Sahaal killed the unwilling partisans who had helped him — quickly and disinterestedly — and rushed to review the security. Twenty minutes was a worthy time: but more than enough for the vindictors to gather.
Perhaps the guards at the doorway, cut down like vermin in his first assault, had missed a scheduled vox report. Perhaps a routine patrol had chanced upon the devastation at the broadcast-station's gates. The truth hardly mattered — only the situation: leaning from a narrow window he could clearly see the armoured figures below, slipping from cover to cover, releasing thick red smoke to cover their advance. From elsewhere in the building Sahaal's Shadowkin traded opportunistic shots with the attackers, bright laserbolts flicking from windows into the smokepall, hellguns rattling without any great effect, spattering the facade with lead.
'Preysight,' he murmured, more interested than concerned. His enhanced gaze stripped away layers of ruby smog, confirming what he'd suspected. The rattle of gunfire was a distraction — and a crude one — for the phalanx of heavily armoured dervishi assembling in the cover of the shattered gates: an assault squad, preparing to enter. Clearly the ministorum had little patience for protracted gunbattles. They wanted their station back. Quickly.
Sahaal shrugged to himself, sight returning to normal. As he dragged himself onto the rocky ledge of the window he wondered vaguely whether the Shadowkin — spread throughout the building by now, straining beneath the weight of weapons and grenades — had secretly suspected they were never intended to escape alive. Certainly it would take a fool to think he could run the bottleneck gauntlet of the main gates as they now were. Had they known? Had they followed his lead (through loyalty or terror) anyway?
He told himself with a sigh that he didn't care one way or another, that such worms were fit only for sacrifice, and as he poised himself against the edge of the ledge he almost managed to convince himself. Another tiny twinge of guilt, of shared pain, pricked at him, and he struggled to shake it off.
There was no escape from this building, he knew, unless one happened to have the gift of flight.
He launched himself into the smoke, unseen by friend or foe, and as he bounded across the abyss towards the safety of the shadow beyond, he hoped that his tribesmen would sell their lives dearly, and commended them to a peaceful grave.
The sounds of gunfire echoed at his back for a long time.
It was as he returned to the safety of the underhive, pushing through cobweb-choked kilometres of inter-wall ducting slipping between steel bulkheads like a ghost within a recess, that it happened. He hopped from a tall plateau of coolant bulbs, macerated by rust and time, onto the scorched remains of a factorial chimney, long since stunted, when the noise arose from the gloom, an unctuous retort that sent shivers of recognition — and rage — up and down his spine.
'Het-het-het...' it went, rising on dry air thermals, scattering flocks of white bats. 'Het-het-het!'
It was Phavulti, the cognis mercator. He sat and leant against a dripping oilvent, exuding every impression of sedate relaxation, and waved gaily as Sahaal inched from the blackness of the tunnel ceiling. Whatever damage Sahaal had done to him before was long gone, replaced without thought for elegance by mechanical contrivances. It had become more difficult still to detect where, if at all, human flesh remained.
'See you, up there, het-het-het. Been waiting for you. Heard about the attack on the CW... Walls have ears, yes. Thought you'd probably come this way. What kept you?'
Sahaal backed into the shadows, teeth grating.
What to do? What to do?
He was, ultimately, a warrior. He understood conflict. He breathed guerrilla war and terrorism. In such simple pursuits there was little complexity, little uncertainty. It was a thing of victory and defeat: he that was strongest, he that was cleverest, he that was most terrible, would win.
He was also a lord. He was used to obedience. He had grown accustomed to swimming an ocean of terror, to being feared and worshipped by those around him. That was as it should be.
But Pahvulti's familiarity, his infuriating laughter, his intractable inability to feel fear: these were things that Sahaal could neither understand nor tackle.
As ever in such instants, instinct took over.
'Scum!' he roared, quitting the shadows like a bolt of darkness, claws rasping from their sheaths mid-flight. He thumped into the robed man like a meteor, shredding cable and sinew, and whooped aloud, gyrating on streamers of superheated air, twisting for another strike.
