Age of Darkness

by Christian Dunn

  With time running out and still weaponless, Heka’tan hurried back to the auditorium.

  V

  Arcadese had done his best, but the time for talking was over.

  The clave had heard the petitions of both parties, had deliberated and were about to give their answer.

  On the balcony above, the high-noble came forwards into the light. His expression was unreadable.

  ‘We of Bastion are a proud people. None the less we joined the nascent Imperium on the promise of unity and prosperity. I would prefer independence but since that would see us consigned to atoms by Legion starships, I have little choice.’ The high-noble seemed reluctant to continue. ‘We honour our original oaths, Bastion will pledge for Hor–’

  ‘Arcadese!’ The warning brought all eyes to the Salamander and came three seconds before the rifle shot. The Ultramarine had enough time to discern the grainy red light from the laser sight, to catch the opening bloom of the muzzle flash as it flared wide and put his body between the assassin and its target.

  Iterator Vorkellen screamed as the Legionary bore down on him, believing at first that the Ultramarine had finally cracked. The marshals were too slow to intervene, just as surprised as the iterator.

  The bullet forced a grimace as it grazed Arcadese’s shoulder. He was trying to twist mid-air so he didn’t crush Vorkellen’s bones to paste when they landed. The second shot, taking a marshal in the neck and killing him instantly, gave the others pause. Only when the third went down, right eye ventilated, did they all look to the other balcony.

  VI

  He was crouched, nose of the rifle just peeking over the balcony edge, when Heka’tan found him.

  The Salamander made the assessment of his enemy quickly, as he was reaching the top of the stairs and advancing.

  Human, wearing nondescript clothes. He recalled the landman from earlier and knew this was the same individual. He also saw a sanctum-marshal’s garb in a bundle nearby to the shooter’s position. The rifle was custom – it looked almost ceramic. That’s how he’d avoided detection. Nine marshals entered; now, only eight took up their positions. It was so dark, slipping away would’ve been easy.

  ‘You overextend yourself,’ said the Salamander, slowing to a walk, filling the balcony walkway with his onyx-black bulk. ‘I saw your rifle tip from below. I saw it earlier too, I think. You were the one that shot down our ship.’

  The landman stood and nodded. Evidently, the rifle was spent. He’d discarded it and drew a long blade from his side instead – literally from his side. Heka’tan’s eyes widened when he saw it snuck out of the assassin’s flesh.

  ‘You should’ve hit the fuel tanks and not the wing,’ the Salamander went on, creeping closer, allowing Arcadese time to catch up and support him. It looked like a man before him, but the Space Marine’s instincts told him otherwise. This was something else. ‘Your aim was off if you were planning on killing everyone on board.’

  ‘Was it?’ The assassin flashed a smile and his eyes changed colour, even the hue of his skin seemed to shift.

  Heka’tan lunged just as the blade was flung at him. He dodged, reacting to the sudden move, but cried out as it shaved his skin. He missed the assassin by a hand span, grasping air as he leapt off the balcony and to the floor below.

  VII

  Arcadese swung at the assassin’s leaping form with a flash-sabre from one of the dead guards but missed. He about-faced but couldn’t stop two more marshals dying to the assassin’s finger-blades. A third fell to what looked like a barbed tongue, lashing from the man’s mouth.

  The Ultramarine gave chase, but his bionics slowed him down. The assassin had reached the shadows and led into the corridors beyond. Even on the upper level, the auditorium space was a honeycomb of passageways and conduits.

  Heka’tan was right behind him.

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ he remarked, noting the bullet graze along the Ultramarine’s shoulder.

  ‘So are you.’

  Heka’tan dabbed at his flank with a finger and felt the blade wound. ‘Then we owe him two cuts, one each,’ he promised and followed the assassin into the darkness. Behind them, the remaining marshals were trying not to panic. They’d also foregone pursuit to secure the clave-nobles. The high-marshal was vociferous above the clamour, bellowing frantic orders.

  Vorkellen was screeching at his lackeys, in obvious pain. It drew a smile to Arcadese’s lips, smothered by the shadows that engulfed him.

