On Tsagualsa, the carrion world, the Legion had raised a palace for its lord.
He had gathered his captains together, and they came with a fleet of bladed prows and bitter warriors, skulls displayed at belt and shoulder, scriptures crossed through with bloody ink.
Horus was dead. The heresy that had looked ready to rip the bloated Imperium apart had ground to a halt. The Legions that had turned from the Emperor and sided instead with Chaos, that boiling fount of madness and disorder, were scattered, licking their wounds, bemoaning their losses, running for their lives.
Not so the Night Lords!
Alone amongst them all, the Night Haunter's contempt for his father had outdated, and outlasted, the rebellion. The Emperor's favoured son Horus had corrupted the other dark Legions, pouring poison upon their primarchs with insidious whispers and sweet promises, but not so to the Night Haunter. Not to Konrad Curze. He had seen his father for what he was long before. He had chosen Chaos as a tool — as an ally — but was not seduced by it. And when Horus was cut down, when the other Traitor Legions were shattered, when distant Terra was liberated and the Emperor triumphant, had the Night Lords fled? Had they yelped in fear and skulked into the gloom to fight amongst themselves, as had the others?
No. No, not they.
Their primarch unleashed them, he fed them the fear they yearned, and on Tsagualsa he called them to his side, and showed them his palace.
It was built of bodies: still living, fused at broken joint and sliced skin, knotted around coiling vertebrae and dissected sinews.
In the screaming gallery, where a carpet of moaning faces rose in broad steps — writhing spines and clutching fingers shivering along every edge — the Dark Lord received his captains with a bow.
He was naked, but for a cloak of black feathers, and had never been more magnificent. Sahaal and his brothers dropped to their knees and hailed him: their father, their master, their lord, their Dominus Nox.
He regarded each in turn, and to each he nodded once, a feral jolt of recognition, like a wolf regarding its pack. All of them were there: Quissax Kergai, Master of the Armoury, whose scouring of the Launeus forgeworld had crippled the loyalists of the Trigonym sector. Vyridium Silvadi, Lord of the Fleet, who had routed the flotilla of Admiral Ko'uch and bombarded the Ravenguard for five days before they could retreat, unsupported, like the cowards they were. Even Koor Mass, encased now in the sleek shell of a dreadnought, its every surface decorated with flayed skin, had deigned to attend his master's audience.
There was one other who Sahaal noted amongst the menagerie, and he avoided that one's gaze, finding his countenance distasteful. Krieg Acerbus, youngest of the Haunter's captains, incalculably vast and swollen with pendants and gory souvenirs of his works, leant on the shaft of his great poweraxe and smiled with insolemn pleasure at his master's attention.
Sahaal ignored the giant's smirking features and concentrated instead upon his lord, resplendent upon a throne of obsidian and silver.
The Night Haunter paused to gather his thoughts, drawing his feathered cloak around him like a great crow folding its wings — and then he spoke.
He told them of his bitter crusade. He told them of his hate for the traitor-Emperor who had turned upon him without warning or honour, a hate that burned bright and uncfuenched, but as patient as time itself. He told them that they, his children, his dark warriors, his prefects of fear personified, were each worth a dozen of any loyalist Marine, with ''purity'' on their ignorant lips and devotion in their hollow, hypocritical souls.
He told them that they would have their revenge upon the withered god, and they cheered in the shadows of the writhing mausoleum and clashed their gauntlets against their breasts in joy.
And then he drew breath and told them he was going to die, and their joy crumbled like ash.
Sahaal returned to the present in the shifting smog of the rustmud swamplands in a bleak mood, his master's morbid promise ringing through his mind. More than ever the need for action, for some palpable sense of gain, burned through his brain. The bitterness of the Night Haunter was a patient force, but his fury was far sharper and his discipline far younger. What did all this brooding achieve? What must he do? How must he act?
