The fourth incubus hefted his klaive to cut down Motley with a single stroke from neck to crotch. The long-barrelled pistol in Motley’s hand spat twice, striking sparks from the incubus’s warsuit but not materially impeding his progress. The klaive swept downward in an unstoppable killing blow and Motley seemed to explode into blinding shards of light. The incubus’s strike fell on empty air as Motley whirled away from beneath it, entirely hidden for a second by the activation of his Domino field. The incubus twisted his downward cut into a disembowelling swing, the two-metre blade sweeping after the frenetically dancing blur of colours.
Motley leapt upwards and flipped himself backwards over the klaive as it rushed by beneath him. He got an inverted glance at Morr as he did so. Morr was lunging for one of his attackers again, but he had to turn and defend himself as the other immediately came at his back. The two incubi were circling to keep the towering incubus flanked while the third recovered from Morr’s opening blast of neural energy. The incubi would overwhelm Morr in seconds once all three came against him at once. Their three klaives to his one would beat down his guard, tear through his armour and spray his lifeblood across the causeway.
Motley planted one foot on the flat of the blurring klaive and used it to boost off for a kick into his assailant’s face. His soft shoe did no damage at all to the incubus’s rigid war helm, but the buffet was enough to disorient the warrior for a split second while Motley leapt completely over him. The Harlequin landed behind the incubus’s back and spun to tap him lightly on the shoulder. The incubus roared in frustration and twisted to bring his klaive whistling around. As the incubus turned his arm was raised shoulder-high to drag the klaive in its glittering arc. Motley punched into the incubus’s armpit with deadly precision, striking for the chink where the armour plates separated for an instant.
The incubus staggered at the seemingly weak blow and the klaive fell from his hands. The warrior reeled for a second more before collapsing back with blood leaking from every joint and seal in his armour. He was a victim of the Harlequin’s kiss – a simple, deadly weapon unobtrusively strapped to Motley’s forearm. The tubular device contained a hundred metres of monomolecular wire tightly wound like a spring. By punching forward the monomolecular filaments were sent looping outward and then instantly withdrawn. If the tip of the wire pierced a target’s flesh the unfurling wires would turn their innards into the consistency of soup in a split second.
Motley wasted no time in mourning his opponent’s messy demise. He snapped his attention back to where Morr was fighting for his life against the other three attackers. Morr had succeeded in driving one of his foes into the marsh at the edge of the causeway. He was keeping the other at bay with vicious swipes of his klaive in between hammering blows down on the one he had trapped, but his third opponent had recovered and was re-entering the fray. As Morr turned to hurl one last, desperate blow against his foe in the marsh the others seized their chance and leapt forward with klaives swinging for Morr’s back. Motley was already moving, his pistol levelling for a shot into the swirling melee that could not possibly change the outcome.
Too late Morr’s attackers realised they had been duped. The towering incubus altered his klaive’s direction at the last moment and he swung with it, spinning aside with the momentum to bring the deadly blade looping around into the two behind him. The blow was wild and poorly-aimed, either one of the incubi would have dodged or parried it alone. But the two close together, one with reflexes still slowed by neural bombardment, interfered with one another’s defences fatally. The hooked tip of Morr’s klaive crunched home and wrenched free in a bloody spray. One of the incubi fell back with a partially severed arm flopping grotesquely.
Motley bounded across the intervening space, the pistol in his hands pumping shots into the injured incubus almost as an afterthought. He hoped that Morr would understand what he was attempting to do and not accidentally eviscerate him with a wild swing. The towering incubus appeared completely focused on his duel and the glittering arcs of swinging klaives bisected the air without cease. Motley angled off the causeway and into the marsh, his light steps leaving no imprint in the quagmire as he ran.