  With the darkness the sound died away and the Legionaries slowed.

  Heka’tan hissed, ‘You were right, brother.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Arcadese, staying as low as he could and watching the deeper shadows.

  ‘I found another of Horus’s emissaries below, an Iron Warrior.’

  That piqued the Ultramarine’s interest.

  ‘I killed him but he was doing something below, something that the garrison here has been working on. He was monitoring the nuclear hubs too. I don’t know why. Answers may come from our assassin. Either way, word must reach the rest of the Imperium.’

  ‘And we are sealed in,’ Arcadese remarked ruefully.

  Heka’tan’s eyes blazed belligerently.

  ‘But so is he.’

  Hunters

  I

  The attack was swift. The red-eyed one was easy to spot; the broken one it could hear fifty metres away. They were not stealthy targets, either of them.

  A shallow cry of pain felt satisfying as it plunged a blade into red-eyes’s shoulder. A heavy punch into the broken one’s ribs made an audible crack. So much for the dense bone-plate – the surgeries must have weakened it.

  It dodged a reply, then a second. Rolling up to its full height, it disengaged the holofield trapping it in the landman’s form.

  II

  Arcadese swung wildly, but met only air with his borrowed flash-sabre. Next to him, Heka’tan grunted and he assumed the Salamander had failed to make contact too.

  The assassin was fast – faster than them. Faster than him. Not for the first time, he cursed at his bionics.

  He was rolling and Arcadese was turning, Heka’tan too. What met them both as the darkness parted before the flash-sabre’s magnesium flare was not what the Ultramarine expected.

  He was not a man at all, at least not one that adhered to the normal conventions of size. He was massive, taller than either Arcadese or Heka’tan, and he was fierce. Tattoos around the attacker’s neck described a long chain of words, a name, or several fractions of a name, recounted on his body, disappearing beneath a loose-fitting bodyglove of red leather. The armour looked gladiatorial. There was something Terran about it. When Arcadese saw the marking on the warrior’s fist as he swung the spatha around in a lazy rotational arc, he knew.

  ‘Custodian.’

  III

  When the blade flashed in, the Ultramarine parried quickly. He was already backing away. Heka’tan was trying to circle. He’d made the connection too, realising the landman was merely a projection, courtesy of a holofield.

  The Salamander tried to shoulder barge the warrior, distract him and bring him into his battle-brother’s arc, but he weaved aside, slamming his elbow down on Heka’tan’s spine. Then he went down, snapping a blade-kick into Arcadese’s gut that sent him sprawling.

  When both Legiones Astartes had got up, the assassin was gone, absorbed into the darkness.

  Arcadese retrieved his flash-sabre and went to give chase. Heka’tan seized his shoulder, stopping him.

  ‘No, that’s what he wants. Wait. Think.’

  The Ultramarine nodded. ‘You’re right.’ His mind was reeling – a Custodian, here on Bastion, trying to kill Horus’s iterator. What was this – Plan B? ‘Should we even fight him? Could we? I’m surprised we lived as long as we did.’

  Heka’tan only glowered at the dark. ‘We need to dig in and wai
t it out.’

  ‘He will pick us off, one by one. We cannot wait.’ He glanced back askance at the Salamander. ‘We could always just give him what he wants.’

  ‘No, something isn’t right.’

  ‘Then what do you suggest? The Custodians are loyal only to the Emperor. They are his lions, Salamander. They do not question, they merely do. If we are between him and his prey–’

  ‘That’s not a Custodian,’ Heka’tan interjected. ‘It is similar, but its movements are copied, its form a facsimile, a simulacrum.’

  Arcadese hissed, retreating into the light with his brother. ‘How can you be sure?’

  Their eyes met. Heka’tan’s flared with an angry glow.

  ‘Because if it was real, we’d already be dead.’

  IV

  There was panic in the auditorium. The shot and subsequent commotion had lit a spark of fear in the assembly that was growing from a flame into a conflagration. Streams of politicians and senators were rushing from their seats to pound on the doors to the auditorium. Some screamed, others sobbed, a few merely stayed seated and stared.

