Marks of Chaos

by James Wallis

  Hoche said nothing.

  “Would you like some water before we restart?”

  Hoche said nothing.

  Gamow sighed. “You’re going to be a tough nut to crack, aren’t you?”

  Hoche said nothing. Abruptly he felt fingers pulling his eyelids apart, forcing him to look upwards. Gamow’s face leered down at him from inches away.

  “You will crack,” he said. “I will get answers, if I have to flay every inch of skin from your body, reduce your muscles to shreds, and hollow the marrow from your living bones to do it. And I will do those things. I have done them before, many times. I will get my answers.”

  Gamow stood up, picked up a knife from the table and began to cut away the stained and soiled merchant’s clothes that Hoche still wore, piece by piece, dropping the scraps to the floor. “You may ask yourself how it is that a man of the cloth like myself can do such vile things. There are many reasons. Because I know that what I do is in the service of Sigmar. Because giving pain to the enemies of the Empire gives me pleasure. And if I am honest, because I enjoy it. I enjoy the control. I enjoy the mastery. I enjoy the practical application of the science of pain. And I enjoy seeing the blood. In particular, I will enjoy seeing your blood.” He licked his lips.

  Hoche said nothing. Gamow cut away the last of his shirt, leaving him bare-chested and goose-fleshed in the cold air of the torture room. He began to slice at the bandage around Hoche’s neck.

  “You still think you can hold out,” he said. “You think you’re in control of your body and your mind. But you’re wrong.”

  The bandage came away in his hands and he stared down. As far as Hoche could tell, he was looking at the scarred-over wound on his neck. His face showed an expression of surprise, giving way to pleasure.

  “Oh yes, you’re wrong,” he said quietly. “Lieutenant Hoche, you are full of little surprises.” He reached out a finger and caressed the scar. Hoche could feel the gentle stroke of his fingertip as it ran over its odd contours. “The next few weeks will be interesting for both of us,” Gamow said, “but for now, this discussion is over.” He took a couple of steps down the table and rammed something hard into the ruined flesh of Hoche’s right foot. Every nerve screamed in sudden agony and Hoche blacked out.

  He came round in pain. He was lying in darkness once more. The air was cold on his bare skin. His feet were unbearable.

  Gingerly he felt his surroundings, both relieved and despairing that his hands recognised the familiar outlines of his cell. On the bed was a pile of clothes, cheaply made but thick, and next to them a wooden platter with some bread, a slice of some unidentifiable meat and an apple on it.

  Slowly he sat up and began to pull on the clothes, moving gently so not to jar or sway his feet lest the pain increase. Someone had bandaged them, and his neck too, but he was too afraid to feel below his knees to see what awful damage had been done there, or find how much of him was missing. Dressing took a long time. Then he lay down and ate the food. The bread had a strange gritty texture and the meat was chewy and bland, but it felt like a banquet. Then, as he pushed away the wooden platter, he realised it was coated with wax. There were more words scratched on it.

  So they had brought food after all.

  He traced the words with his fingers. THERE IS HOPE. RESIST THE QUESTIONS AND YOU WILL BE HELPED.

  More useless platitudes. He dropped it to the floor, tried to find a position where his feet hurt the least, and began to think.

  So the Untersuchung had placed an agent in the witch hunters, and somehow he had escaped the purges. That might explain who had been leaving the messages for him. One of the guards, perhaps.

  And for some reason the witch hunters wanted to know about Andreas Reisefertig. No matter how he worried at it, Hoche could not untangle that one. Why were they interested in a renegade Untersuchung agent who had disappeared eighteen months ago? Certainly he was a heretic by association, and the evidence from Marienburg suggested he was involved in something, but it didn’t seem important enough for torture. He had already told them all he knew of Reisefertig; there was nothing more to say.

  It had to be another of Gamow’s mind-games. The witch hunter would refuse to believe that he knew nothing else, so that he would be more likely to tell anything he knew about the deep-cover agent, to appease his torturer and make the pain stop.

  He didn’t know if that was right, but it fitted what he knew of Gamow and his deceitful ways.

