Free Birds of Prey by David Drake

condition.
    Besides, the first one over the wicker railing might need an aptitude for slaughter. There was no doubt as to which of the pair of them that called for.
    Perennius measured the distance, measured the chances. He shifted the cleaver to his right hand, hoping his fingers could grip the weapon while he jerked himself up with the other arm. He socketed his foot in the stirrup, touched the balcony with his free hand, and said, “Go!”
    The tall man shot Perennius upward as abruptly as a catapult. Instead of having to catch himself on the railing and pull his body over, Perennius soared. He scarcely brushed the wicker. The agent tried to swing his legs under him, but he hit the floor in an awkward sprawl anyway. Something crunched beneath him like underfired terra cotta. Remembering the violence that was always his companion, Perennius switched the cleaver to his better hand even as he twisted to see who shared the balcony with him.
    The agent had landed on a body that powdered under his weight. The second figure lay face down with half the length of Perennius’ dagger pinning its cape to its shoulders. The doorway into the building proper was shattered. The door itself was in splinters, and the stucco over the stone and brick core of the wall was crazed away in a six-foot circle. On the floor of the room within lay two men. One of them was shrunken to scarcely the bulk of a child. A triple ceiling lamp, suspended from bronze phalluses, lighted the room. Other faces peered around the jamb of the door on the other side, where the room opened into a hallway. “Imperial Affairs!” the agent croaked to the frightened onlookers. “Get the Watch here fast!”
    One of the sprawled men groaned and lifted to one elbow. It was Sestius, the centurion, and that meant the shrunken thing beside him must be Maximus. What in blazes had hap—
    â€œPerennius!” Calvus called from the alley. “Get me up!”
    â€œStand clear,” the agent ordered. He glanced down to make sure that Calvus was not gripping the balcony floor. Then he split the woven guard-wall with a single blow of the heavy knife he had appropriated. Perennius left the blade an inch deep in the balcony framework. He reached through the slit to give the other man the lift he requested. Calvus’ legs flexed as Perennius jerked upward. The tall man thumped to the floor, then squirmed upright.
    â€œHerakles!” the injured centurion muttered. “What was that?”
    There were more questions than that to be answered, Perennius thought as he tugged his dagger clear. A hand’s breadth of the blade was greasily discolored in the lampglow. A lighter blade might have disconcerted the man it struck, but not even the power of the agent’s arm could have guaranteed it would sink deep enough to be fatal.
    â€œYes, turn it over,” Calvus said as Perennius reached toward the cowl that still shrouded his victim. The cloth was cheap homespun. It slipped back from the head it had covered.
    â€œUnconquered Sun,” Perennius whispered. Sestius, who had crawled forward, gave a shout compounded of fear and loathing when he saw what the agent had uncovered.
    The head was not featureless, as shock had insisted in the first instant; but the features resembled those of an elbow joint more than they did a human face. Death had relaxed an iris of bone around what had to be a mouth, though it was at the point of the skull. A thin fluid, not blood and not necessarily the equivalent of blood, drooled between the bony plates of the iris. There were no eyes, no nose … no skin, even, as the agent learned by prodding the head gingerly. The surface was chitinous and slick as waxed bone. There appeared to be smudges of pigment shadowing the generally pale surface. Perennius ran a fingertip over them. Sestius watched in horror, Calvus with the detached calm of a woman carding wool. The large blotch where a human’s mouth