Guard Against Dishonor

by Simon R. Green

  Fisher had already cut down another of her opponents, and now stood toe to toe with the last remaining adversary. Steel rang on steel and sparks flew as the blades met, hammering together and dancing apart in a lightning duel of strength and skill. Hawk started forward to help her, and then stopped as he saw more men-at-arms running down a winding stairway to join the fight. Fisher saw them too, and quickly kneed her opponent in the groin.

  "Get the hell out of here, Hawk. Find Morgan. I'll hold them off." She cut her opponent's throat, and sidestepped neatly to avoid the jetting blood. "Move it, Hawk!"

  Hawk nodded abruptly, and turned and ran down the other stairway, heading once again for what had looked like the center of operations. From behind him came the clash of sword on sword as Fisher met the first of the new onslaught, but he didn't look back. He didn't dare. He pressed on through the maze, passing from stairway to plane to stairway and cutting down anyone who tried to get in his way. All around him Morgan's people were running back and forth, looking for orders or weapons or just heading for the exit. Morgan wouldn't have gone, though. This was his place, his territory, and he'd trust in his men and his sorcerer to protect him. A sudden piercing scream caught Hawk's attention, and he looked up and round in time to see a man dressed in sorcerer's black stagger drunkenly across a plane at right angles to Hawk's stairway. Streamers of thick milky fog burst out of his mouth and eyes and ears. His head swelled impossibly and then exploded in a spreading cloud of crimson mist. The body crumpled to the floor as the last echo of the sorcerer's dying cry faded slowly away.

  Hawk grinned. So much for Morgan's sorcerer. He was close to the center now; he could feel it. There were drugs and people and men-at-arms everywhere, and there, straight ahead, he saw a familiar face in an earth-brown cloak and hood. Morgan. Hawk ran forward, cutting his way through two swordsmen foolish enough to try and stop him. Their blood splashed across his face and hands, but he didn't pause to wipe it off. He couldn't let Morgan escape. He couldn't.

  Hold my hand. Hold it up where I can see it…

  Morgan looked once at the bloodstained Guard rushing towards him, and then continued stuffing papers into a leather pouch. Three men-at-arms moved forward to stand between Hawk and Morgan. Hawk hit them at a dead run, swinging his axe double-handed. He never felt the wounds he took, and when it was all over, he stepped across their dead bodies to advance slowly on the drug baron.

  Seen up close, Morgan didn't look like much. Average height and build, with a bland face, perhaps a little too full to be handsome. A mild gaze and a civilized smile. He didn't look like the kind of man who'd made his fortune through the death and suffering of others. But then, they never did. Hawk moved slowly forward. Blood ran thickly down from a wound in his left thigh, and squelched inside his boot. There was more blood, soaking his arms and sides, some of it his. Even so, Morgan had enough sense not to try and run. He knew he wouldn't make it. They stood facing each other, while from all around came shouts and screams and the sounds of fighting.

  "Who are you?" said Morgan finally. "Why are you doing this?"

  "I'm every bad dream you ever had," said Hawk. "I'm a Guard who can't be bought."

  Morgan shook his head slowly, as a father chides a son who has made an understandable mistake. "Everyone has his price, Captain. If not you, then certainly someone among your superiors. I'll never come to trial. I know too much, about too many people. And I really do have friends in high places. Quite often, I helped put them there. So I'm afraid all this blood and destruction has been for nothing. You won't be able to make a case against me."

  Hawk grinned. "You're the second person who's told me that today. He was wrong, too. You're going to hang, Morgan. I'll come and watch."

  There was a muffled sound from behind a drapery to their right. Morgan glanced at it, and then looked quickly away. For the first time, he seemed a little uneasy. Hawk moved slowly over to the curtain, unconsciously favoring his wounded leg.

  "What's behind here, Morgan?"

  "Experimental animals. We had to test the drug, to establish the correct dosage. Nothing that would interest you."

