Path of the Outcast

by Gav Thorpe

  Hissing his breath through gritted teeth, Aradryan looked along the river towards the bridge. He could not tell how many dead eldar were in the water, but there were a lot of them. Many were caught in the foam that broke against the piles of the span, turning over and around in the current.

  Disgust welled up in the ranger, tainted with anger. It was the first time he had felt such deep revulsion, not of the dead but of their killers. The orks were still in the settlement, their raucous cries and guttural laughter easy to hear on the light breeze.

  ‘Careful,’ said Jair, laying a hand on Aradryan’s wrist.

  Aradryan realised that he had slipped his finger into the trigger guard, his grip on the longrifle tight. Noticing the alarm in Jair’s eyes, Aradryan relaxed his fingers and nodded.

  ‘Later,’ said Jair. ‘Later the orks will be punished for what they have done.’

  The group moved on, slipping from the waterside into the forest surrounding Selain. They came upon an outbuilding, its windows and red-tiled roof still intact though the wooden doors had been broken in. Stealing inside, the rangers found the place had been ransacked. It was bare save for a few broken pieces of furniture and scattered shards of pottery.

  Aradryan was intrigued by the construction of the building. He ran his hand over the walls, and could feel the slight joins between large blocks.

  ‘What is it made of?’ he asked.

  ‘Stone,’ said Jair, confused by the obvious question.

  ‘Yes, but what type? Ghost stone? Firestone? W–’

  ‘Stone, from the ground,’ snapped Naomilith. ‘Blocks quarried and shaped and assembled. The Exodites fashion all of their settlements in the traditional ways.’

  ‘Would it not be easier to grow their structures, as we do on the craftworlds?’

  ‘I refer you to our earlier conversation,’ said Jair. ‘The Exodites eschew the easy path, especially those deeds we accomplish with our psychic abilities. They work with the physical, the labour of their works occupying their minds and keeping them from the temptations of flesh and spirit.’

  ‘We waste time,’ said Caloth, who was about the same age as Aradryan, though she had been a ranger for nearly two passes. A scar ran from the side of her nose to her right ear, a disturbing affectation that could have easily been remedied in any craftworld’s Halls of Healing. ‘We should enter Selain proper so that we can assess the strength of the enemy.’

  That sounded like a dangerous prospect, but Aradryan kept his thoughts to himself, fearing more scorn from Naomilith, who had no qualms about displaying her dislike of him.

  Reaching the outskirts of the town proved to be easy; the orks had set no patrols or sentries to guard against observation. In fact, the greenskins seemed wholly unconcerned by the possibility of attack. Aradryan thought that perhaps the aliens considered the eldar defeated, or perhaps too cowardly to return to their sacked town. If so, their error of judgement would be bloodily corrected that coming night.

  ‘We should split into pairs,’ suggested Jair. ‘I will go with Aradryan, and head in the direction of the river.’

  This received assent from the others, and the six rangers divided, heading in different directions to investigate the situation in Selain. Aradryan was happy to go with Jair, who had at least shown some patience with his questions and inexperience.

  ‘I know that I said we have no leaders, and no hierarchy, but please do what I tell you,’ said Jair as they cut through the trees towards a tower on the edge of the main clearing. ‘I would rather we were not discovered.’

  ‘Have no fear, I shall follow in your footsteps and do exactly as you bid,’ replied Aradryan.

  The sun was still some time from setting, but the shadows were lengthening. Jair and Aradryan flitted from the trees into the shade of an arched doorway. Aradryan tried the door but it was barred from the inside. A shattered window further along the wall provided ingress and the two rangers slipped over the sill. Inside was much like the first building. They ascended quickly to the top of the tower, coming to a bedchamber where blood had been daubed on the walls and spilled in sticky pools on the bare boards of the floor.

  Ignoring the smell, Aradryan followed Jair as he stepped through the broken remnants of the windows onto a balcony. They crouched at the ledge and peered over, but could see little beyond the surrounding towers. Judging by the clamour of the orks – harsh shouts and the revving of combustion engines – the majority of the aliens were somewhere in the heart of the settlement.

