[Tome of Fire 02] - Firedrake

by Nick Kyme - (ebook by Undead)

  “Leave them,” he bellowed, “and come with me. I have something to show you.”

  The Fire-born looked to their Chaplain. Elysius eyed the Black Dragon and then the wretched creatures, creeping closer by the minute. He regarded the dead dark eldar slavers and could guess what the ghouls were waiting for.

  “Leave them,” he said at last, echoing Zartath. He led the Salamanders and what remained of the Night Devils off after their new allies. The emaciated wretches gathered closer in their wake, eyes hungry and dirty talons eager.

  Not all of the slavers had been dead. Some were critically injured but alive.

  Elysius consoled himself with that thought as they left the amphitheatre, and the ghouls to their feast.

  It was an iron box, roughly a metre in length and a half-metre wide. It was steam-bolted with iron rivets. Rust collecting around the rivets reminded Elysius of blood.

  Zartath had led them a fair distance from the amphitheatre, but the strange geography of the place made it difficult to gauge exactly how far they’d travelled. He’d learned it was called the “Razored Vale” by the human survivors and was a bridging point into the webway proper. The Vale was merely part of a much larger settlement called the Port of Anguish, and situated in an area of the webway known as the Volgorrah Reef.

  When Elysius had asked how he came to know all of this, Zartath had smiled and beckoned them onwards. Standing before the iron box in the wrecked shell of a temple with Ba’ken and Iagon, Elysius was still no wiser as to the Black Dragon’s meaning.

  “Kor’be,” Zartath called to his second-in-command, the only other Astartes, another Black Dragon, in his ragged warband. The others were difficult to pin down: ex-Guard perhaps, mercenaries, rogue traders—the xenos were indiscriminate in the acquisition of slaves. Zartath had alloyed them, however. They were lean and wire-taut, ready for anything. But sometimes even that wasn’t enough; sometimes nothing could stop you from getting killed. They’d seen death and lost everything. It had made the ragged company hard.

  The hulking warrior called Kor’be came forwards. He was missing his right shoulder pad and arm greave. His bare flesh was tanned like leather and just as rough. There were marks in the skin that indicated where several bone-blades had been removed surgically. Kor’be also carried the electoo of his Chapter, a white dragon head, imprinted on his shoulder.

  “He is mute,” said Zartath, unnecessarily, “dark eldar took his tongue long ago. Took his blades too. At least he cannot question my orders,” he added. His curt laughter quickly fell away into serious introspection.

  Ba’ken and Iagon shared a furtive glance with one another.

  He is mad, then, Elysius thought to himself, watching as Kor’be rammed a spear into the side of the iron box and, with an impressive feat of strength, prised open the lid.

  It hit the ground with a heavy clang.

  All eyes were drawn to its contents.

  “They are named the ‘Parched’,” Zartath explained.

  Within the iron box was one of the ghoul creatures, a particularly thin and wretched specimen. The thing was partly desiccated and its eyes were swollen shut. As the half-light of the Razored Vale touched it, the creature squirmed, sticking out its needle-like tongue to lash the air.

  Naked but for a small cloth to preserve its dignity—what precious little it had left—the Parched was covered in tiny wheals and lesions. The contusions and internal haemorrhaging didn’t appear to be the work of Zartath or his men. Rather, it looked to be synonymous with some kind of invasive illness. From his conversations with Fugis, Elysius had learned of such diseases that affected humans, of how a body could turn on and destroy itself. The Apothecary had been vivid and detailed in descriptions of these maladies. The Chaplain knew enough that he could recognise them or something similar when he saw it.

  Zartath grinned, displaying his saurian incisors, as if reading Elysius’ thoughts.

  “Shut inside, no light, no stimulation,” he said, “it’s like torture to them. Slowly they waste away to nothing.”

  “Degeneration through sensory deprivation,” the Chaplain clarified. “It is the soul hunger.”

  The Black Dragon punched the Parched savagely in the ribs, making it squeal in pleasure-pain. “I keep it fed on scraps,” he said, showing the dried blood on his gauntlet from where he’d just struck it. “You can keep them alive for weeks like this. After a few days they reveal their secrets.”

  Elysius kept his disapproval to himself, but saw it written on the other Salamanders’ faces.

  Zartath noticed it too.

