by Andy Clark
The twins, Phaek’or and Phalk’ir, one brooding over his disassembled heavy bolter, the other squatting on his haunches with a slight smirk as he whetted his blade.
Skaryth, the Scout, in his tally-scored armour, and Sha’dor, the sword fighter.
Skarle, broken in mind, cradling his flamer and chuckling at some incomprehensible jest.
Thelgh, the silent sniper, seated cross-legged in his meditation pentagram.
Ulkhur and Reskh, adepts in demolition and linguistics respectively.
Kyphas, the black-eyed spymaster.
D’sakh, the bladed vexillor.
Makhor, the naysmith.
Finally, looming at the edges of the gathering, Ges’khir and Krowl, the Harrow’s blunt instruments of destruction.
Kassar nodded slowly to them all. Their captors, no doubt watching and listening, would see only a nod. Yet the Harrow had already begun their conversation. Serpenta was a private language not only of vox clicks and hisses, but also of coded words, gestures and nuanced posture, whose meanings were in turn determined by the numbered cypher chosen for the conversation. Developed over long centuries, Kassar prided himself that it was every bit as versatile a communication tool as unfettered speech, and utterly beyond even the most devious mind to decipher.
When the Harrow spoke in serpenta, their words were for them alone.
‘This captivity chafes,’ said Kassar. ‘I long for battle.’ His brothers saw and heard a different utterance entirely.
‘We’ve broken warp. What do we know?’
Kyphas indicated that he would answer first, and Kassar acknowledged with a meaningless verbal platitude about attending to the spirits of their wargear.
‘When last the servants came,’ began Kyphas, ‘I expanded my influence upon them. Hypnotic suggestion and subvocalised interrogation.’
‘You were careful, yes?’ asked A’khassor. The Apothecary appeared, to outside observers, to be talking about the sanctity of the gene-seed canisters he bore upon his belt.
‘I know my work, as you know yours,’ replied Kyphas stiffly. ‘The slaves have no notion that they answered my interrogations, and will have given no outward indication of doing so.’
‘What did you learn?’ asked Kassar.
‘They indicated a belief that we were nearing our destination,’ said Kyphas. ‘And intimated that their master was greatly agitated by the prospect. It seems that Excrucias is not the only warlord of the gods who seeks to claim this world of Tsadrekha.’
‘Why have you waited until now to tell us this?’ asked D’sakh.
Kyphas made a dismissive gesture.
‘Secrets are as precious as bolt shells, knife-bearer. They should be stockpiled carefully.’
D’sakh bristled, but Kassar shifted to a posture that forestalled further antagonism.
‘Anything else, Kyphas?’ he asked. ‘A dead man with a full clip is still dead.’
‘They speak of a time of glory,’ replied the former spymaster. ‘They claim that Abaddon has broken Cadia. That the warp is spilling through the skin of reality like a flood tide, and that the victory of the Chaos Gods draws nigh. They talk of a great rift, and a pall of darkness.’
‘Broken Cadia?’ exclaimed Makhor. ‘You are sure of this? The pretender has been beating upon that door for millennia!’
‘It is what they said,’ confirmed Kyphas.
‘The rift again,’ said Kassar thoughtfully. ‘Excrucias spoke briefly of it before we departed Bloodforge. What has happened to the galaxy in our absence?’
‘A great deal, clearly,’ replied smirking Phalk’ir. ‘You stranded us on that rock for too long, Kassar.’
‘Know your place,’ gestured D’sakh, his finely inscribed blade spinning to a sudden stop in his fist. Phalk’ir inclined his head in a gesture of deference, but his smirk remained.
‘Skarle feels a shifting,’ said Skarle suddenly, making no effort to converse in serpenta. ‘Skarle feels a slowing. This ship decelerates. We have got where we are going.’
His piece said, Skarle stifled a snort of laughter. Kassar saw the looks that passed between the Harrow and understood them. Yet Skarle could still fight, still followed orders. He was still useful, and he was one of so very few brothers left.
‘Haltheus,’ said Kassar. ‘Skarle is right, we’re slowing down. While there’s time, what can your data daemons tell us?’
‘I’ve recalled them,’ said Haltheus. ‘But don’t expect miracles. This ship is hideously corrupt. Its machine-spirit is ancient and evil, Heresy era and absolutely seething with Slaaneshi taint.’
