Path of the Dark Eldar

by Andy Chambers

  First came rows of oiled and naked slaves of a variety of races holding the leashes of the Epicurean’s pets. Slinking sabercats snarled at imperturbable massiths, blade-legged helspiders marched beside drooling, heavily sedated bhargesi. A kaleidoscopic display of fur, feathers and scales was guided slowly along by the sweating slaves under the watchful eyes of the beastmasters. Occasionally a sudden disturbance in the ranks marked where an irritated pet had turned on their handler, but the steady flow of exotic beasts never halted.

  Behind the pets came the favoured slaves. Most of them had been freakishly altered by the flesh-carving arts of the haemonculi into walking sculptures of bone and meat. A few opulently dressed turncoats moved among the staggering, skittering throng and shouted grovelling praises to their masters for their continued existence. It was hard to tell if the braying and moaning of their heavily altered compatriots signified their agreement or disapproval.

  Next came the artisans: cadaverous haemonculi with their wrack servants in their barred masks, they mixed freely with master weaponsmiths and forge overseers resplendent in their kilts of blades, gravity sculptors walking with wheels of knives spinning above their heads. Here and there gaudy mixologists and painted Lhamaens warred with another to produce the most overwhelming musks and pheromones. Brightly coloured clouds leapt in to the air from their flasks and vials like flights of escaping birds.

  The artisans were favoured enough to wear the sigils of their sponsors, all being members of the host of minor Epicurean kabals that passed for authority in lower Metzuh tier. Here was the triple slash of the Soul Cutters, there the rearing serpent of the Venom Brood, or the sickle blade of the Shadow Reapers or a score of others. The artisans mingled despite their temporary allegiances. Their skills were in such great demand among the epicureans that their loyalties shifted frequently, and for them today’s rival might become tomorrow’s ally in the anarchic lower courts. False flattery and insincerity thrummed through their ranks as they greeted one another over and over again with the most extravagant courtesies.

  Kharbyr tensed. The feeling of being watched was back, as sudden and direct as if someone was standing right behind him and breathing down his neck. He anxiously scanned the slowly moving column trying to identify the source. There, a masked wrack still quite far away down the procession, just occasionally bobbing into view among other apprentices and journeymen. But that particular iron-barred masked looked too frequently towards the awning where Kharbyr stood for it to be coincidence. Was this his contact finally approaching or an imposter? Anything was credible right now. Kharbyr loosened his knife in its sheath before settling back into the shadows to wait and find out.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE QUESTION OF ESCAPE

  The gloomwings became progressively less numerous while at the same time becoming larger and more corpulent. Some were big enough to engulf a person whole, but they were much slower and less aggressive than the rest. Large or small, Morr tirelessly slaughtered everything that came within reach of his klaive and drove the remnants before him in a shrieking, chittering wave.

  Eventually a break among the filth-encrusted walls showed an unfamiliar gleam of metal. Closer examination showed a low side-shaft sloping upward at a gentle angle. It had once been guarded by a grillwork of bars, but time and the gloomwings had eaten away at the soft metal to leave only broken stubs like rotten teeth in an open mouth. Morr crawled inside without hesitation, using his klaive to lever himself up against the slippery walls and rapidly disappearing from sight.

  The motley one sniffed and peered after the incubus with comical dismay. ‘Really?’ he called. ‘I say again, this is really the best you could come up with?’ Stubborn silence met his jibe and after a while, and with an audible sigh, he bent down and followed.

  The shaft proved to be short, no more than a dozen metres long, before it emerged into the side of another, larger, sloping shaft at right angles. The filth here was so prevalent that it was pitch dark, almost like swimming in black water. Rustling, chittering noises echoed weirdly around the shaft, along with the scraping sounds of something big moving around.

  ‘Morr, is that you I can hear?’

  Guided by instinct alone the motley one skipped aside as something came rushing out of the blackness. Its impact against the wall of the shaft was shattering, a thunderclap sound in the enclosed space.

