Marduk paused, indecision staying his hand. The man might be lying.
‘What have you got to lose?’ asked the man, as if reading his mind.
Marduk backed up to the control panel, his eyes flicking between the two groups of eldar warriors that had begun to edge forwards once more, just waiting for an opportunity to fire without hitting the haemonculus. His eyes drifted down to the eldar runes flickering in the air in front of the panel.
‘Release him,’ Marduk growled into the haemonculus’s ear, tightening his grip on the skeletal creature. The eldar made no move, and Marduk pushed the blade more forcefully against its throat, drawing blood.
The eldar reached out a long, bony finger, moving it towards the glowing runes.
‘No tricks,’ said Marduk, ‘or I’ll have my own torture fun with you before anybody comes to save you.’
The haemonculus’s finger paused just before it pierced the holographic image of a rune that resembled a jagged blade. Then it moved to the side and passed through the serpent-like rune, the one that the man had indicated.
There was a descending hum, and the man reached out a tentative hand. There was no surge of power and no stink of ozone, and the man exhaled deeply, flashing Marduk a grin.
‘Thank you friend,’ said the man. ‘My name is Ikorus Baranov.’
Marduk ignored him. He was less than nothing to him, but the puny human’s words were enticing. How were you planning on getting off-ship?
‘Now the rest of them,’ said Marduk. The haemonculus faltered, gargling something from its shattered throat, and Marduk pushed the blade deeper.
Instantly, the haemonculus’s hand flickered over a series of rune images, and all the cell doors in the section powered down.
At first, nothing happened. Then a hulking two-metre beast covered in matted fur staggered into the corridor. Throwing its head back, it gave a blood-curdling roar. The dark eldar guards fired, knocking it back a step. It roared again, and lurched towards the group of warriors. Barbed prongs that shimmered with arcane powers were fired into its flesh, and it fell to its knees as agony seared through its body.
More and more of the slaves staggered from their cells, blinking their eyes heavily, as if believing that this was just another part of their torture. A broad shouldered, four-legged, centaur-like creature with a reptilian head lurched from its cell, which was barely large enough to hold its massive form. It hurled itself into one of the groups of eldar warriors, and two of them died instantly as it slammed their heads together, crushing their fragile skulls.
Eldar warriors began firing as more slaves spilled from their confinement, and crackling electro-whips lashed out. Slaves shuddered and screamed as the whips struck them, sending shooting pains through their nervous systems, and others fell, their fears, terrors and nightmares coming to life before their eyes as hallucinatory venom surged through their veins.
Other slaves fell upon each other, fists cracking against skulls and hands wrapping around throats as racial enmities surged to the fore and individuals driven out of their minds by their torments sought to slake their insane bloodlust.
All was chaos along the corridor, and Marduk smiled broadly, relishing the surge of hatred, fear and anger that washed over him.
‘Which way?’ he said.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Dracon Alith Drazjaer stared at the curved, three-dimensional observation screen projected before him, watching as the hive fleet of the Great Devourer drew ever nearer. The bridge of his corsair flagship was dark. Reclining upon his throne, with its razor-sharp barbs rising around him, he scowled at the holographic images appearing before him.
He saw the twin moons orbiting the giant gas planet, with the flickering ghost-image of his bladed ship pulling away from them. His ship was as one with the darkness, and had the voracious organism-ships of the Great Devourer not been encroaching, Drazjaer was confident that he could have preyed upon this system for years to come without detection.
As the moons had finally completed their long arc around the gas giant and emerged into the light of the system’s dying star, the dark eldar ship had slipped unseen through the mon-keigh blockade. It was likely that none had even registered his ship’s presence, and those that had would have seen nothing more suspicious than a passenger freighter of their own design.
He had plied his trade in this system for two months, relying on the mimic engines and shadow fields of his slave-ship to confuse the mon-keigh scanners, while his warriors raided the evacuating populations. Within visual range, the mimic engines would no longer be able to fool even the pitiful scanners of the mon-keigh, but still his ship would be almost impossible to pinpoint, thanks to the shadow fields that cloaked its presence, and it was easy to keep out of the visual range of the lumbering mon-keigh ships.
