Deathstalker (29 page)

Up on a roof overlooking the street, Cat sighed with relief. He ached all over from the fall he’d taken, but luckily the snowdrift had been just deep enough to cushion the worst of the impact. Now that the Hadenman had finally put in an appearence, he was free to return to the Blackthorn for some much needed rest. Shadowing Hazel d’Ark and the Deathstalker had turned out to be a full-time job. Still, they should be safe enough now with Moon. There weren’t many people stupid enough to annoy a Hadenman. He set off slowly across the rooftops, hoping fervently that he’d never have to see any of them again. They were too dangerous to be around. Even for Mistport.

Down in the street, Owen and Hazel looked round sharply as they heard someone moving in the mess of bodies lying scattered across the bloody snow. A single figure was moving, trying to drag itself away. It’s useless legs dragged behind it, leaving a trail of bright red blood. Owen started after it, and Hazel put a staying hand on his arm.

“No need to kill him, Owen. He’ll bleed to death before he gets far.”

Owen jerked his arm free. “I’m not going to kill him. I’m going to see if I can help.”

“Are you crazy? He’s a blood junkie. He was quite happy to kill you.”

“The fight’s over. I can’t just leave someone to die if I can help. If I did, I’d be no better than them. I am still a Deathstalker, whatever the Iron Bitch says, and we are an honorable Clan. Besides, a few years ago, that might have been you, Hazel.”

He quickly caught up with the crawling figure and knelt beside it. He put a gentle hand on its shoulder, and the figure shrank away from him with a weak, desperate cry of fear and pain. The figure wasn’t very big, barely five feet tall, wrapped in filthy shapeless furs. Its legs were soaked in blood from the thighs down. Owen murmured comforting words till the figure stopped wailing, as much through weakness
as anything else. Owen examined the wounded legs as carefully as he could without touching them and shook his head slowly. Either he or the Hadenman had cut right through the muscles in both legs. Crippling wounds on a world like Mistworld. He shrugged uncomfortably and pulled back the hood to see the face beneath. The breath went out of him, and he felt suddenly sick. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen. Half starved, the bones of her face jutted out against the taut skin. She looked up at him with empty eyes, beyond hope or despair, no room in her face for anything but pain.

“Plasma baby,” said Hazel quietly behind him. “They start them young in Mistport.”

“She’s just a child,” said Owen harshly. “Dear God, what have I done?”

“She would have killed you,” said Hazel, “and never given it a second thought. Finish it, Owen. We have to go.”

Owen looked back at her almost angrily. “What do you mean, finish it?”

“You want to leave her like that? If she’s lucky, she’ll bleed to death. If not, and the gangrene doesn’t kill her slowly, she’ll be a cripple for what remains of her life. And Mistport’s a bad place to be weak and vulnerable. It’s kinder to put her out of her suffering. Do you want me to do it for you?”

“No!” said Owen. “No. I’m a Deathstalker. I clear up my own messes.”

He drew the dagger from his boot and thrust it expertly into the girl’s heart. She didn’t moan or shudder. She just stopped breathing, and her eyes stared straight past him. Owen pulled the dagger out and then just sat there, rocking slightly, trying to hold back the emotions within him. Hazel hovered at his side, unsure what to do for the best. She wanted to put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him, let him know she was there and understood, but she wasn’t sure how he’d take it. He was strong man, and a proud one, too, but he still had unexpected vulnerabilities. And if you had any weaknesses, you could be sure Mistworld would find them.

Hazel hadn’t been sure the Deathstalker had any soft spots in him. He’d always seemed the perfect warrior and aristocrat. She was seeing a new side of him now, and she wasn’t sure if she liked it or not. Being weak could get you killed when you were an outlaw. She put a tentative hand on his
shoulder, ready to draw it back in a moment, but he didn’t even know she was there. She could feel the tension under her hand and knew it was rage as much as sorrow that boiled within him. She looked back at the Hadenman, but he just looked back at her with his inhuman golden eyes, and she had to look away. Owen stood up suddenly, still looking down at the pathetic little body.

“This is wrong,” he said flatly. “No one should have to live like this, die like this.”

“It happens everywhere,” said Hazel. “Not just on Mistworld. You’re rich, titled; what would you know about living in the underclass?”

