drew his axe. The guests at table screamed and yelled and struggled to get to their feet. Fisher moved to stand between Adamant and his attackers, sword at the ready. Bearclaw and Kincaid rose to their feet and looked around for weapons. Neither of them had worn swords to table. That would have been an insult to Adamant. Bearclaw seized a heavy silver candlestick and hefted it professionally. Kincaid broke a bottle against the wall with practiced ease.
The attackers came spilling round Hawk like rushing water past a rock. He stood his ground and cut down two men with his axe. Bearclaw came charging forward, deftly avoided a vicious sword stroke, and clubbed the man to the ground. He quickly stepped over the fallen body to tackle another intruder, and Kincaid came forward to guard his back with the broken bottle. Two swordsmen thought he'd be an easy target. Kincaid smiled easily, cut one man's throat, and blinded the other, his hand moving too quickly to be seen. He threw aside the bottle and snatched up a dead man's sword. Blood flew on the air as he moved swiftly among the scattering enemy, his sword darting back and forth in textbook cuts and parries.
Three men got past Hawk and the two warriors, and made straight for Adamant. Fisher met them with her sword. The first man went down almost immediately, clutching at the wide rip in his gut. The second forced Fisher back step by step with a whirlwind attack of cuts and thrusts. The third man closed in on Adamant. Fisher tried desperately to finish her man so that she could get back to protect Adamant, but her opponent was too good to be that easily dismissed. Fisher cut and parried and then faked a stumble. The masked man thought he saw his chance and moved in, and Fisher ran him through. She jerked her sword free and turned quickly round just in time to see Adamant throw a bowl of soup into the third man's face, blinding him. The intruder clawed at his eyes, and Adamant kicked him in the groin. As the man sank to his knees, Adamant took away his sword and looked around for another victim.
Hawk cut down two more men, the wide head of his axe punching through hidden chain mail as though it wasn't there. Bearclaw and Kincaid fought back to back, and the last two intruders went down in a flurry of blood and steel. A sudden silence fell across the dining hall, broken only by the gradually slowing breathing of the fighting men and mutters of shock and amazement from the guests. Bearclaw bound up a nasty-looking gash in his shoulder with a dubious-looking handkerchief taken from his sleeve.
'I must be getting old, Joshua,' he said easily. 'Was a time they'd never have got near me.'
Kincaid nodded solemnly. 'Well, it must be said the candlestick never was your preferred weapon. Grab one of their swords and we'll go and see if there are any more of these bastards in the house.'
The guests stirred uneasily at that, and Adamant moved quickly forward to address them. 'It's all right, my friends, the worst is over. Please stay where you are while I have my people search the house and make it secure.' He moved quickly over to Bearclaw and Kincaid and kept his voice low as he spoke to them. 'Joshua, Laurence, find out what's happened to my men-at-arms, and report back here when the house is fully secure again. And remember,
Danny and Stefan went off on their own just before the attack; make sure they're all right.'
The two warriors nodded silently and left the hall sword in hand. Hawk wanted to go with them, but knew he couldn't. His priority had to be Adamant's safety. He went over to Fisher, and made sure she was all right. They looked around at the mayhem they'd helped to cause, and shared a grin. Adamant approached them and nodded his thanks.
'It may not look like it,' he said quietly, 'but this is still something of a disaster. A whole lot of nasty questions come to mind, starting with how the hell they got in. Mortice's wards are supposed to keep out anyone I haven't personally vouched for. And why the hell didn't Medley's intelligence people warn him there was a raid in the offing?'
'No problem,' said Hawk. 'We handled it. Any idea who they were?'
'Not really,' said Adamant. 'A last-chance assault by Hardcastle's people, presumably. Let's take a look.'
They moved quickly among the bodies, pulling off masks and studying faces. Hawk and Fisher didn't recognize anyone, but Adamant remained kneeling beside the body of a grey-haired man with a harsh, scarred face that hadn't relaxed at all in death. Hawk and Fisher moved over to join him.
