Inferno Volume 2 - Guy Haley

by Warhammer 40K

  Cirine fell, Verigon’s axe buried deep in her chest. Verigon tore it free, a feral gleam in his purple eyes. With an adrenal shiver, he stepped over her corpse.

  No. His son could not be doing this. He could not.

  Savrian pushed the truth away even as his mind lurched for it. Verigon charged, teeth clenched, bloody axe swinging low. Sluggish, Savrian lunged back, his legs wobbling. The axe cleaved through the gash in his armour into vital organs.

  The pain crushed him, obliterating every other sensation. The withdrawal blasted the sensation to unendurable highs. He rolled into the sand, unable to breathe, unable to think. A chill, cold as glacier-melt, filled his flesh. As he inhaled, the pain twisted his guts like a fist. Warmth bathed Savrian’s side, and his hand came away red with blood.

  Verigon looked down at him, muscles twitching in his face.

  ‘I serve Khorne. Not Slaanesh. Never Slaanesh,’ Verigon snarled.

  ‘No one can reject her allure… She will not allow it,’ Savrian gasped, struggling to his knees. ‘You cannot be my son. Not the boy I raised. You are some fake. Some soul-dead counterfeit.’

  ‘I am your son,’ Verigon said, his voice quivering. ‘I remember the towers and bathing pools, and the endless feasting and the vulgar rituals. I remember my mother. Her charms and venom did not save me. And you didn’t either. You were off searching for a vanished god while we died. I’ve hated you ever since then.’

  ‘I should have seen you for what you were – a wretched animal,’ Savrian hissed, then he coughed and the pain flared.

  ‘You did, and you ignored it,’ Verigon said, circling around him. ‘Because you are soft, like your useless, effete master.’

  ‘Do not blame her for my decisions,’ Savrian said. ‘It’s my fault you were taken. Slaanesh is perfect and cannot be blamed.’

  ‘Perfect?’ Verigon said, his voice full of venom. ‘It was Khorne who kept me alive in the pits, who taught me to fight and set me free. You were right, the Bastion is a cage and Chagorath was a brainless fool for staying there. There are so many other ways I can please Khorne. Like turning the Kingdom of Sarn to a god that is actually worthy and not just a hole in the heart.’

  Spite and hate and fury rose up in Savrian, desperate and clawing. It pushed him to his feet and helped him drag his sabre free of its sheath. Yet, he didn’t have the strength to strike; the blood loss was too much.

  ‘They will know your allegiance,’ Savrian snarled. ‘They will reject you.’

  Verigon continued to stalk him, prowling just out of reach of Malisette.

  ‘No, they won’t,’ Verigon said, smirking. ‘They will see the purple eyes of Sarn’s bloodline and love me as they were conditioned to. And they will follow me to Khorne’s side like children.’

  The horror of it crashed in. Savrian’s dynasty was ending, the empire toppling, the work of a thousand ancestors burning away. His people’s devotion to his bloodline would be the undoing of his house. And it was his fault.

  ‘Slaanesh give me the strength to kill you,’ Savrian whispered. ‘I swear I’ll have you dead. My ancestors will break your soul after they break your body. They’ll–’

  ‘You will see them before I do,’ Verigon said. ‘And if they’re going to break anyone, it is you. If you desire vengeance, you should pray to Khorne.’

  Verigon hefted the axe, encroaching on him.

  Savrian recoiled, clutching his side. Malisette gleamed, outstretched in his other hand, but then his legs crumpled and he collapsed once more.

  ‘No, I will not run from my goddess,’ Savrian choked out. ‘My devotion is true. Do not insult me, you heartless beast.’

  Verigon stopped and stepped back then, his face dark with pity.

  ‘You are pathetic,’ Verigon said. ‘You are so blinded by your sentimentality that you don’t realise Slaanesh never cared about you. At least Khorne does not pretend to. I’ll leave you to him, though I wonder if you even deserve that. Goodbye, father.’

  Savrian tensed but the axe did not come. Verigon walked away, nothing more than an outline against the rising sun. Then he disappeared down the beach and Savrian was alone.

  Darkness ate at Savrian’s vision, his flesh clammy and cold. He could not feel anything. This was suffering, this long degeneration into the oubliette of one’s own dying body. His thoughts slurred together, his memory turning to soup.

