by Dan Abnett
But he cried out in alarm. Although his feet had stopped moving and he was willing his body around, he was continuing to surge forward. His feet dragged and pumped weightlessly on the pit edge and then he was suspended out over the tank itself, held in space by some soft, invisible force.
A force that went away again as suddenly as it had come.
With a shriek, he dropped out of sight.
The other goon rallied at Nayl, who grabbed his knife-hand, snapped the wrist and punched him so hard in the face that he fell down and didn't get up again.
"Thanks," Nayl said. "I thought I was fish-bait there."
Kys walked into view, breathing hard. "Sorry it was a bit last minute. You've put on weight."
Together, they started to run across the chamber. Many of the handlers and pit-crews had seen the brief, violent altercation, and had stopped work, glancing around in confusion. Some were calling out for Duboe.
"To the left. That way," said Kys, running ahead of Nayl. Pit-men got out of their way in a hurry.
"Mathuin?" Nayl voxed.
"Busy," the link answered.
Mathuin was up on the higher catwalk by then. Duboe's hefty teamsters, a couple of them twists, were coming up ladders at either end. The bounty hunter slid to a halt, looked up and down the walkway, and then swung the cradle-brace around so the cannon's multi-barrels covered the west end of the walk.
Two men ran up into view. One had a drawn stub pistol.
"Drop it!" he shouted.
"You're kidding, right?" Mathuin replied. He tipped up the barrels with a slight tug and fired off a blurt. The sound of it boomed across the chamber. Hyper-velocity shots howled over the heads of the two men in front of him. The one with the stub pistol fell down the steps in an effort to duck, and knocked the man behind him off the stepway entirely. Falling, the man tried to grab a suspension strut, but missed and landed badly on a cage-roof below. The small, biped saurians in the cage began to leap and snap up at him. The man struggled to balance on the curved roof-bars and yelled out for help.
The sound of Mathuin's cannon had caused other trouble. There was genuine panic in the cavae now. The penned animals began straggling against their cages. Several others in the process of being moved, including a spiger and the grazers Duboe had signalled, went berserk and broke free. The spiger - a three metre long felidform with eight legs and a furred, segmented body - snapped its leads, brought a servitor crashing over and started to chase pit-men across the floor. The grazers stampeded in all directions, crashing into cages, into chute-walls, into guardrails, into crates and barrels, into men. Six of them, in a tight, galloping pack, broke all the way round the saurian lockers and trampled two handlers on the loading ramp behind them. The grazers had big, V-shaped horns growing up from thick bone-masses above their flaring nostrils, and when they ran, they put their heads down. There were marrow-mashing crunches. A body was tossed up into the air, terribly gored, and came down on the locker roofs. It lay there, leaking blood through the bars and driving the caged saurians into a frenzy. More handlers ran in, firing scatter-guns, and cracking lashes. Other workers fled for the exits.
From his vantage point, Mathuin glimpsed Duboe running through the pandemonium towards the northern cargo-docks. He voxed the sighting to the others, then ducked shots at him from behind. Several pit-men, firing small-arms, were rushing along the walkway after him.
Mathuin turned and felt the rotator-cannon shudder against his hip. White flame danced around the muzzles. His pursuers pulverised explosively in puffs of blood and meat and several shots tore into the catwalk itself, shredding the decking and shearing support cables. A whole section of catwalk tore away and plunged twenty metres to the floor below.
Mathuin turned grimly to continue on his way when something of extraordinary force struck him on the left shoulder and wrenched him off his feet. He spun off the walkway and into the air. He blacked out for a microsecond, then woke in time to black out again when he smashed, face first, into a cage roof.
Fifty metres away across the cavae's crowded, chaotic floorspace, the game agent, Skoh, lowered his custom-made long-las.
"Thank you," said Duboe. "Now come on."
"This is my neck on the block here too, Duboe. Who are these people?"
Duboe smiled at the game agent, pushing pit-men out of his path. "They're dead," he said.
Mathuin woke with a start. Before he had even tried to remember where he was, he knew he was hurt bad. Broken ribs, seriously frigged arm and shoulder.
