25 For 25

by Various

  It was still here. It was still right here in the shadows of the coop-box. Once the idea had entered his brain it became unshakable fact. It really was there, just out of sight in the gloom, breathing low, gazing at him without eyes, coiling to pounce.

  He backed towards the cage door, fumbling for the latch. He could hear it moving now, the rustle of straw, the crunch of dried lime on the box’s wooden floor.

  Dear God-Emperor, he was going to–

  ‘Drusher? Golden Throne! I nearly blasted you!’ Macks emerged from the coop-box, straw sticking to her wet hair. She lowered her riot-gun.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked

  ‘I was... looking for... traces...‘ he said, trying to slow his thrashing pulse. He gestured up at the torn cage roof.

  ‘You’ll love this then,’ she said, and led him into the stinking darkness of the coop-box. The floor was littered with dead poultry, feathers glued to the wallboards with blood. The smell of offal was overpowering and made him gag.

  Macks shone her flashlight at the end wall, and showed him the splintered hole in the timbers.

  ‘It came in and went right down through the row of stoops, smashing through each dividing wall until it found Kalken,’ she said. She’d come back along that route to find Drusher. The holes were easily big enough for her to get through.

  ‘Killed everything in its path,’ she said. ‘Hundreds of roosting birds.’

  ‘But it didn’t eat anything,’ he observed, struggling to overcome his nausea. ‘It slashed or bit its way through, but there’s no sign of feeding.’

  ‘That’s important why?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. He took shots of the splintered holes with his picter, and then got her to hold the light steady while he measured the dimensions of each hole with his las-surveyor.

  ‘Have you told anyone?’ he asked her.

  ‘Told anyone what?’

  ‘The truth about me? About what I am?’

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t see any point.’

  ‘The baron knows,’ he told her.

  ‘Right.’

  There was movement outside, and he followed her out of the stoop. Skoh was coming down the walkway through the rain. He’d changed into a foul-weather suit, and was hefting what looked like an autolaser, though Drusher was no expert on weapons. It had a big, chrome drum-barrel, and was so heavy it was supported by a gyro harness strapped around his torso. An auspex target-lens covered his right eye like a patch.

  ‘You’ve seen the body?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yes. My men are sweeping the wood behind the fence.’

  ‘It came right through here,’ she said, indicating the run of stoops.

  Skoh nodded and looked at Drusher, as if expecting some expert insight from him. When none came, Skoh left them without a word and continued on down the path.

  ‘Who is he?’ Drusher asked.

  ‘Fernal Skoh? He’s a freelance hunter. Game specialist. The community hired him and his men when it became clear I wasn’t up to the job.’ There was rich contempt in her voice.

  ‘The bishop doesn’t think much of him,’ Drusher said.

  Macks grinned. ‘The bishop doesn’t think much of anyone. Skoh’s not had much success so far, despite his flashy rep. Besides, the bishop has his own man on the job.’

  ‘His own man?’

  ‘Gundax. You’ll meet him before long. He’s the bishop’s bodyguard. Tough piece of work.’

  ‘Doesn’t the bishop think Skoh can get the job done?’

  ‘I don’t think anybody does any more. The baron’s threatening to withhold Skoh’s fee. Anyway, Skoh’s not the bishop’s sort.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Skoh’s ungodly, according to his holiness. His background is in bloodsports. The Imperial Pits on Thustathrax.’

  Drusher’s repose was fractured by lurid dreams of bodies that left steaming parts behind when they rolled over. In the small hours, he gave up on rest, and got out of bed.

  He’d been given a room on an upper floor of the keep. It was terribly cold, and the wind and rain rattled the poorly-fitted shutters. Drusher got dressed, activated a glow-globe, and stoked some life into the portable heater. By the light of the globe, he spread out his equipment and note books on the table and distracted himself with study.

  There wasn’t a land predator in Gershom that even approximately fitted the evidence. Prairie wolves from the western continent, Lupus cygnadae gershomi, were rapacious enough, but their pack mentality meant they were unlikely to be lone killers. The great mottled felid of the peninsula taiga, sadly almost extinct, had the bulk and power, and could well have cleared the fence, but neither it nor a prairie wolf would could have cut wire like that. And either would have fed.

