Eisenhorn Omnibus

us could barely stand, such was the blizzard's windshear.

He fired once. An ulsar flicked the round away. He fired again, his feet slipping, and I made an uin ulsar that spat the bullet off into the darkness.

'My name is Gregor Eisenhorn. I am the man you have been paid to kill. Identify yourself.'

He hesitated. 'My nomclat be Etrik, badge of Clansire. Clan Szober.'

'Clansire Etrik. I've heard so much about you.' I had to raise my voice over the storm. Vammeko Tarl mentioned your name.'

Tarl? He be-'

The one who let you aboard?' I finished for him. 'I thought so. I had a feeling he'd been tailing me.'

'Be it he you just slew.'

'Is that so? Tough. Give yourself up.'

'I will not.'

'Uh huh. Tell me this, then… how much is Pontius paying your clan for this work?'

4Vho be Pontius?'

'Khanjar, then. Khanjar the Sharp.'

'Enough.'

He fired again and then lunged at me, swinging a power sword up in his left hand. Barbarisater knocked the whizzing slug away and then formed an uwe sar to block the downswing of the glittering blade. There was a bark of clashing energies.

I switched to a double-handed grip and ripped Barbarisater in a crosswise stroke as Etrik tried to use his pistol again. The tip of the blade cut through the gun's body and left him with only a handgrip. But the Clan-sire's sword, a short yet robust falchion of antique design, darted in and sliced through the meat of my right shoulder. I howled.

I snarled into a leht suf that rebounded his thrust and swung reversing ulsars that parried two more fast cuts and put me on the front foot. Etrik was a big man, with a considerable reach and alarming strength. That meant even his most nimble and extended strikes were delivered with punishing force. I did not recognise the blade technique he was using, although I was aware that the warriors of Vessor considered sword skill one of the three primary battle arts, devoting as much time to it during their training as to gun lore and open hand. The very fact he was the owner of an heirloom power weapon identified him as an expert.

My skills were a heterodox blend of methods that I had mastered over the years, but at the core of them was the Ewl Wyla Scryi or 'the genius of sharpness', the ancient Carthean swordmastery system.

On top of the Trans-Atenate Express, any blade methods had to be semi- improvised. Neither of us were steady on our feet, our boots sliding on the iced metal, and the gale dragged at us hard.

He kept attacking high, aiming for the throat, I imagine, and I was driven into a variety of tahn feh sar parries with a tightly vertical blade that defend the head and ear. My own attacks were lower, fon uls and fon uin strokes that targeted the heart, belly and swordarm.

His defence was excellent, especially a sliding backdrag that fouled every fon bei I struck in an attempt to push his blade down laterally and open his guard. His attack strokes were inventively arrhythmic, preventing all but the most last moment anticipations. He was hideously skilful.

I wondered if that was why Pontius Glaw had hired these Vessorines. He was such a connoisseur of martial skills and warrior breeds. He didn't just want killers. He wanted masters of the killing art.

In Clansire Etrik, he'd got his money's worth.

I realised that the mercenary, with a combination of cross parries and driving thrust strokes, was pressing me back towards the gap between carriages three and four. I was cornered with my back to the drop, my combat options restricted. I didn't dare risk a backwards jump without looking, and I couldn't take my eyes off his sword for a moment. I knew he would be building up to a sharp frontal attack that would either catch me with no room to dodge or topple me off the edge.

Carthean sword-craft teaches that when an imminent attack is unavoidable, the only practical response is to limit or force it. The technique, which has many forms, is called the gej kul asf, which means 'the bridled steed'. It imagines the adversary is an unbroken mount who is going to charge no matter what you do, and that your blade is a long-reined bridle that will control that charge on your terms. Etrik was going to lunge, so I needed to reduce the lunging options. I went into an ehn kulsar, where the

sword is raised, two-handed, with the hilt above shoulder height and the blade tipped down in a thirty-five degree angle from the horizontal. Sharp, lateral blade turns robbed him of any sideways or upper body opportunities. His only option was to come in low, parrying up, to get in underneath my guard. I was forcing him to target my lower body, an area his sword-play had shown he didn't favour. It also required him to extend in a low, ill-balanced way.

Etrik made the lunge, shoulder down and sword rising from a hip-height grip. My 'bridle' entirely determined the height and direction of the thrust.

Instead of backing or attempting to knock his rising blade aside with a diagonal stroke, I sidestepped, like a bull-dancer evading a head-down aurox in the karnivale pits of Mankareal. Now he was running his sword into empty space.

He tried to pull in, but he'd committed his weight behind it. His left foot kicked out on the roof ice and his right one went skidding sideways. Etrik grunted out a curse and did the only thing he could. He turned his lunge into a leap.

He just made the roof of the next wagon, his chest and arms slamming into it, his legs wheeling over the drop. His falchion had a pommel spike and he slammed it down into the roof to anchor himself, his boots trying to get a grip on the weatherproof plastic sides of the intercarriage articulation.

I had seconds to turn my temporary advantage into a permanent upper hand.

But my hasty sidestep had left me with no more purchase on the iced roof than Etrik. My legs suddenly flew out from under me and I crashed down on my back. I rolled as fast as I could and fumbled for a handhold, but it cost me Barbarisater. The precious sword squealed as it tumbled over the edge of the roof.

I was holding on, barely. Etrik's pommel spike shrieked across the roof metal as he put his weight onto it and dug in. With a few scrabbling kicks, he hoisted himself up onto the roof of car four and looked back at me. He chuckled an ugly jeer as he saw me worse off than he was.

Still chuckling, he gingerly took one step out onto the top of the intercarriage articulation, and then another, balancing as he crossed back to car three to finish me off.

Another two steps, and he would be within stabbing range.

I decided which of my handholds was most secure and let go with the other, fumbling round behind myself.

Etrik came off the articulation, took the last step, his sword raised to rip at me, and found himself looking down the barrel of my autopistol.

It was contrary to all the noble rules of the Ewl Wyla Scryi to start a sword duel and finish it with a gun. The Carthean masters would have been ashamed of me. But I wasn't feeling particularly noble by then.

I fired just once. The shot hit him in the sternum and slammed him backwards.