  By now the clave-nobles had been evacuated from the balcony and were on the main auditorium floor, surrounded by their bodyguards with the rest of the trapped civilians.

  Other soldiers were scanning the upper echelons and alcoves for further assassins. They would find none.

  Amongst the visitors, Vorkellen was profoundly unhappy and addressed the already stressed high-marshal who was trying to restore order. ‘What are you doing to get us out of here?’

  Insk was nearby, muttering soothing words to his master and requesting relaxants from another aide. Vorkellen waved them away with bitter tirades.

  V

  Arcadese was in unsympathetic mood and replied in the high-marshal’s stead. ‘We are trapped, you idiot. There’s nothing he can do.’

  The iterator looked about to respond but bit back his tongue when the Ultramarine glowered. Arcadese let him be, and approached Heka’tan. Frantic as they were, the people kept away from the two Legionaries.

  The Salamander leant in close, talking softly so that no one else could hear him.

  ‘Whatever that thing is, it will come for us.’

  ‘I know.’ Arcadese had his eye on the humans. They’d started to huddle around the sealed door and were spilling out into the centre of the chamber. ‘Their fear disgusts me. I thought this was meant to be a war-like world.’

  ‘They are not soldiers, not all of them, and they’ve never been trapped in a room with something like this before,’ Heka’tan paused, feeling sympathy for the panicked mob. ‘We have to hunt it down.’

  Arcadese nodded.

  Heka’tan went on, ‘You were right. We cannot wait. We waited at Isstvan.’ His eyes went off to a dark place, one from memory. ‘We waited and died.’ His hand was shaking again. He clenched it with his other hand to steady it.

  Arcadese lowered his voice. ‘I’m sorry that you’re still affected by it, brother. I cannot imagine the pain.’

  ‘The legacy isn’t mine to bear. It’s for those who follow, for whatever happens next.’

  Regarding the dead marshals, left where they’d fallen, Arcadese changed subject. ‘This matter was always going to be decided by blood. These entire proceedings were a farce. Unless we find that assassin, the Imperium will be accused of treachery. No one will negotiate with us.’

  Heka’tan was shaking his head slowly. ‘Perhaps? But I feel there is something else going on here, something from back when the Iron Warriors had a garrison on this world.’

  ‘Then we must expose the truth, whatever that might be. Our best chance is tracking the iterator’s would-be killer.’

  ‘I cannot help think it merely shrouds an even greater atrocity.’ Heka’tan gestured to the crowd. Some of the fervour had died down now. There was moaning and grim-faced acceptance. ‘And there are the humans to consider.’

  Arcadese looked nonplussed. ‘What about them?’

  ‘If we’re outmanoeuvred the assassin would make a red mess of them.’

  ‘They’ll have to look to their own defence.’

  ‘One of us should stay.’

  ‘We need both of us to kill this thing. Since when did the sons of Vulkan not present a united front?’

  ‘We’re pragmatists too, brother, and know when to adapt,’ said Heka’tan. ‘We cannot wait around to be murdered where we stand. So, I’ll go.’

  ‘You?’ Arcadese’s displeasure was obvious. ‘If you want to protect the humans so badly then stay behind and do just that.’ A few of the civilians had turned as the volume of the conversation rose.

  ‘I wish I could, but only one of us can hunt. You are not able.’

  The Ultramarine’s tone darkened. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Look at you,’ offered Heka’tan with traditional Salamander bluntness. He hadn’t meant to be insulting, he just didn’t appreciate his words and manner could be construed that way.

  ‘I am a warrior still,’ Arcadese asserted, ‘as strong and capable as any uncouth barbarian from a tribal culture.’

  ‘Prove it then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Attack me, see if you can humble–’

  Arcadese launched himself at Heka’tan, flash-sabre blazing. He was slow though, just a second or two, but enough of a lag for the Salamander to avoid the blow and head-butt the Ultramarine fiercely across the bridge of his patrician nose.