Seated amongst his tattered rags, Zso Sahaal found himself dizzied by a rush of panic and impatience, surging in his guts, calling him to action, to violence, to murder.
It was not a wise time to approach him with a protest.
There were two: young Shadowkin standing close enough to each other to beuay their nervousness. They would not have undertaken their quiet rebellion alone, and so like children clutching for the comfort of their parents, they had come together.
The first was a man in his twenties, shaven-headed and tattooed, whose circlet of shattered ribs and bangles of beaded finger bones marked him out as a fine warrior. Where an older man might have leaned upon a staff this youth clutched at a heavy volume of Imperial scripture like a lifeline, as if no harm could befall him so long as he touched its battered surface.
His companion was a woman of similar age, hair dyed purple and blue, swept back from her skull like a teardrop, whose black cloak dangled with stolen scalps, hands crooked around a tall rifle. A sniper, then — another warrior of the tribe.
Two fools, staggering into the presence of their lord to register their dissent, each silently praying that the other would speak first. Sahaal watched them without movement. He knew how to deal with insubordination.
'My lord?' the woman said after a long pause, unsure whether he was awake. 'M-my lord, may we address you?'
Sahaal let the silence roll, enjoying their squirms.
'Master, we seek an audience...' the man said, prostrating himself beside his fellow.
'Speak,' Sahaal voxed finally, enjoying the thrill of horror that passed across their faces.
Again, the woman found her nerve first.
'M-my lord, we... We are unsure of this place. The hunters have found little to eat and the tribe is hungry. W-we...' she faltered, glancing at the man for support.
'We don't understand why you've brought us here,' he said, the accusation firm in his voice. 'We don't understand what you intend for us. Are we to continue our holy purges, or...'
'Or do you have some new task for us?' the woman's voice too grew more confident with each word. 'We... we would understand your wishes.'
An uncomfortable silence settled. Sahaal decided to probe the depths of this dissatisfaction, impressed by their audacity.
'Have I not given command,' he said, 'that the man named Slake be brought to me?'
'Y-yes my lord, but—'
'Have I not given command that the tribe fortify itself?'
'You have, but—'
'Have I not led you when leadership was needed, and commanded you when command was required?'
'You have, my lord.'
He stood and raised the volume of his voxcaster, towering above them.
'Why then, thrice-damned, do you stand before me to question my orders!'
'We mean no insult, lord!' It was almost a squeal. 'We only seek to understand! The tribe is uncertain!'
In that instant, with the woman's silent glimpse into the shadows, Sahaal grasped the magnitude of his problem. This pair were not operating alone, he saw, not a protesting minority amongst a whole. No, they were representatives — great warriors elected to present the clan's discontent to its leader.
'Preysight,' Sahaal whispered, and again the lenses of his eyes blazed with magnified acuity, penetrating the shadows. And yes... yes, there they were: the elders and the youngsters, the women and children and warriors of the tribe, all of them gathered to listen beyond the circle of light around the throne, all of them hungry for answers.
His rule was not as secure as he had thought.
He needed the tribe.
'What heresy is this?' he roared, brandishing his claws. 'What filth is this!'
The two warriors shivered on the floor and he advance
d towards them, step by murderous step.
'What pitiful circumstance has brought me to you! The whole hive is lost to the dark, the population corrupted by the taint, and this is my army? These are my loyal crusaders?' He spread his arms and addressed the dark ceiling of the cavern, theatrical even in his rage. 'A tribe of disloyal fools and simpering traitors! A mob who reject the word of the Emperor's chosen because they do not understand it!'
He shrieked the words until the cavern shuddered and, oh — it hurt to claim such a link to the withered god, but...
But oh, it was delicious to see such terror in their eyes.
'Kneel!' he bellowed, and the young warriors obeyed without thought.
He would kill them, he resolved. He would behead them so the entire gang could watch, and all of them would know the price of disquiet, the consequence of insolence. They would obey him, or face his wrath.
