by Nick Kyme
Invictus clenched his fists in anticipation. It was common knowledge that the Sons of Malice would soon march to war, embarking on a crusade the likes of which their Chapter had never seen before.
‘For such a struggle we will need unparalleled warriors, men who have proven themselves in the Challenge of the Labyrinth. Only by succeeding at this trial can any of you prove your worth, and your suitability to stride amongst the ranks of the Doomed Ones.’ He felt a bite of quick excitement, and he knew his brethren felt it too. Each century, when the Sons of Malice returned to the carcass of the huge and ancient vessel, a select few would volunteer to face the Challenge of the Labyrinth. None were ever seen again, but it was said that those strong and cunning enough to overcome the trials of the Labyrinth were elevated to the Doomed Ones, Malice’s sept of holy warriors. Every member of this elite coterie was granted Malice’s divine gifts of untold power and sent off to walk the dark paths of the galaxy, slaying their enemies with cold efficiency. It was a position Invictus had long coveted, and this year he finally felt ready to pursue it.
‘Which of you is strong enough, resourceful enough, and courageous enough to face the Labyrinth?’ asked Kathal.
His head held high, his body still dripping with the gore of his recent sacrifice, Invictus strode forward to present himself before Kathal. He did not bow or show fealty, but thrust out his chin in defiance, keen to show his lack of trepidation and his worthiness for the ordeal ahead.
Lord Kathal smiled down in satisfaction, his wide leer cracking that ancient face almost in two. And after Invictus, others began to move forward, spurred on by his example and eager to show themselves equally as worthy. In the end, twenty warriors stood shoulder to shoulder with Invictus, presenting themselves to face the perils of the Labyrinth.
Glancing to his side, Invictus saw that his brother, Genareas, had also chosen this year to join the trial. It was inevitable that they would take this challenge together, but this time Invictus was determined to step out of his brother’s shadow.
When he was sure that no more would take up the challenge, Lord Kathal beckoned his twenty warriors away from the great hall. The grim procession marched further into the dark heart of the rotting ship until finally they reached their goal. Before them stood a simple steel hatchway, which barred the way to the unseen terrors of the Labyrinth.
‘Beyond this door lies your destiny,’ said Kathal. ‘You will all enter here unarmed and unarmoured. There is no rank beyond this entrance; you are all equal within the Labyrinth. Use what resources you can scavenge, and have faith in one another. At the far side of the ship awaits a portal to freedom. Any who can find it and step within its hallowed confines will receive the benediction of Malice. The rest will find only oblivion. To those of you I will not see again – die well, my brothers.’
With that, Kathal turned the great wheel that secured the hatch and it swung open on rusted hinges. Within was only darkness, but Invictus did not pause – stepping inside and leading the way for his brothers to follow.
Once they were all within, he heard the great door close behind him.
Flickering strobes filled the corridor with a dim red light, and the warriors were forced to wait for their keen eyes to adjust to the gloom before proceeding. While they lingered, Invictus was sure he could hear that bellowing voice once more, though its origin was still too distant for him to ascertain any meaning. The noise filled Invictus with a chill, but he would not allow it to stop him. They would never find victory skulking in the dark corridor of some dead ship and, steeling himself against the fear, he led his battle-brothers forward.
AT FIRST THE going was easy, with the wide corridor funnelling them along an obvious route. As they moved, the warriors of the Sons scavenged what they could – steel bars, the sharp edges of torn bulwarks – anything that could be used as a weapon. Here and there they would discover an object of greater value gripped in the skeletal fingers of a long dead aspirant – a discarded bolter or a salvageable flamer. Invictus found a bolt pistol, its clip half full, and said silent thanks to Malice for his beneficence.
After an hour of tramping through the dimly lit passageways without incident, the twenty warriors came to a wide chamber. Six doors were set in the far wall, each one yawning wide, beckoning them forward into the blackness beyond.
‘Which way?’ asked Genareas.
The other warriors looked to one another uncertainly.
