back at Nate in a repost that nearly drove the point of the cutlass into Nate's belly. Nate beat it down and twisted his own blade around it as it came back up, binding it and sweeping it aside once more. He struck out with a kick to Hugo's solar plexus, throwing the older man backwards and following him, blade driving forward. Hugo dodged the strike, flipped back onto his feet and came at his younger opponent again with a bewildering series of jabs and thrusts. Nate was astounded by the old man's strength and speed. With skills honed during years of medieval battles, Hugo began to drive him steadily backwards.
Brunhilde rose up, taking her pistol and drawing a bead on Nathaniel as the two men fought with a frantic clashing of steel. Daisy seized her chance and, pulling the syringe from her pocket, went to jab at Brunhilde's side – only to find her wrist caught in a crushing grip. Brunhilde's hand had moved impossibly fast and without her even looking, and now she was forcing the needle back. She turned on Daisy, her mouth open in a shrill battle cry, the gun raised not to shoot, but to beat her victim to death in an animal frenzy.
Daisy's thumb jammed the hypodermic's plunger home, spraying the poison into the mad woman's face. Brunhilde yelped, knocking the syringe from Daisy's hand so that it smashed against the wall of the carriage. She staggered up onto her feet, letting out little cries, rubbing her eyes as if they were burning. She gagged on the toxins in her mouth.
Daisy looked in despair at the shattered syringe. Her chance was gone. Half blind, Brunhilde snatched up her great Claymore sword and, raising it over her head, rushed towards Daisy. A small, dainty hand reached up from inside the compartment and grabbed the hem of her dress as she charged, catching her feet and sending her face-first down onto the carriage wall. Her sword clattered out of her hands and Daisy seized it, the weight of it nearly pulling her over as she swung it back over her shoulder. Brunhilde scrambled to her feet and Daisy swung the blade with all her might. With her eyes shut. She screamed as she felt the sword catch something in mid- swing before flying from her hands. Opening her eyes, she stared into the fierce glare of the warrior woman.
Brunhilde's expression was so savage that it took Daisy a moment to realize that the woman's head was slipping from her neck. The head dropped into the carriage compartment below her, and her decapitated body collapsed over on its side. Tatiana sidestepped the falling head as it bounced against the lower wall and climbed up out of the compartment, looking from Daisy to the dead body and back in wonder.
'I always… always told her not to run in… in that dress,' Daisy panted.
'No breeding,' Tatiana agreed, before wrapping her arms around her sister-in-law's trembling body and holding her close.
Further down the train, Nate was losing his fight. He was being forced back, ever closer to the end of the carriages, to where the jagged wreckage of the tender lay between them and the ruined locomotive. Every thrust he made was met with the ringing of steel as Hugo answered and bettered his move, attacking viciously in return. Hugo caught him, the cutlass blade opening the flesh of his sword-arm just above the wrist. Nate flinched back in reflex and Hugo cut him again below the ribs of his right side. It was all Nate could do to keep his guard up. He bled from a dozen wounds, his movements uncoordinated and awkward, slower and slower as he weakened under Hugo's barrage. But Hugo was not unscathed. Despite his chain mail and protective collar, he bled too. For every dirty move that Hugo tried, Nate had two – drawn from a lifetime of training in the fighting arts, from both East and West. He attacked with punches and kicks and knees and leg sweeps, keeping Hugo at bay with an array of moves unknown to a medieval knight. They fought like demons – every limb a weapon, every drop of blood spilled dearly. But Hugo's experience and superhuman strength were beginning to tell.
Nate stumbled back, stopping just short of the edge of the carriage, nothing behind him but the torn iron of the tender and, beyond it, the wreck of the locomotive, flames coughing fiercely from its firebox and starting to spread across the spilled piles of coal. The air over the hellish scene was full of gritty, choking smoke. He nearly lost his balance, and his arms went out to regain it… leaving him wide open. Hugo drove his sword into Nate's side. Nate screamed, dropping his own blade. As Hugo made to pull back for another thrust, Nate clasped his hands around his ancestor's and lunged backwards, still impaled on the sword. Hugo was thrown forwards, tumbling over Nate's head as they fell into the pile of coal in the wreck of the tender. A sharp, white-hot pain shot through Nate as he landed, and the sword twisted in the wound, making him cry out again. Hugo got to his knees; jamming one foot against Nate's hip, he wrenched the bloodied blade out and raised it for a killing blow. But just as he did so, three figures rose up from beneath the coal, seizing his arms and legs in wrestling holds. He fought like a berserker to break free, but the Maasai were too strong, too well-trained, their hearts too set on vengeance.
'Unhand me, you blasted blackamoors!' Hugo shrieked, thrashing vainly against their iron grip. 'What are you doing? What is this?!'
'This,' said Abraham in a deep, calm voice, 'is your personal Hell, Hugo Wildenstern. And we are here to deliver you to it.'
'You can't do this!' Hugo screamed at Nathaniel. 'You would let
'They are free men now. What they do with you is their business,' Nate retorted, sitting up with a grunt and pressing his hands against the wound. Not wanting to show how badly he was hurt, he got unsteadily to his feet and turned his back on his ancestor. Then he added: 'I never wanted you dead – I just wanted you out of my house.'
And with that, he walked away to join his family.
XXXIV
And Nate had to succeed – the prospect of these throwbacks taking control of the family was unthinkable. But while Gerald would have been the first to admit that the four ancients were abominations of the highest order (even for Wildensterns), he despaired at the thought of losing the greatest chance of discovering the true nature of the intelligent particles. If a transfusion of Hugo's blood could help Clancy recover from a mortal wound, understanding those particles could change the course of medicine for ever.
So Gerald made a decision there and then. He would take Brutus's inert body down to the cellars, where he could tell Nate he had incinerated it in the huge boilers that heated the house. There were forgotten rooms down in the foundations of Wildenstern Hall where Gerald stored some of his equipment, as well as more illicit materials he wanted to keep from prying eyes. He would keep Brutus there, where he could carry on his experiments in secrecy.
Gerald had enormous faith in his cousin. Nate had yet to realize his full potential in the family but Gerald knew what a formidable opponent he could be. If he succeeded in defeating Hugo and his sisters, for the sake of science it was imperative that at least one of the ancestors be kept alive.
The moral implications of what he was doing did not particularly bother Gerald – he considered himself a servant to a higher cause that could override all other considerations. Anything was justified to advance along the path of science.
On the off-chance that Nate
There wasn't a moment to lose, but there was still the problem of moving a man of Brutus's size without the help of too many loose-lipped servants. Gerald stepped over to the sleeping giant and put a hand on his brow – then he jerked back as the monster let out a trembling moan.
Brutus awoke. His consciousness returned gradually and he lay still with his eyes closed and let it come. As his awareness of his body stretched out along his limbs, a terrible pain in his right arm told him he had been wounded in the fight. He could remember a mighty struggle, hands grabbing him, blades cutting him. He tried to flex the
