by Nick Kyme
‘This cult,’ the Dragon Warrior pressed. ‘It is nothing. Stratos is nothing. Even this city is meaningless. It was always about him!’ Kadai was leaning heavily on his thunder hammer, weakened after vanquishing the daemon.
Nihilan smiled, scarred flesh creaking.
A captain for a captain.
Realisation slid like a cold blade into Tsu’gan’s gut.
Too late he saw the armoured shadow closing in. The Dragon Warriors springing their trap at last. By leaving his post, he had let them infiltrate the Salamanders’ guard. The cultists were only ever a distraction; the true enemy was only now revealing itself. He had been a fool.
‘No!’
Sheer force of will broke Nihilan’s psychic hold. Roaring the captain’s name, Tsu’gan leapt off the parapet. Hoarse laughter followed him all the way down.
DAK’IR HAD ALMOST reached Kadai when he saw the renegade hefting the multi-melta. Shouting a warning, he raced to his captain’s side. Kadai faced him, hearing the cry of Tsu’gan from above at the same time, and then followed Dak’ir’s agonised gaze…
An incandescent beam tore out of the darkness.
Kadai was struck, and his body immolated in an actinic flare.
An intense rush of heat smashed Dak’ir off his feet, backwash from the terrible melta blast. He smelled scorched flesh. A hot spike of agony tortured his senses. His face was burning, just like in the dream…
Dak’ir realised he was blacking out, his body shutting down as his sus-an membrane registered the gross trauma he had suffered. Dimly, as if buried alive and listening through layered earth, he heard the voice of Sergeant N’keln and his battle-brothers. Dak’ir managed to turn his head. The last thing he saw before unconsciousness claimed him was Tsu’gan slumped to his knees in front of the charred remains of their captain.
WHEN DAK’IR AWOKE he was laid out in the Apothecarion of the Vulkan’s Wrath. It was cold as a tomb inside the austere chamber, the gloom alleviated by the lit icons of the medical apparatus around him.
With waking came remembrance, and with remembrance, grief and despair.
Kadai was dead.
‘Welcome back, brother,’ a soft voice said. Fugis was thin-faced and gaunter than ever, as he loomed over Dak’ir. Emotional agony was compounded by physical pain and Dak’ir reached for his face as it started to burn anew. Fugis seized his wrist before he could touch it.
‘I wouldn’t do that,’ he warned the sergeant. ‘Your skin was badly burned. You’re healing, but the flesh is still very tender.’ Dak’ir lowered his arm as Fugis released him. The Apothecary injected a solution of drugs through an intravenous drip-feed to ease the pain.
Dak’ir relaxed as the suppressants went to work, catalysing his body’s natural regenerative processes.
‘What happened?’ His throat felt raw and abrasive, and he croaked the words. Fugis stepped away from Dak’ir’s medi-slab to check on the instrumentation. He limped as he walked, a temporary augmetic frame fitted over his leg to shore up the break he had sustained in his fall. Stubborn to the point of bloody-mindedness, nothing would prevent the Apothecary from doing his work. ‘Stratos is saved,’ he said simply, his back to the other Salamander. ‘With the Speaker dead and our flamers restored, the insurgents fell quickly. The storms lifted an hour after we returned to Aereon Square,’ he explained. ‘Librarian Pyriel arrived twenty minutes later with the rest of the company to reinforce N’keln, who had taken the wall and was already en route to Aura Hieron…’
‘But too late to save Kadai,’ Dak’ir finished for him.
Fugis stopped what he was doing and gripped the instrumentation panel he’d been consulting for support.
‘Yes. Even his gene-seed was unsalvageable.’
A long grief-filled silence crept insidiously into the room before the Apothecary continued.
‘A ship, Stormbird-class, left the planet but we were too late to give chase.’
The rancour in Dak’ir’s voice could’ve scarred metal.
‘Nihilan and the other renegades escaped.’
‘To Vulkan knows where,’ Fugis replied, facing the patient. ‘Librarian Pyriel has command of Third Company, until Chapter Master Tu’Shan can appoint someone permanent.’
Dak’ir frowned. ‘We’re going home?’
‘Our tour of the Hadron Belt is over. We are returning to Prometheus to reinforce and lick our wounds.’
