Scourge The Heretic

by Sandy Mitchell

  ‘Not yet,’ Barda confirmed.

  ‘You can’t stop us, you know,’ Lord Tonis said, looking at the bolt pistol with aristocratic disdain.

  ‘I can and I will,’ Horst said. ‘I’m arresting you both in the name of the Inquisition, on charges of heresy, conspiracy and abetting the enemies of the Emperor. Arbites officers will be here shortly to take you into custody.’ At least they should be, if Vex had alerted them as he’d requested.

  ‘If trying to protect our son was an act of heresy, then I’m proud to plead guilty,’ Lady Tonis said vehemently.

  Her husband nodded. ‘As am I.’

  ‘I’m sorry for you both,’ Horst said, stepping around a low bench, and surprised to find that he meant it, at least in part. To his even greater surprise, Lady Tonis smiled sadly back at him.

  ‘You know, I believe you are,’ she said, ‘but Harald and I have had a good life, on the whole.’

  Her husband nodded, and kissed her. ‘The Emperor’s seen fit to bless us in many ways,’ he said, ‘but with each other most of all.’

  ‘Still nothing incoming,’ Barda reported in his ear, and with a sudden surge of horrified understanding, Horst realised the truth.

  ‘There isn’t going to be!’ he replied, and began to run, still unsure of exactly what he intended to do, but already certain that he’d be too late to find out. With a few final words to one another, which were spoken too low to reach his ears, Lord and Lady Tonis leaned over the balustrade together, kicked up their heels like divers leaving the side of a swimming pool, and vanished over the edge, still locked in one another’s arms.

  Horst stared downwards, trying to discern some sign of disturbance in the dust wreathed moonscape of the Gorgonid so many kilometres below, or of the couple still falling towards it, but the distance and the darkness robbed him of any sight of either. After a moment, he sighed. ‘We’ve lost them,’ he reported simply. ‘Resuming surveillance at the Conclave.’

  As he turned away, he found the image of the last look the couple had given one another floating in front of his eyes, and he sighed again. He wasn’t quite sure what the predominant emotion it stirred within him was, but he strongly suspected that it might be envy.

  Seventeen

  Icenholm, Sepheris Secundus

  103.993.M41

  Anyone else might have been bored by the long overnight vigil, but Vex rather appreciated the air of tranquillity that permeated the villa now that the servants had retired. Since joining the Angelae, he’d grown used to the almost constant presence of the other members of the team, even finding their relentless undisciplined prattling quite pleasant in a companionable kind of way, but there was no denying that it could be a distraction, especially when Keira and Mordechai started bickering with one another. Why Horst let her get away with such blatant insubordination was a mystery to the tech-priest, but then so was a lot of the interaction between people untouched by the Omnissiah’s gift of logical thought, and if their leader was content to let the matter go then he supposed it couldn’t have mattered very much.

  The villa was almost silent this deep into the night, save for the muted sounds of the city drifting in through the open windows.

  He’d dimmed the illumination to a level that allowed the flickering runes on the pict screen to absorb most of his attention, enjoying the soothing familiarity of the rituals of data retrieval. He would have preferred to commune with the mechanism directly, but his responsibilities to the rest of the team precluded that. Merging his consciousness with the pure stream of information would have left him unable to monitor the vox channels as Horst had requested.

  So far this evening he’d relayed several messages on the team leader’s behalf, all routine, apart from the unexpected scrambling of the shuttle and its tragic aftermath. Deducing that Horst had been shaken more badly than he was willing to admit by the unforeseen suicide of his suspects, Vex had taken it upon himself to liaise with the local Arbites units dealing with the matter, politely deflecting most of their questions with the unassailable authority of his crimson rosette.

  A few moments ago he’d passed on another progress report from Drake, who had apparently got bored with shaking down drinkholes and had begun making his way towards Elyra and Kyrlock’s hiding place, confident that he’d managed to shake any surveillance.

  Vex hoped he was right, or things could get very inconvenient. In any case, there was nothing he could do to influence events in the Gorgonid, so he put the matter out of his mind, and returned to the more satisfying challenge of teasing the shreds of data he wanted out of the great tapestry of records piece by piece, file by file, following innumerable trails with the tireless patience of his calling.

