Guards of Haven: The Adventures of Hawk and Fisher (Hawk & Fisher) (49 page)

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Authors: Simon R. Green

BOOK: Guards of Haven: The Adventures of Hawk and Fisher (Hawk & Fisher)
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She let him go, and stood back. Hawk moved over to Morgan’s body and knelt down beside it, wincing as pain shot through him. He’d managed to take some of Morgan’s kneeing on his thigh, but the pain was still bad enough to make him move like an old man. He tried for a pulse, but couldn’t find one. He searched the body slowly and methodically, but didn’t come up with anything useful, apart from a small bunch of keys. He got to his feet again. with a little help from Mistique.
“At least we’ve got the drugs back,” he said brusquely. “And this time I’ll make sure they don’t go missing, even if I have to feed every damn package to the incinerator myself.”
“We ought to search the place before we go,” said Burns. “There’s always the chance he kept records of who was working for him, and who he was paying off.”
Hawk nodded curtly. “He probably had more sense than to leave something like that just lying about, but it’s worth a look. Don’t move anything, though. We’ll leave the real search to the experts. Place is probably rigged with booby traps.” A sudden thought struck him and he looked quickly at Mistique. “Or is this place going to collapse around our ears like the other one?”
The sorceress shook her head. “Solid as rock. Whoever set up this place knew what he was doing.”
They headed for the far door, Mistique staying close by Hawk in case he needed to lean on her again. Burns kept a tactful distance. The sorceress cleared her throat uncertainly.
“Hawk ... would you really have used your axe on Morgan?”
He smiled slightly. “I was bluffing. Mostly. I’m not really as bad as my reputation makes out.”
“You convinced me,” said Mistique. “I’ve never seen anyone look so mad.”
“I wanted the name.”
“Hawk,” said Mistique gently. “We already know the name.”
 
“So, did you find anything?” asked Commander Glen, leaning forward over his desk and staring intently at Hawk and Burns.
Hawk shook his head. “Nothing useful. And Morgan didn’t strike me as dumb enough to commit anything incriminating to paper anyway.”
Glen sniffed, and leaned back in his chair. “You’re probably right. At least you had enough restraint not to wreck the place, for a change—even if you didn’t leave anyone alive to answer questions.”
“What about the man-at-arms Mistique put to sleep?” said Burns. “And the woman Hawk knocked out?”
“Hired muscle,” said Glen dismissively. “They weren’t far enough in to know anything useful. And speaking of Mistique, where is she? I want to hear her report, too.”
Hawk and Burns stared over Glen’s head at the wall behind him. “She said she’d look in later,” said Hawk. “She’s ... rather busy at the moment.” He lowered his gaze abruptly, and fixed Glen with his single, cold eye. “Commander, there’s something I need to discuss with you.”
“Yes,” said Glen. “We have to talk about Captain Fisher. I’ve been hearing stories about her for some time now. As long as they were just stories I could afford to ignore them. You and Fisher were a good team; you got results. But I can’t ignore this, Hawk. She’s betrayed the security of the Peace Talks, and gone on the run. We have no idea where she is, or what she might be planning. And now there’s mounting evidence that she’s been working for Morgan all along.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Hawk. “I don’t believe any of it.”
Glen looked at him steadily. “She’s gone rogue, Hawk. I have issued a warrant for her arrest. There’s a reward of five thousand ducats for anyone who brings her in, dead or alive.”
For a moment Hawk just looked back at him, his scarred face cold and impassive, saying nothing. “I’ll find her,” he said finally. “I’ll find her, and bring her in. Call off your dogs, Commander.”
“I can’t do that, Hawk. It’s out of my hands now. And I can’t let you go, either. You did a good job in recovering the super-chacal, but you upset a great many prominent people in the process. If you’d brought Morgan in alive, no one would have said anything, but as it is ...”
“That was my fault, Commander,” said Burns, but Hawk and Glen didn’t even look at him.
“Now that Fisher’s gone rogue,” said Glen, “you’ve become suspect too, Hawk, through your relationship with her. Too many things have gone wrong around you just lately. No one trusts you anymore. I have a warrant for your arrest too, Hawk. I’m sorry.”
“You’ve got to let me find Fisher,” said Hawk. “Please. Let me bring her in, and we’ll prove our innocence.”
“I’m sorry,” said Glen. “I have my orders. Give me your axe, please.”
Hawk drew his axe, and the room suddenly became very tense. He hefted the weapon in his hand a moment, and then put it down on Glen’s desk. The Commander relaxed a little, and Hawk hit him with a vicious left uppercut. Glen flew backwards out of his chair, slammed into the wall behind his desk, and slid unconscious to the floor. Burns opened his mouth to yell something, his hand already reaching for his sword. Hawk spun round, grabbed up his axe, and hit Burns across the head with the flat of the blade while Burns was still drawing his sword. He fell to the floor and lay there motionless, groaning quietly.
Hawk would have liked to tie them both up, but a quick glance around showed him nothing he could use as a rope, and he didn’t have the time, anyway. He hauled them both into Glen’s private washroom, and locked the door on them. He took a last quick look round, and then left Glen’s office and made his way casually through Headquarters to the main entrance. He smiled and nodded to people he passed, and they smiled and muttered automatically in return. Hawk kept his face calm, but his thoughts were in a turmoil. He had to find Isobel before anyone else did. He couldn’t trust anyone else with the job.
Isobel
...
I’m coming for you.
9
 
