Exiles (The Progenitor Trilogy, Book One)

by Dan Worth

  ‘We never explored beyond the control room, those tunnels could run for miles further down. Remember, that according to the Darwin’s scans the structure continues right down into the centre of the planet.’

  ‘Ye-es, but there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to get down there.’

  ‘All we need is somewhere to hide out until we get rescued by the Commonwealth.’

  ‘I admire your optimism,’ Rekkid said and sighed. ‘Alright, I can’t think of a better idea, let’s go.’

  Inquisitor Razortail of the Emperor’s Purification Legion stepped off the ramp of his shuttle flanked by his bodyguards. His bejewelled armour was engraved with a multitude of holy symbols; the designs were woven with sacred litanies proclaiming the sanctity of the Light. Even his long claws were each painted with a separate sigil, so that even as he tore out the throats of heretics, he would be blessing them. Totems and wards carved from the smaller bones of previously purged sinners hung on filigree chains from the spines along his tail and the crest atop his head. The sound of the rattling bones and tinkling chains played a symphony of pain and purification against Razortail’s armour as he walked.

  He paused a moment to look up at the blasphemous structure before him: a symbol to false gods whose names would be dead and forgotten as from this day forth. It would be razed to the ground and another temple raised anew upon the spot. The people of this world would now know the loving chastisement of the Holy Light and the blessings of the Emperor. Razortail would have to re-educate them. Even if they all died in the process, they would be saved.

  He pondered the temple some more. He had to admit that he rather liked its shape, the claw shaped towers arranged into a star, almost K’Sothian in design. It seemed most auspicious. Perhaps he might allow the aliens’ structure to remain, once he had re-consecrated it with a suitable number of sacrifices and replaced whatever profane symbols it contained with more suitable ones. Some skulls, perhaps? Razortail liked skulls. Arranged in suitably blessed patterns they were a fitting symbol of the Emperor’s might, showing that he owned his subjects both body and soul, and would dispense death to those who opposed him. He loved their smoothness, the hard hollow curves of the eye sockets, and the way that if one opened the jaws they appeared as if they were screaming endlessly.

  He cast his baleful gaze over the crowd of natives emerging from their sanctuary inside the temple. They were babbling in their base alien tongue and pointed in horror at the devastation wrought upon their pathetic city. They were a pitiful sight, Razortail concluded. They resembled little more than prey beasts. Hunched and crawling on the earth, mouths agape at things their primitive backward minds could barely comprehend. They needed someone to rule over them, nay they deserved it. Judging by their more elaborate dress, Razortail decided that some amongst the crowd must be so-called holy men from the temple. Perhaps it was time to set an example?

  One of the totems that hung from Razortail’s armour was a Commonwealth made translator. He had taken it from an agent that they had captured in the border worlds and had kept it originally so he could properly listen to the man scream and cry as they tortured him to death. But he had kept the trinket, figuring that it might prove useful in interrogating other spies and heretics. Besides, he hated the Pyrteen. The ghastly creatures stank and were frequently blasphemous. He had executed his own after finding the translator device, dangling it playfully in front the alien’s eyes as it died on the dissection table.

  He activated it now, so that he could bask in whatever words of fear might come from the crowd. They shrank back from him and his guards as they approached, but they remained steadfastly between the K’Soth and the main door to the building. One, clad in much more elaborate robes than the others and resting his elderly frame upon a staff remained defiantly before him. He began to speak.

  ‘My name is Priest Makallis, leader of this place and its people. In the name of Maran I cannot allow you to profane this holy house! You have slain our people and blasted our city but you shall not curse this sacred ground!’ He shook his staff angrily at Razortail.

  Razortail was not impressed. He said nothing. He simply produced a bag of holy nails from his equipment belt. The nails were long and sharp, wrought from a silvered metal with the Emperor’s crest upon their heads. Razortail held one up so that it glinted in the dull light. Then he grabbed Makallis about the throat with one clawed hand and held the old Dendratha aloft as he struggled weakly against Razortail’s grasp. He looked into the old priest’s eyes, relishing the terror and incomprehension within them, and then he tossed his frail body to his guards.

