Shroud of Night

by Andy Clark

  ‘Nothing,’ said Kassar. ‘Except the hope that they will see him as the most obvious threat, and delay him long enough for us to taint the beacon and escape. It is the best plan we have, and we don’t have the time to finesse anything better.’

  ‘I’ll lead him here,’ said Skaryth.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ said D’sakh. ‘You won’t do something this insane by yourself, brother.’

  ‘Send one lunatic to lure another,’ said Skarle solemnly. ‘Gift will burn beside you, brother.’

  ‘I will join you,’ said Kassar, gritting his teeth as the sharp, needling numbness flooded his arm from his sword hand again. ‘The rest of you, drop to a lower gallery, get as close to ground level as you can without arousing suspicion and await our return.’

  ‘Kassar–’ began Makhor, but Kassar cut him off.

  ‘This is not a debate,’ he said. ‘Get into position, brothers. Armour to full power, all of you. And be ready.’

  Skaryth led them, unhelmed. He paused at junctions, head tilted, listening. D’sakh shot Kassar a loaded glance, but Kassar ignored it. He knew the extent of all his brothers’ difficulties and gifts. He kept a bolt ready for each, should they stray too far. He had done it before, just another burden of command that he had to bear.

  The scout led them along corridors and hallways, across arched gantries and through magnificent chambers. Speed was everything now, and more than once they were forced to unsheathe their blades and deal with robed Sisters unfortunate enough to stray into their path. Soon their armour and knives were spattered with fresh blood.

  It wasn’t long before they could all hear the clangour of battle that Skaryth was following. Emerging through an arched portal, Kassar found himself on the edge of a sprawling library. Everywhere books burned, stacks toppled and corpses sprawled. A thin line of Tsadrekhans and Battle Sisters was falling back towards him, trying desperately to stay ahead of the Khornate charge.

  They were failing.

  ‘There,’ said Skaryth, dread in his voice. ‘Warp save us, there’s Khârn.’

  The Betrayer was leading the Khornate attack, Gorechild swinging in bloody arcs as he broke through the Imperial lines and put the defenders to flight. He ripped his axe through a trio of Tsadrekhans, decapitating them all with a single swing, then shot down a Sister Repentia who came at him with her eviscerator raised high. Another Battle Sister managed to hammer Khârn with her heavy bolter, cracking his armour and spraying his blood across the burning books. In response, the Betrayer closed the gap with three quick strides and hacked the luckless woman in half at the waist.

  ‘Get his attention,’ said Kassar, shaking his head at the insanity of the order. He fired Mortis, his brothers opening fire around him. Skarle howled as he primed a fistful of incendiaries and flung them in Khârn’s direction.

  Their volley struck sparks from the Betrayer’s breastplate and helm, and wreathed him in jade flames. Khârn looked up, and as his blank gaze fell upon them Kassar felt again a phantom pain across his chest, the sensation of his arm severed at the elbow. Gritting his teeth, he fired another cluster of shells that exploded around the Betrayer’s feet. Khârn roared in fury, and ran towards them.

  ‘Move!’ barked Kassar, and he and his brothers turned and fled.

  Corridors and arches rushed by. Kassar’s hearts thumped in his ears, competing with his pounding footfalls and the furious roars of the murderer at his back. They ran as fast as they could, following their auspex maps back towards the pulsing icon of the cathedrum. They smashed through doorways and pounded up stairwells, pushing their enhanced bodies to the limits. Still Khârn gained on them with terrifying speed, his roars and those of his hungering chainaxe growing ever closer. He ran with unnatural swiftness, utterly inexhaustible, and a little part of Kassar envied that Khorne-given strength.

  The Betrayer came for them with a psychotic, single-minded intensity and his wrathful followers boiled behind him in a tide.

  ‘We’re not going to make it,’ shouted D’sakh, dashing up a set of gilded steps behind Kassar. ‘He must be right behind us.’

  ‘Just keep running,’ barked Kassar. ‘We’re one level away.’

  A bolt of plasma seared past them, close enough to peel away the paint on Kassar’s shoulder guard. He sprinted, dashing down a wide corridor. Ahead lay an arched doorway, beyond it a broad ramp below a stained-glass ceiling, and atop that one of the yawning entrances to the cathedrum.

