Warhammer - Eisenhorn 03 - Hereticus (Abnett, Dan) Read online

  Menderef looked back at us, playing to the gallery with raised eyebrows. Verveuk laughed again. 'I am not on first name terms with cattle, Pridde/

  They're good stock, the best. Certificated by the Administratum Officio Agricultae. I was hoping to breed from them and establish a commercial herd for my combine/

  'I see. And?'

  They sickened, over winter. None would carry to term. The things they whelped were still-born... such things... I had to burn them. I asked the

  Ministorum for a blessing, but they refused. Said it was a failing in my stockmanship. I was desperate. I had sunk a lot of capital into the herd, sir. Then this apothecary told me...'

  Told you what?'

  That it was the warp. Said the warp was in the feed and the land, the very meadows. She said I could cure the trouble if I followed her guidance/

  'She suggested you used rural warpcraft to mend your ailing cattle?'

  'She did.'

  'And you thought that was a good idea?'

  'As I said, I was desperate, sir/

  'I know you were. But it wasn't for the cattle, was it? Your wife had asked you to make the purchases, hadn't she?'

  'No, sir!'

  Yes, sir! Your wife, of the Samargue bloodline, desperate to restore power and vigour to its ailing fortunes!'

  Y-yes...'

  'Green light, Pridde!'

  'Yes!'

  From the documentation and my preparation, I already knew that House Samargue was the biggest game we were after on Durer. To his credit, Verveuk had suggested we begin with Pridde, a minor player, no more than an accomplice really, and use him as a lever to open up the noble family. On the basis of his testimony, the corruption of the ancient House would be easy to force out into the open.

  Menderef continued his questioning for over an hour and, to tell the truth, it made for captivating theatre. When the Minster bell sounded nones, he cast a subtle glance at me to indicate there was no point pressing Pridde further for the time being. A break, with opportunity for the defendant to pace and worry, would serve us well for the day's second session.

  "We will suspend the hearing for a brief term/ I declared. 'Bailiffs, conduct the accused to the cells. We will resume at the chime, an hour from now/

  I was hungry and stiff. Lunch offered a decent respite, even if I would have to tolerate Verveuk.

  Bastian Verveuk was thirty-two standard years old and had been an inquisitor for seven months. He was a fresh-faced boy, he seemed to me, of medium height with a centre-parted bowl of heavy blond hair and slightly hooded, earnest eyes. He looked like he was yearning all the time. Yearning and swept up in some spiritual rapture.

  He had a brilliantly ordered mind and had doubtlessly served Osma well as an interrogator. But now his hour had come and he was pushing up the ranks with immodest ambition. His transfer to Rorken's staff - for 'supplementary schooling' - had probably been the result of Osma losing patience with him. Osma was like that. Osma was still the same Osma

  who had plagued me fifty years before. Except that now he was set to inherit Orsini's role as Grand Master of the Inquisition, Helican sub-sector. Grand Master Orsini was dying and Osma was his chosen heir. It was just a matter of time.

  Rorken was dying too, if the rumours were true. Soon, I would be friendless in the high ranks of the Ordos Helican.

  Thanks to Rorken's infirmity, I had acquired Verveuk. He was simply a burden I had to carry. His manner, his yearning, his bright eagerness; his damned questions.

  I stood in the Minster's warm sacristy, sipping wine and eating thick seed-bread, smoked fish and a strong, waxy cheese locally produced in the Uvege. I was chatting with Rassi, a pale, quiet senior inquisitor from the Ordo Malleus who had become a firm friend in recent years despite his association with the caustic Osma.

  A month, you think, Gregor?'

  'For this, Poul? Two, maybe three/

  He sighed, toying his fork around his plate, his silver-headed cane tucked under his arm to free his hands. 'Maybe six if they each bring a bloody pardoner, eh?'

  We laughed. Koth slid past us to refill his glass and cast us a nod.

  'Don't look now/ Rassi murmured, 'but your fan club is here/

  'Oh, crap. Don't leave me with him!' I hissed, but Rassi had already moved away. Verveuk slid up beside me. He was balancing a dish of game terrine, pickles and salted spry that he clearly had no intention of eating.

  'It goes well, I think!' he started.

  'Oh, very well/

  'Of course, you must have great experience of these sessions, so you know better than I. But a good start, would you not say?'