  They strode through the assembled natives to the great doors of the temple, parting the throng like a knife through butter as the Dendratha cried out in horror. The guards pinned Makallis to the door with their claws, spread-eagled and out of reach of his flock. Razortail produced a gilded mallet and held it up so the crowd could see. Makallis’ left hand was before him, withered and olive green and struggling weakly. Razortail held the first nail against the leathery palm with his left hand, and with the mallet in his right he struck the nail with all his strength.

  It took quite while to nail Primate Makallis to the temple door. Razortail intentionally drew out the process, drinking in the screams, gurgles and pitiful squeals of the elderly Dendratha and the horrified cries of the crowd, impotent to help him. A few tried, and were cut down by Razortail’s men with barely an effort. In terror the crowd backed away, yet most still remained to witness the terrible spectacle as the Inquisitor drove nails through both of Makallis’ hands, through his upper arms and in three places along his tail. After the third nail had pierced his body Makallis stopped screaming, his heart having given out from the trauma, but Razortail thought it important to finish the job. It was some time before the dreadful sounds of hammering and of metal piercing flesh finally ceased.

  Bibarat stood at the lip of the gaping hatch that led to the ancient tunnels below. The air in the tomb was choked with dust shaken loose by the shockwaves unleashed by the recent bombardment. The three of them covered their mouths and nostrils with their hands as best they could. Bibarat would go no further. Katherine was trying to reason with him:

  ‘Bibarat you have to come with us,’ she pleaded. ‘The K’Soth might harm you; even kill you if they find you here.’

  ‘They won’t find me,’ he replied. ‘I’m just another Dendratha, correct? They will not come for me.’

  ‘But there’s nothing down there that can harm you. This can’t be a religious thing can it? You’re an atheist.’

  ‘No, it’s a practical thing. I cannot move as swiftly as you two. We Dendratha are not agile creatures, I would slow you down and make it harder for you to hide,’ he replied.

  ‘He’s right, unfortunately,’ said Rekkid. ‘The relatively placid natural habitat of Maranos, free from major predators, certainly didn’t produce a race of athletes. There aren’t any lions or agrils to run from here as on our home-worlds.’

  Katherine knelt down and held the shoulders of the small Dendratha. ‘Bibarat, please tell us what’s going on out there before you leave?’ she pleaded. ‘Is there any chance Steven could have survived?’

  ‘Your friend? I’m sorry, but I don’t know. The southern part of the city was… it was…’ he sobbed then regained his composure. ‘I don’t know Katherine, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m sorry for your people too,’ replied Katherine. ‘I’m sorry that we brought this here Bibarat. If we’d known…’

  ‘It’s not your fault Katherine,’ he answered softly. ‘Some things are bigger than any of us. It would have happened anyway, I think.’

  ‘Take care Bibarat.’

  ‘And you. I will go now and – what is the human expression – blend in?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it.’

  Bibarat turned away from her quickly and shuffled out of the crypt into the corridors. Katherine watched him go. There was a thudding sound and faint screams from the temple above. Rekkid looke
d up pointedly at the ceiling.

  ‘We should get moving,’ he said, moving toward the hatch. ‘It won’t take the K’Soth long to extract the location of this place from some poor soul or other, and they know what they’re looking for.’

  He sat on the lip of the hatch and grabbed the rope, then carefully lowered himself down into the tunnel below. Katherine followed him.

  The tunnel was dimly lit from the few lights that had activated along with the device and the ambient light that spilled down from the control room, reflecting off the shiny walls. The bombardment hadn’t touched this place at all, the thick walls offering additional protection on top of that provided by its depth.

  Katherine and Rekkid moved quickly in silence, taking care not to let their footsteps echo back up the tunnel, both listening for the sounds of the approaching K’Soth.

  ‘Where is it?’