  Skaryth drew level with him, legs and arms pumping as he ran. D’sakh was just behind, Skarle a few paces further back, struggling with his wounded lungs. A quick glance showed Kassar that Khârn was now less than ten yards behind, a horde of Berzerkers and baying cultists spilling in his wake. Khârn swung his axe in a roaring arc, almost clipping Skarle’s backpack with its whirling teeth.

  Ahead, something huge moved in the archway, and suddenly it was full of stomping metal and revving saw blades.

  ‘Penitent engines,’ yelled Kassar. ‘They’ve taken the bait. Unsung, evade!’

  As the engines lumbered into a charge, they raised their flamers and filled the ramp with leaping fire. Kassar threw himself into a dive, beneath a swinging saw arm and through the legs of the lead penitent engine. Huge metal feet crashed and stomped around him, then he was back up and running, his brothers at his back. From behind came a tumultuous crash and a furious roaring as the charging machines ploughed head-on into Khârn and his warriors.

  Kassar had no time for relief, however. Behind the penitent engines came a wave of Battle Sisters, and the Unsung were forced to hurl themselves into a side corridor as their enemies opened fire. Skarle howled as a bolt shell blasted his right hand to shreds.

  ‘Fourth cypher,’ voxed Kassar, grabbing Skarle and hauling him back down the side corridor. ‘Unsung, bait is taken. Khârn is here.’

  ‘Understood,’ voxed Makhor. ‘We’re four galleries up. They’re dispersing towards the archway, defenders thinning. What’s your status?’

  Kassar and his brothers backed fast down the corridor, keeping their guns trained on its mouth. A Battle Sister appeared at the end, and was smashed off her feet by bolt shells. A penitent engine replaced her, reeling backwards, its pilot headless and jetting blood. Khârn followed, leaping and smashing the engine onto its back with a thunderous axe blow. The Betrayer vanished up the ramp and his warriors followed him. None so much as glanced down the narrow corridor.

  ‘Extracted successfully,’ voxed Kassar. ‘Looking for a way to loop back to you now.’

  ‘Twenty feet further along the corridor,’ voxed Haltheus. ‘Auspex mapping shows a floor hatch leading to a maintenance crawl-way. You can follow that back into the cathedrum, but you’ll want to hurry. Warp alive! The Betrayer’s at the arch already. They’re throwing everything at him.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Kassar. ‘We’re coming to you. Be prepared to move as soon as we emerge.’

  Haltheus’ reply was cut off by a sudden commotion on the other end of the vox.

  ‘Damn it, grab him!’

  ‘What are you doing, you little fool?’

  ‘Syxx, Syxx!’

  ‘Report!’ barked Kassar.

  ‘The damn cultist,’ voxed Haltheus. ‘He’s gone mad. He slipped away from us somehow. Warp damn it, Kassar, he’s making straight for the beacon. He’s going to get himself killed!’

  Kassar looked around at his brothers, still gasping from their lethal race, armour scorched and battered, Skarle cradling his clotting, mangled wrist.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, wrenching open the floor hatch and revealing the dark crawlspace below. ‘We need to finish this. Now.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Syxx ran. He vaulted a brass railing, dropping a hundred feet in a matter of seconds. As he did, he felt his psychic powers billow out and cushion his fall. He rolled as he hit the ground, and came up running from a fall t
hat might have crippled a Space Marine.

  ‘They’re going to ruin it,’ muttered Syxx. He shot a fearful glance up at the higher galleries, catching a fleeting glimpse of power-armoured figures pursuing him. ‘Now is my moment, they can’t ruin it,’ he gasped, and ran.

  The crash of battle was all around, deafening in its intensity. Chainaxes roared and whined as they sawed through armour. Heretics howled oaths to the Blood God, competing with the Battle Sisters’ furious war hymns. Bolters boomed their own staccato war-song. Stray bolts and blasts ripped at the gallery as Syxx ran along it, filling the air with shrapnel and sparks.

  He kept his head down and kept running, ignoring the madness filling the cathedrum. His rune-brands burned with power desperate to be unleashed, and he was driven to answer their call. He knew with a compulsive certainty that he had to reach the beacon, had to perform the ritual before the Khorne worshippers reached it first.

  ‘Redemption.’ The word rang through his mind like a promise. ‘Justice. Revenge.’