‘Perhaps we should split our numbers here,’ Invictus replied. ‘If only death awaits us beyond one of these doors, then at least some of us might make it to the Labyrinth’s end.’
Genareas nodded, as did the others. If the Labyrinth was as huge and dangerous as they feared, then splitting into smaller groups would serve them better than staying as a single unit and falling foul of the same deadly ensnarement.
The warriors quickly split into two squads, with Genareas and Invictus on opposing sides. Before they headed off through different passageways, Genareas offered his brother a nod – what might be a final salute. Whether he was wishing him luck or merely offering a silent challenge, Invictus did not know, but he returned the gesture in kind, and followed his own group into the dark.
INVICTUS LED THE way, his battle-brothers close behind. As they moved they could hear a tapping within the walls that grew more intense the further they delved into the shell of the dead ship. It was as though the noise were following their route along the arterial passageways. Several times they stopped, sensing unseen forms watching them, waiting to pounce at any moment, but each time their caution proved unfounded.
Again, something shuffled in the dark nearby, and the warriors quickly halted, brandishing their arms threateningly. They looked to one another uncertainly, until bold Brother Cainin stepped forward. He had fashioned a crude axe from the detritus of the tunnels and he held it forward, as though challenging the shadows themselves. With a quick swipe left and right Cainin cut the blackness from where the sound had emanated, as though attacking the shadows themselves.
Nothing.
He turned, shrugging with a smile as though they were all foolish – spooked by innocent sounds like a bunch of untested neophytes, not the cold, hard veterans they were.
It roared from the dark, huge arms clamping around Cainin, slavering jaws biting deep into his neck. He had no time to scream as he was pulled into the shadows, blood spurting from his wounds as a savage, twisted beast tore clumps of his flesh away.
The remaining warriors opened fire with what weapons they had and Invictus pumped bolter shells at the place where seconds before his battle-brother had stood. Brother Vallius, crude autogun in hand, stepped forward to unleash an angry tirade of fire and was answered with a bloodcurdling cry of pain.
The echo of gunfire subsided and the corridor fell silent. None of the warriors moved, each one staring at the dark, waiting for something to come screaming forward, ready to grasp them with powerful arms and rend their flesh asunder.
Blood suddenly began to pool across the decking, and Invictus took a step forward. Before he could get any closer a thick, foetid arm flopped raggedly from the dark, its clawed hand twitching in the winking light. Brother Angustine reached up and diverted one of the dull spotlights that hung limply from its housing to shed some illumination on the creature. It was large, and like no xenos Invictus had ever seen. The body bore obvious marks of mutation, as though the creature had been exposed to the warp. Its fangs were bared from a lipless maw and its dead eyes stared blankly, bereft of pupils. The skin was hard like leather and its body was covered with open sores, exuding a weird, musky scent.
As his brothers checked the lifeless body of Cainin, Invictus knelt beside the creature, keen to get a closer look at the kind of beast they would be facing during the trial. Instantly his eyes were drawn to the mutant’s upper arm. It bore some kind of mark, faded by the years and the mutation of its flesh, but it was still barely discernible in the guttering light – the black and white skull symbol of Malic
e.
He thought it strange that the creature should bear such a mark, but before he could speak of it Brother Mortigan beckoned them on down the corridor.
‘We must keep moving,’ he said. ‘We do not know how many more of these creatures are stalking us in the dark. Our shots may attract more of them to our position.’
With that, they began to move on, leaving the dead creature and the body of battle-brother Cainin in the shadows behind them. Invictus gave no further thought to the mark. He had more pressing matters to attend to – such as not falling foul of any more of these twisted beasts in the stygian tunnels.
OVER THE NEXT few hours they made good progress through the rotting bulwarks and rusted corridors of the dead ship, but the tricks and traps of the Labyrinth began to take their toll.