  Yes, a good start/

  'Pridde is the key, he'll turn the lock of House Samargue/

  'I'm quite sure of it/

  'Menderef s work was something, wasn't it? The cross-exam? So deft, so well-judged. The way he broke Pridde/

  'I - uh - expected no less/

  'Quite something, yes indeed/

  I felt I had to say something. Your choice of Pridde. As the first accused. Well judged, well... well, a good decision, anyway/

  He looked at me as if I was his one true love and I'd just promised to do something significant.

  'Lord, I am truly honoured that you say so. I only did what I thought best. Really lord, to hear that from you, fills my heart with-'

  'Stewed fish?' I asked, offering him the bowl.

  'No, thank you, lord/

  'It's very good/1 said, slathering my bread with it. Though like so many fine things in life, you can quite quickly have too much of it/

  He didn't take the hint. The hint would most likely have to be embossed on the tip of a hi-ex bolter round and fired up his nose before he'd notice it.

  'I feel, lord/ he said, setting his untouched dish aside, 'that I can learn so much from you. This is an opportunity that few of my status get/

  'I can't fathom why/ I said.

  He smiled. 'I almost feel I should thank the miserable tumors eating at my Lord Rorken for this chance/

  'I feel I owe some sort of payback to them too/ I muttered.

  'It's so rare that a - if I may say - veteran inquisitor such as yourself... a field inquisitor, I mean, not a desk-bound lord... participates in a process like this and mingles with lesser officers such as me. Lord Rorken has always spoken so highly of you. There is much I want to ask you, so many things. I have read up on all your works. The P'Glao Conspiracy, for example. I have reviewed mat from end to end, and I have so many queries. And other matters-'

  Here it comes, I thought.

  And there it came.

  The daemonhosts. And Quixos. There is, oh, so much in that that demands the attention of a scholar such as myself. Can you give me personal insight? Perhaps not now... later... we could dine together and talk...'

  Well, perhaps/

  The records are so incomplete - or rather, restricted. I yearn to know how you dealt with Prophaniti. And Cherubael/

  I was waiting for the name. Still, hearing it, I winced.

  Cherubael. That's what they all asked. Every last neophyte inquisitor I met. That's what they all wanted to know. Damn their interest. It was over and done with.

  Cherubael.

  For one hundred and fifty years, the daemon had plagued my dreams and made each one a nightmare. For a century and a half, it had been in my head, a shadow at the horizon of sanity, a softly breathing shape in the dark recesses of my consciousness.

  I had done with Cherubael. I had vanquished it.

  But still the neophytes asked, and swirled up the memories again for me.

  I would never tell them the truth. How could I?

  'Lord?'

  'I'm sorry, Verveuk, my mind wandered. What did you say?'

  'I said, isn't that one of your men?'

  Godwin Fischig, dressed in a long black coat, still powerful and imposing after all these years, had entered die sacristy by the rear door and was looking around for me.

  I handed my plate and gla
ss to the startled Verveuk and went directly across to him.

  'I didn't expect to see you here/ I whispered, drawing him aside. 'Not really my thing, but you'll thank me for busting in/ 'What is it?'

  'Paydirt, Gregor. You'll never guess in a hundred centuries who we've turned up/ 'Presuming we don't have a million years, Fischig, tell me/ Thuring/ he said. 'We've found Thuring/

  Vengeance, in my opinion, is never an adequate motive for an inquisitor's work. I had sworn to make Thuring pay for the death of my old friend Midas Betancore, of course, but the eighty years since Midas's murder had been filled to distraction with more weighty and more pressing cases. There had not been time or opportunity to spare the months - perhaps years - required to hunt Thuring down. He was... not worth the effort.

  At least, that is what Lord Rorken always counselled me when I brought the matter up. Fayde Thuring. An inconsequential player in the shadow-world of heresy that lurks within Imperial society. A nothing who would ran foul of justice soon enough all by himself. Undeserving of my attention. Not worth the effort.

