Path of the Dark Eldar

by Andy Chambers

  As she approached there was a sudden change in the timbre of the noise. Instead of many voices talking over each other they were all speaking as one. Aez’ashya broke into a run, sprinting down the ramp with a small part of her wondering if she was heading the wrong way.

  They were chanting Xelian’s name.

  Aez’ashya clattered into the reaver bay to find dozens of wyches, hellions, scourges and beastmasters already there. Others were arriving by the minute through other entrances so for the moment Aez’ashya’s arrival went unnoticed. In the middle of the bay there was a damaged jetbike trailing a thin plume of smoke, scrape marks showed where it had careened into the open bay before skidding to a halt.

  Xelian was standing on top of the long, curved prow of the jetbike with one arm raised in acknowledgement of her crowd of cheering celebrants. She was tall and regal-looking despite being dressed in patchwork armour that looked like it had been looted from the dead. Xelian seemed to sense Aez’ashya’s eyes on her and turned towards her, smiling.

  Aez’ashya didn’t wait for Xelian to make her whole I-have-returned speech. Instead she whipped out her pistol and started shooting, reasoning that giving Xelian any time to prepare for some formal duel would give away an advantage. As quick as Aez’ashya was Xelian saw the move coming and dived into the crowd to avoid it before anyone else realised what was happening. Aez’ashya’s splinter rounds ploughed into a hellion and a wych standing behind the jetbike instead of her intended target. Both targets folded up with surprised grunts that alerted the crowd.

  Before the bodies even hit the floor the shooting triggered unforeseen consequences. The different gangs in the bay each assumed the others were trying to kill Xelian. Weapons were drawn and fighting erupted immediately as each faction turned on another group of supposed traitors. Aez’ashya laughed to see the kabal start tearing itself apart so readily. Some of the Blades of Desire were apparently so dedicated to the idea of their dead archon that they would turn on each other like rabid dogs in her presence.

  ‘Enough!’ Xelian’s voice rang out over the conflict and suddenly every hand was stilled. Aez’ashya couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The normally raucous, unruly wyches and hellions ceased fighting as promptly as cadets receiving an order. Xelian broke cover, sprinting towards Aez’ashya with a razorflail whirling in one hand. The surviving Blades of Desire scattered into the far corners of the bay to watch avidly as the duel unfolded.

  Aez’ashya abandoned her pistol immediately – if she missed her one shot as Xelian closed in she would never get a second one. Instead she sprang back and drew her own twin knives in readiness for close combat.

  The razorflail was a Commorrite weapon that ably demonstrated its origins both in its multifaceted fighting style and its inherent dangerousness to its wielder. In essence it was a segmented sword with a flexible core. That allowed it to be wielded like a whip or, as the name suggested, a razor-edged flail. However, the segments could be brought together and locked with a mere flick of the wrist, instantly transforming the flexible razor-edged flail into a rigid, saw-toothed sword or vice versa.

  Aez’ashya ducked under Xelian’s opening swing with the razorflail. She came up fast with her knives ready for when Xelian locked the segments of the flail and made a blindingly quick reverse cut with the sword she now held. Aez’ashya knew the fighting style, a complex weaving of feints and counters using the weapon’s chimeric capabilities to best effect. She pressed in closer where her knives would have the advantage, forcing Xelian to keep the razorflail rigid to parry a storm of successive stabs and cuts.

  Xelian gave ground coolly, swaying aside from thrusts and blocking slashes with infuriating self-confidence. Aez’ashya started to deliberately drive her towards the open side of the bay where there was a drop of hundreds of metres down onto the flank of the fortress. Xelian moved readily in front of her attacks, so much so that Aez’ashya had to hurry to keep up.

  She clung grimly to her opponent, matching moves step for step as the edge of the bay got closer. If Xelian opened the distance she could take the offensive again, shake out her flail and weave a web of razor-edged doom in an instant. Instead Xelian stepped aside and made an almost languid counterattack. As Aez’ashya parried it Xelian loosened the segments of the flail, allowing it to swing flexibly around the blocking blade and bury itself in Aez’ashya’s upper arm.