  And Pronk was dead.

  Hoche lay in the silence and recited the traditional blessings for the dead. They were the prayers he had learned in the army, to be said over the bodies of the Empire’s soldiers. Pronk had been a civilian and a citizen of the Wasteland, but Hoche was sure the little man wouldn’t mind.

  Every time he heard the yells heralding a visit from guards or the food-cart he lay in dread, waiting for them to carry him back to the torture-room and Gamow, that voice with its cloak of civility hiding the brutality below. But each time the footsteps passed his cell, and after a while he learned to count the passage of days by the rumbling passing of the food-cart, and tried not to number them.

  They were feeding him now, lumps of the gritty bread and coarse meat, undercooked. Starvation rations, and yet he did not feel unfit or unhealthy. His feet pained him less every day, though he couldn’t walk on them. His beard grew. From time to time the scar on his neck ached or gave him strange pains, and he would press on it through the bandage, and eventually it would cease.

  His waking hours were spent in daydreams of Grünburg, the friends of his childhood and the faces of his family. His sleeping dreams were darker and more troubled, fighting endless battles against faceless warriors, the darkness lit by the glare of red flames, and broken by the sound of a strange ululating voice that he knew he had never heard before, and yet which he recognised.

  “New man! New man!” came the cry. From where Hoche lay it had a strange echo, as if a man was speaking and his words were copied an instant later by the shrill voice of a child. Was he still the new man? It felt like he had been living in the darkness forever, but nobody else was answering. “What do you want?” he called back from his bed.

  “Are you eating the food, new man?”

  “If I did not eat it, I would have starved weeks ago,” Hoche shouted, hearing his voice reverberate down the corridor.

  “Then you are a new man in truth.”

  “What do you mean?” Hoche shouted. There was no sound for a moment until the voice came again, the strange under-notes of the child’s piping adding an eerie counterpoint.

  “Have you received a gift from the gods?”

  “No gifts, no blessings, no solace,” Hoche called. “The gods have forgotten us here, buried so far under their temples.”

  “Maybe we speak of different gods, new man,” the voice said, and Hoche felt a chill run down his spine. He did not answer.

  The food-cart had come and gone twice more. Hoche lay in half-sleep, remembering his early days in the army, the unaccustomed strain of order, discipline and responsibility, how he had grown used to them, and good at them.

  Something pulled him to alertness. There was a movement in his room. Something almost silent, but not so quiet that it did not gently scuff against the grit on the floor and move the still, damp air. Something about the size of a large dog.

  “Who’s there?” he whispered. “Who are you?”

  He could sense the unseen figure shift its weight. A gentle hand rested on his upper arm. “The sun is in the tenth house,” said a soft voice. He recognised it.

  “Sister Karin,” he said. “You left the plaques?”

  “Yes. Can you walk?” she asked.

  “I can crawl.”

  “Then crawl. You have to get out of here.”

  She helped him to all fours. Even without putting weight on his feet, their pressure on the floor felt like treading on the roasted stones by a blacksmith’s forge, but he could do it without crying out, and that w
as enough. They made slow, silent progress out of the cell and down the dark corridor, Sister Karin leading, he following like a dog on the ground. It took a long time before he saw the first torchlight in the distance and knew he was away from the cells.

  “Is it safe to rest a moment?” he asked. Her nod was just visible in the half-light and he slumped against the wall, stretching his legs to take the weight off his agonised feet. He stared down at them, expecting to see the bandages dripping with fresh blood, but the only stains were dark and encrusted. Karin sat beside him.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “You’re escaping. This is your miraculous one-man jail-break. Upstairs are clothes and a purse of gold, and there’s a horse tethered outside. Ride south and make your way through the mountains to Tilea. They don’t have much truck with Imperial witch hunters down there and you’ll be safe. Or head to Kislev, if you prefer.”

  Hoche said nothing, trying to understand what was going on. Was this another of Gamow’s tricks, to raise his hopes only to dash them later? Beside him, Karin scanned the corridor, checking both ways.

