‘Led by the man himself,’ says Nagasena, spotting the bulky form of Maxim Golovko at their head. ‘We are honoured.’
‘Honours like this I could do without.’
‘Maxim has his uses,’ says Nagasena. ‘Some hunts require stealth, others require the hunters to flush their prey into the open with… less subtle means.’
Kartono nods, and falls in behind Nagasena as Golovko brings his men to halt before them with a crash of boots stamping the ground in unison. They are formidable soldiers, well trained, disciplined and without mercy, yet they are blunt instruments compared to the needle-precision of Nagasena.
‘Maxim,’ says Nagasena with a bow deep enough to indicate respect, but shallow enough to convey his superiority. It is a petty gesture, but it amuses Kartono, and Maxim will never realise its significance.
‘Nagasena,’ replies Golovko. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I am here for the hunt.’
‘You received a summons?’
Nagasena shakes his head. ‘No, but I am needed, yes?’
‘We can catch these traitors without your help,’ states Golovko. ‘I’m assembling a team right now, and this will all be over by day’s end.’
Nagasena looks up as a long cloudbank covers the sun.
‘Show me this team,’ he says.
THERE ARE THREE of them of note, and Nagasena considers them all.
Saturnalia is Legio Custodes, and his anger is matched only by his shame. The astropath, Kai Zulane, and the warriors of the Crusader Host escaped from his gaol, and such a grievous lapse can only be erased by their immediate recapture. He is angry, but he is steady. Nagasena knows he can count on a Custodian to follow instructions and Saturnalia will be the only one who stands a chance against the hunted warriors if they turn and fight.
Adept Hiriko is uncomfortable here, and Nagasena knows why. Her neck is bruised and her eyes are dotted with red pinpricks of blood where her former colleague attempted to strangle her. Though she feigns indifference, Nagasena sees his death has affected her more deeply than she will admit. She is no hunter and has only one skill that will be of use in the hunt. Hiriko is a psychic extractor, and she believes she can remove the secrets that make Kai Zulane so valuable.
Athena Diyos is a crippled astropath whose presence on such a hunt Nagasena would not normally countenance. Her body is broken, and her life-sustaining chair will only slow them down, but she has been into Kai Zulane’s mind and that gives her a unique insight. She can guide them to him when he is near, and though she is an unwilling participant in this hunt, she knows she has little say in the matter.
They are gathered in the chambers of the Choirmaster, and Nemo Zhi-Meng paces the length of his sumptuous chambers with nervous energy, his white robes flapping around him like the wings of a panicked bird.
‘You must get him back, Yasu,’ he says, pausing in his pacing long enough to address Nagasena. His white hair is unbound and his beard is ragged. The last few days have taken a heavy toll on him, and the strain of holding an inter-galactic communications network together is visible in every strained gesture and barked utterance.
‘I will, Nemo,’ promises Nagasena with a bow of deep respect. ‘Now tell me why this man is so important. Why did seven Space Marines put their own escape at risk by bringing him with them? There was no need for them to do such a thing.’
Zhi-Meng hesitates before answering and Nagasena tries not to read too much into that pause. ‘Before the loss of the Argo, Kai Zulane was one of our finest operatives,’ says the Choirmaster. ‘He has the synesthesia codes for our highest tiers of communication. If he sends that information to traitors in service to Horus Lupercal then our entire network is compromised.’
‘Zulane’s record indicates he is defective as an astropath,’ says Nagasena, sensing that the Choirmaster’s explanation is a lie. His fingers tighten on the grip of Shoujiki. The blade is his touchstone to honesty, and though Nagasena does not always need to know why he is hunting, he dislikes hunting for the wrong reasons.
‘He was,’ says Zhi-Meng. ‘But Mistress Diyos was working to restore his abilities.’
Nagasena turns to Athena Diyos and kneels beside her, sweeping his robes out behind him. She cannot see him with her eyes, but he knows she feels his presence.
‘And how successful had you been? Can Kai Zulane send anything off world?’
Athena Diyos takes her time before answering, but Nagasena believes she is truthful. ‘No. Not yet. He is recovering, but I think he is still too afraid to cast his mind into the warp.’