  ‘Slaanesh, no, please,’ Savrian said. ‘Come to me, please. Beloved. Please. You cannot let him. Please, let me fix it. Let me…’ Savrian’s breath ran out as his life blood leaked from the mortal wound. His heart fluttered in his chest like a trapped bird. Savrian forced himself to inhale against the agony, but each breath became shallower and shallower as the abyss inside him grew.

  He felt for some comfort, some presence as his soul loosened in its moorings. Just a hint of her. He would endure any soul-breaking torture just to see her. She could punish him in ways that would make a daemon wilt. All of that would be nothing if he could just see her. Just a glance. Just once.

  ‘Beloved, where have you gone?’ Savrian whispered.

  He sank into a cold and endless abyss, his countless regrets whispering in the dark.

  LUCIUS: THE FAULTLESS BLADE

  by Ian St. Martin

  With his armies exhausted by unending war and consumed by their own twisted iniquities, Lucius the Eternal turns to an erstwhile brother of the Emperor’s Children to rebuild his strength. He’s died a thousand times, but for Lucius the Eternal, there’s something worse than death on the horizon unless he can control the forces that threaten to annihilate all that he has worked to build.

  Find this title, and many others, on blacklibrary.com

  TURN OF THE ADDER

  J C Stearns

  Illinois-based author and drukhari enthusiast J C Stearns brings his zeal for all things dark and twisted to Inferno! for the first time.

  When a treacherous wych cult affronts the Kabal of the Bladed Lotus by falling to Ynnead, the powerful Archon K’Shaic rallies his forces to wipe them from existence. But when K’Shaic attempts to sway the tide of battle by pitting his two sons against each other, the brothers reveal dastardly schemes of their own.

  ‘The reward of treachery is victory.’

  Thunderous cheers rolled through the drukhari fleet. Archon K’Shaic stood on the command dais of his battle-barque and held up a hand for silence. On hundreds of sleek-keeled Raiders, the archon’s holographic image – projected from each transport’s command relay or the hand-held unit of a dracon – towered over the kabalite foot-soldiers and gun crews. K’Shaic’s image was repeated so frequently that even the countless hired mercenaries from lower Commorragh, soaring between the Raiders on jetbikes and skyboards, could hear his proclamations.

  ‘The Dark City stands as an eternal monument to the power of betrayal!’ Another cheer, loud enough to be heard over the screaming jets as the massive fleet barrelled through the webway. ‘But,’ the archon said, holding one interjectory finger aloft, ‘what the Jade Labyrinth has done is no betrayal!’

  All the fleet’s members booed as one. They followed the oratory lead of the great archon as surely as they followed the physical lead of his battle-barque. The triple-decked catamaran was larger even than the Razorwing jetfighters roaring overhead. Disintegrators and dark lances bristled along its long black decks. The graceful hull was the colour of oiled gunmetal, the sharp edges of its plates tinged violet, its sails boasting the insignia of the Bladed Lotus, in K’Shaic’s colours of purple on steel. Evaeline, the barque’s experienced pilot, commanded the ship from directly behind the command dais.

  ‘Had the hekatarii of the Cult of the Jade Labyrinth merely turned upon us, they would be role models, not criminals. No, the Labyrinthae have done something far worse than betraying us – they have chosen subservience. They’ve made themselves willing slaves, whoring them
selves for the false promise of a non-existent deity!’

  Leaning against a railing on the barque, Naeddre and his brother Qeine watched their father rousing the bloodlust of his troops. K’Shaic, Archon of the Kabal of the Bladed Lotus, was in rare form. Naeddre didn’t know how many slaves had been flayed to give his father such a youthful vigour, but the number had to be in the thousands. He’d never seen K’Shaic so energetic.

  ‘I say, if these Ynnari,’ K’Shaic snarled the word with undisguised contempt, ‘if these wyches and whatever craftworld scum have lured them astray want to court death so badly, then let’s give them exactly what they’re asking for!’

  The archon keyed his command dais. Across the fleet, his mighty holographic images vanished.

  ‘Inspiring,’ said Qeine. Tall and broad of shoulder, Qeine was a peak physical specimen of his kind. He wore ridged ghostplate armour to add to his profile, which made him tower over every warrior on the ship.

