Void Stalker

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  The prophet nodded to the Raptor’s words. ‘Some of us have remained Legion brothers down the centuries. Others have splintered from the Legion in all but name, while still others among us have cast aside the colours entirely. I see several warbands now wearing the colours and honours of their own factions, for they’ve been strong enough to rise from the old ranks and claim mastery over their own paths. Yet we are all bonded by the fact that this Crusade, this Thirteenth Uprising, will be the war we’ve waited for. The more of our blood we add to the tides, the greater our triumph.’

  ‘But so many deaths…’ Another lord nearly spat the words. ‘The price is high, if you even speak the truth.’

  ‘I see these deaths in thick, spiteful dreams each time I close my eyes,’ the prophet said. ‘I dream of nothing else. I see the death of every single warrior bearing Eighth Legion blood in his veins. Just as our primarch knew he was destined to fall – just as our sorcerers suffer visions of their own deaths, and the demises of those near them. But my soul-sight goes… further. Your worlds of birth mean nothing. If we are connected by gene-seed, then I have watched your last breaths. If you have Eighth Legion blood beating through your veins, then I have seen you die. Most are vague, indistinct endings, ripe for change with a twist of fate. A few may be ironclad, the same in a hundred visions, and all that remains is for you to sell your lives dearly. But most are not. Fate is not etched in stone, brothers.’

  Silence reigned now, almost majestic in its oppressive totality. Variel and Lucoryphus stepped closer, alongside Malek and Garadon, as the prophet drew breath to speak again.

  ‘Do you know what one of the greatest threats to victory will be in Abaddon’s Final War?’ he asked the gathered warleaders.

  ‘Each other,’ several of them joked at once. The prophet waited for the laughter to die down.

  ‘For once, no. The Imperium will claim an ally of desperate strength, and one we cannot afford to leave at our backs. What ancient detritus is caught within the Great Eye’s eternal grip? What haven of alien filth still holds out against the forces of the Enlightened Legions?’

  ‘Ulthwé,’ said one lord.

  ‘The Black Eldar,’ said another. Disgruntled murmurs started up, just as the prophet knew they would. The Eighth Legion – like all of the Eye’s forces – had lost their fair share of warriors and warships over the millennia due to the interference of the accursed Ulthwé eldar.

  The prophet nodded again. ‘Craftworld Ulthwé. They came for Tenth Company once, decades ago. They chased the Tenth across the stars, feverish in their need to end a single life before prophecy could become truth. They failed in that quest, though they never knew it. Their witches and warlocks scryed a future they could not allow to come to pass: a future where the Prophet of the Eighth Legion rallied his kindred to bring fear and flame upon their precious craftworld in an unrelenting storm. These creatures, with their species so close to extinction, fear damnation more than anything else. That is where the Eighth Legion will strike first. That is where we will devote our initial assault, raining bloodshed and terror onto the eldar, drenching their dying craftworld in the tears of the slain.’

  ‘And why should we?’ called Lord Hemek of the Nightwing. ‘Why should we spill eldar blood, when we have hordes of Imperial Guard to slake our thirsts?’

  ‘Revenge,’ argued another. ‘For vengeance.’

  ‘I need no vengeance against the eldar,’ said Hemek. His Legion-crested helm was resplendent with its wings of black-veined cobalt. ‘We all carry our own grudges, and mine have nothing to do with Ulthwé.’

  The prophet let the arguments rage for a few minutes.

  ‘This is getting out of hand,’ Variel privately voxed.

  ‘Let me handle it,’ the prophet replied. He raised his hand for silence. Peace was a while coming, but the others eventually fell silent.

  ‘I have seen you die,’ he said. ‘All of you. All of your warriors. These fates may be promised by destiny, but destiny can always be denied. The eldar cannot be allowed to join this war with their forces untouched. None of you can imagine how many of us will die. These are losses I would spare the Eighth Legion from suffering, if you will heed my words.’

  ‘My sorcerers speak of the same ill omens,’ one of the other lords announced. ‘Their warpsight afflictions are hardly as reliable as Talos’s visions once were, but they have served me well in the past.’

  Several voices rose in agreement. Clearly, it was a sentiment many shared within the councils of their own warbands.

  ‘And you are?’ the prophet asked politely.

  ‘Kar Zoruul, of what was once Fortieth Company. On the guidance of my sorcerers, I was already planning to assault the eldar, as were several of our brother warbands.’

  Hemek wasn’t convinced. ‘So you come to bring us a warning of the eldar?’

