Void Stalker

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  The lights chose that moment to flicker and fail. The warrior and the mutant remained in darkness for several heartbeats, illuminated only by the eye lenses of his armour and the grey glare from the screens.

  ‘That’s happening more and more lately,’ she said. ‘The Covenant hated me. The Echo seems to hate all of us.’

  ‘An intriguing superstition,’ he replied. The lights, dim as they were, came back on. Talos still didn’t continue.

  ‘And the assassination?’ she prompted.

  ‘The assassination came soon after, when his mad clarity was at its height. I have never seen a creature so placidly delighted by the thought of its own destruction. In death, he would be vindicated. Those who break the law must be dealt with in the most violent, lethal way, as an example to all who would consider betrayal. So he set us butchering across the galaxy, breaking every law against reason and rhyme, knowing the Emperor would prove the point all too well. The assassin came to slay Curze, the great Breaker of Imperial Law, and she did just that. I saw him die, vindicated, pleased for perhaps the first time in centuries.’

  ‘That’s grotesque,’ she said. Her heart quickened at the thought he would take offence, but her fear was unfounded.

  ‘Maybe so,’ he nodded again. ‘The universe has never seen a living being that loathed being alive as much as my father. His life was broken in seeking to prove how humanity could be controlled, and his death was a sacrifice to prove that the species was ultimately wretched.’

  Talos withdrew a hololithic orb from his belt pouch, and thumbed the activation rune. A life-sized image of flickering blue light manifested before them both. A figure rose from an unseen throne, its hunched, feral posture still not entirely stealing the beauty of its muscled physique, or the savage nobility in its movements. The distortion robbed the image of clarity, but the figure’s face – a wraith’s visage of black eyes, gaunt cheekbones and filed fangs – was set in a vicious grin of sincere amusement.

  The image died as Talos deactivated the orb. For a long time, neither of them said another word.

  ‘Was there no one to lead you after his death?’

  ‘The Legion broke down into companies and warbands, following individual lords. The primarch’s presence was what inspired unity within us. Without him, the raiding parties sailed farther from Tsagualsa, staying away for longer periods. As the years passed, many stopped returning at all. Many captains and lords claimed they were the Night Haunter’s heir, but each claim was refuted by the others. No one soul can bind a Traitor Legion together now. It is simply the way of things. As much as I loathe him, Abaddon’s success is what sets him apart – and above – the rest of us. His is the name whispered across the Imperium. Abaddon. The Despoiler. The Chosen. Abaddon. Not Horus.’

  Octavia shivered. She knew that name, she’d heard it whispered of in the halls of Terran power. Abaddon. The Great Enemy. The Death of the Imperium. Prophecies of his triumph in the final century of mankind were rampant among the psychically-gifted in thrall to the Emperor’s throne.

  ‘There was only one,’ Talos said, ‘who could have held the title without his brothers betraying him. At least, there was only one who would have survived his brothers’ betrayals, but even he would have struggled to hold the Legion together. Too many ideologies. Too many conflicting desires and drives.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Sevatar,’ the prophet said quietly. ‘We called him the Prince of Crows. He was killed in the Heresy, long before our father.’

  She hesitated before speaking. ‘Mercutian has spoken of him.’

  ‘Mercutian comes to speak with you?’

  The Navigator grinned. Her teeth were whiter than any of the crew’s, from so few years spent in the filth of slavery. ‘You are not the only one with tales to tell, you know.’

  ‘What does he speak of?’

  ‘He’s your brother. And one of the ones you don’t spend your time trying to kill. You should be able to guess what he speaks of.’

  The prophet’s black eyes glinted with some repressed emotion. She couldn’t tell if it was amusement or annoyance.

  ‘I still do not know Mercutian well.’

  ‘He speaks of the Heresy, mostly. He tells me stories about brothers that died in the Siege of the Emperor’s Palace, or the Thramas Crusade against the Angels, and the centuries since. He likes to write about them, recording their deeds and deaths. Did you know that?’

  Talos shook his head. He’d had no idea.

