Void Stalker

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

‘You could have hunted down our father’s killer,’ Talos rounded on him. ‘I am weary of your whining, sorcerer. Do not hate me because I was the one to avenge the primarch’s murder.’

  ‘Vengeance against the primarch’s own wishes,’ Ruven snorted.

  ‘But it was still vengeance. That was enough for me. Why do you still hiss and spit over it?’

  ‘So you gain renown and infamy in equal measure, purely for disobeying our father’s last wish. How wonderful for you. Never before has a lack of discipline granted such glory.’

  ‘You…’ Talos trailed off, tired of the old argument. ‘You speak like a child, deprived of its mother’s milk. No more whining, Ruven.’

  The sorcerer didn’t reply. His creeping amusement was as palpable in the small cockpit as condensation on the walls.

  Talos didn’t answer the vox. He knew that outside Tenth Company, he was hardly regarded with any real universal admiration – he guessed the same number of his brothers wanted him dead as those that admired him – but avenging the primarch’s murder had earned him savage notoriety. He suspected their disregard was more from their own shame at not hunting down the Night Haunter’s killer. It was certainly the case with Ruven.

  Xarl was the one to reply. ‘Yes, yes, the Legion’s good luck charm is still breathing. I need a list of ships in a position to take survivors.’

  Almost thirty transponder codes bled across the relay monitor in the course of the next sixty seconds.

  ‘That’s the Covenant’s code,’ Talos tapped the monitor. ‘They’re still here…’

  They stared out into the orbital view, seeing the immense bulks of battleships gliding past each other. Ahead, above, and in every direction besides, the two fleets were meeting in the eerily silent, sedate fury of a void war.

  ‘…somewhere,’ Talos finished, a little lamely.

  Xarl switched from atmospheric thrust to orbital burn, kicking the gunship forward. Something deep in the Thunderhawk’s bowels gave an unpleasant rumble.

  ‘This is why Sar Zell flies,’ Cyrion pointed out.

  ‘I am not piloting for the claw in the future,’ Xarl replied. ‘You think you can leave me behind on raids while you have all the fun? We’ll train a slave to do this. Quintus, maybe.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Talos allowed.

  Small enough to escape notice, the gunship powered on. The stellar ballet of orbital battle played out before them. There, the massive, dark hull of the Hunter’s Premonition rolled in agonisingly slow motion, its void shields splashing with bruised colour; and there, two Primogenitor strike cruisers shuddering away from the crippled Loyalty’s Lament, their incidental fire blasting wreckage out of their paths as they escaped the larger ship before it could detonate.

  Wings of Eighth Legion fighters, piloted by servitors and naval slaves, swarmed the Primogenitor cruisers, miniscule weapons sparking against the warships’ shields. Carriers and battleships alike, resplendent in midnight clad, bore the brunt of enemy fire in return. Ships that had seen service for centuries ceased to exist with the passing of each moment, collapsing in on themselves before their wreckage flew apart on concentric rings of force, born of destabilised power cores. Others fell silent and cold, ruined to the point of drifting hulks, the fires that would lick at their hulls unable to survive in the airless void.

  Xarl banked close to the hull of the Premonition, racing across its superstructure, weaving through the spinal battlements. A cacophony of light burst on all sides as the warship fired its backbone armaments at the lesser ships above. Xarl cursed at the brightness, flying with clenched teeth.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ he said.

  ‘We die if you don’t,’ replied Talos.

  Xarl’s agreement was a noncommittal grunt.

  ‘Break left,’ Cyrion called, staring at the hololithic display. ‘You’re heading towards the–’

  ‘I see it, I see it.’

  ‘Left, Xarl,’ urged Talos. ‘Left now…’

  ‘Do you fools want to fly this thing? Shut your mouths.’

  Even Uzas was on his feet now, staring out of the windshield. ‘I think we should–’

  ‘I think you should shut up.’

  The gunship boosted faster, breaking away from the Premonition’s spinal ramparts, cutting towards two huge cruisers drifting closer together. To port, the Night Lords’ warship Third Eclipse; to starboard, the Aurora Chapter battle-barge In Pale Reverence. Both vessels exchanged withering hails of fire as they readied to pass by.