  Blood gushed, streaking Arcadese’s lips, before Heka’tan used the Ultramarine’s bulk against him and sent him sprawling across the auditorium floor. A few of the nobles had to scurry out of the way. There were fearful gasps as their protectors turned on one another.

  Arcadese was up as swiftly as his bionics allowed but found his flash-sabre taken and levelled at his neck.

  ‘I will hunt,’ Heka’tan told him. ‘You stay.’

  Breathing hard, the Ultramarine nodded slowly. ‘I won’t forget this, son of Vulkan.’

  ‘I know you won’t.’ Heka’tan jogged off into the darkness, flash-sabre in hand.

  VI

  The Salamander returned less than an hour later.

  Arcadese had his back to him. The Ultramarine’s demeanour hadn’t improved.

  ‘Have you given up already? I thought Salamanders were supposed to be tenacious.’

  ‘I found a spoor and followed it into the deeper conduits,’ Heka’tan replied. Arcadese noticed he was holding the flash-sabre in the opposite hand. ‘It seems the assassin had an escape route planned from the beginning.’

  ‘So, he’s gone?’

  Heka’tan nodded, ‘Through a way we can’t follow. It’s too narrow, too steep, and goes right to the bowels of the complex, to the geothermal sub-levels.’

  ‘We wait then,’ said Arcadese, turning his back on Heka’tan, ‘for the gates to open and our failure to be known to our Legions. Horus has won this world, brother.’

  ‘It is worse than that,’ said Heka’tan, in a voice that sounded only partially like his own.

  Rather than being shocked, Arcadese dropped his shoulder for the attack he knew was coming. He turned, bringing up another flash-sabre, parrying Heka’tan’s bone-blade that had rapidly morphed from his fingertips.

  ‘How did you know?’ asked the assassin.

  Their blades were locked, spitting sparks and bone chips.

  ‘The smell,’ Arcadese told his attacker. He smiled as a thunderous bulk rammed into the assassin, crumpling his flank.

  ‘I reek of ash and heat,’ said the real Heka’tan, having exploded from the shadows where he’d been lurking since his initial departure. ‘Your wound obviously wasn’t quite deep enough.’

  They wrestled, Salamander and assassin, the latter transforming even as they moved.

  A metamorphic catalogue o
f identities blended and re-blended across the alien’s face, first the landman, then the subtle facial shift to the marshal, finally the Custodian upon which it settled.

  ‘You are no lion,’ snarled Heka’tan, snapping a vertebra in the creature’s spine.

  Around them, the crowd shrieked and shouted in terror. The throng pressing up against the door became a crush.

  The assassin mewled in pain, a tonal, bird-like resonance that set the Salamander’s teeth on edge.

  ‘Clever,’ it hissed through clenched teeth, bringing its knees up sharply into Heka’tan’s sternum and vaulting him off its body.

  The Salamander landed in a wide sprawl, a few metres away.

  ‘A lie to snare a liar.’ Arcadese came crashing in, two-handed, with the flash-sabre. A ball of light blazed and faded at once as the weapon connected with stone not flesh.

  The assassin bounded backwards, weaving to avoid the Salamander’s heavy cross as it came within range.

  The bone-blade became a Custodian’s training spatha in its right hand and it slashed at Arcadese.

  Faux-steel screeched against true-steel as the Ultramarine took the blow on his bionic arm. It was only his forearm that was augmetic but it provided an effective foil. He stomped, aiming for the assassin’s foot to cripple it. Rockcrete splintered beneath him, the ground webbing outwards in tiny fault lines.

  ‘Yield, you are undone,’ snapped Arcadese.

  Heka’tan loomed in snatches of the Ultramarine’s vision, just behind the assassin.

  He flung his arms out and snapped them together like mechanical foundry tongs, seizing the assassin in an onyx-black grip.

  ‘You are the ones who are undone,’ the creature cackled, spitting a gobbet of intestinal acid that seared Heka’tan’s cheek. The Salamander didn’t even flinch, he merely squeezed.

  Arcadese caved in the creature’s face with a bionic fist, the bone-blade ripped from the assassin’s grasp but still lodged in his forearm.