‘Radik Clev will seek recompense for his loss,’ he told me, before leaning back to take a draw of his kiseru. A plume of smoke issued from the long-necked pipe, the hairs in the bowl flaring brightly as Tarrigata sucked at them. ‘In turn, this debt shall come to you.’
‘I am sorry, dominus,’ I said, setting down the apothecary flasks wherever I could find space.
‘You killed his fighter, so there is that,’ added Tarrigata, ‘and you also illegally interrupted Kabe’s bout. For that, too, I must pay.’
‘Again, I am sorry.’
‘Sorry does not pay debts!’ he snapped, and a coughing fit wracked his body.
I went to help but Tarrigata warded me off with a trembling hand. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve when the fit was over, before taking a long, shuddering pull of his kiseru.
‘I will make amends,’ I said.
Tarrigata slowly nodded. ‘Yes, you will. Go into the Swathe. Find Gairok. Bring him here or the organ supply will dry up.’
Such things we must do to survive.
‘You have my word, dominus,’ I said, bowing as I made to leave.
‘I don’t care about your word, or your honour, Heruk. Just bring him. And do it fast.’
A vessel hovered just above the smog layer. Its sleek contours shone golden in the light of uphive. A Coronus grav-carrier. It had come from the Tower of Hegemon on a special mission appointed by Valdor himself.
A single warrior sat within the shadowy hold, alone with his thoughts until that moment, his golden battle-helm in both hands.
‘Ever since Nas’sau have we fought for Terra,’ said a voice through the warrior’s vox-link, the first he had heard in several hours.
He looked up, green eyes as vivid and bright as emerald. The hold doors began to open, admitting light and atmosphere.
‘You know what has to be done?’ asked the voice.
The warrior nodded. ‘I am clear in my duty.’
‘Find them, Tagiomalchian.’
Tagiomalchian donned his helmet, and a flurry of systems flickered to life across the retinal display.
He stood, securing his sentinel blade and storm shield. He then attached a monofilament wire to his armour. It was fed by a long spool bolted to the hold, and mag-locked to the auramite with a dull tunk. Tagiomalchian approached the yawning hold doors, the wire unspooling as he walked. He perched on the edge, cloak whipping in the breeze, and looked down into the smog-layer. His eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his helm.
‘I will find them,’ he whispered, before stepping off into oblivion.
The Abyssna burned. I couldn’t see it, the smoke was obscuring my vision, but I could smell it and hear it. The burning flesh of the soldiers inside, the crack of stone as the walls baked in the inferno and the shrilling of screams. Unity had come.
Thick ash swept across killing fields outside a grand fortress now swollen with the prince’s dead. Their sortie had failed to break our lines and reach our siege guns. The Imperial Army artillerymen, also lost to my sight, had kept up a relentless barrage. Such violent music. My heart beat with it, soaring from its thunderous melody.
Now we pushed, and pushed hard. The Afrik sun blazed. I sweltered in my heavy armour, and the heat from my skin began to fog my visor. Vezulah stood nearby, calling the charge, summoning even greater fury from the Thunder Legion and the heat intensified.
We ran, having left our grav-ships behind, bolters running hot with continued use.
A round clipped my shoulder guard, penetrated and bit into flesh. I snarled, using anger to quash the pain, and looked to the Lightning Banner. It was almost all I could see through the smoke that wasn’t right in front of me.
Somewhere in its vicinity fought the Emperor. Even His presence, remote and unseen, galvanised me. For a few seconds, the smoke thinned and I caught the flash of gold amidst the grey.
‘There,’ said the voice of Gairok behind me, and I felt his gauntleted hand on my arm subtly directing me. ‘Custodians… Lions in the guise of men.’
‘So it’s said.’
‘Shall we show them how the Thunder Legion fights?’ he asked, and I turned to see his toothy grin.
I had no time to admire their bloody skill at arms before the smoke swallowed them again.
‘Aye, brother!’
Gairok laughed, loud and bold, heedless of the bullets coming at us through the smoke. He gestured into the greyness.
‘Then here’s your chance!’
A deep, resounding crack announced the felling of the northern tower.