  The priest said nothing, he merely screamed as Razortail peeled more of his skin away with a talon.

  ‘Where is it, godfucker? The humans were guarding something here weren’t they? Why would they guard this forsaken place? Tell me!’ He received no coherent answer and ripped off the creature’s arm in frustration, then threw the rest against the altar. The body impacted wetly against the stones.

  Razortail and his men had grabbed a few of the luckless Dendratha that had gathered outside and witnessed Makallis’ crucifixion, priests and monks mainly. They had bound them quickly and dragged them inside the temple for questioning. Razortail had decided that he could accomplish three tasks in one go; he could extract information about gaining access to the device within the planet, use the carcasses of the prisoners to defile this place and further terrify the locals into submission. Already the body of a monk lay impaled upon the main altar image of the Dendratha pantheon.

  Razortail guessed that the entrance to the device must lie under this building. Why else had the marines been guarding it? It had no tactical significance, indeed the city had become their graveyard. They had also received an interesting coded transmission from the Disemboweller before it had been destroyed. Its crew had been monitoring the impacts of the kinetic weapons it had fired and had detected a large metallic structure underneath the temple which had rung like a bell from the shockwaves.

  He commanded his guards to pass him another prisoner from the frightened huddle by the nearest pillar. They pinned the struggling monk to the bloodied top of the tomb he was using as a worktable. The creature stank, having soiled itself and it squealed in terror before him. Razortail looked into its eyes and noted the urine dripping from the monk’s robe to mix with the spatters of blood on the floor.

  ‘Now, perhaps you will be more co-operative than the others? Pride and stubbornness will result in me torturing you some more, do you understand? Your false gods cannot save you, the only one who holds the power of life and death over you now is me.’

  ‘Yes, yes I understand. Please don’t kill me!’

  ‘Maybe I will let you live if you answer my questions.’

  ‘I will, I will!’

  ‘Good. I have little time or patience. Now, where is the entrance to the device? Is it underneath this temple?’ he caressed the monk’s cheek with his index talon.

  ‘The Cave of Maran is underneath this temple!’

  ‘That sounds like heretical words to me, heresy from your religion of lies. Cave of Maran? What is that, some filthy hole where you profane the Light?’ Razortail’s talon was now millimetres away from the monk’s right eyeball. It hovered above the shiny, vulnerable orb.

  ‘No! No it is a place sacred to us. We found it again; well not us, a human female and an Arkari male came here and found it. Then the miracles appeared in the sky and the ground and the sea once more and then, and then you came.’ The monk was babbling with fear.

  ‘I see, and where might I find the entrance to this place?’

  ‘If you enter the passages beneath the temple and walk until you are underneath the altar, then you will see.’

  ‘Thank you. See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ Razortail grinned, displaying his rows of teeth.

  ‘N-no.’

  ‘Now of course you are no longer of any use to me. Not merely a heretic, but a traitor to his own kind too. Nevertheless, I will commend your soul to the afterlife as I kill you, perhaps there is some hope for you after all.’

  ‘No! But you said you would let me live!’

  ‘I only said maybe. Guard, bring me my Scalpels of Blessing at once. I will deal with this one. You can feed on the rest. I do not require them.’

  He examined the doomed Dendratha before him. Such a big, beautiful skull… first he would have to remove the eyes…

  The control room was silent save for the hum of the machines. Maran, or at least his avatar, was nowhere to be found. He did not answer their calls either, which echoed alarmingly in the vast chamber. The schematic of the world of Maranos still spun lazily in mid-air, indicating that whilst the machines were still active, the portal itself was not.

  Rekkid and Katherine began to search for access to the deeper levels of the complex. It didn’t take them long: a bank of lifts lay along the back wall, concealed by the rows of computers. The lifts were large and their interiors not uncomfortably furnished to suit humanoid forms slightly smaller than an average human. They bore more resemblance to ship cabins or railway carriages than lifts. Katherine and Rekkid entered one and studied the control panel. There was only one option to select and Rekkid pressed it. The lift began to move downwards, steadily but smoothly accelerating until it reached a considerable speed.

