Ravenor Read online

  I probed him for a moment. For the third or fourth time, all I got was a mysterious memory-echo… ‘Contract thirteen’.

  +Tell me about the Allure.+

  He winced. ‘The what?’

  +The Allure.+

  He shrugged. ‘It’s a ship. It does the Lenk run. It’s brought me beasts a few times.’

  Hovering, I circled around him slowly. ‘Its captain… a friend of Skoh’s?’

  ‘No.’

  +Thekla, then?+

  A shrug. ‘Yeah, Thekla. Old ties. Trader bonds. All buddies together. They’re allies. That’s how rogue traders work.’

  +Did the master of the Allure ever supply you with flects?+

  ‘Siskind? No?’

  +Did the master of the Allure ever offer to supply you with flects?+

  ‘No.’

  I stabbed a mind-lance into Duboe’s mid-brain and he swayed, in pain. It was like pushing a sword into wet paper. His mind seemed so… mushy.

  +What else can you tell me about Siskind and the Allure?+

  Duboe rocked. ‘Siskind is Thekla’s third cousin. They’re both related by blood to Lilean Chase.’

  I was momentarily stunned. Lilean Chase had been an abominable blight on the Imperium eighty years before. A radical of the Recongregator philosophy, she had forgone her ordo loyalties and founded the Cognitae school on Hesperus. There, for three generations, she had hard-schooled the brightest and best that had fallen into her clutches and formed them into sociopathic monsters, driven by a will to undermine the fabric of the holy Imperium. The Cognitae had only come to an end thanks to a purging raid led by Lord Inquisitor Rorken, now Grand Master of the Ordos Helican. Damn! Molotch himself had been a product of that deranged academy!

  I became aware that my contact alarm was piping. I retreated from the cell and keyed the hatches to shut after me.

  Medicae Zarjaran was waiting for me outside.

  ‘What’s the trouble?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’m concerned, sir, only for the prisoner’s welfare,’ he said.

  ‘And so?’

  ‘Duboe’s mind is fraying,’ he said. ‘He is dying. I’m afraid it’s because of the repeated interrogations.’

  ‘Medicae, I’ve gone easy on him. A dozen interviews, no more than that.’

  ‘I understand, but when Mr Kinsky’s sessions are added in–’

  +Mr Kinsky’s sessions?+

  I had forgotten myself. My frank mind-clause had quailed him. The short, olive-skinned medicae cowered back from me.

  ‘My apologies,’ I said. ‘Please confirm… Kinsky has been interviewing the prisoner too?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Zarjaran timidly. ‘He and Mamzel Madsen, twice a day.’

  What the hell was this? I turned my chair automatically to roam up to the bridge and demand answers out of Preest. But Halstrom was standing directly behind me.

  +Yes?+

  ‘My lord inquisitor. I summoned you out of your interview. There’s a… situation… down on the surface…’

  Patience Kys shouldered her way through the massing crowds, thankful of the camouflaging flicker of the firelight, looking back and forth for Thonius.

  +This is bad,+ she sent, but instead of Ravenor’s voice she got the gruff mind-drawl of Kinsky.

  +Yeah, it’s bad. Get your ass in gear. We’re leaving.+

  +Where are you?+

  +The ride. Get a move on.+

  Gongs and what sounded like kettle drums were sounding out now from various parts of the torchlit town. The noise caused a stir, an agitation in the already unsettled moot crowds.

  Everywhere she looked, slaughtermen were moving through the throng. The baron’s bodyguards, their strength supplemented by regular meat-cutters from the rendering silos.

  +Carl? Where are you?+

  No response. She repeated the query using her pocketvox. Still nothing. She hurried down Tusk Verge’s busy main street in the direction of the highway viaduct. Overhead, the night sky was underlit amber by the smoke and canfires of the town. A large, slender, sickle moon hung high in the west. A slaughterman’s moon, it was called, announcing moot-time because it resembled both a butcher’s stripping blade and a long ivory tusk.

  Carl had told her that. The stuff he knew.

  The drumming became more incessant. Then she heard a fierce, rasping whoosh. She looked round.