  Indeed, for a long time, I had believed him dead. My agents and informants had kept me appraised of his activities, and early in 352.M41 I had learned he had fallen in with an out-world fraternity of Chaos called the Hearthood, or sometimes the Chimes of the World Clock. They practised a stylised worship of the Blood God, in the form of a local tribe's minor swine-deity called Eolkit or Yulquet or Uulcet (the name differed in every source consulted) and for some months had plagued the crop-world Hasarna. Their cult-priest took the ceremonial guise of the swine-butcher or culler who, in older times, had travelled between the communities of Hasarna at die end of each autumn, slaughtering the livestock ready for the cold months. It was an old tradition, one that mixed ritual blood-letting with the dying of the calendar year, and is common throughout the Imperium. Pre-Imperial Terra had just such a myth once, called the Hallows, or the Eve of Hallowing.

  The cult leader was Amel Sanx, the Corruptor of Lyx, reappearing for the first time after a century of hiding to spread his poisons. Sanx was so notorious a heretic that once it became known he was involved, the initial Inquisitorial efforts to prosecute the Hearthood multiplied a hundredfold and a kill-team of the Adepta Sororitas led by Inquisitor Aedelorn obliterated them in a raid on Hasarna's northern capital.

  In the aftermath, it was discovered that Sanx had already sacrificed most of his minor followers as part of a ritual that Aedelorn's raid had interrupted. Thuring was one of his second tier of trusted acolytes in the Hearthood. His body was listed as amongst the ritual victims.

  Midas's killer was dead. Or so I had thought until that moment in the sacristy of Eriale's Minster.

  'Are you sure of this?'

  Fischig looked at me with a shrug as if I should have trouble doubting his words. Where is he?' That's the part you've going to love. He's here.'

  They had taken their places already in the main vault of the Minster by the time I joined them. House Samargue had brought out a militant advocate to answer for them and already he was strenuously trying to establish the fragility of Udwin Pridde's testimony.

  I slammed my fist on the table to shut him up.

  'Enough! This Examination is suspended!'

  My fellow inquisitors swung round to look at me.

  'It's what?' asked Menderef.

  'Until further notice!' I added.

  'But-' Koth began.

  'Gregor-?' asked Rassi. 'What are you doing?'

  This is highly irregular-' Verveuk said.

  'I know!' I told him, right into his face. He flinched.

  'My lord chief examiner/ asked the Samargue's advocate, stepping towards the bench nervously, 'may I presume to ask when this hearing might recommence?'

  'When I'm ready/ I snarled. 'When I'm good and ready/

  TWO

  Betancore, blood up. Fischig's briefing. Arming for battle.

  It caused quite a stir. What am I saying? Of course it caused quite a stir. Crowds quickly gathered outside the Minster in the bright afternoon sunshine. The archivists and pamphleteers who had been dozing in the public gallery scampered off to promulgate the news. Even the confessors and preachers who had been wandering the streets, lambasting the common-folk with bilious sermons against heresy, followed the crowds to the Minster square.

  'You can't just suspend a Court of Examination!' Menderef raged at me. I shoved him aside and strode on down the long aisle towards the main doors of the Minster. Bequin and Fischig were in step with me, and Aemos scurried to catch up.

  You say "here", what do you mean?' I asked Fischig, dragging off my fur-trimmed cloak and my chain of office and tossing them onto a pew.

  'Miquol/ he said. 'It's an island in the northern polar circle. About two hours' transit time/

  'Eisenhorn! Eisenhorn!' Menderef yelled behind me, a twitter of agitated voices around him.

  You sure it's him?'

  'I've reviewed Godwin's findings/ snapped Bequin. 'It's Thuring, all right. I'd put money on it/

  We reached the end of the Minster's nave and were crossing towards the entrance arch and daylight. A hand caught my sleeve.

  I turned. It was Rassi.

  What are you doing, Gregor? This is holy work you're abandoning/

  'I'm not abandoning anything, Poul. Didn't you hear me? I'm suspending it. This Examination is all about feeble little recidivists and their ungodly habits. I'm set on a true heretic.'

  'Really?'

  'Come along if you don't believe me/

  'Very well/

  As I pressed on through the great doorway, Rassi turned and intercepted Koth and Menderef. He shouted down their objections. 'I'm going with him/ I heard him say to them. 'I trust Eisenhorn's judgment. If he was wrong to break the court here, I'll testify to that when I return/

  We were out in the daylight. Mobs of civilians gazed at us, some shielding their eyes from the sun's glare where the blossom-heavy trees of the square failed to shade them.

  'Medea?' I asked Fischig.

