Кристофер Банч - The Wolf Worlds

"Of course I'm not saying there's no place for mercenaries," Ida explained. "It's merely a dumb way to make a credit."

"Some of us," Ffillips managed as she dumped another clip of shells into a loading trough, "don't have any other choice."

"Clottin' hell!" Ida snorted. "There's always a choice."

"Even for a mercenary?" Ffillips asked dubiously.

"Certainly. A good killer would be a wonderful banker. Or diplomat. Or in commodities, which I can tell you privately is a guaranteed mill-credit career."

Ffillips was trying to decide whether Ida was joking when a burst caught the Temple gate on one of its hinges and proved that the contractor who had built the Temple had been no more honest than most public-works builders.

The entire gate pinwheeled into the air, leaving a clear entrance to the Temple. Suddenly the diversionary attack turned quite real as the mercs howled—a long, curdling wolfpack sound—and ran forward.

Lean, bloody men and women with death in their eyes and revenge in their guts.

Ida flumped into the self-propelled gun's seat and cranked the engine. With Ffillips still loading, Ida gunned the SP track into the Temple's main courtyard.

Behind her Bet and the two tigers followed silently.

"WHICH WAY WILL it blow?" Sten whispered while examining the tiny ring charge that was anchored to the top of the hollow column.

Sten, Alex, and Doc were five meters below the charge that when set off should let them into the Temple. They were locked in place with treble strands of climbing thread.

"Ah, lad, questions ae thae be't whae makit life in'trestin'," Alex breathed as he triggered the demoset.

The column's cap lifted, as did the floorbeams above it and then the flagstone that was the central Temple's actual flooring.

The flagstone tumbled in the air and chopped down two guards, one Companion, and a statue of the late Theodomir.

Alex, Sten, and Doc shinnied their way up the last few meters, and then they were inside the Temple.

They went looking for Mathias.

IDA WAS LEANING half out of her seat and completely unprotected by the track's armor when the Companion finished reloading. She was reaching for a banner that looked like it was made of gold when four rounds slammed into the Rom woman's chest. She sagged across the track's bow and rolled sacklike to the ground as the unmanned track stalled. A look of surprise, anger, and vast disappointment was frozen on her face.

Bet cradled Ida in her arms as Hugin and Munin finished their slow savaging of the Companion who had shot her. Then Bet lowered Ida to the ground and jumped to her feet, mind blank and firing, and the ground rocked and thundered as the Anti-Matter-Two rounds poured out of her willygun, exploding the platoon of Companions running toward her.

MATHIAS' ADVISORS DIED in the first burst of fire as Sten and Alex charged through the double doors, into the conference room. The advisors had been too busy watching the debacle in the courtyard one-hundred meters below the balcony to hear the deathrattles of the guards outside the chamber. For which minor error they became very dead.

Mathias stood, looking unsurprised at the carnage, as Doc slid out of Alex's pack and unlimbered the hypo. Alex kept Mathias in the sights of his willygun as the Prophet walked slowly forward.

"I have been expecting you," Mathias said. "My best friend and my worst enemy."

He shrugged out of his red tunic and flexed his muscles. His hands knotted into fists. Sten waited.

"And now we decide the Truth of Talamein," Mathias said softly as he came in.

Sten thought of the careful reasonings and appeals to friendship that he'd come up with to avoid this confrontation. Useless. He shrugged out of his pack and moved forward.

As Mathias' hand flashed back, behind him to his belt, and came out with a small projectile weapon. The pistol came up and Sten double-stepped into him, right foot coming up in a sweep-kick, and the weapon pin wheeled out of Mathias' hand.

Sten kept the kick moving, then recovered, his back to Mathias. Sensing Mathias was coming in he crouched, arm high, and half-spun back to face the Prophet, arm raised to block the snap-punch Mathias had launched.

Both men recovered and side-paced.

"You don't have to die," Sten said.

"Of course," Mathias agreed. "And I shall not. Not now, not here, not ever. This is the Test of the Flame." And, gymnast that he was, he came straight in, a mae-tobi-geri flying frontal attack.

Sten one-stepped under Mathias, snap-punched straight up into his thigh, rolled away as the Prophet crashed back down, then recovered as Mathias drove a knife hand toward Sten's head.

Sten flicked his head to the side, and Mathias' killing punch slammed across his temple and ear.

Sten knife-blocked before Mathias could recover and thudded a flat palm into Mathias' temple. Temporarily stunned, the Prophet back-rolled twice and came to his feet, half smiling.

"You are a worthy opponent." He drove in again. Sten blocked his swing-punch, and then Mathias' fist-strike came down on Sten's skull.

The world blurred and went double. Sten snapped his blocking hand into Mathias' gut and, contradicting conventional tactics, dove flat-forward, ball-rolling, rising, and turning as Mathias attacked.

A punching attack, blocked twice, in eye-blurring motion. Sten snapped a knee up into Mathias' diaphragm, and the man sagged back.

Then Sten's single, half-cupped hand swung, slapping Mathias' eardrum. A two-hand stroke would have killed him, but the single blow merely sent his mind spinning, and, for the first time, Mathias lost his balance, stumbling backward.

And Sten paced in, step… punch… step… punch… knuckled fist turning and thudding in below the Prophet's rib-cage. Mathias doubled.

A final feint as his fisted, coupled hands came up for Sten's face. Sten locked wrists, drove the strike up, and then, howling, leaped straight up into the air, his foot coming up and out and buried into the Prophet's chest.

Mathias back-flipped and struck the floor behind him with a dull thud .

Then Doc was at Mathias' side, quickly checking his pulse.

"Adequate, adequate," he murmured, as he pressed the hypo's trigger and the drug sprayed into Mathias' veins.

"You probably broke some bones, but you didn't kill him." Sten was not listening. He was dropped down into semilotus, lungs sucking in air as he recovered.

BET'S FLASHES IN the courtyard: Ida's body; Ffillips calmly sniping down Companions as they came into sight; Otho, evidently trying to find a Companion who could be thrown completely through a stone wall; the tigers, impossibly low, crawling under a firewall of tracers, then darting into a weapons pit. End tracers. Begin screams.

And then she heard the voice—the boom that turned the din of battle into a sudden hush as Companions, mercs, and Mantis people turned, to look up the looming wall of the Temple to the balcony.

On the balcony stood Mathias, with a hailer-mike hung on his chest. "I SPEAK AS TALAMEIN."

The battle stopped instantly. The Companions flinched upward, then recovered, waiting for the war to start again. But the mercenaries were as captivated as any, staring up at the red-clad figure high above them.

The Companions made obeisance as the voice continued. Stiff, metallic, but forceful.

"I have chosen to temporarily inhabit this envelope of flesh to speak to you, people of the Faith and the Flame.