  A blood-red full moon seemed to be rising above the town, rising fast. But it wasn’t a celestial body at all. It was a globe balloon, trapped in a thick woven net that stretched down beneath its spherical bulk to suspend an ivory basket. The rasping, whooshing sounds came from the brief, bright squirts of flame from the burner as it rose. The basket trailed a cable down to the ground. There was a man in the basket, a dynast drover by the look of him. His body was caked in white clay except for dark kohl rings around his eyes, and he wore a headdress of antlers. He had a bone rattle in each hand, and he shook them and pointed them down into the crowd.

  Kys had seen this man before, in the barter-hall. The baron’s warlock, his shaman. Evidently a psyker himself – Kys could feel her flesh goosebump – he had gone aloft to locate the interloper. The balloon rose no higher than ten metres. Its tether was fixed to a cart that the baronial bodyguards were wheeling through the streets to move their warlock bloodhound around.

  Kys started to run. She reached the rockcrete yard where they had left the half-track. The three Petropolitan agents were already aboard, and Madsen had the engine running.

  ‘Come on!’ Kinsky called.

  ‘Where’s Thonius?’ she asked.

  Kinsky shrugged. ‘Like I give a damn. We’ve got to leave town now before things get ugly.’

  ‘We’re not leaving him behind!’ Kys said.

  ‘You want to take the whole frigging place on?’ Madsen called. ‘Look, I don’t like leaving a body on the ground either, but frankly, sister, better him than all of us. The baron will have us ritually shredded if he gets hold of us. Shit, Thonius is probably already dead. Where will your precious inquisitor’s mission be if we all end up as dog-mince?’

  ‘Are you frigging well gonna get aboard or not?’ Kinsky asked.

  ‘No,’ said Kys. ‘And if you drive out of here now, next time I see you, I’ll kill the lot of you.’

  Ahenobarb laughed. Madsen threw the half-track into gear. ‘You stay here, Kys, and there won’t be any next time.’

  Kys stepped back as the vehicle lurched forward. It pulled a wide turn and then thundered away across the torchlit viaduct.

  Kys watched it go and then turned back into the town.

  Thonius started to run. He could see the balloon and the ghastly capering freak in its basket. More importantly, he could hear the shouts and cries in the crowd behind him as the slaughterman bodyguard pushed his way through to reach him.

  His heart was pounding. This wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. He didn’t deserve this.

  He knew running was making him stand out. He might as well have been holding up a sign saying, ‘Here I am, the guilty one’. But still he ran. The bodyguard had got a good look at him. All he could see in his mind’s eye were the polished teeth of the man’s chainblade.

  Most people got out of his way. Nobody wanted a piece of this trouble. A few, tallymen and stock-men mostly, cried out and pointed, alerting his pursuers.

  There was a junction ahead. Straight on was the bustling main street, to the right a short drystone alley that led to a staircase down into the moot pens. He kept going straight. If he could get to the street, then he could reach the yard, reach the vehicle. They’d be waiting for him. With the engine running.

  Hands grabbed at him. Three filthy drovers had decided they weren’t just going to stand by and watch some outsider get away with breaking their most inviolable laws. Shouting out, they clawed at his coat. One had his left arm pinned.

  ‘Get off me!’ he wailed. One thumped him across the side of the head to shut him up. The drover had bone rings on his dirty fingers
and the hard edges stung and drew blood. Thonius could feel it dribbling down the side of his face.

  Carl Thonius hated physical combat. He didn’t look like much of a threat either. He appeared too fragile, too slight, especially compared to combat specialists like Nayl and Zeph Mathuin. Certainly, he saw himself more as a thinker, a tactician. He tended to leave what he called ‘the fisticuffs’ to his more brawny comrades. But, in truth, Carl Thonius was a trained Throne agent, an ordo interrogator. The fact that Harlon Nayl could kill him with a single cough obscured the fact that Thonius was still far, far more capable than the average man on the street. This street included, it was to be hoped.

  The drovers holding him were whip-thin and strong. The pursuing bodyguard could only be a few paces off now. Thonius was not physically powerful, but he fought with a canny combination of brains and vicious dexterity. He went limp, and his assailants relaxed slightly, assuming him to be submitting to their efforts.

