sharply. They clambered up onto the narrow wooden banister, which creaked
dangerously under their weight, and leapt out into space towards the
right-angled plane. Gravity changed suddenly as they left the stairs, and
slammed them down hard on the bare wooden plane.
Hawk and Fisher hit the floor rolling, and were quickly up on their feet again.
The two men packing were already gone. Hawk hefted one of the small paper
parcels, and then looked at the size of the packing case. That crate could hold
an awful lot of drugs… if it was drugs. A horrible thought struck him, and he
opened the packet and sniffed cautiously at the grey powder inside. He relaxed
slightly and blew his nose hard. It was chacal. The sharp acidic smell was quite
distinctive. Fisher yelled a warning, and he threw the packet aside and looked
up. A man-at-arms leaned out from an upside-down stairway overhead and cut at
Hawk with his sword. Hawk parried with his axe, but couldn't reach high enough
to attack the man. He backed away, and the swordsman moved along the stairway
after him. There was a strange, dreamlike quality to the fight, with both men
upside-down to the other, but Hawk knew better than to let the strangeness
distract him. If he couldn't figure out a way to get at his opponent, he was a
dead man. An axe wasn't made for defense. He bumped into the table, and an idea
struck him. He grabbed the open packet and threw the chacal powder into the
other man's face. The man-at-arms screamed, and dropped his sword to claw at his
eyes with both hands.
'Hawk!'
He spun round to find Fisher standing at the edge of the plane, fighting off
three of the five men-at-arms who'd jumped down off the banister after the
Guards. Two already lay dead at her feet. Hawk sprinted over to join her, ducked
under the first man's sword, and swung his axe in a vicious sideways arc. The
heavy steel axehead punched through the man's chain mail and buried itself in
his rib cage. Bones broke and splintered, and the impact drove the man-at-arms
to his knees, coughing blood. Hawk yanked the axe free and booted the man off
the edge of the plane. The dying man fell upwards out of sight.
Fisher had already cut down another of her opponents, and now stood toe to toe
with the last remaining adversary. Steel rang on steel and sparks flew as the
blades met, hammering together and dancing apart in a lightning duel of strength
and skill. Hawk started forward to help her, and then stopped as he saw more
men-at-arms running down a winding stairway to join the fight. Fisher saw them
too, and quickly kneed her opponent in the groin.
'Get the hell out of here, Hawk. Find Morgan. I'll hold them off.' She cut her
opponent's throat, and sidestepped neatly to avoid the jetting blood. 'Move it,
Hawk!'
Hawk nodded abruptly, and turned and ran down the other stairway, heading once
again for what had looked like the center of operations. From behind him came
the clash of sword on sword as Fisher met the first of the new onslaught, but he
didn't look back. He didn't dare. He pressed on through the maze, passing from
stairway to plane to stairway and cutting down anyone who tried to get in his
way. All around him Morgan's people were running back and forth, looking for
orders or weapons or just heading for the exit. Morgan wouldn't have gone,
though. This was his place, his territory, and he'd trust in his men and his
sorcerer to protect him. A sudden piercing scream caught Hawk's attention, and
he looked up and round in time to see a man dressed in sorcerer's black stagger
drunkenly across a plane at right angles to Hawk's stairway. Streamers of thick
milky fog burst out of his mouth and eyes and ears. His head swelled impossibly
and then exploded in a spreading cloud of crimson mist. The body crumpled to the
floor as the last echo of the sorcerer's dying cry faded slowly away.
Hawk grinned. So much for Morgan's sorcerer. He was close to the center now; he
could feel it. There were drugs and people and men-at-arms everywhere, and
there, straight ahead, he saw a familiar face in an earth-brown cloak and hood.
Morgan. Hawk ran forward, cutting his way through two swordsmen foolish enough
to try and stop him. Their blood splashed across his face and hands, but he
didn't pause to wipe it off. He couldn't let Morgan escape. He couldn't.
Hold my hand. Hold it up where I can see it…
Morgan looked once at the bloodstained Guard rushing towards him, and then
continued stuffing papers into a leather pouch. Three men-at-arms moved forward
to stand between Hawk and Morgan. Hawk hit them at a dead run, swinging his axe
double-handed. He never felt the wounds he took, and when it was all over, he
stepped across their dead bodies to advance slowly on the drug baron.
Seen up close, Morgan didn't look like much. Average height and build, with a
bland face, perhaps a little too full to be handsome. A mild gaze and a
civilized smile. He didn't look like the kind of man who'd made his fortune
through the death and suffering of others. But then, they never did. Hawk moved
slowly forward. Blood ran thickly down from a wound in his left thigh, and
squelched inside his boot. There was more blood, soaking his arms and sides,
some of it his. Even so, Morgan had enough sense not to try and run. He knew he
wouldn't make it. They stood facing each other, while from all around came
shouts and screams and the sounds of fighting.
'Who are you?' said Morgan finally. 'Why are you doing this?'
'I'm every bad dream you ever had,' said Hawk. 'I'm a Guard who can't be
bought.'
Morgan shook his head slowly, as a father chides a son who has made an
understandable mistake. 'Everyone has his price, Captain. If not you, then
certainly someone among your superiors. I'll never come to trial. I know too
much, about too many people. And I really do have friends in high places. Quite
often, I helped put them there. So I'm afraid all this blood and destruction has
been for nothing. You won't be able to make a case against me.'
Hawk grinned. 'You're the second person who's told me that today. He was wrong,
too. You're going to hang, Morgan. I'll come and watch.'
There was a muffled sound from behind a drapery to their right. Morgan glanced
at it, and then looked quickly away. For the first time, he seemed a little
uneasy. Hawk moved slowly over to the curtain, unconsciously favoring his
wounded leg.
'What's behind here, Morgan?'
'Experimental animals. We had to test the drug, to establish the correct dosage.
Nothing that would interest you.'
Hawk swept the cloth to one side, and froze for a moment. Inside a crude,
steel-barred cage lay a pile of dead young men and women, tangled together. Some
were barely teenagers. The bodies were torn and mutilated, and it was clear most
of them had died tearing at each other and themselves. One man's hand was buried
to the wrist in another's ripped-open stomach. A young girl had torn out her own
eyes. There was blood everywhere, but not enough to hide the characteristic
colorless white skin of chacal use. Hawk turned back to Morgan, who hadn't moved