'General Longarm himself,' said Adamant. 'He always did take his politics too personally.'
'Let's keep looking,' said Fisher. 'Maybe we'll get really lucky and find Hardcastle's here as well.'
Adamant smiled in spite of himself, and then looked round quickly as the main door opened and Kincaid came in. He walked straight over to Adamant, who rose to his feet.
'We have something of a problem, James,' he said quietly. 'Not with the house; that's secure. It seems there were fifty of the intruders originally. Your people took care of the others before they got this far. No one heard anything because of the noise of the banquet. We've got quite a few casualties, and even more dead. These people were professionals.'
'Militant Brothers of Steel,' said Hawk.
Kincaid nodded, but didn't look all that impressed. 'Well, they're dead militants now.'
'So what's the problem?' said Fisher.
'I think you'd better come and see for yourself, James.' Kincaid couldn't seem to meet Adamant's eyes. 'It's Dannielle.'
Adamant's face lost all its color, as though someone had just punched him in the gut. 'How badly is she hurt?'
'I really think you'd better see for yourself, James.'
'You're not going anywhere without us,' said Hawk quickly.
Adamant nodded impatiently. 'Let's go.'
Kincaid led the way out into the main corridor. There were bodies and blood everywhere. Preoccupied as he was. Adamant still had room in him to be sickened at the sight of so many men who had died in his behalf. He stepped carefully over the bodies, nodding here and there at a familiar face, and then he stopped and knelt by one man. It was the butler, Villiers. He'd taken a dozen wounds before he died, and a broken sword was still clutched in his hand.
'He never believed in Reform,' said Adamant. 'But he stayed with me anyway, because I was family. He never left us, even during the bad days. He protected me as a child. And all it got him was a bad death, in a house where he should have been safe.' He got to his feet, and nodded for Kincaid to carry on. They walked on down the corridor. When Adamant spoke again his voice was perfectly steady. 'You haven't said anything about Stefan. Is he all right?'
'Oh, he's fine,' said Kincaid. 'Locked himself in your study with his girlfriend. I don't think he knows anything's happened. Just shouted at me to go away when I knocked on the door.'
Adamant nodded, not really listening, and Kincaid led the way up the stairs to the next floor. His face was fixed and drawn. <em>She must be dead</em>, thought Hawk. <em>Anything else, he would have said</em>. They moved along the hallway to Adamant's bedroom. Bearclaw was waiting outside the door. There was pity in his face as he looked at Adamant. Pity, and something else Hawk couldn't read. Bearclaw opened the bedroom door, and everyone drew back a few steps to let Adamant go in first.
In the bedroom, Dannielle was sitting on the bed. Her face was flushed, and she wouldn't look Adamant in the eye. Kincaid picked up a small silver snuff box from the dressing table and handed it to Adamant. He looked at it blankly for a moment and then opened it. Inside was a small amount of grey-white powder.
'Cocaine,' said Bearclaw. 'We found her helping herself when we were searching this floor.'
'Oh, great,' said Fisher. 'That's going to look really good when it gets out.'
'It's not going to get out,' said Adamant. 'Not until after the election.' He looked at Dannielle, and his mouth tightened. 'How could you, Danny? How could you do this to me?'
'Oh, that's typical, James. Never mind why I'm taking drugs; all you care about is your precious reputation.' Dannielle glared at him sullenly, her voice shrill and bitter. 'I've been sniffing dust ever since you started campaigning for the Steppes. The best part of three months, and it's taken you till now to notice. It's all your fault, anyway. You never had time for me any more; all you talked and thought and dreamed about was your bloody campaign. I tried to go along, to be a part of it for your sake, but you never even noticed I was there.
'We aren't all as strong as you, James. You've been full of energy right from the beginning, inspired by your Cause, running full tilt from one thing to the next, with the rest of us straggling along behind you, trying to keep up. I just couldn't anymore. I was tired all the time, and lonely and depressed. So I started sniffing dust now and again,