  ‘Oh enough is enough!’ The motley one muttered as he threw a small object on the ground. The inky blackness was riven by a flash of light so bright it was as though a sun had blinked into existence for a microsecond and engulfed that dark hole in its brilliant photosphere. The momentary glare revealed a monstrous, cloaked figure poised over something that thrashed and struggled in the leaping shadows. A flock of tiny gloomwings overhead shrieked and died in the flash, their nerveless bodies tumbling down like a sudden storm of black snowflakes.

  Darkness swiftly descended again, but only for an instant. Red lightning flared from where the cloaked figure had stood, followed by the pure white flash of a power weapon strike. The armoured figure of Morr wielding his klaive was revealed in the actinic afterimage. He seemed poised in the act of striking at rippling curtains of dark flesh surrounding him. Another strike flashed followed by another, the flickering stop-motion progress of the incubus’s assault speeding up into a continuous blur of light.

  The monstrous figure was revealed as not cloaked but winged – many-winged, in fact – as was shown when it reared back to try and escape its tormentor. It gave a deep, ululating cry of despair as the klaive bit deep into its flesh again and opened its body sac to disgorge a tidal wave of offal. The thing collapsed into a writhing mass, its fleshy wings flailing at the stone with horrid strength. Morr dodged through the thrashing mass to cleave through its primary nerve stem, reducing its dying spasms to a few shuddering twitches.

  Morr eventually rose from the centre of the dying mass like a gore-smeared phoenix, his klaive sizzling and steaming with caustic ichor. Motley applauded him lightly.

  ‘Bravo, Morr, once again you prove more than equal to the challenges set before you!’ Motley smiled before coughing theatrically into his sleeve. ‘Though of course we mustn’t overlook the small contributions made by your gallant companion.’

  Morr glared at the implication. ‘The creature was under control before your intrusion,’ he argued hotly. ‘It may have hastened matters but it did not change the outcome.’

  ‘Well time is of the essence so you are welcome anyway, my friend, we’ve only a short while before Commorragh becomes isolated by the Dysjunction and we’re stuck here among a lot of people that want you dead,’ Motley said brightly as he nudged an outflung wing with one elegantly pointed toe. ‘So… I assume this is why not many people come this way?’

  Morr snarled something unintelligible and stomped off up the sloping tunnel. Motley edged carefully around the dying creature that had once been known as patriarch to a thousand offspring and skipped nimbly after him.

  The tunnel levelled out ten metres before it, and the roof opened to admit another vertical shaft with no visible means of climbing it. The tunnel itself came to a dead end dominated by a wide ellipse of sparkling metal and silvery stone that was reminiscent of the outline of a great eye. Blank stone showed behind the structure and it seemed to hang in the air unsupported by any of the tunnel walls. There was an aura of quiescent power about it, as though a swift, silent river was flowing nearby.

  ‘Ah ha!’ exclaimed Motley. ‘This looks like an old ship gate, well a smallish one anyway. That’s why I love this city you know, Morr? Turn a corner and you never know what you might stumble across.’

  Morr directed a withering gaze at him in return. ‘Archon Kraillach secured this gate long ago to be his own secret means of entrance and egress to the city. It is not locked to a destination, nor is it monitored in any way.’ Motley blanched a little at the incubus’s words.

  ‘Wit
h a Dysjunction imminent doesn’t that mean…?’ Motley asked.

  Morr continued as if Motley had not spoken at all. ‘When the Dysjunction occurs this gate may collapse altogether. It will certainly be forced open for a time and anything that finds it might come through into the city. We must be far from here before that happens.’

  ‘We? Oh Morr, I didn’t know you cared!’ effused Motley. ‘You see? We’re becoming such good pals already!’

  ‘I cannot prevent your unwanted attentions, I must endure the inevitable consequences of my actions,’ Morr intoned. The words seemed to form a personal mantra for him and he repeated them quietly. ‘I must endure the inevitable consequences of my actions.’

  ‘Not merely endure. I’m afraid, my old friend, that you must atone for them too,’ Motley said sympathetically, ‘and not just the actions you’re thinking about.’ Morr turned his blank helm to face Motley, its crystal eyepieces seeming to flash with red flames. Motley obediently lapsed into silence for a moment before changing the subject.

  ‘So is it safe to assume you know how to activate the gate? Is there a mechanism for sealing it behind us?’

