Lizanne nudged Hyran to his feet and led him around the frozen veteran in a huddled run. She saw the man’s eyes track her as she moved past him, full of frustration and fury, but also the knowledge of his impending fate. She turned around and back-pedalled, keeping her gaze on the unmoving sentry until they were safely concealed by shadow cast by a large tent. She waited a moment, crouching in the dark until satisfied no other pickets had witnessed their intrusion, then unleashed the last of her Black in a concentrated burst to snap the veteran’s neck. She watched him collapse into the grass then turned and tugged on Hyran’s sleeve, leading him deeper into the camp.
“We don’t have long,” she said, depressing the Spider’s second button. “Drink half your Green and be ready with your Red.”
Lizanne reasoned her quarry would most likely be found close to the centre of the camp. Accordingly she led Hyran in a series of rushes from one shadow to another. It was vital they get as close as possible to their objective before the inevitable hue and cry resulting from the discovery of the sentry’s body. It came just as she found the correct tent. It was large but otherwise nondescript and she might well have passed it by but for the man who stood outside the open flap smoking a cigarillo. A man wearing plain dark clothes instead of a uniform, with a silver pin on the lapel of his jacket. Thanks to the Green the Imperial crest was easy to make out. The man stiffened as the alarm sounded from the southern pickets, frowning and peering into the dark before turning to call to his companions in the tent. Lizanne hoped they were few in number.
“Red,” she told Hyran, pointing him to the rear of the tent. “Set it aflame as soon as you can.”
“What about you?” he asked.
Lizanne drew her revolver and pressed the other two buttons on the Spider, closing her eyes to steady herself against the rush of product. “I’ll take care of this,” she said. “If I die, I leave it to your conscience as to whether to continue with this unwise escapade.”
He gaped at her for a second then gave a jerky nod before crawling away. Lizanne crouched lower and watched as two more Blood Cadre operatives emerged from the tent, a man and a woman. She saw that all three were young, several years her junior in fact. She remembered the fiercely skilled and deadly Blood Cadre agents she had faced at Carvenport, concluding that misadventure must have cost the Blood Imperial many of his most capable children. At least I’ll have the advantage of experience, she thought, trying to quell her impatience as she waited for Hyran to do his part.
The flames blossomed as the three agents began a lively discussion regarding their response to the continuing alarm. Bugles were sounding throughout the camp and soldiers running to retrieve their rifles from neat conical stacks. The woman evidently wanted to investigate immediately whilst her two male companions were decidedly more cautious. It was therefore an easy decision as to which one to shoot when Hyran lit their tent on fire.
All three turned to look as the flames rose, engulfing the rear of the tent and providing a back-drop that rendered them easy targets. The woman dropped as Lizanne put a bullet into the centre of her back. The two men whirled, their inexperience evident in the fact that neither began to reach for their product. Lizanne shot the taller of the two then switched her aim to his companion. This one, however, managed to recover from his shock in time to dive to one side, rolling away with unnatural swiftness as Lizanne’s bullets tore at the earth around him. He didn’t drink, she realised. He has a Spider.
Voicing a soft curse at the many betrayals of Madame Bondersil, Lizanne leapt high as the Cadre agent let loose with a blast of Black. It was a hasty and poorly aimed response, but the wave of force was wide enough to catch her foot before she managed to get clear. She spun end over end, landing hard amidst the flaming remnants of the tent. She used Green to spring to her feet, blasting the encroaching flames away with Black then leaping aside as the Cadre agent opened fire with his revolver.
Over-eager, she judged, ducking under the salvo of bullets as the agent blazed away with more enthusiasm than skill. Red would have been a better choice.
She watched as he managed to assert some measure of control over his actions. Resisting the impulse to fire his final round as his fingers twitched over the buttons of his Spider. Lizanne didn’t allow him the time, reaching out with Black to bend his arm, doubling it over so that the revolver pointed at his face. A final flare of power compressed the bones in his hand with sufficient force to squeeze the trigger, the bullet transforming the agent’s features into a bloody pulp.
Lizanne rushed towards the body of the woman she had shot, keen to retrieve her product, then ducked as a fresh volley of bullets tore the air around her. The speed afforded by the Green in her system was enough to evade the rifle fire, Lizanne dropping and scuttling to the side as dust plumes rose around her. A harsh tumult of shouts sounded and four of the Emperor’s Ravens came charging out of the gloom, rifles lowered, each one tipped with a gleaming bayonet. Lizanne began to summon her Black but stopped as a series of high-pitched whines sounded above her head. All four charging soldiers dropped immediately, jerking as blood erupted from small holes in their tunics. She turned to find Hyran emerging from a cloud of cinders rising from the remnants of the tent. “Smaller is better,” he said, grinning as he held up a thumb-sized stone.
“Come here,” Lizanne instructed, turning back to the female agent’s body. “Roll up your sleeve.”
She quickly removed the Spider from the woman’s limp arm and strapped it onto Hyran’s outstretched limb, all the time casting wary glances around for more soldiers. A steady crackle of rifle fire could be heard from the southern perimeter, indicating Arberus’s mounted skirmishers were busy compelling the Imperial troops into their disciplined ranks. It’s working, she thought. So far.
She tightened the straps fixing the Spider onto Hyran’s arm and pointed to each button in turn. “Red, Green, Black, Blue. The vials are full. The longer you depress the button the more product it delivers.”
She turned back to the Cadre agent’s corpse, rummaging through her jacket pockets until she found the wallet containing the rest of her product. “Here,” she said, handing it to Hyran before running to the body of the first man she had shot. His wallet proved equally rich in product, as did the vials of his Spider. She managed to consign it all to her own pockets before a fresh bout of shouting sounded near by. She recognised the source of the voice, if not the name of the owner. A sergeant, whipping his squad into shape.
“Time to go,” she told Hyran, rising and running towards where she expected to find the Corvantine artillery. “Now’s the time for some Green.”
They moved through the camp in a blur, tearing through canvas and camp-fires. Fortunately, most of the Ravens had already answered the call to muster in ranks so there were only a few stragglers about, none of whom reacted swiftly enough to do more than cast a few useless shots in their wake. The artillery-park was busy with movement as Lizanne brought them to a halt on its fringes. Gunners were hard at work readying the cannon for line deployment whilst others carried powder and ammunition to the wagons. However, most of the powder barrels were still piled in three separate stacks in the centre of the formation.