It was an inelegant ultimatum — he knew that as soon as he decided it. He needed the Shadowkin as his allies — the recovery of the Corona depended upon it — and if he must kill nine in every ten to secure the obedience of those that remained, his army would be small indeed.
But there was no other choice, no option but to let fly his rage, to hack off these two heads — and any other that dared question him.
Yes. It was necessary.
And secretly, silently, a dark portion of his mind giggled to itself and said: Yes, yes, make your excuses... Deny that you cherish the slaughter... Peddle your pretend-honour as much as you like.
It will do you no good, Night Lord.
You're a monster. And you know it.
He raised his claws and felt the silence of expectation: a hundred eyes regarding him from the shadows, a hundred gasps burning in his ears. The condemned warriors moaned low in their throats, and—
And a commotion arose across the still waters, faint lights wending their way towards the distant shore.
It was the scouts Sahaal had left in the Steel Forest, and with his vision sharpened he could see they were carrying a survivor.
It was Condemnitor Chianni, and as the rafts slunk out from the rusted island to return her to her tribe, her fevered moans rose in volume to echo through the swamps.
'H-hail!' she yowled, delirious. 'Hail the Emperor's angel!'
It was like a shaft of light, striking Sahaal in his moment of rage. His thin lips curled in a smile and slowly, banishing that secret voice to the rear of his mind, he sheathed his claws.
Obedience could be secured through loyalty as well as terror. Sahaal's master had understood that.
Condemnitor Chianni was loyal to him. They were loyal to her. It was not a complex manipulation.
'Behold the Emperor's mercy!' Sahaal said, inventing wildly. 'He spares those that are wise, and offers redemption to those who are not.' He waved the condemned warriors away, returning to his throne.
'Ave Imperator!' filtered across the waters, Chianni's plaintive cry repeating over and over.
'You should listen to your leader,' Sahaal said to the warriors' retreating backs, repressing a chuckle at his own good fortune. 'She is far wiser than you.'
Her leg had been peppered by shrapnel from the explosion, and her throat crushed by an inelegant swipe of a vindictor's maul. When her bearers reached the foot of his throne she nonetheless insisted upon standing, staggering as best she could to kneel before him.
'My lord,' she croaked, voice forever changed by the bruise across her neck, 'I am gladdened to see you. I feared the worst when I awoke to find the tribe gone.' Her eyes blinked with joyful tears. 'Emperor be praised that they — and you — are safe.'
Sahaal was uncomfortable with such unrestrained warmth, and struggled to find an answer. The condemnitor's return to the Shadowkin had effected an almost miraculous transformation, all their sullenness and suspicion crumbling upon itself, becoming devotion once more. It was as if they had been waiting to have their zeal directed, as if their obeisance was without question but, lacking an interface, had become cold and bitter. None of them had relished facing their demigod master themselves, and only via the mediating presence of their leader could they direct their energies.
By the mere art of worshipping him, Condemnitor Chianni had abruptly become his most vital resource. He breathed a thankful prayer to the spirit of his master for returning her to his side in his moment of need.
'Rest,' he instructed her, accepting her grasping supplications without any outward display of chagrin. 'Restore your strength.'
He raised his voice so that the whole island could hear him, chilling tones like a breath upon the air. 'We must all restore our strength,' he announced, pulling the robes of the throne around him once more. 'Tomorrow... tomorrow we strike a blow for the Emperor's glory!'
And this time there was no muttering, no dark exchanges of glances, no uncertainty in the Shadowkin response.
This time they cheered.
Mita Ashyn
She was dreaming, and that was the one comfort she could take: that no matter how awful, how sickening, how wretched, the things she witnessed were only the product of her own mind, and owed nothing to reality.
There was a procession — that was the first detail that came upon her: a train of walking figures dressed in black cloaks, arising from the nothingness of her sleep like specks of oil, consolidating into figures that moved and sung. Leaning upon gnarled canes, they chanted in mantra-like harmony, stepping in time like a slow-motion army.
