Marks of Chaos

by James Wallis

  “Is that all?”

  “I’ve seen him using cult signs, and of course he was at the ritual last night. Though you only have my word for that.”

  “I don’t care about that.” Holger heard an unintentional anger in his voice. “Was Brother Heilemann the man who caused the massacre at Priesdicheim before I and my team could arrive there? Tell me.”

  “A senior Tzeentch cultist installed within the Order of Sigmar, privy to its secret missions and the movements of its agents? What do you think?”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  “No. You’re perceptive. A lesser man would have only heard what he wanted to.” Hoche paused, turning to study the field. Nobody was within thirty yards of them. “He was involved.”

  “Was he responsible?”

  “There were others.”

  “You’re sounding like one of the Cloaked Brothers,” Holger said. “What others?”

  “This is not the time.”

  Holger had had enough. “Yes, it bloody is,” he said. “Tell me what you brought me here to hear, or—”

  “Or you’ll arrest me? I have your sword, and I’d put it through my throat before I let you or your brothers take me alive. You can’t threaten me. Tell me what I need to know, help me out, and I’ll give you the information you desire. But this business is more important, and more pressing. Do you understand?”

  Holger said nothing, glaring at Hoche. He felt impotent, unable to act, aware that he was being used. He felt a fierce desire to have this meeting done with and the status quo, of hunter and hunted, returned. But for the moment, he could do nothing. And in the last few months he had read and heard much about Karl Hoche and his reputation, enough to make him question the convictions of Brother Karin and his colleagues, and know that their image of this man as a murderer, cultist and heretic was little more than propaganda. Karl Hoche was a complex man with a complex history, and much of it pitted him against the cults of Chaos, not alongside them.

  Hoche was studying him. “Let me ask, do you know the name Herr Scharlach?” he said.

  “Of course. It’s a low-level code-name that the Purple Hand use.” Holger met Hoche’s stare and returned it. “If someone asks to see Herr Scharlach, it means they have been sent by a member of the cult to meet another member, but they themselves are not in the cult and they don’t know what is going on.”

  Hoche’s sudden laughter rattled across the field like a barrage of musket-fire. People in the distance turned to look, and a group of startled crows took to raucous flight.

  “What’s so funny?” Holger asked.

  “Nothing,” Hoche said. “Nothing.”

  “There’s another name you mentioned,” Holger said. “You said that in Nuln Brother Heilemann called himself Herr Stahl.”

  “He did.”

  “You’ve not heard of Heinrich Stahl?”

  Hoche shook his head.

  “You should have. He was an Untersuchung agent in Nuln. Deep-cover.”

  Hoche started forward an inch, staring at him, saying nothing. Holger smiled with a grim satisfaction: for a second he’d made Hoche think he’d killed one of his own. At last he was winning back some ground against this man who said little, hinted much and revealed only what suited him. It was tempting to leave him in suspense, but Holger’s regard for the whole truth was too strong.

  “We tracked him down last summer and burnt him, as part of the purge of your order,” he said. Hoche was silent, his face puzzled, staring into the distance across the river as he filtered the information. “Heilemann would have known that. So if what you say is true, Heilemann was using Stahl’s name to lure in other Untersuchung agents, assuming that none of them would have met the real Stahl, since he worked deep undercover.”

  “Yes.”

  “Or alternatively you invented that as something I’d spot, to convince me your story was real.”

  Hoche raised his eyes. “Do you believe that?”

  “I don’t know if I believe anything you’ve told me.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Hoche said. “You wouldn’t have come here unaccompanied if you didn’t have at least a little trust in me, if your gut didn’t tell you that this was the right thing to do. You know the situation, the Convocation of Darkness, the threat to the Empire—”

  “No?”

  “Brother Karin didn’t show you the letters?”

  “No.”