  The fighting was concentrated around the eastern arch, but already the Khorne worshippers had broken into the cathedrum, bringing slaughter with them. Syxx dodged as a Sister Superior stumbled towards him, a Berzerker hacking madly at her buckled chainsword. He weaved around them just as the Sister dropped her mangled blade and shot the Khorne worshipper through the neck. Blood sprayed, and Syxx kept running.

  Bolts whipped around him and armoured figures crashed together on every side. He skidded to a halt as a penitent engine stormed across his path, then ran again, eyes glued to the beauteous radiance at the cathedrum’s heart.

  With every step it grew closer, and as it did so the burning in his flesh intensified, becoming a searing pain as though the brands were being applied all over again. Syxx screamed and stumbled, smoke rising from his body, but something kept his limbs moving, propelling him forward.

  A chainsword swung at him from nowhere, aimed straight for his face. His mind convulsed, and the blade was smashed aside. A Khornate warrior reeled into his path, drenched in gore, one arm missing. Syxx’s mind spasmed again, a sensation of delightful agony, and the Berzerker was swatted away as though hit by a wrecking ball.

  The whirling tides of battle parted and there was the Beacon of Tsadrekha. Tech-priests fussed around him, uncoupling the last few wires while chanting hasty binharic. The canoness and her elite stood in a circle, a last line of defence against the powers of darkness. In their midst, barely visible through the holy light shining from his body, the beacon wore an expression of peaceful acceptance upon his gaunt face.

  ‘Heretic!’ shouted one of the Battle Sisters as she saw Syxx coming. ‘Unclean!’ She aimed her bolter, but with a flick of his mind Syxx snapped her neck. Three of her Sisters followed, hurled unceremoniously aside with the powers of his mind.

  Exultation and agony filled him as he waded into the beacon’s light. His flesh was afire, his mind full of triumph and excitement as he opened his mouth to speak the words of atonement he had waited so long to utter.

  ‘Emperor,’ he began, his speech long prepared. ‘I have sinned. I have walked in darkness for so long, but now I come to atone.’

  He staggered closer, his limbs becoming heavier as the light streamed around him. He felt a searing agony from the runes branded across his skin, but he didn’t care. This was his moment.

  ‘I…’ The pain in his flesh redoubled, and Syxx shrieked in agony. He dropped to one knee.

  ‘I offer… offer…’ He screamed again, clutching his abdomen as he felt an awful wrenching sensation within. His head snapped up and his jaw dropped open, his eyes wild at the sensation of something else puppeting his flesh.

  ‘N’gyakh she’ghenn’a K’gluk!’ Words spilled from his mouth, but they weren’t his. Syxx’s eyes bulged with panic as the strange syllables wrenched themselves from him.

  ‘Hss’trakh, Hss’trakh, N’anyuug’ul’ulakh!’ His voice was monstrous, sibilant, gleeful. It boomed over the battle, and as it did the fire in his flesh intensified. Syxx was powerless, transfixed with agony and horror. His moment of redemption was being overwhelmed by some monstrous thing that welled from within him, puppeting his vocal chords and surging through his flesh like a rising tide.

  The rest of the Battle Sisters had turned and started shooting, but their bolts ploughed through the air in slow motion, and flickered away to embers. Syxx had a fleeting impression of golden, half-seen ghosts flickering towards him, only to burn away in the same fashion.

  ‘M’bathra’khajuul,’ came the monstrous voice, and Syxx felt a tide of energy well inside him, bringing with it an intense, tearing agony. ‘Ghaar’shlek! Yaa’khari’ the words boomed out, stretching his jaw wide, cracking bone and sinew. Syxx’s sanity teetered as he realised, at the last, what Phelkorian had done to him.

  What he had bound within his mortal form.

  ‘Sl’eth’kryphyr! Sl’eth’kryphyr! Sl’eth’kryphyr!’

  A final surge of energy poured through Syxx, and he saw one last time the lined faces, the sorrowful, loving eyes, their vengeance lost forever. His hate for Phelkorian drove the change, and with a grotesque, fleshy surge, Syxx was no more.

  Sl’eth’kryphyr rose in his place.

  Kassar grabbed the maintenance hatch above his head and wrenched it downwards, tearing it from its locking bolts. A hellish din flooded the crawlspace, accompanied by searing light.

  ‘Kassar!’ voxed Haltheus from the galleries above. ‘It’s a daemon! The cultist was a warp-damned daemon!’