He was face down, suspended across the bars of a cage roof. His head, right leg, right forearm and the business end of the rotator-cannon were all hanging limply down through the iron rungs. He tried to move, but it seemed too painful, and the bars were so widely spaced that if he rolled too far, he might well slip down between them entirely. Slowly, he raised his right hand to clasp the nearest rung, then his right leg, hooking his foot around a rung for support. Then he tried to raise his head. Pain made him close his eyes. Whiplash, maybe, from the fall, combined with the damage the las-load had done punching through his shoulder.
For a second, Mathuin felt hot, damp, stinking air blow up at his face, and wet droplets spatter him. There was a sound like two heavy wooden boards being smacked together.
He opened his eyes.
Four metres below, the cage's occupant, a mature crocodilian, looked up at him with lidless yellow eyes. It lunged vertically again, its great maw wide open and, pain be damned, this time Mathuin pulled his head up. Another hot blast of breath and saliva. Another hollow smack as the jaws closed empty.
The thing slithered round beneath him. He pulsed the trigger of the cannon to rake it to pieces, but got nothing except the pinging misfire tone. The fall had screwed the cannon, jarring the munition feed out of its lock.
The crocodilian powered up again, driving itself against the cage floor with its massive tail. This time it got him. The tip of the massive jaws closed around the dangling end of the cannon barrels.
"Oh shit..." Mathuin gasped as the gigantic weight began to pull the cannon down between the bars, and him with it.
For a moment, across the heads of the milling crowd, Nayl saw Duboe. Then he was gone again, and trouble was rushing Nayl and Kys from all sides. Pit-men and twists, paid well to be loyal, piled in with fists and blades and goad-staves.
Nayl was in no mood now. With a snarl, he lashed into the first one, crashing a nasal bone, and chopped an elbow elsewhere into a throat. An electroprod stung him a glancing blow on the right hip, but the armour of his bodyglove soaked the worst, so he tore the prod out of the man's hands and stung him back into the air with it. Then he brought the crackling prod round one-handed like a sabre and felled the next.
"Patience!"
"Right with you," she said, making her words audible over the commotion by way of a little T-nudge boost. Two pit-men were already on their hands and knees at her feet, coughing blood. She straight-armed the heel of her left hand into the solar plexus of a third, catching the barbed pole the man dropped with a little telekinesis and then spinning the pole straight into the face of another. A twist with a cleaver swung for her, but she did a nimble three-sixty walkover to get out of his way and then TK'ed the floating pole round in a fast circle and cracked the twist around the back of the skull with it.
Kys stepped forward over the twist and drew four kineblades that had been concealed as boning in her bodice. The four sharp slivers began to orbit in slow circuits around her. Nayl tossed aside the now buckled electroprod, and tackled another handler using an arm-lock, and pushed the yowling man out of their way.
Duboe had already disappeared through the shutters into the northern cargo-docks.
Raw agony tore through Mathuin's shoulder and neck. The crocodilian was beginning to shake its snout. He couldn't reach around far enough with his right hand to release the cannon's harness straps. He felt himself beginning to slide. "Help... me..." he gasped.
"Get out of here." Dub
oe told Skoh as they crossed the cargo-dock. Skoh had just used his long-las to cut down a maddened grazer that was bucking and jerking across the deck. "I've got things to do. Get out and I'll meet you at the usual place."
Skoh nodded and hastened off towards his truck. Duboe turned and went the other way towards his private offices under the north-end terraces. By then, the whole stadium knew something was amiss in the under-stage. There was a lot of discontented noise from upstairs. A squad of six armoured marshals came pounding out of the stair access to his left. Regularly posted at the circus, the officers recognised Duboe at once.
"In there! The cavae!" Duboe yelled. "Reckon it's some of those frigging anti-blood sport maniacs. They're armed, so watch it!"
The marshals pumped their shotgun grips and spread out towards the cavae hatchways. Duboe reached his office, punched his code into the door plate, and was felled from behind by a hefty blow.
He looked up, dazed. One of the frigging dance-crobats. She was pointing a compact at his face.