The incubus that Morr had driven back was struggling his way out of the morass when he saw Motley closing in on him as a scintillating blur of colour. His klaive came up defensively and Motley slid in beneath it, creating a small tidal wave of muck as the Harlequin skidded inside the incubus’s guard. Motley struck faster than a snake, punching his Harlequin’s kiss up where the incubus’s helm met his cuirass – precisely at the point where the weaker neck seal could not resist the deadly, unfurling wire. The incubus’s head left his body in a spectacular gout of crimson, the gore-slicked, hair-fine medusa’s nest of coiling wire visible for a fraction of a second before it retracted inside the Harlequin’s kiss.
Motley turned to see Morr hacking at the two remaining incubi with a lethal onslaught of blows. The injured one was struggling to wield his klaive one-handed as Morr relentlessly drove him into his compatriot in an effort to entangle them both. Recognising the danger the surviving incubus ruthlessly cut down his companion without a second’s thought. Motley tensed to leap to Morr’s aid but then stopped himself. Morr would never accept his help in a one-on-one fight without resentment. Instead Motley forced himself to stand quietly to watch the dazzling storm of blades, allowing himself to enjoy its lethal precision for a moment.
Back and forth the blades swung, tireless as metronomes. Morr’s greater size and reach was slowly wearing his opponent down, but Morr, too, was tiring. The frenetic energy Morr had used in defending himself against multiple opponents was taking its toll. His klaive was moving a fraction slower, his parries were a modicum less sure. His opponent sensed the change and settled into a punishing rhythm intended to leach away the last of Morr’s endurance. Whenever Morr tried to give ground to buy himself respite his opponent followed up relentlessly. Morr circled to avoid being driven off the causeway and countered with a murderous assault of his own, flinging back his smaller foe with a flurry of blows that used the last dregs of his strength.
Only at the last moment did Motley realise what Morr was trying to do. Intent on Morr, the other incubus had his back to Motley and Morr’s assault was pushing him virtually into the Harlequin’s arms. Morr’s blank-faced helm glowered straight at Motley for a moment and then he understood. Motley exploded into action, leaping forward to punch his Harlequin’s kiss down into the nape of the incubus’s neck. The last assailant jerked once spasmodically and collapsed like a puppet with its string cut. An eerie silence descended over the bloodstained scene.
‘Sorry,’ Motley panted. ‘Didn’t realise you’d want me interfering in your little duel at the end there.’
‘Fair fights are for fools and romances,’ Morr grated, his voice still taut with bloodlust.
‘But you said before… Well, never mind I suppose,’ Motley said. ‘I’m just glad there were only four of them.’
‘There was a fifth,’ Morr stated flatly. ‘I do not know why they did not engage us, it would have tipped the odds in their favour.’
Motley recalled the flicker of movement he had seen before the trap was sprung. Morr was right, none of their four assailants had come from the same direction. Someone was still ahead of them on the causeway, between them and the shrine.
‘It would seem the odds were already in their favour, my old friend, but no match for us,’ Motley preened. ‘I’m happy I could be of assistance.’
Morr grunted and hefted his klaive on to his shoulder. He started to walk away along the causeway and then paused for a moment in uncharacteristic indecision. The blank-faced helm half-turned towards Motley.
‘I was grateful for your help,’ Morr said slowly. ‘I have underestimated you in the past. I will not do so again.’
Morr quickly turned and strode onward before Motley could respond. The Harlequin trailed after the towering incubus wondering if he ha
d been complimented or threatened, or both. He decided not to ask Morr exactly what he had seen along the causeway, it was unlikely the incubus’s visual acuity was better than Motley’s own. Aside from that Motley was unsure just how Morr would react if he knew that Motley had caught, just for an instant, the distinct impression of burning eyes set into a many-bladed helm before the mysterious figure vanished into the mist.
In the lightless pits beneath Commorragh a curious procession was cautiously worming its way through the labyrinth of the Black Descent. A secret master masked in metal led two creatures made of metal. They glided easily through the air at the master’s heels like obedient hounds, small for their kind but still as sleek and deadly as hornets. Behind them a group of wracks struggled along bowed down by the weight of cables, tripods and fluid-filled alembics. The secret master leading them, a haemonculus known as Mexzchior, loved the engines like a father – and they were indeed his children, after a fashion.
