The weapon was still set on full auto. Las-shots hosed up the throat of the lighthouse, deflecting off the curved walls, blowing out chunks of brick and stonework. It wasn’t the cleanest piece of shooting Rawne had ever executed, but he managed to drag the chasing wildfire across the section of screwstair where the second shooter was crouching.
Hit, though perhaps not fatally, the second shooter yelped and fell. He somersaulted down a dozen steps, cracking off the stone edges, and then grazed against the curve of the wall and flew right off the staircase entirely. He dropped eight metres, straight down, onto the prisoner’s wooden chair, which exploded into kindling and dust under the impact.
Rawne was up. There was no opportunity for respite. A third assassin had appeared, rushing in through the main doorway. Like the other two, he was dressed as an Urdeshi trooper. He had a lasrifle with a bayonet fixed. He, too, had a face Rawne knew.
Rawne’s laspistol was out of reach. The lasrifle was tangled around the body of the first shooter on the floor. Rawne went at the third attacker instead, closing the distance between them as fast as he could, ripping out his warknife.
The third assassin fired, but Rawne’s straight silver had already parried his bayonet and turned the muzzle aside. The shot went out through the blown window. The assassin tried to re-aim, but Rawne fenced with his blade again and deflected the bayonet so that the next shots went clean up the tower space.
The assassin tried to club Rawne with an underswing of his tilted rifle. Rawne spun his warknife so that the pommel was behind his thumb, then punched the blade sideways, knuckles up. The blow slashed the assassin’s throat, left to right. Blood gouted into the air, as though someone had tossed a beaker of red ink. Rawne ripped back in the opposite direction, and tore a second cut across the man’s torso, right to left. The assassin fell on his knees with a deadweight thump, his lifeblood exiting his body under pressure through the two huge splits. He collapsed onto his face.
Rawne stepped back, spinning the warknife back upright in his hand, and then swung around, alerted by a sound from behind him.
The first shooter had got back up on his hobbled leg, raising his rifle to his broken cheek to shoot Rawne in the back. But Mabbon had seized him from behind. The etogaur’s broken manacles were wrapped around the man’s throat, crushing the life out of him. Mabbon’s face was absolutely expressionless.
The man struggled and made a cracked choking noise. Mabbon slammed his face into the stone surround of the blown window and then let the chain go slack, dropping him dead on the floor.
‘The timing of your visit was quite fortunate,’ he remarked.
Rawne nodded, picking up the third assassin’s rifle in case there were any further surprises.
The three dead assassins all had the same face.
‘Rime wants you dead,’ he said.
‘Half the sector wants me dead,’ Mabbon replied.
Rawne shrugged.
‘So, did you get some kind of tip-off that Rime was sending his Sirkle after me today?’
‘No,’ said Rawne. ‘This was a coincidence. I came here this morning to prove a point.’
‘What point?’
‘That the Tanith First can protect you better than the S Company details the Commissariat assigns to you. We’ve all used our visits in the last few weeks to test security, to look for weakness, to smuggle things in. Today, I was going to demonstrate that if we could get a weapon inside, so could anybody, and thus convince the Commissariat to assign S Company duties to my platoon so we could take over from the buffoons they’ve been using to watch you.’
‘Because Gaunt would be happier that way, because he trusts his own to do the job properly?’
‘Something like that,’ said Rawne. ‘And it’s Colonel-Commissar Gaunt to you.’
‘My apologies,’ said Mabbon.
Rawne looked at the bodies. Outside, he could hear men approaching, and an alarm started to sound.
‘Still,’ he said, ‘as demonstrations go, this proved the point well enough.’
‘I’m pleased that my security will be your business for the remainder of my stay here, major,’ Mabbon said.
‘The Suicide Kings will look after you,’ said Rawne.
‘Suicide Kings? Like the card game?’
‘Never mind. It’s a private joke,’ said Rawne. ‘Anyway, there won’t be much of a remainder. That’s why I had to make my point today. It’s also why Rime had to make his move. That suggests he has good intelligence.’
‘You’re moving me. We’re going to begin at last?’
‘Approval has been granted,’ said Rawne. ‘The mission has been authorised. We make shift at nightfall tomorrow.’
‘I take it that when we make shift, we will be en route to Salvation’s Reach?’ Mabbon Etogaur asked.
‘That’s classified,’ said Rawne.
TWO
Elodie on the Shore
With just a day to go, the Makeshift Revels were well underway.
It was all new to Elodie, of course. Everything was new, even her surname. Dutana. Elodie Dutana. It was her mother’s family name, a name that belonged to her but which she had never used. She’d left a number of temporary professional surnames behind her on Balhaut, and taken up her mother’s name to help rid herself of older memories and unsuitable associations.
She was Elodie Dutana, and she was part of a regimental entourage, and she was the companion of a brave and handsome Imperial Guard officer. It was a new life, and she liked it, and she intended to make the most of it.
She’d been through the whole process of embarkation once before, back on Balhaut, but it had been a blur, and she hadn’t taken much in. Besides, they had been shipping out to what Ban Daur described as a ‘dispersal point’, not a warzone. There had been no sense of apprehension.
Now there was. The dispersal point was a city called Anzimar on a planet called Menazoid Sigma. It had taken sixteen weeks on a stinking troop-and-packet ship to reach it from Balhaut, and they had been there eleven months.
Balhaut, where Elodie had spent the rest of her life, had been a place of towering, majestic cities. It had been the site of the Famous Victory, and though the wounds of war were still healing during her lifetime, and it was still possible to walk past empty lots or the shells of buildings during a day’s business, Balhaut seemed to retain its air of dignity and significance.
Menazoid Sigma, what little she had seen of it, had little of either. Anzimar was dirty and industrial, and sat on a polluted bay where galvanic reactor plants filled the air with smog. There were twin suns, which was unsettling. Everything was noisy and stained. Everywhere smelled of chemicals. Elodie wasn’t sure if the troop-and-packet ship hadn’t been a preferable place to spend some time.
Everyone said the same. It was an ugly place, and not a good posting. They were only there for a time, waiting for routing orders to come through. Menazoid Sigma was simply a place to stop and resupply, a place to make ready. Some of the Tanith men, the ones who had served the regiment longest, talked about Menazoid Epsilon, which was apparently a neighbouring system where they had fought many years before. There was no sense at all they were pleased to be back in this part of the Sabbat cluster.
She had become part of the community attached to the Tanith First regiment. There were at least as many hangers-on following the regiment in supporting roles as there were serving lasmen. Elodie was still getting used to her status, her role, her responsibilities. She was still learning who everyone was. Eleven months, even eleven months spent on a sinkhole like Menazoid Sigma, was enough time to serve as an apprenticeship.