“I should have known. I’m a historian, and I studied the records. I knew things like this used to happen. I just never thought …”

“History is what the Empire says it is,” said Moon in his rasping, buzzing voice. “They decide what gets recorded. But even the brightest flower has manure at its roots.”

“No,” said Owen. “It doesn’t have to be this way. I will not stand for this. I am a Deathstalker, and I will not allow this to continue.”

“What are you going to do?” said Hazel. “Overthrow the Empire?”

Owen looked at her for a long moment. “I don’t know. Maybe. If that’s what it takes.” He turned away from her and the dead child and walked over to the Hadenman. He studied Moon thoughtfully. “Last I heard, there’d been less than a dozen sightings of Hadenmen throughout the Empire. What do you think I can do for you? The Empress put an order of execution on you all as a threat to the Empire and Humanity itself. Can’t say I blame her, given the results of your rebellion. You killed millions in your uprising. If you’d succeeded—”

“We’d have killed millions more,” said Moon. It was hard to read emotions in his inhuman and buzzing voice, but Owen thought he sensed as much regret as defiance. “We were fighting for our freedom. Our survival. We lost that battle, but the war goes on. I am not the last of my kind. On the lost world of Haden, floating alone in its dark void, an army of my people lies sleeping in the Tomb of the Hadenmen, waiting only for the call to wake again. We learned the hard way that we couldn’t win fighting alone. We need allies. Allies like you, Deathstalker. Your only
chance for survival now is to raise an army and go to war against the Empress Lionstone. You are a Deathstalker; many would follow you where they wouldn’t follow another. Your name always stood for truth and justice and triumph in battle. I speak for the Hadenmen. We would fight beside you, in return for our freedom.”

“Hold it, hold it,” said Owen, putting up his hands defensively. “This is all going too fast for me. I can’t lead a rebellion. I’m a historian, not a warrior.”

“On the other hand,” Hazel said thoughtfully, “he’s right that we can’t keep running forever. Eventually, they’ll track us down and kill us. We’ve become too important. If even Mistworld isn’t safe …”

“That’s not enough,” said Owen. “Rebellion against the throne is against everything I was brought up to believe in.”

“Not against the throne,” said Hazel. “Against the Empress.”

Owen looked at her. “I made that distinction earlier.”

“I know. I was listening.” Hazel hurried on before he could say anything. “At least think about it, Owen. You said you wanted to stop things like that girl from happening.”

“I need to think about this,” said Owen. “You’re asking too much of me.”

“Time is not on our side,” said Moon. “You must choose soon, or the choice may be taken away from you by events.”

Owen looked at the Hadenman almost angrily. “What do you want from me, Moon?”

“Right now? Transport. You have a starship and I do not. I want passage with you to lost Haden and my waiting brethren.”

Whatever answer Owen might have expected, that wasn’t it. The location of the planet Haden was one of the greatest mysteries of the Empire. All knowledge of its coordinates had vanished at the end of the Hadenman rebellion: the last desperate gamble of the augmented men. And despite all the Empire’s increasingly desperate efforts, Haden had remained lost for the better part of two centuries. In an Empire built on information, that should have been impossible. But somehow the augmented men, or their agents, had contrived to wipe every piece of information on Haden and its people from every computer in the Imperial Matrix. As a historian, Owen had found that hard to believe, but after wasting months of research time tracking down rumors and glimpses
without getting anywhere, he had been forced to admit he was beaten. Haden was lost, by its own wishes, and would remain so. And so it passed out of history and into legend, a nightmare with which to threaten disobedient children.

Be good, or the Hadenman will get you
.

Owen looked thoughtfully at Tobias Moon. “You have the coordinates for Haden?”

“Unfortunately, no, or I wouldn’t still be stuck here on Mistworld. But the answer is out there, somewhere, and I will find it. Until then, I offer myself as a soldier in your war. Get me some new energy crystals, and a good cybersurgeon to implant them, and I would be a formidable ally. And when I come at last to Haden, I will speak for you with my people. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” said Owen. “I’m not sure of anything anymore. Even assuming that we can find Haden, eventually, do I really want to ally myself with the betrayers of humanity? The butchers of Brahmin II, the slaughterers of Madraguda? I could go down in history as one of the greatest traitors of all time.”

“It doesn’t matter whether you want us,” said Moon calmly. “You need us, if your rebellion is to succeed.”