  Aez’ashya hissed and thrust out wildly with her other blade. Xelian simply stepped back, whipping the flail back to lacerate Aez’ashya’s bicep in the process. Aez’ashya dropped immediately into a defensive stance in anticipation of Xelian continuing her attack, but her opponent simply stood her ground and smiled.

  ‘First blood,’ Xelian purred. ‘You’re mine now.’

  Xelian sprang, her limbs blurring as she charged. Her attack broke on Aez’ashya like a furious whirlwind, the flail whipping in from every angle so fast it seemed to be in two places at once. For Aez’ashya, already weakening from the blood leaking from her lacerated arm, it was all she could do to stay alive. The sharp hooks on the flail scratched at her arms and legs, lashed at her face.

  It was Aez’ashya’s turn to be driven back. Xelian circled her back towards the damaged jetbike in the centre of the bay. There seemed to be an almost solid ring of kabalites forming around them as more and more Blades of Desire arrived to see the battle. It was turning into an arena in miniature with the vicarious anticipation of the crowd building higher with each caress of steel on flesh. Aez’ashya gasped as she realised that Xelian was toying with her, arousing her followers’ bloodlust with a martial display before slaking it as she went in for the kill.

  Aez’ashya refused to die like an arena slave being slowly slaughtered for entertainment. She hurled herself bodily at Xelian, her knives arrowing straight for the bitch’s heart. Xelian darted aside from her rush, looping the razorflail around her ankle as she stumbled. Xelian pulled and sent Aez’ashya crashing to the floor of the bay with her foot all but severed.

  The knives went flying from her hands as she fell, so she crawled after them, ignoring the furnace blast of pain from her legs. Xelian’s next strikes took her hands at the wrists and then more blows sent bolts of agony through her dimming consciousness. Before long everything was a red haze overlaid by the chanting of a name. A name that Aez’ashya had never been able to escape.

  Xelian.

  Chapter 23

  THE ICONOCLAST

  The Decapitator seethed with black rage in the angles between Commorragh and Aelindrach. He had been denied his prey. Long ages of the universe had passed since the last time that had occurred. He blamed himself for his impatience, his recklessness. The window of opportunity had been too narrow to strike, just as he’d known it was, but his eagerness to slay Xhakoruakh had driven him into the fray anyway.

  The outsiders had been his undoing. Seeing Xhakoruakh’s original allies flee before the killing machine gave the illusion of opportunity. He had ignored the presence of the newcomers and focused on a speedy execution. Foolish pride. Shameful failure. The swirl of negative outcomes threatened to drown him in unwanted possibilities.

  In the midst of it all Kheradruakh found a place of inner calm. It was as if the abyssal sea of Aelindrach reached out to gather him to its dark, cold bosom. He floated there at peace for a time, far from the storm-wracked surface world with its outsiders and apostates. He soothed himself with the thought of caressing Xhakoruakh’s neck with his blade once more.

  The moment would come again.

  Just as it always did.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Talos would have killed me first otherwise.’

  ‘…’

  ‘Xagor, I think you’re just getting confused. Kharbyr was the one killed back there buying us time to escape, not me. I’m right here just as I have been all along.’

  ‘No more mandrakes?’

  ‘No. Xhakoruakh’s caus
e is lost. Even with Yllithian’s help he can’t beat the Castigators and the Black Heart kabal combined. Anyway, if he won it would mean plague and a slow death for the city and we don’t want that, do we? This is the only sensible course of action.’

  ‘This one understands,’ Xagor said morosely as they hurried on their way. The wrack had a curiously shifty look about him that had been absent prior to their close call in the library. Xagor’s loyalty had been tested on numerous previous occasions, but this time the results were unacceptably opaque.

  Why won’t you have the good grace to just roll over and die?+ Angevere sneered in the back of his mind. Sneering at him was the most harm she could do at the moment, so she was doing it constantly. Bellathonis, on the other hand, was growing accustomed to ignoring her.

  They were still somewhere in Low Commorragh – of that much Bellathonis was certain. The shadowy conduit they’d fled down out of the library had dumped them a good distance away from the labyrinth of the Black Descent. Possibly they were somewhere on the top of Nightsound Ghulen if the reedy fens were anything to go by.

