Void Stalker

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  Lucoryphus followed, dropping to all fours in a graceful prowl that never failed to impress Variel for its unexpected elegance.

  ‘How did you get past the blockade?’ the Raptor asked.

  ‘There is no blockade. Two-dozen vessels wait in high orbit, with little sign of landing craft. We didn’t even detect a sensor sweep. It took hours to reach this far, but twenty vessels cannot keep an entire world in their eyes. You may as well ask a blind man to count each rock that makes up a mountain.’

  Lucoryphus said nothing as they passed Vorasha’s mutilated, half-eaten body. Variel wasn’t so silent.

  ‘In a time now considered myth, cannibalism was considered good for the body and soul.’ He looked at the Raptor for a moment. ‘If we survive this, I would like a sample of your blood.’

  ‘Not a prayer.’

  Variel nodded, expecting that answer. ‘You are aware, Lucoryphus, that such degrees of livor mortis and bacterial decomposition on your face and throat would simply not manifest on a living being? Your biology is in a stage of autolysis. Your cells are eating themselves. Does the feasting on fraternal flesh regenerate the process?’

  Lucoryphus didn’t reply. Variel continued nevertheless. ‘How then do you live? Are you dead, yet still alive? Or has the warp played a greater game with you?’

  ‘I no longer know what I am. I haven’t known for centuries. Now tell me why you’re here.’

  Above the forgotten fortress, the storm finally showed its strength. Lightning lit up the grey sky, while heavier rain lashed down on their armour. Variel’s flayed shoulder guard, the skinned face of a brother he’d slain long ago, seemed to be weeping.

  ‘Talos.’

  He didn’t reply. Teeth clenched, he kept the cannon’s trigger pulled tight, streaming out tracer fire to illuminate the dark tunnel. The numeric runes on his retinal display depleted away, shrinking by the second, even as the cannon’s spinning barrels began to glow a brighter red with the pressure of overheating.

  ‘Talos,’ the voice crackled again. ‘Don’t move too far ahead.’

  The assault cannon eased off with a descending whine. He bit back a harsh reply, knowing it would make no difference. Cyrion was right; still, the frustration remained. The hunt had changed once more. When the eldar stopped coming to them, they’d taken the fight to the eldar.

  Talos stalked to a stop, letting the stabilisers and servos in his leg armour settle once more. The cannon hissed in the cold air, while dead aliens lay strewn at his feet.

  Cyrion and Mercutian stomped closer, filling the tunnel with their whirring joints and pounding footsteps. Both of their storm bolters showed defiled Imperial aquilas. Both weapons also had smoking barrels.

  ‘I’m almost out of ammunition,’ voxed Mercutian. ‘It’s time to get back into our battle armour and split up. The butchery was enjoyable, but they’re avoiding us as a pack.’

  Talos nodded. ‘I’ll miss the armament.’

  ‘As will I,’ Mercutian replied. ‘And I’ve lost count how many of these wretches we’ve killed. I lost count at seventy, at the last intersection. This group makes…’ Mercutian panned his storm bolter across the destroyed, bloody bodies. ‘Ninety-four.’

  ‘These are nothing more than dregs.’ Cyrion turned his tusked helm towards Mercutian. ‘But the shrieking maidens? I’ve not managed to hit one, yet.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said Talos. ‘Not since the first one. The weaker ones die like vermin. The howling ones are a breed apart.’

  Uzas came last of all, his armour washed by blood. Instead of tusks, his helm sported a brutal, curved horn from the bridge of the faceplate’s nose.

  ‘They are warrior-priestesses of their war god’s daughter.’ First Claw turned to look at him, none of them saying a word for a moment. ‘What?’ Uzas grunted. ‘I have excruciated eldar captives in the past, just as you have.’

  ‘Whatever they are, we should get back to Third Claw.’

  ‘Talos.’

  The prophet hesitated. No name rune flashed on his retinal display. ‘Variel?’

  ‘Brother, I am in the ruins above with Lucoryphus. We must speak.’

  ‘No. Please let this be a foul jest. I ordered you away for a reason, fool.’