  The task had been long and painstaking, but he was finally beginning to get the first nebulous sense of a pattern forming, which, he was quietly confident, would yield some significant information. The ownership records of the mine shaft in which the faux fugitives had taken refuge were as labyrinthine as Drake had intimated, but some of the connections they were throwing up were very interesting indeed.

  The Tumble, Gorgonid Mine, Sepheris Secundus

  103.993.M41

  Drake was getting close to the air shaft. The icon on the tiny auspex screen that Vex had given him, which marked his current location, was almost on top of the gently glowing rune indicating the position of Elyra’s vox. He’d shaken the shadows he’d picked up at the cable foot some time ago, by the simple expedient of making himself highly visible from the moment he’d first set foot on the mine floor.

  Once he was sure he’d attracted the right kind of attention he began blustering and threatening his way around the drinkholes, ostentatiously talking on his comm-bead as he did so, apparently reporting a complete lack of progress to his patron in the city above.

  Certain that so egregious a target would be easy to keep in sight, the watchers on his trail had quickly become complacent, and then sloppy. By the time he’d pretended to believe Mung’s lies about his brother finding a woman’s body up in the Breaks, and ordered a non-existent aircar to meet him on the perimeter road, they’d got so careless they hadn’t even followed him out straight away, staying to finish their drinks first.

  With a faint smile of satisfaction, Drake had watched them emerge a moment or two later, glancing around with an air of faint befuddlement, before heading off in the direction of the roadway. Once he was sure they were out of both sight and earshot, he’d moved away from the shadows that had concealed him, and begun picking his way carefully through the rubble towards his colleagues’ hiding place.

  His progress had been slow and cautious after that, in marked contrast to the grox charge he’d been displaying before, mindful that even if he’d shaken the men set to follow him there were still plenty of other denizens of the nightworld at large in the Tumble, many of them willing to kill to protect the secrets of their clandestine business if they were unexpectedly disturbed. Moving silently at night was almost second nature to a veteran soldier, though, and he’d managed to evade any other rovers easily enough. The black overcoat he wore allowed him to blend easily into the shadows cast by the spoil heaps, as well as keeping the night time chill at bay. The cool, even glow of the city overhead was more than adequate to see by, and he was able to pick his way through the rubble with confidence, placing each foot carefully before allowing it to bear his full weight, in order not to disturb the treacherous surface and betray his position with a carelessly dislodged stone.

  ‘I’m almost there,’ he voxed, his voice low, and Vex acknowledged him perfunctorily. Warned by the clatter of sliding shale ahead, Drake froze, letting the shadows conceal him, as a couple of men walked past a few metres away, the unmistakable silhouettes of stubbers slung over their shoulders, a comet tail of lho smoke drifting in their wake. Drake smiled, thanking the Emperor for the favour, and slipped through the sentry line around his objective on the heels of the careless guards.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ Kyrlock said, nudg
ing Elyra’s arm. Startled out of a light doze, she looked up sharply, to see Kantris and another man she didn’t know walking towards them down the tunnel with an air of evident purpose. Assuming the air of arrogant self-confidence she’d adopted before, she rose to her feet, slinging the pack she’d been sitting on across one shoulder, angling it so she could grab the laspistol inside instantly if she had to.

  ‘Who’s this?’ she asked Kantris, seizing the initiative before either he or his companion had a chance to speak. The newcomer was better dressed than anyone she’d encountered since leaving Icenholm, with the possible exception of the man who’d accompanied the fugitive psykers, a cloak of some dark material thrown around a jacket and leggings of unmistakably off-world cut. The colour of his clothes was indeterminate in the gloom, as was the colour of his eyes and hair, all three appearing to Elyra as shades of grey. There was no tingle of recognition to mark him out as warp-touched, but all the same she was disinclined to trust him.

  ‘Felcher Greel,’ the man said, his voice showing no sign of warmth, which Elyra found strangely reassuring. Either by accident or design, Greel projected an air of businesslike efficiency completely at odds with Kantris’s edgy opportunism. ‘I’m the one you pay your fares to.’ Out of the corner of her eye, Elyra saw Kyrlock give a faint shake of his head, which merely confirmed the opinion she’d already formed.

  ‘I’m not paying anyone until I see a shuttle or talk to a voider,’ she said evenly.