  Besides, Macks had given him her scribbled findings. There was no foreign matter in the poor yeoman’s wounds, but she’d made an estimation of the bite radius. Fifty-three centimetres. Fifty-three!

  No wolf came close. The biggest radius Drusher had measured for a felid was thirty-seven, and that had been from a skull in the Peninsula Museum. All the biggest cats were long dead now.

  The only thing that came close was Gnathocorda maximus, the vast, deep ocean fish. But this was Outer Udar. There were no wolves here, no forest cats, and certainly no sharks on the loose.

  He looked at the picts he’d made of the holes in the stoop walls. It was hard to define from the splinter damage, but it looked like each gap had been ripped open by a double blow, each point descending diagonally from the upper corners. Like a man slicing an X with two swords.

  And what was all this talk about it having no eyes?

  Lyam Gundax’s eyes were dark and close together. He was a tall, massively muscled man with a forked beard and braided black hair. Drusher could smell his body-sweat, a scent like that of an animal.

  ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

  It was early in the day. The rains had slowed to a drizzle, and the land was dark under a grey sky. Outer Udar was a wide skirt of rocky uplands and black forests around the dismal horizon.

  Drusher had come to the cathedral only to find his way into the nave blocked by the big, fur-clad Gundax. The bishop’s man was decorated with bead necklaces and wrist-straps, heavy with polished stones, charms, Imperial symbols and animal teeth.

  ‘Gundax! Come away!’ the bishop called out, as if calling off a dog. He wobbled into view as Gundax stepped back.

  ‘Drusher, my dear child,’ the bishop greeted him. ‘Pay no attention to my rogue here. This is the magos biologis I told you about,’ he told Gundax.

  Gundax nodded curtly, his leather smock creaking. His charm beads clattered against each other.

  ‘Walk with me,’ the bishop told Drusher.

  They plodded side by side down the nave. Drusher made a few admiring remarks about the temple’s towering architecture and glorious stained glass work.

  ‘This is a hard parish,’ said the bishop. ‘Hard and hardy on the edge of beyond. Of course, I’m not complaining. I serve the God-Emperor in whatever capacity he calls on me to perform. And here is as good as any.’

  ‘The Emperor protects,’ Drusher said.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be doing that so much here these days,’ said the bishop. ‘It weakens the faith. I have a tough enough time instilling virtue and belief into the weather-beaten folk of this blasted land, and this beast... it saps every ounce of fibre.’

  ‘It must be difficult, your holiness.’

  ‘Life is difficult. We rise to our tests. But, my dear magos, I fear for the spiritual life of this community almost as much as I fear for its flesh and blood. This thing... this beast... it is not an animal. It is a test of faith. An emissary of Chaos. For it to roam here, unchecked also shows that disbelief may roam here likewise. In every sermon I preach, I declaim as much. The beast is a sign that we have fallen away and allowed taint into our souls. To kill it, to cast it out, we must first reaffirm our faith in the Golden Throne.’
>
  ‘You make it sound simple, your holiness.’

  ‘It is not, of course! But this beast may be a blessing in disguise. Ultimately, I mean. If it makes us renew our belief and our trust in the absolute sanctity of the aquila, then I will offer thanks for it in time. Only in true adversity may a congregation find its focus.’

  ‘I commend your zeal, bishop.’

  ‘So... do you have any leads? Any expert insight?’

  ‘Not yet, your holiness.’

  ‘Ah well, early days. Come, let me bless you and your work.’

  ‘Your holiness? One thing?’

  ‘Yes, magos?’ said the bishop brightly, halting in his tracks.

  ‘You said the beast has no eyes. In fact, that seems to be the popular conviction.’ Drusher paused, remembering the words of the child on the coach.

  ‘No eyes, indeed! No eyes, that’s what they say.’

  ‘Who, your holiness?’

  The bishop paused. ‘Why, the folk of Outer Udar. It is what they know of it.’

  ‘I was of the understanding that no one had actually seen this thing. Seen it and survived, I mean.’