  ‘Come on, Xagor, here – you can carry Angevere for a while to keep you company.’ Bellathonis tried to sound cheery, but he had a suspicion that it just sounded patronising when he did so. Xagor sullenly took the cylinder containing Angevere’s head from him and they continued to travel, wordlessly for a time, across the boggy ground towards an immense, baroquely inscribed slope in the distance. The gloom of Aelindrach afflicted the place such that they moved in perpetual twilight, although the slope ahead gleamed golden as if it were being lit from above.

  They were travelling swiftly using the same kind of shadow-walking they’d learned in Aelindrach, slipping in and out of the angles between the dimensions. Packs of ur-ghuls lurked in the distance, but none of them interfered with their rapid progress. Banks of black muck and narrow streams drifted past them like insubstantial clouds blowing in the wind. Even so it was going to be a long climb up to Corespur.

  You’re insane. If you go to Corespur Vect will do things to you that even you will find distressing. I’m sure he’s had cause to punish haemonculi before. There will be ways.+

  Bellathonis stifled an inner sigh. There had been a time when just moving out of arm’s reach was enough to escape Angevere’s mind-speech. Unfortunately the crone was becoming stronger or more skilled with practice. He answered her directly to keep her engaged while he locked away his own thoughts deep inside his mind.

  ‘Boredom, primarily, is the best way to inflict suffering on a haemonculus,’ Bellathonis opined airily. ‘Oh, some have addictions to tinctures and potions they make for themselves, or for the suffering of amazingly obscure and irrelevant races of particular profiles. You can make them squeal just by taking their favourite toys away. For most haemonculi, however, a simple absence of stimulus has them screaming and crying in no time.’

  How dull. Well at least I now know what Vect will do with you – he’ll wall you up somewhere and leave you to die of starvation. I’ve heard that’s a horrible, excruciating death so there’ll be some ‘stimulus’ for you in that, I suppose.+

  ‘Oh Angevere, if only I’d known how deeply you cared for my well-being I wouldn’t have allowed us to be parted for so long,’ Bellathonis replied sweetly. ‘I swear I’ll never let you out of my sight again.’

  That prospect seemed to quieten the crone down for a while. For all her bluster and hate she still feared Bellathonis. The haemonculus made a mental note to reacquaint her with the exact reasons why at the first opportunity.

  The slope swelled up before them, becoming ever more complex and granular the closer they got to it. Finally they were climbing a dust dune that had accumulated at the foot of the incline. Large pieces of statuary projected from the dust at random intervals. Some were identifiable – a foot, an eye, a hand – others were seemingly random textures on ragged chunks of stone. The diversity of styles and materials present would have seemed remarkable if it were not completely overwhelmed by the constituents of the slope itself.

  The slope stretching above them was entirely composed of similar pieces both larger and smaller than the mere fragments that had fallen into the dust dune below. Bits and pieces of crowned heads, sceptres, angelic wings, rune-carved tablets, rods, chains, clocks, icons, swords, torches, plants and animals were jumbled together. There were untold thousands of broken sculptures, pictures and objects in the mound, of all shapes and sizes, from hand-sized statuettes to oversized idols with hints of a few truly titanic-sized pieces deeper inside. Nearly all of it was either made of gold or covered in it, the acres of peeling gold leaf seeming to shimmer with an inner light all of their own.

  There were empty sockets showing where gems had been inlaid in some pieces, evidence that scavengers had been hard at work. Even priceless stones from the outer worlds were mere baubles in Commorragh, where only psychically imbued spirit stones held the value of true treasures. The lowliest beggars – the lame and the parched – must have picked over this pile of discarded plunder but they had been too frightened to touch the gold.

  ‘What place is this? Xagor does not know it,’ Xagor asked.

  ‘I recognise it. It’s called the Iconoclast’s mound,’ Bellathonis replied. ‘Raiding parties coming in through Port Carmine used to dump religious artefacts they’d taken – objects of faith, relics, icons – off the high roadway when they re-entered the city. It started as a joke, so I hear, but over time it became something of a tradition.’