  Morr grunted and turned his attention to a panel on the lower edge of the gate. Initially Motley took a mild interest in Morr activating the gate but became increasing distracted by the tunnel behind them. He glanced back several times before wandering aimlessly a short distance away from where Morr crouched with head tilted as if listening. Motley suddenly snapped his fingers together, plucking something out of the air in a half-seen blur of movement. He examined his prize with interest.

  ‘Oh, interesting,’ Motley said. ‘I think you should look at this, Morr.’ He thrust something tiny towards Morr, something small enough that it was barely visible pinched between Motley’s gloved thumb and forefinger. An insect, seemingly, but surely no living insect was ever spun so finely from metal and crystal as the spying device Motley held.

  ‘The flare must have blacked out their primary sources so they had to send up back-ups at short notice, no doubt there’s more of them around.’ For a moment Motley’s voice held none of its usual levity or hidden jests, then he brightened again and smiled capriciously. ‘Someone is watching us, my friend,’ Motley said and turned the device towards himself before enunciating clearly into it. ‘I do hope they just watch and don’t intend to do anything to interfere, that would be unfortunate,’ Motley crushed the spy fly between his fingertips and blew away the dust of its wreckage.

  ‘Let us find out what our watchers intend,’ Morr said ominously, straightening and stepping back from the gate. A curtain of shimmering energy began to coalesce within the gate. At first it was made of pure silver light but as the curtain strengthened it became shot through with flashes of gold and umber. After a moment coiling threads of green and blue snaked across the surface. There was something venomous-looking about the portal, an intrinsic malevolence that made both Morr and Motley take another involuntary step back from it.

  ‘Is it…?’ Morr began, but left the thought unfinished.

  ‘The Dysjunction. Yes,’ Motley said hurriedly, his ordinarily light demeanour suddenly serious. ‘It must be only moments away. We have to leave right now or at best we’ll be trapped here for the duration. At worst, in about five minutes, we’ll be up to our ears in daemons.’

  A weight appeared to lift from Morr’s shoulders. He took up his klaive and went to stand facing the centre of the gate. ‘Then let them come,’ he intoned. ‘I am ready.’

  Motley goggled incredulously at the incubus. ‘Now is not the time to make the supreme sacrifice trying to hold this one portal in a city of a million portals!’ he shrilled desperately. ‘Go to your hierarchs if you must, but we must tackle the root cause of this Dysjunction together and quickly! We have to go!’

  Morr shook himself reluctantly out of the death-fantasy. It was so much easier to seek atonement through self-destruction than by facing his crimes that it seemed unfair to be robbed of the chance. The fact it was easier would have convinced him that it was the wrong path to take even without Motley’s screeching imprecations. The portal throbbed and shimmered before them both uncertainly, a threshold to the webway, itself a path to a billion other places known and unknown, hidden and obvious, open and forbidden. The place Morr must go to was well hidden, but forbidden to none. Any might seek the hidden shrine of Arhra; the true question was whether they would survive to leave it. Morr took a single step towards the open portal with Motley close at his heels before a harsh shout from behind caused them both to halt abruptly and turn.

  ‘Stop right there! You’re not permitted to leave the city!’

  ‘Last chance, Sybris,’ Aez’ashya said as she stepped onto the platform. ‘Back down and join with me. I’ll even make you one of my succubae if you still want it.’

  Sybris’s braided hair gave her an angular, statuesque profile above her high-necked skinsuit. She raised her chin defiantly and shot Aez’ashya a look of withering disdain.

  ‘An honour that should already rightfully be mine,’ Sybris spat. ‘You offer me scraps from your table when you aren’t even fit to be an archon, let alone a ynnitach in High Commorragh.’

  Ynnitach, bride of death. So be it, Aez’ashya thought, as she raised her hydra gauntlets and closed her fists. The crystalline shards protruding from her wrists and elbows crackled as they grew outward into wickedly hooked blades. Sybris needed no more invitation than that to launch into her attack. She pirouetted lazily towards Aez’ashya, her half-moon blades swinging out like pendulums.