‘Let us ram a gladius straight down prince cretin’s throat, eh, Dah?’
Then we were running, our entire cohort, as Vezulah sounded a fresh charge.
‘Do you even know his name, Gairok?’ I asked.
Gairok shook his head. ‘So many petty barons, oligarchs and warlords, what does it matter? All will kneel and embrace Unity, or die. Now we show them how.’
The northern tower fell with slow, inexorable grace. It carved through the smoke like a sword, crumbling and disintegrating with every plummeting foot. The crash when it finally struck the ground shook the battlefield like an earthquake, dispersing huge swathes of smoke and revealing our enemy.
Pale-faced and sweating in grey uniforms under brass breastplates and wearing spiked helms, they looked determined but afraid. They ranked up in files and took careful aim.
Sporadic weapons fire scythed from the breach in the Abyssna’s wall. Mainly carbines and the odd energy cannon. Shields raised, our cohort advanced.
‘Let the reaping begin!’ roared Gairok, and I felt his battle fervour infect me.
I swept through the gap in the wall, leaping over rubble and the wounded trapped under it, and set about those who could still fight.
Bellowing, I cut off a rifleman’s head. I caught a glimpse of Gairok, who cried out, ‘The Afrik sun is hotter in the breach, eh, Dah!’ His blade was reddest of all. Our charge had decimated the defenders. Their ranks buckled, then broke. And then I heard Vezulah shouting. Horns were blowing. Victory neared, but the bloodletting was far from over. I killed two men with a single thrust, impaling both on my sword, but the dead dragged down my arm and I caught a glancing blow to the skull. I felt my helm crack. It had saved my life, but dizziness pushed me to my knees. I spat blood, shook off the pain and nausea, and looked up…
I found myself in the Silo, with a burly, half-armoured warrior standing over me. Gone was the Afrik sun, and in its place the dinginess of a lower Swathe dive bar. The warrior had craggy features, with a bald scar-laced scalp, and brandished a metal hook. It had the look of an improvised weapon.
Gone the power armour he once wore, a studded leather hauberk now served in its place.
‘Gairok…’ I slurred his name as I tried to piece together the fragments of what had happened between leaving Tarrigata’s and this moment.
Rather than strike me down, Gairok offered his hand. His skin shone red in the flickering lumen light.
‘Stand, brother,’ he said. Aspirated blood spattered his face. The veins in his neck bulged, and he breathed with feverish intensity. The grin that cut a white crescent in his features looked forced. Pained.
‘Gairok,’ I said again, standing and looking around. The dead surrounded us, gutted and torn up, all the wretched patrons of the Silo. The sweet, cloying scent of alc-grain mingled with the coppery stench of blood. The floor of the bar shone with it.
‘Did you… did you do this, Gairok?’ I asked, and felt the reassuring grip of my short sword as I slid it from the scabbard.
Gairok blinked, once, twice. His eyes were bloodshot. Sweat lathered his skin. I saw it almost glitter in the lumen light. His grin became a frown, a rabid beast struggling to comprehend its illness. How far was I from such a fate? The hand that gripped the hook tightened, and I felt my body tense.
He had been vital, strong of mind and purpose. I didn’t recognise the man in front of me.
‘Where are you, Gairok?’ I asked, t
rying to ignore the blood.
I have never seen him so weak. Gairok held the breach at Abyssna. He fought on the Sibir ice plain when the atomics rained down.
‘The Afrik sun is hotter in the breach, Dah,’ he said, but his mind was absent and his words a pale echo of those spoken to me years ago.
‘This isn’t the Abyssna, brother. Gairok… where are you? Try to think.’
He cast about, lost, searching the dead. None answered. ‘Sibir… No… hnng…’ He pressed a hand against his skull as if trying to keep his tattered sanity from spilling out, until his words slurred beyond comprehension.
Then he came at me with the hook, eyes wild, spitting froth.
‘Unity!’ he cried, barely articulate, a moan of despair as much as it was a remembered shout of triumph.
