by Dan Abnett
This is old,' said Fischig. He ran his hand across the riven stone facing, 'but the damage is new.'
The wheel-graves,' Alizebeth Bequin said suddenly. I looked over at her. 'On Bonaventure/ she explained, remembering her homeworld. There were famous old sites in the western hills, made by races before man. They were arranged in radiating circles, like wheels. I used to go there, when I was a child. They had been decorated once, I suppose, but the surfaces had been cut away. Ransacked by later hands. It reminds me of this.'
There are many who make a trade in archaeological plunder/ said Fischig. 'And if it's xenos artefacts, the penalty is high.'
I'd overheard Glaw and his allies mention archeoxenon materials. If this was such a site, connected in some way to the as yet mysterious saruthi, it accounted for the way they persisted in working it despite the volcano.
What had they taken from here? What was it worth to them? What was it worth to the saruthi?
We retraced our steps back to the main seam, passing three more abandoned cavities. Each one had shown signs of the old stonework, and each had been robbed like the first.
We came to the end of the seam, and a metal ladder rose up through scaffolding to an opening in the rock ten metres up.
We climbed up into another tunnel, and at once heard the rattle of rock drills. The atmosphere was clearer here, and we were able to remove our rebreathers. Cold air, from the surface, I guessed, breezed down the tunnel. With extreme caution, we passed along, crossing the mouth of a gigantic cavern that had probably been a magmatic reservoir. The walls were polished and fused by heat. Crouching low, we looked in, and saw work gangs of men and women, undoubtedly Rhizor's kinfolk, forming basket chains to clear rock debris from the workface. There were at least a dozen of the bestial guards in their black, spiked armour. One walked the workline and administered encouragement with an electro-lash.
I peered in more intently, and tried to make sense of the main working. Two Damaskite slaves worked with rock drills, cutting back the crust of wall, exposing a wide stretch of the old stone facing. Other slaves, most of them women, laboured closely on the exposed section with small picks, awls and brashes, revealing carvings of intricate design.
A relay of shouts ran down the guard line, and we hid ourselves in the tunnel shadows. From up ahead, lamps bobbed and wove, and a party of men came down the tunnel from the surface into the cavern. Three were guards, two grey-shrouded supervisors with data-slates. The others were Gorgone Locke and the pipe-smoker Girolamo Malahite.
As I suspected, members of the Glaw cabal had escaped House Glaw alive. Estrum's rogue fleet had no doubt played a part in that salvation.
Locke was dressed in a leather robe with armoured panels woven into it. His mouth still showed the wound I had inflicted there. His mood was sullen.
Malahite was dressed in black as I had seen him before. He stood, studying data-slates, conferring with the dig supervisors and the leader of the guard team before moving to look at the exposed stretch of achaeoxenon material. The slave workers shrank back out of his way.
He exchanged a few words with the men around him, and the guard leader hurried off, returning with a bulky rocksaw. The tool trailed cables and tubes behind it, back to a socket junction at the mouth of the cavern, where it linked to a system of power and water supply lines running back up the tunnel to the generators and pumps at the surface.
The saw whined into life, pumping a sheen of water over its blade to keep it clean and cool. The guard leader carefully sliced the blade into the rock, the saw keening as it bit. In a few seconds, he had cut a slice of the carvings free. As far as I could tell, the carvings were made on individual stone blocks, and he was slicing the sculpted faces off the stones. He cut two more, and they were passed with reverence to Malahite, who studied them and then handed them on to be wrapped in plastic and placed in wooden carriers. The slices looked very much like the old stone tablets I had seen in that private study under House Glaw.
There was a loud crack. The guard leader had cut another tablet away, but it had broken into fragments. He dropped the saw and began to collect up the fragments frantically as those around him cursed and shouted. Locke moved in.
He kicked the man hard and dropped him to the ground, then kicked him repeatedly as he lay there, trying to shield his face, begging for mercy. Malahite gathered up the fragments.
You were told to be careful, you useless bastard!' Locke was growling.
'It can be repaired,' Malahite told the ship master. 'I can fuse it together.'
