When all of the slab-muscled monsters were prepared Bellathonis jabbed a finger towards the black cliffs and shouted the command phrase to them, ‘Khourankir V’sylthi! Awake! Go up there! Kill the beamers! Kill! Kill!’
The lumbering grotesques were dazed and half-deafened by the battle raging around them. At first they were slow to understand the mnemonic phrase Bellathonis used and he had to repeat it. On the second incantation the iron-masked faces of the grotesques lifted slowly to focus on the cliffs while the bellow-pumps stitched to the monsters’ backs began to clench and unclench faster. Blocks of syringes lodged into their spines automatically depressed plungers to dump concentrated doses of hormones and stimulants into their already heavily boosted systems.
The grotesques shook themselves and roared with bloodlust as the hellish cocktail pulsed through their veins. The thick-limbed giants abruptly lunged forwards with their legs pounding and arms flailing as they ran headlong for the cliffs with quite astonishing swiftness. Bellathonis blinked in surprise then dashed after them, fearful of losing track of his creations entirely. Xagor, fearful of losing his master, ran after him.
A vagrant beam slashed across the grotesques as they charged forwards. The beam was turning to rain more hell upon Xhakoruakh’s failing defences, so it was only a glancing blow, although that alone would have atomised any mandrake or ur-ghul in its path. Bellathonis was delighted to see his creations storm through the shaft of previously all-destroying light and come out of it only mildly scorched. If anything the grotesques only seemed to get angrier and ran even faster to reach their tormentors.
They reached the deeper shadows directly beneath the cliffs. These were a battleground where the remnants of Xhakoruakh’s vanguard were in the process of being slaughtered by Azoruakh’s triumphant troops. The grotesques crashed into the snarling melee with all the finesse of a tsunami. Body parts flew as the monsters tore through friends and foes alike with hooks, claws and cleavers driven by bulging muscles and berserk, atavistic rage.
‘No!’ Bellathonis shrieked at the top of his lungs. ‘Up! Up! Climb! Kill the beams!’
A few of the masked grotesques heard Bellathonis’s cry and their compulsion to obey their creator sent them lurching headlong against the cliffs. As the first few began to climb, ape-like, up the rough surface, the rest of the pack turned to follow them. Within a few seconds the entire group of lumpen meat-devils were hauling themselves on to the first terrace to renew their onslaught. Bellathonis ascended to join them through sheer force of will, briefly decoupling his false perceptions of Aelindrach’s solidity and gravity to float up as easily as if he’d been wearing a gravity harness. Xagor was left abandoned to his own devices and had to scramble up behind the haemonculus as best he could manage.
As he alighted on the terrace and permitted physical laws to take on a more recognisable aspect Bellathonis finally got to see one of Azoruakh’s strange weapons up close. It was mounted on a forked metal pedestal with two handles that allowed it to be swivelled and tilted to direct the beam. The weapon itself was bell-shaped with the open end acting as the emitter. A simple lever appeared to be the only way of activating the device. There was something familiar about the workmanship, Bellathonis thought. The weapon was certainly not something made in Aelindrach yet it had clearly been created with its effectiveness in the shadow-realm in mind.
Bellathonis turned the pedestal so that it pointed to a higher tier where several more of the weapons were busy concentrating their beams on Xhakoruakh and his shrinking entourage. He pulled the lever and watched with interest as a hazy column of luminescence sprang into being before it and seemed to almost tunnel its way through the air towards the target. The section of cliff he’d aimed at flared with milky incandescence as the beam struck it, a billowing plume of soot and shadow spurting away from the circle of light. Nothing else seemed to happen for a moment and Bellathonis felt a sense of disappointment.
Then the beams springing from the weapons mounted near the spot flailed wildly and then tumbled as the cliff underneath them gave way. An avalanche of dark shale and spinning shafts of light gathered pace with awful deliberation. It thundered into the ground with a bone-jarring impact that kicked up vast plumes of detritus in all directions.