‘We don’t need data daemons to tell us that much,’ said Skaryth, garnering a snort of amusement from Ges’khir.
‘Context, brother,’ said Haltheus. ‘I’m explaining why barely half my familiars have made it back intact. Hostile environment.’
‘The ship detected the others?’ asked Kassar in alarm, but Haltheus made a gesture of reassurance.
‘I’m not some fumbling Imperial tech-babbler,’ he said. ‘Any of my helpers that got entangled or cornered, they self-immolated. No trace, no indication of foul play.’
‘Good,’ said D’sakh. ‘So what did the survivors find?’
‘Fragments were the best they could garner,’ said Haltheus. ‘But I believe from astrogation data that we’re somewhere in the galactic north east. This craft obviously doesn’t utilise the Astronomican to navigate but…’ Haltheus paused as if working out how to express a particularly alien concept.
‘But it seems impossible to detect,’ he said.
Kassar stiffened with shock.
‘Is it gone, or are we just cut off from it? In either case, how can that be? Does that mean that Terra is gone as well, that the long war is at an end? Has the throneworld fallen?’
‘Unclear,’ replied Haltheus. ‘But seems unlikely. Our new ‘allies’ surely would have been crowing such vast news from their highest towers, and it would be all over their dataspools and auto-chantries. No, I believe something else has occurred. Perhaps something is blocking its light, warp storms and the like, or else the Emperor has withdrawn his guidance from his unworthy servants? Or maybe Abaddon has achieved more than merely breaking down the Cadian Gate, and has worked some artifice to blind our foes. Whatever the case, this region of the galaxy is shrouded in darkness. Nothing to indicate the direction of Terra whatsoever. Nothing for Imperial ships to steer by. Except it seems that there is.’
Kassar made another questioning gesture, demanding elaboration.
‘One of my daemons scavenged fragmentary mentions of Tsadrekha. Somehow this planet is holding a spread of Imperial systems together using some form of psychic beacon.’
‘Impossible,’ said Makhor. ‘If the Imperials had that sort of technology they wouldn’t need the Astronomican.’
Haltheus’ stance approximated a shrug.
‘It’s what my data daemons picked up. Make of it what you will.’
Kassar’s next question was interrupted by the sharp hiss of the chamber’s door sliding open. Through it marched a squad of Emperor’s Children clad in riotously coloured armour and dripping with furs and finery. The warriors wore helms whose vox grilles were hugely enlarged and ringed with fangs, the mouths of hideous daemonic lampreys. They bore sonic weaponry, and Kassar felt a tinnitus ache build behind his eyes at the mere presence of the deadly guns. At the head of the procession strode a haughty warrior with a high-crested helm and a flowing cloak of white fur. He looked straight at Kassar, even though his helm was eyeless, and made an imperious gesture. His voice sounded like a disharmonic choir fighting to be heard over one another’s wailing.
‘You are to follow me. Lord Excrucias the Flawless demands your presence.’
Wincing, Kassar rose to his feet. The Harrow gathered around him, and at a gesture from their leader all fixed their
helms in place. Kassar did the same, embracing anonymity. It was an old tenet of the Alpha Legion, and a good one.
Knowledge is power. Gather all that you can, and give none to your enemies.
Kassar and his men strode onto the bridge of Excrucias’ flagship. Their escorts led them across the teeming lower decks and up an elegant stairway of blood-slicked crystal towards the strategium. Though they remained outwardly unmoved, across their encrypted vox-channel Kassar heard his brothers exclaim in revulsion at the excess and insanity displayed around them.
They moved through clouds of shimmering incense, between bio-organic instrument stations where hideously bloated cultists worked their controls. Bodies hung suspended upon hooks and chains, many writhing and keening with pain. Shadowy figures moved through the murk, and nameless fluids made the decking sticky and foul.
‘Grotesque,’ commented A’khassor to Kassar over coded vox. ‘And how do they work in this infernal din? The screaming alone is enough to drown out orders, surely.’
‘It stinks,’ replied Kassar. ‘It’s not often I regret the sharpness of my senses.’
‘Depravity of the worst kind,’ said A’khassor. ‘Utter indiscipline. We’ve nothing to be wary of in this place, Kassar. Creatures this debased are not the ones fated to end our punishment.’
