The Outcast Dead

by Graham McNeill

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m Castana,’ said Roxanne. ‘I’ve never wanted for anything in my life, and that meant I didn’t appreciate anything I was ever given. If I broke something or lost something, it would be instantly replaced. Being with the people of the XIII Legion taught me how selfish I’d been. When I returned to our estates I couldn’t face going back to the person I was. So I left.’

  ‘And you came here?’ said Kai. ‘Seems like a bit of an extreme reaction.’

  ‘I know, but, like I said, I’m Castana, we don’t do things in half measures. At first I was just going to run off to teach my family that they couldn’t treat me like a child. Then, when they realised how much they needed me, they’d come for me and I’d have earned their respect.’

  ‘But they didn’t come, did they?’

  ‘No, they didn’t,’ said Roxanne, but there was no sadness to her at the idea of being abandoned by her family. ‘I found a place to stay, but I still had nightmares about the Argo, and it was eating me up inside. I knew what happened wasn’t my fault, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. One day I heard about a place in the Petitioner’s City where anyone could lay their dead to rest and find peace. So I made my way here and volunteered to help in whatever way I could.’

  ‘Did it help? With the nightmares, I mean?’

  Roxanne nodded. ‘It did. I thought I’d stay a few days, just to clear my head, but the more I helped people, the more I knew I couldn’t leave. When you’re surrounded by death every day it gives you perspective. I’ve heard hundreds of stories that would break your heart, but it showed me that what I’d gone through wasn’t any worse than what these people live with every day.’

  ‘And what about Palladis Novandio, what’s his story?’

  He sensed reluctance in Roxanne’s aura, and immediately regretted the question.

  ‘He suffered a great loss,’ she said. ‘He lost people he loved, and he blames himself for their deaths.’

  Kai turned to watch Palladis Novandio as he spoke in a low voice with the people of his temple, now understanding a measure of the man’s enveloping grief. He recognised the all-consuming guilt and desire for punishment as the mirror of his own.

  ‘Then we’re very similar,’ whispered Kai.

  ‘You blame yourself for what happened on the Argo, don’t you?’ said Roxanne.

  Kai tried to give a glib answer, to deflect her question, but the words wouldn’t come. He could read auras or use his psychic abilities to understand emotions without effort, yet he would not turn that insight upon himself for fear of what he might learn.

  ‘It was my fault,’ he said softly. ‘I was in a nuncio trance when the shields collapsed. I was the way in for the monsters. I was the crack in the defences. It’s the only explanation.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Roxanne. ‘How can you think like that?’

  ‘Because it’s true.’

  ‘No,’ said Roxanne firmly. ‘It’s not. You didn’t see what was happening beyond the ship. I saw what hit us, and any ship would have been overwhelmed. A squall of warp cyclones blew up out of nowhere and hit a vortex of high-energy currents coming in from the rimward storms. No one saw it coming, not the Nobilite Watcher Guild, not the Gate Sentinels, no one. It was a one in a million, one in a billion, freak confluence. Given what’s happening here on Terra and out in the galaxy, I’m surprised there aren’t more of them surging to life. It’s a mess out there in the warp, and you’re lucky you don’t see it.’

  ‘You might have seen it, but I heard it,’ said Kai. ‘I heard them die.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘All of them. Every man and woman on the ship, I heard them die. All their terrors, all their lost dreams, all their last thoughts. I heard them all, screaming at me. I can still hear them whenever I let my guard down.’

  Roxanne gripped his hand fiercely and he felt the power of her stare, though he had no eyes with which to return it. The force of her personality blazed like a solar corona, and only now did Kai realise how strong she was. Roxanne was Castana, and there were few of that clan who lacked for self-assuredness.

  ‘They tried to blame us both for the loss of the Argo, so what does that tell you about how little they know about whose fault it was? Someone had to be responsible. Something terrible had happened, and it’s human nature to want someone else to pay for it. They told me, day and night, that it was my fault, that I’d done something wrong, that I had to retrain. But I said no, I told them I knew it wasn’t my fault. I knew there was nothing I or anyone else could have done to save that ship. It was lost no matter what I did. It was lost no matter what you or anyone else did.’