  Hawk swept the cloth to one side, and froze for a moment. Inside a crude, steel-barred cage lay a pile of dead young men and women, tangled together. Some were barely teenagers. The bodies were torn and mutilated, and it was clear most of them had died tearing at each other and themselves. One man's hand was buried to the wrist in another's ripped-open stomach. A young girl had torn out her own eyes. There was blood everywhere, but not enough to hide the characteristic colorless white skin of chacal use. Hawk turned back to Morgan, who hadn't moved an inch.

  "Where did you get them?" said Hawk.

  Morgan shrugged. "Runaways, debtors' prisons, even a few volunteers. There are always some ready to risk their lives for a new thrill."

  "You know what this new drug does," said Hawk. "So why are you getting involved with it? There isn't enough bribe money in the world to make the Guard overlook the slaughter this shit will cause. Even the other drug barons would turn against you over something like this."

  "I won't be here when it breaks," said Morgan. "There's a lot of money in this. Millions of ducats. More than enough to leave Haven and set up a new and very comfortable life somewhere else. You could have a life like that, Captain. There's enough money for everyone. Just name your price, and I guarantee you I can meet it."

  "Really?" said Hawk. He stepped forward suddenly, grabbed a handful of Morgan's robe and dragged him over to the steel cage. "You want to know my price, Morgan? Bring them back to life. Bring those poor bastards back! Go on; give just one of them his life back and I'll let you go, here and now."

  "You're being ridiculous, Captain," said Morgan evenly. "And very foolish."

  "You're under arrest," said Hawk. "Tell your people to lay down their weapons and surrender."

  "Or?"

  Hawk grinned. "Believe me, Morgan, you don't want to know."

  "I'll have to speak to my sorcerer first."

  "Don't bother; he's dead."

  Morgan looked at him blankly, and then open terror rushed across his face. "We've got to get out of here! If he's dead, this whole place could collapse at any moment. It's only his magic that kept it stable!"

  Hawk swore briefly. He knew real fear when he saw it. "Tell your men to surrender. Do it!"

  Morgan started shouting orders, and all over the maze of planes and stairways the fighting came to a halt. Hawk yelled orders to his men, and the Guards began herding Morgan's people towards the dimensional portal. Hawk dragged Morgan along himself, never once releasing his grip on the drug baron's robe. The stairway began to sway and tremble under his feet. A nearby plane cracked across from end to end. Streams of dust fell from somewhere high above. There were creaks and groanings all around, and the wooden handrail turned to rot and mush under Hawk's hand. Morgan began pleading with him to go faster. Mistique appeared out of nowhere in a clattering of beads and bracelets and ran beside them as they hurried towards the portal.

  "So, you did get the little rat after all. Well done, darling."

  "I wish you wouldn't call me that in front of the men," said Hawk. "Can you use your magic to hold this place together long enough for us all to get out?"

  "I'm doing my best, darling, but it's not really my field. We should all make it. If we're lucky."

  They reached the portal to find it bottlenecked by the last of Morgan's people. The drug baron screamed at them to get out of the way, but Hawk held him back. Guards encouraged the slow movers on their way with harsh language and the occasional kick up the backside. The remaining stairways broke apart and collapsed in a roar of cracking timber. The planes spun and twisted in midair, fraying at the edges. Loose magic snapped on the air like disturbed static. The last of Morgan's people went through, and Hawk and Morgan and Mistique followed the Guards out.

  The cold of the street hit Hawk like a blow, and his vision clouded briefly as pain and fatigue caught up with him. He sho
ok his head and pushed the tiredness back. He didn't have time for it now. He handed Morgan over to two Constables, along with dire threats of what he'd do to them if Morgan escaped, and looked round for familiar faces. Fisher appeared out of nowhere, safe and more or less sound. They compared wounds for a moment, and then hugged each other carefully. Captain Burns came over to join them as they broke apart. He looked bloodied and battered and just a little dazed.

  "How many did we lose?" said Hawk.