Kassar kept his reply to himself. He typically avoided engaging with his Apothecary’s strange superstitions, and had long since stopped trying to dispel them.
They reached the head of the stairs and found themselves upon a huge, gilded platform. Broad enough to marshal a full company of Space Marines upon, the wide open space was dominated by twisted statues of massive stature, and a revolting throne fashioned from the stitched and slowly writhing bodies of dozens of living beings. Fat tubes gurgled as they pumped fluids into the bloated abomination, while from braziers to either side of the throne billowed pungent clouds of incense in which Kassar detected potent hallucinogens. Excrucias himself sat on the throne, surrounded by freakish champions that Kassar took to be his war leaders. The rest of the dais was crowded with knots of robed and masked figures engaged in acts of drugged debauchery.
‘This is how they offer devotion to their god,’ voxed Kyphas. ‘Such wanton hedonism is intended to garner the blessings of Slaanesh.’
Kassar’s lip longed to curl in revulsion, but neither he nor any of his warriors betrayed any outward sign of their disgust as they were led through the spectacle of foul excess to stand before Excrucias’ throne. As one, the Slaaneshi champions turned to stare at them. An array of compound eyes, glowing lenses, black sensory pits and bulging ocular orbs regarded the Alpha Legionnaires. Kassar read undisguised hatred and contempt in those stares, and satisfied himself with the thought that the feeling was mutual.
‘Ah…’ sighed Excrucias with an expansive gesture. ‘The Unsung. My… secret weapon. Perhaps you can rescue me from this daemon’s bacchanal of flaws and failure.’
Kassar waited in silence, unwilling to be drawn in by such false bonhomie. His brothers followed his lead, standing silent and still as statues.
‘Insolence!’ squealed one of the Slaaneshi champions, a massively obese thing with a yawning jaw. ‘Answer when the Lord Excrucias addresses you, heathens.’
‘Lord,’ panted another champion eagerly, this one a scarecrow of flayed skin and barbed armour. ‘Allow me the pleasure of punishing them for their insolence.’
‘No, me!’ trilled another champion, whose plethora of eyes were held open with cruel metal sutures.
Kassar slowly moved his hands towards his weapons, and sent a swift burst of serpenta through the vox.
Be ready. Pattern Scylla if forced.
‘Presumptuous wretches,’ came a phlegm-thick voice. ‘You know well your lord’s perfect wisdom. Stay your writhing tongues. The flawless one shall do as he deems fit.’ From the shadow of Excrucias’ throne shambled a huge figure in baroque power armour and a rubberised, many-coloured robe. In the shadow of the figure’s cowl, Kassar saw constant, writhing movement.
Slowly, deliberately, Excrucias rose from his throne. He made a show of caressing the pommel of his blade, eliciting a crooning sigh from the weapon.
‘None shall punish them,’ he said softly. ‘For though they might seem… plain, and barbaric… these warriors are as close to flawless as any I have seen.’
The Slaaneshi champions subsided, though the resentment in their stares deepened.
‘Noble Kassar,’ said Excrucias. ‘Which are you? Will you not speak to me in this most sacred of places? Does the power of Slaanesh awe you so?’
Kassar’s vox clicked, D’sakh questioning whether he should play the role of his captain. Kassar clicked back. Not today.
‘I can speak,’ said Kassar, taking a step forward. ‘I simply await pertinent information. I assumed this would be a mission briefing?’
Several of the Slaaneshi champions hissed with outrage. Others burst into wild shrieks of overly affected mirth.
‘Of a sort,’ replied Excrucias. ‘We have arrived, and I shall now tell you of the task that you are going to perform for me.’
‘We have reached Tsadrekha, then?’ asked Kassar. ‘This will have something to do with the beacon, yes?’
Excrucias hid his surprise well, but Kassar saw the tell-tale cues. It was a tactic he favoured: a calculated reveal of intelligence, meant to leave your enemies guessing as to how much you knew. At worst, it threw others off balance. At best, it could shake loose far more information than it surrendered.
‘That… is correct,’ said Excrucias, rallying smoothly. ‘I would ask how you knew of this but… what is it they say? The Alpha Legion have their ways…’
Kassar remained silent.