  Kai listened to her words, feeling each one slip past his armour of certainty like poniards aimed at his heart. He had told himself the same things over and over again, but the mind has no greater accuser than itself. The Castanas told him he caused the death of the Argo, and he had believed them because, deep down, he wanted to be punished for surviving.

  They needed a scapegoat, and when one of their own wouldn’t fall on her sword, he had been the next best thing: a willing victim. Kai felt the black chains of guilt within him slip, a tiny loosening of their implacable hold. Not completely, nothing so simple as the words of a friend could cause them to break their grip so easily, but that they had slackened at all was a revelation.

  He smiled and reached up to touch Roxanne’s face. She was wary of the gesture, as were all Navigators, for they disliked other people’s hands near their third eye. Her cheek was smooth and the brush of her hair against his skin felt luxurious. These moments of human contact were the first Kai had known in months that didn’t involve someone wanting to take something from him, and he let it linger, content to take each breath as a free man.

  ‘You’re cleverer than you look, do you know that?’ said Kai.

  ‘Like I said, this place gives you perspective, but how would you know? You can’t even see me with that bandage over your eyes. You never did say what happened to them.’

  And Kai told her all that had befallen him since his arrival at the City of Sight, his retraining, the terror of the psychic shockwave that had killed Sarashina and placed something so valuable within his mind that people were willing to kill to retrieve it. He told of their escape from the Custodians’ gaol, the crash and their flight through the Petitioner’s City, though this last part of his recall was hazed with uncertainty and half-remembered visions where fear and dreams collided. He told Roxanne of the Outcast Dead’s plans to bring him to Horus Lupercal, and the mention of the Warmaster’s name sent a tremor of fear through her aura.

  When Kai finished, he waited for Roxanne to ask about what Sarashina had placed in his mind, but the question never came, and he felt himself fall a little in love with her. She looked over at the door through which the Space Marines had taken their dead.

  ‘You can’t let them take you to the Warmaster,’ she said.

  ‘You think I owe the Imperium anything, after all they did to me?’ said Kai. ‘I won’t just hand myself over to the Legio Custodes again.’

  ‘I’m not saying you should,’ said Roxanne, taking his hands again. ‘But even after all that’s happened, you’re not a traitor to the Imperium, are you? If you let them take you to Horus, that’s what you’ll be. You know I’m right.’

  ‘I know,’ sighed Kai. ‘But how can I stop them from taking me? I’m not strong enough to fight them.’

  ‘You could run.’

  Kai shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t last ten minutes out there.’

  Roxanne’s silence was all the agreement he needed.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked at last.

  ‘I haven’t the faintest idea,’ said Kai. ‘I don’t want to be used anymore, that’s all I know for sure. I’m tired of being dragged from pillar to post. I want to take control of my own destiny, but I don’t know how to do that.’

  ‘Well you’d better figure it out soon,’ said Roxanne, a
s the heavy door at the rear of the temple swung open. ‘They’re back.’

  THE DEAD WERE ashes. Argentus Kiron and Orhu Gythua were no more, their bodies consumed in the fire. Tagore felt numb at their deaths, knowing he should feel a measure of grief at their passing, but unable to think beyond the anticipation of his next kill. Ever since the battle with Babu Dhakal’s men, his body had been a taut wire, vibrating at a level that no one could see, but which was ready to snap.

  It felt good to have blood on his hands, and the butcher’s nails embedded in his skull had rewarded him for his kills with a rush of endorphins. Tagore’s hands were clenched tightly, unconsciously balled into fists as he scanned the room for threats, avenues of attack and choke points. The people in here were soft, emotional and useless. They wept tears of what he presumed were sadness, but he could not connect to that emotion any more.

  While Severian and Atharva spoke to the grey-haired man who owned this place – he could not bring himself to use the word temple – Tagore sent Subha and Asubha to secure their perimeter. His breath was coming in short spikes, and he knew his pupils were dilated to the point of being totally black. Every muscle in his body sang with tension, and it took all Tagore’s iron control to keep himself from lashing out at the first person that looked at him.