  Burns scowled. "Five Constables, and Captain Doughty. Could have been worse, I suppose. Though I won't tell Doughty's widow that. Did you get Morgan?"

  "Yeah," said Fisher. "Hawk got him."

  And then there was a great crashing roar, and the whole tenement behind them collapsed amid screams of rending stone and timber, and the death cries of the hundreds of people trapped within. Flying fragments of stone and wood tore through the air like shrapnel, and then a thick cloud of smoke billowed out to fill the street from end to end.

  Chapter Two

  Going Down

  Hawk pulled and tugged at a stubborn piece of rubble, and bit by bit it slid aside. The stone's sharp edges tore at his gloves and the flesh beneath, but he hardly felt the pain through the bitter cold and the creeping numbness of utter exhaustion. He'd lost track of how long he and the others had been digging through the wreckage, searching for survivors. It seemed ages since the collapsing pocket dimension had pulled the whole tenement building down with it, but the air was still thick with dust that choked the throat and irritated the eye. There were still occasional screams or moans or pleas for help from people trapped deep within the huge pile of broken stone and timber, which stretched across the narrow street and lapped up against the opposite building.

  Hawk supposed he should be grateful that only the one building had come down, but he was too numb to feel much of anything now. He looked slowly about him as he stopped for a brief rest. The adjoining buildings were slumped and stooped, with jagged cracks in their walls, yet somehow holding together. The Guard had evacuated them, just in case, and their occupants had willingly joined the dig for survivors. Even in the Devil's Hook, people could sometimes be touched by tragedy.

  There was no telling how many might still be trapped under the debris. Slum landlords didn't keep records on how many desperate people they squeezed into each dingy little room. The Guard were trying to keep a count, but most of the dead they dug out were too disfigured to be easily identified, and sometimes all that could be found of the bodies were scattered bits and pieces. The rescuers worked on, fired now and then from their exhaustion by the sudden appearance of a living soul, pulled raw and bloodied from the darkness under the rubble. Guards and prisoners worked side by side, along with people from the Hook, all animosities forgotten in the driving need to save as many as they could.

  Not that everyone had proved so openhearted. Morgan had flatly refused to lift so much as a finger to help. Hawk was already half out of his mind with concern for the injured, and knew he couldn't spare even one Constable to watch over the drug baron. So he just punched Morgan out, manacled the unconscious man to a nearby railing and left him there. No one objected, not even his own people. A few of them even cheered. Hawk smiled briefly at the memory, and returned to work.

  They had no real tools to work with, so they attacked the broken bricks and stone and wood with their bare hands, forming human chains to transfer the larger pieces. They worked with frantic speed, spurred on by the screams and sobbing of those trapped below, but soon found it was better to work slowly and carefully rather than risk the debris collapsing in on itself, if a vital support was unwittingly removed. Most of the bodies were women and children, crushed and broken by the horrid weight. Crammed together in one room sweatshops and factories, they never stood a chance. But some survived, sheltered by protecting slabs of masonry, and they were reason enough to keep on digging.

  And all the time he worked, Hawk was haunted by a simple, inescapable thought; it was all his fault. If he hadn't led the raid on Morgan's factory, the pocket dimension wouldn't have collapsed, taking the tenement with it, and all those people, all those women and children, would still be alive.

  Eventually the fire brigade arrived, encouraged by the presence of so many Guards. Normally they wouldn't have entered the Devil's Hook without an armed escort and a written guarantee of hazard pay. They quickly took over the running of the operation, and things began to go more smoothly. They set about propping up the adjoining buildings, and dealt efficiently with the many water leaks. Doctors and nurses arrived from a nearby charity hospital, and began sorting out the real emergencies from the merely badly injured. Fisher took the opportunity to drag Hawk over to a doctor, and insisted he have his wounds treated. He didn't have the strength to argue.