  “No, of course she wouldn’t.” Hoche dipped his head for a moment in thought, then lifted it to study the sky. The sun was invisible behind the monotone cloud. “Well, she has the information. The forces of Chaos are working together to disrupt the results of the Convocation of Light, and one of their plans is to intercept the man that Luthor Huss has proclaimed to be Sigmar, and either taint or destroy him.”

  Holger felt nonplussed. Huss was a danger, certainly, but his discovery of Sigmar… “Why is this important? Nobody believes this man is Sigmar. Brother Karin called him a village yokel. He’s a—”

  “If the heads of all the Chaos cults in the Empire think he’s a threat, then he’s a threat,” Hoche said. “You have to acknowledge that.”

  Holger nodded.

  “I need you need to carry a message to Sister Karin.”

  “Brother Karin.”

  “Yes. Tell her that the agents of the Purple Hand aim to poison the mind of the new Sigmar. Tell her that if Sigmar is to lead the Empire’s armies into battle against the forces of Archaon in the north, then they must be stopped and Sigmar protected. Huss wants him to meet the Emperor. That meeting must happen, but it will only happen with Brother Karin’s aid, and the protection of the witch hunters.”

  Holger gave Hoche a hard stare from under furrowed brows. “What?”

  “She will understand. Use those words, just as I gave them to you. Don’t say it came from me. Say it came from an informant.”

  Holger shook his head. “I think I believe you, but I still don’t know why I should do this for you. What do I gain?”

  “The safety of the Empire. The respect of your superiors. Satisfaction in a job well done.”

  Holger snorted with amusement. Karl glanced at him, his face similarly amused. “All right, I’ll tell you who was really responsible for the massacre at Priestlicheim. And secondly—no, before there’s a secondly, you must agree to do two other things for me.”

  Holger, already knowing he was getting the worst part of the deal, said, “What?”

  “I need to know how your colleague Theo Kratz learned where I was staying in Nuln. I think Heilemann told him, because he had realised who I was and he knew I was a threat to his organisation, but I want to be sure.”

  “I can do that.”

  “The second is harder.” Hoche paused and scanned the field again. The rain had grown in intensity and its tattoo-rhythms on the leaves of Templar’s Oak had become a steady rolling hiss, as omnipresent and as grey as the overcast sky. “I need Oswald Maurer.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s an Imperial criminal, under interrogation.”

  “If you want your brother witch hunter who betrayed you at Priestlicheim, you’ll find a way. I don’t care how.

  “Stage a breakout, bribe a guard, forge a pardon, claim he needs to be taken to the colleges of magic. Whatever it takes.”

  “No.”

  Hoche sighed and moved his feet. For the first time Holger realised that much of his attitude and the casual air of control he projected was a front. Did this dangerous man really have all the answers? If not, how much did he really know? How many lies had he already told? Was this all a deception, a scheme, even a manipulation by the Purple Hand themselves, sacrificing a pawn to capture a more valuable piece?

  “Give me Oswald,” Hoche said, “and I’ll give you Herr Doktor Kunstler of the Purple Hand.”

  Holger felt a shiver go over him. Every witch hunter knew the name of Kunstler, and the foul reputation behind it. “Can you do that?”

  �
��He’s in the city. Is it a fair exchange?”

  Holger paused a second, then nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then bring Oswald to the village temple in Gluckshalt, tomorrow at nightfall, and I’ll tell you where Kunstler is.”

  “How can I contact you if something goes wrong?”

  “You can’t.” Hoche glanced at the sky, stepped a few paces forward under the tree’s canopy, took off his hat, shook the rainwater from it, replaced it, and handed Holger back his sword, hilt-first. “Thanks for the loan. It’s a nice blade.”

  Holger took it, not saying anything, thinking, running his tongue over the smooth enamel of his teeth, feeling the crevices and gouges between them.

  “Why do your handbills call me the Chaos Hunter?” Karl asked.

  “Because it’s what the people call you,” Holger said. “You didn’t know? You’re a man with a reputation. Out in the villages, the word is that you come in and hunt down mutants and cultists, kill them, and leave. We’ve tried to suppress the stories, but the word still spreads.”