  “How else do you think we survived this long?” he snapped, seizing the Parched by the throat and shaking it. “Eyes and ears, brothers!” he sneered, letting the creature go when it mewled for more.

  The Black Dragon turned on Elysius. By now, the rest of the group, having been occupied sharpening blades and checking ammunition, were watching.

  “You are of particular interest to them, Chaplain.”

  Elysius fought the urge to crush Zartath’s pointing finger. Kor’be was nearby, bolter in hand. He couldn’t have many rounds. During the fight, the Chaplain couldn’t remember it being fired once. It might be on empty already. Still, he wasn’t about to test a theory.

  “Helspereth is looking for you,” the Black Dragon concluded. “You’ve piqued her interest.”

  “How fortunate.”

  “No, it isn’t. She is An’scur’s hell-bitch, his rabid dog,” Zartath spat, “and she wants to sate her fangs on your flesh.”

  “We’ve met already.” The Chaplain gestured to his missing limb. “She already took a trophy.”

  The Black Dragon laughed. It was an ugly, hollow sound. “She’ll want more.”

  “Who is An’scur?” asked Ba’ken, growing tired of Zartath’s histrionics, “The overlord of this place?”

  Zartath nodded. “Aye, he rules the Reef. When we,”—he slammed his plastron and pointed at Kor’be—“had numbers, before the reapings, I tried to kill him.”

  Iagon smirked, finding accord with Ba’ken. “Needless to say, you failed.”

  The Black Dragon bared his teeth and snarled.

  “And lost over a dozen warriors,” he concluded bitterly. “Now you’re here, you think it will be different?”

  “Our brothers are coming for us,” Elysius assured him.

  “You must’ve hit your head, preacher,” Zartath replied. “There is no one coming for us. We are all we have.”

  “You’re wrong.” The Chaplain brandished Vulkan’s Sigil. “They are coming for this.”

  Iagon’s expression told Ba’ken his fellow sergeant knew nothing of that fact, either. Ever since Ironlandings and the fight to breach the bastion, a bond had been forming between them. Ba’ken had always thought of Iagon as a serpent dressed in ceramite, a poisonous creature unworthy of the title “Fire-born”. Polar opposites, like their feuding sergeants had been, Ba’ken and Iagon had never liked each other. Like Dak’ir and Tsu’gan before them, it bordered on enmity. They fought together—they were still battle-brothers after all—but it was far from a ready camaraderie. Yet, in the last few hours held prisoner on the Reef, something had changed. They had changed. Perhaps without the legacy of their old commanders overshadowing them they had broken free of the shackles that stopped Dak’ir and Tsu’gan seeing eye-to-eye? As he broke eye contact, Ba’ken hoped that was the case. His gaze went to the Sigil.

  Ba’ken knew it was a relic, a piece of the primarch’s armour, his trappings. It was recovered from the shattered ruins of Isstvan and venerated in the then-Legion’s reliquary halls. During the breaking of the Legions the Salamanders had become a Chapter, though in truth there was little left to break. Ba’ken knew less of the Sigil’s fate during that time than he did during the Heresy, but it wasn’t long before it was brought into battle as a holy relic. Xavier had once been its custodian. Upon his death that honour fell to Elysius. And here, now, the Chaplain was suggesting some additional signific
ance to it, some purpose none of those present knew or understood.

  “I can feel it,” Elysius concluded with the sort of conviction that suggested he was certain.

  More than a relic then, thought Ba’ken, even more than an anachronism from the Great Crusade…

  Zartath smirked, his eyes drawn to a sharp rise they’d descended to reach the temple confines.

  “Then they’d best be quick, for she is already here.”

  All eyes followed the Black Dragon’s gaze. There, upon a steep precipice of rubble, of broken columns and the sediment of shattered structures, stood a lithe figure. She was tall and carried a long barbed trident in one hand. Two blades were cinched to her waist and a long mane of braided white hair flowed to the peak of her thighs like a clutch of venomous adders.

  Helspereth.

  II

  Follow the Beacon

  Varketh Narln let the flensing knife slip from his fingers and sighed. It was a deep, frustrating sound. The slave, a grey-skinned inferior, had not lasted long and yielded little sustenance. Varketh craved. The soul hunger was upon him. She Who Thirsts was ever present. He needed more slaves, and in order to get them he needed to enhance his standing in the Reef. Too many petty dracons, and with An’scur lording it over the rest of the cabal, how could he, a humble watchman, hope to prosper?