  It was easy, therefore, to snap himself sideways, freeing his pinned arm. He back-kicked the drover behind him in the shins and jabbed his fingers into the eyes of the dynast breathing rancid halitosis in his face. The man screamed. Thonius danced away, ducked a flying fist from the third drover, and pirouetted neatly to kick him in the gut. Two were down – one doubled over and retching, the other on his knees, hands clamped over his injured eyes. The third came in, roaring hoarsely, slashing with an ivory dagger. Thonius dodged to the man’s right, caught his stabbing wrist with his left hand and broke the drover’s humerus against his right forearm with a scissoring block-and-yank.

  Some of the off-world traders in the immediate vicinity cheered. They didn’t care about the outcome. A decent street fight was an entertainment to be enjoyed.

  There was a revving sound, the noise of a chainblade kicking into life. In his high-buttoned black coat, the pursuing bodyguard stormed into view, his powered, ceremonial weapon whining as it swung and circled in expert hands.

  Thonius jumped backwards and the alarmed crowd retreated wide to avoid the oscillating chainblade. Thonius could hear the warlock-freak up in his basket, shaking his rattles fit to bust, screaming that the rogue was found.

  The bodyguard came in, blade shrilling. Thonius feinted left and then went right, pausing to rip the antlered headdress off one of the fallen drovers as he did so. As the bodyguard came round for a second try, hefting his cumbersome weapon, Thonius had the antlers held out before him with both hands, like the beast-tamers he’d seen in the circus, warding off big felids with the legs of a stool.

  The bodyguard chopped with his chainblade, and fifty centimetres of brittle antler tree sheared away in splinters. The force nearly tore the headdress out of Thonius’s hands. Another pass, and now both antlers were cut down. A drunken shipman in the circle of onlookers cheered and clapped, and the bodyguard glanced around with a murderous glare.

  Thonius took the opportunity as it was given. He lunged forward and stabbed the sawn-off antlers deep into the slaughterman’s neck.

  It was horrible and messy. Blood squirted out and drizzled the crowd, which backed away sharply with disgusted complaints. The slaughterman fell on his front, his limbs convulsing. He landed across his own tearing chainblade and a great deal more blood erupted into the air.

  All the rough good humour was gone now. No more clapping, no more cheering. This wasn’t bare-knuckle chop and punch. A man was dead.

  Thonius threw the dripping headdress aside. He started on towards the main street.

  But now there were three more slaughtermen running up towards him from that direction. One had a chainblade, another a butcher’s axe. The third was wielding a long, bronze-bladed drover lance.

  For a brief moment, Thonius considered reaching into his left hand coat pocket and pulling out his ordo rosette. He pictured himself holding it up and declaring: ‘By the order of the Imperial and Holy Inquisition, and by the authority of the Ordo Xenos Helican and Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor, I command you to desist and submit.’

  Would that stop a lance and an axe and a chainer? Would the sworn and blooded moot-kin of an august and almost deified slaughterbaron even recognise the authority?

  Thonius decided the answer was no. He had no desire to end his career with a raised rosette in one hand, a meaningless declaration on his oh so pretty lips and a bronze lance through his torso.

  So he reached into his right hand coat pocket instead. All bets were off now.

  Will Tallowhand, God-Emperor rest his soul, had given Carl Thonius the Hecuter 6 the day Thonius had achieved the rank of interrogator. Kara Swole had given him a not entirely unpleasant hug, and Norah Santjack had presented him with a silver charm showing Saint Kiodrus inspiring the hosts. Nayl had given him a pat on the arm and a few inspiring words, and Ravenor had given him a first edition of Solon’s writings.

  The book was on a shelf in his cabin aboard the Hinterlight. He still wore the charm. Nayl’s comradely pat and heroic words, and Kara’s hug, were cherished memories with zero practical application.

  On balance, right then, in that dusty side street, Tallowhand’s gift seemed the most lasting and provident.

  Will had warned him the Six had a beefy kick. Thonius knew it. He’d trained with the gun on the Hinterlight’s range, exhausting hundreds of clips for ten-zero groupings. This was the first time, in anger.