  Talos listened to his brother’s explanation, as hurried and fragmented as it was. He took several long moments to reply.

  ‘Back to Third Claw,’ he ordered the others. ‘Variel, do not descend into the ruins. The tunnels are infested with eldar.’

  ‘Are you returning to the surface?’

  Talos wasn’t even sure of that himself. ‘Just stay hidden.’

  The howling maidens returned as soon as First Claw rejoined Faroven and the Third. Faroven was down to four warriors; their slain brethren were left in the corridors, while the remnants of the claw moved as a unified pack.

  This time, the Night Lords were ready. Pursuing their prey through the corridors for the last couple of hours had fed their hearts in a way forming defensive lines never could.

  The aliens spilled through the Eighth Legion’s ranks, blades blurring and hair-crests flowing. Talos caught a growled ‘We’re outnumbered,’ from one of his brothers, but the press of limbs and blades made the details hopeless.

  The two maidens before him both screamed at once, raising their blades. He felt the same ice crawl through his muscles, dragging him back, slowing him down.

  Two… can play… that game…

  The Night Lord released a scream of his own – a roar from three lungs and an enhanced respiratory system, heightened tenfold by the vox-speakers in his snarling helm. The surviving Night Lords heard the cry and took it up a heartbeat later.

  He’d used his cry to shatter windows and deafen crowds of humans to soften them up for the kill; now he used it in opposition to those who sought to turn his own weapon against him.

  Three of the maidens’ swords shattered outright. Several of the alien warriors lost eye lenses to splitting cracks as the harmonious, savage scream reached its apex. In the same moment the Night Lords’ cry hit its crescendo, the eldar’s howl died a sudden death.

  Talos killed the first of the warriors before him with a fist around her head, crushing the skull and bones of her shoulders before hurling her away. The second died while still staggering back from the shout, cut to pieces by the final hail from his assault cannon. He dropped the empty weapon and reached for his relic bolter, drawing in breath to scream a second time.

  With the tide turned, with the maidens stumbling back and succumbing to the butchery they’d inflicted on the legionaries, a new sound invaded the warriors’ senses.

  Uzas hammered his fist into one of the alien’s stomachs, breaking her breastbone and spine in the same blow. As she fell against him on strengthless legs, he lowered his head and rammed his helm-horn through her torso.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ the others were voxing.

  ‘Footsteps.’

  ‘Those aren’t footsteps. They’re too fast.’

  He couldn’t hear a thing beyond the beating of his hearts, and the blood rain streaming down his helm and shoulders. It took two heaves to shove the twitching body off his horn. His neck gave a stiff crackle as he stood up straight again.

  Then he heard it. And Talos was right. It was footsteps.

  ‘I know what that is,’ he said. The steps had the rhythm of a racing heartbeat, soft against the stone yet still echoing down the hallways, loud as the winds of the warp.

  Talos stood above two slain maidens, blood dripping from his curled fingers. The only sound was the footsteps, now all the screeching had fallen still.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘A storm in flesh, with a rain of blades. She Who Stalks the Void.’ Uzas ran his tongue across his teeth, tasting the acid on his gums. ‘The Storm of Silence.’

  XXVII

  VOID S
TALKER

  She came from the darkness, just as her sisters had done. Varthon was the first to see her, and shouted a warning to the others. The cry died in his throat as soon as it started, ended by the spear blade punched through his breastplate, bursting both of his hearts in a single blow. A full metre of the black spear thrust out from his spine for a single moment, until the weapon slid back from his flesh with vicious patience.

  She watched each of them as she let the body fall, while a flatline tune played out in every Night Lord’s helm.

  Every figure moved at once. The legionaries lifted their bolters and opened fire, each of them unleashing a torrent of explosive shells and none of them coming close to striking her.

  Flatline wails rang in Talos’s ears as he fired at the dancing, flickering figure. Centuries of training and battle aligned with the targeting processors in his Terminator plate and retinal display, guiding his aim as much as instinct. The storm bolter bucked and banged in his grip, spitting shells in a tide that only relented when he had to reload.