  All or nothing, thought the prophet.

  ‘The eldar are a threat to be considered now,’ he said, ‘but they are not the true reason I came here. What matters is what comes after. Some of you have already met Abaddon, while others will meet with him in the coming months, as his Crusade gathers potency. To survive, to break the Imperium’s back and enter the Emperor’s final nights, we must join this war, no matter our reservations. The future holds great things for us, my brothers. The Last Age of the Emperor is drawing to a close, as the Dark Millennium ends. This is it, my lords. With the Legions and their forces no longer contained in the Eye, we stand on the edge of final victory.’

  More silence, for several moments. The prophet smiled behind his faceplate; it was enough to get them thinking. This wasn’t a war he expected to win in a single night. Slowly, slowly, he’d win them to his side, offering counsel and aiding them in avoiding the bitter fates awaiting them.

  ‘There was talk,’ Toriel the White Handed said softly, ‘that Talos survived the carrion world. It was said Malek and Garadon returned to stand by him, and here we see both of those honoured Atramentar among us. How much of this is true, Variel?’

  The Apothecary didn’t answer. He merely turned to the prophet.

  ‘Does it matter?’ Lord Darjyr snorted. ‘Why should we believe this thin-blooded wretch? I scent the changes in you, young one. Your gene-seed is old, but it has scarcely ripened within you. You are an infant, standing in the shadows of gods.’

  ‘You do not have to believe what I say.’ The prophet smiled behind his faceplate. ‘It makes no difference to me, or to my kindred.’

  ‘You are not Talos, then? This isn’t some trick?’

  ‘No,’ the prophet replied. ‘I am not Talos, and this is no trick.’

  ‘Tell us your name,’ demanded one of the others, one of those not named to die in the coming months.

  The prophet leaned on the central table, red eye lenses panning across them all. His armour was a scavenged mesh of conflicting marks, each ceramite plate showing carved Nostraman runes. His breastplate bore the image of an aquila, its spread wings ritually broken by hammer blows. Over one shoulder was a sweep of pale age-browned flesh, flayed into a cloak with thick black stitches. Skulls and Imperial Space Marine helms hung on bronze chains from his belt and pauldrons, while two weapons were sheathed at his hips: the first was a double-barrelled bolter, inscribed with ancient writings and depicting the name Malcharion; the second was a relic blade stolen from the Blood Angels Chapter a forgotten number of centuries ago. Its once-golden length was discoloured silver, evidence of a recent reforging.

  The prophet’s helm was a studded, brutal affair with a skull-painted faceplate, and sweeping ceremonial Legion wings rising up in an elegant crest. The skull’s eyes wept black lightning bolts, as if the bone itself was cracked. In the centre of its forehead, a single Nostraman rune gleamed black against the bone white.

  He removed the helmet slowly, making no sudden moves, and regarded them all with a youthful, unscarred face. Dark eyes glin
ted in the chamber’s low light, drifting from warrior to warrior.

  ‘My name is Decimus,’ the Night Lord replied. ‘The Prophet of the Eighth Legion.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to my editor Nick Kyme, as usual, for his patience – above and beyond the call of duty this time. Thanks as well to Laurie Goulding, Rachel Docherty and Nikki Loftus for their keen eyes and sage advice.

  A portion of this book’s proceeds will go to Cancer Research UK and the SOS Children’s Villages charity, for orphans in Bangladesh.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Aaron Dembski-Bowden is a British author with his beginnings in the videogame and RPG industries. He’s written several novels for the Black Library, including the Night Lords series, the Space Marine Battles book Helsreach and the New York Times bestselling The First Heretic for the Horus Heresy. He lives and works in Northern Ireland with his wife Katie, hiding from the world in the middle of nowhere. His hobbies generally revolve around reading anything within reach, and helping people spell his surname.

  An extract from The Emperor’s Gift by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  On sale June 2012

  A blur of pain and fire. A storm of noise and cancerous colours. Liquid nothingness, yet with a spiteful sentience in its tides, manifesting enough solidity to grip at your arms and legs as you fell through it.

  Before I could focus my concentration enough to repel the sensation back, we–

  Appeared in perfect arrangement, all five of us ringing the regent’s throne. Our weapons were still raised – five wrist-mounted storm bolters aiming ten barrels at the convulsing ruler of Draufir. His robes rippled, echoing the fleshcrafting beneath.

