'He's telling the truth,' said Shire urgently, almost shouting in Hawk's ear to
get his attention. 'Let him go, Hawk. He's just telling you what he heard.'
'That's right,' said Burns. 'Let him go, Hawk. Come on, let him go.'
Hawk dropped the lawyer back onto his chair, and turned away, breathing heavily.
Linden clawed at his collar, trying to get some air into his lungs. Bums and
Shire backed away from Hawk, watching him carefully.
'Take it easy, Hawk,' said Burns soothingly. 'It's just hearsay, that's all.
They said themselves they had no proof or evidence.'
'It's a lie,' said Hawk.
'Of course it is.'
'Don't use that tone of voice with me, Burns! I'm not a child. I'm not a fool,
either. This is just something Morgan's come up with to try and slow me down,
distract me from going after him. Well, it's not going to work. I know Isobel.
It's impossible that she could be involved in anything like that. She wouldn't…'
'Of course not,' said Burns. 'Let's go, Hawk. We've got what we came for.'
Hawk nodded, and headed for the door without even looking at Shire and Linden.
Burns made a quick, placating gesture to them, and hurried out after his
partner.
Down in the street, Hawk strode blindly through the snow and slush, staring
straight ahead. People took one look at his face and hurried to get out of his
way. Burns walked along beside him, studying his partner anxiously.
'We have to talk about this, Hawk,' he said finally. 'Of course the idea of
Fisher being a rogue is ridiculous, but we can't just ignore it, either. Whoever
the corrupt Captain is, it has to be someone who'd normally be above suspicion.
Someone so honest and trustworthy no one would ever connect them with Morgan.
Everyone we've talked to agrees on that, and it has to be said there aren't many
Captains in the Guard who fill that description.'
'It isn't Isobel,' said Hawk.
'Then why name her in front of someone like Linden? Even if Morgan's people knew
they were being overheard, how would they know you'd end up talking to Linden?
You only decided to visit the Advisors a short time ago.'
'He would have passed the word on, and it would have got round to me eventually.
It's just a distraction, that's all.'
'Sure,' said Burns. 'Look, whoever the rogue is, it has to be someone close to
us. Close to you. Someone who knows you well enough to know the people you'd go
to for answers. How else did Morgan's people know where to ambush us after we
left Saint Christophe?'
'We're probably being watched,' said Hawk.
'Not all the time; we'd notice.'
'Well, maybe he's got a sorcerer watching us magically! He had a sorcerer at the
factory; how do we know he hasn't got another magic-user working for him?'
'I think we'd better leave this till later,' said Burns suddenly, his voice low.
'We're being followed again. Look around you.'
Hawk's preoccupation fell away in a moment, and he looked casually about him,
his hand moving naturally to the axe at his side. 'Hell's teeth, how did I miss
them? They're not exactly professional quality, are they? That's what happens
when you let yourself get distracted. There's a lot of them; I make it
twenty-seven, most of them wearing gang colors. How about you?'
'I only see twenty-two, but I'll take your word for it. They must have known we
were going to be here, Hawk; it's another bloody ambush. Better thought-out than
the last one, too; they're all around us this time.'
Hawk sniffed. 'It doesn't matter. I'm just in the mood to cut up a few bad
guys.'
Burns looked at him sharply. 'Wait a minute, Hawk; this is no time to start
feeling heroic. We're outnumbered more than ten to one here.'
'So what do you suggest? Put up our hands and surrender nicely, and hope we'll
get taken as prisoners of war? This may be a war, Burns, but no one's taking any
prisoners.'
'We could always make a run for it.'
'We could, but how far do you think we'd get? The streets are narrow and
crowded, and we're both dog-tired while our pursuers look decidedly fresh. There
aren't even any fire escapes in easy reach this time. They've planned this well,
Burns, and we walked right into it.'
The street grew increasingly quiet as they strode along, and passersby began
moving into the shelter of doorways so as to be safely out of the way when the
killing began. Everyone knew what was happening. The ambushers weren't even
trying to hide themselves anymore.
Hawk stopped walking and looked openly around. Burns stopped beside him, and
looked quickly about for any escape route he might have missed. The ambushers
were everywhere, moving confidently forward. Now that they were all out in the
open, Burns counted twenty-nine of them. They were dressed in ragged furs and
leathers, and carrying clubs and swords and axes. Some had broken bottles and
lengths of metal piping. They all looked lean and hungry and very dangerous.
Burns looked to Hawk for support, and a sudden chill ran through him. Hawk was
smiling, a cold and nasty death's-head grin. Burns felt an instinctive need to
back away. He'd seen his partner go through many moods that day, but this was
something new and awful, and for the first time Burns understood why Hawk was so
widely feared in the Northside. At this moment, he looked vicious and deadly and
totally unstoppable.
Burns made some kind of noise in his throat, and Hawk looked at him briefly.
'These aren't Morgan's people,' he said, his voice eerily calm and even. 'These
are street-gang toughs from the Devil's Hook. I beat up their leader, a piece of
slime called Hammer, earlier on this morning. He must have declared vendetta on
me. Knew I should have killed him.'
He fell silent as one of the ambushers stepped forward, but his death's-head
grin never wavered. He recognized the man as the gang leader, and drew his axe
with a flourish. Hammer stopped where he was and called out to Hawk, his voice
carefully loud and mocking.
'I've been looking for you, Hawk. No one messes with me and gets away with it,
not even the high and mighty Captain Hawk. Don't look so tough now, do you? Now
you're on your own and I've got my people here to back me up. You're going to
die slow, Hawk. We're all going to take turns cutting on you; going to take our
time and get real inventive. You're going to scream and cry and beg for death
before we're through.'
Hawk laughed at him, and there was enough naked violence in the sound to silence
the gang leader almost in mid-word. The watching ambushers stirred uneasily.
Hawk swept his axe back and forth before him. 'Who's first?' he said mockingly.
No one moved. Hawk glanced at Burns. 'Get out of here while you can,' he said
quietly, his voice calm and conversational. 'They don't care about you; they