From his earliest days Mexzchior had developed a supreme fascination with metal in all its aspects, its purity and malleability. He had dedicated himself to finding ways of imbuing metal with life, transforming life into metal and, most of all, teaching metal how to scream.
The two engines that accompanied him, entities Mexzchior designated as Vhi and Cho, were living beings with spirit, direction and purpose – of that he had no doubt. They represented the pinnacle of his art, part organic and part mechanical. Pain engines of their ilk had been built in many forms by many different haemonculi over the millennia, everything from the unlovely chainghouls of the Prophets of Flesh to the intricate masterworks of the legendary master haemonculus, Vlokarian. Despite this Mexzchior liked to believe that his creations were truly unique.
It was true that there were many larger engines, the segmented carapaces of Vhi and Cho were narrower and shorter than most. They slipped silently through the air a scant half-metre above the ground with their scorpion-like tails curving up to just above head-height. Some had mocked his creations as being puny but Mexzchior had quickly silenced them when he demonstrated the speed and agility gained through their design. Very few of the critics had survived the demonstration.
Mexzchior had configured Vhi closely after the classic Talos pain engine style. Its scorpion tail mounted a heat lance for a barb while its underbelly was a swinging mass of chain-flails, razor-edged pincers and surgical saws. Vhi could burn through bulkheads, burst in doors, crush, maim and disembowel with a fierce glee that was a pleasure to behold. Cho was more esoteric in her outfitting, closer to the Cronos parasite engine in function. Cho attacked its victim’s vitality in an altogether different fashion than Vhi. Its weapon were fluted, crystalline devices of sinister import, its armoured shell was covered in bristling antenna and twitching resonator-vanes.
Mexzchior would have been hard put to choose one of his children over the other, but if the great tyrant were to descend from Corespur and demand that one of his engines be destroyed he would have to keep Cho. She had developed a distinctive personality in Mexzchior’s mind, subtle and almost playful in comparison to the brash, direct Vhi. Cho was a time-thief rather than a destroyer, a macabre hunter that could drain the very life-essence from its victims leaving them as nothing more than wizened husks.
Mexzchior felt both thrilled and nervous. Thrilled because the intimate secretary had entrusted him with a vital task, selecting him above all the other secret masters. The secretary had ordered him to send his engines into the Dysjunction-wracked city to find a very specific target. A pouch at Mexzchior’s waist carried the vital imprint materials that would lead his engines straight to their target. The wracks carried a large supply of the vital fluids and nutrients the engines would need while they undertook their task. When they reached the periphery of the labyrinth they would be refilled and then released. That independence was what made Mexzchior nervous. The intimate secretary’s instruction had been very precise, indeed exacting, on the subject once released the engines would operate without assistance as they hunted down their prey.
The intimate secretary had implied that the engines should simply be released into the labyrinth the moment that they were ready. Mexzchior could not bring himself to do that and so he had stretched the secretary’s orders somewhat to guide his children out of the labyrinth before sending them on their way. One last drink and then they would fly the nest to strike and return. They would return, he told himself, some engines went rogue but not his children. They would return to him with evidence of their success and Mexzchior would be finally be exalted by the Black Descent for his true genius.
Mexzchior had briefly wondered who the target might be before thrusting such thoughts from his mind. Someone important and well guarded, clearly, or both engines would not have been demanded. Ultimately it did not matter whether it was a personal enemy of the intimate secretary or a foe of the entire coven, Vhi and Cho would end their existence this very night.
Among the trackless paths of the webway warlock Caraeis paused at a confluence and pondered for a time. The skein of probabilities was tightening inexorably but he was confounded by this particular juncture. Each path led forward but only one of them would bring him to the optimum location in time and space. He reached down into his satchel and brought forth a rune, releasing it from his fingers without looking at it first – a forgivable transgression of Form, so he told himself, under such circumstances of heightened emergency.