‘That may not matter if he is in the company of Atharva,’ says Saturnalia. ‘Sorcery may be able to pluck the codes from his mind.’
‘Is he capable of that?’ asks Nagasena, turning back to Nemo Zhi-Meng.
‘Little is known of the abilities possessed by Magnus’s warriors,’ admits Zhi-Meng, ‘but I wouldn’t count it beyond the realms of possibility.’
‘Then we must apprehend Kai Zulane swiftly,’ says Nagasena.
‘Can’t you just change the codes?’ asks Kartono.
‘Do you have any idea what that involves?’ snaps Zhi-Meng. ‘Developing new ciphers for a galaxy-wide network requires decades of preparation and attempting such a task in the midst of a rebellion would be madness. No, we must find Kai Zulane before the traitor Space Marines wring the information from him.’
‘If they haven’t already,’ says Saturnalia.
‘Of all the places they had to crash,’ says Golovko. ‘It had to be the damn Petitioner’s City. There’s no maps, no plan and a thousand places they could go to ground.’
‘An astropath and seven Space Marines will find it hard to stay out of sight, even in a warren like the Petitioner’s City,’ points out Nagasena.
‘We need to get to that crash site,’ says Golovko. ‘Pick up the trail from there.’
‘Agreed, but to hunt with success, we must first understand our prey,’ says Nagasena. ‘We are hunting an astropath and seven Space Marines. What I want to know is why only seven? Why did they not free everyone before they fled?’
‘Does it matter?’ asks Saturnalia. ‘Seven traitors at liberty on Terra is seven too many.’
‘Everything matters,’ states Nagasena. ‘Only warriors from the Legions that have sided with Horus Lupercal were freed. I believe Atharva is the leader of these warriors, and he knew enough to recognise which of the imprisoned warriors would follow him. The question then becomes, why did a warrior of the Thousand Sons engineer such a break out? His Legion is still counted as loyal to the Throne is it not?’
Saturnalia steps forward and grips his spear in both hands. ‘No, it is not.’
Hiriko and Diyos gasp in shock, and even Kartono lets out a surprised breath.
‘Would you care to elaborate on that?’ asks Nagasena.
‘The Emperor has pronounced judgement on the Thousand Sons and its Primarch,’ says Saturnalia. ‘Even now, my fellow Custodians draw near Prospero in the company of Russ and his warriors. Primarch Magnus is to be brought to Terra in chains.’
‘Why?’ asks Nagasena.
‘For breaking the edicts of Nikaea and employing sorceries forbidden by the Emperor himself,’ says Saturnalia. ‘Valdor himself has unsheathed his blade.’
‘Then Magnus will be lucky to leave Prospero alive,’ says Nagasena, and he sees Saturnalia wonder if he is insulting the master of the Custodians.
‘We’re wasting time,’ says Golovko. ‘I can fill the Petitioner’s City with Black Sentinels in thirty minutes. We’ll take that shithole apart, brick by shitting brick until we find them.’
Nagasena shakes his head, already irritated at Golovko’s lack of subtlety.
‘Choose thirty of your best men, Maxim,’ he says. ‘More will only hinder us.’
‘Thirty? You saw how badly they mauled us when we first came for them.’
‘This time will be different,’ says Nagasena.
‘How so?’
‘This time
they care if they live or die,’ he says.
AN HOUR EARLIER, Kai had woken in agony in a flaming steel coffin. His body felt broken, and he struggled to draw breath as something heavy pressed down on his chest. He coughed as acrid smoke drifted in a soft wind, and he heard the creak of twisted metal and sparking of ruptured cables over the crackle of flames.
He turned his head, even this small movement painful, to survey his surroundings.
The interior of the cutter had flattened on impact and the hull was an oval tube laced with broken spars of metal and hung with ribbed piping that spat hissing gasses or drooled hydraulic fluid. Atharva lay next to him, and Kai saw it was his arm that lay across his chest and pinned him to the ground.
Smoke-filtered light filled the cabin, the heavy fuselage torn open down the entire length of the cutter, and Kai was amazed he had survived so ferocious an impact. Across from him, a figure with dirty white hair picked himself up from the wreckage and shook his head.
‘That’s what you World Eaters call a landing,’ said Argentus Kiron.
