The Inquisition War (82 page)

Immediately the Tech-Marine adjusted a control-box strapped to his forearm.

The disobedient beastman’s metal collar exploded, severing his head. The head fell. It bounced and rolled amidst the captives even as the beastman’s body was tottering.

Two Eunuch Guards lay maimed. An Apothecary in fancy armour opened up one of them with a long knife and pulled out the writhing wretch’s entrails to sort through. The medic snipped a gland loose and deposited it in an iron flask bolted to his thigh. From that gland some drug would be extracted, to induce deranged ecstasy.

This sight was too much for one of Jaq’s companions.

‘Hasim!’ he moaned. ‘My friend!’

Before the man could be stopped, he was scaling the barricade of broken marble, web pistol in one hand, power sword in the other.

The energy field of the sword blade shimmered, a blur of blue. The pistol was cumbersome with its cone of a nozzle and its underslung canister of glue. Blundering forward, the Eunuch fired the pistol. His aim wavered. A murky mass of tangled threads flew from the nozzle. The mass expanded in the air. Even so, the cloud of stick threads missed the medic – and wrapped around the Tech-Marine instead, clinging and tightening.

The Apothecary had grabbed up his chainsword from the ground. The sword whirred. It buzzed like furious killer bees. The sharp teeth throbbed into invisibility as they spun around. With seeming delight, and with one hand behind his back, the medic met the Eunuch.

How shrilly the teeth of the chainsword screeched as they met the energy field of the sword. An electric-blue explosion of power ripped teeth loose, spitting them aside. The medic’s metal-sheathed arm was vibrating violently as if it might shake apart. No doubt such sensations only pleasured the medic. The guard of the chainsword had locked against the power blade.

From behind his back the medic swung his long surgical knife. He drove the blade into the belly of the Eunuch. The sword fell from the Eunuch’s hand, suddenly inert. The web pistol tumbled too. That former guardian of the harem staggered backward, clutching at the hilt of the knife.

He tripped. He fell. He squirmed to and fro. The medic roared with satisfaction. Such an injury wouldn’t bring quick death – but plentiful opportunity to operate upon the man while life endured.

Of course, other mutated Marines were heeding the place from which the Eunuch had come. Abandoning their pleasures, they were bringing boltguns to bear.

Meanwhile the contracting web had tightened upon the Tech-Marine’s armour. Threads cramped one of his gauntlets upon that control box.

Maybe the Tech-Marine sought to activate the frenzy circuit, to goad the beastmen into a killing rage directed at the wrecked bathhouse.

A collar exploded. A shaggy head was blown from its neck.

A second collar exploded.

A third. A fourth...

J
AQ WOKE FROM
the memory-dream, sweating coldly.

THREE

Riot

A
T
S
HANDABAR’S LANDING
field, after much queuing, Grimm was able to exchange a minor gem for a bag of local shekels. Pilgrims thronged the port, which served long-distance aircraft as well as offworld traffic. These pilgrims were merely the latest arrivals, many from other continents of Sabulorb.

Since many of the pious preferred to conserve their funds for lodgings and the purchase of relics, it proved possible to hire a steam limousine with fatly inflated tyres and dark windows for transport into the city. Destination: any bureau specializing in the longterm leasing of property. Jaq had no wish to stay in one of the crowded caravanserais such as Meh’lindi had once used, pretending to be a governor’s daughter from another solar system.

Shandabar was a dusty, chilly metropolis of considerable size. Even so, it was packed. According to the driver of the limousine the regular population was perhaps two million. Right now the number had swollen to at least six million.

Along the northern fringe of the city flowed the two kilometre-wide River Bihishti, the water-bearer. To the south was the Grey Desert. Dust and grit frequently blew across Shandabar, though it was rare for a storm to deposit more than a few centimetres’ depth of granules. Still, by custom, tyres were balloon-like – both on cars and on the multitude of carts pulled by morose camelopards with long snaky necks and splayed feet.

