Nemesis

But then the fight ebbed from the Eversor assassin, and the Garantine staggered

backward, finally succumbing to all the hits he had taken. He made a last swipe at

Kell and missed, the force of the blow carrying him back off the roof of the

blockhouse and down into the courtyard.

Iota approached him carefully, loping low across the ground. She was not

convinced. Behind her, the marksman came in to survey his work.

“Is he down,” she heard Tariel ask.

“For our sake,” Kell muttered, “I bloody hope so.”

Daig halted the groundcar at the foot of the hill and killed the engine. “We walk from

here,” he said, the weak pre-dawn light giving his face a ghostly cast.

Yosef studied him. “Tell me again how you came across this lead?” he said. “Tell

me again why you had to drag me out of my bed—a bed I’ve hardly had leave to be

in these last few days, mind—to come out to a derelict vineyard while the rest of the

city is sleeping?”

“I told you,” Daig said, with uncharacteristic terseness, “a source. Come on. We

couldn’t risk coming in by flyer in case Sigg gets spooked… and he may not even be

here.”

Yosef followed him out into the cold air, pausing a moment to check the

magazine in his pistol. He looked up the low hill. On the other side of heavy iron

gates, what had once been the Blasko Wine Lodge was now a tumbledown husk of its

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former self. Gutted by fire a full three seasons ago, the site on the southerly ridges

had yet to be reopened, and it stood empty and barren. In the dampness of the dawn

air, the tang of fire-damaged wood could still be scented, drawn out by the moisture.

“If you think Sigg is in there,” Yosef went on, “we should at least have some

support.”

“I don’t know for sure,” Daig replied.

“Not an overly reliable source, then,” said Yosef. That earned him a sullen look.

“You know what will happen if I breathe a word of this at the precinct. Laimner

would be all over it like a blight.”

He couldn’t disagree with that; and if Laimner was involved and Daig’s tip came

to nothing, it would be the two reeves who would suffer for it. “Fine. But don’t keep

me in the dark.”

When Daig looked at him again, he was almost imploring him. “Yosef. I don’t

ask much of you, but I’m asking now. Just trust me here, and don’t question it. All

right?” He nodded at length. “All right.”

They got into the vineyard through a broken stand of fencing, and followed the

driveway up to the main building. Small branches and drifts of wet leaves dotted the

ground. Yosef glanced to his right and saw where unkempt, blackened ground ranged

away down the steep terraces. Before the fire, those spaces had been thick with

greenery, but now they were little more than snarls of wild growth. Yosef frowned;

he still had a ten-year bottle of Blasko caskinport at home. It had been a good brand.

“In here,” whispered Daig, motioning him towards an outbuilding.

Yosef hesitated, his eyes adjusted to the dimness now, and his sight picking out

what did not fit. Here and there he saw signs of recent motion, places where dirt had

been disturbed by human movement. Looking up from the gates, an observer would

have seen nothing, but here, close up, there was evidence. Yosef thought about the

Norte and Latigue murders, and he reached into the pocket of his coat for the butt of

his gun, comforting himself with the steady presence of the firearm.

“We take him alive,” he hissed back.

Daig shot him a look as he drew a thermal register unit from inside his jacket,

panning it around to scan for a heat return. “Of course.”

They found their suspect asleep inside the cooper’s shack, lying in the curve of a

half-built barrel. He heard their approach and bolted to his feet in a panic. Yosef put

the brilliant white glare of his hand lantern on him and took careful aim with the

pistol.

“Erno Sigg!” he snapped, “We are reeves of the Sentine, and you are bound by

law. Stand where you are and do not move.”

The man almost collapsed, so great was his terror. Sigg flailed and stumbled,

falling against the side of his makeshift shelter, before catching himself with an

obvious physical effort. He held up his shaking hands, in the right gripping the

handle of an elderly fuel-lamp. “H-have you come to kill me?” he asked.

It wasn’t the question Yosef had expected. He had faced killers of men before,

more often than he might have liked, but Sigg’s manner was unlike any of them.

Dread came off him in waves, like heat from a naked flame. Yosef had once rescued

a young boy held prisoner for weeks in a wine cellar; the look on the boy’s face as he

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saw light for the first time was mirrored now in Erno Sigg’s expression. The man

looked like a victim.

“You are suspected of a high crime,” Daig told him. “You’re to come with us.”

“I paid for what I did!” he retorted. “I’ve done nothing else since!” Sigg looked in