  Not that anyone dared look at a man who was so clearly dangerous. No eye would meet his, and he took a seat on a creaking bench to calm his raging emotions. He wanted to fight. He wanted to kill. There was no target for his rage, yet his body craved the release and reward promised by the pulsing device bolted to the bone of his skull.

  Tagore had spoken of martial honour, but the words rang hollow, even to him. They were spoken by rote, and though he wanted to feel cheated at how little they meant to him, he couldn’t even feel that. They were good words, ones he used to believe in, but as the tally of the dead mounted, the less anything except the fury of battle came to mean. He knew exactly how many lives he had taken, and could summon each killing blow from memory, but he felt no connection to any of them. No pride in a well-placed lunge, no exultation at the defeat of a noteworthy foe and no honour in fighting for something in which he believed.

  The Emperor had made him into a soldier, but Angron had wrought him into a weapon.

  Tagore remembered the ritual breaking of the chains aboard the Conqueror, that mighty fortress cast out into the heavens like the war hound of a noble knight. The Red Angel, Angron himself, had mounted the chain-wrapped anvil and brought his callused fist down upon the mighty knot of iron. With one blow he had severed the symbolic chains of his slavery, hurling the sundered links into the thousands of assembled World Eaters.

  Tagore had scrapped and brawled with his brothers in the mad, swirling mêlée to retrieve one of those links. As a storm-sergeant of the 15th Company, he had been ferocious enough to wrest a link from a warrior named Skraal, one of the latest recruits to be implanted with the butcher’s nails. The warrior was young, yet to master his implants, and Tagore had pummelled him without mercy until he had released his prize.

  He had fashioned that link into the haft of Ender, his war axe, but that weapon was now lost to him. Anger flared at the thought of the weapon that had saved his life more times than he could count in the hands of an enemy. Tagore heard the sound of splintering wood, and opened his eyes in expectation of violence, but from the pinpricks of blood welling in his palms, he knew he had crushed the projecting lip of the bench.

  Tagore closed his eyes as he spoke the words to the Song of Battle’s End.

  ‘I raise the fist that struck men down,

  And salute the battle won.

  My enemy’s blood has baptised me.

  In death’s heart I proved myself,

  But now the fire must cool.

  The carrion crows feast,

  And the tally of the dead begins.

  I have seen many fall today.

  But even as they die, I know

  That our blood too is welcome.

  War cares not from whence the blood flows.’

  Tagore let out a shuddering breath as he spoke the last word, feeling the tension running through his body like a charge ease. He unclenched his fists, letting the splintered wood fall to the floor. He felt a presence nearby and inclined his head to see a young boy sitting next to him. Tagore had no idea how old this boy was, he had no memory of being young, and mortal physiology changed so rapidly that it was impossible to gauge the passage of years on their frail flesh.

  ‘What was that you just said?’ asked the boy, looking up from a pamphlet he was reading.

  Tagore looked around, just to be sure the boy was, in fact, addressing him.

  ‘They are words to cool the fires of battle in a warrior’s heart when the killing is done,’ he said warily.

  ‘You’re a Space Marine, aren’t you?’

  He nodded, unsure what this boy wanted from him.

  ‘I’m Arik,’ said the boy, holding out his hand.

  Tagore looked at the hand suspiciously, his eyes darting over the boy’s thin frame, unconsciously working out where he could break his bones to most efficiently kill him. His neck was willow thin, it would take no effort at all to break it. His bones were visible at his shoulders and ridges of ribs poked through his thin shirt.

  It would take no effort at all to destroy him.

  ‘Tagore, storm-sergeant of the 15th Company,’ he said at last. ‘I am World Eater.’

  Arik nodded and said, ‘It’s good you’re here. If Babu Dhakal’s men come back then you’ll kill them, won’t you?’

  Pleased to have a subject to which he could relate, Tagore nodded. ‘If anyone comes here looking for me, I’ll kill him.’

