jeers were loosed at him as he tried to turn. From the shore, the crowd pelted him with fruit, stones and other missiles.
Cursing back at the angry soldiers, he slammed his skiff round the rear of the barge, trying to force his way across the canal.
I was closing on him now, trying to avoid the displeasure of the mob. Hooters and sirens bayed at him from the parade boats as he jostled across their paths. A trooper from one barge leapt onto his skiff to waylay him, and Tanokbrey kicked him off into the water before he could get a good footing. That turned things even uglier. The noise of the booing and outrage was immense. The parade bunched up badly, and dozens of furious guardsmen pressed at the rails of their barges, trying to reach him.
He over-rewed the skiff to get clear of them, and struck against a raft carrying a company band. Several instrument players toppled with the impact, and the proud Imperial anthem they had been playing dissolved in a cacophony of wrong notes and broken rhythms.
Enraged troopers in a smaller skiff drew alongside him, and rocked his craft dangerously as they tried to board. He pulled his handgun.
His last mistake. I pulled up short, and landed on the canal bank. There was no point in pressing the pursuit now.
Tanokbrey got off two shots into the mob. Then twenty or more freshly issued las-rifles on a neighbouring barge opened fire, smashing him and his stolen craft to pieces. The drive unit exploded, scattering hull fragments across the churning water. A curl of black smoke rose above the banners.
The young conscripts of the 50th Gudrunite Rifles had made the first kill of their military careers.
TEN
A conflict of jurisdiction.
The House of Glaw.
Stalking secrets.
Long after midnight, I was attempting to sleep in my bedchamber at the Dorsay Regency. Bequin and Aemos had both retired to their own rooms hours before. Reflected light from the canal outside played a series of silver ripples across the ceiling of my twilit chamber.
'Aegis, rose thorn!' Betancore's voxed whisper suddenly tapped at my ear.
'Rose thorn, reveal.'
'Spectres, invasive, spiral vine.'
I was already out of bed and into my breeches and boots, pulling my leather coat over my bare torso. I went out into the apartment lounge with my power sword in my hand.
The lights were off, but canal reflections played in here too, creating a fluttering half-light.
Betancore stood by the far wall, a needle pistol in each hand. He nodded at the main door.
They were good and they were very quiet, but we could both see slight movement against the cracks around the doors, backlit by the hall light.
A gentle vibration of the handle told me someone was springing the lock. Betancore and I dropped back against the walls either side of the doors. We closed our eyes and covered our ears. Any forcing of the door would trigger the deterrent charges, and we didn't want to wind up blind or deaf.
The door opened a crack. No flash charges roared. Our visitors had detected and neutralised the security countermeasures. They were even better than I first thought.
A slender telescopic rod extended smoothly in through the crack. An optical sensor on the end slowly began to pan around, searching the room. With a nod to Betancore, I moved forward, took hold of the rod and yanked hard. At the same moment, I ignited my power sword.
A body crashed into the doors, dragged forward by my hefty pull on the spy- stick, and came tumbling in. I leapt in to straddle the body, but despite his surprise, he writhed away with a curse, and threw a punch. 1 had a vague impression of a tall, thickly built man in form-fitting leather.
We flopped over together, wrestling, overturning a couch and knocking down a candle-stand. My opponent had a good grip on the wrist of my sword arm.
So I punched him in the throat with my left hand.
Hecollapsed, retching, onto the floor. i got up in time to hear a strong voice say, 'Put the weapons down now'
A short, hunched figure stood in the open doorway. Betancore had both pistols trained on it, but was slowly lowering mem despite himself.
The figure had used the will. I brushed the tingle aside, but it was too much for Midas. The needle pistols thumped onto the carpet.
'Now you/ the figure said, turning its silhouette towards me. 'Disarm that power-blade.'
I seldom had an opportunity to feel the effect of psyker manipulation. The technique was different from the ones I employed, and the force of will was unmistakably potent. I braced myself for the hideous strain of outright telepathic combat.
'You resist?' said the figure. A blade of mental energy stabbed into my skull, rocking me backwards. I knew at once I was fundamentally outclassed. This was an old, powerful, practised mind.
A second stab of pain, cutting into the first. The man I had left choking was now on his knees. Another psyker. More powerful than the first, it seemed, but with far less control or technique. His attack seared through my skull and made me bark out in pain, but I blocked him as I stumbled back and stung his eager mind away with a desperate, unfocused jab.
The boiling psychic waves were rattling the windows and vibrating the furniture. Glasses shattered and Betancore fell, whimpering. The hunched figure stepped forward again, and dropped me to my knees with renewed mental assaults. I felt blood spurt from my nose. My vision swam. My grip on the sword remained tight.
Abruptly, it stopped. Roused by the disturbance, both Aemos and Bequin had burst into the room. Bequin screamed. Her psychic blankness, abruptly intruding on the telepathic maelstrom, suddenly blew the energies out, like a vacuum snuffing the heart of a fire.
The hunched figure cried out and stumbled in surprise. I drove forward, grabbed him and hurled him bodily across the chamber. He seemed frail but surprisingly heavy for such a small mass.
Betancore recovered his weapons and lit the lamps.
The man I had pulled through the doors was little more than a youth, big built with a long, shaved skull and a slit of a mouth. He was crumpled by the windows, semi-conscious. He wore a black leather bodyglove adorned with equipment harnesses. Bequin relieved him of his holstered sidearm.
The other, the hunched figure, rose slowly and painfully, ancient limbs cracking and protesting. He wore long dark robes; his thin hands were clad in black satin gloves. A number of gaudy rings protruded from the folds of the gown. He pulled back his cowl.
He was very old, his weathered, lined face wizened like a fruit stone. His throat, exposed at the gown's neckline, betrayed traces of the augmetic work that undoubtedly encased his age-twisted body.
His eyes blazed at me from their deep sockets with cold fury.
'You have made a mistake/ he said, wheezing, 'a fatal one, I have no doubt.' He produced a chunky amulet and held it up. The sigil it bore was unmistakable. 'I am Inquisitor Commo-dus Voke.'
I smiled. 'Well met, brother,' I said.
Commodus Voke stared at my rosette for a few lingering seconds, then looked away. I could feel the psychic throbbing of his rage.
'We have a… conflict of jurisdiction/ he managed to say, straightening his robes. His assistant, now back on his feet, stood in the corner of the chamber and gazed sullenly at me.