  The Thunderhawk bolted between them, its engines screaming and shaking the cockpit.

  ‘There…’ Xarl breathed, facing ahead again.

  And there it was. The great ship burned, rolling in space, ringed by lesser cruisers that lashed their fire against its unprotected hull. Its spinal structures and broadside batteries spat back, forcing the invaders to drift away and regroup for another attack run. Along its midnight hull, the Nostraman script read, in immense letters of beaten bronze, Covenant of Blood.

  ‘This is Talos to the Covenant.’

  ‘You still live,’ drawled the Exalted. ‘This is a day of so many surprises.’

  ‘We are in a Thirteenth Legion Thunderhawk, approaching the prow. Do not shoot us down.’

  The warrior on the other end of the vox gargled something like a laugh. ‘I will see what I can do.’

  ‘Vandred is getting worse,’ Uzas mused aloud in a dead voice. ‘He doesn’t blink now. I noticed that.’ And then, apropos of nothing and in the same lifeless tone: ‘Talos. When you jumped to save Cyrion, Ruven told us not to come back for you.’

  ‘I’m sure he did.’ The prophet almost smiled.

  Talos opened his eyes. The apothecarion’s lights glared down, forcing him to turn his head and shield his sight.

  ‘Am I going to die, then?’ he asked.

  Variel shook his head. ‘Not today.’

  ‘How long was I gone?’

  ‘Exactly two hours and nine minutes. Not long at all.’

  The prophet rose, wincing at pains in his joints. ‘Then I have a world to make an example of. Are we finished here?’

  ‘For now, brother.’

  ‘Come. We are going back to Tsagualsa, you and I. I have something to show you.’

  XV

  BEACON IN THE NIGHT

  The people remained as they were, lingering in their underground storm shelters. The few that stayed above ground crouched in hiding or set up street-end barricades, ready to defend their territory with iron bars, tools, pylon spears and limited numbers of small arms. They were the first to die when the Night Lords returned. Their bodies were the first cast into the skinning pits.

  Servitor excavation teams pulled up entire sections of streets, digging ever-expanding holes to pile the skinless dead. Floating servo-skulls and the Night Lords’ own helm-feeds recorded the carnage, archiving it for later use.

  The archregent never left his desk. Dawn, as weak as it was on this world, was only an hour away. With the attackers returned, he intended to get some answers, one way or another. If today would see him die, he wouldn’t go in ignorance.

  Abettor Muvo hurried into the chamber, his shaking hands clutching printed reports as his robe swished across the sooty floor. No servants remained above ground to sweep the debris away.

  ‘The militia is practically gone,’ he said. ‘The vox is… There’s no reason to listen to it any more. It’s just screaming, sire.’

  The archregent nodded. ‘Stay with me, Muvo. All will be well.’

  ‘How can you say that?’

  ‘A bad habit,’ the older man confessed. ‘All will not be well, but we can face it with dignity nevertheless. I believe I hear gunfire on the decks below.’

  Muvo crossed to the desk. ‘I… I hear it, too. Where are your guards?’

  The archregent took his seat, s
teepling his fingers. ‘I sent them to the closest shelter hours ago, though they did seem likely to remain out of some admirably foolish desire to do their duty. Perhaps that is them deeper in the ship, selling their lives to delay this meeting by a handful of seconds. I hope it’s not them, though. That would be quite a waste.’

  The abettor gave him a sideways glance. ‘If you say so, lord.’

  ‘Stand straight, Muvo. We are about to have guests.’

  First Claw walked into the chamber, their armour still decorated in the blood of the tower’s defenders. Talos led them in, immediately dropping a red helm onto the archregent’s desk. It sent cracks through the wood.

  ‘This desk is an heirloom,’ the old man stated with admirable calm. The archregent’s hands didn’t even tremble as he leaned back in his chair. Talos liked him immediately – not that it would affect the Legion’s actions one iota. ‘I take it,’ the statesman continued, ‘that this is the helmet of an Imperial Space Marine belonging to the Genesis Chapter?’