The rune of weaving hung before him again, just as he had known it would. It dipped and swayed towards one of the filaments of the confluence, its psychosensitive material reacting to the faint trace left behind by the dark kin. The rune of weaving had come to his hand so many times now that he felt a special kinship with it, almost as if it guided him personally. The rune drew him ever onward and showed him paths of destiny he had not dared to even dream of. The skeins of fate were tightening to a point where he would be at the confluence of events, the key piece in a great change that would touch the lives of billions.
Caraeis recaptured the rune and returned it to his satchel as Aiosa, the leader of his bodyguards, approached. Beneath his masked helm Caraeis grimaced unhappily. The Aspect Warriors were coolly professional in their demeanour yet Caraeis could not escape the impression that they had been assigned to watch him as much as to watch over him. If their exarch was making a point to speak to him directly it was unlikely to be good news.
‘You overstepped your mark with the promises you made on Lileathanir,’ Aiosa said without preamble. ‘Your dishonesty could impugn the honour of the Just Vengeance shrine.’
‘There was no dishonesty,’ Caraeis replied while carefully keeping his voice even and reasonable. ‘I merely made no definition of how swiftly we would return. Naturally I omitted to mention that our first duty would be to return to the council and seek their judgment in the matter.’
‘You deliberately misled the Exodites’ repre-sentative.’
‘I gave her hope. There is every reason to believe that the farseers will accept my proposal for action. I am confident that it will prove to be the correct course.’
‘And if they do not? The Exodites’ hope will be in vain and they will perish awaiting succour that cannot come.’
‘Such a decision falls to hands and minds other than my own. The council is beyond our questions and fears.’
‘Yet you still attempt to manipulate their decision.’
‘Of course, just as they, in turn, manipulate our decisions. Everything is manipulation.’
‘It sits poorly with me to see you manipulate the people of Lileathanir.’
‘They have chosen to hide themselves from the universe. There are limits to how far we can protect them when the universe finds them.’
‘That is a harsh judgement.’
‘The universe is a harsh place, as we well know and would do well to remember. I must note that you made no effort to intercede at the time, has your d
isquiet over my words only developed recently?’
The exarch looked at Caraeis silently for a moment, the tall crest and helm she wore lending her an aura of imperious disdain. Not for the first time was Caraeis reminded that in some regards there was but a wing beat between the Aspect Warriors of the craftworld shrines and the incubi of the dark city. Some even whispered that there was common ancestry between the two. Certainly a warrior code bound them both, the assumption of a strength greater than themselves to make them able to endure the terrible things they must do. One of Caraeis’s colleagues had opined that the difference between Aspect Warriors and incubi was only one of degree, and that where exarchs entered the equation the line blurred almost completely.
‘You should know that I intend to report your actions to the council of seers,’ Aiosa pronounced flatly.
Caraeis mastered his voice carefully before responding. ‘It is your right to do so. I am confident that they will support my decisions. In the meantime may I rely on your continued protection and support?’
‘We will continue to discharge our duties with honour until such time as justice is done or we are recalled.’ The response was passionless and robotic, a rote recitation of dogma. Caraeis accepted it as being as much as he could hope to get.
‘Then… we must continue on our way. The one we seek is close, the action of capture will be challenging in the extreme.’
‘We are equal to the task. Proceed.’
Caraeis turned and led the way into the confluence. The narrow-minded pride of Aspect Warriors was none of his concern. Soon, he thought, very soon his auguries would be completely vindicated.
CHAPTER 12
THE DREAMS OF DRAGONS
In the acrid, trembling World Shrine of Lileathanir Sardon, the unwilling messiah of her Exodite people, slept a sleep of pure exhaustion and dreamed of the dragon.
She had spent her energies attempting to cleanse the shrine and set it to some sort of order even though it seemed like a hopeless task. In the end she had settled for concentrating on disposing of the remains she had found. One-by-one she had dragged seven sets of skeletal remains to the edge of a fiery crevasse before carefully rolling them in.
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