Silver Nails by Warhammer

Author:Warhammer [Warhammer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

III

Scrying the сplatz for a trace of the bird was like trying to catch a butterfly one-handed. It was what Rosanna had expected, she had been through it before at the scenes of the other Warhawk murders. It was a futile task, but it had to be done.

Someone hissed сwitchт, and was shut up. The stab of anonymous hate and fear from the crowd still hurt her. It was hard to make people understand what she was. All her life, she had been called a witch, a freak, a monster. Only when she was needed did she become an angel of mercy, a saviour. And she hadnрt saved anyone recently.

Harald kept them all back, andвthrough a heroic effort she could sense as if it were a blazing bonfireвkept them quiet, while she tried her best.

сItрs mixed up with the residue of the dead man,т she explained, eyes tight shut, as she brushed the bloodied pedestal with her fingertips, shivering as the left-behind emotions of Klaus-Ulric Stahlman shot into her.

He had died in panic, like the others, unable to understand what was happening. Spurs had gouged his eyes, so he had seen nothing. As he screamed, talons raking away his cheeks and lips, he had heard the beating of wings, hard edges of bone cracking his skull. There had been no final prayer, no thought for his wife and children, no sense even of surprise. It had been quick, but agonising.

сThere was another man on the pedestal,т she said, seeing him through the dead watchmanрs memory, сan agitator, a revolutionist.т

сLiebenstein,т interrupted Katz, distracting her, сWe have him, a Brustellinite sewer rat.т

Rosanna opened her eyes and blinked, her contact with the past lost completely. The morning sights and smells flooded in, blotting out her scrying. Harald told the other captain to be quiet.

There were still sticky patches of gore everywhere, bright in the sunlight.

She shut her eyes, and was back in the night. It was hard to make people understand that scrying wasnрt like scanning a page in a book, going straight to the sentence you needed and absorbing it instantly. It was like a childrenрs game, reaching into a barrel of sawdust, not knowing whether youрd come up with a ripe apple or a catрs skull.

She heard the revolutionist ranting with all the fervour of a fanatical preacher espousing the worship of his god, holding up the martyred Professor Brustellinвdead in the fog riotsвas the idol of a new kind of society, one without privilege or injustice, without hunger or crime.

Then Stahlman had intervened, and the BrustelliniteвLiebensteinвwas gone, lost in the darkness, and her focus was on the watchman. The bird speared into her consciousness and Stahlman was dying again. Rosanna tried to ignore the watchman, to latch onto the tiny mind-presence of the bird.

сIt is a hawk,т she said, сfemale, I think. A name beginning with B. Beate. Bella? No, Belle.т

сThe hawkрs master?т Harald prompted.

She concentrated hard. Animals were difficult, and birdsвapart from fishвthe most difficult of all. Their minds were focused on food and procreation to the exclusion of all else.

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