Pahvulti stood and stared at him — both his arms torn away — and shook his head.
'Dear, dear, dear,' he grinned. 'Deja vu. Het-het-het.'
There was little point in prolonging the attack, after that. Sahaal felt himself deflate: how could one terrorise a fool intent only upon ridicule? He set down in the gloom near to the smiling creature, restraining himself as best he could, and crossed his arms.
It didn't work. Patience was not a virtue that could contend with his rage.
He took an abrupt step forwards, headbutted the information broker with the deathmask-crest of his helm, dropped an armoured knee onto the fool's chest, and pressed his claws against what little flesh remained of the man's neck.
'Look at me, worm,' he hissed. 'Look at me as I kill you.'
'Het-het-het. Why would you want to do that, by Terra's teats?'
'You've insulted my honour. You've played games with forces beyond your comprehension.' He leaned down, so close that the curling vapours of his rebreather wafted around the broker's mechanized face. He would not tolerate this disrespect any longer. The fool had nothing to offer. 'I shall eat your heart, broker, if you have such a thing. Your skull shall adorn my throne.'
'No, no... Not Pahvulti. Not when he's been sent for such a task.'
Sahaal paused. 'What task?'
For the first time the broker's face clouded — losing its contemptible grin. For the first time, Sahaal fancied, the man was taking him seriously. 'I was sent as a spy,' he said, optics chattering in the place of his cheeks, 'by a witch of the Inquisition.'
Warning bells shrieked in Sahaal's mind.
Kill him! Kill him!
'The Inquisition? You admit to it freely? What madness is this?'
'Het-het-het. She thinks to make a fool of me, friend. She thinks to threaten and cajole, to have me tell tales. I have chosen to confound her.'
'Oh?'
'I have chosen to help you instead.'
'Help?' Sahaal forced a bitter laugh. 'How could you help me?'
Still the man gave no indication of being put off, lips twitching apart. 'Knowledge,' he said, simply. 'Nothing is beyond Pahvulti. Nothing escapes him. He sees all...'
Riddles and delays. Kill the worm. Be on your way.
But...
But if he sees all...
Sahaal wet his lips, an uncomfortable thought swimming into focus.
'Such as?'
'Places, people... Names... I know you understand, Marine. I know there's a name you want to hear.'
He's lying. He's crawling to save his life. Kill him!
But...
But what if...
'What name?'
'Slake. Little collective Slake. Hiding from you. Cowering in the dark. Het-het-het!
Sahaal's blood ran white hot.
'You... you know where he is? Tell me!' He pushed a claw through the man's chest, snapping through layers of rubber and steel as it went, an irritable, truculent gesture — venting his spleen. It had little effect.
'Not he. They. Of course I know. I built them. Het-het-het.'
'Tell me! Tell me where they are or I'll rip you to shreds!'
'No, no... Not Pahvulti. Not when he knows so much.'
'What do you think you know, fool?'
'I know what you're doing, yes. I know who you're doing it with. Where your little empire festers, I know. I've seen it. Eyes everywhere. Het-het-het! He blinked, a languid affair, like a crocodile nictitating its eyes. 'I know what you are!
Sahaal rocked back on his haunches. 'And what am I, little worm?'
'Het-het-het. Traitor Marine. Child of the Rebellion. Ally to the Great Betrayer. Night Lord!' He grinned. 'Recognised your markings the instant I saw you.'
Sahaal forced down the surprise in his belly. He had not expected this. 'And?'
'And I've been listening to rumours. Gossip in the dark.'
'What gossip? Confound your tongue!'
'A holy warrior — that's what you're calling yourself, yes? Your little tribe, you've told them — het-het-het — you've told them you're here to deliver them. You've told them you're a lovely little candle, a rose of purity in the darkness of corruption. That your brothers are coming to help you. Yes? I hear such things, such lies... You told them, didn't you? You told them you must prepare for your brothers. Yes? That is what you've said, isn't it?'
'What of it?'
He knows so much!