  ‘What did he say about the Prince of Crows?’ he asked.

  ‘That Sevatar wasn’t killed.’

  The words brought the ghost of a smile to the prophet’s lips. ‘That is an entertaining fiction. Every Legion has its conspiracies and myths. The Eaters of Worlds claim that one of their captains is the chosen of a bloodthirsty god.’

  Octavia didn’t smile. ‘When will you make planetfall?’

  ‘My brothers wished for me to see you first.’

  She raised an eyebrow, smiling as she clutched her blanket tighter. ‘To give me a history lesson?’

  ‘No. I do not know what they wished. They mentioned some problem, some flaw.’

  ‘I don’t know what they could mean. I’m tired, but the flight here was hellish. I think I earned a little sleep.’

  ‘They said it concerned Septimus, as well.’

  She shrugged again. ‘I still can’t guess. He hasn’t been lax in his duties, and neither have I.’

  Talos thought for a moment. ‘Have you seen him often, recently?’

  She looked away. Octavia might have been skilled at many things, but she was a poor deceiver. ‘I do not see him much, these nights. When are you making planetfall?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what comes next.’

  He regarded her with a curious expression; one she’d never seen before that wasn’t quite puzzlement, nor was it exactly interest or suspicion. It seemed to be all three.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘I thought we would make a run for the Eye of Terror.’

  He chuckled. ‘Do not call it that. Only mortal star-sailors, frightened of their own shadows, call it that. We simply call it the Eye, or the Wound, or… home. Are you so keen to drift into those polluted tides? Many Navigators lose their sanity, you know. It is one of the reasons so many of our vessels rely on sorcerers as guides in the Sea of Souls.’

  ‘It is the last place in the galaxy I would like to go.’ Octavia narrowed her eyes as she smiled. ‘You’re avoiding the question. Just like every other time I ask it.’

  ‘We cannot return to the Eye,’ Talos replied. ‘I am not avoiding the question. You know why I am reluctant to sail there.’

  She did know. At least, she could make a decent guess. ‘The eldar dreams,’ she said, not quite a question.

  ‘Yes. The eldar dreams. Worse than before, now. I will not return there just to die.’

  Octavia was quiet again for a time. ‘I’m glad you’re awake again.’

  Talos didn’t answer her. He didn’t understand why he’d been sent here. For several seconds, he merely glanced around the chamber, listening to the ripple of the water, the thrumming pulse of the hull’s rumble, and…

  …and the two heartbeats.

  One was Octavia’s, a steady thump, thump, thump of wet thunder. The other was a muffled stutter, almost quick enough to be a buzz. Both came from within her body.

  ‘I am a fool,’ he said, rising to his feet in a snarl of armour joints.

  ‘Talos?’

  He drew in a breath, seeking to quell a surge of anger. His fingers were trembling, the micro-servos in his knuckles whirred as his hands clenched into fists. Had he not been so weary and his senses so dulled, he’d have heard the two heartbeats immediately.

  ‘Talos?’ she asked again.
‘Talos?’

  He walked from her chamber without a word.

  III

  HOMECOMING

  As soon as the door opened, Septimus realised he was probably going to die.

  He had half a second to draw breath before the hand was at his throat, and another half-second to croak out a denial. The gauntlet closed around his neck with enough strength to choke off any breath, let alone speech, and he struggled as he was lifted off the decking.

  ‘I warned you,’ the intruder said. Septimus tried to swallow, and gagged instead. In response, the Night Lord hurled him across the chamber. He hit hard, crashing against the wall and sinking to the floor in a heap of slack, shivering limbs. Blood marked the black iron where his head had struck.

  ‘I warned you,’ the warrior said again, filling the room with the sound of armour joints and bootsteps. ‘Was I somehow not clear enough? Was my warning something to be ignored merely because I was unconscious for fifty-five nights?’

  He hauled Septimus up by the hair, and threw him against the opposite wall. The slave went down again, this time without a sound. The warrior kept advancing, kept speaking, his voice twisted into machine-like impassivity by his helm’s vocaliser grille. ‘Did I perhaps fail to express my meaning in absolute terms? Is that it? Is that where this savage breakdown in communication has occurred?’

