by Dan Abnett
‘Gonna fight?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
‘Good girl. Step out here.’
She came out.
The hunter keyed his vox-link. ‘This is Greyde. I’ve got her. Game’s done. Tell Loketter that my master Vevian will want his winnings in small bills, so he can pay me off nice and handsome.’
The hunter looked at Patience. ‘Why are you smiling?’
‘No reason.’
He settled his grip on the alien blade. ‘Sure you’re not thinking of trying something dumb? I’d hate that. It’d make me take a lot longer with you.’
‘I won’t fight,’ Patience said.
‘Good.’
‘Because Kara told me I didn’t have to any more.’
‘Who? Who’s Kara?’
‘The girl who told me her friend was coming. She told me to have patience, because patience is a virtue.’
The hunter, Greyde, looked around edgily. ‘No one here but us, girl. No sign of any friend of yours.’
Patience shrugged. ‘He’s coming.’
A wind picked up, stirring the dust and the grit around them, billowing the filth up in swirling clouds. Like an exhalation from the sumps of the towering city.
Except it wasn’t.
Larger pieces of trash lifted and fluttered through the air. Pebbles rolled on the ground. It was like a hurricane was gathering over the slums.
No hurricane.
Alarmed, Greyde grabbed the girl, viced her neck with one powerful arm, and raised the harn blade to deliver the kill-stab.
+Kuming Greyde. I know you. I know everything about you. I know the nine counts of murder that you are wanted for, and the fifty-seven other killings you have on your clammy soul. I know you killed your own father. I know you understand only hard cash and killing.+
‘What? What?’ the hunter wailed in terror as the tempest of wind engulfed him and his prey.
+I don’t carry cash. No pockets. I guess it’s going to be killing then.+
I turned on my chairs stablights, so I became visible as I ploughed in through the tumult of dirt and dust. The hunter screamed, but the dust choked him. Gagging, he threw Patience aside, and drew his Etva III plasma cannon, a pistol-sized weapon more than capable of burning clean through my armoured chair.
Staggering, half-blinded, he aimed it at me.
With a simple tap of my mind, I fired my chair’s psi-cannon. The hunter’s corpse slammed back through the wall of the pumping station. Even before it had hit the wall, every bone in that body had been pulped by concussive force, every organ exploded.
The wind dropped. Grit pattered off the sealed body of my chair.
+Patience?+
She got up. I wasn’t using Kara Swole’s voice any more.
+Are you all right?+
She nodded. She was singularly beautiful, despite the dirt caking her and the tears in her clothing. Tall, slender, black-haired, her eyes a piercing green.
‘Are you Kara’s friend?’ she asked.
+Yes.+
‘Are you Gideon?’
+Yes.+
She stepped forward, and placed her right hand flat on the warm canopy of my support chair. ‘Good. You don’t look anything like I imagined.’
XX
‘SO, WE’RE DEAD? Yeah, of course we are.’ Frauka said softly.
‘You’d be dead already,’ replied DaRolle. ‘I just wanted to find out which bastard was running you. Who is it? Finxster? Rotash? That’d be right. Rotash always wants a slice of the boss’s game-play.’
‘Neither, actually,’ Frauka smiled.
‘Frauka…’ Carl began, terrified. He’d backed away as far as the gig’s scan-console would allow, and even then knew there was no hope. This killer had them both cold. Carl wondered where he’d left his weapon. The answer – ‘in the cabin lockers’ – did not cheer him up.
‘Who, then?’
‘You won’t know him. His name’s Ravenor.’
DaRolle sniffed. ‘Never heard of the frig.’
‘Untouchable?’ Frauka asked, casually indicating the limiter around DaRolle’s throat.
‘Uh huh. You too?’
Frauka smiled. ‘Made that way, so help me. Still, the pay’s decent. Always someone who needs a good blunter, right?’
‘I hear that.’ DaRolle grinned.
‘Oh well.’ Frauka sighed. ‘Do me a favour, okay? Make it clean and quick. Back of the head, no warning.’
‘Sure.’
‘I mean, one blunter doing a favour for another? We gotta stick together, right, even if we are working for rival crews?’