From armoured vehicles, police kept an eye on the surge of humanity: the robed pilgrims and touts and pickpockets, beggars and jugglers, slaves and artisans and missionaries, zealots who preached to the passing crowds, porters and hucksters and couples foolishly in love. The sky was a copper colour; the red sun was vast. Many buildings were domed and arcaded.

A
FTER VIEWING HOLOGRAPHS
of several suburban mansions, Jaq chose that which seemed the most secluded and well fortified. A great diamond was perfectly acceptable as a deposit upon a ten-year lease. Doubtless the property agent rejoiced in the inflated commission which he would finesse.

By the time the driver had taken them to the quiet southerly quarter, the great red sun was beginning to set, protractedly. A curved maroon lake of sun still bulged up into the sky. Several stars already showed.

T
HE BOUNDARY WALL
of the property was topped with lethal wire. The limousine halted outside wrought plasteel gates. Half a dozen cloaked fellows armed with autoguns were passing by. They paused to eye the limousine.

The driver seemed unperturbed. ‘Being vigilante patrol,’ he explained.

Grimm demanded the keys to the vehicle before he and Lex and Jaq stepped out, to be challenged by the vigilantes.

The little man introduced himself as the new majordomo of this mansion. He gave his own name, which was common amongst squats. The name of the grim new master of the house he gave as Sir Tod Zapasnik, which was how Jaq had decided to be known in Shandabar. The hulking barbarian slave merited no introduction.

The leader of the vigilantes condescended to inform the new residents that, during the time the mansion had been empty, the lethal wire on top of the wall had apparently lost its power. A few days earlier, a party of fanatical pilgrims had climbed into the grounds to roost in tents overnight, when the temperature would become bitter.

‘Not breaking into mansion itself, great sir,’ the man said to Jaq. ‘Cutting precious bushes for kindling, and felling trees for logs. Previous owner neglecting payment to our virtuous patrol.’

Jaq snarled at Grimm. The little man distributed shekels to the vigilantes. In bygone days Jaq might well have cursed their leader for his blackmail and his blasphemy. What did such a person know of virtue? Virtue was dedication, virtue was consecration. Virtue was an assassin-courtesan who had only ever embraced him twice, and on each occasion for an excellent reason. However as new residents of this district, the trio should not provoke needless antipathy – but rather, respect.

‘Being well able to protect ourselves and our property, however!’ Jaq advised. From within his own cloak emerged
Emperor’s Mercy
.

Eyes widened at sight of that precious ancient boltgun, plated with iridescent titanium inlaid with silver runes. Only two explosive bolts actually remained in the clip, but Jaq had his laspistol too, fully charged.

Grimm toted
Emperor’s Peace
, with a single bolt remaining in it. He loosened the holster of his own laspistol.

From the webbing on his back underneath his vest, Lex pulled the bolter which still had a full clip. He transferred a laspistol to the multipurpose holster which by now was strapped to his thigh. Hitherto the holster had remained mostly empty. With several compartments, it was such as a slave might carry tools in.

During the couple of weeks they had spent on Karesh, Grimm had failed to obtain any extra ammunition for the boltguns. Their bolters could still speak once or twice before falling silent. Quite a few times, in Lex’s case. The laspistols would serve well. Gloom was deepening. Shadows stalked the streets. The driver of the limousine coughed impatiently.

Tucking
Emperor’s Peace
away after this demonstration, Grimm unlocked the gates. He thrust them open to admit the vehicle, and returned the keys to the driver. After glimpsing such guns, he surely wouldn’t dream of revving and absconding with luggage. ‘Be waiting just inside,’ the little man ordered gruffly.

As the chauffeur complied, the chief vigilante was eyeing Lex’s bare legs and scant attire. He pulled up the collar of his cloak. He shivered.

‘Getting cold already,’ he observed.

Lex snorted contemptuously. He was trained to endure extremes of cold, or of heat. His anatomy was modified accordingly. Under his skin was the quasi-organic carapace in symbiosis with his nervous system, enabling him to interface with power armour via the spinal sockets. The carapace also served as insulation. What did these mundane fellows know about cold?