  They crept through the streets, heading in the direction of the river, occasionally searching the buildings they passed. They found no bodies, which worried Aradryan, and caused a thought to cross his mind.

  ‘Do you think they have taken prisoners?’ he asked. ‘Should we try to rescue them if we find them?’

  ‘I do not think they have prisoners,’ Jair replied with a grim expression.

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘I do not hear any screams.’

  With a shudder, Aradryan continued after Jair, who was moving more swiftly. The streets grew narrower and the buildings to either side were linked by skybridges and walkways in their upper levels. Once or twice Jair froze in place and Aradryan did likewise, pressing against the smooth walls as a brutish, hunched figure or two would pass along one of these aerial paths.

  When they next paused, Aradryan could hear the gurgle of the river in the distance, even through the increasing noise of the ork occupiers. Jair signalled for Aradryan to join him where a high wall turned sharply around the edge of a garden. From here, the rangers could see into the open space at the centre of the town: a plaza that opened out from one end of the bridge.

  ‘We need to go up,’ said Jair, jabbing a thumb skywards.

  The other ranger surprised Aradryan when he leapt onto the wall, pulling himself up to its top. With a glance back at Aradryan, Jair then sidled along the wall to the building adjoining it. Another jump and lift took him onto the small roof of a jutting turret. Aradryan realised he was meant to follow. Ensuring that his rifle was properly on his shoulder, he repeated Jair’s actions, finding the climb easier than he had imagined.

  From the turret roof, they leapt across an alley to a deserted balcony opposite. Checking inside, they found the room within empty. From there, they located a staircase winding up to a roof terrace at the summit of the tower. There was a pool at the centre of the garden, an arm floating amongst the lily pads, nibbled by the black-and-white fish. Putting this to the back of his mind, where all manner of unpleasant images were now hidden, Aradryan scurried across to the walled lip of the terrace. It was not very high, forcing the two rangers to sink to their bellies and slink along like serpents.

  The plaza stretched below them, a massive pyre at its centre. On huge tripods and spits, chunks of a megasaur roasted noisily. The huge reptilian creatures were the staple herd of the Exodites, kept both to feed the local eldar and to trade with the craftworlds in exchange for goods and devices they could not manufacture themselves. Tatters of its scaled hide were being used as awnings on several of the ork vehicles, and covered a rough enclosure at one end of the plaza.

  Around the fires the orks clustered, some of them exceptionally large, easily half again as tall as an eldar. Smaller orks lounged further from the centre. All were being attended to by a swarm of little creatures with pinched faces, large ears and shrieking voices. The servant aliens lugged crates and sacks, brought food and polished guns and boots. They were subjected to a constant barrage of growls, shouts and fists, and seemed equally eager to squabble amongst themselves as they were to see to their larger cousins’ needs.

  Disgust welled up inside Aradryan, masking the fear he had felt since entering the settlement. From birth he had been taught about the barbarous greenskins – worst amongst all of the lesser races – but to confront their nature personally was an affront to everything he was as an eldar. He listened to their crudes barks, grunts and howls, and knew that such a language could nev
er conceive of the higher philosophies of life; it was a language for commands and subjugation and nothing more. That they destroyed what they did not desire, and desired little except war, was evidence of their base nature.

  In an instant it was easy to understand the orks and their society. The larger creatures bullied the smaller, which bullied the even smaller. In just one glance at the plaza, Aradryan saw this social system played out a dozen times, will enforced by physical brutality and nothing else. There was cunning here, he knew from old tales, but no intellect. Though the orks walked on two legs and constructed vehicles and guns, that did not hide the fact that they were beasts in heart and mind.