under the Masks
 
Fisher moved quietly through the back streets, trudging doggedly through the snow and slush, with her head bowed. The tattered grey cloak didn’t do much to keep out the cold, but with the hood pulled well forward there was no way anyone was going to recognise her. After all, who would expect the bold and dashing Captain Fisher to be skulking through the worst part of town in rags she wouldn’t normally have used to polish her boots? She seethed inwardly at the indignity, but kept her outer demeanour carefully calm and unobtrusive. Her disguise would only hold up as long as no one challenged it, and there were a hell of a lot of people who’d be only too happy to turn her in for whatever reward was currently on her head.
Fisher had no doubt there was a reward. The Powers That Be needed a scapegoat, and she was tailor-made for the role. She could plead her innocence till she was blue in the face, but no one would give a damn. She had to be found guilty so that the Outremer delegates would be reassured and the Peace Talks could go on. They’d told her right from the beginning that she was expendable. Fisher grinned fiercely. That was their opinion. If they wanted her to be a rogue, she’d be one. And anyone who got in her way was going to regret it.
She slowed her pace slightly as two ragged figures appeared out of a dark alley mouth and moved casually towards her. She caught brief glimpses of the knives half hidden under their cloaks, and turned to face them. She’d obviously overdone the unthreatening aspect of her disguise and made herself look an easy target. Fisher scowled. She couldn’t afford to fight them; at best it would draw attention to her, particularly when she won, and at worst it might actually give away who she was. But she couldn’t hope for any help, either. Not in the Northside. She swore under her breath, and let her hand move to her sword under cover of the cloak. There was never a bloody Constable around when you needed one.
The two bravos moved to block her path, and she came to a halt. She pushed back her cloak to reveal the sword at her side, and lifted her head to give them her best glare. She’d put a lot of work and practice into that glare, and it had always served her well in the past. It suggested she was one hundred percent crazy, barely under control, and violent with it. The two bravos took in the glare and the sword, looked at each other, and then made their knives disappear, and moved casually off in another direction, as though they’d intended to go that way all along. Fisher let her cloak fall back to cover the sword, pulled her hood even lower over her face. and continued on her way, trying not to look too much in a hurry.
She had to think of somewhere to go, somewhere she could hole up for a while till she could figure some way to get out of the city. She couldn’t go home; it was the first place they’d think of, and was probably crawling with Guards by now. ransacking every room in search of evidence that wasn’t there. A slow, sullen anger burned in her, at the thought of strangers trampling through her house, but she knew there was no point in brooding over it. Or the treasured possessions she’d have to leave behind when she finally found a way out of the city.
She had to find somewhere she could stop and think, somewhere safe. And there were all sorts of things she’d have to get her hands on, things she’d need just to survive out in the wilds of the Low Kingdoms, in the dead of winter. Starting with a decent fur cloak. The cold cut right through the thin grey one she had now. And she’d need a horse and provisions ... and a dozen other things, none of which she had the money to buy. Her money was back at the house. What there was of it.
