by Andy Clark
‘Every blade is welcome,’ said Danial. ‘We’ve taken heavy casualties. The Draconspire is besieged.’
‘What of Jen?’ asked Luk. ‘Markos? The others. Are they…?’
‘Alive,’ said Danial. ‘Though Percivane is badly injured. The Sacristans are doing all they can. And Jennika is… well, it’s complicated, but to my knowledge she still lives.’
‘More matters for later?’ asked Luk.
‘I am glad of your return, but bewildered by its nature,’ said Danial. ‘I am also coordinating a world-wide war effort against an incredibly savage and numerous foe. We haven’t the luxury of time to discuss these things now.’
‘I understand,’ said Luk, noting with surprise the hard edge of authority that his friend had not possessed when last they spoke. ‘Nothing has transpired as we thought it would, but I’m here now, with blades at my side, ready to help. What do you need of us?’
‘You are a known figure,’ said Danial. ‘The Noble Houses recognise you. They know we are friends and, for better or worse, that our friendship survived the fall of your former house.’
‘Many of them no doubt despise me,’ said Luk. ‘But you are right. What of it?’
‘The force you lead would be a pinprick in the hide of the horde that now swirls around the Draconspire,’ said Danial. ‘Seventy thousand greenskins flowed down from the north, overran the Northrise Battery and then encircled the walls. Now we have word that other, smaller warbands will soon reinforce them. The orks have weapons out on the Valatane that no one can put a name to, and they’ve been hammering the void shields for two days with little signs of stopping. To come here is to die, Luk.’
‘We have come a long way across the galaxy, diverted from our hunt, in order to aid you, Da,’ said Luk. ‘I won’t shy from that, no matter the odds.’
‘I thank you for it, Luk, but there are better ways,’ said Danial. ‘The greenskins’ leader is here, outside the walls. He’s taken Northrise as his personal command post, from what we can see. Markos says that if we kill Gorgrok then we can throw the orks into utter chaos. Half of them will flee, the other half will fall to infighting, and we will have a chance to swing this war back in our favour.’
‘But to do that you need a relief force,’ said Luk.
‘A mighty one,’ said Danial. ‘The Knights of Houses Pegasson and Minotos must march out and come to our aid. They must break Gorgrok’s horde against our walls like a hammer striking an anvil. I need you to–’
Luk winced as static screamed in his ears. Danial’s words were swallowed by a storm of interference that no amount of working the vox controls could break through. Cursing, he tore the headset off and dropped it.
‘Cut off,’ said Luk, in answer to Hw’ss questioning stare.
‘Atmospherics?’ asked the former Krast Knight, but Luk shook his head.
‘Too violent,’ he said. ‘Too sudden.’
‘Then what?’ asked Hw’ss.
‘I don’t know,’ said Luk. ‘We must hope we’re not too late to help them.’
Jennika made her way along a darkened tunnel beneath the Chimaerkeep, her draconblade drawn. The flagstones were uneven beneath her feet. The only illumination came from the dancing stablights of Massata’s retinue. The scuff of their booted feet was loud to her ears.
In places, the ceiling had cracked open, spilling damp soil across the floor. Once already they had been forced to clamber over a huge heap of rubble, crawling on their bellies through the gap that was left even as they thanked the Emperor that more had not collapsed. The rest of the time they were forced to advance in single file through the dripping darkness.
‘Retinue,’ Massata’s hushed voice crackled through Jennika’s vox-bead. ‘Confirm status.’
One by one, they whispered confirmation, working up the line from where Sergeant Kaston prowled as rearguard. Jennika, half-way up the line behind Interrogator Nesh, responded when it came her turn. D’bu’ko grunted, while the Death Cult Assassins, Shanema and Shemara, sent non-verbal runic signifiers.
‘The auspex is reading a wider space ahead,’ said Massata. ‘Still no life signs, but that doesn’t mean anything. You are servants of the Inquisition, remain vigilant.’
‘It feels as though we’ve been stuck down here for days,’ muttered Mortens from behind Jennika. ‘Even a wider space will be welcome.’
‘It’s been less than three hours,’ said Jennika. ‘You will be fine, I’m sure.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ grumbled the savant. ‘You’re used to confined spaces, I suppose, sitting inside a Knight all the time.’
