[Night Lords 02] - Blood Reaver

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden - (ebook by Undead)

  “I have never been granted access to a Legiones Astartes armoury chamber before,” he noted with tinny interest. “Such intriguing disorder.” The tech-adept stood as tall as the warriors, though stick-thin by comparison. He arched over Maruc’s desk, seemingly occupied by pushing a hand-held thermal counter across the wood, the way a child might nudge a dead pet to see if it still breathed.

  “This is broken,” Deltrian observed to the rest of the room. When no one replied, he deployed digital micro-tools from his fingertips and began to repair it.

  “You need me to do what?” Octavia asked again. Disbelief still coloured her voice, bleeding it dry of any respect. “I don’t understand.”

  Talos spoke softly, calmly, as he always did when not wearing his helm. “When the Siege of Vilamus is over, we intend to attack a Red Corsair vessel, one of their flagships, calling itself Venemous Birthright. You will be deploying with us in a boarding assault pod. Once we secure the ship, you will guide it into the warp with the Covenant of Blood, and we will make for the Great Eye in Segmentum Obscurus.”

  Hound, like his namesake, made a growl at the back of his throat. Octavia could barely blink.

  “How will the Covenant jump without me?”

  “I will deal with that,” said Talos.

  “And how will we take over an entire enemy warship?”

  “I will deal with that, as well.”

  She shook her head. “I mean no disrespect, but… if it’s a fair fight…”

  Talos actually laughed. “It will not be a fair fight. That’s why we will win. The Eighth Legion has no passion for fighting fair.”

  “We do tend to lose those,” Cyrion noted with a philosophical air.

  “We’ll handle the blood-work,” Xarl’s voice was a vox-growl, somehow still conveying his eternal eagerness. “Don’t you worry your fragile little skull about it.”

  “But… how will you do it?” Octavia asked.

  “Treachery.” Talos tilted his head. “How else? The details are irrelevant. All you need to know is this: once we return from Vilamus, make sure you are armed and ready. You will join us in a boarding pod, and we will protect you as we move through the enemy decks. The Birthright’s Navigator has to die quickly, lest he jump the ship with us still on board. We will kill him, secure you in his place, and take control of the enemy bridge.”

  Octavia’s gaze drifted over to Deltrian. “And… the honoured tech-adept?”

  “He’s coming with us,” Cyrion nodded.

  The tech-priest turned in a graceful whirr of machine-joints. “As requested, my servitors are re-tooled and poly-tasked for the planned eventualities.”

  She glanced at Septimus, who gave her an awkward smile. “I’m coming, too. So is Maruc.”

  Maruc grunted. “Punishment for my many sins.” He swallowed and shut up the moment Uzas turned towards him.

  “I, also, am coming,” Hound announced. Silence greeted this proclamation. “I am,” he insisted, and turned his blind eyes to Octavia. “Mistress?”

  “Fine,” Cyrion chuckled. “Bring the little rat.”

  “‘Hound’,” Hound replied, almost sulkily. Now he had a name, he clung to it with tenacity.

  “I know what Vilamus is,” she told them. “And that’s why I can’t believe you’re so confident about surviving it. A fortress-monastery? An Adeptus Astartes world?”

  Cyrion turned to Talos. “Why does she never say ‘Lord’ when she addresses us? You used to train these mortals with a stricter hand, brother.”

  Talos ignored him. “None of us will die at Vilamus,” he said.

  “You sound very sure… lord.”

  The prophet nodded. “I am sure. We are not taking part in the main siege. Huron will be tasking us with something else. If I’m correct, then for the first time since you’ve come aboard, we are going to fight a war our way.”

  “And we tend not to lose those,” Cyrion added. For once, there wasn’t a shadow of amusement in his voice.

  Variel opened his eyes.

  “Enter.”

  The door raised on loud, unhappy tracks. The Apothecary loathed the times his Chapter based themselves at Hell’s Iris. The station might be a military marvel, but it was filthy and run-down in a thousand offensive ways.

  “Variel,” Talos greeted him, moving into the chamber.