  ‘Victory will give us our real inspiration,’ said K’Shaic. Even without his holographic enhancements, he was an imposing figure. His own ghostplate armour was exquisite, a custom-built relic, its form the template for the armour of every kabalite soldier in his employ. His long flowing mane of ebony hair normally struck Naeddre as a token of vanity, out of place in his father’s aging features. With the full glory of his youth restored, it suited the archon. His alabaster features could have been graven from purest marble, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut flesh. His ancient powerblade, the surgesabre, rested at his hip, silently hungering for murder.

  ‘All the inspiration in the galaxy will do us little good if we’re murdered from behind,’ said Naeddre. Both his father and older brother fixed him with hateful glares, although he could see Qeine struggling to keep the edges of a smile out of his sneer.

  Slender where his brother was muscular, short where Qeine was tall, Naeddre had always been seen as the lesser brother. Nearly everyone with whom they interacted seemed to take his reduced stature as evidence of a reduced character. Qeine boasted the best equipment, while Naeddre went to war in a studded flight vest befitting a wealthy heliarch. The thin material made it easier to manoeuvre on a skyboard, sacrificing none of the wearer’s agility for added protection. In fact, while it looked as flimsy as the wychsuit of any hellion, it had been made by the same craftsmen as Qeine’s ghostplate, and could easily deflect a bolt shell or Commorrite splinter shard.

  ‘If you fear the forces at your back, then perhaps you’re better suited to guarding the Amaranth Spire,’ K’Shaic sneered.

  ‘It’s not our own forces that worry me,’ said Naeddre. ‘They’re far more interested in murdering the Jade Labyrinth.’ Which was true. When Kysthene and the wyches under her command had fled the Dark City, declaring allegiance to the Ynnari and seizing control of the Port of Widows, they’d done more than just betray their kabalite benefactors. They’d left the Bladed Lotus without their primary means of ­psychic sustenance. They’d cut off the kabal’s access to the port that provided a great deal of its material wealth. Most importantly, they’d made the Kabal of the Bladed Lotus, and by extension every member of it, look foolish and weak. Their destruction was not only in compliance with Vect’s edicts, but also a necessary step if the kabal was going to survive in the wake of Commorragh’s recent upheavals.

  ‘The garrisons?’ Qeine guessed.

  ‘The garrisons,’ Naeddre confirmed.

  Their father steepled his fingers, staring at his two sons. They needed no goading to know when he expected them to compete for his favour.

  ‘Ignore them,’ said Qeine. ‘They’re intended to reinforce the port in the event of sustained invasion, but the Port of Widows was never designed to repel invasion from the Commorragh side. We’ll overwhelm them, put the Labyrinthae to death and surround whatever forces remain in the garrisons before they have time to assault our rear lines.’ As ever, Qeine’s plan was raw, naked aggression, designed to win through bravado and brute force.

  ‘Take them one at a time,’ Naeddre countered. ‘We first overwhelm one of the rear garrisons, then the other, before moving on to the port itself. Let each enemy bastion that falls increase the terror of the next.’

  ‘If the corsair fleets arrive at the Port of Widows, the wych cult will barter all the goods they’ve stolen from the kabal for passage away from our reach,’ Qeine argued. ‘We can’t give them the time to escape.’ He stood, looming over his brother. Naeddre wondered if his sibling truly believed they needed to act with such urgency, or if he just didn’t want to return to the webway fortifications. Whenever K’Shaic wished to remove his sons from the Dark City, either as punishment or to curtail any sudden rises in influence, he often chose to send them to command the garrisons.

  ‘No one’s suggesting we do,’ Naeddre countered. He dropped his arms to his side and returned his brother’s aggressive posture, ignoring their height difference, their chests nearly touching, each close enough to feel the other’s angry breath. ‘The corsairs aren’t due to arrive until tomorrow. By then, there won’t even be a lock of wych hair remaining in the port.’

  The brothers might have come to blows if Archon K’Shaic hadn’t raised his voice.

  ‘Enough,’ he said, waving his hand. ‘The kabal as a whole will bypass the garrisons entirely and assault the port. You’ll each take your personal forces, the kabalites loyal to you and the mercenaries you’ve hired, and assault one of the garrisons. Naeddre will take the Viscerean Garrison, and Qeine the Weeping Garden. Waste no time in your conquest – once whatever commanders you find have been slain, join me with all due haste. Claim your glory in the main assault.’ Their father gestured with his arm, and two of the Raiders flanking the barque drifted towards the rear. Each carried a trio of incubi, K’Shaic’s customary ‘gift’ to protect his sons as well as to guard against treachery.