Locke wasn't listening. He kicked the man again, then dragged him up and threw him against the wall. He cursed at him some more and the man whimpered, pleading apologies.
Locke turned away from the battered wretch. Then he picked up the revving saw, swung back, and dismembered the guard leader.
It was inhuman. The agonised screams filled the chamber. All the slaves wailed and moaned, and even the guards looked away in distaste. Locke laid in with murderous glee, covering himself in blood.
Then he tossed the smoking saw onto the ground at his feet, and turned to another of the guards. He pointed to the saw.
'Make sure you do a better job,' he snarled.
With huge reluctance, the, guard picked up the saw and set to work.
Locke, Malahite and their party left after another ten minutes, followed by a work gang carrying the wooden crates full of cut tablets. We waited a few minutes, then followed them up the tunnel.
There was daylight ahead, scarce and thin. The tunnel came up into what I guessed was the large modular shed 1 had seen from my reconnaissance. Workers milled around on rest breaks, and guards and the grey-robed overseers wandered back and forth. Dig equipment and tools were piled up in the poorly lit shed. Fischig found a door at the back of the shed behind equipment boxes and broke the lock. The four of us were able to slip out of the shed from the rear into the settlement without having to pass through the main mine entrance and thus be seen.
We were now in a back lane of North Qualm, with the volcano slopes behind us. Rotting and abandoned buildings stood close all around, and flurries of ash and soot blew down over us. We kept close to the walls, holding back out of sight when anybody passed.
Behind the next jumble of ruins lay a cleared area partly masked by more flak-board screens, designed to keep the ash out. Two launches sat on the scorched ground: a large Imperial navy transport and a smaller, older shuttle. A thicker layer of ash coated the older shuttle's hull.
Figures moved around the entry ramps of both ships. Guards and workers were moving the wooden stretchers of excavated artefacts up into the belly hold of the navy launch. I could see Locke and Malahite standing nearby with several of the supervisors and three battlefleet officers in shipboard fatigues. One, a lean man with a receding chin and bulging eyes, wore the ribbons and insignia of a captain. Our rogue, Estrum. As I watched, the ecclesiarch Dazzo emerged from a nearby building and crossed to them, holding the hem of his rich gown up out of the ash.
Shouting suddenly boomed across the yard. An angry human voice followed by a deeper, more savage sound that set the hairs on my neck up.
Lord Oberon Glaw, dressed in a cloak and body armour, slammed out of the building Dazzo had emerged from, striding across the landing yard. A second later, the huge, ghastly bulk of the Chaos Space Marine followed him, raging and cursing.
Glaw wheeled and faced the giant monster, resuming his argument at the top of his voice. For all his size, the lord of House Glaw was dwarfed by the vividly armoured blasphemy. The Traitor Marine had removed his helmet: his face was a white, powdered, lifeless mask of hate, with smears of gold dust and purple skin paint around the hollow eyes and a dry, lipless mouth
full of pearl-inlaid teeth. His only vaguely human face seemed to have been sutured onto his skull, the exposed parts of which were machined gold. There was a terrible stink of cloying perfume and organic corruption. I could not imagine the courage - or insanity - that it took to fa
ce down a Chaos Space Marine in a furious argument.
The wind was against us, and all we could hear was the violent snarl of the voices instead of actual words. Dazzo and Malahite quickly crossed to Glaw's side, and most of the other guards and workers present cowered back.
The wind changed a little.
'.. .will not deny me any longer, you human filth!' The awful voice of the Traitor Marine could suddenly be heard.
'You will show me respect, Mandragore! Respect!' Glaw yelled back, his voice powerful but seemingly frail against the roar of the Chaos warrior.
The Marine bellowed something else that ended in '...slay you all and finish this work myself! My masters await, and they await the perfect completion of this task! They will not idle their time while you vermin dawdle and slacken!'
'You will abide by our pact! You will keep to our agreement!'
