Hammer and Anvil

by James Swallow

  ‘Is it…’ Danae swallowed, grimacing. ‘A trophy room?’

  Verity shook her head solemnly. ‘This is an arcade dedicated to cruelty, ordered by something that sees no horror in what has been done. No more than a child might pluck wildflowers and press them into the pages of a notebook.’

  ‘Why?’ Miriya asked, the question escaping her. She crossed to the nearest orb-pod and peered at a circular display floating near it. Alien text filled the disc, and she wondered what it might say. Was it the record of the agonies of a long-dead Battle Sister, captured after the invasion? Or coldly harvested genetic data, preserved for future iterations of necrontyr to study, so they might better destroy any humans they encountered?

  ‘I thought the machines were only killers,’ she went on. ‘All records speak of them as turning their victims to ash. What purpose does a… harvest like this serve?’

  Miriya looked back when neither Danae nor Verity gave reply, and she saw that they had other concerns to occupy them.

  From the far end of the gallery, a black mist whirled silently in the air, moving as ink would flow through water. Tendrils of it looped out and back, some reaching to touch the orbs it passed, like the brief caress of an owner upon the brow of a pet. The accumulation of darkness was asymmetrical, seeming to emerge from a single solid point in the middle of the mass. Miriya’s mind suggested the shape of a cloak, swelling with a ghostly breeze.

  Each of the women took aim, and as if it was obliging them in some mocking fashion, the gloom reformed, retreating and solidifying into an obsidian staff that drank in the light all around it.

  The staff was clasped in the taloned hand of a creation that resembled the warrior machines only as much as a deck serf might be said to resemble a Space Marine. Lean of limb and sculpted gaunt, the necron was a thing made of steel planes and ribbed iron. Gold accents and bright rings of platinum decorated every inch that was not polished chrome-bright. Unlike the tarnished metal of the mechanicals they had fought on the planet, this construct looked old-new, like a well cared-for antique.

  It studied them with unblinking emerald eyes, and when it spoke, the voice was the sound of knife-edges drawn across one another.

  ‘You have come so very far,’ it said.

  ‘Now,’ said the revenant, kneeling at the edge of the high platform. ‘You will see.’

  Imogen, Kora and Cassandra dropped into a crouch and came as close as they dared to the sheer drop. After the end of the platform, there was nothing but empty air for a good thousand metres until the top of…

  Of something…

  The architecture of the construction was like everything else inside the Obsidian Moon, all time-soiled metals surrounding carved rectilinear ribs of heavy stone – but where those shapes seemed to at least adhere to some rational, if alien, design ethos, this thing was an impossibility.

  The Sister Superior tried to take it all in with a single glance, but it would not come to her. Like an optical illusion, lines seemed to begin and end on themselves, hard-cut corners forming into angles that collapsed upon one another. It made her head swim to try and hold the shape of the thing in her mind’s eye. An inverted tetrahedral surround of old iron, it stood bigger than the central donjon of the Sanctuary convent, glinting with flickers of power. Dull, unearthly light gathered in the open framework of the thing, the same brilliant green hue they had witnessed elsewhere.

  Cassandra was the first to make the leap of concept. ‘It is another portal.’ She glanced at the hooded woman and the revenant nodded once.

  ‘Very different to the simple doorways we passed through,’ she intoned. ‘This is an engine of transmission far more powerful, capable of instantaneous conduction across vast tracts of interstellar space. A Dolmen Gate.’

  Imogen sucked in a breath of dry air and forced herself to look upon it once more. Where the glow emanated, she saw something like a scrap of gossamer net, dancing as if borne by winds. It seemed to be pulling from the dust itself, formed out of nothingness. ‘Where does it lead?’ She dreaded the answer to the question.

  ‘Everywhere,’ said the revenant, retreating into the shadows. ‘The dolmen bores down into the matrix of the universe, the grid of line and power that underpins all things.’ She cocked her head. ‘The eldar have a name for that network. They call it “the webway”.’

  Cassandra uttered a curse. ‘I have seen the Harlequins use that magick,’ she grated. ‘Tunnels through space, big enough to bring tanks and war machines from worlds away. You say the machines know this lore as well? How is that possible?’