‘No problem.’ said DaRolle.
‘Okay.’ Frauka said, and turned his back. ‘Any time you like.’
DaRolle aimed his pistol again.
‘I don’t suppose…’ Frauka began. Then he shook his head. ‘No, I’m taking the piss now.’
‘What?’ asked DaRolle.
‘Yeah, what?’ Carl squeaked in frozen terror.
‘One last stick? For a condemned man?’
DaRolle shrugged. ‘Go on.’
Frauka took out his lack, set a lho-stick to his lips and lit it with his igniter. He breathed in the smoke and smiled. ‘Oh, tastes good. Real mellow. Want one?’
‘No.’ said DaRolle.
‘Real smooth.’ said Frauka, inhaling a long drag. ‘These things’ll kill you, you know.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about that.’ DaRolle smiled.
‘I don’t frigging believe this!’ Carl whined.
‘Hey.’ said Frauka, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Why don’t you do him now while I’m smoking this baby? Save time. I never did like him.’
‘Oh Throne!’ Carl cried out and fell into a foetal position under the console.
‘Frig, what a baby!’ DaRolle laughed.
‘Tell me about it.’ Frauka said. He stubbed out his smoke. ‘Okay, ready.’ He held up the squashed butt. ‘Know what that was, my friend?’
‘Don’t tell me.’ smirked DaRolle. ‘Best smoke of your life?’
‘No.’ said Frauka quietly. ‘It was delaying tactics.’
DaRolle swung round. The hulking shape of Harlon Nayl filled the hatch behind him. Nayl’s Hecuter 10 boomed once.
‘Everyone alive?’ Nayl asked, stepping in over the twisted body of the ginger-haired man.
‘Saw you approaching on the scanners.’ Frauka said. ‘Thought I’d keep him talking.’
Carl Thonius got to his feet, shivering with anger and fright. ‘You’re unbelievable, Frauka.’ he hissed.
‘Thank you, Carl.’ Frauka smiled, and sat down with his book again. ‘See? Now you’re team building too.’
XXI
I LED THE GIRL back to the gig, where the others were waiting.
‘Hello, Patience, I’m Kara.’ Kara said.
‘Good to know you,’ Patience replied.
By the time we raided Loketter’s manse, backed up by a full squad of magistratum troopers, the narcobaron and his cronies had cleared out. There are warrants out for all of them. I understand Loketter is still on the run.
We returned to the Kindred Youth Scholam, and resumed the interrogations. It took several weeks, but by the end of it, I’d wrung some precious facts out of Cyrus and his staff.
There wasn’t much. No, that’s a lie. There was enough to ensure that Cyrus would face further interrogation at the Inquisition facility on Thracian Primaris, and enough to make sure the scholam’s tutors and rigorists would remain incarcerated in the penitentiaries of Urbitane for the rest of their natural lives.
And a lead. Not much, but a start. From Cyrus, just before his mind finally snapped, I learned that Molotch was heading for the outworlds. Sleef, perhaps. Maybe even deeper than that. I instructed Nayl and Kara to provision for what could be a long, dangerous pursuit.
The day before we were due to leave Sameter, I met with Carl in one of the scholam’s old, faded classrooms. Most of the staff had been shipped out by then, in magistra
tum custody.
‘Did you trace what I wanted?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘It’s very little. With the records wiped—’
‘What have you got?’
‘Pupils Prudence and Providence were sold to a free trader who called himself Vinquies. The name was false, of course. No other records remain, and the name doesn’t match any excise log I can get from Sameter Out Traffic.’
‘The man himself?’
‘There was a picture in Cyrus’s mind, and in the minds of several of the other tutors present at the supper, but they’re not reliable. I’ve fed them through both the local magistratum files and the officio itself. Nothing.’
‘So… so, they’re lost?’
Carl nodded sadly. ‘I suppose, if we dedicated the rest of our careers to trying to find them, we might turn up some clue. But in all reality, they’re long gone.’
‘I’ll tell her.’ I said, and slid out of the room.
Patience was in the oubliette. By choice. The hatch was open. She sat inside, in the semi-dark, sliding her hands over the stones. She was still wearing her torn and filthy uniform. She’d refused to take it off.