It had proved a profitable and successful hunt, and thousands of souls were held in the torture decks below, ready for delivery to Commoragh. Still, it was not enough, and for the thousandth time Drazjaer cursed the very existence of the black-hearted lord of the Black Heart cabal, Asdrubael Vect. The tribute he demanded was extortionate. Drazjaer had hoped that raiding this one sector would have provided enough souls to please the vicious lord, and it had come close, but his time here was done.
Within the day, the tyranids would have overrun the prey-moons. The mimic engines would not fool the hive-mind. It was time to move on, to continue his raids elsewhere, for to return to Commoragh without his full tribute was out of the question.
Dismissing the observation screen with a thought, Drazjaer swung away from the console, which retracted smoothly into the floor behind him. He saw one of his Incubi guards waiting for him, head bowed.
‘What is it?’ the dracon asked.
‘There is a problem on antitherea deck, lord dracon,’ murmured one of the incubi, his voice distorted by his tormentor helm.
With his screens down and completely confident that his mimic engines and shadow fields would be able to fool any of the mon-keigh vessels, Drazjaer did not see the Astartes strike cruiser turning towards his ship.
Marduk hacked a path through the press of inmates, slashing with the blade-limb and sending them reeling away from him, blood pumping from severed limbs. Those who fell were crushed in the rush to escape, and the man, Baranov, kept close behind him.
The First Acolyte had the skeletal form of the haemonculus in a headlock, using his body as a shield in front of him, and he hacked the blade through the neck of another inmate, who turned towards him, froth spilling from his mouth. The guards were being overwhelmed by the surge of slaves and paid Marduk no mind as they fought for their lives, weapons spitting and torturous electro-whips snapping.
‘This way, I’m sure of it!’ shouted Baranov, directing Marduk down a side corridor. The slave deck was a labyrinth of side-tunnels and holding cells, and everywhere was chaos as the slaves set upon their captors and each other with insane fury. Marduk had sworn that he would make the xenos scum suffer for the ignoble sufferings that had been committed upon his flesh, and he smiled to see the mayhem he had wrought.
Marduk moved past dozens of cells. The wretched inmates still cowered within many of them, crouching in the corners, rocking back and forth, their heads in their hands, but it did not matter. Enough of the slaves were hell-bent on overcoming their captors to provide an adequate distraction.
‘There!’ shouted Baranov, pointing towards what looked like a dead end. ‘That is where they brought me from.’
Marduk swung down the corridor. A group of eldar warriors was backed up against its end, a circular, closed aperture behind them. A slave, a human, launched itself at Marduk, hands clawing for him, but the First Acolyte slashed his blade across its face.
With the haemonculus held in a brutal headlock, Marduk broke into a run, dropping his shoulder and barging his way through the crowd towards the far end of the corridor. Baranov struggled to keep up, running in his destructive wake.
With a swat of his arm, Ma
rduk slammed the first of the guards back into the wall, and slashed his blade across the neck of the second, blood gushing from the wound.
Something stabbed into Marduk’s unarmoured back, and his body was jolted as his pain receptors flared, and his muscles twitched uncontrollably. He lost his grip on the haemonculus, who slumped to the ground in a bloody heap, and twisted around to see a trident sparking with energy jabbed into his flesh, held in the grasp of a blade-helmeted dark eldar warrior. He grabbed the haft of the weapon, sending flaring pain up his arm, and swung it upwards, sending the warrior wielding the weapon smashing into the low roof. The warrior released its hold on the trident, and Marduk turned and impaled another of its dark kin on its points.
‘Get the doors open,’ he barked, spinning and decapitating another warrior with a sweep of his blade.
‘I’m trying,’ shouted Baranov, his fingers flickering over the glowing rune of a side-panel.
‘Try harder,’ roared Marduk, just before he was slammed back against the wall as a coruscating arc of dark energy struck him square in the chest, fired from the snub-nosed rifle of another enemy.