From his perch the haemonculus contemplated the resultant destruction and then hastily shut off the beam. He picked up the skirts of his robe and ran headlong away from the weapon, trying to put as much distance between himself and it as he could. He was barely in time. Close at his heels shafts of light from higher tiers swung down to annihilate the traitorous device before it could inflict any more harm. The dense, rocky material of the terrace reverberated like a tuning fork under his feet. The back-scatter from the beams produced roiling clouds of darkness that engulfed Bellathonis and robbed him of any sense of direction.
He staggered and felt the surface beneath him begin to give way. A single beam was traversing slowly along the terrace towards him. Its awful brightness pierced the clouds of debris thrown up by its progress as it methodically annihilated everything in its path.
Bellathonis tried to summon the concentration required to fly again so that he could escape. To his disgust the sense of imminent danger ensured that his simple-minded subconscious kept him thoroughly bound by what it considered to be unbreakable physical laws. With disintegration rapidly approaching him Bellathonis felt only a mild sense of annoyance at his lack of self-control.
A fiercely strong grip latched onto Bellathonis’s arm and yanked him clear of the beam’s path. Once away from the blaze Bellathonis’s perception cleared a little and he realised that Xagor had pulled him into a niche in the cliff face.
‘The master takes too many risks!’ the agitated wrack shouted fiercely over the howling sound made by the beam as it passed.
Bellathonis smiled indulgently at his servant. ‘As ever your loyalty does you credit, Xagor, most gratifying,’ he said. ‘I confess my little experiment drew rather more attention than I’d anticipated. Tell me, did you see if any of the grotesques survived?’
Xagor nodded rapidly and pointed further up the cliff. The grotesques were climbing again in obedience to Bellathonis’s last command. They looked like ugly grey ticks on the flank of a black-haired animal as they hauled themselves upwards. Their obedience would soon disintegrate if they were left to their own pitifully limited recognizance for too long. They would enter a berserk state again and attack anything in reach. Given where the grotesques were now and where they were heading Bellathonis decided that under the circumstances he didn’t care too much if they did.
The attack by the grotesques and Bellathonis’s own improvised experiment had opened a chink in the defences. Xhakoruakh’s followers were beginning to rally and swarm upwards in the wake of the success. At first there was only a trickle, but the numbers swelled into a flood as realisation spread that there was a way to escape the killing rays. Mandrakes, ur-ghuls and nameless things climbed, wriggled and crawled up the cliffs. Fighting spread along the tiers like cold lightning. Bone-blades, teeth and claws flickered with deadly intensity.
The beams that held Xhakoruakh in check were overthrown as their operators were forced to look to their own survival. Finally the giant shadow-king was able to break free and hurl himself into the fray. He sprang up the cliffs roaring out his brother’s name as he plied his heavy scythe with lethal effect. Nothing could stand before him.
‘You know what, Xagor?’ Bellathonis said with a cold smile as the enraged shadow-king swept past their niche. ‘I believe that Xhakoruakh may win this thing yet.’
‘Hooray?’ Xagor wondered miserably.
When they broke down the doors of Azoruakh’s throne room Bellathonis expected some sort of last-ditch defence. Only three of the grotesques had survived, but Xhakoruakh had been so favourably impressed by the beasts’ performance that he insisted on their presence at the front of the assault squad. The shadow-king had b
een most taken with the grotesques’ ability to survive Azoruakh’s exotic weapons in a way none of his other minions could.
‘When I saw the beams being used against us I made a realisation about them,’ Bellathonis had explained. ‘They were based on a principle of resonance that is sometimes referred to as cataclysmic harmonics. In the context of Aelindrach such weapons perforce have to rely on the perceptions of their victims to convey more of their effect than would ordinarily be the case.’
‘So how did your creatures overcome it?’ Xhakoruakh had rumbled with some discontent at the haemonculus’s long-winded answer.
‘I partially blinded and deafened them. An eye and an ear drum were removed from each on the battlefield. That, plus their inherent resistance to pain and damage, rendered the light and noise of the beams survivable for them over a limited exposure. If I may ask something myself? How did you survive? Virtually their entire arsenal was directed at you alone for a while.’
