countered with a blade fist, which he barely slapped aside. He switched right with another feint and drove at her throat with a needle fist, but she was too quick for him to catch.
‘I think I love you, Leyla Slade,’ he panted.
‘They all say that,’ she retorted. They were circling again.
‘I think you should know something,’ Thonius added.
‘What might that be?’
‘Knocking me insensible is probably the last thing you want to do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if I’m unconscious, I won’t be able to concentrate any more.’
‘I’ll take my chances,’ she said.
They leapt at each other, simultaneously, their attacks clashing and overlapping. There was a meaty crack of flesh and bone as one was successful. Slade landed squarely. Thonius fell hard. His body rolled limply across the rain-slick flagstones.
Breathing hard, Slade opened her link. ‘Got him,’ she said, over the hissing rain.
Overhead, the thunder roared, as if in approval.
SEVEN
CULZEAN LEFT THE Alcove and hurried out into the drafty gloom of the corridor. ‘This way, this way!’ he hissed as Slade and Worna approached. Worna had Ballack’s body slung over his wide shoulder plate. Slade was dragging Thonius. ‘Fine work, my friends.’ Culzean said. ‘Did anybody see you?’ Slade shook her head.