[Night Lords 01] - Soul Hunter

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - (ebook by Undead)

  “Good to know,” Talos said as he sheathed the blade and stood once more.

  “When were you last wrong?” Xarl pressed. “Humour me. When was the last time one of your auguries went awry?”

  “A long time ago,” Talos said. “Seventy years, perhaps. On Gashik, the world where it never stopped raining. I dreamed we would see battle against the Imperial Fists, but the planet remained defenceless.”

  Xarl scratched at his cheek, musing.

  “Seventy years. You’ve not been wrong in almost a century. But if Cyrion does die, and you were right that he isn’t corrupt, we could use his progenoid glands to gene-forge another Astartes in his place. No loss.”

  Talos considered drawing the blade again. “The same could be said for the death of any one of us.”

  Xarl raised an eyebrow. “You’d harvest Uzas’ gene-seed?”

  “Point taken.” And it was. Talos would sooner burn that biological matter into ash before he saw it implanted within another Night Lord.

  Xarl nodded, clearly distracted as Talos carried on. “If this comes to pass, I will kill Uzas.”

  Talos wasn’t even sure he heard him.

  “I will think on this,” Xarl replied, and without another word, he walked from the arena, descending into the deeper darkness of the ship. After the awkwardness of the brotherly candour a moment before, this was much more like the Xarl Talos had grown to tolerate—stalking off in silence, keeping his counsel to himself.

  Caught between the desire to follow Xarl and seek out Cyrion, Talos was denied the choice a moment later.

  Thudding footsteps drew his attention as another figure emerged at the first tier of witness seats. Lightning-marked armour, too bulky even for Astartes war-plate.

  “Prophet,” said Champion Malek of the Atramentar.

  “Yes, brother.”

  “Your presence is required.”

  “I see.” Talos didn’t move. “Inform the Exalted I am currently engaged in my meditations, and will attend him in three hours.”

  The sound of a rockslide avalanche rambled from the hound-like helm of Malek’s Terminator armour. Talos assumed it was a chuckle.

  “No, prophet, it is not the Exalted that demands your presence.”

  “Then whom?” Talos asked, his fingertips stroking the sheathed hilt of Aurum at his hip. “No one demands my attention, Malek. I am no slave.”

  “No? No one? And what if the presence of the Night Lord prophet was demanded by Abaddon of the Black Legion?”

  Talos swallowed, neither scared nor worried, but instantly on edge. This changed things.

  “The Warmaster wishes to speak with me,” he said slowly, as if unsure he heard correctly.

  “He does. You are to be ready within the hour, along with First Claw. Two of the Atramentar will accompany you.”

  “I need no honour guard. I will go alone.”

  “Talos,” Malek growled. Talos still looked up at him. None of the Atramentar had ever used his name before, and he felt a terrible gravity within the use of it now.

  “I am listening, Malek.”

  “This is not the time to stand alone, brother. Take First Claw. And do not argue when Garadon and I also stand with you. This is a show of strength as surely as the Exalted’s tactics in the void war.”

  It took several seconds, but Talos finally nodded. “Where is this meeting taking place?”

  Malek held up a massive power fist, his Terminator armour clanking and the servo-driven joints snarling as he moved. Four blades slashed from his knuckles, each one as long as a mortal man’s arm. At a command word Talos didn’t hear, the lightning claws lived up to their name, becoming wreathed in a crackling power field that brought stark, viciously flickering light to the blackness of the arena.

  “Solace,” Malek replied. “The Warmaster walks the surface of his most recently conquered world, and we are to meet him there.”

  “The Black Legion,” Talos said after a few moments, a dark little smirk crossing his features. “The Sons of Horus, with a heritage of treachery as great as their fallen father.”

  “Aye, the Black Legion.” Malek’s claws slid back into their housing on the back of his massive armoured fists, locked until reactivation. “Which is why we are going in midnight clad.”

  The surface of Solace was the mixed, dusty red-brown of old scabs and burned flesh. It was an ugly world in all respects, even down to the taste of the air. Because of intense volcanic activity raging across the southern hemisphere for centuries, the myriad mountain ranges breathing fire into the atmosphere left the thin air tasting of ash across the planet.