  Appalled at what the unthinking brutes had done to the settlement of the Exodites, Aradryan brought his rifle from his shoulder. He had never wanted to kill anything before – out of anger or sport – but deep down he knew there was no way to negotiate with the orks, or wait for them to pass on and rebuild. Unlike other natural cataclysms, the arrival of the orks could only be stopped with one means – to meet violence with a greater, more directed violence. Aradryan knew that he should not take pleasure in a cull, any more than one took pleasure in a firegull eating sandgrubs, but he could not stop feeling that an injustice needed to be addressed.

  And there would be vengeance. It was not enough that the ork invaders were slain. Bitter experience had taught the eldar in times past that the greatest menace of an ork invasion was not the warriors. Orks alive or dead shed spores to breed and once these spores had a grip on a world, especially a young, burgeoning planet like Eileniliesh, they were almost impossible to root out. The only way to be rid of the green beasts was swift and utter annihilation. So it was that Alaitoc had mustered what strength it could and even the Avatar had roused itself from its dormancy to bring battle to Hirith-Hreslain. If just one ork was to escape into the forests, a few short orbits from now Eileniliesh might be overrun by a new green horde and be lost forever. The autarchs and farseers had not responded to make battle with the orks, for orks thrived on war as other creatures thrive on food and drink; the Alaitocii had come to exterminate them.

  ‘Look over there,’ said Jair. He had removed the sighting array from his rifle and was using it as a tele-scope. Aradryan followed suit and turned his gaze across the plaza in the direction his companion had indicated.

  The buildings were in a far more ruinous state here, in the direction away from the river and away from the sunset. Many had collapsed, whether from bombardment or deliberate demolition he could not say. Rubble choked some of the streets and broken roof tiles, cracked balustrades and toppled walls littered the town. It was not this that Jair had noticed, though.

  In the gardens of one of the towers were several crude-looking cannons, hidden in the shadow of a porch roof. They were crewed by the smaller greenskins under the watchful eye of an ork with a cruelly barbed whip, the former stacking shells against the garden wall; a lot of shells.

  Aradryan remembered that he was not just here for his own edification. Using the gunsight, he scanned the surrounding streets and buildings, noting where barricades had been built and guns emplaced. There was some kind of vehicle pool at the far end of the plaza, and he set about counting up the buggies, open-backed trucks, large battlewagons and half-tracked bikes he could see.

  Under the direction of Jair, he examined the defences on the bridge. This did not take long, as there were none that he could see. He also cast his gaze along the river banks, but this also revealed that the orks were taking no particular precaution to guard themselves against attack from along the waterway.

  When they had seen all there was to be seen from their vantage point, Jair signalled for Aradryan to lead the way back down to the lower levels. This time they took one of the skybridges across the street to the next tower, moving from the shadow of one column to the next so as not to be seen from below.

  They descended to street level, but had taken no more than a few strides from the door when Jair suddenly stepped back, moving against the wall. The sun was quite low by now, and the long shadows of a group of the smaller greenskins appeared at the end of the alley.

  Though they were diminutive, no taller than Aradryan’s waist, the ranger felt a sudden panic gripping him at the thought of confrontation. They may be small, he thought, but they had vicious claws and fangs, and were used to fighting. He noticed that Jair had slipped his knife from his belt and unholstered his shuriken pistol; Aradryan had forgotten he carried such weapons.

  The instinct to run tried to sweep away Aradryan’s rational thoughts and his breaths became short and shallow as his body responded to the imminent threat. Jair must have detected something of his dread, for the other ranger turned around with a concerned expression and raised a finger to his lips.

  Trying to remain calm, Aradryan pushed himself back against the wall as the shadows crept closer.

  He could hear a smattering of high-pitched conversation growing louder. He couldn’t move as the patter of bare feet on the paving stones came closer and closer, yet at the same time his brain was screaming at him that if he did not turn and run now it would be too late. Locked in stasis between the instinct to fight or flee, Aradryan gritted his teeth, his hands making fists at his sides.

  Aradryan could smell them now, filthy and pungent. There was blood and smoke and rotting meat on the air, and he could imagine dirt-encrusted nails scratching at his flesh while jagged teeth sawed through his skin. His gut writhed at the thought, cramping painfully, but he kept his lips clamped shut despite the sudden ache in his stomach.

