[Night Lords 01] - Soul Hunter

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - (ebook by Undead)

  Octavia, in her life as the daughter of a Navigator House, had seen a great many augmetic enhancements in the courts of Terra, not least of all her own father’s. By general standards, Septimus’ bionic reconstruction was relatively subtle. It was certainly above the poorest-grade cybernetic “slice and graft” surgeries available to even many wealthy Imperial citizens.

  Still, she could tell none of that was any comfort to him. She watched him hit the door release with his gloved hand—the hand he had lost along with his eye. She had yet to see the augmetic hand and forearm he now bore, but she heard the rough mechanics of its servos buzzing and clicking as he moved. Upon his throat and chest, the outward braises had mostly vanished, but the memory of the violence done to him was still clear in the way he moved. Although he was healing and the three weeks had shown huge improvement, he was still stiff and obviously sore—walking like an old man in the winter.

  They walked together through the lower mortals’ decks of the Covenant. Octavia doubted she would ever get used to the… the community down here. Unlike the upper decks, which housed valued serfs and officers, the non-essential mortal crew inhabited these darkened decks, occupying civilian quarters much as on any other military vessel, but they were twisted and shaped by their allegiance to the Night Lords. They reminded her of vermin, living down here in the darkness.

  In the untraceable distance, down unknown numbers of winding corridors, someone screamed. Octavia flinched at the cry. Septimus did not.

  As the two serfs moved down the wide steel corridor, a cloaked figure, hunched over almost onto all fours, scrambled across their path from one adjacent passage to another. Octavia didn’t even want to know who or what it was. Cold water dripped in an irregular rhythm from a tear in the metal overhead. A punctured coolant feed somewhere, a hole in the vessel’s veins, slowly leaking icy water through a rusty wound. It was hardly an uncommon sight. Maintenance servitors never made it to this part of the ship.

  “Why did we have to go this way?” she asked quietly.

  “Because I have business here.”

  “Why are these people even tolerated? Do the Astartes hunt them for sport?”

  “Sometimes,” he admitted.

  “Is that a joke?” She knew it wasn’t, and wasn’t even sure why she voiced the words.

  He smiled, and she almost froze in her tracks. It was the first smile she’d seen from him in almost a month. “They have their uses, you know. Future artificers. Potential servitors. Failed officers that may be useful one night in a position of lesser responsibility.”

  She nodded as they approached what looked like a market stall made of scrap metal, raggedly built into the side of the corridor.

  “You need power cells?” the sore-ridden old man at the stall asked. “Cells for lamp packs. Fresh-charged in a fire. Good for another month, at least.” Octavia looked at his withered, gaunt face, at the cataracts milking over his eyes.

  “No. No, thank you.”

  She assumed they didn’t need money in the bowels of the Covenant, but she couldn’t imagine how anyone acquired anything new for barter, either. She also had no idea why they’d stopped here. She gave Septimus a look. He ignored it, speaking to the elder in the worn serf tunic.

  “Jeremiah,” he said in Gothic.

  “Septimus?” The elder offered a shallow bow, respect evident in his bearing. “I’d heard about your misfortune. May I?”

  Septimus flinched at the question. “Yes, if you wish.”

  He leaned closer, and the old man’s trembling hands rose to meet the serf’s face, shivering fingertips lightly stroking across the healed skin, the bruises that remained, and the new augmetics.

  “This feels expensive.” The man’s smile was missing several teeth. “Good to see the masters still bless you.” He withdrew his hands.

  “Apparently they do. Jeremiah, this is Octavia,” Septimus gestured to her with his ungloved hand.

  “My lady.” The elder offered the same bow.

  Lacking anything else to say, she instinctively forced a smile and said, “Hello.”

  “May I?”

  Octavia tensed just as Septimus had before. She could count on one hand the number of times another person had touched her face.

  “You… probably shouldn’t,” she said softly.

  “I shouldn’t? Hmm. You sound like a beauty. Is she, Septimus?”