  The spires of the penal colonies were no easier on the eyes than anything else on the surface: towers of red stone, clawed and brutish, jutting like broken blades from natural mountain formations. The Gothic architecture so beloved of many Imperial worlds was in evidence here, but in its crudest and most unskilled execution. Whoever designed the prison spires of Solace—if indeed any real design had taken place at all—knew all too well how the world would be home to souls that barely counted as part of the Imperium. His prejudice against the prisoners that were destined to come to this world and rot under its dull skies was all too obvious in the architecture.

  The Night Lord Thunderhawk Blackened streaked across the weatherless sky, its pilot adjusting thrust output as the gunship broke from orbital to atmospheric flight.

  “On approach,” Septimus said, easing back on one of the several levers that handled the gunship’s thrust. In the creaking control chair, which was obviously made for a larger pilot, he clicked a cluster of switches and watched the vivid green hololithic terrain display—updated every few seconds from auspex returns. Altitude dropping gently, speed falling, he spoke without taking his eyes from the console’s displays.

  “Internment Spire Delta Two, this is the VIII Legion Thunderhawk Blackened. We are on southern approach. Respond.”

  Silence greeted his attempts at communication.

  “What now?” he asked, over his shoulder.

  Talos, armoured and armed, standing behind the pilot’s throne, shook his head. “Don’t bother repeating the hail. The Black Legion is hardly noted for excellence in re-establishing infrastructures upon the worlds it conquers.”

  Cyrion was making final reverent checks over his bolter. “And we are?”

  Talos didn’t turn to his brother. In the spacious cockpit, where all of First Claw stood behind Septimus and Eurydice in the pilot and co-pilot thrones, Talos watched the thin, dusty red mist breaking apart over the front windows as they closed in on their destination.

  “We do not conquer worlds,” Talos replied. “Our mandate is not the same as theirs, nor is our ultimate aim.”

  Keeping himself out of their debate, Septimus waited until he was sure they would say no more. “Five minutes, master. I’ll bring us down on the spire-top landing platform.”

  “Your flying is improving, slave.” It was Xarl who stepped forward, resting a gauntleted hand on the back of Septimus’ chair. There was nothing comforting in the gesture. Septimus could see their reflections in the viewscreen. All without their helms—Talos, handsome and stern; Cyrion, weary with a half-smile; Xarl sneering and bitter; and Uzas, dead-eyed and licking his teeth as he stared at nothing in particular.

  And Eurydice. He noticed her reflection last, still unused to her presence. She met his eyes in the reflection on the cockpit window, and offered him an expressionless glance that could have meant anything. Her hair, scruffy and chestnut brown, framed her face in choppy locks. The iron strip still concealed her third eye, and Septimus often found himself wondering just what it would look like.

  She wore the ragged, dark blue jacket and trousers of the Legion’s serfs, though getting her into the loose uniform had been no easy feat. She’d only relented to Septimus’ insistence when he pointed out how bad she smelled still wearing the same clothes they’d captured her in weeks before.

  They hadn’t branded her, yet. The tattoo be
neath his clothes that covered his shoulder blades itched as if in sympathy with his thoughts. A winged skull, in black ink mixed with Astartes blood.

  If she gave her allegiance—if she survived—she’d be branded soon enough.

  Ahead of them, the thin mist parted to reveal a clawed cluster of peaks, topped by a spire that could only be their destination. Talos and the others reached for their helms, sealing them in place. Septimus was familiar with the differences between them, as familiar to him as their natural faces. Cyrion’s helm was older than the other death masks, a mark II design with narrowed eyes and an almost knightly aesthetic. He wore few trophies, but his armour was decorated in great detail with jagged bolts of blue-white lightning. Twin storm bolts streaked from his ruby eye lenses like forked tears.

  In contrast, Xarl’s helm was the newest—a mark VII piece, taken from a recent engagement with the Dark Angels. He’d ordered one of the few remaining artificers to modify it, with a hand-painted daemonic skull covering the faceplate. He displayed trophies with relish and pride: alien and human skulls hanging from chains across his armour, scrolls of past deeds draped across his shoulder pads.

