Marks of Chaos

by James Wallis

  The duke said slowly, “Murdered?”

  “Sacrificed, sir. Their bodies lie in a small wood some three miles distant. One of my men is standing watch over them.” He thought briefly of Schulze, wounded and on duty. There was a silence. Hoche felt the atmosphere of the room change, grow heavy, its pressure bearing down on him. He said: “I have evidence that the murderers are knights in this army.”

  Nobody spoke. The duke pressed his thumb against the spot between his eyes, rubbing it. Then he gestured to Bohr and the servant, and they left without a word. The duke sat in the leather-backed chair on the far side of the table and pointed at another that stood against the tent wall. Hoche pulled it into the centre of the room to sit before his commander.

  “You were right to come to me at once,” the duke said. “Start at the beginning and don’t leave anything out.”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later the duke drained his second goblet of wine and pushed his chair back from the table. “By Sigmar, I hope you’re wrong.” he said. “Knights Panther! This could upset a lot of things all the way to Altdorf.”

  “How do we proceed?” asked Hoche. “There’ll have to be a full investigation.”

  The duke looked thoughtful. “First thing, get the priest out to the old farmhouse, see what he can tell us. Probably worth taking the battle-wizard too; you never know.”

  “What about the Knights Panther?”

  “We do nothing. Only six of them are implicated, and we have no idea who. We can’t arrest all of them. They’re an elite regiment, personal favourites of the Emperor. Their generals have powerful connections. For the moment, till we know more, we can’t let them know that they’re suspected. And it’s possible that they’re not involved at all; the riders may have been hunting, stopped at the farm, and their tracks became muddled with those of the real cultists.”

  He’s already trying to cover for them, thought Hoche. He doesn’t want to believe that one of the Empire’s great regiments could be involved in such a thing. “The guards on the gate may be able to identify the riders,” he said out loud. “The groom at the stable too, he knew for sure who they were.”

  The duke stood. “Then we should find these people and question them,” he said. “Obviously we have to treat this with utter discretion. Only those who have to know about it should be told. We’ll need someone to lead the investigation here until we can summon some witch hunters, and I—what on earth…?”

  A faint vibration trembled from the ground beneath their feet. From outside the tent there was the sound of thundering hoof-beats, of many heavy horses galloping through the camp. It sounded like a stampede, or a cavalry charge. Shouts and cries followed them, the clash of steel, and then the crack of a flintlock pistol being discharged.

  Hoche turned, focusing, following the source of the sound. The horses were heading away—from the stables, he guessed, racing down the hill and towards the main gate.

  Beside him, the duke had stood and was pulling on a velvet jerkin. “I have a notion this may be connected to your discovery,” he said. “Come with me.”

  Hoche followed as the older man pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the outer chamber of the tent. Bohr was seated there, still reading the same parchment. “Bohr, go to the captain of the Templars. Tell him to put the Knights Panther under close arrest, on my authority, and bring Sir Valentin to me at once. Then find the high priest and bring him here.”

  “This hour, sir?” said Bohr.

  “At once. Though I fear we are already too late.”

  The camp was in uproar. Fires blazed as burning tents, dry from the summer’s heat, threw flames at the sky. Further down the camp, rows of tents lay flattened, their guy-ropes severed. Men lay slashed, bleeding, their limbs broken or severed, their fellow soldiers bandaging their wounds and pouring brandy into their mouths. Beyond the gate and down the road, thirty horsemen galloped away into the distance, the banner of the Knights Panther waving proudly above them. Sunlight glinted off their bright armour. Nobody was giving chase. There had been no time to react.

  There was a sense of shock and silence.

  “One thing you have to say for the Panthers,” said the duke, “they’re highly effective soldiers. No other regiment could have done so much damage in so little time.”

  “We should be following them,” Hoche said.

  The duke snorted. “They set light to the stables. I’ll wager they cut the other horses’ throats too, as well as that groom. Destroy evidence, prevent pursuit and spill blood for their god. Damnably effective soldiers.”

  Hoche nodded, unsure how to answer.