  Variel didn’t rise from where he sat in the centre of the floor. The meditative control he’d held over his body loosened as awareness of the real world returned. His primary heart, slowed to a state of almost complete sedation, resumed its normal beat, and he felt the invasive warmth of his armour’s interface spikes once more, buried in his body.

  “I suspected you would be immersed in self-reflection,” Talos said through his mouth grille. “But this can wait no longer.”

  Variel motioned to the surgical table against one wall. “Both of your post-surgery examinations have revealed no flaws in my work, or your healing processes.”

  Talos shook his head. “I did not come to speak of that.”

  “Then what brings you here?”

  “I came to speak with you, Variel, brother to brother. With neither my Legion overhearing, nor your Chapter.”

  The Corsair narrowed his emotionless eyes. “And yet you stand… what is your expression? In midnight clad? The winged skull of Nostramo stares at me from your armour, as surely as Huron’s claw is clenched on my own war plate.”

  “Is that an observation?” Talos smiled behind his skull mask, “or a warning?”

  Variel didn’t answer. “You do not even show me your face.”

  “It is too bright in here.”

  “Speak, then.”

  “You are a brother to First Claw. Fryga forged that bond, and it has remained true for two decades. Before I can speak further, I have to know if you intend to honour the oath you took that night.”

  Variel didn’t blink much. Talos had noticed it before, and suspected the habit had an intensely disconcerting effect on humans. He wondered if the effect was something Variel had cultivated over time, or a natural proclivity that grew more obvious after gene-seed implantation.

  “Fryga was almost thirty years ago for me. Only twenty for you, you say? Interesting. The warp has a wonderful sense of humour.”

  “The oath, Variel,” said Talos.

  “I never swore an oath on Fryga. I made a promise. There is a difference.”

  Talos drew his sword, the weapon reflecting shards of the bright light back onto the austere walls.

  “That is still one of the most exquisite blades I have ever seen,” Variel almost sighed.

  “It saved your life,” the prophet said.

  “And I saved yours mere weeks ago. One might say that we were even, and my promise has been kept. Tell me, are you still dreaming of the eldar?”

  Talos nodded, but offered nothing more. “Whether you saved my life or not, I need your help.”

  Variel rose at last, moving over to the end section of his workstation—a sterile washbasin surrounded by racks of tools and fluids. With great care, he disengaged his gauntlets, stripping them off before slowly, slowly washing hands that were already perfectly clean.

  “You want me to betray my Chapter, don’t you?”

  “No. I want you to betray them, steal from them, and abandon them.”

  Variel blinked, slow, like a basking lizard. “Abandon them. Interesting.”

  “More than that. I want you to join First Claw. You should be with us, waging this war as part of the Eighth Legion.”

  Variel dried his hands on a pristine towel-strip. “Get to the point, brother. What are you planning?”

  Talos produced an auspex from a belt pouch. The hand-held scanner had seen better days, scored by decades of use, but it functioned well enough when he activated it. A two-dimensional image resolved on the small screen, the subject of which Variel recognised immediately.

  “The Venomous Birthright,” said the Apothecary. He looked up, attempting to meet the
prophet’s gaze for the first time. It worked, even through the other’s eye lenses. “I had wondered if you would ever detect its heritage, or even care if you did.”

  “I care.” Talos deactivated the auspex. “It’s our ship, and after Vilamus, it will be in Eighth Legion hands again. But I need your help to take it back.”

  On Variel’s shoulder guard, the stretched face of Kallas Yurlon leered eyelessly in the Night Lord’s direction. The Pantheon’s Star still stood proudly on the leathery skin, black against the faded peach-pink of flayed flesh.

  “And if I agreed… What would you need from me?” Variel asked.

  “We cannot storm a cruiser full of Red Corsairs. I need the odds in our favour even before our boarding pods strike home.”

  “Much of that crew is still Nostraman, you know.” Variel didn’t look at Talos as he spoke. “Survivors. Rejuvenated officers, valued for their expertise. Children of first generation exiles from your lost world. While the Night Lords are hardly a brotherhood of blessedly kind masters, I suspect many would prefer the cold embrace of Eighth Legion discipline to the lashes of Red Corsair slavedrivers.”