The slave flexed muscles such as few could have seen before. ‘Soft bods,’ he sneered in scum lingo. The vigilantes were all shrinking well out of the way. Was this in awe? No! Brown shadows flitted mansionward along the street. A dozen shadows. A score and more. Of a sudden a chant arose, of “His Face, True Face, His Face, True Face”.

‘Who blocking the path of His true pilgrims?’ cried a frenetic voice. ‘Pilgrims returning to their tents with holy relics! Moving aside, moving aside – in His name!’

Grimm’s eyesight was acute. Squats had evolved in gloomy caves and tunnels where lighting had once been scanty and power was strictly rationed. ‘They only got stub guns, boss,’ he said.

Handguns which fired ordinary bullets were the hardware of a commonplace low-life gang. Notwithstanding, Jaq called out: ‘Warning you! Circumstances changing. Throwing down guns. Removing tents peacefully from this property!’

Needless slaughter was not the Imperial custom. All too often, circumstances might compel bloodshed to sustain civilization and stability and sanity and faith, but it was always a matter for regret. Sheer carnage was the style of lawless heresy and of Chaos. The reply to Jaq’s warning was a crack-crack like the snapping of twigs underfoot. Slugs whined past. A shot pinged against the open gates. Others ricocheted off the boundary wall.

Intoxicated with expectations of the coming religious spectacle, the devotees were besotted with a sense of personal righteousness. Then even more righteous boltguns spoke.

RAARKpopSWOOSHthudCRUMP!

RAARKpopSWOOSHthudCRUMP!

A bolt ejected. It promptly ignited. Propellant powered the bolt on its way. The bolt impacted. It tunnelled and exploded. Flesh and bone or a vital organ erupted. It was ever this rowdy way.

By contrast, laspistols were silent in operation. If the aim was inaccurate, the scalpel-blade of energy soon dispersed. Whenever a las-pulse met its target: such a lacerating flare-up, such a scream of agony, if the victim still had the breath and lungs and heart to scream.

P
ERHAPS TEN OF
the pilgrims had fled. A score more lay dead or dying, almost all thanks to the laspistols. Quite a minor massacre. The vigilante leader returned. In the dying light he eyed those boltguns with a sort of devotion.

‘Being Space Marine weapons, great sir, not so? Grandfather telling me of when Space Marines were coming, him just a kid. Purging the aliens in our midst. Pilgrims collecting relics, right enough!’

From around his neck the man pulled a thong. Momentarily Jaq twitched. Yet what dangled from the thong was a burnished bolter shell – which the vigilante proceeded to kiss.

‘Where getting that?’ demanded Grimm.

‘Being sold here in Shandabar, as relics.’

The Space Marines must have left unused clips of bolts behind, items compelling adoration.

‘Gimme that,’ demanded Lex. ‘Belonging here.’ He slapped his gun.

Surely the vigilante would refuse to surrender his talisman. By what authority other than muscle did Lex presume to make such a demand?

But no; a mesmeric sense of seemliness appeared to overwhelm the vigilante.

‘To be seeing such guns fired...’ he murmured. Reverently he handed over the shell. He gazed at the litter of corpses. ‘Sending a sanitation squad in the morning, great sir.’

‘Being grateful,’ said Jaq. ‘My slave will be using the pilgrims’ tents as body-bags, and dumping them here in the street.’

Most of the sun had sunk by now. Stars were brighter. Sabulorb possessed no moon. If it had, seas might have spilled far inland every day, so low was much of the land. The power propelling the slow flow of the rivers must have been centrifugal Coriolis force due to the planet’s rotation. Good citizens would not wish to corrupt their minds with such arcane matters, the province only of tech-priests.

According to the
General Guide
, the holy city boasted three major temples, in addition to countless lesser shrines to the great God-Emperor. Each temple was sited near where an ancient city gate had once been, during the early millennia of the colonization of Sabulorb.

It was towards the easterly Oriens Temple that the trio set out on foot early on the following day. Later they might buy a balloon-wheeled vehicle. Jewels from the
Book of Rhana Dandra
would easily make them shekel millionaires many times over, should they sell those all at once, which only a fool would do. Walking was the best way to understand a city, even if hours of tramping were necessary.