'We both know it's a lie, Night Lord. We both know they're not coming to save the hive. Het-het-het. Quite the opposite...'
'You threaten to expose my falsehoods? Is that it? Is that your best threat?'
'No threat, Night Lord. Only confirmation of my suspicions.'
'Then what do you want? Why should I spare you? Tell me!'
'Slake. You should spare me for Slake.'
'Tell me where he is.' Sahaal struggled with the words. 'I'll spare you. I'll vow it.'
I'll kill him! I'll cut his face from his skull!
'Het-het-het. No, no... last time... last time I helped you, what was the price?'
'There was no price! I spared your life. That is all!'
'Yes. No price. First one is always free, I told you. This time... this time Pahvulti's expenses are far greater.'
For the first time in his life Sahaal found himself speechless.
'Y... you...' he stammered, oceans of rage and astonishment pummelling against his restraint. 'You don't get to... to make demands of me, worm! You're nothing! I'm the Talonmaster! I'm the chosen of the Haunter! I'll cut you into a thousand p—'
'You will do nothing. Not if you want Slake.'
And that was the crux.
The Corona was everything. The Corona was mightier than his esteem, mightier than his rage, mightier than his pride.
Through Slake, it would be his.
And through Pahvulti, he could find Slake.
Kill him! Rip him to shreds! Slice him apart!
Still angry, those inner voices, but growing fainter: swallowed by the cold sludge of his pragmatism. That Chaotic part of his soul, tainted indelibly by the invitation of the Dark Gods' patronisation, raged and stormed ever one, but slowly, struggling with each word, he blotted out its tumult and swallowed his pride.
'What... What is your price, broker?'
'Power, Night Lord. The witch will go without the reports she expects me to make. I shall give you Slake. Your brothers will come, the city will fall. Who will reign in their wake?'
He smiled, steely teeth sparkling.
'Me. Pahvulti will reign.'
Mita Ashyn
Mita awoke to the sound of screaming. She was on her feet and poised for combat before even her dreams had receded, and she stood in addled bewilderment for long seconds, blinking in the light, before reality distinguished itself from fantasy.
God-Emperor, it's freezing...
The invidious cold of Equixus had been invading the hive in disparate tiers for days: thermal conditioners sputtering and falling silent, power flickering and dying in random quadrants. Such interruptions were, of course, temporary, but as teams of techpriests and armies of acolytes roved from switchboard to grid-centre, chanting and blessing, diverting power from here, there, anywhere, still the tremulous vagaries of heating ducts and silent fans couldn't hold the frost at bay. Mita wondered what the power failures signified and who was responsible. She felt she could take a pretty good guess.
She shivered, not entirely from the cold, and peered around.
The alleyway where she'd slept was unchanged: filthy walls covered with oil and rust. No snarling vindictors loomed over her with power mauls flaring, no hive-mobs threw bottles and swore in the gloom, and no fiery purgatists poked at her raggedy form with barbed rods, hollering imprecations and zealous damnation. For two days she'd lived thus: a streetsleeper, an outlaw — freezing by night, starving by day. She'd exchanged the gaudy threads of her Inquisitorial robes for thick rags, and had cut her hair short and ragged, guided only by the reflection in a sump-puddle. There were more than enough agents of hostility against vagrants, without encouraging recognition at the hands of Kaustus's agents. Given the fierceness of the environment and the apathy of its population, she supposed it was little wonder that she hadn't thus far encountered a single other vagabond. Such unfortunates had two choices: to descend into the bosom of the underhive where their status allowed acceptance — but not affection — or to die.
She guessed it was a tough decision.
For her part, she had no intention of doing either. Homeless she may be, hunted by the Emperor's own Inquisition, but she at least had a purpose. She at least had straws to clutch. She had the information broker...
None of which was especially relevant to the fact that someone, nearby, had screamed. It was hardly an exceptional thing: the Cuspseal environs could hardly be equated with the anarchy of the underhive, but it was still a society far from Utopian. Muggings, murders, rapes, such were the lifeblood of the hive's darker quarters, and given the strange events of recent days — the beheadings that had thrown the streets into such fearful discord — a cry in the night was just another background sonata.