‘Powers beyond Aelindrach favour me, just as others favoured my brother,’ Xhakoruakh replied cryptically. ‘Find your flesh-creatures and bring them to breach the throne room. Their strength will serve us well again.’
Bellathonis had dutifully rounded up the grotesques and placed them before the heavy obsidian doors of the throne room. Between them they held a section of broken column to use as a battering ram, the hallway behind them a seething mass of Xhakoruakh’s triumphant followers. At Bellathonis’s shouted order the grotesques swung the ram with vigour. A single, thunderous crash and the heavy obsidian doors flew back in ruins. Bellathonis shouted another order and the grotesques dropped their cumbersome ram and charged inside.
Bellathonis and Xagor hung back a little to permit the blood-hungry tide of shadow creatures to flood into the throne room with Xhakoruakh at their head. To the haemonculus’s surprise there was no immediate clash of arms or any dramatic declarations of sibling rivalry to be heard being exchanged between Xhakoruakh and his cornered brother. Instead there was only silence coming from the throne room. An ominous silence and the unmistakable stench of death.
After a moment’s hesitation Bellathonis sent Xagor into the throne room to investigate. There was a chance that Azoruakh’s final defence was something so devastatingly lethal that it could destroy Xhakoruakh and all his followers in utter silence. The Black Descent guarded their labyrinth with devices that were just as mortal or just as silent, though none could claim to possess both properties at once. His speculation was terminated by Xagor reappearing in the sundered doorway.
‘All safe, master,’ the wrack said somewhat shakily. ‘Also worthy of the master’s inspection. Outcome surprising.’
Intrigued, Bellathonis followed the wrack inside the room. It was a tall, almost conical space with walls that appeared to be formed out of the swirling collision of jet, onyx, obsidian and basalt. Azoruakh’s – now Xhakoruakh’s – throne stood at the top of a high dais of skulls piled against the back of the chamber. The centre of the floor was dominated by a circular pit. Heavy black chains hung down over the pit and swayed gently as if in response to some movement above.
Bellathonis could perceive no termination to the chains above him – they stretched up and away into a dark, rotating cloud that seemed caught at the pinnacle of the chamber. The pit swiftly became darker than anything Bellathonis had experienced in Aelindrach, a complete absence, an utter nullity that seemed to suck at the soul, consciousness and life itself. The grotesques were milling around near the piled dais of skulls confusedly looking for enemies. Xhakoruakh and his followers were ranged around the pit staring fixedly at the chains in silence, or more accurately at what was hanging from them.
A body, soot-skinned and gigantic, hung from the chains. It had some kinship with Xhakoruakh but would have stood taller and possessed a somewhat rangier form in life. The body had its skin tattooed in blue and yellow witch-fires that were now slowly dying.
A body without a head.
Chapter 14
LABYRINTH
The gravity line hissed past centimetres from Kharbyr’s face as he descended the sluice channel fast enough to make his eyes water. Yllithian’s warriors were ahead of him and behind him too, spaced along the line at regular intervals like beads strung on a wire. They were plunging through clouds of mist thrown up by the active sluice-ways to either side and Kharbyr quickly became slick with the aerosolised waste that was plunging downwards from High Commorragh around him.
Some things never change, eh child?+ Angevere whispered sardonically in his mind.
Blinking through the tears Kharbyr saw flashes of light in the Stygian darkness at the bottom of the sluice, the droplets in the air hemming the bursts with rainbow outlines. A split second later he heard the crack-crack-crack of splinter weapons firing. An ambush! The Black Descent must have learned of Yllithian’s plans and laid a trap for him. All it would take was a few well-placed snipers and they could pick off the warriors coming down the gravity line one by one.
More flashes – disintegrators and blasters for sure – pulsed near the bottom of the sluice. By their light Kharbyr could see that he was getting close to where the channel levelled out and widened. A few more seconds and he would be caught in the fire-trap down there with the others, but there was nowhere for him to go. If he released the line early he would still be trapped within the sluice channel with no way out of it and no further control over his descent. He could crash into the others coming down and would certainly lose plenty of skin through abrasion before ending up in exactly the same place as if he’d held onto the line. There was nothing to do but hang on and hope the unseen snipers missed him.