  He snorted. “Perhaps they will help you reclaim your ship. Not the Navigator, though. Ezmarellda is quite firmly one of Huron’s creatures.”

  Talos wouldn’t be baited. “I need your help, brother.”

  The Apothecary closed his eyes for some time, leaning on his workstation, head lowered. Deep breaths carried through his war plate, causing his shoulders to rise and fall with the hum of active armour.

  He made a noise with his mouth, and shivered. Talos almost asked what was wrong, but Variel made the noise again, his shoulders shaking. When the Apothecary stepped away from the table, his eyes were bright, and his lips pliant in the dead-muscled parody of a smile. He kept making the noise, somewhere between a repetitive breathy grunt and a soft shout.

  For the first time in decades, Variel the Flayer was laughing.

  He raised his head as the door opened again, though it took several attempts to speak.

  “The weekly sip of water?” he sneered in Gothic.

  The voice that answered was Nostraman. “I see they still keep you here, leashed like a prized whore.”

  Ruven gave a growl of guarded surprise. “Come to mock me a second time, brother?”

  Talos crouched by the captive in a purr of active armour. “Not quite. I have spoken of your fate with the Corsairs. They mean to execute you soon, for they can tear nothing more from your mind.”

  Ruven breathed out slowly. “I am not sure I can ever open my eyes again. My eyelids are no barrier to the light, and they feel fused shut.” He strained against the chains, but it was a weak, irritated gesture. “Do not let them kill me, Talos. I would rather die by a Legion blade.”

  “I owe you nothing.”

  Ruven smiled, cracked lips peeling back from aching teeth. “Aye, that’s true enough. So why did you come?”

  “I wanted to know something before you died, Ruven. What did you gain from that first betrayal? Why did you turn from the Eighth Legion and wear the colours of Horus’ Sons?”

  “We are all Horus’ sons. We all carry his legacy with us.” Ruven couldn’t help the edge of passion creeping into his tone. “Abaddon is the Bane of the Imperium, brother. His is the name whispered by a trillion frightened souls. Have you heard the legends? The Imperium even believes him to be Horus’ cloned son. And he bears that legend for a reason. The Imperium will fall. Perhaps not this century, and perhaps not the next. But it will fall, and Abaddon will be there, boot on the throat of the Emperor’s bloodless corpse. Abaddon will be there the night the Astronomican dies, and the Imperium—at last—falls dark.”

  “You still believe we can win this war?” Talos hesitated, for this was something he’d simply never expected. “If Horus failed, what chance does his son have?”

  “Every chance, for no matter what you or I might say, it’s a destiny written in the stars themselves. How much larger are the forces in the Eye now, than those that first fled after the failed Siege of Terra? How many billions of men, how many countless thousands of ships, have rallied to the Warmaster’s banner in ten millennia? Abaddon’s might eclipses anything Horus ever commanded. You know that as well as I. If we could refrain from butchering one another for long enough, we’d already be pissing on the Imperium’s bones.”

  “Even the primarchs failed.” Talos wouldn’t give ground. “Terra burned, but rose again. They failed, brother.”

  Ruven turned his face to the prophet, swallowing to ease the pain of speaking. “That is why you remain blind to our destiny, Talos. You still idolise them. Why?”

  “They were the best of us.” It was clear from the prophet’s voice—Ruven knew he’d never even considered the question before.

  “No. There speaks the voice of worship, and brother, you cannot afford to be so naive. The primarchs were humanity magnified—all of mankind’s greatest attributes, balanced by its greatest flaws. For every triumph or flash of preternatural genius, there was a crushing defeat, or another step deeper on the descent into madness. And what are they now? Those that still exist are distant avatars, sworn to the gods they represent, ascended to devote their lives to the Great Game. Think of the Cyclops, staring into every possible eternity with his one poisoned eye, while a Legion of the walking dead does the bidding of his few surviving children. Think of Fulgrim, so enraptured by the glory of Chaos that he remains blind to his own Legion’s shattering millennia ago. Think of our own father, who ended his life as a conflicted madman—dedicated one moment to teaching the Emperor some grand, idealistic lesson, and devoted the next moment to doing nothing but eating the heart of any slave within reach, while he sat in the Screaming Gallery, laughing and listening to the wails of the damned.”

