I found something to cling to… solid runnels of ice, I think. My fingers went numb.
I hauled myself up onto the roof of car three, the vast snow-peppered blackness of the Atenate night above me.
The blizzard ensured I couldn't see far. I could barely stand up. The convex aluminium roof of the wagon was iced smooth as a skating rink.
A few steps along and my legs went out. I fell smack on my front, dazed and winded. Blood filled my mouth; I had bitten my tongue.
Spitting blood and made angry by the pain, I dragged myself forward through the elemental deluge. I saw shapes ahead of me in the white-on-black maelstrom. Three more armoured figures on the edge of the roof.
They had lowered a directional detonator onto the window of the cabin I had shared with Aemos. As 1 watched, they triggered it and blasted the window inwards in a hail of glass and fire. The first janissary began to rope down to swing in through the blown window. His comrades were hunched on the rooftop, anchoring his lines.
I leapt up and Barbarisater flew out, crackling in the wet air.
The augmented Carthean warblade came down, splitting the lines in two and cutting deeply into the wagon roof. The descending killer shrieked as he fell away down the side of the two storey carriage.
The other two jerked round like lightning, one going for his sidearm, the other leaping at me with clawing hands. A tahn wyla met him and bisected his head like a ripe gummice fruit.
The corpse rolled off the car top into the darkness. I stood ready, Barbarisater twitching in my hands. The remaining Vessorine backed away, aiming a large calibre autopistol at me. The two of us could barely stand, such was the blizzard's windshear.
He fired once. An ulsar flicked the round away. He fired again, his feet slipping, and I made an uin ulsar that spat the bullet off into the darkness.
'My name is Gregor Eisenhorn. I am the man you have been paid to kill. Identify yourself.'
He hesitated. 'My nomclat be Etrik, badge of Clansire. Clan Szober.'
'Clansire Etrik. I've heard so much about you.' I had to raise my voice over the storm. Vammeko Tarl mentioned your name.'
Tarl? He be-'
The one who let you aboard?' I finished for him. 'I thought so. I had a feeling he'd been tailing me.'
'Be it he you just slew.'
'Is that so? Tough. Give yourself up.'
'I will not.'
'Uh huh. Tell me this, then… how much is Pontius paying your clan for this work?'
4Vho be Pontius?'
'Khanjar, then. Khanjar the Sharp.'
'Enough.'
He fired again and then lunged at me, swinging a power sword up in his left hand. Barbarisater knocked the whizzing slug away and then formed an