I blocked the overhand blow with my forearm, though Gairok’s strength was ferocious. With the other hand I slid out my short sword and rammed it deep into my brother’s chest. He struggled at first, madness lending him strength, until I carved and carved, and the blood and innards sluiced out onto the dirty floor. Gairok grew limp and I cradled his body to the ground to stop him from falling.
As he lay there amidst the dismembered corpses of his madness, I gently withdrew my blade.
Blood bubbled in the froth on Gairok’s lips. It reminded me of Kabe.
He blinked again, and I saw some lucidity return in his eyes.
‘We were… not meant… to last.’
The last of his life choked out of him and I held him until it was over. There was blood on his Legion tattoo and I wiped it away before I could no longer hold up my head.
I knew Kabe, I had fought alongside him as a sword-brother, but Gairok had been my friend. I wept for his passing, choking to death in some dirty Swathe bar.
‘Where is the honour for us?’ I asked the darkness, but silence answered.
My own words came back to me then.
We have lived too long.
I got to my feet, heavy with grief, and hauled Gairok onto my back. I wouldn’t leave him here, not like this. Something was wrong with us. I hoped Tarrigata would know what to do.
Tagiomalchian descended through a cloud of smog. The monofilament wire held him steady, thin enough to be invisible to the naked eye, robust enough to harbour a load many times his weight.
Drawn up over armour, the falsehood Tagiomalchian wore kept him hidden from sight.
A counter cycled down on his retinal display. When it hit fifty feet, he disengaged the mag-clamp and fell the rest of the way to the ground. A tiny grav pulse built into his armour cushioned his landing and he rose up from a crouched position to cast his gaze across the vast shanty town before him.
‘Landfall achieved. I remain undetected,’ he said, the sound of his voice baffled by the ambient neutralisers built into his helm array.
The same voice from the Coronus replied, similarly shrouded. Only Tagiomalchian could hear it.
‘Target location identified,’ it said over the vox. A hololithic schematic overlaid the terrain Tagiomalchian saw through his retinal lenses. ‘Your quarry is in the Swathe.’
‘Status request.’
‘Covert.’
‘Duration?’
‘As long as possible. Until detected.’
‘Kill or capture?’
‘Kill. And eradicate all trace.’
‘Confirmed. Request data inload.’
It took a few seconds. A small beacon lit up on the hololithic render.
‘Deeper than I thought,’ Tagiomalchian murmured, not intending to be heard but the baffle also focused vox-audio to the listener.
‘It’s a warren, Tagiomalchian, and there are rats lurking within.’
‘Then I had best start digging.’
Sump harvesters plied the chemical soup coagulating at the edge of the Swathe. Their nets and hooks dragged and snapped for salvage. Smoking ragsticks, coughing up their cancer-ridden lungs, slowly dying from the toxins in their blood, they gave no heed to the golden warrior striding in their midst. They didn’t even blink.
Gairok was a heavy burden, and it took several hours to reach the arena. As I neared the outskirts, I saw the smoke. Tarrigata’s hab was in flames. Laying down Gairok’s body, I drew my sword and ran. I thought it might be the work of Radik Clev, retaliation for what I had done to his chrono-gladiator. Upon entering the shanty town, I knew it wasn’t revenge. Madness reigned here. I found the dead. Eviscerated, beheaded and dismembered, they littered the place, ripped up like a butcher’s leavings.
A pressure began to build behind my temples and I pressed a hand to my head to ward it off. Pain, like a fathomless dive into a deep ocean, threatened to put me down, but I resisted. I smelled smoke, from Tarrigata’s hab, from the Abyssna and struggled to tell which was real and which was not.
A chill pricked my face, but I knew the atmosphere in the Swathe was sweltering. I remembered the Sibir ice plain and dared not look up for fear of seeing the atomics falling again. Then I was at Ararat, bellowing with Arik Tyrannis as he raised the Lightning Banner.
And then Hy Brasil and Ursh and Albia.
My skull throbbed. The dreams of Unity were relentless, and I powerless to command them.
In the end I focused on my sword, and held it tight across my body, thinking of its solidity, its permanence, its reality.
