Soulfuel

by Rob Sanders

  Verletz blinked. She suddenly felt as though some great, doom-laden weight had been lifted from her heart. Reaching out for the bolt-ravaged wall, she felt the tremble of generators die through the superstructure. The hull’s occluding sphere was collapsing.

  ‘You can end this bloodshed,’ Nassial Voightek roared up the corridor. ‘Hand over the witchbreed called Xenobia Nox and her mutant kindred.’

  Verletz’s suspicions were confirmed. The Red Corsairs had somehow found out that a Black Ship was in the system, and that the rogue psyker was imprisoned aboard it. The Battle Sister felt bile rise up the back of her throat. The rogue psyker had betrayed their position to the Tyrant’s followers on the shrine world. As she had silenced Xenobia Nox on Sanctus Shibboleth and held the mutant to her, the witch had used her powers to send a psychic message to any and all who might help her. She had advertised the position of the Divine Imperative with its precious cargo of dangerous psykers in the hope that she might be liberated in a piratical attack.

  She thought of Xenobia Nox – her mouth bridled shut and her limbs in chains within the deep, dark hold of the Black Ship. She would be barely conscious and unaware of the horror she had wrought. What the psyker had known, however, was that service to the Tyrant of Badab would be preferential to being soulfuel for the Emperor of Mankind.

  Verletz looked up at the monstrous First Among Equals. Xenobia Nox would be Nassial Voightek’s gift to the Tyrant of Badab, a glorious psychic weapon to be wielded by the piratical warlord.

  ‘You come to plunder our cargo?’ Verletz called up the corridor.

  ‘I do,’ Nassial Voightek rumbled back.

  ‘You are welcome to it,’ the palatine said, backing through the dungeon door to Xenobia Nox’s cell suite. The mournful cries of incarcerated psykers rose from the surrounding cells. All over the containment decks, mutants were experiencing a re-awakening of their powers. Without the dampening effects of the occluding sphere, the witchbreeds were free to draw upon the warp for their dread talents.

  Havoc unfolded in the corridor. Cell doors were suddenly blasted off their thick hinges, hitting Red Corsairs and smashing them into the walls. Some witches vented their fury in the form of ethereal streams, while others pulled the renegades in two with telekinetic force. Warpflame blazed from cells and rolled up the corridor, engulfing Red Corsairs. Within moments the Chaos Space Marines were being mobbed by rogue psykers, running and screaming at them, their wretched forms visible in the light of destruction.

  What had she done? Across the vox channels Verletz heard the horror she had unleashed. Unbound psykers, full of fury and hate, lashing out at anyone and everyone in the vicinity. With full command of their mutant powers, the degenerative witchbreeds visited their psychic vengeance not only on the Red Corsairs who barred their way but also on the surviving Adeptus Astra Telepathica adepts and Pontificals fighting their way through the ship. Verletz heard them die. She heard the witches take savage, unthinking revenge upon their gaolers – obliterating anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in the containment hold with them. Verletz told herself that the sacrifice was necessary and that such servants were giving their lives for their Emperor, but the justification felt hollow in her chest.

  As Verletz backed into Xenobia Nox’s cell, the two remaining Sisters Retributor put the weight of their plate against the thick metal door. The palatine grunted. The cell did not close from the inside. Emiliana Anatol stood with two of her Dominion squad. While they held their flamers on the door, the Sister Superior had the witch up out of her chair. Anatol held the psyker to her, the Sister Superior’s power maul braced across the prisoner’s chest. Chemically subdued and bathed in the nullifying field of the Black Ship’s psychic shielding, Nox had been barely conscious since arriving on board. As the field had collapsed, however, she had become a wild thing, tearing and scratching at the Sister Superior, the muscles of her face contorting within the bridle that caged her head and braced her mouth shut.

  Verletz didn’t know how long they stood there in the miserable environs of the cell. Outside the door and across the containment decks hell had broken loose. All the Sister could hear was the screaming of unbound psykers, the roar of powers unleashed, and the crash of boltguns.

  As the Sisters Retributor put their ears to the cold metal, the cell door imploded. Smashing both Battle Sisters and the buckled door into the cell with an armoured kick, Nassial Voightek ducked in through the opening. His pauldron still flickered with warpflame and had been crushed by the impact of some telekinetic force, while his plate was criss-crossed with the scorched marks of ethereal energies.

  ‘Burn, heretic,’ Verletz spat as the Sisters Dominion stepped forth and blazed streams of flame at the Red Corsairs captain. Holding up his outstretched lightning claw like a shield, Nassial Voightek deflected the worst of the inferno. With a sneer on his half-face, Voightek moved with superhuman reflexes, lopping the head off one Sister and stabbing the second through the chest with his crackling claws. As her head bounced across the cell floor, flamers stuttered to a stop. Voightek ripped his claw from the torso of the second Sister, allowing her to crash to the ground. He pointed at Adrianna Verletz with a blade of his claw, its point sizzling with dark energies.

  ‘Hand over the witch,’ the Red Corsairs captain snarled.

  Sister Superior Anatol had moved the shaft of the power maul across Xenobia Nox’s throat ready to crush it at her palatine’s command. Verletz held still, giving the renegade warlord a steely gaze.

  ‘She’s promised to another, heretic,’ she hissed. ‘Your former master – the Emperor of Mankind.’

  The mere mention of the God-Emperor’s name seemed to enrage the Chaos Space Marine.