‘Yes,’ said Excrucias after a moment. ‘We have reached Tsadrekha. It is a world I mean to see conquered, and you shall be my instruments of conquest. My champions are displeased with this notion. They believe they should have the pleasure.’
‘Why don’t they?’ asked Kassar.
‘They have tried,’ breathed Excrucias, venomously. ‘They have proven flawed.’
‘What’s the mission?’ asked Kassar. ‘Who are we facing? What strengths? What’s our edge?’
From behind Excrucias’ mask came a skin-crawling hissing that Kassar realised was laughter.
‘You will forgive me, Kassar,’ said Excrucias. ‘I am not accustomed to dealing with… such unadorned bluntness. We Emperor’s Children have a more… elegant manner than the lesser Legions, but it is perhaps not as swift. Sometimes, perfection is a curse.’
Again, Kassar remained silent. For long moments, the screams of agonised slaves and the moans of writhing cultists were the only sounds.
‘Phelkorian,’ said Excrucias eventually. ‘Enlighten our allies as to their duties upon this world.’
‘You are going to corrupt the Beacon of Tsadrekha,’ panted the cowled figure with the writhing face. ‘That is your mission, Kassar of the Unsung. You will defile it in the name of great Slaanesh, and in so doing prove our infinite superiority over the crude hordes of Lord Khordas the Slaughterer, and Ganshorr of the Iron Fist.’
‘We will be facing rival Chaos warbands, then?’ asked Kassar.
‘Potentially,’ said Phelkorian, a fanged leer splitting the squirming darkness beneath his hood. ‘Primarily, however, your enemies shall be corpse worshippers. They defend their beacon with all the fervour of the desperate faithful. It is their only light, now, amidst a terrible darkness, and it is your task to extinguish it.’
‘What exactly does the beacon do, that the Astronomican cannot?’ asked Kassar. ‘Why is it so important to them?’
A ripple of contemptuous laughter passed through the Slaaneshi champions.
‘There is no Astronomican,’ shrieked the flayed champion gleefully. ‘Not this far out. Not since the rift opened, and the time of glory came.
The Dark Prince has blinded the eyes of our foes and given us the run of the galaxy, that we might revel in the corpse worshippers’ exquisite torments.’
Behind his faceplate, Kassar quirked an eyebrow. So Haltheus had been correct. Whatever this rift was that the Emperor’s Children kept talking of, it must have brought the darkness with it. How far did that extend? he wondered. How much new-found freedom had the Traitor Legions been afforded? Now wasn’t the time to reveal his ignorance with further questions, however.
‘As Shemlok says,’ gasped Phelkorian. ‘The Astronomican cannot reach beyond the rift, but the Beacon of Tsadrekha has afforded the Imperials a light in the darkness. Its reach is comparatively short, a few neighbouring systems, but it is enough to give them hope and coherency. The Tsadrekhan Unity, they call it. But it cannot last.’
‘No?’ asked Kassar, though he could guess why.
‘Too rich a prize,’ said D’sakh in his ear. ‘Too obvious. Silkwings to a brazier.’
‘The beacon is a light in the darkness… its glare is visible to all,’ said Excrucias. ‘He who extinguishes this flame of defiance shall know the beneficence of the gods in great measure. And to allow any other to steal this prize from us… that would be a flaw of the gravest magnitude.’
Kassar noticed Excrucias’ tongue flicker along the lips of his mask, drawing a runnel of blood. In some strange way, the Slaaneshi lord relished the thought of failure, he realised. Or perhaps just its consequences. Kassar filed the information away for later consideration.
‘So the Imperials have a psychic beacon, and you are in competition with other warlords to smother it,’ he said. ‘Their defences must be formidable, to hold you all off.’
‘You will see for yourself, soon enough,’ panted Phelkorian. ‘We have more information for you, topographical charts, enemy strengths, an exfiltration plan, logistical tedium of that sort. All shall be made available to you before you begin your mission. But for now, I wish you to meet Syxx.’
Phelkorian unslung a staff from his back, a thing of bone and sinew scrimshawed into obscene shapes and daubed in unnameable fluids. Kassar felt raw psychic power build in the air, a potent charge rising fast around Phelkorian’s staff. A sorcerer, then, he thought.