  “You are not answering my question, Ruven.”

  He swallowed again. “I am, Talos. I am. The Eighth Legion is a weak, unbalanced thing—a broken coalition devoted to its own sadistic pleasure. No greater goals beyond slaughter. No higher ambitions beyond surviving and slaughtering. That is no secret. I am no longer a Night Lord, but I am still Nostraman. Do you think I enjoyed kneeling before Abaddon? Do you think I relished that the Warmaster rose from another Legion, instead of my own? I loathed Abaddon, yet I respected him, for he will do what no other can. The gods have marked him, chosen him to remain in the material realm and do what the primarchs never could.”

  Ruven took a shivering breath, visibly weakening as he finished. “You asked why I joined the Despoiler, and the answer is in the fate of the primarchs. They were never intended to be the inheritors of this empire. Their fates were sealed with their births, let alone their ascensions. They are echoes, almost gone from the galaxy, engaged in the Great Game of Chaos far from mortal eyes. The empire belongs to us, for we are still here. We are the warriors that remained behind.”

  Talos took several seconds to answer. “You truly believe what you are saying. I can tell.”

  Ruven gave a defeated laugh. “Everyone believes it, Talos, because it is the truth. I left the Legion because I rejected the aimless butchery, and the naive, worthless hope of simply surviving this war. Survival wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to win.”

  The prisoner sagged in his chains. Instead of hanging slack, he fell forwards, crashing onto the cold deck. At first he couldn’t move—the shock was too great, as was the pain of reawakening muscles abused in the fall.

  “I… I am free,” he breathed.

  “Yes, brother. You are free.” Talos helped the trembling sorcerer sit up. “It will be several minutes before your legs are ready to be used again, but we must be quick. For now, here, drink this.”

  Ruven reached out, his fingers curling around the offered cup. The tin was warm in his numb fingers. Sensation was returning to his extremities already.

  “I understand none of this. What’s happening?”

  “I traded a supply of our gene-seed reserves to the Blood Reaver, in exchange for yo
ur life.” Talos let that sink in; the immense wealth of such an offer. “And then I came to free you,” the prophet admitted, “or slit your throat. Your fate depended on what you would say. And I agree with you in one respect, brother. I am also tired of just surviving this war. I want to start winning it.”

  “I need my armour. And my weapons.”

  “They are already in First Claw’s armoury.”

  Ruven gripped the iron collar around his throat. “And this. This must be removed. I cannot summon my powers.”

  “Septimus will remove it.”

  The sorcerer chuckled. It sounded decidedly unhealthy. “You are up to Septimus now? When I last walked the corridors of the Covenant, you were served by Quintus.”

  “Quintus died. Can you stand, yet? I will support you, but time is short, and even through my helm, the light is beginning to pain me.”

  “I will try. But I have to know, why did you free me? You are not a charitable soul, Talos. Not to your enemies. Give me the truth.”

  The prophet hauled his former brother up, taking most of Ruven’s weight. “I need you to do something, in exchange for saving your life.”

  “I will do it. Name it.”

  “Very soon, the Covenant will have to fly without a Navigator.” The prophet’s voice lowered and softened. “We’ll remove the collar, and restore your powers, for there is no one else who can do it, Ruven. I need you to jump the ship.”

  PART THREE

  ECHO OF DAMNATION

  XVII

  VILAMUS

  Tareena thumbed her tired eyes, pushing hard enough to see colours. Once she was satisfied she’d numbed the itch into oblivion, she adjusted the vox-mic fastened to her ear and tapped it twice to assure herself that it was as useless as it’d been for the last few weeks.

  Her auspex didn’t so much chime lately as gargle, its rhythmic scanning note broken into an irregular stutter of audible static. The screen looked as clean as the scanner sounded, displaying a wash of distortion that meant nothing to anybody.