‘Patience?’
She stared out at me. ‘You can’t find them, can you?’
I thought for a moment, and decided it was better to lie. Better a lie now than a lifetime of hopeless yearning.
‘Yes, Patience, I found them.’
‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’
‘Yes.’
She coiled up, and I felt her hold onto that small black nugget in her mind again.
+Patience.+
‘Yes, Gideon?’
+I’m sorry. I truly am. We have to leave soon. I’d like you to come with us.+
‘With you? Why?’
+I’ll be honest. I can’t leave you here. You know about your gift? What it means?+
‘Yes.’
+You’re a psyker. A telekine. You can’t be allowed to remain in public. But I can look after you. I can train you. You could come to serve the God-Emperor of Mankind at my side. Would you like that?+
‘Better than an apprenticeship to a mill.’ she said. ‘Will Kara be there?’
+Yes, Patience.+
‘All right then.’ she said, and stepped out of the oubliette to join me.
+If you follow me, it will be hard at times. I will demand a lot of you. I will need to know everything about you. What do you think to that?+
‘That’s fine, Gideon.’
+I’ll be asking you questions, probing you, training your gift, unwrapping who you are.+
‘I understand.’
+Do you? Here’s a test question, the sort of thing I’ll be asking you. What was it that you held on to? When the hunters were closing. I felt it as a dark secret part of you, something you wouldn’t let go.+
‘It was my name, Gideon.’ she said. ‘My true name, my real name. It was always the single thing my mother gave me that I didn’t ever give away to the bastards in this place.’
+I see. That makes sense. Good, thank you for being so honest.+
+Gideon, do you want me to tell you my real name? I will, if you want.+
‘No.’ I said. ‘No, not now, not ever. I want you to hold onto it. It’s your secret. Keep it safe and it will keep you sane. It’ll remind you what you’ve come through. Promise me you’ll keep it safe.’
+I will.+
‘Patience is a fine name. I’ll call you that.’
‘All right.’ she replied, and started to walk down the hallway at my side.
‘I’ll need a surname, though.’ she said at length.
‘Choose one.’ I replied.
She looked down at the monogram embroidered on her ragged scholam-issue clothes.
‘Kys?’ she suggested. ‘I’ll be Patience Kys.’
RAVENOR ROGUE
‘To have faith is to have purpose, and purpose in life is what defines a man, and makes him steadfast and resolute. Faith keeps him true and, even in the darkest hours, illuminates him like a candle flame. Faith guides him surely, from birth to the grave. It shows him the path, and prevents him from straying into the lightless thickets where insanity awaits. To lose faith is to lose purpose, and to be bereft of guidance. For a man without faith will no longer be true, and a mind without purpose will walk in dark places.’
— The Spheres of Longing, II. ix. 31.
‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’
— Ancient human adage.
THEN
Sleef Outworld, 336.M41
IT WAS ALL over. Ordion’s scheme was in tatters. All that mattered now was survival.
‘Don’t make me kill you,’ the bounty hunter ordered. He was standing ten metres away and had a gun aimed at Zygmunt Molotch’s face. The bounty hunter was formidably large and shaven-headed. His powerful body was packed into a matt-black bodyglove. He had been sent to watch the back steps into the upper vents.
‘Oh, please! Don’t!’ Molotch cried, and sank to his knees in the sulphurous dust. Loki, he decided instantly. That was the man’s accent. Loki, the freeze-world. That meant tough, no quarter. Best of the best.
No surprise that their opponent would employ the best of the best.
Keeping the big handgun aimed at Molotch’s head, the bounty hunter came forward. Molotch could hear his approaching footsteps crunching the sand. That’s it, close the distance. Ten metres is no use to me. Arm’s length will make us equal, gun or no gun.
‘Identify yourself,’ the bounty hunter commanded.
‘My name is Satis,’ Molotch replied. He dropped his voice a tone and a half, and affected the nasal twang of southshore Sameter. ‘I’m a flier, just a flier, sir!’ He whimpered slightly, for effect, trusting that the Fliers’ Guild jacket he had dragged off a corpse five minutes earlier would back up his story.