A blackened shape at the front of the craft pulled itself from a heap of broken panels and coils of spitting wiring.
‘Any landing you walk away from is a good one,’ said Asubha with a wide grin. It looked to Kai as though he had enjoyed crashing the cutter.
‘Does it still count if you can only crawl?’ asked Subha, pushing himself to his knees and spitting a wad of teeth.
‘You are alive,’ said Tagore, wiping blood from a series of deep gashes on his chest and smearing it over his shoulders and face like tribal war paint. Kai tried to push Atharva’s arm from his chest, but he was still too weak and the warrior’s arm was too heavy. The cold-eyed features of Severian appeared above him, regarding him as a hunter might study a snared animal.
‘I’m trapped,’ said Kai, and Severian lifted Atharva’s arm from his chest. He moved on before Kai could thank him. The movement stirred Atharva, and he rolled onto his side with a groan of pain. Blood was coagulating on his face and arms, and he pulled a shard of metal the size of a dagger from his side.
A sudden cry of alarm made Kai jump and he smacked his head on the buckled side of the cutter. He saw Kiron kneel at the edge of the hole torn in the side of the cutter, presumably by a missile impact or the crash itself. He clambered over the crumpled interior of the cutter to the light and saw Gythua sitting upright in a pool of blood with torn spars of metal jutting from the centre of his stomach and chest.
‘Looks like the Goliath was right,’ said Subha. ‘He can die.’
‘Don’t say that!’ snapped Kiron with a venomous glare.
Severian knelt beside the Death Guard warrior and probed the bloody mess of his guts.
‘The wound is mortal,’ he said. ‘We should leave him.’
‘He’s right,’ said Gythua with a grimace of pain.
‘I’m not abandoning you,’ said Kiron.
‘I meant about the wound being mortal,’ said the Death Guard. ‘I’m dying, but you’re not going to bloody leave me here for the hunters.’
‘We leave no one behind for the hunters,’ agreed Tagore.
Kai was surprised to hear such a sentiment from a World Eater. From all he had heard, Kai had assumed Angron’s warriors to be brutal killers, without compassion or mercy. It was hard to believe a warrior that looked so feral and brutal could have any mercy in him, but the steel in Tagore’s voice brooked no disagreement.
Severian saw the same thing and gave a small shrug of acceptance.
‘Then we need to get him off these spikes of metal,’ he said.
‘Lift him clear,’ said Tagore, waving Asubha and his twin forward. Kai turned away as they bent down to pull Gythua free.
‘Do it quickly, World Eaters,’ said Gythua.
‘Don’t you worry about us,’ Subha told him. ‘You just mind your own self.’
Kai put his hands over his ears, but could still hear the terrible scraping of metal on bone, the awful suction of pierced flesh. The World Eaters strained with the effort of pulling Gythua clear, but to the Death Guard’s credit, no more than a grunt of pain escaped his lips as he came free of the metal spars.
Kai felt pressure on his arm, and let himself be guided from the wreckage. Gythua gave out great shuddering breaths as his body tried to fight the inevitable, and Kai let out an involuntary cry of horror as he saw the monstrously bloody ruin of Gythua’s body.
‘Don’t know what you’ve got to be bothered about,’ said Gythua, climbing to his feet with help from Kiron. ‘It’s me with the hole right through me.’
‘Sorry,’ said Kai, stepping from the remains of the crashed cutter.
Kai blinked his augmetic eyes, and he smiled at the simple pleasure of sunlight on his skin. The cutter had come down in a wide courtyard space between a series of abandoned structures that might once have been warehouses. The ground was hard-packed earth and bare rock, the buildings that clustered close like curious onlookers at the scene of an accident.
No two were the same, constructed from sheets of corrugated metal and crudely shaped stone. Even over the reek of scorched iron and burning fuel, Kai could smell the wretched aroma of human waste, sweat and bad meat. How far had they travelled from the gaol? This surely could not be part of the Emperor’s palace.
‘Where are we?’ he asked, as Atharva joined him.
‘My guess would be the Petitioner’s City.’
‘It’s awful,’ said Kai. ‘People actually live here?’
Atharva nodded. ‘A great many of them.’
‘A good place to stay hidden,’ said Severian, moving to the edge of the courtyard in which they had crashed.