  Uzas wore a grim-faced mark III helm, the paintwork crudely done with little care. Stark against the dark blue was a red palm print with splayed fingers, done with his own hand dipped in blood and pressed against the helm’s face.

  Talos’ helm, a studded mark V design freshly repaired by his servant’s craftsmanship, featured a skulled face of creamy bone, with a Nostraman rune branded black into the forehead. When Septimus had been reshaping the helm on the artificer deck of the Covenant, Eurydice had asked what the sigil meant.

  “It’s like ‘in midnight clad’,” he said, repainting the bone face with both reverence and the ease of familiarity. “It doesn’t translate well into Low Gothic.”

  “I’m getting tired of hearing that.”

  “Well, it’s true. Nostramo was a world of high politics and a complicated underworld that infested all layers of society. The tongue has its roots in High Gothic, but much had changed through generations of unique phrasing by faithless, trustless, peaceless people.”

  “Trustless and peaceless aren’t words.” Despite herself, she smiled, watching him work. She was growing used to his stumbling attempts to speak the universal tongue.

  “My point stands,” Septimus said, painting bone white around the left eye lens. “Nostraman is, by Gothic standards, very grand and overly poetic.”

  “Gangsters like to think of themselves as cultured,” she said with a curl to her lip. To her surprise, he nodded.

  “From what I gather of Nostraman history, yes, that’s the conclusion I draw as well. The language became very… I don’t know the word.”

  “Flowery.”

  He shrugged. “Close enough.”

  “So what does that symbol mean?”

  “It’s a combination of three letters, which in turn stand for three words. The more complex a symbol, the more likely it is that a number of concepts and letters make up the final sigil.”

  “Sorry I asked.”

  “Fine,” he said, still not looking up from his duties. “It means, directly translated: ‘Ender of lives and collector of essences.’”

  “What is it in Nostraman?”

  Septimus spoke three words, which sounded beautiful to her ears. Smooth, delicate, and curiously chilling. Nostraman, she decided, sounded like a murderer by her bedside, whispering in her ear.

  “Shorten it for me,” she said, feeling her skin prickle at the sound of his voice speaking the dead language. “What does it mean, direct translation or not.”

  “Equivalently, it would mean ‘Soul Hunter’,” he said, holding the helm up now and examining his work.

  “Is that what the other Night Lords call your master?” Eurydice asked.

  “No. It is the name bestowed upon him by their martyred primarch father. His favoured sons within the VIII Legion held… titles, or names, like that. To the Legion, he was Apothecary Talos of First Claw, or 10th Company’s ‘prophet’. To the Night Haunter, lord of the VIII Legion, he was Soul Hunter.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  And Septimus told her.

  The Thunderhawk settled on the landing platform with a gush of vented steam and the clank of its landing claws locking, taking the gunship’s weight. Under the cockpit, the gang ramp lowered on groaning, grinding hydraulics. Once it had slammed down onto the deck, the Night Lords disembarked, weapons armed.

  Talos led the way, Aurum active and Anathema drawn. First Claw came behind him, bolters up. Behind them, with servo-joints growling and heavy boots thudding onto the decking, came the Terminator-clad Atramentar warriors Malek and Garadon.

  In the moments before Blackened had touched down, Septimus had been ordered to stay with the gunship. Although she wasn’t included in the order—in fact, the Night Lords were still essentially ignoring her—Eurydice remained with Septimus.

  “Septimus,” Talos had said, “if anyone approaches the Thunderhawk, warn them once, then open fire.”

  The serf had nodded. Blackened possessed a vicious armament: several heavy bolters mounted on the wings and flanks of the vessel, crewed by limbless servitors slaved directly to the gunnery consoles. The weapons were also fireable from the main cockpit console, which was fortunate considering the depleted state of 10th Company’s servitor complement: only half of the Thunderhawk’s heavy bolter turrets were actively crewed. Several of the other gunships aboard the Covenant of Blood completely lacked a servitor crew.