  The bishop shrugged. ‘Really?’

  ‘I know of no eye-witness. No one can offer any sort of description. No one knows the form or size of this thing. Of course, we can make guesses. We know it has teeth from the wounds it delivers, and from that I can estimate the size of the mouth. We know it is small enough to pass through a man-sized hole. And, I fancy, it has shearing claws or talons of some considerable size. But other than that, there is no certainty of its form or nature. And yet... everyone seems certain it has no eyes. Why is that, do you think?’

  ‘Tattle,’ smiled the bishop. ‘Tavern talk, fireside yap. You know how people invent things, especially if they know nothing and they’re afraid. I’m sure it has eyes.’

  ‘I see,’ said Drusher.

  ‘Now, come and receive my blessing.’

  Drusher endured the short blessing ritual. He didn’t feel any better for it.

  ‘I would appreciate your collaboration, magos,’ said Fernal Skoh. Drusher raised his eyebrows and hesitated, then let the hunter into his chambers. It was late afternoon, and an ice-wind was rising in the north.

  Skoh, dressed in a leather body-glove reinforced with mail links and segments of plasteel armour plate, entered Drusher’s quarters in the keep and looked around.

  Drusher closed the door after him.

  ‘A drink?’ he offered.

  ‘Thank you, yes.’

  Drusher poured two glasses of amasec from the flask in his luggage. Skoh was wandering the room. He paused at the table, and looked down at Drusher’s spread-out mass of notebooks, data-slates and jottings. Skoh carefully leafed through one of the sketch books, studying each water colour illustration.

  Drusher brought him his drink.

  ‘This is fine work,’ said Skoh, making an admiring gesture towards the sketches. ‘Truly you have a good hand and a great eye. That grazer there. Just so.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re no hunter though, are you, Drusher?’

  The question took Drusher aback.

  ‘No,’ he admitted.

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Skoh, sipping his drink. ‘I didn’t think so. You’re just one more fool caught up in this mess.’

  ‘I hear you worked the Imperial Pits.’

  Skoh looked at Drusher cautiously. ‘Who’s been talking?’

  ‘Deputy Macks.’

  Skoh nodded. ‘Well, it’s true. Twenty-five years I worked for the arena on Thustathrax as a procurer.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I was paid to travel the wilder worlds of the Imperium trapping and collecting animal specimens to fight in the arena. The odder, the more savage, the better. It brought the crowds in if we had something... unusual.’

  ‘Something like this beast?’

  Skoh didn’t reply.

  ‘It must have been interesting work. Dangerous work. That’s why the bishop doesn’t like you, isn’t it?’

  Skoh managed a small smile. ‘The arenas of the Imperial Pits are ungodly, according to his holiness. I was employed by a secular entertainment industry that revelled in bloodletting and carnage. I am, to him, the lowest of the low. And an outsider to boot.’

  ‘What did you want, Skoh?’ Drusher asked.

  ‘The baron tells me my fee will be forfeit if I fail to make a kill soon. I have wages to pay, overheads to consider. This job has dragged on. I can kill this beast, Drusher, but I can’t find it. I think you can. Help me, and I’ll pay you a dividend of my earnings.’

  ‘I’m not interested in money,’ said Drusher, sipping his amasec.

  ‘You’re not?’

  ‘I’m interested in two things. An end to this slaughter and a personal closure. I was hired to produce a complete taxonomy of this planet’s fauna. Now, at the eleventh hour, I seem to have a new apex predator on my hands. If that’s so, it will throw my entire work into disarray. Seven years’ work, you understand?’

  ‘You think this is an apex predator that you’ve missed?’

  ‘No,’ said Drusher. ‘Not even slightly. There’d be records, previous incidents. This is either a known predator gone rogue and acting abnormally or... ‘

  ‘Or?’

  ‘It’s an exotic.’

  Skoh nodded. ‘You’ve been here a day and you’re that certain?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Do you have supporting evidence?’