The eldar warrior was about to fire on him again, but stumbled as another slave slammed into his back, knocking the eldar off-balance and towards Marduk. The First Acolyte reared up with a growl, the flesh of his chest blistered and smoking, and slammed his fist up into the eldar’s chin, throwing his full force behind the blow.
The warrior’s neck snapped backwards with an audible crack, and Marduk positioned himself in a protective position in front of Baranov, ensuring that no one came near him. He saw the haemonculus clawing away from him on the floor, and at a whim he placed his still-armoured foot upon the skeletal eldar’s elongated cranium, pinning it to the floor.
‘It’s not opening,’ said Baranov desperately. ‘It’s been locked down, or something.’
‘You can open it for me,’ Marduk said to the haemonculus, exerting more pressure on the creature’s skull. It gurgled something, and Marduk bent down and picked it up by the scruff of its neck. His fingers completely encircling its neck, he held it half a metre above the ground. He pushed Baranov roughly aside.
‘Open it,’ Marduk growled, and slammed the haemonculus’s head into the control panel for emphasis. Its nose broke, and blood splattered across the black panel.
The eldar gargled something, but its voice was unintelligible, and Marduk slammed its face into the panel again.
‘Open it,’ he hissed again, before slamming its head into the panel once more. Its face was a bloody ruin, its nose smashed, and blood and mucus was smeared across the deathly visage.
‘You’ll kill it,’ warned Baranov, but the haemonculus lifted one of its claw-like hands, reaching blearily towards the panel.
The eldar’s fingers stabbed at a series of runes and blade-arcs of the circular door slid open.
An armed group of eldar warriors stood beyond the doors, a hundred slender rifles lowered towards him. At the centre stood a tall figure in glistening black, barbed and segmented armour, its pale xenos face staring at him with noble arrogance. He saw the long-haired bitch that had ensnared him at its side, and a milky-eyed creature, glowing blue runes carved upon its ebony flesh.
‘You… lose,’ gargled the haemonculus, looking up at him in triumph.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Marduk, and slammed the haemonculus’s head into the control panel once more, this time with fatal force. Its skull crumpled.
He flicked his glance towards Baranov, whose face was pale as he stared out at the horde of enemy warriors before them.
‘Stay close to me,’ hissed Marduk.
Letting the dead figure of the haemonculus slump to the ground, leaving a smear of brainmatter across the control panel’s surface, Marduk lifted his head high and stared defiantly at the eldar, awaiting his fate as a warrior of Lorgar.
Blood covering his heavily scarred, naked torso, Marduk locked his eyes on the central eldar figure. This one was clearly the leader of the dark kin, and if he had any hope of escape, it lay in him. The arrogant bastard stood with his arms folded across his chest, blades gleaming down its forearms, a look of utter contempt and sardonic humour on his xenos face. Surrounded by over a hundred of his warriors, all with weapons lowered, the haughty eldar lord sneered down his nose at Marduk.
‘This is the prey-slave that has caused all this disturbance?’ he asked, enunciating the words in a perfect, old form of Low Gothic. ‘I am disappointed. It does not look like much.’
‘I’ve still got the strength to rip your heathen head from its shoulders, xenos filth,’ growled Marduk. ‘Come, face me alone, if you have the nerve.’
‘Face you alone?’ laughed the dark eldar lord. ‘We are far beyond any mon-keigh notions of honour, fool.’
‘Coward,’ snapped Marduk. ‘Even unarmoured you fear to face one of the blessed warriors of Lorgar.’
The fiery-haired wych that had ensnared Marduk stood alongside the eldar lord, and said something sharp in the twisted eldar tongue, her eyes flashing and her hand darting towards one of the blades strapped to her slim waist. Her intent was clear: she wished to face Marduk in her lord’s stead.
‘Let your lapdog bitch fight,’ urged Marduk, fixing his hate-filled gaze upon the wych. ‘I’ll tear her beating heart from her chest and laugh as I watch the life drain from her eyes.’