  Septimus didn’t answer the question. “She’s a Navigator,” he cut in. Jeremiah’s reaching hands snapped back, fingers delicately curled in indecision.

  “Oh. Well, that was unexpected. What brings you here?” the old man asked Septimus. “You don’t need to scavenge like we do, so I’m guessing it’s not a need for my fine wares, eh?”

  “Not exactly. While I was wounded,” said Septimus, “the void-born must have had her birthday.”

  “That she did,” Jeremiah nodded, absently rearranging the fire-blackened power cells, stringed trinkets and handheld machine tools on his scrap metal stall. “Ten years old now. Who’d have guessed, eh?”

  Septimus gently scratched. His gloved fingertips stroked the irritated seam where his bronze augmetic plating met his temple.

  “I have a gift for her,” he said. “Would you give her this, from me?” The artificer reached into his belt pouch and withdrew a silver coin. Octavia couldn’t make out the detail stamped upon its face—Septimus’ gloved fingers obscured the majority of it—but it looked like a tower of some kind. The old man stood motionless for several moments, feeling the cold, smooth disc in his palm.

  “Septimus…” he said, his voice lower than before. He was edging on whispers now. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. Give her my best wishes, along with the seal.”

  “I will.” The elder closed his fingers around the coin. Octavia could tell the gesture was reverent and possessive, but there was a sick desperation in there, as well. It reminded her of the way a dying spider’s legs curled close to its body. “I’ve never held one before,” he said. After a pause, he added, “Don’t look at me like that; I won’t keep it.”

  “I know,” said Septimus.

  “May you continue to be blessed, Septimus. And you, Octavia.”

  They said their goodbyes to the trader and moved on. Once they were around a few corners and safely out of earshot, Octavia cleared her throat.

  “Well?” she asked. Her own fate was forgotten in the wake of the enigmatic gift-giving she’d just witnessed.

  “Well, what?”

  “Are you going to tell me what that was about?”

  “Time flows in an uneven river within the void. You’re a Navigator—you know that more than most.”

  Of course she knew. Her look told him to get on with it, and she noticed his false eye whirring and focusing as its socket mechanics tried to mimic the raised eyebrow on the undamaged side of his face.

  “There is a soul on this ship, more important than most. We call her the void-born.”

  “Is she human?”

  “Yes. That’s why she’s important. The Great Heresy was thousands of years ago. But to the Covenant, it has been less than a century. Less than a century since this strike cruiser hung in the heavens of Terra, as part of the greatest fleet ever amassed—the horde of the First Warmaster, Horus the Chosen.”

  Octavia felt her spine tingle at the words. She was still new to this, new to the Covenant, new to her own developing treason against the Golden Throne. She could barely even frame her own evolving place on this ship in words that confessed to her treachery. To hear of this very vessel that harboured her being part of the Horus Heresy’s final moments, the assault on Terra, and only scant decades ago by the ship’s internal chronometers… She shivered again. The blasphemy made her skin crawl, but there was a delicious edge to the sensation. She was living in the echo of mythology. She stood with the shadows of a greater age, and even being near the Astartes was invigorating. They felt more than any souls she had ever met—their rage burned hotter, their b
itterness was colder, their hatred ran deeper…

  It was the same within the metal threaded bones of the Covenant. Until Septimus had spoken the words, she’d never been able to form the feeling into something comprehensible. But she felt the ship. She felt its wounded pride in the rumble of its engines, like an eternal growl. Now she understood why. The Heresy was not mythology to the VIII Legion, not some sequestered insurrection that was more legend than history. It was a memory. A recent memory, seared into their thoughts, just as their ship bore weapon-fire burns that still scarred the skin of its hull. The vessel itself was marked from the war it lost, and its crew shared the grim recollection, their lives stained with the knowledge of failure.

  A mere handful of decades ago, this vessel had rained its fury upon the surface of Terra. A mere handful of decades ago, the Astartes on board had walked the soil of Imperial Earth, screaming orders to each other as they slaughtered the loyal defenders of the Throne, their bolters barking in the shadows cast by the towers of the God-Emperor’s vast palace.