  They walked through the camp, surveying the damage. At the stables, where the canvas walls still blazed and the air was filled with the smell of fresh-roasted horseflesh, the groom he had spoken to the night before lay in a water-trough half-filled with his own blood, his neck opened to the bone, his teeth bared in a red grimace.

  They spoke with the wounded, hearing how the Knights had charged through the camp, slashing wildly from their saddles at anything in their way. The Reiklanders on the gate were dead, cut down as the Knights galloped out. Hoche wondered if they had tried to use their pikes properly, or if they had even had a chance to turn the unwieldy twelve-foot weapons as they realised that this time the threat came from inside, not outside the camp.

  He cursed himself for not being more attentive, more suspicious. Had he been followed back from the ruined farm? Had someone been watching the gate, ready to tip off the Knights that they had been discovered? Or had someone been listening outside the general’s tent, by chance or on purpose? Still, if he was leading the coming investigation there would be plenty of time to track down witnesses, trace everyone’s movements, put together a picture of exactly what had happened.

  Outside the burning remains of the Knights Panther quarters, the captain of the Templars and his men were holding the remaining Knights, their wrists in chains. Sir Valentin, their leader, was not among them. Hoche counted them: nineteen. He’d guessed at thirty riders. That left eleven still around the camp, or dead in the burning ruins of the order’s tents.

  The Knights seemed subdued, oddly quiet. There was none of the protesting and arguing that Hoche had expected. It was as if they accepted their guilt: their comrades’ traitorous actions had brought shame on them all, their regiment and everything it stood for. Half their number had proved to be worse than enemies.

  A blond man with his head bowed was led out, his wrists chained. It was the young knight he had seen that morning, who had almost ridden him down. What a change there was in his face; from arrogant pride to a humbled prisoner. Then he looked up, directly at Hoche, and his expression twisted for a moment before blanking, expression neutral, eyes straight ahead.

  I’ve changed too, Hoche thought, and he knows why. Everything’s changed. It’s too late to try to pull away; I must see this through, wherever it leads.

  Beside him, Bohr said something to the duke in a low voice, and pointed off into the distance. The duke turned to look. “Is that the wood you talked about?” he said, nodding in the direction of Bohr’s finger. Across the valley, a column of grey smoke was rising lazily into the still morning sky. There was a flicker of fire among the trees. Hoche stared at it, feeling a rising horror. Deliberately, he forced the muscles of his face to relax, to show nothing, like the blond knight.

  “The Knights must be destroying the evidence there too,” Hoche said. “The sacrifices and everything that could connect them.” With cold certainty he knew that they would have killed Schulze too. His orderly and friend was dead, and it was his order that had condemned him.

  They had killed all the witnesses now—except one, he thought, and wondered when they would come for him.

  It was noon. Seven men were gathered in Duke Heller’s quarters, seated around the large table. The duke was at its head with Johannes Bohr at his right hand, taking notes. To left and right were his chief officers and advisors. Hoche stood at the
end of the table and felt thirsty. Outside, the day was hot and dry. The Knights Panthers’s quarters had burnt to the ground, and men doused the hot ashes with water, seeing what had survived the flames and trying to identify the dead. On the horizon, the wood still burned.

  “There’s no solid evidence,” said Lord Hanft, leader of the Knights Templar. His loose jowls, shaggy facial hair and dogmatic way of thinking reminded Hoche of a wolfhound. “Anything that was in the Panthers’ quarters was either taken with them or destroyed in the fire, as was their place of worship. Anyone who saw them last night has been killed. Obviously we can work out a list of those who fled. But beyond that, and Lieutenant Hoche’s testimony, we have no proof that these men were involved in things of… er…”

  “Chaos,” said Duke Heller. “One of the most prestigious regiments in the Empire’s forces, making sacrifices to a Chaos cult. I didn’t want to believe it when I heard the evidence, but their flight has proved their guilt. And Sir Valentin gone as well. It beggars the soul.”