  Skimming slaves from the bounties coming in off the pirate raiders was a way, he mused. Exorbitant flesh-taxes were easy to impose but hard to refute. Only those in Volgorrah with the right pull and hierarchical clout could deny an overseer. Without an overseer’s seal, there was no way into the Reef. The Port of Anguish would close its gates. No access, no slaves. All became forfeit to the cabal, with a small percentage taken for Varketh’s pleasure of course.

  But then that was Varketh’s problem. Appetite. So easy to succumb to; so hard to sate. I need more slaves. So when the crackling ’korder came to life in his oubliette he smiled. Another raider. A big one by the sound of Keerl’s enthusiasm.

  Just a taste for you, underling, Varketh thought. For you and the rest of the peons.

  An’scur might be lord of the Reef but here, at the Spike, Varketh Narln was master.

  He dressed quickly, donning his red, segmented armour and slipping on his open-faced helmet before scaling the egress pipe and emerging into the way station’s basement. It was dark below, but Varketh heard the approach of a heavy grav-engine thrumming through the walls. His latent excitement heightened.

  Many slaves on a rig that large.

  The overseer was still performing the calculations in his head for the flesh-currency when he hoisted back the trapdoor that led into the station lobby. Narrowed eyes met him as he ascended. His crew, his minions—all murdered him with a glance. At least, they would if they could. Keerl was loyal. The splinter cannon cradled in the large warrior’s grasp—he had the build and sheer strength of an incubus—ensured the others stayed loyal as well.

  “What have we got?” Varketh asked. He peered down the wide slit in the lobby floor through which the bladed dark eldar ships could dock and disgorge their cargo for inspection.

  The mechanism was churning already, a slow grind as the slit widened to accommodate the larger raider’s bulk. Spiked pins either side of the growing chasm snapped into place, ready for insertion into the vessel’s hull.

  “Heavy Ravager, my lord,” remarked Tullar, spitting poison with his words, particularly the last two.

  “Just one ship?” Varketh glared into the lightning-void. The vessel was coming in slow. Perhaps the grav-engines had been damaged in the raid. He hoped they wouldn’t need repairs. It was unrewarding work. Maybe he could demand more flesh-currency if they did?

  “Weapons ready.”

  Twenty splinter rifles and Keerl’s cannon came to life. It wasn’t unknown for particularly “enterprising” pirates to try and overcome a way station by force.

  They often carried slave caches and the flesh-cattle records they also possessed were invaluable to certain haemonculi and cult-dracons. After all, this was the Reef, a wild and unruly extension of Commorragh. If the heart of the dark eldar empire was its urban sprawl then this, the Port of Anguish and its many way stations, was its untamed frontier.

  As the Ravager came in, gliding almost silently now, its crew like statues, Varketh’s grip on his splinter pistol tightened.

  “My lord…” a gaunt-faced warrior addressed the watchman.

  The Ravager was just entering the outer boundary of the Spike. It would be with them in seconds. The docking slit yawned like a fanged metal maw.

  Varketh turned on the warrior, who was at the lobby’s instrument panel. Data streamed over a dark screen in hazy emerald flashes. Sigils ran vertically and horizontally, detailing the vessel’s schemata and slave-bearing capacity. “What is it, Lilithar?” he snapped.

  “The Ravager bears Kravex’s mark.”

  As he turned to see the vessel sliding into the docking slit, Varketh’s pale skin bled to alabaster white.

  The haemonculus!

  “Stow weapons!” he said, “Do it now, whelps!”

  Kravex, here, attending the Spike? Much influence and affluence could be derived from associating with the flesh-surgeons of the Reef. Word was that Kravex had the ear of An’scur, and more literally, his finger. The archon had many enemies. Rumours permeated to the outer frontiers that he’d been assassinated more than once already. Kravex’s patronage ensured that death didn’t stick.

  Oh yes, Varketh desired very much to be in the good graces of the haemonculus.

  But as the Ravager glided in, he couldn’t see his would-be patron aboard. It was dark in the lobby, though. The crew, their weapons held stiffly across their armoured chests, still hadn’t moved.

  “Boarding lamps,” Varketh ordered and felt the faintest tremor of unease ripple through his lithe body.