  ‘That name means nothing to me now,’ Nassial Voightek said. ‘There is but one master – the Master of the Maelstrom, the Blood Reaver, Huron Blackheart – the Tyrant of Badab.’

  While the Red Corsair made his master’s announcements, Verletz made her move. Next to her, Emiliana Anatol struggled with the psyker. Xenobia Nox fought both to get free and to prise the witch’s bridle off her head. Verletz suspected that the dangerous psyker had no more intention of becoming the Tyrant’s slave than soulfuel for the Emperor. As Verletz reached for the release pin on the bridle, she hoped that she was right.

  The head-cage fell aside. The banshee shrieked. All became agony.

  In such close proximity to the witch, both the palatine and her Sister Superior recoiled in horror, trying to cover their ears. It couldn’t help them, however, as the soul shredding sound of the witch’s wail brooked no physical barrier. Both Battle Sisters crashed down to their knees. Emiliana Anatol fell to the deck and dropped her power maul.

  Xenobia Nox loomed over them like a storm unleashed. Even Voightek was affected, the Red Corsair stumbling as he reached out for the psyker with a crackling claw. Gore ran from a nostril, an ear and an eye on the captain’s half-face. His teeth were stained red and the fell workings of his baroque bionics steamed with the blood and oil streaming down them.

  Verletz breathed deep. She summoned her strength and that of her master. She had unleashed the witch upon them. She knew of the horror to come and had managed to steel herself against it. Her faith would protect her. At least for the brief moment it took to prise the power maul from the Sister Superior’s gauntlet.

  Thumbing the power weapon to full power, she brought up the crackling baton with all her might. Smashing up through the workings of the Red Corsair’s face, the palatine rose to her feet. Nassial Voightek reeled. His half-face streaming with blood and screwed up in the spirit-scorching agony of the witch’s shriek, the captain looked up at her.

  ‘Because my faith is my shield,’ the Battle Sister mouthed, before bringing the crackling power maul down on the renegade’s skull, splattering her plate and the cell walls with gore.

  As Adrianna Verletz stood there, a renegade Space Marine at her feet a
nd her soul about to shatter like a piece of crystal, she felt blood run down her cheeks from her eyes. Her ears felt wet with leaking gore and red globs sprayed against her breastplate from her nose. She turned to face the horrific mutant. Xenobia Nox’s mouth was open wide, row upon row of shark-like teeth on display. The psyker shrieked her banshee cry at the palatine, while the unbearable madness of the sound bounced through the corridors of the Divine Imperative.

  With a grunt, Verletz took a resolute step towards the psyker and thrust the handle of the power maul at her. Cracking the witch straight in the throat, the palatine listened as the shriek turned into an ugly crunch, followed by a gag and a hiss. With the banshee screech gone from the air, Verletz felt the streaming tears of blood slow. In the silence of the dungeon cell, the Battle Sister felt her spiritual agony subside.

  Xenobia Nox staggered back, clutching her throat. ‘Let’s not take any chances…’ said Verletz, knocking the psyker out and dumping her back in the chair.

  As Verletz locked the chair manacles about the unconscious psyker’s wrists and ankles, she could hear the exchange of bolt fire in the corridors beyond. Re-securing the witch’s bridle about the mutant’s ugly features, the palatine turned to find Orsino Quant in the doorway. He was flanked by two towering Adeptus Astartes captains, the reinforcements the inquisitor had spoken of. The first loomed over Quant and the Battle Sister in blue-and-white plate, the second in yellow. Verletz recognised them as members of the Lamenters and the Marines Errant, two Space Marine Chapters that the inquisitor would have worked with in the Maelstrom Zone. The Marines Errant had lost nearly all their gene-stocks to an attack by the Red Corsairs on Vilamus. The Lamenters, meanwhile, were still prosecuting a 100-year penitent crusade for their part in the Badab War. Verletz assumed that neither Chapter needed much persuading to engage with the Tyrant’s renegades.

  Inquisitor Quant stood there, the sound of bolt fire and the deaths of traitor Space Marines rolling up the corridor behind. He looked down grimly at the dead Battle Sisters on the cell floor.

  ‘I’ve reinstated power to the psychic shielding. The occluding sphere is re-established,’ the inquisitor told her. Verletz nodded slowly. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry for the loss of your Sisters, palatine. They fought with faith and honour. You should be proud.’

  ‘And yet I am but sorry,’ Verletz said, looking down at Emiliana Anatol.

  ‘You still have your prize,’ the inquisitor said, nodding at the unconscious psyker.

  ‘She would have made a tyrant’s prize,’ Verletz said finally. ‘To the Emperor, his due. To me, she is just… soulfuel.’

  About the Author

  Rob Sanders is the author of the novel Cybernetica and The Serpent Beneath, a novella that appeared in the New York Times bestselling Horus Heresy anthology The Primarchs. His other Black Library credits include the The Beast Arises novels Predator, Prey and Shadow of Ullanor, the Warhammer 40,000 titles Adeptus Mechanicus: Skitarius and Tech-Priest, Legion of the Damned, Atlas Infernal and Redemption Corps and the audio drama The Path Forsaken. He has also written the Warhammer Archaon duology, Everchosen and Lord of Chaos along with many Quick Reads for the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in the city of Lincoln, UK.

  The Red Corsairs move to seize the Hollow Worlds of Lastrati, and the Space Wolves muster to oppose them. But what does Huron Blackheart want with these mysterious planets, and can the sons of Russ thwart his evil plans?

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  ISBN: 978-1-78572-727-6

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