  ‘I have no answer for you.’ The hooded woman was sorrowful. ‘It operates by no means I can understand. The necrons are slicing into the ethereal realm with this device, but the mere act corrodes the stone it is made from.’ She pointed towards the edges of the massive gate mechanism; parts of it were laced with cracks and fragments drifted about it in pockets of null gravity.

  Insectoid machines continually scrambled over the length of the dolmen, mandibles flashing as they worked to cut and sculpt and mend the stonework. Imogen knew repair effort when she saw it. ‘They are preparing the device,’ she said.

  ‘A long task,’ said the revenant. ‘It is the reason for this entire construct. The layers of space run thin here. The barriers between our realm and the conduits of the webway lie close to the surface in the Kavir system.’ She pointed upwards, to where complex arrays of wide metal tubes ranged over their heads. ‘They draw power from a vast energy core to keep it open a crack.’

  ‘Is this why the Sisters in the convent were killed? To protect the existence of this?’ Kora wondered aloud. ‘The necrons were defending a strategic asset…’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Imogen allowed, never taking her eyes off the face beneath the torn, ragged hood. ‘If this… gate is opened, then it will not just be Sanctuary 101 that will feel the lash of these aliens. Countless worlds could fall beneath their shadow.’

  ‘Attacks would come without warning,’ said Cassandra. ‘Legions of these war machines phasing in out of nowhere...’ She paused, considering the scale of it. ‘God-Emperor… The Imperium would be defenceless.’

  ‘Simultaneous mass invasion, from here to the shores of Holy Terra herself,’ said the revenant. ‘The xenos would slake the thirst of their warlords with human dead.’

  Imogen rose with a sudden jerk and in a single step she was glaring into the depths of the dark hood. ‘You know so very much about this place, about the necrontyr!’ she snapped. ‘Tell me why that is, creature! You are not one of them, I will accept that. But you cannot be human! All humans on Sanctuary were murdered!’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, her words thick with emotion, ‘that is so.’

  ‘Where did you come from?’ asked Cassandra.

  ‘From my own hell,’ whispered the ragged figure. ‘Damned to serve as witness to all this. But I escaped. Traded one prison for another.’ She tapped at her head. ‘Now returned here for you. So you can–’

  ‘So we can see,’ Imogen broke in. ‘But what good does that do us if we all remain trapped here in this iron mausoleum?’

  ‘We are all witnesses now,’ the revenant said, shuddering. ‘We are all the Watched, if we live long enough to be so.’

  ‘Cease your riddles–’

  But the woman was no longer listening to her. She pointed outwards at the dolmen. Metallic forms were darting up towards them, shimmering in and out of vision like flickering images from a damaged picter. Twisting, serpentine spines grew from legless, manta-like torsos made of black metal. Arms ending in bouquets of blades reached out in silence.

  ‘We are seen,’ said the hooded woman. ‘The wraiths come for us.’

  ‘Know me,’ the necron began, showing no move to make an attack. ‘I am Ossuar, Great Cryptek of the Sautekh Dynasty, citizen of Mandragora the Golden and Woken of the Great Sleep.’ The words had a ritualistic quality to them, and Verity sensed a peculiarly theatrical manner in their delivery. She would not have been surprise
d if the machine had taken a courtly bow at the end of its utterance. Such declarations of self and intent were commonplace in the courts of the Imperium, but to hear an alien using such a mannered form of address was unusual. It was likely only the shared shock at this statement that had stopped the immediate release of a salvo of fire from the Battle Sisters.

  The machines she had seen in the caverns had appeared as puppet things, clockworks that aped human form but with no more intellect to them than an animal predator. She had never expected that a necron might be able to communicate with them, or indeed, that one would ever wish to.

  ‘It speaks,’ muttered Miriya, scarcely able to believe her ears. ‘Like automata playing at being alive.’

  ‘It is your kind that imitate true life,’ came the reply. There was almost a masculine tonality to it, and without thinking Verity immediately classified the creature as a he. ‘Strange organics, lost in your limited meat without the glory of biotransference.’ The machine-xenos spoke as if they were meant to understand the meaning and import of his words. ‘You come so far to be here. So eager to interfere with us. To embrace death.’