  Light, stark and flaring, described the Ravager. It lit the corpses of the crew as well. It illuminated their wounds, rapidly concealed but enough to fool an overseer and his entourage in the webway darkness.

  “Hells of Commorragh…” breathed Varketh as the first of the dead crewmen fell forwards to reveal a looming giant in green armour.

  He was reaching for his splinter pistol, half-tugged from its holster, when the lobby filled with fire. Varketh’s world exploded, his dark machinations with it.

  The ambush lasted seconds. Bolter smoke and echoing thunder were all that was left in its wake. That, and the twenty-something corpses broken all over the lobby by the Firedrakes’ percussive gunfire.

  Halknarr was examining a groove in his armour left by a splinter round.

  “I’ll add it to the collection,” said the old campaigner, whose battle-plate was riddled with almost as many scars as his honour-scathed body. He’d left his helmet on the leather thong, looped around his belt, and smiled viciously at Praetor.

  “I think you enjoy this too much at times, brother,” the veteran sergeant replied, a small smirk betraying his composure.

  He’stan was first to disembark. His booted feet rang heavily against the metal lobby floor. He was headed for the instrument panel. The rest of the expanse was sparse. It was a dock with that as its sole function. A trapdoor led to a basement where Daedicus and Vo’kar found hanging chains and other instruments of incarceration and torture. Lower still was an oubliette that Daedicus reached first and shone his lume-lamp into.

  “Tortured xenos,” he remarked impassively. The two of them vacated the basement, Vo’kar using his boot to close the lid.

  Tsu’gan followed He’stan, grimacing as the dark eldar blood touched his boots. He longed to burn this place, to burn it all.

  “Forgefather?”

  He’stan turned and his eyes narrowed through the lenses of his fanged battle-helm.

  “Brother,” Tsu’gan corrected himself, still finding the familiarity that the Forgefather desired uncomfortable.

  “I can feel the Sigil,” He’stan explained, returning to the instr
ument panel. “But our search will be much faster if we can narrow down what part of the Reef the Chaplain is on.”

  “How?” Tsu’gan asked, leaning in and immediately feeling revolted by the barbed xenos script crawling all over the screen. “What is this… scratching?”

  “Dusk-wraiths have language, too,” Praetor told him, joining them at the screen. “Although, it has no purity and is a baseless tongue.”

  “You can read it, brother-sergeant?” Tsu’gan’s tone was incredulous. He wanted to tear the machine from its housings, demolish it with his chainsword. No good could come of such devices.

  “No, but I can,” said He’stan, manipulating the unfathomable controls like an expert. More scything sigils cut across the display, spooling quickly now. It stopped on what appeared to be some kind of list.

  “The Reef keeps logs of all its slaves,” He’stan told them.

  Tsu’gan shared a concerned glance with Praetor, but the veteran sergeant nodded for him to keep listening. Again, Tsu’gan marvelled at just how different the Forgefather was to the rest of them. He was Fire-born, no doubt of that. He practically bled Deathfire’s molten ichor. But he was a warrior apart. The quest for the Nine had changed him in ways none of them could comprehend. Tsu’gan found his devotion for the Forgefather increase.

  Nearby, the rest of the Firedrakes adopted defensive positions. At Halknarr’s command, they watched the dark and turbulent skies. In enemy territory, it wouldn’t go well to be caught unawares. All it took was another returning skiff or heavy skimmer and their presence would be exposed to every band of hellion, scourge and sky-riding jetbiker dwelling in the Reef. Slaying a cadre of unprepared and gullible overseers was one thing; taking on the mercenaries of this benighted place was quite another.

  He’stan turned. “Flesh is currency on the Reef. Its scales are kept ever-busy with its bloody acquisition, but they are scales nonetheless and so must balance.”

  Tsu’gan frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “To us, the dusk-wraiths are savages, hedonistic pleasure-seekers and torturers who adhere to no rule or structure. Not so. There is a society at work, a highly complex and hierarchical regime. He or she who holds slaves, holds power. Pacts and deals are not uncommon. They too are currency. It is fundamental, it is how they exist. So, therefore, careful records are kept. How many? What nature? Owning cabal? Disposition on the Reef? Everything is noted. Everything is logged. Here.” He’stan tapped the screen with his gauntleted finger, making a shallow plinking sound.