‘No, that’s quite different,’ she said. ‘Fire Defiant feels safe, and you can see everything, for miles. Down here feels… trapped. Buried. Malevolent, somehow, like there’s something watching.’
‘There is,’ said Nesh over his shoulder. ‘The Emperor. Now stop talking and stay vigilant as the master ordered.’
Jennika bit back her response, following Nesh beneath a lintel inscribed with the faded heraldry of House Chimaeros.
They emerged into a wide chamber with squat columns whose ceiling had once borne an intricate unsettling mosaic of intertwined serpents, beasts and human figures. Jennika frowned as she realised the images were melding into one another, naked human flesh flowing into serpentine scales and brightly hued feathers.
The chamber’s floor was taken up by stone pews, several of which had been crushed to rubble when a huge section of the ceiling had broken away and fallen upon them. The chamber’s far end remained untouched. There stood an elaborate stone altar behind which two darkened doorways led onward.
‘A profane shrine,’ said Nesh, his scowl deepening. Venquist, the astropath, leant heavily upon his staff. He put a hand to his temple.
‘There are echoes here,’ he said. ‘Pain. Dark worship. Debauchery.’
‘Recent?’ asked Massata.
‘They are old,’ said Venquist. ‘Decades of degenerate practice.’
Massata glanced at Jennika, who realised that her expression must radiate the horror she felt.
‘We had no idea,’ she said. ‘We fought and feasted alongside them. We called them friend.’
‘I believe you,’ said Massata with a deep frown. ‘And yet, still it went on. How could anyone else have known, when the heretics hid their evils so deep?’
‘This is an ancient world, inquisitor,’ said Jennika. ‘If I have learned one thing since Becoming, it is that Adrastapol keeps many secrets from us. Not all are pleasant to learn.’
‘Some of them kill,’ said Sergeant Kaston. ‘Something slew those men up there in the clearing. And something left this.’
The Kasrkin had rounded one of the columns and was gesturing with her gun at a heap of bones and ragged cloth at its base. Jennika moved up to stand beside her. Crystalline deposits glinted in the stablight’s glare.
‘Those are militia uniforms,’ she said.
‘Looks like,’ said Kaston. ‘More of your people from the garrison?’
‘No,’ said Jennika, paling as a horrible thought struck her. ‘These are older marks of uniform. That’s a pre-ascension Draconis crest. There were always disappearances around the Chimaerkeep but they were put down to the wulfdenkyne packs. They’re not usually dangerous, but in numbers they have been known to abduct lone serfs and militia sometimes.’
‘Well, this wasn’t the work of opportunist predators,’ said Lintiguis, adjusting ocular lenses over his eyes. ‘Look at the patterns where the bones have been worried and cracked.’
‘They’re bite marks, Mortens,’ said Kaston. ‘That hardly disproves the wulfdenkyne theory.’
‘They’re human,’ said the savant. ‘Human bones, gnawed by human teeth.’
‘Vigilance,’ reiterated Massata, then glanced at Venquist. The look was brief and subtle, as was the astropath’s answering s
hake of the head, but Jennika caught both.
‘There is nothing here,’ said Massata. ‘Whatever corruption remains, it lies further into this underworld. We proceed.’
Jennika took up her position in the retinue’s formation, following Nesh with her blade and pistol ready. But the exchange between the inquisitor and his astropath played on her mind as they plunged into deeper darkness.
The group made their way through labyrinthine underways. They followed spiralling ramps past caverns and cells. They trod dusty passageways where ancient Knightly statues stood alongside banners bearing strange crests, and passed dark doorways that made Jennika’s skin crawl. At any moment, she expected hands to lunge from the gloom and snatch at her flesh. She missed the comforting solidity of her Knight’s cockpit more than ever.
‘These passages are far older than the ruins above,’ whispered Mortens as they walked.
‘I could have told you that,’ said Jennika. ‘There’s heraldry down here so ancient that I don’t even recognise it. Whatever this was, it must have been here long before House Chimaeros built their keep atop it.’