  More volunteers turned up to help, followed by a small army of looters. Hawk waited for the doctor to finish the healing spell, and then rose to his feet, feeling stiff but a damn sight more lively. He walked over to confront the looters, Fisher at his side. The first few took one look at what was coming towards them, went very pale, and skidded to a halt. Word passed quickly back, and most of the would-be looters decided immediately that they were needed somewhere else, very urgently. The ones who couldn't move or think that fast found themselves volunteered to help dig through the rubble for survivors.

  The work continued, interrupted increasingly rarely by a sudden shout as someone thought they heard a cry for help. Everyone would stop where they were, ears straining against the quiet as they tried to locate the faint sound. Sometimes there was nothing but the quiet, and work would slowly resume, but sometimes the cry would come again, and then everyone would work together, sweating and straining against the stubborn stone and wood until the survivors could be gently lifted free. There were hundreds of dead in the rubble, and only a few dozen living, but each new life snatched from the crushing stone gave the exhausted volunteers new will to carry on. Nurses moved among the workers with cups of hot soup and mulled ale, and an encouraging word for those who looked as though they needed it. And still more volunteers came to help, drawn from the surrounding area by the scale of the tragedy.

  More Guards arrived, expecting riots, chaos, and mass looting, and were shocked to find so many people from the Hook working together to help others. Fisher set some of them to blocking off the street, to keep out sightseers and ghouls who'd just get in the way, and put the rest to work digging in the ruins, so that those who'd been working the longest could get some rest. Some of the Guard Constables weren't too keen on dirtying their hands with manual labor, but one cold glare from Hawk was enough to convince them to shut up and get on with it.

  It was at this point that the local gang leader, Hammer, arrived, along with twenty or so of his most impressive-looking bullies, and insisted on talking to the man in charge. Hawk went over to meet him, secretly glad of an excuse for a break—and a little guilty at feeling that way. So he wasn't in the best of moods when the gang leader delivered his ultimatum. Hammer was a medium-height, well-padded man in his early twenties. He dressed well, if rather flashily, and had the kind of face that fell naturally into a sneer.

  "What the hell do you think you're doing here?" he said flatly. "This is my territory, and no one works here without paying me. No one. So either pay up, right here, where everyone can see it, or I'll be forced to order my people to shut you down. Nothing happens in my territory without my permission."

  Hawk looked at him. "There are injured people here who need our help. Some of them will die without it."

  "That's your problem."

  Hawk nodded, and kneed Hammer in the groin. All the color went out of the gang leader's face, and he dropped to his knees, his hands buried between his thighs.

  "You're under arrest," said Hawk. He looked hard at the shocked bullies. "The rest of you, get over there and start digging, or I'll personally cut you all off at the knees."

  The bullies looked at him, looked at their fallen leader,
and decided he just might mean it. They shrugged more or less in unison, and moved over to work in the ruins. The local people raised a brief cheer for Hawk, surprising him and them, and then they all got back to work. The gang leader was left lying huddled in a ball, handcuffed by his ankle to a railing.

  The hours dragged on, and the search turned up fewer and fewer survivors. The fire brigade's engineers set up supports for the adjoining buildings; nothing elaborate, but enough to keep them secure until the builders could be called in. People began to drift away, too exhausted or dispirited to continue. Hawk sent most of his Guards back to Headquarters with Morgan and his people, the crates of chacal now carefully labeled and numbered, and the gang leader Hammer, under Captain Burns's direction. But Hawk stayed on, and Fisher stayed with him. Hawk didn't know whether he stayed because he felt he was still needed or because he was punishing himself, but he knew he couldn't leave until he was sure there was no one still alive under the wreckage. Someone cried out they'd heard something, and once again everything came to a halt as the diggers listened, holding their breath, trying to hear a faint cry for help over the beating of their own hearts. One of the men yelled, and everyone converged on a dark, narrow shaft that fell away into the depths of the ruins. One of the diggers dropped a small stone down the shaft. They all listened hard, but no one heard it hit bottom.

  "Sounded like a child," said the man who first raised the alarm. "Pretty quiet. Must be trapped at the bottom of the shaft somewhere."