Deathstalker 02 - Deathstalker Rebellion

from the growing friction. Wisps of heated smoke escaped between his fingers as he hurtled down, but he waited till the very last moment to clasp his hands shut, slowing his descent. He freed one hand and drew the dagger from his belt.
    At the last moment St. John must have heard or sensed something. He looked up, and it was the simplest thing in the world for Finlay to let go of the rope, drop down, and stab St. John neatly through the eye.
    The Lord convulsed, his arms flying wide, but he was already dead. Finlay's feet hit the deck of the flyer hard, his leg muscles absorbing the impact. He jerked the dagger out of St. John's ruined eye in a gush of blood, and the Lord slumped bonelessly to the deck, twitching and shuddering. The flyer was still rocking sickly from the impact of Finlay's sudden arrival, and the handful of guards on the flyer with St. John were too busy trying to regain their balance to put up much of a defense when Finlay tore into them with his sword and his dagger and his death's-head grin. He swung his sword in short, chopping arcs, doing the most damage possible without risking the blade getting caught in flesh or
    clothing. He laughed breathlessly, cutting down the disorientated guards with brutal professionalism, and if sometimes their blades came too close for comfort, he didn't give a damn. He was in his element, doing what he was born to do, and loving it.
    His sword slammed into a guard's gut and out again in a flurry of blood, and the blade rose quickly to parry a blow from another guard that would have taken his head off. Finlay was glad someone was making a fight of it. He threw himself at the guard, and for a moment they stood head-to-head, neither giving ground. And then something in the guard's eyes gave him away, and Finlay flung himself to one side, just as the other guard behind him lunged forward. Finlay laughed nastily as the other guard ran through his previous opponent, and cut the man down from behind while his sword was still trapped in his comrade's body. There were only three guards left now, and Finlay disposed of them quickly. He didn't have the time to savor it.
    He ran the last guard through with a flourish, jerked the sword out in a welter of blood, and looked about him, taking in the situation. He wasn't even breathing hard. Only a few minutes had passed since he'd struck St. John down, and outside the flyer most of the dead Lord's security people were still trying to figure out some way of getting into the flyer so they could get at his assassin. The force shields were still keeping everyone well back, as they'd been designed to, and as yet it hadn't occurred to any of them to try climbing Tower Silvestri, as Finlay had. One poor fool fired his disrupter at the flyer, and they all had to duck and dodge as the energy beam ricocheted back. Someone with his wits about him was yelling for extra flyers, and Finlay took that as a sign it was time for him to leave.
    He moved quickly over to the flyer's controls, stepping carefully over the
    bodies, and lifted the flyer up into the air. A quick glance around showed him more flyers approaching at speed from the south, and he sent his flyer weaving quickly in and out of the pastel towers, accelerating rapidly to a speed his pursuers would be hard-pressed to match if they had any sense of self-preservation. He laughed aloud and stamped his feet on the deck for the simple pleasure of hearing his boots squelch in the pooled blood of his enemies.
    He'd done it again, made the kill that everyone said was impossible, and got away with it. He'd shake off the flyers behind him and make his escape. He always did. He glanced back at the dead Lord William St. John, lying very still with a surprised look on his bloody face, and Finlay laughed again. It sounded loud and confident; and if it was a crazy kind of laugh, too, well, Finlay could live with that.
    Adrienne Campbell, wife of Finlay, once the scourge of polite company and owner of the biggest, loudest, and foulest mouth in all society, sat fuming before her blank viewscreen and wondered whom to call next. She'd tried practically everyone she could think of, including some she would have sworn she wasn't talking to, but no one would talk to her. Some made excuses, some were rude, but most just instructed their servants to say that they were not at home, the liars. Adrienne had fallen from grace when the Campbell Clan went down in flames, and she was taking it hard. She was now