‘Are you armed?’
‘No, sir, indeed I am not!’
The edge of the bounty hunter’s shadow fell across him, cast by the lurid flames spewing up out of the vents. One step closer, just another step.
‘Nayl?’ a voice called out; a woman’s voice, thickly accented.
Molotch tensed. Peering up, he saw a second person approaching. Saw her feet, anyway. Leather armour, tight-lashed. A particular loop-in-loop detailing to the hide work decoration. That and the accent added together to make a Carthaen swordswoman. Best of the best, once again.
‘Just kill him,’ said the woman.
‘Wait,’ replied the bounty hunter. Molotch heard him adjust his vox-link. ‘Iron wishes Thorn, by heartbeat, dark after dusk. Petals scattered, abundant. Teal sky. Closed shells, whispering dogs adjacent. Pattern delta?’
‘Query adjacent dogs. The centre of the ripple, spreading.’
‘A thaw. Idiot mouths,’ the bounty hunter replied. ‘Pattern delta?’ he asked again.
‘Pattern denied. Pattern silver.’
Some informal code. It was fascinating to hear. Molotch divined the principles quickly. He’d always had a talent for languages. His opponent was instructing the bounty hunter to keep Molotch alive, pending interview. The bounty hunter – Nayl, it seemed his name was – was leaning towards Molotch’s claim to be just a hapless accomplice to the day’s events.
‘Pattern confirmed.’
‘Look at me.’ the woman said. Molotch eagerly wanted to, but he was in character, and his character was timid and scared. He kept his head bowed and mewed a sob.
The bounty hunter hoisted Molotch back onto his feet. His grip was astonishingly strong. Molotch found himself facing the bounty hunter – Nayl – and the swordswoman. She was typical of her breed: taller than most grown men, almost Astartes height, but slender, her hair tight braided, her body cased in leather armour, a tasselled cloak flapping out like wings in the wind. Every centimetre of her tight armour and her cloak was ritually decorated with scrollwork, knotting and bronze studs.
She was the most beautiful thing Molotch had ever seen, and he instantly decided
he had to kill her.
She had a sword in her hands, clenched firmly as if it was feather light and about to fly away on the mountain wind. It was a sabre of extraordinary length, two-thirds as tall as she was. The blue cast of the metal told Molotch it had been folded eighteen or nineteen times, which was typical of ancient Carthaen metalwork, and indicated it was a masterpiece weapon, a priceless antique and, very likely, a psychic blade. The oldest Carthaen steels all were. That meant the woman and the sword were united in sentience. Yes, he could see it quiver ever so slightly in time with her breathing.
‘You are a flier?’ she asked, staring down at him.
Molotch made sure the fear remained in his eyes, even though all that was really there was desire. He was captivated. She was extraordinary, a goddess. He wanted to possess her. He wanted to hear her cry out his name in that delicious outworld accent as she died.
‘I am a flier, indeed,’ he replied. Tone and accent. Tone and accent.
‘You were hired?’
‘Just for conveyance. It was a legal contract of hire.’
‘Leave him alone.’ the bounty hunter said. ‘There’ll be time for that later.’ He was studying the vents above them, watching the glow of the plasma fires light up the sky.
The woman’s brow furrowed. ‘Barbarisater thirsts.’ she said. ‘He is not what he seems.’
She was good. She’d seen something, or the sword had smelled something. He longed to know what it was, so he could correct it next time. Accent? Body language? It wasn’t the time to ask. The bounty hunter was turning back to face him. Molotch knew he was about to be afforded a one or possibly two-second window of opportunity, and that was all, and if he missed it, he would be dead. He had to swerve the initiative, quickly.
‘Who are you?’ he asked suddenly. The bounty hunter blinked in surprise.
‘I need to know who you are,’ Molotch said, more urgently.
‘Shut it!’Nayl said.
‘I just don’t know what’s going on,’ Molotch whined.
‘Better you don’t,’ Nayl replied and glanced at the woman. ‘Cover him while I search him for weapons, Arianhrod.’
Arianhrod. Nayl. Now he had both their names.