  “Truth has a way of getting out,” Karl said. His voice was muffled. Holger looked at him, wondering whether he could trust this strange figure at all. The villagers had stories of Karl’s heroism and personal risk, but the witch hunters told different ones, of subterfuge, treachery and ruthless butchery. Yet that did not seem like the man before him. It was hard to know what to believe.

  “Why do you want Oswald?” he asked. “What use is he to you?”

  Hoche looked at him from under the brow of the hat. Holger felt he was being judged, that Hoche was deciding in turn whether he could be trusted. So far he had only been trusted with information. Trusting someone with personal facts was a different matter.

  “He is my friend,” Hoche said.

  “And you are loyal to your friends?”

  “I am.” Hoche raised his head.

  Holger locked gaze with him, and stared into the eyes of the man he had been fearing, studying and hunting since the new year. He did not find any deception there. “Then give me your word that things are as you say, Karl Hoche, and that you will not trick me or play me false in this.”

  Hoche returned the gaze, his eyes as unflinching as Holger’s. “I give you my word. Give me your hand.”

  “No. Not till this is over. Maybe not then. We can never be friends.” Holger slid his sword into its sheath. “You realise that it is still my job to track you down and kill you.”

  “But not yet?” Hoche grinned. The smile was unexpected and unexplained.

  “But not yet.” Holger turned, looking away to the west. “I am going this way, and I will not look back to see which way you leave.” He paused and, hearing no reply, walked away across the rain-softened ground. At the edge of Corum’s Field, turning into the alley beside the playhouse, he glanced behind him across the bleak meadow. Karl Hoche had already gone.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  How Much Is Enough

  Karl didn’t enjoy stealing horses. For a start, almost under the walls of Altdorf, people tended to put better locks on their stables; secondly horses were large and often noisy creatures and it was difficult to be discreet. As he lifted the latch on the ostler’s gate and walked the bay mare slowly out onto the soft turf edge of the road, sheened with moonlit, he promised himself that this was the last time: he would never steal a horse again. Unless it was really necessary.

  The crusade, he had learned, was camped somewhere along the Weissbruck canal, perhaps twenty or thirty miles from Altdorf, ready to arrive at the city’s gates in a couple of days. Emilie had a head start of at least twelve hours, probably more, but if she was travelling with two companions as Holger had said, that might hold her back. And it would take her a while to infiltrate the crusade and gain access to Sigmar. Unless the cult already had agents within the crusade who had prepared the way for her. Which, of course, they would have done.

  So if Emilie had left around dawn and made good time, she could have reached the crusade before nightfall. He remembered how easily, how casually, how naturally she had lured him into her bed the night before, and shuddered. She was a very persuasive woman. And if Sigmar was as much of a farmboy as people said, he would be clay in her expert hands.

  The conversation with Anders Holger had given him much food for thought. Emilie’s analysis had been proven largely correct: the man was no fool and didn’t jump to conclusions, but was flexible enough to accept new ideas, even when they changed the shape of what he already knew or thought he knew. Most importantly, he didn’t leap to trust people, but only accepted their word when he had time to appraise it. Karl guessed that the man was probably a good detector of liars, and wondered briefly if witch hunters went through the same training in that area as the Untersuchung had given its agents. He doubted it, and gave Holger further credit. He would have to be careful around him. The man’s pledge to track him down and kill him in the future had not been made in idleness.

  He led the horse along the grass verge, away from the ostler’s yard and the cluster of houses and businesses around it, and south-west towards Gluckshalt and the canal. If the crusade was coming this way to the city, he could bring the animal back to its rightful owner. That was, if it survived the night’s gallop without its heart bursting. He suspected it would not.

  Though he had found a bridle in the stables, there had been no sign of a saddle. He folded his cloak, arranged it on the animal’s back and swung himself up into the makeshift seat. It was not too uncomfortable. He steadied his pack across his shoulders, then urged the animal into motion and set off through the night-lit countryside. The final act had begun, but he was still not sure what his role in it was to be.