Brother Kado, who single-handedly repelled an ork ambush at the Battle of Uderverengin, was beheaded by hidden las-wire as they traversed a narrow bridge. Brother Vallius, who took the head of Lord Bacchus at the Ansolom Gate, was crushed by a blast door that had at first seemed inoperable. Brother Mortigan, who stood beside Invictus as they watched the exterminatus of Corodon IV, was doused in corrosive waste as they navigated a scoriation duct.
With each death Invictus felt the pall of dread close in further, but he forced himself on. If anyone was to survive this trial and take their place among the Doomed Ones it would be him, and he would let nothing stand in his way.
Eventually, the six remaining warriors found themselves at the entrance to a wide chamber. Its floor was peppered with huge holes, as though something massive had punched through the solid decking with spiked fists of steel.
Invictus tentatively led the way, stepping over the threshold of the room as though the floor beyond might burn his bare feet. There did not appear to be any cunning traps awaiting them inside, and Invictus signalled his brothers to follow him as he skirted the edge of one of the great holes. Looking down, he could see that the huge punctured deck disappeared into the darkness below, and a sudden sense of foreboding began to fill him.
‘Move quickly,’ he ordered, stepping gingerly between the twisted metal. ‘There is something not right here.’
It took Invictus scant seconds to realise what had put him on edge – the entire room stank of the same musk as the creature they had slain earlier – but by then it was too late.
Brother Angustine cried out in alarm, firing wildly with his autogun as a ferocious mutant beast rushed from the dark. The blaring report of automatic fire suddenly filled the room as more of the creatures began to pour in from all around. Invictus raised his bolt pistol, ready to add his own stream of fire to the deluge, when another of the creatures burst from the shadows ahead. He immediately altered his sightline, squeezing hard on the trigger three times. Each shot hit its target, bursting against the mutant’s face, explosive rounds mashing flesh and pulping bone with each deafening impact. But even as one assailant fell, Invictus was attacked by a second that leapt at him from above. He swung his pistol around, letting off a sweeping volley of fire, but it was not enough to stop the mutant’s wild lunge. It smashed into him, gripping him tightly with razor claws and snapping its fangs at his throat. Invictus fell back, his hands barely grasping at the beast’s jaws in time to stop it tearing out his throat, but as he did so he lost his footing, falling back into the void as he and the mutant were pitched into one of the huge holes.
All he could hear as the shadows enveloped him was the desperate sound of his remaining battle-brothers fighting valiantly for their lives…
HIS EYES FLICKED open, suddenly assailed by the intermittent blinking of another defective spotlight. Lifting a hand to his head, Invictus could feel blood caking the side of his face. He had fallen Malice-knew how far, and struck his head on something solid. There was no telling how long he had been unconscious.
Panic suddenly gripped him as he realised he had lost his weapon. His mutant attacker could be anywhere, even now stalking him, readying itself to pounce. He leapt to his feet, eyes scanning desperately for something he could use as a weapon, and instantly he saw there was little need for alarm.
The room he had fallen into was packed with detritus – sharp edged machinery and torn bulwark panels lay scattered all around. It was only by the grace of Malice that he had not been cut to ribbons by the forest of junk. The mutant he had fallen with, however, had not been so lucky. Its body was impaled by a steel girder, poking up from the pile of scrap metal like a slanted flagpole. The end of the torn steel protruded from its mouth, and its black eyes stared vacantly. It looked almost pitiful.
There was silence above – Invictus’s battle-brothers had either perished, or moved on, thinking him lost. From here he would have to proceed alone.
Making a quick search of the surrounding junk, Invictus managed to retrieve the bolt pistol, and then set about trying to locate an exit from the stifling chamber.
As he scrabbled around in the dark something reached out, grasping his wrist and holding the bolt pistol firmly. Invictus stretched out with his free hand, keen to halt the mutant’s jaws before they could clamp themselves around his throat, but he suddenly stopped as he saw that it was not the baleful eyes of a mutant beast that regarded him from the shadows, but one of his battle-brothers. Though it was no one he recognised, the mark of Malice was plain to see on his upper arm. But that was not all – his skin was marred by sores, and his face had taken on a feral cast. It was plain he was in the early stages of mutation.