  The sonic boom of our arrival shattered almost all thirty of the great stained glass windows, letting even more sunlight spill into the throne room. The white mist, now poisoned to warp-red and arterial crimson, lingered in coiling tendrils. Even as it dispersed, it stroked at our armour, dulling the polish.

  The regent, flushed and mutable in his spasms, bleeding pus from his tear ducts, actually managed to gasp at our appearance. Stupefaction and fear halted his change.

  Galeo spoke without speaking. The weight of his psychic proclamation was enough to grind my teeth together.

  In the name of the Emperor of Mankind, we do judge thee diabolus traitoris. The sentence is death.+

  We closed our hands into fists, and five storm bolters boomed in the harmony of absolute rhythmic unity.

  The regent’s physical form burst across the five of us, painting silver armour with vascular, stringy viscera. Bones shattered and crumbled, blasting apart, cracking off our helms and breastplates. A partially articulated ribcage crashed back onto the throne.

  Peace.+

  We ceased delivering sentence, but did not lower our weapons. Smoke rose from ten barrels, adding a rich, powdery chemical scent to the surgical reek tainting the raised dais.

  Only the regent’s shadow remained. It twisted in the centre of the circle we had formed, writhing and clawing at nothing as it sought to build a physical form from the air.

  Dumenidon.+

  The warrior named drew his blade in a sharp pull. Each of us added our emotions – our disgust, our revulsion, our hatred – to his own, layering our surface thoughts around his clear, clean rage. The touch of our minds spurred his anger deeper, blacker, into a wrath intense enough to cause him physical pain.

  But he was strong. He let his own body and brain become the focus for our psychic force, channelling it along the length of his blade. Psychic lightning danced down the sacred steel, raining fragile hoarfrost to the marble floor.

  All of this, from our arrival to the focus of killing energy, happened in the span it took Annika’s heart to beat five times. I know that because I heard it. It formed a strangely calming drumbeat to our execution.

  Despite barely being able to see it, Dumenidon impaled the crippled shadow with a deep thrust. His blade instantly caught fire. This time, the burst of gore was ectoplasmic and ethereal in nature. Slime hissed against our warded aegis armour plating, failing to eat into the blessed ceramite.

  The creature’s shriek rang in our ears, shattering the few windows our teleportation arrival hadn’t.

  Thus ended the reign of Regent Kezidha the Eleventh.

  I turned to Inquisitor Jarlsdottyr, finding her in a canine crouch halfway down the steps leading up to the throne. A hundred silk-robed courtiers stared at us. Fifty armed palace guards did the same. None of them moved. Most of them didn’t even blink. This was not quite the gala ballroom event they had been expecting.

  ‘And them?’ I asked her. My voice was a rasp-edged growl from my helm’s vox grille.

  ‘Skitnah,’ she said, her lips forming a Fenrisian snarl. Skitnah. Dirty. Foul. Tainted.

  We raised our weapons again. That sent them running.

  ‘I will cage the vermin,’ said Malchadiel. He raised his arms as if pushing at the chamber’s great double doors, even from this distance. The rest of us opened fire, scything down those fleeing slowest, or who dared raised arms against us. Insignificant las-fire scorched my armour, too sporadic and panicked to be worthy of concern. A crosshaired targeting reticule leapt from robe to robe, flickering white with screeds of biological data. None of it mattered. I blanked my retinal display with a thought, preferring to fire free.

  The nobles of Draufir hammered on the throne room doors, crushing each other in their attempts to escape. Fists beat against the solid bronze, forming a revolting cacophony in their fear. As they wept and screamed, they burst like bloated sacks of blood and bone under explosive bolter shells.

  I spared a glance for my brother Malchadiel, who stood rigid, hands taloned by his efforts. Psy-frost rimed his splayed fingers, crackling into ice dust with each fractional movement. The doors held fast, and I wondered if he was smiling behind his mask.

  Less than a minute later, all guns fell silent and blades slid back into sheaths. Malchadiel lowered his hands at last. The immense bronze doors creaked as they settled back onto their hinges, at the mercy of gravity and architecture once more, rather than my brother’s will.

  Stinking, opened bodies lay in ruptured repose along the carpet, and a world’s worth of aristocratic blood ran across the floor. Annika was toe-deep in a spreading lake of it, clutching her bolter in her hands. Red stains flecked her face in a careless impression of tribal tattoos.

  ‘It’s the smell I hate most,’ she said.

  They do say Fenris breeds cold souls.

  A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

  Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK

  Cover illustration by Jon Sullivan

  © Games Workshop Limited 2012. All rights reserved.

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