  Greel shook his head. ‘Doesn’t work like that. You pay me, and I pass on their cut to the ship folk, clean and simple.’

  ‘If you want what I’ve got,’ Elyra said, ‘you show me you can deliver a foot on the star road. Otherwise my friend and I might start to think we’re being set up, and that would be a very big mistake.’

  ‘I told you,’ Kantris said, with a resigned sigh, ‘this one wouldn’t trust her own mother.’

  ‘Neither would you if you had a mother like mine,’ Elyra said, feeling a faint twinge of guilt at posthumously slandering the quietly pious woman who’d nurtured her. ‘You want the shinies, you convince me there’s a ship up there ready to take us.’

  ‘Fine,’ Greel said, with a trace of impatience. ‘You can talk to the loadmaster if it makes you feel any better. He’s down tonight to look over some other business anyway.’

  ‘Works for us,’ Kyrlock said, with another mistrustful look at Kantris. However, the fixer’s attention had already moved on to the trio of psykers, staring at them with undisguised hostility.

  ‘Who the hell are they?’ he demanded.

  Greel shrugged. ‘More passengers. That’s all you need to know.’

  ‘Rut that,’ Kantris said. ‘I’m supposed to get a cut of everyone who comes through here. Why wasn’t I told?’

  The grey man’s expression turned hard. ‘Because you’re just the errand boy, Emyl. You scout prospects, and bring them to us. You’re not the only one, and you can easily be replaced. You’ll get a good commission on these two. If I were you, I’d be content with that.’ He turned and walked away, leaving Kantris’s jaw to clench in anger.

  ‘You think that’s funny, do you?’ Too afraid of Elyra and Kyrlock to risk provoking them, he elected to vent his frustration on the trio of teenagers instead, glaring from one to the other, daring them to make eye contact.

  It was Ven who made the mistake of doing so. ‘We don’t want any trouble,’ he began, before Kantris grabbed the front of his jacket, jerked him forwards, and kneed him sharply in the groin. Ven folded, with a squeal of anguish that echoed around the tunnel, drawing startled glances from the surrounding refugees, who then began edging away from the fracas as though the violence might somehow be contagious.

  ‘Well you’ve got some anyway,’ the fixer snarled, kicking him in the ribs for good measure, and rounding on Trosk. ‘You want some too?’

  ‘I’ll pass,’ Trosk said, taking a step backwards, and raising his hands defensively, although Elyra felt sure he was putting on an act rather than being genuinely frightened. He glanced in her direction with what looked suspiciously like sardonic amusement, clearly not expecting her to make good on her earlier promise.

  ‘Smart boy.’ Kantris turned to stare at Zusen, his expression growing even uglier. He took a step towards her. ‘How about you, girlie? You like it rough?’

  ‘Leave me alone!’ To Elyra’s surprise the girl was backing away, a shrill note of panic in her voice, every trace of the overweening self-confidence she’d displayed before evaporating like dew in the morning. ‘Don’t touch me!’ Elyra reached into her pack, her fingers closing around the butt of the weapon inside it.

  ‘I’ll touch you all right,’ Kantris gloated, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her towards him. Zusen screamed, and tried to pull away. ‘If you behave yourself, you might even enjoy it.’ A spiteful leer spread across his face as the girl squirmed desperately in his grasp.

  ‘Fun’s over, pusbag,’ Elyra said, drawing her laspistol and levelling it, her voice a disdainful drawl. ‘Put her down, right now, or I’ll blow your nads off.’

  ‘Don’t think so,’ Kantris said, pulling Zusen into a smothering embrace, and grabbing a handful of yielding flesh as he kept her body between himself and Elyra. ‘Not without dropping her too.’ He grinned lubriciously. ‘But if you want her that badly you can have a turn after I’ve finished.’

  ‘Nice offer, but she won’t play,’ Kyrlock said, taking a pace towards the pair. ‘She’s strictly orthodox.’ He smiled, aping Kantris’s malicious expression. ‘Me, now, I’d be tempted.’

  Elyra hesitated. She hadn’t known Kyrlock for long, but this seemed wholly out of character. If she was wrong though, and he was genuinely about to turn his coat, things were going to get ugly really fast. There would be no second chance if she didn’t get it right. Making up her mind instantaneously, she swung the pistol around to cover him instead.