‘Mercy, brother,’ he said. ‘I mean you no harm.’
With that he released Invictus’s wrist, but remained in the dark confines of the shadows, seeming to find solace within them. Invictus took a wary step backwards, readying himself to raise the bolt pistol at the slightest provocation. ‘What has happened to you?’ he asked.
‘The Labyrinth, brother. Prolonged exposure condemns us to this.’ He raised his arm, showing the weeping pustules and fledgling talons. ‘I too volunteered for the Challenge a century ago, heeding the words of our Chapter Master. There were six of us that made it to the portal and what we thought was our victory. But it seems Kathal did not tell us all there is to know about his test. Once the first of us passed through the portal, it ceased to operate for the rest. We were trapped down here, forced to fight for our lives. I am the last of those survivors, but as you can see, survival means nothing. This place is warp-touched. It will not be long before I am one of them.’ He gestured towards the mutant, impaled on the vast spike.
‘Then there can be only one victor in this Challenge?’ said Invictus.
‘Indeed.’
‘Then I must hurry. Is there a way out of this place?’
His tainted battle-brother beckoned towards the shadows. ‘An exit lies that way. But beware – their hive nestles along that path. It will be impossible to pass.’
‘I will find a way,’ Invictus took a step towards the door.
‘Before you leave,’ the mutant’s voice sounded almost desperate. ‘Perhaps there is something you could do for me in return…’ Invictus raised the bolt pistol and fired a single round, exploding his twisted battle-brother’s face. Without a second look, he walked from the metallic bone yard and further into the Labyrinth.
THE SOUND OF boltgun reports and the stench of promethium emanated from up ahead. Invictus quickened his step, eager to join in the fray, feeling the red mist of his battle haze descending. As he moved along the tunnel the sounds and smells of combat intensified and his heart began to pound with anticipation.
He could see the desperate skirmish now. Five of his battle-brothers were fighting in a tight corridor, with mutants assailing them from further ahead. Genareas was among them, unleashing a hellish conflagration from the tip of his salvaged flamer. Any beasts that were not instantly immolated were riddled with bolter and autogun fire.
As Invictus joined his battle-brothers, Genareas looked across and smiled. ‘Where is your squad? Have you lost them so soon?’ Invictus smiled back. ‘They
did not fare as well as I,’ he replied. ‘But I see that you are not without troubles of your own.’
More ravenous faces appeared at the end of the corridor, rushing towards their doom, and Invictus added the sound of his own bolt pistol to the staccato melody of gunfire.
‘There is some kind of lair up ahead,’ Genareas bellowed above the din. ‘It is packed with these creatures. We cannot make it through.’
‘Then we will have to go around,’ shouted Invictus, pointing to a sign written in ancient and crumbling script above their heads. Genareas looked up, nodding his agreement as he read the word “Airlock” on the sign.
‘Withdraw,’ ordered Genareas, flooding the corridor with another torrent of liquid flame.
One by one, the remaining warriors moved back along the passage in short sprints before turning and supporting their battle-brothers’ withdrawal with bursts of fire. Within seconds they were at the airlock, leaving a trail of corrupted bodies in their wake. Once all his battle-brothers were inside, Invictus pulled the ancient lever, sealing the outer lock. At once, more of the mutant brood appeared, flinging themselves at the reinforced hatch in their voracious attempts to get at the escaping warriors.
Genareas was already at the airlock controls, reducing the pressure within the room so that they were not blown out into the immaterium once the outer door’s seals were broken. Invictus and his brothers could only watch and wait as the creatures smashed their fists and heads against the toughened plasglass, unyielding in their desire to destroy the warriors inside.
‘These beasts are insane,’ said Brother Crassus, staring intently at the mad creatures. ‘They would destroy themselves just to get to us.’
Invictus laughed. ‘Take a good look. These creatures are what we are destined to become. All but one of us.’ ‘What do you mean?’ asked Agon, as Invictus’s words sparked a murmur of doubt from the rest.