  ‘Are you good at killing people?’

  ‘Very good,’ said Tagore. ‘There’s nobody better than me.’

  ‘Good,’ declared Arik. ‘I hate him.’

  ‘Babu Dhakal?’

  Arik nodded solemnly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He had my dad killed,’ said the boy, pointing to the kneeling statue at the end of the building. ‘Ghota shot him right there.’

  Tagore followed the boy’s pointing finger, noting the silver ring on his thumb, its quality and worth clearly beyond his means. The statue was of a dark stone, veined with thin lines of grey and deeper black, and though it had no face, Tagore felt sure he could make out where its features were meant to be, as if the sculptor had begun his work, but left it unfinished.

  ‘Ghota killed one of my… friends too,’ said Tagore, stumbling over the unfamiliar word. ‘I owe him a death, and I always repay a blood debt.’

  Arik nodded, the matter dealt with, and returned to reading his pamphlet.

  Tagore was in unfamiliar territory, his skills of conversation limited to battle-cant and commands. He was not adept in dealing with mortals, finding their concerns and reasoning impossible to fathom. Was he supposed to continue speaking to this boy, or were their dealings at an end?

  ‘What are you reading?’ he asked after a moment’s thought.

  ‘Something my dad used to read,’ said Arik, without looking up. ‘I don’t understand a lot of it, but he really liked it. He used to read it over and over again.’

  ‘Can I see it?’ asked Tagore.

  The boy nodded and handed over the sheet of paper. It was thin and had been folded too many times, the ink starting to smudge and bleed into the creases. Tagore was used to reading tactical maps or orders of battle, and this language was a mix of dialects and words with which he was unfamiliar, yet the neural pathways of his brain adapted with a rapidity that would have astounded any Terran linguist.

  ‘Men united in the purpose of the Emperor are blessed in his sight and shall live forever in his memory,’ read Tagore, his brow furrowed at the strange sentiment. ‘I tread the path of righteousness. Though it be paved with broken glass, I will walk it barefoot; though it cross rivers of fire, I will pass over them; though it wanders wide, the light of the Emperor guides my s
tep. There is only the Emperor, and he is our shield and protector.’

  Tagore looked up from his reading, feeling the pulse of his implant burrowing deep into his skull as his anger grew at these words of faith and superstition. Arik reached over and pointed to a section further down the pamphlet.

  ‘The strength of the Emperor is humanity, and the strength of humanity is the Emperor,’ said Tagore, his fury growing the more he read. ‘If one turns from the other we shall all become the Lost and the Damned. And when His servants forget their duty they are no longer human and become something less than beasts. They have no place in the bosom of humanity or in the heart of the Emperor. Let them die and be outcast.’

  Tagore’s heart was racing and his lungs drew air in short, aggressive breaths. He crumpled the pamphlet in his fist and let it drop to the ground.

  ‘Get away from me, boy,’ he said through bared teeth.

  Arik looked up, his eyes widening in fear as he saw the change in Tagore.

  ‘What did I do?’ he said in a trembling voice.

  ‘I said get away from me!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I think I might kill you,’ growled Tagore.

  NAGASENA WATCHES THE building from a projection of rock at the mouth of the canyon, knowing his prey is close. In the streets behind him, six armoured vehicles and nearly a hundred soldiers wait in anticipation of his orders. Though there is only one order to give, Nagasena hesitates to issue it. Athena Diyos and Adept Hiriko wait with them, though there is likely no part in this hunt left for them to play.

  Even Nagasena concedes that in the latter stages of a hunt there is a certain thrill, but he feels none of that now. Too much uncertainty has entered his life since he left his mountain home for him to feel anything but apprehension at the thought of facing Kai Zulane and the renegades.

  Through the scope of his rifle he can see there are no escape routes from the structure, its statue-covered façade presenting the only obvious way in or out. Hundreds of people are gathered before the building, and they have brought their dead with them. Nagasena understands the need to cling onto the lost, to honour their memory and ensure they are not forgotten, but the idea of praying to them or expecting that they will pass onto another realm of existence is alien to him.