Her pace slowed as her thoughts churned furiously. She wasn’t used to having to plan ahead. That had always been Hawk’s responsibility. Hawk. The name cut at her briefly, like a razor drawn against unsuspecting skin. She wanted to go to him so badly, but she didn’t dare. Everything she’d heard since she hit the streets suggested that Hawk had gone berserk, fighting and killing anyone who got between him and Morgan. Something bad must have happened, something so awful he no longer cared what happened to him as long as he got to Morgan. Her first impulse had been to find him and fight at his side, but she couldn’t do that. By now there had to be a small army of Guards on her tail, and she’d be leading them straight to Hawk. And if he really had gone berserk, he’d die rather than be stopped.
She couldn’t let that happen.
There must be somewhere she could go, somewhere they wouldn’t think of looking. She trudged on, head down, not looking where she was going, as her mind floundered from one possibility to another before finally, reluctantly, settling on one. The Tolling Bell was a rancid little tavern, tucked away at the back of nowhere. The kind of place where they sold illegally strong drinks and the bartender had little conversation and even less of a memory for faces. Fisher had used the place before, when she needed to get away by herself for a while. When she’d had a row with Hawk, or just needed to be alone with her thoughts. She’d always taken pains to disguise her identity, so no one could find her till she was ready to be found. The Tolling Bell ... Yes ... she could be there in half an hour.
Her head snapped up, suddenly alert as she heard tramping feet heading towards her. Six Guard Constables were moving purposefully in her direction. She quickly dropped her head again, and hunched over under her cloak to make herself look smaller. Her hand moved unobtrusively to the sword at her side. Six-to-one odds, and no one to watch her back. Bad odds, but she’d faced worse in her time. She glanced cautiously around for possible escape routes, and only then realised the Guards weren’t actually looking at her. Hope flared in her again, and she shrank back against the wall as the Guards tramped past, doing her best to look insignificant and harmless. The Constables hardly glanced at her as they passed, and continued on their way. Fisher waited where she was, listening to the sound of the footsteps dying gradually away, and then moved slowly on, careful not to look behind her. Her back crawled in anticipation of a sudden sword thrust, but it never came. She finally allowed herself to glance back over her shoulder, and found the Constables were almost out of sight at the end of the street. Her breath began to come a little more easily, and she increased her pace. She’d be safe at The Tolling Bell. For a while. She could sit down, and rest, and think. And just maybe she’d be able to see a way out of this mess.
 
Hawk strode angrily down the main street, pulling his ratty brown cloak tightly about him. The cold cut through the ragged cloth as though it weren’t there, but at least the hood concealed his face, as long as he remembered to keep his head bowed. Someone had to have found Glen and Burns by now, which meant word would soon be circulating on the streets that Hawk was fair game for anyone who felt like going after him. And with the kind of reward the Guard would be offering, there’d be no shortage of volunteers. Most of the usual bounty hunters would have more sense than to go after Captain Hawk, but there were always some stupid enough to take any risk, for a chance at the big money. And if enough of them got together, they might just manage it.
Hawk scowled, and peered unobtrusively about him. They were after Fisher too. He had to find her, before anyone else did. Find her, and find out what had happened. Why she’d betrayed Haven, and the Guard. And him. There had to be a reason, a good reason. He believed that implicitly, because to think anything else would drive him insane. He trusted Isobel, but all the evidence pointed to her guilt. As a Guard, he’d learned to rely on the evidence before anything else, and never to trust his instincts or his feelings until he had hard evidence to back them up. But this was different. This was Isobel. He had to find her and hear her explanation. And then he’d know what to do next.

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