  Miriya answered it with questions. ‘Why did you do this, alien?’ She indicated the glassy orbs. ‘What do you hope to learn from such acts of spite?’

  ‘To feed well the food stock must be tasted. And there was also the puzzle to be solved.’

  ‘What puzzle?’ Verity was unable to stay silent.

  The creature Ossuar made a noise that might have been a sigh of pleasure. ‘How it was you came to evolve. The answer still eludes.’ He raised the abyssal rod in his claw, and the extraordinary non-glow of fluid dark moved around the tip. When he spoke again, Verity was convinced she heard amusement in his tone. ‘But you return, offering me more material to explore. Gratitude to you.’ The staff shimmered, coming up in a threatening rise. ‘Your offer will not be wasted.’

  ‘Kill it!’ spat Danae, finding her voice; and suddenly the moment of brief peace was shattered.

  The wraiths came in fast, their spine-tails lashing at the air. Imogen fired first, and to her horror the shells from her bolter passed harmlessly through the closest of the machine-things as it went intangible.

  Broad-shouldered and possessed of blank skull masks, they danced around the Sororitas, hovering on pillars of etherium energy, cocking their heads as they examined the humans. Hands that were little more than blade-sharp manipulators clenched and unclenched as they considered the intruders.

  ‘I can see through them…’ said Cassandra, tracking one of the wraiths with her gun muzzle. ‘They must be decoys… Holographs!’

  The hooded woman had her black sword in her hand. ‘They are very real. They exist out of synchrony, moving back and forth between phantasm and corporeal to strike and fade.’ She shot a look at the Sister Superior. ‘We must fall back, now.’

  ‘You are not in command here,’ Imogen retorted.

  Kora gave a yell as the wraiths moved. The Battle Sister’s hand tightened on her trigger and she fired into the closest attacker, shell casings clattering around her. The wraiths broke apart and passed through stone pillars as if they were made of smoke, diving silently on the young woman.

  ‘No!’ Cassandra called out the warning just as the machine-ghosts crowded around Sister Kora. Ethereal claws and tail-barbs passed harmlessly through her torso – and then suddenly became real, manifesting inside her flesh.

  Kora’s death-scream was smothered by an expulsion of blood from her mouth, and her bolter fired wide.

  The revenant swept in, her tattered cloak whirling, her dark blade a sweep of shadow. The alien sword took the head from one of the machines while it was still at the business of killing Sister Kora, avenging her. The weapon swept on and slashed at another wraith, damaging it severely.

  Following her lead, Cassandra and Imogen unloaded their guns into the wraiths that dithered around Kora’s body, briefly catching them as they were manifest in phase with this plane of existence. But in an eye-blink, they were turning ephemeral once again, ducking, weaving, preparing another attack.

  This time Imogen did not hesitate. ‘Retreat!’ she barked. She tore an incendiary grenade from her belt and tossed it towards the Battle Sister’s corpse.

  Cassandra swallowed a prayer in Kora’s memory and did as she was commanded, the hooded woman moving at her side.

  The explosion hammered at their backs as they ran.

  In the confines of the gallery, the fight became a storm of fire and darkness. Danae’s meltagun forged lines of solar flame that lashed at the necron creature, and in return he unleashed black beams of negative energy that froze air molecules to snow in their wake. Verity dashed into cover as Miriya fired true, marching rounds up the chest of the machine to beat at its near-featureless face.

  This Ossuar, this creature that called itself ‘the cryptek’, swatted the rounds away as if they were nagging insects and rolled the staff in his talons. A sinister shroud of oily smoke emerged from the rod and flowed towards them in a towering wave.

  Miriya yanked on the breather mask stowed in her gorget, fearful that the alien had deployed some kind of gaseous weapon – but the shroud behaved like a living thing, rising up in curtains of rippling gloom.