I realised I had almost become hypnotised. Staring at the monstrous, raging figure, drawn to him by his power and sheer horror, my eyes had lingered too long on the obscene runic carvings that edged the joints of his armour, the insane sigils that decorated his chest plate. I was entranced, captivated by the golden chains that dressed his luridly painted armour, the gems and exquisite filigree covering his armour plate, the translucent silk of his cloak, and the words, the alien, abominable words, inscribed upon his form, twitching and seeming with secrets older then time... secrets, promises, lies...
I forced myself not to look. Soul-destroying madness lay in the marks and brands of Chaos if one looked too long.
Mandragore shrieked in fury and raised a massive gloved fist, spiked with rusty blades, to smash Lord Glaw.
The blow didn't fall. I started, as if slapped, as a burst of psychic power rippled across the concourse.
Mandragore stepped back a pace. Dazzo moved towards him. Smaller man Glaw or Locke, Dazzo seemed even more insignificant next to the monster, but with each step he took, the Chaos Marine moved backwards.
He didn't speak, but I could hear his voice in my head. The presence and die words were so foul I barely managed not to vomit.
'Mandragore Carrion, son of Fulgrim, worthy of Slaanesh, champion of the Emperor's Children, killer of the living, defiler of the dead, keeper of secrets - your presence here honours us, and we celebrate our pact with your fellowship... but you will not seek to harm us. Never raise your hand to us again. Never.'
Dazzo was simply the most potent psyker I had ever encountered. With his mind alone, he had forced down one of the vilest of the traitors, a Space Marine sworn to the corrupt service of Chaos.
Mandragore turned away, and strode off across the compound. I saw now how Lord Glaw wilted from the confrontation, his bravado spent. Many of the workers present were weeping with the trauma of the exchange, and two of the guards were throwing up.
Shaking, I looked round at my companions. Fischig was ashen-faced and trembling, his eyes closed. Rhizor had curled up in a ball in the ashy mud, his back against the wall.
Bequin had vanished.
FIFTEEN
Exposed in the midst of the foe
An ill-matched war.
Flight.
I had a second to realise that wherever Bequin had gone, it had left us exposed, outside the veil of her untouchable aura. I heard a cry, a strangled warning from the old ecclesiarch that was immediately accompanied by the hoot of sirens.
In the landing yard, guards were racing towards us. Dazzo was pointing directly at the section of ruin that concealed us. Locke pulled a laspistol from his robe. Angry voices, the raucous bark of cygnids.
'Fischig!' I cried. 'Fischig! Move or we're dead!'
He blinked, still pale, as if he didn't recognise his own name.
I slapped him hard around the side of his head.
'Move, chastener!' I yelled.
The first of the guards had reached the ruins, and one was kicking his way in through a boarded-up door. I saw his staring face looking out of a dirty black visor. He raised his lasgun.
I swung the powerful carbine up and laced him and the doorway with a spray of laser shots. Stone and wood debris spat and flew from the multiple impacts.
Las-shots whined in through gaps in the stone work and exploded against the outside wall.
Fischig's heavy stubber chattered into life. He played the sweep of blazing tracer shots down the dark cavities of the ruin to our left, tearing apart two more guards who were forcing their way in.
More guards, to my right, fired their weapons. My las-carbine crackled on full auto, a blur of high-pitched whines, as I raked the narrow entrance and dropped another three.
Still firing, Fischig backed into the depths of the ruin.
'Come on!' he snarled. I backed with him, our weapons laying down a storm of explosive metal and piercing energy that rippled across the rain walls, scattering debris, spraying ash dust and bursting bodies.
Rhizor, his mind utterly gone with terror, lay on the ground. I grabbed him by the scruff of his rags and dragged him after us. He fought at me, despairing.
A large figure came leaping in though the window space in the wall through which we had observed the dealings in the yard. It was Locke. He rolled as he landed, his laspistol retching shots.
One shot clipped my left shoulder. Another three slammed into Rhizor's back and he toppled into me, knocking me flat.
Fischig saw Locke, and swung round, his finger not lifting from the stub-ber's blunt trigger. The rapidly cycling mechanism of the heavy weapon made a high, grinding metallic noise overlaid with the frenetic blasts of the shots.