  High above, at the fringe of perception there was a dark line where the slope terminated against one of the armoured eaves of Port Carmine. Higher still the protruding spires of High Commorragh could be seen and somewhere above them, invisible from so far down in the city, Sorrow Fell and Corespur.

  The shadow-skein of Aelindrach terminated at the foot of the slope and climbed no higher, seemingly repelled by its presence. Bellathonis consoled himself that it was probably best to stay out of the dark angles for the remainder of their journey anyway – Xhakoruakh’s minions would be looking for him.

  ‘That isn’t really why it’s called the Iconoclast’s mound, you know,’ a cheery voice called from above them. Bellathonis snapped his gaze to the source and saw a slight figure in grey emerging from between two broken halves of an immense face.

  ‘Motley!’ Xagor bleated in shock. The figure bowed extravagantly before springing lightly down the jumbled slope towards them.

  Beware! This one serves She Who Thirsts!+ Angevere hissed. Bellathonis blinked in surprise. The smiling Harlequin, for it was certainly one of those strange nomads approaching them, certainly didn’t look possessed – but you never could tell.

  ‘Oh! Fie on you, head-in-a-tube!’ Motley cried in mock outrage while wagging a finger in admonishment. ‘My first and only master is the Laughing God, arrangements with the doom of our kind notwithstanding, as you must well know. I think you’re trying to turn Bellathonis against me when we’ve only just met!’

  ‘You have… the advantage of me, Motley,’ Bellathonis said cautiously. ‘You appear to know of me and I don’t know you, other than via Xagor’s rather sketchy description of his encounter with you in the webway. Based on that I’m to understand that I owe you my thanks for his safe return.’

  ‘Oh, no need to thank me, you old monster!’ Motley grinned and clapped him on the shoulder with surprising strength. ‘I didn’t really have much choice. Things were already in motion at that point and leaving your little group to die in the webway would have made it all so, so much worse. It was all damage control by that stage.’

  ‘You mean on Lileathanir?’

  ‘I mean the Dysjunction in general.’

  ‘Ah,’ Bellathonis replied with a sudden qualm. This smiling, friendly little fellow had the look of a killer about him. He spread his hands in a gesture that encompassed the whole city as he replied with spiteful honesty, ‘I regret that your effor
ts have not been more successful.’

  Motley smiled again, more grimly this time. ‘Just think how much worse it could have been – but I’m not here for recriminations, not this time. I’d actually just come here for quiet to have a bit of a think, and then you – the answer to my problem – just walk straight up to me! How fantastic is that?’

  ‘Enough to give one a belief in divine intervention,’ Bellathonis responded warily, ‘which is ironic given our surroundings.’

  Motley’s laughter was clear and genuine, ringing blasphemously across the broken icons. ‘Oh! My! Yes, yes it is, my dear haemonculus, and in ways you cannot imagine. You see the origins of the Iconoclast’s mound go way, way back – all the way back to before the Fall. When the people found they had become gods themselves they had no further use for graven images and imaginary friends. They threw them in the rubbish: Asuryan, Lileath, Isha, Kurnous, Khaine and all the rest…

  ‘Later, when they stole similar artefacts from other races, they did the same thing. They threw such plunder down among their own broken gods to show that there was no higher power, no saviour, no immortal plan. Everything was damned for all eternity. So they wanted to believe because it made their own damnation easier to bear – and do you want to know the even greater irony? The bits and pieces of the eldar gods are still down there, broken and forgotten at the bottom of the pile, buried under a spoil heap being made ever higher by hatred and hubris. Now how’s that for a metaphor?’

  Motley laughed again with more than a touch of madness. Bellathonis looked at Xagor and the wrack shrugged helplessly back at him. ‘Was like this before,’ Xagor said, ‘but laughed less at own jokes.’

  Bellathonis nodded and casually laid a hand on his pistol. ‘I think I’m going to have to insist on you telling me what your intentions are,’ Bellathonis said reasonably over Motley’s maniacal peals of merriment. ‘We have a long way to go and we can afford no additional impediments, however entertaining they may purport to be.’