  'Already called in. I presumed; I hope that's all right/

  'Does she know?'

  Fischig glanced at Bequin and Aemos. Yes. I couldn't hide it from her/

  Almost on cue, Medea's voice crackled over my vox-link. 'Aegis descending, the Armour of God, by two/ she reported in Glossia code, her voice hard-edged and bitter.

  'Damn it!' I said. 'Clear the square!'

  Fischig and Bequin ran forward into the crowd. 'Clear the area!' Bequin yelled. 'Come on, move! Move now!' Fischig bellowed. No one obeyed.

  Fischig pulled out his handgun and fired into the air. Shrieking, the crowd surged back and streamed away down the approach streets.

  Just in time.

  My gun-cutter, all four hundred and fifty tonnes of it, swung in over the roof of the Eriale Municipal Library and descended on wailing thrasters into the Minster square. The downwash blew the blossom off the trees and filled with air with petals like confetti.

  I felt the ground shake as the vessel set down hard. Flagstones cracked under the steel pads of the extended landing struts. Casements around the square shattered. The trees in the square billowed furiously in the outrush of the jets. The nose ramp whined open.

  I hurried up the ramp with Aemos and Bequin, pausing to beckon Rassi aboard. Leaning on his cane, he walked more slowly than us. Fischig waited at the foot of the ramp, sternly ushering in the other members of my retinue who had been stationed in the vicinity of the Minster. Kara Swole, who had been monitoring the crowd from a caffeine house opposite the library. Duclane Haar, whose sniper-variant long-las had been tracking the traffic around the Minster's main door from the roof of the Administratum's tithe barn. Bex Begundi, who had been posing as a homeless mutant begging for alms in the porch of Saint Becwal's Chapel, his pistols concealed under his pauper's bowl.

  Fischig pulled them all in and then ran up the ramp, hauling on the lever that slammed the ramp shut.

  Almost immediately, the gun-cutter ro
se again, puffing out a cloud of blossom.

  In the entry bay, I took a quick head count.

  Verveuk! What are you doing here?'

  As my Lord Rorken instructed/ he said, 'I go where you go, lord/

  We gained altitude, climbing into the stratosphere for the transit north. My own people knew their places and tasks, but I pulled Kara Swole aside and told her to make sure Rassi and Verveuk were comfortable. 'Inquisitor Rassi deserves every courtesy, but don't give Verveuk a millimetre. Don't let him get in the way/

  Kara Swole was a well-muscled acrobat-dancer from Bonaventure who had assisted one of my investigations three years before and had enjoyed the experience so much she'd asked to join my retinue permanently. She was small and lithe, with very short red hair, and her muscular frame made her look almost stocky, but she was nimbler and more agile than just about anyone I had ever met and had a genuine flair for surveillance. She'd become a valued member of my team and she'd told me more than once that the employment I offered her was infinitely preferable to her previous life in the circus arenas of her homeworld.

  Kara glanced in Verveuk's direction. 'He looks like a ninker to me/ she murmured. 'Ninker' was her insult of choice, a slang term from the circus Creole. I'd never had the heart to ask her what it meant.

  'I believe you're right about that/ I whispered back. 'Keep an eye on him... and make sure Rassi's happy. When we get to the destination, I want you and Haar guarding them with your lives/

  'Understood/

  I gathered Fischig) Bequin, Aemos, Haar and Begundi around the chart table for a briefing, and also summoned Dahault, my astropath.

  All right... how did you find him?'

  Fischig smiled. He was obviously pleased with himself. 'The audit turned him up. At least, it turned up some appetising clues that made me look harder and find him. He'd been operating in three of the northern seaports, and also in the capital. I couldn't believe it at first. I mean, we thought he was dead. But it's him/

  An audit was part of my standard operating practice, and I'd set one going the moment Lord Rorken prevailed on me to conduct the Examination, four months earlier. Under Fischig's leadership, a large part of my support staff - over thirty specialists - had gone ahead to Durer to carry it out. The purpose of an audit was twofold. First, to review and recheck the cases to be presented for Examination to make sure we weren't wasting our time and that we were in possession of all the relevant data. It wasn't that I didn't trust Lord Rorken's preparation, I just like to be certain about what I m prosecuting. Secondly, it was to investigate the possible existence of