  Father Reikhart, the regimental priest of Sigmar, raised a hand. “I have a suggestion,” he said. “Nobody outside this room knows about the evidence we’ve heard, not even the other Knights Panther. There are stories flying around the camp but, as Lord Hanft says, no proof.

  “Now: think of the impact on the morale of the army—not just this camp but all the Empire’s forces—if word spreads that certain members of an elite regiment with a noble and holy history can fall victim to the temptations of the force it has sworn to oppose. It would be devastating. It would signal that even our strongest can be destroyed from within. Our defenders would lose hope; our foes gain succour.”

  Hoche felt his skin flushing red, unexpected sweat pricking at his brow. “What are you saying?” he demanded, a rising note of anger in his voice. The priest turned to look at him.

  “I am saying that we should do nothing,” he said. “A plausible cover-story, a request for reinforcements, doubling the sentries in case they should come back, but nothing more.”

  “But—” Hoche struggled to find words to express his anger. He could not believe he was hearing such things from a priest of Sigmar. “It’s Chaos! You can’t tell us to ignore it!”

  “He’s not asking us to ignore it, lieutenant,” the duke said. “He’s asking us to not mention it to those who need not know. Reports will be sent to the relevant authorities in Altdorf. There will be an investigation, but it will be a quiet one. We will remain vigilant. Part of the power of Chaos is its ability to instil fear. If we tell everyone, then we have given it a victory, and we cannot do that.

  “You understand? Good. Any further questions? No? Then I suggest that we tell the men that the Panthers’ cook accidentally added a poisonous mushroom to last night’s stew, creating madness and blood-frenzy in those who ate it. They are beyond our help now. The remaining Panthers either did not eat the stew or are immune to the mushroom’s effects, and can therefore be freed. Thank you for your time, gentlemen.” He stood, and the others began to stand too.

  “Wait,” said Hoche. “There are things I’d like to know.”

  “There are things we would all like to know,” the duke said, looking at him. “That’s why there will be an investigation. If you have any questions then ask my aide-de-camp, who is leading it.” Across the table Bohr smiled like a fox, with too many teeth to be friendly. It was an expression of superiority, and what felt to Hoche like hostility too.

  He and Bohr were the last to leave the meeting-table, and they entered the outer chamber of the duke’s tent together.

  “What were your questions?” Bohr asked.

  “The duke answered one of them.” Hoche paused and looked away. He didn’t trust this smooth man, but right now there were few people he did trust.

  “The duke is a shrewd judge of men’s thoughts,” Bohr said.

  “Yes,” Hoche thought, that’s why he didn’t notice half of his elite cavalry were making sacrifices to the Blood God. His estimation of the duke dropped a little, of Bohr even further. “So you lead the investigation?”

  “Yes.” Bohr said, as if expecting another question. Then: “Oh. Were you hoping for the post? A promotion?”

  Hoche said nothing, but his expression betrayed him. Bohr gave a polite laugh. “Karl—I may call you Karl?—I apologise. You are a soldier of rare ability, but your ways are too blunt. An enquiry of this kind needs people who are diplomats as well as soldiers, familiar with military and Imperial protocol, who can ask questions so sharp that the answerer doesn’t realise how far under his skin they are, and who can persuade someone to give up a secret or break an oath without thinking about it. With all respect, you don’t yet have those skills.” There was a tone in his voice that some people would have called smug, and Hoche was one of them.

  Bohr looked down at his table and began to sort through a pile of sealed papers. “Besides,” he said, “you have your own role to play.”

  “I won’t be part of a cover-up,” Hoche said.

  Bohr smiled the fox-smile again. “Quite the opposite, Karl. We want you to help the investigation. You’re to take the news to Altdorf.”

  Hoche was taken by surprise. It was all he could do to say, “What?”

  “Word of what happened needs to reach the authorities as soon as possible. You saw it, they’ll want to hear it from your lips. I’ll give you letters of introduction to the Knights Panther, the High Priest of the witch hunters at the Cathedral of Sigmar, and the head of the Untersuchung. I suggest you visit them in that order.”

  Hoche shook his head. “What is the Untersuchung? I’ve never heard of them.”