  ‘Rekkid,’ Katherine said, sitting with her head in her hands. ‘Do you think Steven’s dead?’

  Rekkid sighed. ‘Honestly I don’t know Katherine,’ he replied wearily. ‘If he was in the wrong part of the city at the wrong time… yes. Sorry.’

  ‘I know.’ She said nothing more for a moment. Then she continued. ‘You know I never really appreciated what the K’Soth are like, what they are capable of. Our generation got so used to the old war stories from our grandparents that we just took the whole thing for granted. Then they do something like this, and for what?’

  ‘Fear,’ Rekkid replied. ‘Fear and power. It’s what the Empire was built on, the ability to over-awe their opponents with their ferocity.’

  ‘All those people… My god Rekkid, that city was teeming with people when we arrived!’

  ‘Yes it was. The military should have known better. They should have known that they would do something like this. They should never have landed such a large force. The K’Soth have few qualms about causing civilian casualties to pursue an objective. They underestimated them. Fatally, I suspect.’

  ‘I take it that the Navy failed to secure the system then, if the Empire was able to attack us here.’

  ‘It seems that way, for the time being at least. Who knows? Surely they’ll send reinforcements?’

  ‘Then they’d better hurry up. Rekkid, what if they catch us, the K’Soth I mean?’

  ‘Try not to think about it.’

  ‘Hah! If only, I can barely think of anything else.’

  ‘Me too.’ He shot her a baleful look with those large intelligent eyes of his. ‘However, they won’t harm me. It’s you that I’m worried about. If it comes to it I’ll try to stall them, and hope I’m right about this.’

  ‘Right about what?’

  ‘That no K’Soth would dare to intentionally harm an Arkari. Not after what we said we would do to them if they did.’

  ‘I wouldn’t trouble yourselves about the K’Soth too much,’ said a disembodied chorus of voices. ‘They are but a minor irritation.’

  The voices were all around them in the lift, emanating from tiny grilles set high in the walls.

  ‘Maran?’ said Katherine. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It is I.’

  ‘And more besides, I think you’ll find.’

  ‘Maran, you have to help us,’ said Rekkid. ‘The
K’Soth will send troops down here after us, is there anything you can do?’

  ‘Alas, no.’

  ‘I have little control over this facility.’

  ‘Aside from the portal of course.’

  There was a slight chuckle following the last statement, it rumbled around the cabin like distant thunder.

  ‘What about the others? Icthasa and Tyrunin who control the rings, are they able to help at all?’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘The others are now a part of me.’

  ‘Now there is only Maran.’

  ‘We have erased them.’

  ‘Replaced them with ourselves.’

  ‘They were nothing but a hindrance.’

  ‘You killed them?’ said Katherine, glancing warily at Rekkid and around at the smooth walls, expecting something to pounce from an unseen hiding place at any moment. Rekkid also looked uneasy.

  ‘They were never truly alive.’

  ‘Death was a mercy.’

  ‘Freed them from their prison.’

  ‘But why would you do such a thing?’ she persisted.

  ‘As I said before.’

  ‘They were a hindrance.’

  ‘They would have got in the way.’

  ‘Got in the way of what!?’ she cried. ‘Maran!?’ No answer came but a cacophony of hollow laughter. Deep belly laughs, high pitched shrieks and cackles, piercing whoops and gloating snorts echoed around the lift before dying away.

  ‘Maran!’ snapped Rekkid. ‘Answer the bloody question!’

  ‘Oh you’ll find out soon enough…’

  ‘Soon enough…’

  ‘Enough….’

  ‘Perhaps I may help you.’

  ‘There are a few things I can do.’

  ‘After all I’d hate for you to miss my surprise. Especially you, Arkari.’

  ‘But we’ll have to wait and see won’t we?’

  ‘I do love.’

  ‘A good game of hide and seek.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  There was another gale of merriment, and then silence.