But the scream that had awoken her had not been alone. A chorus of voices had called out together — and continued in their distress. She hurried from her concealment, pulling her cloak tight against the cold, and gauged the sound's location.
That, perhaps, was the one remaining distinction between Mita Ashyn and any other Cuspseal transient: anyone else would have run from the sounds of terror.
She headed directly for them.
It was a gather-hall. Such low-rise huts — frequently domed, often decorated with holy tableaux (inevitably of such poor quality that saint X was indistinguishable from Ecclesiarch Y) and devotional graffiti — were a common sight throughout the hive: bulging chambers squeezed into opportunistic gaps like rubber igloos. In their gloomy little bellies, packed with row upon row of uncomfortable plasteen pews and staffed — in the more uptown districts — by a quivering maintenance servitor, the local populace flocked to digest their daily dose of Citizen Worship broadcasting. Such places were never empty and rarely quiet, disparate factory shifts staggered to allow a fraction of the locality to visit, each in turn. From these communal indoctria arose the sounds of wavering hymns, chanted chatechistic responses, cheers and exclamations at the fiery words of whatever dogmatist was picked out in the crackling haze of the viewspex screen.
And now, it would seem, screams.
Mita hurried inside, prepared for a fight, and stopped dead in her tracks. It was not the audience that snagged at her attention, rocking back as they were in their seats, some covering their eyes, others clutching at one another like infants seeking comfort, but rather the focus of their horrified gazes: the great viewspex screen, hanging on optic cables and bundles of datawire like a great luminous spider, wreathed in the incense of devotional thuribles suspended around it.
Picked out in its flickering light was a cardinal — the cardinal, she guessed, who fronted whichever rousing show was scheduled for this early hour — and he had been crucified.
Set against a dark background, the broadcast optics zoomed upon his meaty frame: stripped naked, beaten across face and chest, cut in a multitude of places by small, razor incisions. He had been lifted bodily upon a weird rig — a thing of draped umbilici and sinister outcrops, multifaceted lenses glaring from its trunk like the boles of a plastic tree — which Mita recognised as a photoseer: a camera servitor s
imilar, no doubt, to that which had filmed this grisly tableau. Held against the tall machine, arms splayed, legs bound together, the priest had been stapled down. Up and down each arm, punched through the fleshy crutch betwixt fibia and tibia, through shoulders and collar-sections, through the fat of his thighs and the tense elastic of his heels, a dozen or more ugly, rusty pins had been driven.
At the foot of the unmoving photoseer, now bright with his blood, other bodies lay heaped: black robed and augmented, long-nailed hands and servo manipuli arms clutching emptily at awkward angles. Tech-priests, Mita guessed — devoted servants of the Emperor in his aspect as the Machine God. Every last one beheaded.
The cardinal was still alive, somehow. The slow suffocation of the spread eagle had given him a deathly grey pallor, and even were it not for the gag pushed hard between his jaws she doubted he would have been able to scream — but still he eyed the lens of the photoseer, throat wobbling to whatever pleas he was trying to vocalise.
Worse yet, sucking at her vision as if alive and hungry, writhing in some hellish geography of the eye, was the single word that had been cut into the Cardinal's chest, scrawled in incision and blood.
'Excommunicate!'
Mita felt her knees weaken. Little wonder the crowd's distress.
The image zoomed towards the hateful word, pinpricks of bloody sweat thrown into sharp detail on the viewscreen, and just as the audience felt sure the horrors were over, a voice began to speak.
It tore at Mita's soul like a hungry wraith. She knew it. She recognised it.
The Night Lord.
'Behold,' it whispered, not so much spoken as insinuated upon the air, like the breath of the wind given form, 'the price of false zeal.'
The audience gasped and gibbered amongst itself, trading prayers.
'A corrupt little cardinal, I found — fat with the wealth of his flock, soiled by gluttony and decadence. It was a mercy to spill his blood.'
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