  Naeddre and Qeine turned as one and stalked towards the aft of the barque. They needed no further instruction. Their father had turned the brothers upon one another, then taken the best part of each of their offerings and left them with only veiled threats. Each second that passed before they reached the Port of Widows would be another that saw their own personal contribution to the legend that K’Shaic was constructing diminish.

  The brothers each boarded their own personal craft, Qeine astride the gleaming onyx bike he’d named Razordirge, and Naeddre atop a broad-winged skyboard of his own design.

  ‘Watch your back, brother,’ Qeine laughed before fitting his helm. At some point he’d had his teeth extracted and replaced with triangular neoferrium razors, giving him the look of a grinning predatory beast. ‘I’d hate for one of your mercenary leaders to slay you for that fine toy of yours.’

  Like all archons, each of the brothers was in charge of one of the kabal’s commodities. Qeine, as a young officer, had taken troops loyal to him and captured a large chemical manufactory, giving him control of a great supply of quality ammunition for the poisoned weapons of the line in the Dark City. His forces were full of gunboats filled with kabal troops, outfitted with the finest weapons.

  It was Naeddre’s turn to laugh. ‘No need,’ he said. ‘I’ve promised the heliarch who brings me the most plundered hekatarii knives a Moonfoe of his very own.’ Naeddre’s own commodity was more niche. Creating exquisite skyboards and jetbikes was a highly specific task, one that required specialised labour. It took slaves with a discerning enough ear to attune the acoustic crystal lattices as well as the manual dexterity to string them. It was no easy job, but decades of scouring the galaxy for the perfect servants to assist his work had paid off. His creations were the pride of the wych cults. Entire gangs of hellions would fight to the death, just so the last gang scum standing could receive one of Naeddre’s cast-offs.

  ‘Good,’ said Qeine. He gunned Razordirge’s engine. ‘You should be on your guard. This far from Commorragh, and with his pet wyches in open revolt, father is uncharac
teristically vulnerable. One of his servants might take such an opportunity to remove him from his position.’

  ‘How good of you to think of K’shaic in his time of need.’ Naeddre snapped shut his own ghostplate helm, which was both his connection to the command network and his badge of office. He shivered as micro needles bit into his scalp, locking the helm securely. ‘Take care to show the same caution with your own position.’

  Qeine laughed, and his bike blazed away, leaving only a flare of pale energy behind him. This attack was what both brothers had been waiting decades for: an opportunity to assassinate their father while most of his forces were otherwise engaged. Which one of them took the mantle of leadership was open to speculation, but both of them would be willing to bleed that particular issue out after K’Shaic’s fate had been settled. First, however, Naeddre had to take the garrison.

  Following his orders, the soldiers loyal to him peeled away from the bulk of the attack fleet. Qeine had scores of Raiders at his command, enticed by the elder brother’s legendary brutality, and flocks of scourges willing to follow him for the promise of his favour. Qeine was the preferred successor, and no small number of kabalites wanted to be able to claim that they had supported the new ruler before his ascension.

  Naeddre’s own forces were less prestigious. He had support from the kabal, to be sure, but the men and women who followed him did so because he had personally recruited them, because they had seen first hand the rewards of his leadership. Where Qeine had dozens of gunboats, a single squadron of Ravagers followed Naeddre’s own force as they barrelled towards their target. No, Naeddre’s forces consisted largely of Commorragh’s dregs. For every Raider that Qeine could boast, Naeddre had a gang of hellions or pack of Reavers ready to murder at his command. They knew the arenas of the Jade Labyrinth would be inherited by someone, that a new wych cult would find themselves with the Bladed Lotus’ patronage. The mass elevation of scores of low-born Commorrites was rare in the extreme, but circumstances had put just such a shining prize within their grasp, and every one of Naeddre’s soldiers was determined to prove themselves worthy of such a reward. To show his solidarity with them, he even wielded a helglaive, albeit an exquisitely crafted one that had cost him an entire raid’s worth of slaves.