Eisenhorn Omnibus

There was a very loud bang.

I looked up.

'Gregor?'

It was Aemos.

'Gregor, I think I've jammed your bloody gun/ he said.

I got up. Aemos was standing in a nearby doorway, fiddling with my bolt pistol. The third, unseen raider had made a clotted dent in the plaster-work.

'Give it to me/ I said, snatching the bolt pistol and freeing the slide.

Thank you, Aemos/ I added.

He shrugged. 'It's most perturbatory/ he said. 'Guns and me, we don't seem to get on and I always-'

'Aemos, hush! What the hell's going on?'

We're under attack/ he said.

'I need a little more than that, old friend/

'Well, I know little more, Gregor. Boom, we're under attack. No warning, no nothing. Men everywhere. Lots of running around and shooting. We thought you were dead/

'Me?'

They hit the study first. A grenade or something/

'Damn! Come with me. Stay close/

We went upstairs. Skeins of smoke drifted through the air. I had the needle pistol in one hand and the boltgun in the other. At the top of the stairs we found two members of my house staff. They had been shot against a wall.

'Oh, that's terrible…' Aemos murmured.

It was. Someone would pay dearly for this outrage.

The door to my study was open and the smoke was issuing from inside.

'Stay back/ I whispered to Aemos and lunged in through the door.

The room was a mess. A missile or ram-grenade fired from the lawns had blown out the main windows and turned the desk and chair into kindling. Cold night air breezed in through the shattered casement and wafted the smoke from the burning rug and shelving into the house.

There were three more raiders inside, ransacking the bookshelves and trying to force open the file store. A man with a clown mask was raking precious manuscripts, slates and scrolls out of a climate-controlled case into a sack. Another in a serpent mask was repeatedly kicking the display case in which Barbarisater was stored, trying to rupture it. A third, sporting a grinning sun, was attacking the armoured sleeve of my file bureau with a crowbar.

They all turned, reaching for their weapons.

Throne, they were fast! I had the drop, but they moved like lightning. The serpent actually managed to loose a burst at me that went over my diving head before I felled him with a bolt- round. His body hit the armour glass cover of the sword case and left a streak of gore down it as it slid off. The clown was slower, and his torso was punctured by needle rounds before he'd dropped the sack. He just fell over, his mask crumpling as it struck first one shelf edge, then another, then another on its way down to the floor.

The sun face threw the crowbar aside, and dived behind the rains of the desk even as I was rolling out of the end of the dive and re-aiming.

His blurt of las-fire met my hail of bolts and needles. I swear that at least two of my bolt rounds were exploded in mid-air by his laser shots. But the needles went clean through the desk and clean through him. He lolled back, dead.

I got up and walked towards the destroyed end of my study.

That's where 1 found Psullus. I'd sent him here just a few hours before. The burning pages of Boydenstyre's Lives were littered around. He'd been sitting at my desk when the missile had taken out the window bay.

'Dear Emperor… Aldemar…' Aemos was bitterly shocked at the ghastly sight.

I was simply furious by then. I pushed the needle gun, now virtually spent, into my pocket and grabbed more bolt clips from the shelf by the window.

'We have to get out of here, Aemos,' I said.

He nodded dumbly. I picked up the sack that the clown had been filling and handed it to Aemos. 'Fill it/1 said. 'You know what's valuable.'

He hurried to obey.

I typed security codes into the cases containing Barbarisater and the runestaff. The armour glass covers purred open.

Outside, there was a shrill whining noise and the beams of searchlights crossed the lawns and the orchards. My attackers had air cover.

One final necessity. I opened my encoded void-safe and took out the ancient, wretched copy of the Malus Codicium. I tucked it into my coat, but Aemos had seen it.

'Come on!' I said.

'One moment/ Aemos replied, tugging a last few scroll cases into the sack and then hoisting it onto his back.

'Now, I'm ready/ he said.

I went to the door, boltgun in one hand and Barbarisater in the other. The staff was slung across my back. I could hear a fierce bout of shooting from below, a serious firefight.

My loyal friend Jubal Kircher wasn't going without a fight.

'Follow me/ I told Aemos.

It had only been a few minutes since the comm-alarm that had disrupted the auto-seance. Already that tranquil encounter with the shade of Midas Betancore seemed like ancient history.

The house was on fire. From the east wing, flames leapt up into the cool night and filled the air with fluttering ashes and cinders. We cowered behind a wall in the yard outside the kitchen, and got a look out across the back lawn. Three heavy speeders had landed there, crouching like glossy black insects on their extending landing claws. Their side hatches were open and cabins empty. A fourth, and then a fifth, passed low overhead, searchlights sweeping down as they riddled the back of the house with cannon fire.

Five fliers. Each one was capable of carrying a dozen armed men. That meant a small army was assaulting Spaeton House. Someone wanted me and my staff eradicated. Someone wanted my precious secrets and trinkets looted. And someone had enough money and influence to make those things happen.

In truth, the house's auto-defences should have easily held off the attack, even an attack of this magnitude. Inquisitors make enemies. A fortified residence is an occupational necessity.

But Spaeton House had been broken wide open. Its screens, void shutters, lock- outs, motion detectors, sentry servitors, gun-pods… everything had been inert when the attackers arrived.

They were mercenaries, I was sure of that. Highly trained, highly motivated, utterly ruthless. But who had bank-rolled them, and why?

Answers later, I decided, as another series of explosions rippled across the estate and lit the sky.

The stable block, which I used as a hangar and garage, had just gone up.

'What about one of their vehicles?' Aemos whispered, gesturing the fliers on the lawn.

It was too risky. We'd be out in the open and the speeders were likely to be guarded. I shook my head.

The water dock then?' he suggested. 'Maybe they haven't got to the boats?'

'No, they had everything else covered. They knew the layout, knew to hit the stables. They were briefed about this place inside and out/