Inquisitor Tocco was acting strangely. He had been, for much of the journey to the Ural Mountains, irritable and prone to bouts of madness as they’d slogged across Eastern Europe, delirious and remote ever since they’d left the town in Kazakhstan Tocco had insisted on visiting, ahead of their climb into the southern foot of the mountain range.
“One night to replenish stores,” he’d called to Tacit excitedly, as they’d approached the outskirts of the village. But the young Inquisitor understood what Tocco was really looking to replenish.
Tacit knew what was in the bottle Tocco fed himself. The Inquisitor never mentioned its contents but Tacit recognised the signs of laudanum, the lethargy in Tocco’s movements, the remoteness of his presence after he imbibed. His stocks had run dry halfway across Europe and his mood had soured. But the Kazakhstan dealer’s wares were well known to Tocco. He had frequented this place many times before when assignments had taken him north, the opium being deliciously bitter and strong. He knew he had only to hang on until they reached the herbalist’s home and his redemption would be granted.
Tacit wasn’t surprised or alarmed by his master’s addiction. There wasn’t an Inquisitor Tacit knew who didn’t have a crutch of some sort to support him through the rigours of his work. To soften the blow. To mask the pain. He’d soon grown blind to Tocco’s obsession. He rarely noticed how his master’s tincture was forever glued to his lips.
“Remember,” Tocco muttered dreamily, as he stumbled over a stone in the pathway behind the striding young disciple, climbing high into the mountains, “this is reconnaissance, not battle. We go to look and report back. We’re not going to cause trouble, or go looking for it.”
But in the closing dark, those words seemed to have turned foul. Standing on a rocky precipice, halfway up the ascent, Tacit’s bright cold eyes fixed on the approaching figures, disfigured by the swirling mists and the ravaging wasteland in which they dwelt.
“We must go back,” he heard Rocco call behind him, suddenly animated by the figures’ appearance, “back to the cave we passed a short time ago. We’re not fixed for battle. I’m not ready!”
They hadn’t expected to find so many of the heretics gathered together, the apostates who’d been burning churches and stealing what they could. Tacit knew the Inquisitor was in no state to fight, poorly equipped for battle and ruined by his opium. But he knew they couldn’t flee. There were too many of them and they were blocking the only possible route to escape.
Tacit knew they needed a magazined rifle if they were to have any hope of fighting them off, like the one the leader held in his hands.
Tacit felt the biting wind and heard Tocco cry, “What are you doing, boy?” as he raised his hands to show the approaching scrum of heretics that he was unarmed. There was laughter, and the pack gathered about him like dogs, a sharp kick to his knee and he was shackled as he fell.
He looked back and watched the clan swarm over the stoned Inquisitor; two shots rang out and then a cheer. He felt the shackles cut into his wrists. He’d bring a good bargaining price for the mob, a young one like him. The shackles were tight, but they’d been tied at the front. That was their first mistake.
The leader crouched close by, laughing as his men beat Tocco to a bloody pulp with stones and the handles of the pistols they carried. Foolish. They should have watched the captured young boy. A second mistake. It would be their last.
The first the leader knew about Tacit’s escape was a foot striking him firmly in the chest. As he fell, Tacit snatched the rifle from him and had blown the leader’s face clean off before he had even hit the ground. Heads turned away from the now mutilated body of Inquisitor Tocco.
Tacit targeted the bandits with pistols first, working the trigger and bolt of the Krag-Jørgensen rifle as if it were automatic. It had been adapted in its lifetime to house ten rounds. Tacit used every one of them. Nine bodies hit the hard stone. Now the rifle was a club.
He dashed the brains from the quickest of his attackers, the second man was sent tumbling over the edge of the cliff, his cry lasting several seconds before it was snuffed out by an abrupt landing on jagged rocks below. A third nonbeliever swung a fist holding a rock. He removed the thug’s teeth with the butt of the rifle and crushed his windpipe with a second jab.
The two remaining figures hesitated and slunk back, their eyes on the boy and then each other. Tacit picked up a rock and hurled it at the figure on the left. It caved in the front of his forehead, crumpling him with a grunt to the ground. The other man yelped like the dog he was and turned. The young Inquisitor let him go, a warning to others that retribution for heretics was coming.
The footsteps of the fleeing bandit were swallowed up within the enveloping mists. Nothing but the sound of the wind could be heard on that rocky path where Tacit now stood. He looked over towards the pile of bodies lying motionless on the floor, spotting the thick forearm of his master amongst the misshapen torsos and limbs of the heretics. Tacit swallowed. He knew Tocco was dead. His master of the last five years was gone.
Once more he was alone.
The young Inquisitor took a step forward and at once the air around him erupted into brilliant light, bright balls of fire in front of his eyes, about his body. He shrieked and held out his hands in horror, turning them over and over, dashing left and right, waving away the flames in an attempt to extinguish them, expecting any moment to feel the searing pain of fire’s angry touch.
But no pain came. There was nothing. No pain, no more fear. Instead Tacit was wrapped in nothing other than a feeling of complete protective warmth and peace, a feeling he could scarcely remember from any time previous in his life.
He looked about himself slowly, shining like a beacon on the side of the mountainside, and stretched out his arms wide. He shuddered, realising the light had lifted him from the ground and he was hanging in the air, inches from the path, bound by the might of some higher power.
And then a voice, just like his mother’s, whispered in his ear.