  “What is this unholy place?” he asked.

  “The witch hunters’ prison. They hold heretics here for questioning. Mutants too; Lord Gamow studies them.” She looked around. “I couldn’t risk you in another torture session,” she said. “I’m sure Braubach taught you well, but I was afraid you’d give me away.”

  “Give what away?” Hoche asked.

  She stared at him. “You don’t need to lie to me,” she said. “I know you know. Braubach told you.”

  What did he tell me, Hoche thought. Instead he said, “Is Braubach dead?”

  She said nothing, but in the faint torchlight Hoche saw a single tear glisten on her cheek. Suddenly he understood it all, from their first strange conversation in the Tilted Windmill to her reasons for helping him escape now.

  Sister Karin was the Untersuchung’s agent among the witch hunters. She was the one who Hunni von Sisenuf had told him about, the one Braubach had trained, and who had been his intimate. She believed that Braubach had told Hoche this secret, and she was helping him escape before he could crack under torture and reveal her to Gamow.

  “Why did you help them capture me on the roof?” he said. “You knew it would endanger you.”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” she said. “Or I was thinking like a witch hunter. Lieutenant Hoche, the Untersuchung is dead. You have to understand that. Its members are dead, its mission is over, its ideals are dust. Time rolls on and we must find new paths for our lives. Understand the situation and make the best of it. I have. You must too.”

  He stared at her, feeling the bravado in her words and the sorrow that lay under them. She had loved Braubach, he understood now, and in the Tilted Windmill had been confused and hurt by his aggression and insolence. But he had been playing the new roles that had been assigned to them: opposites, not lovers. Now she found herself as a witch hunter, Lord Gamow’s lover if the men in the Fist and Glove were right, and she was trying to convince herself that she was happy to play the part. Hoche hoped for her sake that she succeeded.

  “I’m rested. Let’s go,” he said.

  They reached the stone antechamber at the top of the helix of stairs, with its wooden door that led outside. Karin passed him new clothes, and he sat on a chair to strip off the ragged prison-wear. In the light from the oil-lamps in alcoves on the wall, he was startled to see how thin his arms were, how wasted his muscles, how exposed his ribs. The act of dressing felt strange, like a half-forgotten skill. The hardest part was pulling boots over his bandaged feet.

  “A horse is tethered at the gate,” she said. “There’s food and wine in your saddlebags, and a dagger. I couldn’t get you a sword.”

  “How did you know there would be no guards?” he asked.

  She grinned at him. “It’s the night before Mondstille. Half are in the temple for the midnight service, the other half are drunk.”

  Mondstille, the great feast-day at the end of the year. So he had been in the prison six, maybe seven weeks. He didn’t know if that seemed a long time or not: part of him felt he had been there forever, and yet for another part it felt like a blink, a dream already fading. He pulled on the clothes: thick wool britches, vest, linen shirt, a jerkin with a high collar and a travelling cloak. He fastened it around his shoulders. Karin reached out and tugged it higher.

  “Keep your neck hidden, for Sigmar’s sake,” she said.

  Hoche looked at her, puzzled. “Thank you,” he said.

  “Don’t thank me, just go. The sooner you’re out of Altdorf, the safer we’ll both be.”

  He stood on feet that ached like fire, put one hand on the door latch and looked back at her. She smiled, and for an instant he saw a different face, a happiness he hadn’t seen for half a year, and he knew where he would ride first.

  “Happy Mondstille,” he said and opened the door.

  There could have been anything on the other side. He expected men with swords, Lord Gamow laughing, crossbow bolts piercing his body. He didn’t care.

  The door swung wide, its rectangle framing nothing but the night and the city. A chill breeze blew in, bringing with it the smell of the world. He stepped outside and stood for a moment, marvelling, ignoring the pain from his feet. He breathed deeply. His eyes were running. It’s the light, he told himself, and the cold air. From the sky and stars he guessed it was approaching midnight. It was a wonderful clear night, the crispness of frost in the air, clean and cleansing. He felt refreshed, revitalised, returned to life.