  Aez’ashya ducked beneath the glittering arc of the first blade, then sidestepped away from the second to reach the centre of the disk. Sybris instantly reversed her motion with a high kick and came after Aez’ashya hard. The deadly spirals of Sybris’s sweeping blades tightened inexorably to make a double strike on Aez’ashya. The blades sliced down with unstoppable power as the hekatrix threw her full body weight behind them. Aez’ashya rolled away from the attack, snapping up to her feet at the edge of the disk. She was just in time to catch Sybris’s counter-swing on one of her gauntlet-blades and twist it savagely.

  Sybris backflipped to avoid having her weapon wrenched out of her grasp and Aez’ashya easily avoided a backhanded blow as Sybris fought to recover. The razor edges of the hydra gauntlets whispered within millimetres of the silky surface of Sybris’s skin as she twisted away, swiftly pirouetting again to build her momentum back up. Aez’ashya grinned wolfishly.

  Every one of Sybris’s moves was just a fraction slower than they should be, a fact that Sybris herself didn’t seem to be aware of just yet. She swung in again, straight arms sweeping the blades at Aez’ashya’s exposed throat and belly. This time Aez’ashya stood her ground and struck out at the slashing blades, not aiming to block them but merely redirecting them so that they sailed harmlessly past her. One of Aez’ashya’s gauntlet blades seemed to glide across Sybris’s midriff as she returned to a guard position, carving a crimson line through skinsuit and flesh. The tip of the blade broke off in the wound with a high-pitched crackling sound and Sybris gasped as she jerked back.

  Sybris’s blade-tipped braid whipped forward like a striking snake. There was no fractional delay to the move and it caught Aez’ashya by surprise. A bunched fist of scalpel-sharp, finger-long blades came swinging at her eyes, provoking an immediate and instinctive reaction. Aez’ashya grabbed the braid and pulled, forcing Sybris to backflip over her. Aez’ashya drew one of her elbow blades across Sybris’s flashing thigh, carving another red trail and leaving another crystalline shard behind to work its way into the wound. Sybris swung viciously at Aez’ashya’s imprisoning gauntlet, forcing her to relinquish her grasp. Aez’ashya let go and allowed Sybris to spin away from her, re-occupying her position at the centre of the disk.

  It all came down to the planning, as Aez’ashya had come to appreciate after recent events, preparation meant victory. The old Aez’ashya wo
uld simply have taken up this challenge with whatever was at hand and wherever was convenient. The new Aez’ashya understood the value of picking your ground and choosing your weapons carefully. The fighting area was just a little too constricted for Sybris to build up to her full speed, the gravity in it just a shade heavier than Sybris was used to. Aez’ashya was of the firm opinion that too many wyches trained in low gravity environs, that many became seduced by the more spectacular fighting styles they permitted. Sybris was living proof of the fact.

  Now it was only a matter of time. The crystalline blades of Aez’ashya’s gauntlets had already regrown. Fragments that they had left in Sybris’s wounds would keep them bleeding freely despite the best efforts of her skinsuit to seal the cuts. Sybris’s style relied on momentum, now that constant motion was causing her to bleed out all the faster. Aez’ashya settled herself to wait for the inevitable opening.

  The masked wrack separated from the Epicurean’s procession and approached openly. As he did so Kharbyr surreptitiously drew his knife and held it ready beneath his cloak. The wrack held up both hands to show they were empty of weapons, although the curved, bird-like claw grafted in place of the wrack’s right hand would have made a passable weapon on its own. A new addition, Kharbyr judged by the way the wrack struggled with it while removing his mask. The thick-browed and morose face that was revealed looked familiar enough – but that meant nothing in Commorragh where flesh could be twisted and reshaped for the price of a hot meal. Kharbyr smiled insincerely and spoke first.

  ‘Greetings,“Xagor”. How many daemons at the gate?’

  ‘Six, and Kharbyr was almost taken,’ the wrack responded evenly.

  Kharbyr’s face flushed angrily at the memory. ‘Very clever, now what is it you want?’ he snapped.

  ‘Too open here. Inside?’

  Xagor stepped towards the entrance to the den, perhaps a little too eagerly, but Kharbyr stopped him with an outstretched arm.