The gravity-line did not follow the course of the sluice precisely. Instead of turning through a bone-smashingly sharp angle near the bottom in order to become horizontal the line curved and lifted Kharbyr out of the high-walled channel. For a second he could see that the sluice channels fed into wider canals that angled off in all different directions. In the distance he glimpsed the faint gleam of what looked like a lake. Then the line was plunging back into the channel again and it began to corkscrew gently to shave off his remaining momentum. Kharbyr could see charcoal-black figures outlined by the flash of weapons fire in the distance and Yllithian’s warriors ahead of him dropping from the line. This was it.
Kharbyr dropped from the line himself and rolled to one side of the channel with his ill-matched limbs flailing as he skidded to a halt. He bounded to his feet and ran along the edge of the channel on hearing the approach of more White Flames sliding down. The last thing he needed right now was to get tangled up with someone else and provide the enemy with a big, fat, two-for-one target to aim at.
The warriors ahead of him were dutifully hurrying forwards with their guns levelled as the strobing flashes of weapons fire continued. Kharbyr drew his own weapon, a curious-looking pistol with a spiral barrel that Angevere had advised him to use if he was cornered. He had laughed at the idea that he would have to wait to feel cornered before fighting back. With the pistol in hand Kharbyr began to look for targets, jogging forwards towards where the sluice opened out into a wide, dry canal.
Yllithian’s warriors were in a loose semicircle firing outwards into the canal. A few metres in front of them there were heaps of blasted, pulped and torn flesh that had doubtless once been bodies but were now mostly… parts. As more of the warriors arrived and joined the semicircle it expanded and moved forwards, its members still occasionally firing at unseen foes. Kharbyr realised there had been no return fire and that none of the White Flames had fallen. Not an ambush after all, then, but Yllithian’s forces had run up against an enemy of some kind. It was an enemy that made the warriors slightly nervous, if the gratuitous display of firepower being used was anything to go by.
The warriors that had arrived behind Kharbyr joined the semicircle just as the shooting died down. They advanced as a single body and things grew silent again save for the occas
ional kill-shot as they passed the heaps of fallen. Kharbyr moved up behind them and finally got a good look at their enemies.
The first thing that struck him was the stench. Kharbyr had killed enough creatures to know the foetid smell of split intestines and opened stomachs but this… this was so much worse. He covered his mouth and bent down to examine the bodies more closely.
Don’t touch them!+ Angevere hissed in his mind. +They’re diseased! The mark of Nurgle is on these corpses. Step back! The foulness of them offends my senses as much as it does yours.+
Kharbyr had absolutely no intention of touching the things anyway. He could see enough hooked claws and eyeless, domed skulls split by maws full of needle-like teeth to know that they were the remains of ur-ghuls. He suppressed a shudder as he looked at the visibly rotting corpses. He had encountered ur-ghuls in Low Commorragh when he was trying to escape from there with Xagor – right before Bellathonis had stolen his body. Packs of the creatures had been coming up from below and they had seen more of them in the travel tubes. Those had looked diseased too.
You skimmed the edge of Aelindrach when you were with Xagor,+ Angevere announced suddenly, +and there were more of these ghuls on the loose? That’s interesting and very bad news. Someone’s been busy.+
Kharbyr heard footsteps and he turned to find Yllithian approaching in the company of his seemingly omnipresent incubi bodyguards. The archon looked down disdainfully at the heaped corpses.
‘Ur-ghuls. Nothing to worry about,’ Yllithian murmured dispassionately as though speaking to himself. ‘Packs of them tried to swarm the vanguard…’
Yllithian broke off and looked Kharbyr in the face before continuing, ‘…they proved highly resistant to injury, apparently, and had to be just about dismembered to stop them. Fortunately the exceptional weaponry possessed by my warriors ensured that they could prevail. So, what would your professional opinion be about these deathless beasts, Bellathonis?’
Path of the Dark Eldar Page 83