‘My face…’ Dak’ir ventured after a long silence, ‘I want to see it.’
‘Of course,’ said Fugis, and showed the Salamander a mirror.
Part of Dak’ir’s facial tissue had been seared away. Almost half of his onyx-black skin had been bleached near-white by the voracious heat of the melta flare. Though raw and angry, it looked almost human.
‘A reaction to the intense radiation,’ Fugis explained. ‘The damage has resulted in minor cellular regression, reverting to a form prior to the genetic ebonisation of your skin when you became an Astartes. I cannot say for certain yet, but it shows no sign of immediate regeneration.’
Dak’ir stared, lost in his own reflection and the semblance of humanness there. Fugis arrested the Salamander’s reverie.
‘I’ll leave you in peace, such as it is,’ he said, taking away the mirror. ‘You are stable and there’s nothing more I can do at this point. I’ll return in a few hours. Your body needs time to heal, before you can fight again. Rest,’ the Apothecary told him. ‘I expect you to be here upon my return.’
The Apothecary left, hobbling off to some other part of the ship. But as the metal door slid shut with a susurrus of escaping pressure, Dak’ir knew he was not alone.
‘Tsu’gan?’
He could feel his battle-brother’s presence even before he saw him emerge from the shadows.
‘Brother,’ Dak’ir croaked warmly, recalling the moment of empathy between them as they’d fought together in the temple. The warmth seeped away, as a cold wind steals heat from a fire, when Dak’ir saw Tsu’gan’s dark expression.
‘You are unfit to be an Astartes,’ he said levelly. ‘Kadai’s death is on your hands, Ignean. Had you not sent me after the renegade, had you been swift enough to react to the danger in our midst, we would not have lost our captain.’ Tsu’gan’s burning gaze was as chill as ice. ‘I shall not forget it.’
Stunned, Dak’ir was unable to reply before Tsu’gan turned his back on him and left the Apothecarion.
Anguish filled his heart and soul as Dak’ir wrestled with the terrible accusations of his brother, before exhaustion took him and he fell into a deep and fitful sleep.
For the first time in over forty years, the dream had changed…
SITTING IN THE troop compartment of the Stormbird, Nihilan turned the device stolen from the vault in the depths of Cirrion over and over in his gauntlet. His fellow Dragon Warriors surrounded him: the giant Ramlek, breathing tiny gouts of ash and cinder from his mouth grille as he tried to calm his perpetual anger; Ghor’gan, his scaled skin shedding after he’d removed his battle-helm, cradling his multi-melta like a favoured pet; Nor’hak, fastidiously stripping and reassembling his weapons methodically; and Erkine his pilot, the other renegade left behind to watch the Stormbird, forearm bone-blades carefully sheathed within the confines of his power armour as he steered the vessel to its final destination.
The Dragon Warriors had risked much to retrieve the device, even going as far as to establish the elaborate distraction of the uprising to cloak their movements. Kadai’s death as part of that subterfuge had been a particularly satisfying, but unexpected, boon for Nihilan.
The Stormbird had been primed and ready before the trap in Aura Hieron was sprung. With eager swathes of suicidal cultists to ensure their escape, the renegades had fled swiftly, leaving the atmosphere of Stratos behind them as the engines of their extant craft roared.
‘How little do they realise…’ Nihilan rasped, examining every facet of the gilt object in his palm. Such an innocuous piece of arcana; within its twelve pen
tagonal faces, along the geodesic lines of esoteric script that wreathed its dodecahedral surface, there was the means to unlock secrets. It was the very purpose of the decyphrex, to reveal that which was hidden. For Nihilan that enigma existed in the scrolls of Kelock, ancient parchments he and Ushorak had taken over forty years ago from Kelock’s tomb on Moribar. Kelock was a technocrat, and a misunderstood genius. He created something, a weapon, far beyond what was capable with the crippled science of the current decaying age. Nihilan meant to replicate his work.
Over a thousand years within the Eye of Terror, patiently plotting revenge and now he finally was closing on the means to destroy his enemies.
‘Approaching the Hellstalker,’ the sepulchral voice of Ekrine returned over the vox.
