A particularly hard knee nigh his crotch brought him back to the here-and-now with a jolt, and left him facing a rather more immediate truth. Head of Security or not, he was damned cold certain of one thing: these long-haired, well-dressed, uppercrust cubicle mice were all in his way, and determined to scratch, claw, and even bite him to get past him.
And if he hit back at just one of them, just one, he knew the lawsuit that would eventually follow-from whoever he hit, no matter what she'd done to him, or from her next of kin-would ruin his life more thoroughly than-
One of the great electronic locks hummed and clicked, in the black wall right beside Rusty's elbow. Just now, he was hurrying down one of the doglegs in the fire route corridor that swung back to run along the marble for long enough to go around the curved back wall of an office shared by four Executive Graphics Facilitators. Clawing at that glass to halt his rush, he only just had time to hurl himself back, and against the black marble.
So the large, rarely-used 'side door' into the Inner Sanctum, constructed for rolling large pieces of new machinery-such as the monster photocopiers and color plotters-in and out of the executive offices with relative ease, didn't break his nose or toes when it swung open.
It did knock three running, shrieking secretaries flat. Only one of them was still moaning and feebly moving on the floor as three grandly-suited vice presidents, resplendent in gleaming designer shoes and Ivy League ties Rusty happened to know came from institutions they'd never attended, strode out into the tumult, regarded all the running or sprawled and senseless underlings with clear distaste, and demanded of the world at large, in only slightly-varying queries: "What the fuck is going on?"
The only answer they got was more screams.
"You!" the florid Vice President Finance boomed, pointing at a particular gasping, sprinting young woman. "If you want to remain employed here an instant longer, come here!"
The terrified secretary obviously decided she did not desire to continue employment with Holdoncorp if it meant getting sliced open with a broadsword in the next moment or so, and kept right on running as fast as she frantically could.
So did the panting, one-shoed woman behind her-and right behind her came striding two Dark Helms in armor, visors down, and swords up and hacking at everything handy.
"What's going on? Is this someone's idea of a joke?" the Vice President Legal demanded, jowls quivering. He peered wildly around, then poked his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, as he did every few moments of his waking life.
Again, no one deigned to reply. Rusty was quietly keeping hold of the door, both to hide behind it and to prevent it from swinging closed. The escape route it offered might very soon be urgently needed.
Then the screaming was elsewhere, and fading into distances fast. The secretaries, clerks, and clerical supervisors who normally populated this part of Holdoncorp's Ground Floor Front had all fled, leaving two Dark Helms-with more coming up behind them-striding to meet the three gaping Holdoncorp vice presidents.
Executive Vice President Jackman Quillroque had not reached his exalted position by being indecisive-or slow to confront potential trouble. He had always been tall, loud, and fearless. No waiting for inconvenient results of marketing surveys for him.
"Swords? Dark Helm costumes? Who are you, and just what by all the smoking pits of Hell do you think you're doing? What's going on here?"
Rod Everlar hastily backed up two steps, caught his heel and stumbled on the third, and sat down on the fourth hard and helplessly, his improvised spear clattering from his grasp.
He grabbed for it desperately, managed to snare its end in his fingertips, and looked up-into the grinning face of Syregorn, who'd drawn back his sword for a roundhouse beheading slash, and was now taking a long stride forward, to right at the foot of the steps, to put his entire weight behind his blade.
His boot came down, the floor sank about an inch under it, the beginnings of a look of alarm arose on the warcaptain's face-and the floor sprang up behind him with a sound like thunder.
An iron arm Rod couldn't properly see thrust the flagstones of the floor up and aside like a huge trapdoor. A revealed row of barbed iron spears much larger than the war-quarrel in his hand shot upright with such force that all three of them burst through Syregorn's body-neck, chest, and belly, right through his war-leathers-before the knight could even finish bringing his sword around to hack Rod open.
"Glaaaagh!" Syregorn cried, or tried to, around the blood bursting explosively from his mouth. He stared at Rod in enraged and incredulous agony, then struggled to say, "Gglord Archblughizard-"
Then his stare became fixed, and he said nothing else at all.
As Rod watched, the warcaptain's body sagged, and the sword clanged down out of his hand.
Syregorn went right on staring at nothing, blood trickling down his chin and dripping from him. His slumped body was now hanging from the spears.
Rod Everlar looked away from Syregorn's face, slowly whispered out all the curses he could think of, and tried to stop the spear-quarrel-in his hands from shaking so uncontrollably.
He was alone now in Malraun's tower; every last one of the Hammerhand knights he'd come into Malragard with was now dead. He was on his own.
"So," he mumbled aloud, fear rising in his throat like a sudden hot flame, "what sort of horrible trap will get me?"
A plate-glass wall makes a deafening noise when it shatters. A noise loud enough to drown out and sicken even hardened executives. Holdoncorp was a company both wealthy and young; in its brief history it had always had rising stock, and money to spare to out-lawyer trade rivals, so its vice presidents-however bright and veteran they might consider themselves-were far from truly hardened.
Moreover, the shattering of the front wall brought other shocking sounds flooding to the ears of the vice presidents. Screams and shouted curses from the second truck crammed with Loading Dock Security men, as the lorn darted low at their heads, and nearly caused them to crash into the front wall of the corporate headquarters the way the first truck had. The truck now disgorging dazed and bleeding men in all directions-some of whom barely had time to shout before Dark Helm swords found their throats.
Movies to the contrary, it takes a lot of strength to sever a human head-and a very sharp sword.
It seemed at least one of the Dark Helms had both, and a savage sense of humor besides. He caught up Sam Hooldan's head, now permanently wearing a gaping look of utter astonishment, and threw it hard and high over the cubicle walls.
Where it landed, bounced wetly, landed again, and started to roll. Almost right to the gleaming shoes of Jackman Quillroque, where it gaped up at him in unseeing, utter astonishment too.
The Executive Vice President stared down at it, then lifted his head to look firmly away, jaw set and mouth tight and grim. He was fighting hard to keep from throwing up.
He had been lucky to get this far.
More and more, Malragard seemed like one great trap around him. Rod sat on the stairs in its empty silence, trying not to look at the forever-staring Syregorn, and fancied-or was it more than mere fancy? — that Malraun's tower-fortress was listening to him, waiting for him to do or say something before it pounced.
Leaving him as satisfyingly dead as all the rest of the intruders. Rod swallowed, finding his throat dry with fear, and wondered just what by all Falconfar he was going to do.
Well, not blunder on until he got caught in some trap or other, for starters. Which meant he'd die of thirst or starvation or whatever cruelness Malraun could think up, when the wizard came home-whichever applied first.