Her perspective shifted, widening its net, and a hive-shell starport opened up below her, hangars and towers jostling amongst baroque pylons and sweeping launch-pads, where fat shuttles sulked amongst chanting techpriests, blessed and maintained simultaneously. Here the temperature dipped, subject to the frozen whimsy of the storms that raged beyond the opening in the hive's shell. Here, alone in all the city, a hiver could brave the snow and catch a glimpse — cloud-shrouded and as dark as coal, but a glimpse nonetheless — of the sky.
At the end of a broad concourse, where would-be passengers thronged and shouted and complained, grotesque servitor drones dangled from ceiling joists like flies in webs of steel, needle-arms checking documents, uncaring eyes assessing passengers for concealed weapons, signs of disease, or whatever other arbitrary criteria they chose. Those that passed their capricious test hurried through ferrocrete arches towards the shuttles, whilst those that failed backed away in silent horror, split from their loved ones and destitute, all their funds wasted on the price of a single rejected ticket. Such wretches would invariably wind up dead, or else filter their way into the underhive where all the other dispossessed clamoured for warmth. But there could be no protest here, not beneath the gaze of the vindictors who straddled the entry gates and perched within turrets to either side of the concourse, helmed gazes surveying the sullen crowd for the slightest infraction. The dried blood on the ground was silent testament to the extent of their vigilance.
Amongst the crowds the procession of black cloaks marched like a shadow, and Mita's slumbering mind again wafted past, intrigued, wondering at their relevance. Well accustomed to the psychic insanity of prediction trances, with their excesses of colour and sound, to her this dreary vision could hardly be considered noteworthy. She wondered vaguely what it signified and scolded herself for such unfounded superstition. Beyond the realms of the psychic trance a dream was just that — a dream: no more meaningful than a random scattering of images, drawn together in an approximation of narrative.
But still... There was something not right here, in this fantasy vision...
Something that jarred...
Mita had arrived upon Equixus as part of the Inquisitorial caravan, and was therefore received at the uppermost of the hive's three starports. So great was the polarity between that tranquil maze of incense-shrouded lounges and this brutal compound that every detail shocked her, every petty act of rejection burned into her mind. Such was the reality of hive life — on every tier, a different world — but she had never witnessed
the place laid out below her in the flesh. Why then had her slumbering brain chosen to imagine it, to fabricate its minutae as part of a dream?
The procession of cloaked figures joined the rear of the winding queue.
For a moment Mita had wondered whether she had somehow slipped into the Furor Arcanum, studying the strands of future possibility, but no: such visions were fat with fantasy, abstractions that required interpretation rather than humdrum visions such as this.
There was only one other option.
Could it be that her astral self had left its body? Could it be that these visions were neither dream nor fantasy nor future possibility, but presently occurring events? Could it be that she was remotely viewing things as they happened?
Of the four major disciplines practised in the Scholastia Psykana, she had always considered herself primarily a precognitor — observing the whimsy of the warp to determine future events — and had occasionally employed her talents as an empathitor — skimming emotion and thought from the minds of those around her. Even in the field of animus motus — telekinesis, the most physically draining of all — she had some small natural talent... but in mastering the role of proculitor, the remote viewer, she had failed dismally.
It was a discipline that carried its own risks, and was best suited to those without the distraction of other talents: allowing one's astral form to roam free was to expose it to any malevolent force within the warp that paid an interest. Mita had tried it only once, during her first year at the scholastia, and had been informed by the grim-faced adept-tutors that her mind was too ordered, too anxious, too uptight, to engender success. The discipline required the ability to un-focus, to relax — but to maintain a careful veneer of security nonetheless.
Could it be that in her present state — slumbering, surfing on an ebb of dreams and fantasies — her mind had allowed itself to relax enough to break free?
Lord of the Night (warhammer 40,000) Page 12