  Bohr looked him in the eye, and the look was cold and long. “Count yourself lucky. The Untersuchung are conspiracy-hunters. They investigate cults and networks of subversive, illegal, treasonous and blasphemous activity, mostly in the army and the Imperial court, but their cloak is spread wide. They specialise in dealing with Chaos and magic. They’re part of the Reiksguard but they keep a low profile.”

  “Isn’t that the witch hunters’ job?”

  “The Untersuchung is more structured than the witch hunters. Much more structured.” Bohr sat in his chair at the table, took out his quill knife, selected a goose feather from a pot, and began sharpening it to a point. “If a witch hunter sees a hornet, he kills it. The Untersuchung follow it back to its nest and burn them all. Their investigations can take years. Decades sometimes.”

  “You sound like you know them well.”

  “I’ve…” Bohr paused. “I’ve had dealings with them.”

  Hoche sat in silence, digesting what he had heard. Altdorf. The Untersuchung. Perhaps a chance to go home, to see Marie and his family. It had been a long, hard summer. A week of rest would be welcome. Something else itched at his mind. The only sound in the room was the scraping of Bohr’s knife.

  “I’ll go,” he said.

  “Good,” said Bohr without looking up. “As this is an order from the duke, you’d be court-martialed if you didn’t. Go via the barracks in Nuln, get them to send us more horses.”

  “You’ll look after my men?” Hoche said.

  “Of course.”

  “You’ll recover Schulze’s body from the woods and see that he gets a proper burial.”

  “Assuming he’s dead.”

  “It’s a fair assumption.”

  There was a pause.

  “What I don’t understand,” Hoche said, “is why half the Knights Panther fled, if only six of them were involved in the sacrifice last night.”

  Bohr dipped the quill in ink, and bent over a sheet of parchment to write. “Either there were more cultists in the regiment, or some decided it would be better to be with their valiant comrades than part of a shamed regiment.”

  “That’s not what I meant. If thirty of the Panthers were Khorne worshippers, why did only six of them ride out last night?”

  Bohr looked up from his writing. “That’s one reason why there will be an investigation.”
>
  Hoche looked down at him. “Who tipped off the Panthers this morning?” he demanded.

  “I intend to find out. Karl, the most useful place for you is in Altdorf. Come back in an hour, I will have the letters ready for you, and you can ride with the Imperial messenger. When you return we have great things planned for you. An important role. But until then, we both have much to do.”

  Hoche stood and headed for the door. As he reached it, he looked back. Bohr was still crouched over his writing, the tip of the quill moving slowly as it described each ornate black letter.

  “No cover-up,” Hoche said.

  “On the honour of my name,” said Bohr without looking up. Hoche turned and headed out into the bright world beyond the tent, leaving him in the cool darkness.

  His tent felt empty of a familiar presence. The spilled kvas glass still lay on the floor, blurring the ink on some of the playing cards. Normally Schulze would have cleared it up, but the chances Schulze were still alive were nil. Hoche felt the death of any of his men, but Schulze had been a particular friend. He would light a candle for him in the soldiers’ chapel in Altdorf, he decided. He sighed and began to pack the kit he would need for the trip, and the formal uniform he would wear in Altdorf.

  Someone knocked on the tent-pole closest to the door and coughed. Hoche recognised the sound. “Come in, Sergeant Braun,” he said.

  A stocky man walked in and saluted, then used the same hand to wipe the floppy hair from his brow. “We heard the news, sir. Is it true that you’re bound for Altdorf?”

  “It’s true, but I’m not staying there long. I have some reports I need to make. I’ll be back before the campaign breaks for the year. This isn’t a promotion.”

  “That’s good,” said Braun. “Good it is. We were feared you’d become a stuffed shirt with ideas above us.”

  Hoche laughed. “Braun, I’m not done leading you and the men to famous victories yet.” He thought a second, holding a jerkin. “I want you to keep your eyes open while I’m gone. Anything suspicious, anything that feels not right, make a note of it and tell me when I’m back.”