  ‘Cover the hatch,’ said Kassar. ‘We’re coming up.’

  He grabbed the lip of the hatch and pulled himself upwards, clearing it in one smooth motion. A Berzerker loomed over him, roaring, before a shot from Thelgh’s rifle blew out the warrior’s helm.

  As Kassar’s brothers emerged behind him, he took in the scene of horror. A queen of daemons loomed above the beacon, a hellish abomination of snapping claws, sinuous limbs and perfumed flesh that stood thirty feet tall. Interwoven strands of armour twined around the thing’s lithe body, hung with glowing jewels and silken strands, and its beautiful, grotesque features were twisted into an arrogant sneer.

  ‘This is what Excrucias sent in our midst,’ said Makhor. ‘A Keeper of Secrets.’

  ‘This is betrayal,’ said A’khassor. ‘It must be.’

  Battle still raged, but those close to the daemon were lost in a bewildered haze. Battle Sisters and Berzerkers alike stared at the towering creature, weapons hanging useless in their hands. The daemon laughed, delighted, and Kassar recoiled as the sound flooded his mind with grotesque images and base urges. The sounds of battle faded around him, and his limbs weighed too much to move.

  The daemon reached down with one elegant claw, seeking to caress the beacon where he lay, helpless in his cradle of restraints. Amongst the ranks of the Battle Sisters, one figure twitched and struggled, her face contorted with strain. With a furious cry, Canoness Levinia lunged into the daemon’s path, hacking her power sword double-handed through the creature’s talon. Reeking filth sprayed and perfumed flesh slapped to the ground as the claw was severed. The Keeper of Secrets snatched its arm back with a shriek.

  The spell broke.

  Kassar snarled, and Hexling snarled with him. Enemies turned towards them, seeing the Alpha Legionnaires in their midst for the first time. Kassar and his brothers let fly, while their comrades poured covering fire down from the gallery above.

  ‘It is betrayal,’ said Kassar. ‘Excrucias sent this thing to kill us even as we completed his work for him. Elegant, but he didn’t foresee this mayhem.’

  ‘What do we do?’ asked D’sakh.

  ‘We prevail,’ said Kassar, gunning down a charging Berzerker. ‘Unsung, rally to me. We’re taking the beacon for ourselves, and then we’re leaving.’

  The daemon’s talon hit Levinia in the chest and she felt bone sha
tter as her armoured corset buckled. Her feet left the ground, and she sailed through the air. She slammed down on her back a good thirty feet from her opponent, fighting to stay conscious.

  The fire of her faith burned within, driving back the pain and propelling her to her feet. She spat blood, staring with righteous hatred at the abomination that had entered this most sacred place.

  ‘Unclean thing!’ she bellowed. ‘You stand in the light of the Emperor of Mankind. I name thee daemon and cast you out!’

  As she shouted, Levinia limped back towards the creature, firing her bolter at its chest. Several of her Sisters joined her, those who weren’t desperately fending off the Khornate onslaught.

  The daemon lashed angrily about itself. It swatted tech-priests away like broken toys, shrugging off the bolts that stung its flesh. The thing hissed a string of profane syllables, and two Battle Sisters to Levinia’s right dropped to the ground, screaming and laughing with frantic hysteria as blood poured from their mouths.

  She kept striding towards it, kept firing, and as she did so she prayed.

  ‘Oh Emperor, Lord of Mankind,

  He who sits upon the Golden Throne,

  We beseech you,

  Our Master,

  Our Liege,

  Lord of ten thousand years and more,

  Drive out the unclean spirits,

  Drive out the taint of Chaos,

  Hear this prayer, king of our hearts,

  And banish this fiend from your sight.’

  Her surviving Sisters joined their voices to hers, a mantra of banishment that rang out over the madness of battle. At the same time they fired, peppering the daemon with bolts and blasts. Celestine’s Geminae Superia leapt towards the daemon on tongues of flame, their bolt pistols blazing. But where was the Saint herself?

  The daemon recoiled from the Sisters’ prayers, then hissed out a hideous laugh.

  ‘Perhaps,’ it leered, its voice like oozing oil and bleeding flesh, ‘when his light was strong. But not now, little playthings. Darkness has come, the rift yawns wide, and your lord and master is nowhere to be found.’