‘For all this to remain secret for so long,’ said Mortens. ‘It cannot have been common knowledge amongst House Chimaeros. Someone would have talked, or a servile would have seen. One assumes that this sorceress must have known of it. I would postulate that she had an inner circle, special cases amongst the Knights or servants of House Chimaeros, that she inducted and showed the routes into the passages below.’
‘Conjecture,’ said Jennika.
‘Cogitated conjecture is my area of expertise,’ replied Mortens. ‘Based upon hundreds of minute determining factors and oracular probabilities. It is why Massata keeps me. I am rarely incorrect, Lady Tan Draconis.’
‘My apologies, then,’ said Jennika. ‘Perhaps it lurked down here unknown for centuries. Perhaps Alicia was the one who found it.’
‘There is something ahead,’ said Nesh. ‘The readings are strange. Weapons up.’
Jennika paced forwards, ready to ignite her blade at the slightest movement. Puffs of dust swirled up from their footsteps, dancing in the stablight beams. Ahead, she saw glints of blue crystal, and frowned as the scene resolved itself. The wide corridor ended abruptly, crushed under hundreds of tons of fallen rubble. An avian statue jutted from beneath the rockfall, one talon raised as though beseeching. Jennika took a step closer, shining her light upon the twisted claw, but Kaston’s hand shot out and wrapped around her arm.
‘Best not, your majesty,’ she said. ‘With daemon worshippers, danger can lurk in strange places.’ Jennika looked at the stone talons again, at their finely sharpened onyx points, and imagined them grabbing her as Kaston had. It was a disquieting notion. She looked hurriedly away.
Massata stood with his arms folded, staring at a dark pit in the floor. It was wide enough to drop a Huntsman down, like a well of deeper blackness amidst the shadow, and its ragged edges were encrusted with blue crystal. Lumps of rubble lay around it, thick with more of the odd deposit, which seemed to refract their light and make it squirm.
‘Nesh,’ said Massata. ‘What do you make of this?’
The Interrogator sat on his haunches and stared around the rim of the pit.
‘Something created this after the collapse,’ he said, glancing at his auspex. ‘It was bored or blasted from below. Not by heat weapons, or the rock would be glassy. Not digging implements or claws either – they’d leave gouge marks. Coupled with the deposits, I’d say dark sorcerey did this, perhaps by something labouring to escape entrapment.’
Massata nodded.
‘My thoughts also. I suspect this pit leads down to deeper chambers still. Chambers we must investigate.’
‘Whatever has been taking people, it is most likely down there,’ said Nesh. ‘Venquist, anything?’
‘An abiding sense of evil,’ said Venquist. ‘Malice. Suffering. Nothing more specific. I’m not an auspex, Nesh.’
D’bu’ko rapped his knuckles swiftly together, creating a series of clicks and cracks. Jennika realised the creature was communicating in some sort of code.
‘Yes, I see that,’ said Massata. ‘The surface is definitely rough enough to climb. Presumably how the mystery assailants have been exiting and returning. It is hazardous though.’
D’bu’ko snorted and gestured to a small, glowing device attached to one of his crossbelts.
‘Please,’ said Massata. ‘That will help a great deal.’
‘I’ll take point,’ said Kaston. ‘The Knight can follow me.’
‘I’ll take rearguard,’ said Nesh. ‘The rest of you between us.’
Jennika knew better than to argue, despite the xenos’ involvement. She had no desire to dishonour her world by refusing. Yet as she crouched by the edge of the pit, she paused, listening intently.
‘Does anyone else hear that?’ she asked.
Kaston squatted next to her, head cocked.
‘Movement? Breathing?’ she said. ‘It’s too faint to be sure, too intermittent.’
‘Explosives?’ asked Nesh, pretending to throw a krak grenade down the pit.
‘That would risk another collapse,’ said Kaston.
‘You’re the ones descending first,’ Nesh said. ‘I leave it to you to determine if the risk is worthwhile.’
‘Saviour flares,’ said Kaston. ‘Drop them first, then jump with weapons ready. If there is something down there, it will be blinded. Then dead.’
‘Jump?’ asked Jennika. ‘Unless we have some way of knowing how deep this pit is…’
‘Two hundred feet straight down, give or take,’ said Nesh, consulting his auspex. ‘Into a large chamber of some sort.’
