Mike Wild - Engines of the Apocalypse

"Good boygirl," Kali said.

She began to check her saddlebags ready for the journey. As she did she noticed DeZantez emerge from rooms behind the church with a single, if fairly hefty, saddlebag of her own. She slung it over a dusty, chestnut horse, and the clank it made suggested it contained her armour.

Kali frowned. Gabriella was something of an enigma and she couldn't quite work out how serious she was taking her assigned role as her custodian. Whether, indeed, she was aware that Freel himself had not been serious about it. Certainly, she had to keep up appearances for now, but the question was, were they more than appearances? Would she, if it came to it, return her to McCain if she failed to help Freel? Would she, even, cut her down if she tried to flee? Kali decided she might have to have a word with Freel once they'd left town, request that he make his little deception clear to DeZantez, because she appeared to be a soldier who followed orders to the letter.

Or… maybe not.

Kali watched as DeZantez returned to the church and emerged with its collection coffers. The gold inside was destined, like them, for Scholten, and it was a cardinal sin to remove it, but DeZantez had no hesitation in distributing it instead to the people of the town. She clearly thought it better used for the repairs Solnos would need.

Kali was about to move forward, tell her that was a kind gesture, but hesitated as DeZantez moved to the edge of the ruined graveyard and stood, staring in. Kali didn't know why, but she sensed that had the graveyard still been intact the Enlightened One might have been a little more reluctant to leave. With its destruction, she had found an excuse for a decision that she had struggled with for a while; that it was time to leave Solnos, and whatever memories it held, behind.

After a while DeZantez turned and mounted her horse. Kali and Freel mounted up too. The three of them rode to the edge of town and then up onto the ridge where, for Kali, this whole affair had begun. They stared at the rotating machines. A rumble of thunder in the sky behind made them seem all the more ominous.

"I was going to find out what these bastards are," Kali said to Freel. "Before you came."

"Actually, Miss Hooper, you were going to die, screaming horribly."

"You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean. And believe me when I say you are still going to get the chance."

Kali snapped him a look, but before she could question him further, Freel spurred his horse on, and she and DeZantez had to gallop their mounts to catch up.

The enforcer kept them to a strenuous pace for most of the journey to Scholten, slowing to rest the horses — the bamfcat needing none — only infrequently. Kali could, of course, have had Horse make a few 'shortcuts' but there seemed little point in reaching Scholten before Freel. Still, she would have liked to see DeZantez's face if Horse jumped right in front of her eyes. What would she do about returning her to McCain then, eh?

It was during one cooling off period — she and Jakub Freel riding side by side in silence, DeZantez lagging a little way behind, lost in thought — that she decided to tackle what had so far been unsaid.

"I know who you are."

Freel simply nodded. "And I, you. In fact, I understand you were something of a thorn in my predecessor's side."

"More like an arrow in his head," Kali said. "But, strictly speaking, I wasn't the one responsible."

"No?"

"No," Kali repeated. "It was my lover. Slowhand. Killiam Slowhand."

The mention of the archer, and her relationship to him, was careful and deliberate. She let both facts hang in the air. She hadn't known how much Freel knew of her and Slowhand's involvement with Jenna's death in the Drakengrats, but got a notion now — a flicker in Freel's eyes that went beyond recognising his wife's brother's name. It was obvious he knew full well that Slowhand had given the order that had killed Jenna.

"Killiam Slowhand," Freel repeated. "A joke of a name. Not even his own."

"He has his reasons."

"That, then, is his role in your relationship? He is your assassin?"

"Assassin? No, of course not. He's a soldier and…" Kali hesitated and decided that she may as well take the bamfcat by the horns. "Freel, you have to understand, what happened… it was Jenna or us."

Freel pursed his lips, nodded slowly, but said nothing. Kali did not press him.

"Was it worth it?" He asked eventually.

"What? Was what worth it?"

"What you fought so hard to save? The reason so many died that day? The ship?"

The question threw Kali and she frowned. The fact was, other than generalities, she had no idea what role the Tharnak had yet to play. "Honestly? I don't know."

"Are you saying that it remains to be seen?"

"I guess I am, yes."

Freel turned to her for the first time. "Then, Miss Hooper, if you are trying to discover what my opinions of your lover are, my answer is they, too, remain to be seen."

With that, the conversation ended and Freel spurred his horse on. They didn't slow again until they had reached their destination.

Scholten Cathedral. The last time two times Kali had trodden its supposedly hallowed halls she had been with Slowhand, and on both occasions she and the archer were intruders, either running for their lives or sneaking about in the dark. In either case they had been able to pay little attention to the details of their surroundings, other than to the whereabouts of Faith patrols. She wished she could say it made a nice change to be able to take a good look around but the opposite was true. Everything about the place — the grandiose architecture, the ceremony and particularly the smug faces of the cathedral's Enlightened Ones, tending to their flock in exchange for donations — made Kali sick to the stomach. She wondered why she hadn't, in fact, jumped away with Horse on the way here, as had crossed her mind.

The One Faith, The Only Faith, The Final Faith, she thought. Gods!

They were a blight selling the false dream of ascension to their followers, and she wished she could tell every one of those followers what she had witnessed done in the church's name, just what it was that went on behind the gold-thread tapestries and hand-carved wooden doors — show them the real face of the Final Faith.

She, of course, bore scars both old and new to remind her of exactly what that was. The old scars on her ankles, wrists and neck had been acquired deep beneath these very halls, where Konstantin Munch had submitted her to the comforts of his 'nail chair' and the tender ministrations of Querilous Fitch. Though the scars had faded, her disdain for the Faith would never go away. The new scars were the red blotches that she now bore on her shoulders and neck: evidence, if any were needed, of these bastards' propensity to burn first and not ask questions later, to immolate any who spoke out against their cause, as they had done in the thousands over the years.

It gave Kali no small pleasure, then, as, with the sound of the Eternal Choir fading in their ears, Freel led her and DeZantez down into the sublevels', where it seemed the Faith had undergone some suffering themselves. The transition from the ornate cathedral to its gritty underbelly was always dramatic, but the signs of recent battle in the distribution and rail centre made it more so. Bodies had clearly been removed from within it, but cleaved or broken pieces of armour and torn surplice cloth were scattered here and there, some pieces of which still contained the odd chunk of severed flesh. And there was blood. A great deal of blood that had to have come from a great many people.

Something had hit the Faith and hit them hard.

The question was what?

"Come with me," Freel said, wasting no time.