  A horse was standing at the temple gate, tied to the hitching-post by its reins. He hobbled to the post and unfastened them, then climbed into the saddle—no strength or energy to swing himself up—and gently geed the horse into motion, trotting away down the street. He did not look back.

  He did not ride for the south gate. After a few hundred yards he turned left, down a side-street and away from the city walls, making for the great square and the Cathedral of Sigmar.

  There were people on the streets in winter clothes, rich with colour, and occasionally a street-trader with a brazier selling hot chestnuts, chunks of sausage or stew served in thick bowls of hard-baked bread. The smell of food made his saliva run, but he knew it was dangerous to stop. Every extra second he spent in the city was an added danger, every person he spoke to an extra witness for the manhunt that would surely follow his escape. Just being here was perilous, he knew, but there was one final thing he had to do before he left Altdorf.

  The cathedral was full, the citizens in their finery worshipping, giving praise for the year just past and making their prayers for the one to come. The pews were crowded all the way up to the high altar and there was a throng of late-comers at the back. They did not look round as Hoche, shoulders hunched and head lowered, pushed his limping way through them to the aisle that ran along the west side of the building.

  There were no people standing here and his slow path across the pattern of black-and-white tiles was clear, past the tombs of dead emperors and long-forgotten Grand Theogonists, statues of saints, relics and doorways.

  The side-chapel of Sigmar the Crusader was a third of the way down and he disappeared into its shadows. It was unlit and unoccupied as he had hoped: nobody prayed for war or gave thanks for past ones at Mondstille. A solitary candle burned low on the altar, casting pale light onto the statue of the god in his armour by the Tilean artist Hawkslay. The deep shadows around its eyes and face made it look corpse-like, a ghost dressed for battle. It reminded Hoche of a figure from his dreams of fire, and he shivered.

  He sat in the rearmost pew, resting the searing pain in his feet and surprised to find himself out of breath after so little exercise. Then he dropped to his knees and reached in the darkness below the seat, feeling across the dusty floor. It was still there: the cloth-wrapped journal he had hidden in this spot before he was arrested. He pulled it out slowly and looked down. The dried leaf he had tucked into the fold o
f cloth was still there: nobody had tampered with it.

  He lifted the book. It was heavy in his hands, his last connection to the Untersuchung and the way of seeing the world that Braubach had taught him. He was tempted to leave it here, to abandon that part of himself as Sister Karin had suggested, but there were answers he had to find, truths he had to know. The book was his only hope of learning them. He tucked it inside his new jerkin, smoothing the fabric so the lump did not show.

  Then he hobbled to the small altar, took a new candle and lit it, and prayed for the Fifth Reikland Pikemen, for the Untersuchung, and for the souls of Rudolf Schulze and Gottfried Braubach. He was about to ask for the god’s blessings for himself, but held back. It would be wrong to pray for himself here. He was no longer a soldier, he was a fugitive. He would find a better place and a better time to make his peace with Sigmar.

  Outside in the cathedral the service was over and people were milling out into the streets, talking and laughing, calling out Mondstille blessings, heading home to jugs of mulled wine, pies and cakes, sweetmeats and the company of friends and family. Hoche felt alone among this bubbling torrent of humanity, isolated and cut off from it. He did not know them and they could not know him. He needed time to rest, to think, to regain his sense of being human. Grünburg was the place for that, and Mondstille week the time. If he rode hard he could be there in under four days.

  He made his slow, painful way out, remounted his horse and rode to the south gate, passing though the needle’s eye and returning the guards’ Mondstille greetings with a raised hand. The Nuln road stretched away into the distance, lit silver by moonlight on the frost. A new year lay ahead. He did not know what it would bring, but for the first time in months he was eager to find out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Leaving It Behind

  He rode long into the night. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the countryside for miles around: fields divided into strips and ploughed, the bare earth black in the moonlight, pastures and commons dotted with sleeping sheep, rabbits that scattered away at the disturbance, villages lying silent and ghostly, bathed in pale shadows. Once a deer looked up from the road ahead and leaped away.