  The Hecuter 6 was a hand-made piece. The body and slide were brushed chrome, the grip satinized black rubber machined out to fit his hand. It formed an inverted ‘L’ shape because the grip housing, built to contain an eighteen round clip, was longer than the polished body. The safety-off was a steel rocker that the thumb depressed automatically when the weapon was gripped. When it discharged, white flame burped from the snout and the slide banged back and forth, flinging out the spent case with a chime like loose change. The buck-recoil wrenched his wrist. It was so frigging loud. Thonius realised that he’d only ever shot it with ear-protectors on.

  The crowd broke and fled. The slaughterman with the lance jerked back four or five metres, his face missing. The man with the chainblade did likewise, tumbling over on the cobbles. The axe man turned to flee. It was all too easy to put a round through the back of his head. Such force. Such monumental destroying force. The axe man spun over, his face hitting the paving first with a wet crunch.

  Thonius gasped, and raised the Hecuter to a ready/armed position. His wrist ached. His mind was racing. He heard someone growl a curse, and saw one of the retreating shipmen turn, wrenching an eight-shot heavy revolver from his ermine-edged coat.

  Yes, all bets were off.

  Thonius didn’t wait. He put a bullet through the shipman too.

  Kys, already running, jumped when she heard gunfire echo down the streetway. It was distant, muffled. A street away? Two? More? All around her, the moot crowd was breaking and scattering, fleeing the killing zone. Drovers and moot-men ran, panicking. Shipmen and off-world traders were more leisurely, returning to their vehicles, heading back to their ships on the commerce fields. Some had weapons drawn just in case, and the richest had their lifeguard cadres locked and loaded.

  The Tusk Verge moot was certainly suspended. There was evidently going to be hell to pay for the disruption.

  As she ran, against the tide, Kys could see the warlock in his balloon, heading towards the auction rings and the gates into the pens. She didn’t dare risk telepathy now.

  ‘Carl! In the name of the God-Emperor, Thonius! Where are you?’

  No response. She halted under the eaves of a barter-hall and self-tested her vox. It was live, all right.

  ‘Carl?’

  ‘Kys? You out there? I need a hand, I really do!’ Thonius called. He was running down the stinking stone stairs into the unlit pens. Above and behind him the street was alive with tumult and firebrands.

  He stopped for a moment in the shadow of a drystone wall and reached into his coat for his microbead, tracing the tiny plastek-sheathed wires from his earpiece to the compact set in hi
s pocket. The wires had been torn out, presumably when the drovers had manhandled him.

  His heart was still beating fast. He checked his weapon. The tiny LED display informed him he still had fourteen rounds left. And he had another clip in his hip pocket.

  The smell and the darkness had become alarming. There was no light down in the pen yards. Just stink. Massive, heavy bodies jostled in the stalls. He was splashing through pools of urine, tripping on raked-up rafts of straw, mud, shit.

  ‘I really frigging want to know the way out of here,’ he said.

  +Relax, Carl. It’ll be all right.+

  Thonius smiled as Ravenor’s voice floated into his head. He could feel the warm glow off his wraithbone pendant.

  A bobbling line of torches was making its way down into the pen yards in the dark. They were coming after him. Thonius could hear shouting voices, gunning chainblades.

  ‘Help?’ he said.

  +Ahead twenty paces.+

  ‘Right.’ He obeyed. It brought him up against a solid iron gate.

  +Open the gate.+

  ‘What?’

  +Open the gate, Carl.+

  ‘You expect me to go into a pen full of frigging tuskers?’

  +Sigh. Actually, they’re demi-pachydrems. Quite placid, despite their size.+

  ‘I know as a fact the average demi-pach on this scum-world weighs in at forty tonnes and has shovel-tusks the size of an ork’s bill-hook.’

  +Indeed. Carl, you asked for my help and I’m trying. As I sense it, there are sixty-eight of the baron’s slaughtermen coming down the pen track towards you, out for blood. I’m not even counting the angry drover-men with them, or the armed traders coming along for the bounty. I’ll pacify the demi-pachs. Just get across the yard.+

  Carl Thonius sighed and slid back the gate bolt. The sound of it made the herd inside sound and low. Huge hooves trampled forward.

  ‘I–’

  +Get the hell on with it, Carl.+

  Thonius pushed the hefty gate open and slid into the pen. He leaned the gate shut behind him. The demi-pachs were huge shadows in the chilly night. He could smell their weight, their dung. He could see their snorting breath fuming the cold air.