  ‘You presume correctly,’ came the warrior’s voice, in a snarl of brutal vox. ‘Your defenders came to interfere with our plans for this world. It was the last mistake they ever made.’

  The warrior turned away, walking around the observation dome, staring out over the city stretching in every direction. He finally looked back at the archregent, the skull helm staring without remorse, but curiously, without the hot-blooded shadow of malice – it was a cold, hollow visage, betraying nothing of the thoughts of the creature wearing it.

  The archregent sat straighter and cleared his throat. ‘I am Jirus Urumal, Archregent of Darcharna.’

  Talos tilted his head. ‘Darcharna,’ he said without inflection.

  ‘The world had no Imperial designation. Darcharna was the name of the first ship from our fleet to land h–’

  ‘This world is called Tsagualsa. You, old man, are archregent of a lie. Tsagualsa had a king once. His throne stands empty at the heart of a forgotten fortress, and he needs no regent.’

  The prophet looked back across the city, listening to the music within both mortals’ heartbeats. Both were accelerating now, the wet drum tempo increasing in speed, and the salty tang of fear-sweat was beginning to reach his senses. Humanity always smelled its sourest when afraid.

  ‘I will tell you why the Imperium has never come for you,’ Talos said at length. ‘It is the same reason this world bore no name in Imperial record. Tsagualsa once sheltered a Legion of arch-heretics, in the years after a war now lost to legend. The Imperium wishes only to forget about this world, and all those who walked upon it.

  He turned back to the archregent. ‘That includes you, Jirus. You are tainted by association.’

  The archregent looked at each of them in turn – the skull trophies and ornate weapons; their red eye lenses and thrumming battle armour powered by the bulky backpack generators.

  ‘And what is your name?’ he asked, amazed that his voice didn’t strangle in the tightness of his throat.

  ‘Talos,’ the towering warrior’s vox-voice growled. ‘My name is Talos of the Eighth Legion, master of the warship Echo of Damnation.’

  ‘And what do you hope to accomplish here, Talos?’

  ‘I will bring the Imperium to this world. I will drag them back to the world they so ardently wish to forget.’

  ‘We have been awaiting Imperial rescue for four centuries. They don’t hear us.’

  The Night Lord shook his head, making the servos in his damaged armour buzz. ‘Of course they hear you. They merely choose not to answer.’

  ‘We are too far from the Astronomican for them to risk travel.’

  ‘Enough excuses. I have told you why they abandoned you here.’ Talos breathed slowly, weighing his next words with care. ‘They will answer this time. I will make sure of that. Do you have an Astropathic Consortium in this husk of a society?’

  ‘A… guild? Yes, of course.’

  ‘And other psychically gifted souls?’

  ‘Only those within the guild.’

  ‘You cannot lie to me. When you lie, your body betrays you in a thousand subtle signals. Each of those signs is a clarion call to me. What are you seeking to hide?’

  ‘There is mutation, at times, among the psychic. The guild deals with them.’

  ‘Very well. Bring this guild to me. Now.’

  The archregent made no attempt to move. ‘Will you let us live?’ the old man asked.

  ‘That depends. How many draw breath upon this world?’

  ‘Our last census collated ten million, across seven settlements. Life is unkind to us here.’

  ‘Life is unkind everywhere. The galaxy has no love for any of us. I will let some of you live, to eke out an existence in the ruins while you wait for the Imperium. If none survived, there would be no one to speak of what they saw. Perhaps one in every thousand will live to greet the Imperium’s arrival. It is not necessary, but it will be amusingly dramatic.’

  ‘How… How can you speak of such dest–’

  Talos cleared his throat. Through his helm’s vocaliser, it sounded like a tank changing gears.

  ‘I am bored of this conversation, archregent. Comply with my wishes, and you may still be one of those who survives the night.’

  The old man rose to his feet. ‘No.’

  ‘It is a fine thing, to see a man with a backbone. I admire that. I respect it. But dubious courage has no place here, now, in this moment. I shall show you why.’