  He almost rode past the crusade’s encampment, but it was only the horse’s weariness that slowed him enough to see the trails of smoke from overnight fires, rising in the pre-dawn sky above the line of scrubby trees that hid the low tents and bivouacs from the road. He climbed off the horse, feeling stiff and pained, and walked it through the tall grass towards the camp. Fifty yards out, a figure rose from behind a bush, raising a pike to point at his throat.

  “Identify yourself,” the man said.

  “Magnusson,” Karl said, “returned from Altdorf. How stands the crusade?” He recognised the man. He had trained him.

  The pike did not waver. “Magnusson is not your name,” the man said. “You’re that mutant. The heretic.”

  Karl raised his arms to encompass the whole camp. “We are all heretics. The Grand Theogonist has denounced us. I have urgent news for Luthor Huss.”

  The guard shook his head. “I cannot let you pass,” he said. “The Templars went away when they found Brother Huss and you had left us at Rottfurt, but if you come back, they will come back too.”

  He had trained the man too well, Karl thought. “Then bring Luthor Huss here,” he said. “I have information he needs to hear. Sigmar is in danger.”

  The man didn’t move or lower his weapon, but his eyes curved with worry. He hesitated, then said, “Not here. Go back to the road. I will tell Brother Huss you want to speak to him. If he doesn’t come, then go back to Altdorf.”

  Karl went. In the dawn light and the calm of the day the canal’s surface was still, flowing neither north nor south, patterned only by the ripples of roach and carp rising to snap at early insects. He let the horse loose, and it walked to the edge of the water and drank, then looked up at him as if to say: what now? He had no answer. It ambled away, cropping the daisy-strewn grass. Karl watched it feeling empty.

  In a few minutes, a figure emerged through the screen of trees at a fast walk, its dark Sigmarite robes dragging on the long grass, the early light gleaming on his shaved and oiled scalp. Karl studied the man as he approached. He knew Luthor Huss’ silhouette and gait, and this wasn’t Huss.

  He stood on the road and let the other man come to him. As the figure drew closer he recognised him: Brother Martinus, one of Huss’ lieutenants. They had spoken only a few times while Karl had bee
n on the crusade, usually just pleasantries or enquiries, nothing serious. He did not feel he knew the man, and he did not know why Huss would send him rather than come himself.

  Brother Martinus climbed up the shallow embankment onto the road, to stand about twenty feet from Karl. For a while he did not say anything, but looked at him as a dog-catcher might study a particularly streetwise mongrel. His eyes were dark pits of shadow in his skull-like face. Karl did not feel encouraged.

  “Well,” Martinus said after his long pause, “you came back.”

  “You noticed.”

  “You are not welcome here. We know your name and your true nature.”

  “I have to see Luthor Huss,” Karl said. “I have to speak to him.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” Martinus said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “You don’t understand,” Karl said. “I know my presence here puts you in danger, but not in the way you think it does. The crusade has been infiltrated by Chaos cults who are trying to pollute Sigmar’s mind, to infect his thoughts with their poison.”

  “Do you think a few cultists would be able to harm our champion Valten?” Martinus demanded. “He is Sig-mar! The greatness of history and the strength of the Umpire is in him. Besides,” he continued in a less strident voice, “no follower of the dark gods can change our course now. The final act has begun, and in a day and a night we will enter Altdorf in triumph.”

  Karl tried not to stare at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Did you not hear while you were skulking in the back streets of Altdorf? The Grand Theogonist has sent emissaries to examine Sigmar, to vouch for his godhood, and when they find that Luthor Huss was correct then their leader will have no choice but to proclaim that Valten is Sigmar reborn. The time of second Empire is at hand.”

  Karl could not believe what he was hearing. He had listened to gossip, rumours and stories in taverns, temples and street-corners across the capital, and there had been no word of this. Holger would have mentioned it. There would have been some hint. Then he realised.