Luthor Huss (Heroes of the Empire Book 3) by Chris Wraight

Author:Chris Wraight [Wraight, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2011-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

‘What is faith?’ he asked.

‘You know what faith is,’ said Theiss

‘I know what I read. I know what I feel. But do I feel the right things? How can a man know his soul is pure?’

Theiss looked up at Huss from his sickbed. He felt worse than he had done for weeks. His body ached from where he’d spent hours ravaged by cramping pain. He could taste blood on his tongue and his hands trembled when he lifted them.

What was worse, Huss was tiring to be around. The acolyte never wanted to know the things a young man ought to want to know. He had no interest in women or beer or food. That was to his credit, of course, but it became wearying all the same. The youth’s brown-eyed gaze was so intense, so unbroken, that simply being around him became an effort after a while.

‘What do you want me to say?’ asked Theiss, pulling a fur-lined shawl closer towards his throat to try to ward against the cold. ‘You do everything right. You pray, you fast, you train. That’s enough, lad.’

Huss didn’t look convinced. His earnest face stared back at Theiss, red from where he sat by the crackling hearth. His brow was creased in consternation.

‘I doubt, sometimes,’ he said.

‘Of course you do,’ said Theiss. ‘We all doubt.’

‘You don’t.’

Theiss raised an eyebrow, surprised, before snorting out a bitter laugh.

‘You think that?’ He shuffled to lean closer to where the boy sat, feeling his narrow hips grind against the wooden slats of the bed. ‘Oh, I’ve doubted. Look around you. Before you came here this temple was falling into the earth, and I prayed for deliverance for years. Do you think I wanted to end my days out here, lost on a forgotten hill with the company of drunks and lechers? There were times when I thought Sigmar had deserted me. I was tempted – I could have disavowed it all.’

Huss’s eyes widened slightly.

‘You’re shocked?’ said Theiss. ‘Don’t be. That’s your problem, lad – your standards are too high. You read the lives of the saints and want to be one yourself, but you’re human, flesh and blood like I am. You’ll fail, you’ll doubt. None of us is any different.’

Huss shook his head.

‘I won’t fail,’ he said.

‘You will.’

‘No.’ Huss clenched a burly fist in frustration. ‘The power of Sigmar is without limits. It gives us strength. The purer we are, the more strength we possess. Eliminate impurity, and our power will be without limits.’

Theiss narrowed his eyes. Something about the tone of Huss’s voice made him uncomfortable.

‘The power of a priest is a mystery, Luthor. None of us, not even the Grand Theogonist himself, knows the means by which the grace of Sigmar is bestowed, so don’t ever think yourself equal to those secrets.’

‘I am equal to them.’ Huss looked defiant again. ‘I’ve felt the power running through my body. I’ve felt fire behind my eyes, burning so hot that the pain can’t be described. There have

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