"What the hell..." he growled.
"You're coming with me," she said. "Right now. Before this gets any further out of hand."
Duboe grinned. "Ekkrote," he said.
"What?" said Kara.
Ekkrote was one of the Carnivora's headline gladiators, something of a local hero in G. Two and a half spans tall, an ex-clanster, formed like a mountain range from grafter muscle, he was blessed, oiled, armoured in gold mono-bond ceramite armour, armed with a chainsword, and loyally in the pay of his friend and dealer Ranklin Sesme Duboe.
He was also standing right behind Kara Swole.
Nayl and Kys came up out of the cavae into the dock, and straight into the path of the Magistratum squad. They saw the heavy pistol in Nayl's hand and aimed their riot-guns and red laser-taggers.
"Where you are! Drop the handgun!"
Nayl glanced sideway at Kys. She didn't even break stride. The four kineblades zipped away from their orbit around her and flew into the open barrels of the four nearest pump-guns. Two misfired on the spot, blowing their users back hard. A slamming wave of telekinesis and the butt of Nayl's pistol left the rest sprawled and disarmed.
Nayl and Kys broke into a run.
Faced with a choice between keeping her gun or keeping her head, Kara opted for the latter, and threw herself into the longest impromptu dive of her life to avoid the gladiator's scything chainsword. She had no time to prep for a decent landing and the compact bounced out of her hand as she sprawled over and rolled.
Ekkrote was also fast. She rolled hard and then had to back-flip just to evade the singing edge of the sword as he stormed after her, swiping at her.
His blade tip cut a groove in the rockcrete floor, then nicked a pillar. Kara ducked and did a handspring sideways, landing neat and next to her fallen compact. She snatched it up and fired off four or five shots. Ekkrote's armour and surface muscle stopped them all. The chainsword mangled the muzzle of the compact and she ditched it, turning a backwards somersault as the gladiator closed the distance between them again.
Kara was out of breath. Her muscles burned. How much longer could she stay out of the bastard's reach?
There was a shot - something chunky like a las-carbine - and the crocodilian let go and flopped over onto the cage floor, leaking black ichor from its split brain pan.
Mathuin sagged as the weight released. His left arm felt like it had been torn out of its socket. He saw the barrels of the rotator were twisted and deformed.
He peered around, upside down. Carl Thonius was staring up at him from outside the cage, carbine slung in his hands.
"You alive?" he called.
Mathuin moaned, nodded and slid slowly back along the roof bars. Then he flopped over until he hit the ground. When he landed, he just stayed there, too hurt and exhausted to move.
Thonius walked up to him. The cavae around them was still in uproar.
"You're here," panted Mathuin.
"Yeah. Sounded like you needed the whole works."
"So he's here too?"
"Oh yeah."
Running across the cargo-dock, Nayl and Kys saw Kara fighting to stay out of the big pit-fighter's way. Any second now, the chainblade was going to unzip her.
"Kara!" Nayl yelled. He was still fifteen metres away. He raised his heavy pistol and opened fire, striking the gladiator's back armour several times.
Ekkrote lurched under the hi-cal impacts. He wheeled away from Kara, not interested in her anymore, and took another bullet in the cheek-guard. He charged Nayl and Kys. Kys met him with her telekinesis, but he was too massive for her to lift. All she could do was stop him in his tracks for a moment. Ekkrote struggled against the invisible barrier and Kys wobbled back a step.
"God-Emperor!" she wailed with the effort. "Drop him, Nayl!"
"Trying!" Nayl replied. He'd slapped home a fresh clip and was busy emptying that. The pit-fighter was clearly hard-wired against pain and hyped up on some serious glanding frenzy-maker. Nayl was inflicting serious tissue damage to the gladiator's chest, but still he was fighting to reach them, his face a rictus of kill-hate.
"Can't hold him!" Kys barked. Her telekinesis stalled, exhausted, and Ekkrote thundered towards them. Then a huge force lifted the gladiator off his feet and drove him hard against the chamber wall. He continued to thrash. The force, invisible, slammed him into the wall three or four times until the stone facings cracked and he went limp.