The dark lord snapped something sharp as the wych took a step towards him, sneering, and she paused.
‘I have no wish to see you dead, prey-slave,’ said the dark lord, ‘and I fear that Atherak will not hold a killing blow. You are less than nothing to me, one of a race that exists merely to be preyed upon. You have no right of challenge.’
Marduk’s muscles tensed in anger.
Having been stripped of his blessed armour, and with his flesh covered in the hellish wounds inflicted on him by the ministrations of the haemonculus, Marduk was but a shadow of his former self, but still his bulk and strength were impressive to behold. He advanced towards the arc of enemy warriors with his head held high, determined to face his fate defiant and proud to the end.
Marduk grinned, as he called the darkness forth.
Never before had Marduk felt such power as coursed through him now, and he felt the presence of the darkling god of Chaos, Slaanesh, surge into his being, almost shattering Marduk’s sanity with the full force of its potency.
Marduk had always honoured Chaos in all its guises, and had reproached those within his flock who had strayed too close to the worship of any of the infinitesimal deities of the immaterium in isolation. He had never felt the attentions of any single god upon him like he did now, and he struggled to maintain control as the Prince of Pleasure exerted its will upon him. He fell to one knee, clenching his eyes closed tightly, struggling not to be overwhelmed by the surging power that threatened to tear him apart.
Do not fight me, whispered a seductive voice in his mind, its power staggering. The voice was silken, though behind its whisper Marduk could hear a billion souls screaming in torment and ecstasy. The power of the words ripped through his soul, and a tortured groan escaped his lips.
It is not for you that I come.
In an instant, Marduk lowered his defences, allowing the full potency of Slaanesh to manifest within him.
‘Get it out of my sight,’ said the dark eldar lord, unaware of the power growing within Marduk. Arrogant fool, thought the First Acolyte, he still believes me to be contained by the null-field device.
Marduk’s face snapped up, his eyes a milky, pale blue with narrow slits in place of his pupils.
‘I know what it is that you fear,’ Marduk hissed in a voice that was not his own, and the dark eldar lord recoiled as if physically struck. ‘Your souls are mine!’
‘The Great Enemy,’ breathed the dracon in horror, speaking in the eldar tongue, though Marduk found that he could understand its words.
The First Acolyte pushed himself to his feet, feeling immeasurable power suffusing
his body, and he lifted his arms out wide to either side, palms upwards. He could feel the panic and fear flow from the gathered eldar warriors, washing over him in a tantalising, delicious wave.
Marduk exhaled, and a pink mist rolled from his throat, filling the air with its heady, musky aroma.
‘Kill it! Kill it now!’ screamed the eldar lord, and a hundred weapons fired, as if his words had snapped his warriors from their horrified paralysis.
The air was filled with thousands of barbed splinters, lances of dark matter and coruscating arcs of energy.
None of the shots struck his flesh as Marduk continued to exhale, the mist curling and billowing from his mouth. Splinters slowed as they came within centimetres of his flesh, dropping to the floor in their hundreds with a musical ring, and beams of dark matter fizzled and dissipated as they seared towards him. Arcs of energy flowed around his body, leaving his flesh unscathed.
The pale mist rolled across the floor, and the eldar recoiled, continuing to fire their weapons as they backed away.
‘Come to me, my handmaidens,’ hissed the voice speaking through Marduk.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Baranov threw himself backwards as the eldar began to fire, and stray shots sliced through the air around him as he scrambled back behind the doors leading into the slave deck. His heart beating wildly, he pushed himself backwards with his feet, so that he came to rest with his back up against the wall alongside the dead figure of the haemonculus. He stared down at the crumpled, unrecognisable face of the eldar.
Several slaves had been cut down by stray fire, and lay bleeding on the floor. One of them, a young woman, reached piteously towards Baranov for help, blood bubbling from her mouth like foam. Baranov kicked at her hand to keep her away. Behind her, the other slaves were streaming away from the open portal as more stray shots pinged off the walls. A splinter ricocheted off a wall panel and struck the woman in the eye, killing her instantly.
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