I resurfaced from the dream, sweating, skin burning with fever. I was on my knees, a watery pool of sick in front of me. I spat the taste of it from my mouth and hurried to Tarrigata’s hab. As I kicked down the door, heat and smoke assailed me. I hadn’t seen Vezulah during the frantic rush through the shanty and wondered if I would find him within, blood-mad like Gairok had been. I plunged inside, holding my breath, and warding my face with my forearm.
A few of the shelves had collapsed, either in the heat or during some struggle that had preceded this mess. I hacked through one, vaulted another until I found Tarrigata on his side, choking from smoke inhalation.
He turned his head at my approach. Fear contorted his face. He cried out, a pathetic, plaintive sound, as I swept in and gathered up his frail body into my arms. Thin fingers raked at my skin like needles. He fought, but with the strength of an enfeebled child.
‘Be still,’ I warned him, ‘or we’ll both die in this shit hole.’
His struggles eased, either at the sound of my voice or because he had used up what fight he had left. The fire was rising, spreading across the walls and ceiling. It crawled like a mudslide, hungrily devouring everything it touched. I heard shattering glass and realised the flasks were slowly cooking off. The chemical mixtures within would act as an accelerant.
Cradling Tarrigata against my body, I smashed headlong through the back of the hab and kicked through the rear door to emerge on the other side. We had barely made it six feet when the old shack and furnace exploded, sending up a plume of fiery debris and smoke into the air.
No crowd had gathered. Everyone was either dead or in hiding.
I carried Tarrigata clear and set him down on an old threadbare chair. Its arms were missing and patches of the synth-leather had flaked away to reveal mildewed sponge beneath. His breath rattled, and his skin looked so pallid that I knew he didn’t have long.
‘Where is Vezulah?’ I asked him firmly.
The old man’s head lolled to the side and I gently grasped it by the chin, turning it to face me.
‘Tarrigata, you’re dying. I’m sorry. But I need to know.’
Sudden urgency gripped him and he lurched towards me, mouth working but the words struggling to come at first. I leaned in, so the old man could whisper his truth into my ear.
‘He’s… he’s coming.’
Then he slumped back, sagging like a deflated lung and stirred no more.
‘He’s not. Vez is gone.’
I looked down and saw he had pressed the rad pistol into my hands. I didn’t know if he meant for to use it on myself or Vezulah, but I took it and put it in the empty holster attach
ed to my weapons belt.
I tore a strip of cloth from under my armour to wrap around Tarrigata’s eyeless sockets. Tying the blindfold in place, I took a deep breath and laid my hand upon his forehead.
‘You old bastard, you tried to stop him didn’t you?’
Standing, I looked down on Tarrigata’s withered body. Death had diminished him.
‘That’s my burden now. I’ll stop him. I’ll end it.’
Tagiomalchian swept unseen through the narrow alleyways and tunnels of the Swathe. He moved swiftly, the locator beacon flashing in his retinal lens growing closer with every second. In the distance, black smoke plumed into the sky, casting a funerary pall.
He found the first real evidence of his quarry at a dive bar that had been transformed into a charnel house. The heady stench of low-grade alc-grain and cooled viscera invaded his nostrils. He let it. As an Ephroi he had been trained to seek out evidence. He smelled transhuman blood, then engaged the internal vox.
‘Could be Legion,’ he said, ‘those who escaped the purge.’
‘Proceed with caution.’
Tagiomalchian nodded to himself. He knelt down to turn over one of the ragged bodies. His eyes drew to slits behind his retinal lenses.
‘That’s interesting…’ It looked like a burn mark in the shape of–
A nagging sense of wrongness made Tagiomalchian turn. He had barely reached for his sword when he was smashed off his feet.
I followed the trail Vezulah had left. It wasn’t hard, and I wondered if in some part of his still-lucid mind that he wanted me to find him. To end him. I hoped I could, I hoped I could stave off the madness that had turned Gairok and Vezulah too.
I thought of Tarrigata, of the old man choking half to death as he fled for life. I could not reconcile with Vezulah being responsible for that. Even drifting as he often did, Vezulah would not have raised a hand to the old man. But perhaps he didn’t know. The dreams, I had felt them. Vivid, persuasive. The desire for past glory was an effective blindfold.
Dreams of Unity - Nick Kyme Page 2