  Neither fable nor ancient parable to these Astartes. Recent memory, twisted by time’s loose grip in the warp.

  “You look light-headed,” said Septimus.

  She had slowed down without realising, and met his unmatching eyes now with a weak smile.

  He continued. “It’s easier to understand when you realise where the Covenant makes its haven.”

  “The Eye of Terror,” she nodded slowly.

  “Exactly. A wound in our reality. The warp reigns there.”

  Even as a Navigator, even as one of the rare few with the genetic deviance allowing them to see into the Sea of Souls and know the warp more intimately than any other mortal, it was a struggle for Octavia to cling to this shift in her perceptions. Stories forever abounded of vessels lost in the warp for years or decades, and arriving weeks ahead or behind the intended translation date was an unbreakable, unchangeable part of flight through the immaterium. When ships sailed through the second reality, they surrendered themselves to the realm’s unnatural laws.

  Even so. This was a span of time she could barely comprehend. The differential made her mind ache.

  “I understand,” she said. “But what has this got to do with your gift?”

  “The void-born is unique,” Septimus replied. “In the decades the Covenant has been active since the Great Betrayal, she is the only soul to be born on board.” He saw the questioning look in her eyes, and cut her off. “You have to understand,” he clarified, “even at full crew complement, this was never a vessel that ran with decks full of conscripted slaves. The crew was always small and elite. It is an Astartes vessel. With the decline over the years… Well. She is the first. That’s all that matters.”

  “What was the gift?”

  “A seal. You’ll receive one yourself after your surgery tonight. Do not lose it. Do not give it away. It is the only thing that will keep you safe on these decks.”

  She smiled at this habit of his. Every crew member of the Covenant said “tonight”, never “today”.

  “If it’s so important, why did you give it to her?”

  “I gave it to her because it’s so important. Each seal is inscribed with the name of one of the Astartes on board. The rarest of them show no names, and ensure the bearer is protected by the entire Legion. In ancient nights, it was tradition for a personal serf to attend to each warrior. They carried a seal marked with their master’s name, signifying their allegiance and dissuading other Astartes from entertaining themselves by harming such a valued slave. The coins mean little now the old traditions are remembered by so few. But they are still acknowledged by some. My master is among them.”

  “You wish her to be protected?”

  “Most of the Astartes do not even know she exists, and would not care if they did. Their attention is forever elsewhere. But she is a talisman to the ‘mere mortals’ of the Covenant.” He smiled again. “She’s a lucky charm, if you will. With my seal, she is under the guardianship of Talos. Any who meet her will know this. Any who threaten her will die by his hands.”

  She considered his generosity, not liking where her thoughts led. “And what about you? Without that seal…”

  “Priorities.”

  “What?”

  “Priorities, Octavia. Focus on your future, not mine.” He nodded to the doors ahead, dark and sealed at the end of the corridor. “We’re here.”

  “Will you be waiting?” she asked him. “When this is over?”

  “No. I am retrieving First Claw from the surface within the hour.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry. If I could…”

  “Fair enough.” She touched the metal band implanted on her forehead. Strange, the things one could get used to. With a smile, she said, “I’ll see you soon.”

  Septimus nodded and the Navigator entered the apothecarium. As the doors opened, the servitor surgeons powered up from their sterile silence. Septimus watched them until the doors closed again with a grinding clank. They were a familiar sight for him, having been in their care for weeks himself.

  He checked his wrist chron once Octavia was out of sight, and made his patient way back through the ship. The war on the surface of Crythe once again demanded his presence.

  Octavia emerged two hours later. The band of restrictive metal was gone from her forehead. She wore a headband of black silk, given to her by Septimus for this purpose, to use when the time was right. It neatly covered her third eye.

  In her pocket was a silver Legion medallion, handed to her by a nameless Astartes who presided over her surgery. He hadn’t said a word the whole time.