  Incredibly, she felt it plucking at her mind, prickling her skin. A sudden sense of despair loomed over her, so strong it almost forced a sob from her mouth. She felt a snake of dread uncoiling inside her chest, slithering across her will. The nightmares of an orphan child that she had banished from her mind in adulthood, burst through the walls she had built over them and gathered around her.

  ‘Curse you!’ Miriya spat, reaching deep within herself for the wellspring of defiance that she knew was there. The Sororitas had no concept of how Ossuar’s weapon was working its assault on her senses. Through science or arcane magick? It was impossible to know. But she was sure of one thing – she would resist it.

  The litany came easily to her, and Miriya invoked the Light of the Emperor, saying the words in a breathy rush. The effect was immediate, it was electric; she felt renewed as she looked within and touched her love and faith for her god.

  Yes, she told herself. Still strong.

  Miriya was elated; before, at prayer and at peace, she had searched for this moment and been found wanting. But now, in the teeth of battle, it came ready and real, as if it had always been there.

  With her free hand she drew her chainsword and swept it up to beat at Ossuar’s staff. The nightmare shroud parted before her savage attack and the necron actually staggered, as if he were surprised by the vigour of her counter strike.

  Blade met staff with a clash of sparks and the force of it shoved the two combatants apart once again.

  A hooting, braying tocsin was sounding through the gallery, broadcast from some hidden speaker. Ossuar made an angry sound and dodged a beam-blast from Danae, weaving, gathering himself.

  The circular screens shifted, each showing the same series of bright white icons; Miriya knew an alert when she saw it.

  The necron drew a dark veil across the chamber, shifting behind it so they could not draw a bead on him. ‘More of you elsewhere,’ he grated, seeming to pluck the datum from the ether. ‘What clever animals you are.’

  That fragmentary moment of distraction was enough for Danae to take her shot. A blast of energy shattered one of the orbs close to where Ossuar moved, and the detonation blew the machine-creature off its feet. The cryptek scrambled, trying to right himself.

  ‘This way!’ cried Verity, retreating towards the hexagonal hatch while the necron was still in disarray. Miriya broke cover and ran to her.

  ‘We are not animals!’ Danae shouted, and as she fell back she immolated the rest of the glassy capsules with wildfire.

  As they staggered into the corridor, a piercing whistle sounded from their vox-beads. Unknown to them, inside the gallery the thick iron walls had dampened their comm signals almost to nothing. Miriya wondered if it was some other consequence of the st
range veil-effect Ossuar had generated.

  Cassandra’s voice was barely discernable through a rush of crackling static. ‘If you read us,’ she was saying, ‘we are regrouping. Home in on our location.’

  ‘I have it,’ Verity noted, fumbling at her auspex unit. ‘Below us. Not far.’

  Danae fired again into the hatchway and glared at them both. ‘I am done with this place,’ she spat. ‘Find me our Sisters and let us be gone!’

  Behind them, a tinny rattle sounded across the stone walls, and Miriya looked up. ‘The… the cryptek…’ She said the alien word and scowled with it. ‘He won’t be done with us yet.’

  She saw one of the etch-shapes in the stone move. Emerald light blinked on within it, a single eye emerging along with six needle legs. The ovals shifted against rock and fell to the floor. One, then two. Then dozens. The beetle-like machines twitched, shaking off dormancy, taking in their circumstances. They found the humans.

  ‘Scarabs!’ hissed Danae. ‘Run!’

  ++What can you do?++ demanded the Watcher.

  ‘Save us,’ she told it, furious at the words. ‘Watch me do so.’

  ++You will fail++ came the reply. ++They will die and you will be trapped here. Again++

  ‘Shut up!’ shouted the revenant, skidding out of her run to a halt.

  ++You should not have come back++

  The one called Imogen grabbed her shoulder and spun her about. ‘In Terra’s name!’ She snarled at the revenant. ‘If you lose your mind now and strand us here, I swear I will slit your throat before they come for us!’

  She pushed the Sister Superior away. ‘I am sane,’ she muttered, pretending that was true. ‘I brought you this far.’ The hooded woman tugged at her cloak and sprinted into the corridor of inert Monoliths, moving from one to another, brushing her bony fingers over them.