Nihilan engaged the grav-harness. As it crept over his armoured shoulders, securing him for landing, he peered out of the Stormbird’s vision slit. There across a becalmed and cobalt sea, a vessel of molten-red lay anchored. It was an old ship with old wounds, and older ghosts. The prow was a serrated blade, ripping a hole in the void. Cannons arrayed its flanks, gunmetal grey and powder-blackened. Dozens of towers and antennae reached up like crooked fingers.
Hellstalker had entered the Eye a mere battle-barge and had come out something else entirely. It was Nihilan’s ship and aboard it his warriors awaited him – renegades, mercenaries and defectors; pirates, raiders and reavers. There they gathered to heed of his victory and the slow realisation of their ambition – the total and utter destruction of Nocturne, and with it the death of the Salamanders.
THE LABYRINTH
Richard Ford
CHAINSWORD MOTORS ROARED, bellowing at each other before their steel teeth clashed in a violent kiss, spitting sparks and black oil. They locked together, whining in fury, each relentless in its desire to rend and tear.
Invictus glared at his opponent across the biting blades, determined he would be triumphant, utterly convinced that he would be the victor this time.
It was not to be.
Genareas wrenched his weapon aside, pulling the whirring teeth apart and showering the battle deck with a metallic spray. Before Invictus could counter, the full weight of Genareas’s shoulder guard smashed him in the face, sending him reeling. He lost his footing, arms flailing wildly in an attempt to keep his balance, but it was no good. He fell, the harsh clang of ceramite on corrugated steel filling the battle deck, and it was all Invictus could do to keep a hold on his buzzing chainsword. Before he could bring it to bear, Genareas had clamped his arm to the ground with a huge armoured foot, his own chainsword brandished threateningly, closing in towards his opponent’s face. Invictus watched as the swirling teeth drew closer to his exposed flesh, and grimaced at their inevitable onslaught.
With a triumphant laugh, Genareas powered down the chainsword’s motor, offering his arm to Invictus. ‘Well fought, brother. But as we can see, you are still no match for me in the confines of the battle deck.’
Invictus took the proffered arm and was helped to his feet, once again feeling the sting of defeat pierce him more painfully than any physical wound ever could.
‘One day, Brother Genareas,’ he said. ‘One day.’
Genareas only laughed the louder. ‘Indeed, brother. And I look forward to that day. Now come. We are already late.’
Together they walked from the battle deck, Invictus several paces behind Genareas, as he always was. Though they were closer than any of their other battle-brothers among the Sons of Malice, having served together as Scouts and then Initiates, it seemed that Invictus was always in Genareas’s shadow, always that one step behind. It was a failing that had plagued him for decades, despite the victories he had won in the service of his Chapter.
But tonight would be different – tonight Invictus would prove his worth.
They strode through the dimly illuminated passages of the Retaliator-class cruiser, until they arrived at the docking bay. As soon as the bay doors opened, the shrill hum of a thousand different voices assailed their ears. Servitors buzzed and whirred, piloting their automatons, driving the rows of prisoners of both familiar and extrinsic species onto the docking craft. Snouts mewled peevishly, jaws barked curses in alien tongues, and amidst them the all too familiar cries of weeping innocents pealed out to fill the bay with a cacophonous racket. They had brought offerings captured in every system they had travelled through, xenos from almost a hundred different species. Malice would undoubtedly be pleased with the largesse; the sacrificial pyre would burn brighter than ever before.
Such an extensive gathering of vile beings sickened Invictus to his core, but he knew it was necessary if the hunger of Malice was to be sated and his desires appeased. This pitiful host could not be silenced soon enough, and Invictus could only hope the slaughter would be underway soon.
With Genareas at his side, Invictus made his way across the packed hangar to where his brothers of the Sons of Malice waited. They were already filing into the belly of a growling Thunderhawk gunship, and the two tardy Space Marines were quick to join their fellows. As they boarded, Invictus could hear some of his brothers offering benediction through the vox-relay of his helmet. For himself he made no prayer as he strapped on his harness and prepared for take off – his trust in the skills of the pilot was absolute.