  Septimus struggled to rise. For the first time in his life, he drew a weapon on his master. At least, he tried to. With a snort that might or might not have been a laugh, the towering warrior thudded a boot into his slave’s side – not a battlefield kick, but rather the scuffing of refuse from underfoot. Still, the modest, messy chamber echoed with the twig-snaps of breaking ribs. Septimus swore through clenched teeth, reaching for the pistol he’d dropped.

  ‘You son of a…’ he began, but his master cut him off.

  ‘Let us not compound disobedience with disrespect.’ The Night Lord took two steps forward. The first crushed the laspistol into pieces, grinding them along the deck in a mangled spray of abused metal components. The second rested on Septimus’s back, slamming him face-first onto the decking and knocking the wind from his lungs.

  ‘Give me one reason not to kill you,’ Talos snarled. ‘And make it incredibly good.’

  Breath sawed in and out of the human’s lungs, through the heavy, jagged obstructions of broken ribs. He could taste blood at the back of his throat. Through all his years of captivity, all the years they’d forced him to serve and aid them in their heretical war, Septimus had never once begged for mercy.

  He wasn’t about to start now.

  ‘Tshiva keln,’ he grunted through the pain. Pinkish spit painted his lips as he fought to breathe.

  It was a night for first occurrences. Septimus had never before drawn a pistol on his master, and Talos had never before had one of his slaves tell him to ‘eat shit’.

  The prophet hesitated. He felt his malign concentration suddenly broken by a short burst of bemused laughter. It echoed hollowly around the small chamber.

  ‘Ask yourself this, Septimus: does it seem wise to annoy me even further?’ He dragged the bleeding human up by the back of the neck, and threw him a third time against the sloping iron wall. When Septimus went down this time he didn’t curse, or resist, or do much of anything at all.

  ‘That’s better.’ Talos stalked closer, and knelt by his barely breathing slave. Septimus’s facial augmetics were damaged, the eye lens split by an ugly crack. Spasms quivered through him, and it was clear from the angle of his left arm that it’d been wrenched from its shoulder socket. Blood bubbled from the man’s swollen lips, but no words came forth. That last fact was probably for the best.

  ‘I warned you.’

  Septimus turned his head slowly, facing the voice. He either couldn’t say anything, or intelligently chose not to. His master’s boot pressed down on his back, a veritable weight of absolute threat. It would take no effort at all to stamp down and reduce the human’s torso to a pulp of disordered meat and bone.

  ‘She is the most precious thing on this ship. We cannot sail the Mad Sea with her health compromised. I warned you. You are fortunate I do not skin you and hang your bones from New Blackmarket’s ceiling.’

  Talos lifted his boot from the slave’s back. Septimus hissed in a slow breath, rolling onto his side.

  ‘Master…’

  ‘Spare me any false apologies.’ Talos shook his head, the skull-painted faceplate passionless in its red-lens gaze. ‘I have broken between fourteen and seventeen of your bones, and your cranial bionics need maintenance. The focusing retinal lens also has a longitudinal crack. Consider that punishment enough.’ He hesitated, looking down at the prone human on the deck. ‘You are also fortunate I do not order surgery to eunuch you. On my soul, I swear these words are true, Septimus: if you touch her again, the merest brush of skin against skin, I will let Variel flay you. Then, while you are still alive as a skinless, weeping husk, I will pull you apart with my bare hands, and let you watch your own limbs being fed to the Bleeding Eyes.’

  Talos didn’t bother to draw weapons to heighten the threat. He merely stared down. ‘I own you, Septimus. I have afforded you many freedoms in the past because of your usefulness, but I can always train other slaves. You are only human. Defy me again, and you will live just long enough to beg for death.’

  With those words, he left in a thrum of whirring armour joints. In the sudden silence, Septimus dragged in a wracking breath and began to crawl across the deck of his chamber. Only one thing would have roused his master’s ire like that. The very thing he and Octavia had feared had evidently come to pass, and the Night Lords had sensed the changes in her biology. The revelation wasn’t quite drowned in the sea of pain from the beating he’d received.