The scant cover around Locke disintegrated, and he cried out as he threw himself behind a section of wall. He fired as he moved, and Fischig granted in pain as a las-shot punched into his side.
'Eisenhorn! You bastard!' Locke bellowed. I pulled myself out from under Rhizor's corpse, sad that that ragged slave had paid such a price for assisting an inquisitor. Another crime on the shoulders of Gorgone Locke.
Damning the ship master's name, I pulled a frag grenade from my pack, and tossed it in Locke's direction. Then Fischig and I moved as fast as we could out through the rear of the smoke-filled ruin.
The grenade blew out the back of the structure. I hoped to the Emperor it had torn Locke limb from limb.
Coughing and spitting, Fischig and I came out into a ditch that ran behind the rained dwellings of North Qualm and the newer modular buildings. Angled over us were the large flak-board baffles of the ash-screens.
Las-shots chipped and whacked into the screens and wailed down the dim ditch. Guards tumbled into the ditch twenty metres away, rabidly howling cygnids pouring in with them.
Fischig made the ditch his killing field, and emptied his second dram of ammunition down the length, pulverising guard and canine alike. We hurried in the opposite direction as he straggled to clamp in a fresh dram.
Guards were shooting at us through the ruins, blowing chunks from the mouldering stonework. We ran on, chased by the furious salvos.
The ditch ran out into a small yard where an eight-wheeler truck was parked. We exchanged shots with three guards who rounded the corner into the yard and dropped them, but a fourth appeared, loosing a trio of cygnids from their leashes. Baying, they pounded across the yard. I killed
one with my carbine, but the track blocked any shots at the others. The big vehicle rocked as one leapt up into its frame. A moment later, it was leaping over onto us. I put a las-round through its skull as it came down, its muscled bulk just missing me. The other came out from under the truck, filthy with axle grease, and leapt at Fischig. It knocked him over, its huge jaws locked around his armoured forearm.
I drew my powersword and thrust the crackling blade through its body.
More shots, thumping into the truck.
'Get up!' I told Fischig as we rolled the canine's dead weight off him.
The entire compound closing around us, we sprinted to the rear of a modular shed and broke the door in.
It was an equipment st
ore, stacked with spare blades for rock drills, spools of cable, lamp-cells, and all manner of other mining equipment. We moved low between the piles of equipment, hearing shouts and running footsteps outside.
I paused, changing cells in my carbine, and keyed my vox-link.
Thorn wishes aegis, rapturous beasts below/
'Aegis, arising, the colours of space/ came the response immediately.
'Razor delphus pathway/1 instructed, 'Pattern ivory!'
'Pattern confirm. In six. Aegis, arising/
Guards burst into the back of the shed, and Fischig blew them back out through the prefab wall with a wild burst of shots.
I looked around, and saw a stack of black metal boxes raised on a pallet in the corner of the shed. The paper labels were old and faded, but I prised off the lid of one box and confirmed their contents.
'Get ready to move/ I said, arming my second grenade.
'Oh shit!' said Fischig, seeing what I was doing. He was already half out the door as I placed the grenade on the top of the boxes.
We came out firing, met by a dozen or more guards who were sectioning the street looking for us. Most were pit guards in their black, ugly armour, but three were naval security troops in black cloth fatigues, no doubt part of the traitor captain's contingent.
We fired as we ran. The grenade was on a ten-second fuse. The fact that we ran through the midst of them caught them unawares. None of them was able to get a clean shot off.
Fischig and I dived headlong over a crumbling section of wall that had once surrounded North Qualm's market yard.
The grenade went off. And so did the stack of mining explosives it had been sitting on.
The Shockwave concussion flattened every wall for thirty metres. The upwards force of the blast, driving before it a blistering fireball, lifted the whole modular shed twenty metres into the air and sent the shredded remains of the structure crashing down onto neighbouring buildings.
Scraps of metal, cinders and shreds of burning flak-board rained down on Fischig and myself. There was a dazed silence broken only by the warble of alarms, cries of the injured and desperate shouting. The air was