  She turned it over in her hands, seeing the same tower symbol minted into the metal. A hive spire. Somewhere on Nostramo, most likely. On the other side, the impression of a face, lost to time’s wear, with the faint inscription “Ave Dominus Nox”.

  This she could read, for it was High Gothic, not Nostraman. Hail the Lord of the Night. The ruined face, smoothed by age, must be their father—the Night Haunter. She looked at the featureless visage for a long moment, then pocketed the coin.

  Staring into the darkness, she suppressed a shiver of fear. This was the first time she’d been out of her quarters without an escort. The seal in her jacket pocket was cold comfort in the bowels of the Covenant. What guarantee did she have that anyone down here would care if she carried the coin?

  Her hand vox crackled, and she knew who it would be. Only two people ever voxed her, and Septimus was planetside.

  “Hello, Etrigius,” she said.

  “Are you coming for another lesson tonight?”

  She reached up to touch the silk bandana, and a wicked little smile creased her lips.

  “Yes, Navigator,” she said.

  “I will send servitors at once,” he replied.

  She thumbed the coin in her pocket, and stared into the darkened corridor ahead.

  “No need,” she said, and started moving her heart beating in time to her hurried footsteps. Eyes—unseen by Octavia but not unnoticed by her—watched as she walked the blackened halls of the tainted ship.

  Long before he had earned the honour of wearing the war-plate of the VIII Astartes Legion, Talos had ghosted through the streets of his birth hive on his home world. It was a life lived in the darkness, a life of avoiding stronger predators and carefully choosing weaker prey.

  He knew he’d come late to the Legion, and the fact pained him. Nostramo was already forgetting the lessons learned under the claws of the Night Haunter. Scant years after the great Konrad Curze had ascended into the heavens to wage war with his Imperial father, the world he left behind began its inexorable backslide into familiar degeneracy.

  Street gangs carved out territories in the habitation and industrial sectors; little princelings marking their claimed turn by runes painted on walls and—in echo of the Haunter himself—the remains of enemies prominently displayed where their kin and brethren would take heed.

  Talos had known Xarl even then. They had grown up togeth
er, sons of mothers widowed in the underworld wars that broke out once the shadow of the Haunter was a fear of the past. Before their tenth birthdays, both boys were accomplished thieves, inducted into the same gang claiming their hab sector as its domain.

  By the time the boys were thirteen, both were killers. Xarl had killed two kids from a rival gang peppering their bodies from an ambush with his heavy-calibre autopistol. He’d needed both hands to hold that gun, and the sound it made when it fired… A deafening boom that split the silence.

  Talos had been there when Xarl made his first kills, but had shed no blood himself that night. His own first murder had been the year before, when a storekeeper had sought to beat them for stealing food. Talos had reacted before his conscious mind even gripped the situation—a brutal, primal flash of instinct that saw the storekeeper coughing and gasping on the floor, Talos’ knife buried to the hilt in his heart.

  Even now, even over a hundred years later for Talos, while the galaxy had turned ten thousand years since that old man had last drawn breath, he still remembered the strange friction of the blade slamming home.

  It stayed with him, that sensation: the scratching twist as the first thrust buckled, defeated by the weak armour of the man’s rib bones. Then the way the blade had sped up as it slid between the ribs, sticking fast with a sickening, meaty whisper of a sound.

  Blood immediately came from the man’s lips. A spluttering spray. Talos felt the flecks of spit-thinned blood on his cheeks, his lips and in his eyes.

  They’d ran in a panic, Xarl half-laughing and half-crying, Talos in stunned silence. As always, they took to the streets, hiding there, making the dark city into the haven their homes would never be. Places to get lost, ways to stalk prey, a million ways to move unseen.

  These were the lessons he took with him to the stars, when his own ascension came. These were the instincts he relied on when he stalked the night-time cities of a hundred and more worlds.

  Uzas’ voice, voxed from some distance away, was agitated.