  The Astartes moved with cautious speed. The decking was clear, open to a starlit sky only thinly veiled by colourless clouds. At the north side of the thruster-burned platform, a small shelter with a double door led into the spire beneath.

  “Looks like a lift,” Xarl nodded to the small building.

  “Looks like a trap,” Uzas murmured. As if on cue, the double doors opened with a whirr of mechanics, revealing four figures lit by the internal lights of an elevator.

  “I was right,” said Xarl.

  “I probably was, too,” Uzas persisted.

  “Silence,” Talos growled into the vox, and the order was echoed by Malek of the Atramentar. Talos considered objecting to the champion issuing orders to his squad, but then technically, First Claw was no more his to command than it was Malek’s. And Malek held overall rank.

  The dark figures left the wide elevator, stalking onto the platform with a graceless, lumbering stride that matched the Terminator-gait of the Atramentar.

  First Claw raised their bolters in perfect unity, each one drawing a bead on a different figure. Malek and Garadon brought their close combat weapons to bear, flanking the Astartes.

  “Justaerin,” warned Malek. They knew the term. The elite Terminator-armoured squad of the Sons of Horus 1st Company.

  “Not anymore.” Talos didn’t lower his bolter. “We don’t know if they have kept that title. Times change.”

  The four black-armoured, red-eyed Terminators approached, their own weapons raised. Brass-mouthed double-barrelled bolters, and an ornate arm-mounted autocannon with twin barrels the length of spears—all aimed at the new arrivals. Where the Night Lord Terminators wore dark cloaks around their bulky forms, spiked trophy racks arced from the Black Legion’s hunched backs, displaying a varied selection of Astartes helms from various Imperial Chapters. Talos recognised the colours of the Crimson Fists, the Raven Guard, and a number of Chapters he’d never encountered. Inconstant Imperial dogs. They divided and bred like vermin.

  “Which one of you is Talos?” The lead Terminator’s voice came through his helm speakers like a detuned vox—all crackles and rasps.

  Talos nodded at the Black Legionnaire. “The one aiming his blade at your heart, and his bolter at your head.”

  “Nice sword, Night Lord,” the Terminator rasped, gesturing its storm bolter at Aurum pointed at his chestplate. Talos sighted down the golden blade, reading the lettering across the warrior’s ar
mour: FALKUS, in faded indentations.

  “Please,” Cyrion voxed over the intra-squad channel, “tell me that rhyme wasn’t his attempt at wit.”

  “Falkus,” Talos said slowly, “I am Talos of the VIII Legion. With me is First Claw, 10th Company, as well as Champion Malek and Garadon, Hammer of the Exalted, both of the Atramentar.”

  “You give yourselves a lot of titles,” said another of the Black Legion Terminators, the one with the long-barrelled autocannon. His voice was lower than the first’s, and he sported a horned helm similar to Garadon’s.

  “We kill a lot of people,” Xarl replied. To punctuate his words, he trailed his bolter across the four Black Legionnaires. It was posturing of the most brazen, unsubtle, even childish kind. It galled Talos that such theatrics were necessary.

  “We are all allies here, under the Warmaster’s banner,” the cannon-bearer said. “There is no need for such a display of hostility.”

  “Then lower your weapons first,” Xarl offered.

  “Like the nice, polite hosts you are,” Cyrion added.

  One of the squad, Talos wasn’t sure who, had privately voxed back to Septimus on board Blackened. He knew this because the heavy bolters mounted on the starboard cheek and wing tips rotated to lock onto the four Black Legion Terminators.

  Nice touch, he thought. Probably Xarl’s idea.

  The Warmaster’s warriors lowered their weapons a moment later, evidently neither gracious about the fact, nor with any real unity of movement.

  “They move carelessly,” Garadon voxed, his disgust obvious in his tone.

  “Come, brothers,” said the first Black Legion Terminator, inclining his brutish helm. “The Warmaster, blessed scion of the Dark Ones, requests your presence.”

  Only when the Black Legionnaires stalked away first did the Night Lords lower their weapons.

  “You remember when we used to trust each other?” Cyrion voxed.

  “No,” Xarl said.