The inquisitor's force chair powered towards them across the dock. Frauka - his limiter clearly active - walked behind it. Zael was in tow.
Nayl pushed on, past Kara, who was on her knees panting, and into the handlerman's offices. The floor was littered with papers, slates and other belongings that had been overturned in Duboe's frenzy to cover his tracks.
Duboe was behind the desk, a heavy-grade tube-charge in his hands.
"Uh uh!" he warned, his hand ready to twist the arming dial. "Back out!"
As if alive, the tube-charge leapt out of his hands and crunched hard into his nose. Duboe fell on the floor, hands clutched to his bloody face. Kys stepped up behind Nayl and took the charge out of the air where it was floating.
Together, they bundled him out onto the dock where Ravenor was waiting with Kara, Frauka and the boy.
+Get him to the transports.+
They all started to move, then stopped when they heard the inquisitor send the word, +Wait!+
His mind-voice seemed to falter.
There was a rush of air. The main dock hatches around the outer edges of the bay were hissing open. Units of Magistratum and PDF troops were streaming in, and amongst them were several men and women dressed in simple grey suits.
Two were already heading right towards them. One was a very big man indeed. The other, small and thin, was regarding them with piercing blue eyes.
It was the psyker, Kinsky.
SIX
"You want I should...?" Frauka began.
"Not yet," I said. I was ready for Kinsky now, whoever he was. To my team, he was just a scrawny, grinning wretch. To me, he was ablaze from head to toe in lambant psi-flame. His big minder - Ahenobarb - stood ready to catch him the moment he went bodiless.
I didn't want a mind-fight. I certainly didn't relish the prospect of going up against this one again. But I would if I had to. And I was on the ground now, face to face. He'd find me more of a match.
+Let us pass.+ I sent.
+(Laugh) I don't think so. Several of the people with you are armed. I want to know who and what you are.+
+Not without some notion of your authority and jurisdiction+ I sent back flatly.
Kinsky pursed his lips. Marshals were closing in around him, weapons aimed at us. Others spread out through the cargo-dock and through into the choragium proper, rounding up the scattering circus workers. I heard weapons discharge. Some more of the poor, loosed animals brought down, I supposed.
Kinsky reached into a pocket of his grey suit and flipped open a wallet, showing us the off
icial seal.
"Lomer Kinsky, Ministry of Subsector Trade, by the authority of the lord governor himself."
He used his voice for this, so we all could hear him.
I'd heard of the Ministry, of course. A soft, bland title for a powerful regulatory body. The lord governor's secret police. Not a force to be trifled with. Kinsky's presence at Sonsal's house, and the way the marshals had deferred to him and his colleagues, now made sense.
But, as the saying goes, I had one better. The time for subterfuge had gone... or at least, had been stolen from us by circumstances. The nature of my operation on Eustis Majoris was about to change irrevocably.
I sent a mental impulse into the display mechanism of my chair, and a small flap slid open on its armoured prow. A fish-eyed projector lens flipped out, flush to the smooth bodywork, and glowed into life. I displayed the hololithic version of my rosette.
+ I am Gideon Ravenor, inquisitor, Ordo Xenos.+
It was worth it just to see the look on Kinsky's face.
The lord governor's palace was a bratticed tower rising from the side of the gigantic administry monoliths in Formal A, like a pier of coral from a main reef. Heavy rain lashed through the night as we were escorted in armoured vans to the palace undercroft. We all went: myself, Kara, Nayl, Patience, Frauka and Zael. Duboe was carted off into custody by the Departmento Magistratum. Carl and Mathuin had not yet been rounded up, and I trusted they could stay out of harm's way.
Kinsky, Ahenobarb and a female in grey whose name I wasn't told escorted Frauka and me up to the cap levels of the palace. We left the others waiting in an anteroom off the undercroft.
Kinsky was clearly nervous. His psi-force had ebbed a great deal: it was just a flicker now. I could tell he remembered our clash at Sonsal's house. He'd cut loose there. Now he knew I was an inquisitor, he was worried how things might go for him.