  ‘It doesn’t match anything I’ve turned up in seven years. And it doesn’t feed. There is no sign of appetite or predation. It simply kills and kills and kills again. That’s the behaviour of a rogue animal, a carnivore that’s no longer killing due to hunger. And it’s the behaviour of a creature alien to this world. May I ask you a couple of questions?’

  Skoh set his empty glass down on the table. ‘By all means.’

  ‘Why do they say it has no eyes? Where did that rumour come from?’

  ‘All I know about that is that the lack of eyes is a regular feature of the bishop’s hellfire sermons. I presumed it was hyperbolic invention on his part, which has fallen into common rumour.’

  ‘My other question is this: you know what it is, don’t you?’

  Skoh looked at him. His eyes pierced right through Drusher.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  By dawn the next day, there had been another death. A swine herder out beyond the crossroads had been killed in the night, and twenty of his saddlebacks along with him. Drusher went out into the sparse woodland with Skoh, Macks, Lussin and two of Skoh’s huntsmen.

  The air was cold and ice-fog wrapped the hillside. It was ten below. At the swine farm, the bodies of hogs and hogherd alike had frozen into the mud of the pens, their copious blood making ruby-like crystals.

  In the steep thorn scrub above the swine farm, Drusher stopped the group and handed out the cartridges he’d prepared the night before.

  ‘Load them into your shotguns,’ he said. ‘They won’t have much range, I’m afraid.’

  Macks and Lussin had arbites-issue riot-guns. Skoh had made sure his men had brought short action pump-shots along with their heavy ordnance. Both huntsmen, like Skoh, were weighed down with torso rigs supporting massive autolasers.

  ‘What are these?’ Lussin asked.

  Drusher broke a cartridge open to show them. Little chrome pellets were packed inside in a sticky fluid suspension.

  ‘Trackers,’ he said. ‘Miniature tracker units. They have a two thousand kilometre range. I usually use them for ringing birds. In fact I plotted the migration patterns of the lesser beakspot and the frigate gull Tachybaptus maritimus over a three-year period using just these very–’

  ‘I’m sure you did a great job,’ snapped Macks. ‘But can we get on?’

  Drusher nodded. ‘I’ve packed them in contact adhesive. If you see anything – anything – then you mark it.’

  They made their way up the thorny
scarp and entered a stretch of black-birch woodland. Thanks to the fog, the world had become a shrunken, myopic place. Unaided visibility was twenty metres. Stark and twisted black trees hemmed them in, gradually receding into the white vapour. The earth was hard, and groundcover leaves were brittle with frost. The obscured sun backlit the fog, turning the sky into a glowing white haze. Skoh spread the group into a wide line, but still close enough for every person to be visible at least to his immediate neighbour. Drusher stayed with Macks. There was an uncanny stillness, broken only by the sounds of their breathing and movement.

  Drusher was bone-cold. Macks, wearing a quilted arbites jacket, had lent him her fox-fur jacket, which he wore over his own weathercoat. His breath clouded the air.

  ‘Do you have a weapon?’ she asked.

  He shook his head.

  She slid a short-pattern autopistol out of an underarm rig, checked the load, and handed it to him grip first.

  He looked at it uncertainly, as if it was some new specimen for collation. It had a brushed-matt finish and a black, rubberised grip.

  ‘The safety’s here, beside the trigger guard. If you have to fire it, hold it with both hands and aim low because the kick lifts it.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘I’ve never been a great one for guns.’

  ‘I’d feel better if you had something.’

  ‘You wouldn’t feel better if I shot you by accident, which is likely if you let me loose with something like that.’

  She shrugged and put it away again.

  ‘Your funeral,’ she said.

  ‘I do hope not.’

  They walked on another kilometre or two. Skoh and his hired hands had auspex units taped to their forearms, scanning for movement.

  ‘What was the time of death, do you reckon?’ Drusher asked.

  Macks pursed her lips. ‘Four, four-thirty? The bodies had a residual core temperature.’

  ‘So three or four hours ago?’

  The chance of anything still being around seemed very slim to Drusher. Given the Beast’s hit-and-run habits, it would be long gone by now. But the cold offered possibilities. It had set the soil hard and solid. Tracks might remain. Drusher kept his eyes on the ground.