  Cyrion stepped forward, his hand closing with a fistful of the abettor’s lank hair. The man cried out as his boots left the floor.

  ‘Please…’ the man stammered. Cyrion drew his gladius, drawing it in a workmanlike carve along the abettor’s belly. Blood gushed in a torrent, while looping innards threatened to spill out, held inside the body by nothing more than the man’s own fingers. His pleading immediately warped into worthless screaming.

  ‘This,’ the prophet said to the archregent, ‘is happening right now, across the stain of wreckage you call a city. This is what we are doing to your people.’

  Cyrion, still holding the abettor aloft by his greasy hair, shook the man in his grip. More screaming, now punctuated by the wet slops of reeking intestinal meat slapping onto the decking.

  ‘Do you see?’ Talos’s eyes never left the archregent. ‘You fled to the shelters, trapping yourselves with nowhere to run. Now we will find all of you, and my brothers and I will do as we always do with those who flee like verminous prey.’

  He reached for the man in Cyrion’s grip, taking the convulsing, still-living figure in an iron hold around the throat. Without ceremony, he dumped the bleeding body on the archregent’s desk.

  ‘Comply with me, and one in a thousand of your people will avoid this fate. You will be one of them. Defy me, and not only will I no longer spare any of the others, you yourself will die now. My brothers and I will skin you, while you still live. We are masters of prolonging the experience, so the prey only dies in the hours after the surgery is performed. Once, a woman lived for six nights, wailing throughout the hours of crippling agony, only dying at last from infection in her filthy cell.’

  ‘Your finest work,’ Cyrion mused aloud.

  The old man swallowed, trembling now. ‘Your threats mean nothing to me.’

  The Night Lord pressed his gauntleted fingers to the archregent’s face, cold ceramite fingertips following the contours of the weathered skin and fragile bone beneath.

  ‘No? The human body does wondrous things when its mind feels fear. It becomes an avatar of the pressure within a single paradox: to fight, or to flee. Your breath sours from the chemicals at work in your system. The clenching of internal musculature affects digestion, reflexes, and the ability to concentrate on anything but the threat. Meanwhile, the heart’s wet rhythm becomes a war drum, beating blood for your muscles to use in order to esca
pe harm. Your sweat smells different, muskier, like an animal trembling in terror, hopelessly marking its territory one last time. The edges of your eyes quiver, answering hidden signals from the brain, caught between wanting to stare to see the source of your fear, or to seal shut, hiding your vision from having to see what threatens you.’

  Talos clutched the back of the archregent’s head, his skulled faceplate centimetres from the old man’s face.

  ‘I can sense all of that on you. I see it in every twitch of your soft, soft skin. I smell it peeling off your body in a thick stink. Do not lie to me, human. My threats mean everything to you.’

  ‘What…’ The archregent had to swallow again. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I have already told you what I want. Bring me your astropaths.’

  As they waited, the archregent watched his city die.

  The enemy lord, the one naming himself Talos, stood by the edge of the observation dome, in constant communication with his brethren across Sanctuary. His voice was a low, feral murmur, updating squads on each others’ positions and mapping their progress. Every few minutes he would fall silent for a time, and simply watch the fires spread.

  One of the other warriors, the one with the bulky heavy bolter slung on his back, activated a handheld hololithic emitter. He altered the scene it displayed each time Talos ordered him to focus upon the pict-feeds from a different squad.

  Abettor Muvo had fallen silent. The archregent had closed his friend’s eyes, choking on the smell rising from the split corpse.

  ‘You get used to it,’ one of the warriors had said with a black laugh.

  The archregent watched the hololithic feed, seeing Sanctuary’s death playing out clearly enough despite the visual distortion. The armoured warriors projected before him, silent in their hololithic incarnation, tore through shelter bulkheads and ripped through the huddled masses within. He watched them drag men, women and children by the hair out into the street, to be skinned and carried away by servitors, or crucified on the side of buildings, to mark that the closest shelter had been raided and cleaned out of all life. He saw the bodies hauled into the skinning pits; great mounds of flayed corpses stacked higher and higher – monuments of raw flesh in honour of nothing more than suffering and pain.