Constantine Pheppos Heldane

Barbarisater was already in my hands, humming. ‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said.
+He’d only be a fool if he was doing this alone.+
The words were not vocal. They were burning wires of psychic venom wrapped around a monstrous cudgel of mental force that smashed into the back of my skull. I stumbled forward, half-blind. Medea fell over hard, totally unconscious.
...
I felt the psi-surge from across the room and it made me wince. Heldane’s inhuman features folded into an angry, animal roar and Maxilla stumbled, cried out and fell to his knees, showers of sparks exploding from burned-out servos in his neck, right shoulder and right wrist.
‘Now will you answer, metal man,’ Heldane leered at Maxilla, ‘or shall I burn out another part of your blasphemous body?’ ‘There are five,’ I said loudly. ‘Five of us.’
...I tried to get up, tried to reach out with my mind to wrest Barbarisater from Heldane’s hands. I was too weak and he was too strong. Another psychic assault smashed me to the floor.
...Heldane’s psychic slap rocked me back in my seat.
A guard approached Osma. ‘We have searched the infirmary, lord. There is no one there.’
Thank the Emperor, I thought. Kara has freed Aemos.
‘Kara?’ said Heldane suddenly. ‘Who is Kara?’



"Hereticus", Chapter Eighteen