  ‘I’m warning you, Vos, you lay a finger on that girl and I’ll be shipping for Scintilla alone.’

  ‘It wasn’t my finger I was planning to use,’ Kyrlock said, grinning, and taking another step towards the struggling girl. Then he shrugged, regretfully, beginning to turn away. ‘You win. I need to get off-world a damn sight more than I need a quick...’

  ‘Just you and me, then, girlie,’ Kantris said, eliciting another wordless wail of protest from Zusen, and dragging her back a pace to keep Kyrlock between them and the muzzle of Elyra’s pistol.

  ‘Wrong,’ Kyrlock said, turning suddenly, the chain axe coming free of its retaining straps in one fluid movement, and the clumsy weapon spinning effortlessly in his hands. With a crack that resonated around the cavern, the butt of the shaft slammed into Kantris’s temple. As the stunned expeditor fell, he released his hold on the terrified girl, who ran, howling, towards her friends. Even before he hit the ground Elyra fired once, making good on her earlier promise.

  ‘Nice move,’ Elyra said quietly, stowing the laspistol, and stepping over the whimpering fixer.

  Kyrlock shrugged. ‘I wasn’t sure he’d buy it,’ he said, ‘but I knew you’d realise what I was doing.’

  Elyra nodded, unwilling to admit just how marginal her decision to play along had been, and thanking the Emperor for His guidance as always. ‘Are you all right, kid?’ she asked, as though she didn’t much care one way or the other.

  ‘Yes,’ Zusen said, sniffling. She looked at Elyra and Kyrlock with something like awe. ‘Thank you. I could feel what he wanted to do to me.’ Her shoulders shook.

  ‘So you’re a ’path,’ Elyra said, reflexively strengthening her mental blocks. She was sure that none of them could read minds. She would have recognised the faint insistent pressure against her thoughts if they could, but you couldn’t be too careful.

  ‘I can pick up on people’s emotions,’ Zusen said, to her carefully concealed relief. ‘Usually just flashes.’ The girl’s face crumpled. ‘But the images in his mind were so strong… Oh, Emperor…’ Tears began to run down her
cheeks.

  ‘It’s all right now.’ To Elyra’s surprise, Kyrlock smiled awkwardly at the girl, attempting to calm her, and spat at the whining residue of her would-be violator. ‘He won’t be trying that again.’ He stowed the axe, with rapid expertise. ‘I’m sorry if I scared you, but I had to get close enough to take him.’

  ‘You were wonderful,’ Zusen said, to his manifest astonishment, flinging her arms around him and burying her face in the Guardsman’s grubby furs. ‘A real hero.’

  After a moment, Kyrlock returned the embrace with a single hesitant arm, his expression that of a man who has suddenly found himself holding a ticking parcel. ‘How are the others?’ he asked awkwardly.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Trosk said, shrugging as he helped his friend to his feet, ‘and I imagine Ven’ll live.’ He looked at Elyra appraisingly. ‘I must admit, I’m surprised you bothered to get involved, let alone him.’ He nodded at Kyrlock.

  ‘Not half as surprised as he was,’ Kyrlock said, glancing at the feebly twitching Kantris with vindictive satisfaction. Despite his evident unease at being so close to an unsanctioned psyker, he looked a lot happier and more relaxed than he had done at any time since they’d left Mung’s drinkhole the night before, the brief burst of cathartic violence finally presenting him with a situation he knew how to deal with.

  Elyra shrugged. ‘I promised I’d get you to where you’re going in one piece,’ she said. She glanced sardonically at Zusen, who seemed in no hurry to leave the shelter of Kyrlock’s arm. ‘Still think the deadmind’s a waste of space?’ Zusen’s face flamed scarlet, although she seemed unable to think of a suitably pithy rejoinder.

  Hurrying footsteps echoed along the tunnel, and Kyrlock tensed, reaching for the shotgun at his back, before Elyra forestalled him with a gesture. Greel was approaching, a laspistol in his hand. A couple of men in the rough costume of the local peasantry walked at his shoulders, both carrying shotguns. Going for a weapon now could result in a bloodbath. The men slowed as they approached, and Greel glanced down at the feebly twitching Kantris.