‘Then unless we can fly…’ said Jennika, letting her statement hang.
‘With D’bu’ko’s help, we can do the next best thing,’ said Massata. ‘Now, enough questions. Kaston, it is time to do the Emperor’s will.’
The Kasrkin pulled a pair of bulky alchemical flares from her webbing and struck their tops against one another, ripping away the quietus seals that kept them inert. White light burst to life as the flares hissed, and Jennika looked away before she was blinded.
She realised that D’bu’ko was manipulating his glowing device, his long fingers moving with exceptional speed and dexterity that caused it to flash and hum. As Kaston stepped towards the pit and dropped her flares, a flash of golden energy leapt from the xenos gadget to enfold her in a shimmering halo. A second later, she stepped off the edge and vanished.
Jennika followed, squashing the panic she felt as she stepped over the pit’s edge and glowing energy flared around her. She felt a moment of vertiginous horror at the drop below, and then she was falling.
Jennika found herself descending in a steady drift. It was not slow, perhaps jogging pace, but it was far from the terminal plunge that her body had tensed for. Below her, Kaston was floating downwards, while beyond her, Jennika could see the harsh light of the flares tumbling away from them. The alchemical devices hit bedrock with a faint clatter, and Jennika tensed as she saw movement in their light. Hisses and gasps floated up from below, along with a massed scuffling sound.
‘Engage. Keep our point of ingress clear,’ ordered Massata.
Kaston aimed her hotshot lasgun between her feet, and its scream filled the pit as she opened fire. Laser light blitzed downwards, eliciting plosive gasps and glottal clicks from below.
Jennika glanced up to see the Death Cult Assassins floating above her. She aimed her pistol at the bottom of the pit, trying to find a clear line of sight past the Cadian. Strobing light and shadow made it hard to see clearly, but she had a sense of squirming movement and scurrying bodies. Her pistol barked as she fired a tight burst of shots, and something shrieked in response.
‘Landing in twenty seconds,’ said Kaston. ‘Lots of them down there.’
With
a hungry roar, an orb of blue flame shot up from below. It narrowly missed Kaston and Jennika, slamming into the wall of the pit. Jennika cursed, blinking after-images from her eyes. Another livid blast followed, missing Jennika’s face by a hair’s breadth. She felt no heat from the fire as it passed, but instead a bone-deep nausea and a terrible tingling as though the skin of her face had gone momentarily numb.
‘What in Throne’s name is doing that?’ barked Nesh. ‘Kaston, we’re chained martyrs up here.’
Jennika could see them now, vague humanoid figures lit by the dying light of the flares and the strobe of Kaston’s gun. She had a fleeting impression of corpse-white flesh, emaciated bodies scarred and tattooed, sightless eyes and gaping mouths. Amidst them she saw a larger figure, something hulking and unclean with avian features and curling horns. It raised a twisted staff, unnatural flame gathering about its tip.
Kaston’s lasfire ripped into the creature from above, punching through its torso and splattering the bedrock with gore. It convulsed, but managed to loose its blast before it collapsed. Jennika winced as the projectile shrieked past her.
From above came a scream, and she looked up to see that one of the Death Cultists had not been so fortunate. The leather-clad warrior was twisting and writhing as blue flames danced over her. Jennika felt revulsion as the Cultist’s body twisted and shriveled. Blue crystals burst through her flesh.
Below, Kaston landed at last, her boots thumping down beside her sputtering flares. She was immediately beset. Hissing and shrieking, pallid mutants launched themselves at her from all sides. Kaston turned, spraying fire that punched the degenerate creatures from their feet.
‘Cover me,’ she shouted. Jennika kept shooting, raining autopistol rounds onto the creatures until her magazine clicked dry. She snarled in frustration at the stately pace of her descent, seeing the things pressing in towards Kaston.
Finally, her feet touched the ground. Jennika landed directly behind Kaston, draconblade blazing. She swept the weapon in a roaring arc, bisecting one abomination and beheading another as they lunged at Kaston’s defenceless back. The mutants fell back, but more poured forwards, a maelstrom of clubbing fists and bared, rotten teeth.
