"We can't use our weapons, Isobel. These people are innocent; just victims of the spell."
"All right; so what do we do?"
"I don't know! I'm thinking!"
"Then think quickly. They're getting closer."
"Look, it can't be a demon, or something escaped from the Street of Gods. Our amulets would have alerted us long before this if something that powerful was loose. No, this has to be some out-of-town sorcerer, brought in to stack the vote in this district."
"I think we're in trouble, Hawk. They've blocked off both ends of this street."
"We can't fight them, Isobel."
"The hell we can't."
The crowd closed in around them. The same dark eyes blazed in every face, and every hand held a weapon of some kind. Hawk reluctantly drew his axe, his mind working furiously. The sorcerer had to be somewhere close at hand, to be controlling so many people. He grabbed at his amulet with his free hand. The carved piece of bone burned with an uncomfortable heat. He spun round in a circle, and the amulet burned more fiercely for a moment. Hawk grinned. The amulet had been designed to track down sorcerers, as well as react to their spells. All he had to do was follow where it led him. He spun quickly back and forth to get a fix on the right direction, and then he charged into the crowd, knocking men and women out of the way with the flat of his axe. Fisher hurried after him.
The crowd fought back, lashing out with knives and cudgels and broken glass. Hawk parried most of the blows, but couldn't stop them all. He hissed with pain as a knife grated raggedly across his ribs, but fought down the impulse to strike back. Everywhere he looked he saw the same twisted smile, the same dark and angry eyes. The possessed washed against Hawk and Fisher like waves breaking on a stubborn rock, a never-ending tide of hollow men and women, fuelled by an alien anger. Knives and cudgels rose and fell, and blood flew on the quiet morning air.
Hawk careered down the street, the amulet burning painfully hot in his hand, and then ducked suddenly into a side alley. Fisher followed him in, and pulled over a stack of barrels so that they fell and blocked the alley mouth. The Guards leaned together against a cold brick wall, gasping for breath. Hawk wiped sweat and blood from his face with a shaking hand. He glanced across at Fisher, and winced at the cuts and bruises she'd acquired in their short run down the street.
"I hope you're still thinking," said Fisher, her voice calm and steady. "Those barrels won't hold them back for long."
"The sorcerer's here somewhere," said Hawk. "Has to be. The amulet's practically burning a hole in my hand."
There was a rasping clatter at the end of the alley as the hollow men pulled aside the fallen barrels. Light gleamed on knives and broken glass. Hawk glared quickly about him. There was a door to his right, set flush with the brickwork so that he almost missed it. He tried the handle, but it wouldn't budge. He shot a glance at Fisher.
"I'm going in. Hold them here as long as you can."
"Sure, Hawk; I may have to kill some of them."
"Do what you have to," said Hawk. "Just hold the door. Whatever it takes."
Fisher moved forward to block the alleyway, and Hawk swung his axe at the door. The blade bit deeply into the rotten wood, and Hawk had to use all his strength to pull the blade free. He could hear the scuff of moving feet behind him, and the muffled thud of steel cutting into flesh, but he didn't look round. He swung his axe again and again, taking out his anger and frustration on the stubborn door. Finally it collapsed inward, and he forced his way past the splintered edges into the dark hallway beyond. A little light spilled in through the broken door, but it quickly faded away into an impenetrable gloom.
Hawk moved quickly away from the door. The light made him an easy target. He crouched down on his haunches in the dark, and waited impatiently for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He could still hear sounds of a struggle in the alleyway outside, and his hands closed tightly around the shaft of his axe. He tried to concentrate on the hall itself, and strained his ears for any sound in his vicinity, but there was only the dark and the quiet. Hawk had never liked the dark. His hands were sweaty, and he wiped them one at a time on his trousers. The hall and a long flight of stairs slowly formed themselves out of the shadows before him. Hawk moved forward, one foot at a time, alert for any sign of a trap. Nothing moved in the shadows, and the stairway grew gradually closer.
He'd just reached the foot of the stairs when he heard footsteps on the landing above. Hawk froze in his tracks as four armed men started down the stairs towards him. He lifted his axe threateningly, but there was no reaction from any of them. He couldn't make out their faces in the dim light, but he had no doubt they all shared the same dark eyes and smile. Hawk hesitated a moment, torn by indecision. They were innocent men, all of them. Victims of the sorcerer's will. But he couldn't let them stop him. He licked his dry lips once, and went forward to meet them.
The first man cut viciously at Hawk's throat with his sword. Hawk ducked under the blow, and slammed his axe into the man's gut. The force of the blow threw the man back against the banisters. Hawk jerked his axe free, and blood and entrails fell out of the hideous wound it left. The possessed man ignored the wound and swung his sword again. Hawk parried the blow and brought his axe across in a quick vicious arc that sank deep into the man's throat, nearly tearing his head from his shoulders. He fell backwards, still trying to swing his sword, and Hawk pushed quickly past him to face the other three men, who were already advancing down the stairs towards him.
There was a flurry of steel on steel, and blood flew on the air. For all their unnatural stubbornness, the hollow men weren't very good fighters. Hawk parried most of the blows, and his axe cut and tore at them without mercy. But still they pressed forward, blood streaming from hideous wounds, unfeeling and unstoppable. Even the broken figure on the stairs behind him tried to grab at his ankles to pull him down. Hawk swung his axe with both hands, already bleeding from a dozen minor wounds. The sheer force of his attack opened up a space for a moment, and he threw himself forward. He burst through the hollow men, and ran up the stairs onto the landing. He paused for a moment to get his bearings. Above the sound of his own harsh breathing he could hear the hollow men coming after him. Light showed round the edges of a closed door at the end of the hallway. Hawk ran towards it, the hollow men close behind.
He hit the door without slowing, and it burst open. Strange lights blazed and flared within the room, and Hawk flinched as the sudden glare hurt his eye. A crudely drawn pentagram covered the bare wooden floor, the blue chalk lines flaring with a fierce, brilliant light. Inside the pentagram sat a tall spindly man wrapped in a shabby grey cloak. He looked round, startled at Hawk's sudden entrance, and in his face Hawk saw the familiar dark eyes and a mouth turned down in a bitter smile. Hawk moved purposefully forward. The amulet round his neck burned fiercely hot.
The sorcerer gestured with one hand, and the lines of the pentagram blazed suddenly brighter. Hawk slammed into a wall he couldn't see, and staggered backwards, off balance. An arm curled round his throat from behind and cut off his air. Hawk bent sharply forward at the waist, and threw the hollow man over his shoulder. He crashed into the invisible barrier and slid to the ground, momentarily stunned. Hawk heard more footsteps outside on the landing. He swore briefly, and beat at the barrier with his fist, to no avail. He cut at it with his axe, and the great steel blade passed through, unaffected. Hawk grinned savagely. Cold iron. The oldest defense against magic, and still the best. He lifted his axe, and threw it at the sorcerer.
The axe cut through the barrier as though it wasn't there. The sorcerer threw himself frantically to one side, and the axe just missed him, but one of his hands inadvertently crossed one of the lines of his pentagram. The brilliant blue light snapped out in a moment. There was the sound of falling bodies in the doorway behind Hawk, and the hollow man at his feet stopped struggling to rise. He lay still, in a widening pool of his own blood. The sorcerer scrambled to his feet. Hawk drew a knife from his boot and started forward. The sorcerer turned and ran towards a full-length mirror propped against the far wall.