The ship’s engines fired into life and it left the artificial gravity of the Retaliator’s hangar. Through the gunship’s narrow viewport, Invictus could see the colossal outline of a long-dead Imperial ship drawing closer, expanding in his field of vision like a vast beast inflating itself to ward off a curious predator. Every dent and surface burn was visible, and it was a wonder the gargantuan relic survived at all after spending millennia exposed in the vastness of space, with no defence against the empyreal elements.
It hung like a gargantuan, rotted hand – vast steel appendages spiralling out from the centre, some displaying their bulwarks to the cold vacuum of space like an eviscerated corpse. Here and there the ship vented a gaseous blast into the void as though snorting its last toxic breath. Twisted detritus meandered by, caught in the behemoth’s gravitational field and forced to perform a perpetual waltz around the vast edifice.
They called it the Labyrinth. It had taken them a month of trawling the warp to return here, as they did once each century to honour the blood rites of their Chapter. It was consecrated ground for the Sons of Malice, the only place they could rally to since their home world of Scelus had been so wickedly defiled by the Astartes. No matter their commitments elsewhere, no matter the blood that had to be shed on other worlds, the Sons of Malice would always come back here at the appointed time, ready to make their sacrifices. Their rites had to be strictly observed to the abandonment of all other things.
It was the way of the Sons, and always had been.
The Thunderhawk weaved through the spinning flotsam surrounding the vast ship, and finally reached the Labyrinth’s docking hangar. There was a deafening roar as reverse thrusters were engaged, and the Thunderhawk glided in to gently greet the surface of the landing pad.
Once the doors opened, Invictus was quick to disembark, barely registering the flashing relay of information as it pattered across the inside of his visor, shining a blinking green light onto his face. It had been a hundred years since last he trod this sacred ground, and it never failed to fill him with awe.
The resplendence of the ship’s bowels was in stark contrast to the desolate appearance of its outer shell. Rockcrete pillars soared a thousand feet into the air, linked by flying buttresses. These towering structures flanked ogival arches that led down shadowed passageways in every direction. Gargoyles of every conceivable shape and size leered from the darkness; antiquated depictions of whatever deities were worshipped here in aeons passed.
Now, only one deity was offered reverence in this cold empty vessel: the exalted Malice, the Renegade God, the Outcast, Malice the Lost, Hierarch of Anarchy and Terror. And He would soon receive nourishment aplenty when the feeding began.
THEY HAD DISCARDED their armour and steam was rising from their bare flesh in the firelight. Every one of his brothers was covered in the ichor of their victims, each warrior now gore-strewn and glutted in the great hall.
Invictus had sated himself better than most. The blood was still fresh on his lips and chin where he had gorged on the stone-hard body of a trussed Astartes. To his credit, the servant of the Carrion Lord had not cried out as Invictus sank his teeth into him again and again, rending the flesh and muscle from his bones and feasting for the glory of Malice. Now, little was left of the dead Space Marine but a bloody stump, hanging like a carved joint of meat from a rusted chain.
The other sacrifices had not been as silent as that of Invictus, and the lofty heights of the massive hall still echoed with the ring of their unheeded screams for mercy. All around, the pyres burned, hot coals glowing bright with the charred remains of the night’s hecatomb.
Faintly echoing from the distant, unexplored confines of the dead ship, Invictus was sure he could hear a noise, like something bellowing from the depths of its inhuman lungs. It repeated a phrase again and again, the strength of its voice carrying the words over what may have been miles, but try as he might Invictus could not hear them clearly. In the end he chose to ignore the sound, allowing it to blend in with the background hum of the creaking ship and the aftermath of the night’s sacrifice.
He turned his attention to a raised mezzanine at one end of the great hall, where stood Lord Kathal, the greatest of them all, Chapter Master of the Sons of Malice, bedecked in his armour of office. Invictus could see his ancient face leering down, satisfied with the oblation his warriors had made. Every one of the Sons was now watching him, waiting for him to honour them with his words.
Kathal simply stared with those eyes of ice, seeming to savour the moment before he broke the silence.
‘Brothers.’ Kathal’s voice was deep and resonant, filling the hall all the way to its high, dark ceiling. ‘Malice is truly honoured this night. We have raised to Him a thousand souls in agony and terror. It is fitting that we offer Him such a bounteous sacrifice in preparation for our coming crusade.’