  He backed away, crunching another magazine home. All of them were reloading out of sync, all sense of unity and covering fire gone in a moment. Talos saw, in one blurry scan of the chamber, how their bolter fire had savaged every single wall without once hitting their prey.

  Jekrish White-Eyes died next, his head cleaved clean from his shoulders. As the body started to topple, Talos lifted his fist to block his brother’s spinning helm from hitting him. It clanged aside, dropping to the floor. He was already firing at the black blur, aiming in the places instinct and his targeting reticule said she’d be. More stonework died in detonation craters and splintering chips.

  She didn’t even slow down to kill. The spear reaped right through Gol Tatha’s waist, severing him from his legs. In the same second, Faroven died halfway across the chamber, a three-bladed throwing star forged of alien iron and black fire cracking his head down the middle. Both bodies fell, twinning their thuds as they struck stone.

  Mercutian cried out, his bulky suit of armour arching its back as he cursed. Talos caught a flicker of movement in his visor display as the spear lanced back out from his brother’s back. Mercutian staggered forward, only prevented from falling by the artificial ironclad muscles in his armour’s joints. His storm bolter boomed once more, before spilling from his grip.

  When the throwing blade hit Uzas, it crashed against his horned helm, sending ceramite chunks clattering off the walls. He didn’t stagger as Mercutian had; he tumbled one step and dropped to his hands and knees, heavy enough to send tremors through the floor. Talos saw blood drip to the dark stone ground, pooling between Uzas’s shaking hands.

  ‘Talos…’ crackled the vox.

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Brother,’ said Variel, ‘when are you returning to the surf–’

  ‘Not now!’

  He followed the blur with his storm bolter, just as it danced behind Korosa, the last soul standing in Third Claw. Korosa turned, as fast as a genhanced human body was capable of moving, lashing out with his howling chainsword. In the single second it took Talos to draw aim, Korosa was lurching backwards, blood gouting from his severed arm. He made it two steps before the spear’s backswing disembowelled him, spilling a wet slop of innards down the front of his war plate.

  Talos fired over Korosa’s shoulder. The single crack and the throaty burst that followed were the sweetest sounds he’d ever heard. He saw the blur resolve into a female figure, as tall as any of them in their Terminator ceramite, falling back with her head snapped to the side.

  Mercutian was struggling to reach for his dropped bolter and Uzas was still down, but Cyrion aligned his aim the same moment Talos fired again. A silver crescent arc blurred before her, detonating shell after shell before they could touch her. It took the prophet’s eyes a couple of precious seconds to adjust to the speed, before he realised she was blocking their incoming fire with the blade of her spear.

  She couldn’t shatter them all. A withering spit of shells crashed against her black-and-bone armour, sending her reeling again.

  Talos broke off to reload. Cyrion did the same, a second later. Both of them froze with their bolters empty, staring at the damaged wall where she’d been a moment before.

  Korosa crashed to the ground, breaking the sudden silence.

  For a long moment, Cyrion turned in place, unwilling to believe she was gone. Other, less intrusive sounds filtered back into being: Mercutian’s choking breaths, Uzas’s pained grunts, and the hiss of cooling bolter muzzles.

  ‘I can’t see her,’ Cyrion voxed over their squad link. ‘And I’m out of ammunition.’

  ‘As am I.’ Talos resisted the need to check on Uzas and Mercutian, never taking his eyes from the walls as he turned, back-to-back with Cyrion.

  ‘She’s still here,’ said Cyrion. ‘She must be.’

  ‘No.’ Talos gestured with his power fist. A trail of blood spatters led from the chamber, back into the tunnels. ‘She’s running.’

  Cyrion threw his empty storm bolter away, discarding it without care. ‘We should be doing the same.’

  The servitors awaited them, still silent in their dead-minded reverie. Talos was first into the chamber, gesturing for the augmented slaves to attend him.

  ‘Get me out of this armour.’

  ‘Compliance,’ uttered twelve voices at once.

  ‘And me,’ said Mercutian. Unhelmed now, he spat blood onto the floor. It started dissolving the stone at once.