“All right,” said Owen. “You’re my man, until I tell you otherwise. Now let’s get out of here. I’m surprised we’re not already hip deep in bounty hunters.”

“Think about it,” said Hazel. “Would you go rushing in after someone who’d just killed a Wampyr and seen off a whole pack of his blood junkies?”

“Good point,” said Owen. “But let’s get moving anyway. Standing around make me nervous.”

“I think we should get you to a doctor first,” said Hazel. “You took a lot of punishment before the Hadenman … helped you out.”

“I’ve felt better,” said Owen, “but I’ll be all right. One of the more useful properties of boost. Any wound that doesn’t actually kill me will heal itself, given time. I’m going to be rather fragile for a while, but I’ve got you and Moon to look after me, haven’t I?”

Hazel thought that was getting a bit pointed and decided it was probably a good time to change the subject. “Where are we going?”

“The Olympus health spa, on Riverside, wherever the hell that is. If I’m going to lead an army of rebellion, I want Jack
Random at my side. We’ll look for your bounty hunter friend later, assuming she isn’t already on our trail for the price on our heads.”

“That is a possibility,” Hazel admitted. “Friendship is fine, but credit lasts longer. All right, follow me. And let’s keep to back alleys and the shadows where we can. I’m starting to feel like I’ve got a target painted on my back.”

She set off more or less confidently into the mists, and Owen and Tobias Moon went after her. Owen strode along, looking at nothing, lost in thought. Events might be rushing him, but he still had his doubts and suspicions. What were the odds of a Hadenman turning up out of the blue just at the right moment to save his ass? Much more likely Moon had been following them for some time, waiting for a chance to look good and gain their confidence. But what made him so important to Moon, if it wasn’t the price on his head? Surely there must have been some other ship Moon could have persuaded to get him offplanet. And for someone who claimed not to know the coordinates of Haden, he seemed pretty sure of finding the planet in the not too distant future. Owen scowled. And where did all this tie in with his late father’s plot and plans, which had brought him to Mistworld in the first place?

More and more Owen was sure there were wheels within wheels, unseen forces subtly guiding him from the wings, the very things he’d spent most of his life trying to avoid. But if that was so, he had a few surprises in store for whoever was jerking his strings. If push came to shove, he could play that game, too. He was a Deathstalker, and intrigue was in his blood. In the meantime … he decided to concentrate on the Hadenman. Did he, or his people, still have a private, hidden agenda? When awakened, would the army of augmented men really join with him, or could they secretly be intending to ally themselves with the rogue AIs on Shub, as the Empress had claimed so often in the past? Owen smiled briefly. He had no answers, or none he could trust, so for the moment he’d go along with Moon. And sleep with one eye open. He moved up alongside Hazel, and she nodded briefly.

“Yeah, I don’t trust him either,” she said quietly. “But I’d rather have him on our side than working against us. At least this way we can keep an eye on him.”

“What do you suggest we do in the meantime?” said Owen.

“Trust no one. Think you can remember that?”

“You’ve never been to court, have you?” said Owen. “As an aristocrat, I learned to trust no one from a very early age. Among the Families, you learn intrigue with your letters and numbers, or you don’t survive to reach adulthood.”

“Sounds a lot like Mistworld,” said Hazel, and they both had to laugh. The Hadenman strode silently along behind them and kept his thoughts to himself.

The Olympus spa wasn’t far, just the other side of Merchants’ Quarter, but the walk was still far enough to chill Owen to the bone. Despite his confident words to Hazel, his wounds had taken a lot more out of him than he was willing to admit. He trudged along through the slush and the thickening mists and muttered direly to himself. He’d been on Mistworld nearly a whole day, and he still hadn’t had one glimpse of the sun.

The spa, when they finally got there, didn’t exactly make up for the long walk. It was trying desperately to look upmarket, but the neighborhood was against it. It was still an improvement over most of the places Hazel had led him to so far, but Owen couldn’t say he was particularly impressed. The stone and timber buildings had clearly all seen better days, and the bare brickwork had been stained a varying gray from the continuous smoke of a nearby factory. The Olympus storefront was wide and brightly painted, and the name above the door was set out in letters so stylized and convoluted it was almost impossible to make them out. There were no windows, but tall plaques described the many wonders to be found inside, together with a series of claims for potential weight loss and muscle building that bordered on the miraculous. Owen gave the place a long, stern look, but it remained stubbornly unimpressive.