‘Hide?’ said Tagore. ‘I don’t plan on hiding from anyone.’
‘No? Then what is your plan?’
‘We make our way to the nearest port facility and capture another flyer, one capable of getting into orbit without getting its arse shot off.’
‘And then what?’ asked Severian.
Tagore shrugged. ‘We have an astropath,’ he said. ‘We get him to send for our brothers.’
‘You make it all sound so simple,’ said Severian with a wry grin. ‘And I was worried for a moment that it would be difficult to escape from Terra.’
‘I am World Eater,’ said Tagore, a warning in his tone. ‘Do not mistake simple for stupid.’
Severian nodded and turned away as Subha and Asubha helped Gythua from the cutter. Kiron emerged from the wreckage with his upper body now bared to the elements, and Kai was reminded of the marble statues with perfect physiques that flanked the steps of the Circus Athletica on the island crag of Aegina. Where the other Space Marines were bulky to the point of being ungainly and grotesque, Kiron was more akin to the proportions of a mortal, albeit one whose body was shaped to an idealised form. The torn fabric of his bodyglove now plugged the hole in Gythua’s stomach, and Kai saw the yellow cloth was already stained crimson.
The Death Guard warrior had an arm around the twins’ shoulders, and he took in their surroundings with a stoic shrug.
‘So this is the Petitioner’s City,’ he grunted. ‘Don’t suppose there’s much chance of finding a Legion apothecary around here?’
THEY TORCHED THE wrecked cutter with three blasts from Kiron’s plasma carbine and moved into the winding streets of the city. Severian led the way, putting as much distance between them and the crash as was possible, given that the wounded Gythua limited their speed. They kept to the shadows and the farther they travelled into the city, the more Kai lost track of the age in which he lived.
The lanes were dark, cool and filled with shadow, the buildings between which they travelled ancient and dilapidated, stone facades crumbling and grimed, patched with ad-hoc repairs and haphazard necessity. Wirework traceries of cabling skeined the surfaces and roofs of the buildings, a fragile network of illicit power that looked as fragile as silken cobwebs.
Between the wires, the sky diminished to a thin brush stroke of deepening blue.
All signs of technology began to vanish, and the air grew sharper with spices and perfumes and sweat, undiminished by the stale, metallic smell of the Imperium. The sounds changed too: echoing noises of children reciting nonsense verse, the hectoring voice of a man sounding like he was preaching, the buzz and whirr of stone on stone, knife sharpeners and a hundred other hawkers.
They turned into older streets, so narrow that the Space Marines had trouble moving two abreast. Ragged awnings and sagging balconies jutted into the passageways, making it difficult for Kai to see more than a few meters in any direction. His mental map spun, flipped around and turned inside out. Everything around him looked so different, but, perversely, it all began to blur together until he had no idea in which direction they were heading.
Those few people who saw them stared in wonder at the giants, and pressed themselves to the sides of the ramshackle buildings or turned and ran for their lives. Children in bright robes and tattooed faces gawped at them as women in orange shawls hurried them away. A multitude of skin tones dwelled here, from the exotic to the mundane, and he saw styles of dress from every corner of the globe: turbans, baggy silk pantaloon, all-enclosing robes that left only the eyes open to the world, labourers’ clothes and clothes that looked fit for any royal palace. Kai wondered what these people thought to see warriors in their midst, towering figures of heroic might that now passed through their slums.
Did they fear them as much as he did?
Kai stumbled after Severian in a daze, losing track of his surroundings. He had been psychically mauled and chemically subdued by his captors, both of which had weakened his body to the point of ruination. Kai’s body felt like one enormous wound, and he put one foot in front of the other mechanically, too exhausted to care where they were going or what they were going to do when they got there.
Tagore expected to send an astropathic message to his brothers off-world, but he was going to be disappointed if he thought Kai could be that messenger. By the last test Athena had set him, Kai could barely manage to reach a receiving astropath one tower distant. What chance did he have of reaching one on a far-distant world? The World Eater did not look like the kind of warrior who would take disappointment well, and Kai felt a numbing dread take hold of him at the thought of his anger when he discovered Kai’s limitations.
The Outcast Dead Page 26