  The greenskins came into view, four of them. They had beady red eyes. Their ragged ears and bulbous noses were pierced with studs and rings. Two wore nothing more than stained loincloths, the other two, ever so slightly larger, wore jerkins and boots of untreated animal hide, which added to their stink. One of them had a revolver-style pistol thrust into its rope belt, the others carried sharpened metal spikes to serve as daggers.

  It was impossible to discern what they were saying, or to guess their mood from their nasal whining. They jostled each other and snarled, paying no attention to what was around them. Glancing to his left, Aradryan saw that Jair had his hood pulled across his face, his cloak drawn close about him. Moving gradually, Aradryan copied his companion, swathing himself with the cameleoline material.

  Almost within arm’s reach, the small goblin-like creatures walked past, oblivious to the presence of the two rangers. Aradryan dared not to breathe lest his gasps be heard, though the greenskins patrol, for such he guessed it to be, was making more than enough noise with its chattering to mask any such sound.

  Then they turned out of sight, heading into a street that led back to the plaza. Aradryan almost collapsed with relief.

  ‘Let’s go,’ hissed Jair, gesturing with his knife. ‘We’ll head back via the river.’

  For a moment, Aradryan could not walk. He sank to his haunches, back against the wall, and took several deep breaths, eyes closed.

  It was hard for him to believe that he was still alive. Aradryan chuckled, the sound coming unbidden from deep within him. The relief was so profound that he had to laugh to let it out.

  Jair appeared over him, scowling. The other ranger grabbed Aradryan’s coat and dragged him to his feet, clamping a hand over his mouth as more laughter threatened to erupt from his lungs.

  ‘Control yourself,’ Jair whispered. ‘Remember where we are.’

  Aradryan could not help it; his body was shaking, his mind overflowing with gratitude at still being alive.

  ‘I will abandon you here, if you do not calm yourself,’ warned Jair, stepping away.

  The thought of being left alone in this ork-infested town sobered Aradryan immediately. He opened his mouth to say sorry, but Jair cut him off with a swipe of his hand.

  ‘Apologise later,’ said the ranger. He pointed to the sky, which was streaked red and purple by the dusk sun. ‘We must regroup with the others.’

  The forest took on a diff
erent air as night fell. Swooping winged beasts with long, toothed beaks screeched from the treetops. The roar of predatory carnosaurs broke the still night and the wind in the trees sounded like the whisper of dead gods as Aradryan waited in the darkness.

  The sky glimpsed between the swaying canopy looked like brushed steel, the stars hidden by cloud and the smog of Hirith-Hreslain burning. The moons, of which two were currently creeping over the horizon, lit everything with a bluish gleam.

  The other rangers had headed back into Hirith-Hreslain, to place webway beacons for the waiting fleet to fix on to. On the frigates and battleships waiting off-world, wayseers would detect these hidden markers and delve temporary passages into the heart of the town, allowing some of Alaitoc’s warriors to attack from within the ork force.

  Jair would signal to Aradryan when it was time for him to enter the town and assist in the attack with his longrifle. Alone in a small dell where the river was a half-seen silver sliver through the trees, the ranger considered his extreme reaction earlier in the day.

  He was embarrassed by it now, but at the time he had been so certain of being discovered, and his subsequent butchery at the hands of the orks, that it had seemed miraculous to survive. Now it seemed so stupid, viewed with the benefit of hindsight. Had the greenskin sentries located them, there would have been ample opportunity to escape, even if Aradryan and Jair had been incapable of slaying them. The small creatures would have had no chance of keeping pace, and any resultant hue and cry would have been left far behind by the swift eldar.

  It had been fear that had ensnared Aradryan: a true and deep terror that he had never felt before. The dread he had experienced on the quayside by the Lacontiran had been an intellectual, existential dread of being. The fear he had felt at the thought of dying, or worse being captured, had been a barbaric, instinctual response, as primordial as the world he was on.