  Septimus spat out two of his back teeth, and the man who would soon be a father promptly lost consciousness.

  Talos gathered the Claws in the war room around the long hololithic council table. Eighty-one warriors in total, each standing in midnight clad. Many were bloodied, or yet bore armour scars from the purgation duties still taking place in the bowels of the Echo of Damnation. Stealing the ship back from the Red Corsairs had only been the first step. Cleansing a warship of this size would take years, with flamer teams incinerating the worst touches of Chaos taint – where the hull was corroded with foulness, or worse, where the metal had mutated into living tissue.

  The Echo of Damnation, much like the Covenant of Blood before it, was essentially a city in space, carrying a crew of over fifty thousand souls. She was, in all ways, a grander beast and a greater beauty than the Standard Template Construct cruisers and barges of the Adeptus Astartes that patrolled the heavens of the modern Imperium. The Echo had first tasted the void in the Great Crusade ten thousand years before, when the warriors of the Legiones Astartes claimed the finest vessels for themselves, and sailed their warships at the vanguard of expansionist fleets. A strike cruiser of yesteryear wasn’t always equal to its Imperial counterpart, and the Echo showed how they often eclipsed their newer cousins in size and firepower.

  Fifty thousand souls. Talos had never grown used to the number, even as they toiled for decades below his boots. His life was among the ever-diminishing elite, and their most favoured slaves.

  On the rare occasions he descended into the ship’s dank reaches, it was for the duty of purging any insidious taint that threatened the ship’s optimal function, or for the more plebeian desire for murder. Most of the slave-caste workers dwelled in the deepest reaches and lowest bowel-decks of the immense warship, toiling their lives away in the darkness, working as engine crews and the other menial tasks suitable for human cattle. Hunting for skulls and screams among the mortal chattel was merely one of the traditional paths of training. It was undeniably the most pleasurable.

  Talos regarded his brothers, the eighty-one warriors pulled together by fate into a fragile alliance, draw
n from the remnants of the Night Lords’ Tenth and Eleventh Companies. However he’d intended to begin the war council was discarded once he saw them all gathered. One thing was abundantly clear from their ragged ranks, with some squads reduced to two or three surviving members.

  ‘We must restructure the claws,’ he said to them.

  The warriors shared glances. Neck joints hummed as they turned to one another.

  ‘The infighting ends here, brothers. First Claw will remain six-strong. The other claws will reform as close to full strength as they are able.’

  Xeverine, a warrior never without his ornate chainglaive, raised his voice to speak. ‘And who leads these new claws, Soul Hunter?’

  ‘Honour duels,’ answered Faroven, wearing a similar ceremonial helm to Xarl. The winged crest dipped as he nodded. ‘We should commit to honour duels. The victors lead the seven new Claws.’

  ‘Honour duels are for the weak and fearful,’ said one of the scarred veterans nearby. ‘Murder duels should settle an issue of leadership.’

  ‘We do not have the numbers to bleed away in murder duels,’ replied Carahd, leader of Faroven’s claw.

  Arguments broke out among the gathered squads, each seeking to shout the others down.

  ‘No one is reaching for a weapon yet,’ Xarl said quietly, ‘but give it time, and we’ll be wading through a bloodbath.’

  Talos nodded. This had gone on long enough.

  ‘Brothers,’ he said. He kept his voice coloured by nothing but patience. Sure enough, one by one they fell silent. Eighty helms regarded him, variously painted with skulls, Nostraman runes, crested with high wings, or darkened by battle damage. To First Claw’s left, the five remaining Bleeding Eyes vox-buzzed and hissed amongst themselves, but Lucoryphus favoured the prophet with his full attention. The Raptor lord was even standing up, his foot-claws unsuited to the posture, watching Talos with his sloped daemon-mask.

  ‘Brothers,’ Talos said again. ‘We have eleven squad leaders, with enough warriors to make seven full claws. All who wish an honour duel to claim leadership are free to do so.’