  ‘Compliance,’ said the rest of the servitors.

  ‘Make it quick,’ Cyrion voxed, taking guard with Uzas at the entrance archway. Mercutian threw him his storm bolter as the servitors closed around. Cyrion checked the ammunition feed on his retinal display, and readied the weapon. Despite his wound, Uzas stood straight and speechless; the only sound registering from him was the tidal flow of his slow breathing. His helmet was a cracked ruin, baring most of his bloodstained face beneath. Unfocused eyes stared into the tunnel, as did the twin barrels of his storm bolter.

  ‘I’ll miss this armour,’ Cyrion said. ‘Uzas and Mercutian are only still alive because of this war plate. That spear went through battle armour like a knife through flesh.’

  Mercutian muttered a reluctant agreement. He was struggling to stand, and each movement brought a fresh muscle cramp, with another pulse of pain slithering up his spine.

  ‘I’m not going to make it much further,’ he said, needing to spit the blood from his mouth again.

  The servitors’ machine-tools went to work – drilling; unscrewing; prising plates clear. Talos felt himself breathing easier with each layer that came free. ‘None of us are,’ he said. ‘We didn’t come down here to win.’

  Uzas chuckled at that, but said nothing more.

  ‘Brother?’ Talos voxed. ‘Uzas?’

  The other Night Lord turned his broken helm, bloody features looking back at Talos. ‘What is it?’

  The Terminator shoulder guards were machined free, coming loose with a series of crunches and clicks, and carried away by the servitors. Talos met Uzas’s eyes, black to black, sensing something had changed in his brother’s face but unable to decide what.

  ‘Are you well?’

  ‘Aye, brother.’ Uzas turned back to his guard duty. ‘Never better.’

  ‘You sound well. You sound very… clear.’

  ‘I imagine I do.’ Uzas’s armour gave a slow growl as he glanced at Cyrion. ‘I feel clearer.’

  The servitors were removing Mercutian’s power fist when his legs gave way. He stumbled, needing to lean against the wall to remain standing. Blood was running from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘Leave me behind when you go,’ he said. ‘My spine’s aflame, and it’s spreading to my legs. I can’t run like this.’

  Cyrion was the one to answer. ‘He’s right, anyway. It’s time to split up, Talos.
She’ll go through us like a cold wind if we hunt her as a pack.’

  Uzas gave another guttural chuckle. ‘You just want to hide.’

  ‘Enough of your perspective, drooling one.’

  Mercutian bit back a growl. ‘Enough talk of splitting up. Leave me, and get the prophet back to the surface. Variel’s come for a reason, fools. Talos can’t die here.’

  ‘Shut up, all of you.’ Talos breathed deep as the helm was lifted clear. ‘Uzas, Cyrion, be silent and watch the tunnels.’

  Malcharion’s hunt was slower, but no less purposeful. He made his way through the tunnels, backtracking when he encountered a collapsed passageway or a hall too narrow and low for him to traverse.

  ‘This was once a laborium. The Legion’s Techmarines worked here. Not all of them, of course. But many.’

  Marlonah limped alongside the colossal war machine. Her torchlight flickered and died yet again, and this time, smacking it against her thigh didn’t bring it back to life. For several seconds she stood in the darkness, listening to the dusty ghosts of the forgotten fortress.

  ‘Our Techmarines and trained serfs constructed servitors in a ceaseless horde. Captives. Failed aspirants. Humans harvested from a hundred worlds, brought here to serve. Can you imagine that? Can you picture the production lines filling this bare hall?’

  ‘I… I can’t see anything, lord.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Light returned with a crack. A lance of illumination burned from the Dreadnought’s shoulder.

  ‘Is that better?’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘Stop using that word. I am no one’s lord.’

  Marlonah swallowed, looking around where the beam of light pointed. ‘As you wish, lord.’

  Malcharion made his slow, grinding way across the large chamber. ‘It is all so different now. This is no longer my home, and it is no longer my war. One last hunt, though. For all of the pain, it was worth it to hunt one last time.’

  ‘Yes, lord. If you say so, lord.’