by Nick Kyme
‘Do not dissemble with me, Yehzod. I know it is your precious Black Sun that draws you,’ Vassaago challenged. ‘Our interests are concordant. The anomaly will facilitate a prime yield.’
‘Indeed? I believe this world has grown stale. Previously we took only six newbloods…’
‘Six that proved exceptional,’ Yehzod insisted, but Vassaago’s attention had already returned to the holo-screens and after a moment the sorcerer took the opportunity to drift away. Watching the creature from the corner of his eye, Vassaago knew it was correct. The six had been exceptional. Perhaps there was still meat on this carcass after all…
STEALTHILY THE SHIP stalked the hive, following it into the planet’s night side. As the sun was occluded the vessel’s hull rippled with scintillating flashes of energy and its primal spirit stirred into troubled awareness. Neither wholly machine nor yet daemon, the ancient predator recognised this place and shuddered uneasily.
Crouched in the assault bay amongst his armoured brethren, Zhara’shan could sense the ship’s disquiet, reading its mood in every nuance of the flight: the erratic pulse of the thrusters, the lethargy of the stabilisers, even the flicker of the lights… The old devil was skittish, as it always was when they hunted here. It was a wary beast and Zhara’shan sometimes grew tired of its reticence, but he had faith in it. Certainly he trusted it over his watchful, murderous brethren.
His eyes hidden beneath his helmet, he glanced warily at Haz’thur. Inevitably, the massive warrior had positioned himself just to Zhara’shan’s right, not quite challenging his authority, but visibly staking a claim. The talonmaster regarded his unwelcome shadow with distaste. Haz’thur’s armour was a fibrous mass of tumours and spines that pulsed with a life of its own, its monstrosity completed by the huge bone cleavers jutting from his wrists. Typically he disdained a helmet, revelling in the horror his serpentine features evoked in his prey. Although a youth beside Zhara’shan, the giant had embraced the ravages of the warp with zeal. Some amongst the talon even whispered of daemonic possession…
Zhara’shan grimaced. Like all his kind he had tasted the touch of the warp, but his own changes were refined, precise… controlled. The rampant perversions sported by Haz’thur could only end in madness and dissolution. If such abominations were the future then the Long War was already lost.
Abruptly the fierce jet streams of Sarastus caught them, buffeting and rattling the craft. They were entering the atmosphere and tradition demanded the vigil. Zhara’shan’s bellow drew the eyes of the talon.
‘Brothers, we ride the storm and the storm rides within our hearts!’ He ignored the low, mocking chuckle from Haz’thur. ‘We are masters of the tempest, never slaves. Seek the eye and chain the storm!’ With a snarl Zhara’shan twisted his body into a stylised stance and became rigid. Swiftly the talon followed his lead, each warrior freezing into his own unique posture. Even Haz’thur obeyed, dropping into a bestial crouch.
Striving for perfect stillness they compensated for the turbulence with minute motions. Each knew that to slip or scuffle, even to make the slightest sound would invite the scorn of his brothers. Their discipline filled Zhara’shan with fierce pride. Balance was the lynchpin of their craft, enabling them to skim the warp without being consumed.
Like a menagerie of nightmare statues, the silent raptors waited for Nightfall.
NIGHTFALL. ZETH SHIVERED at the thought of it. Not just any night, but True Night. Soon all the pain and the horror was going to pay off…
‘This is gonna be a bloodfest. We gotta evac this zone,’ chief Vivo’s reedy voice broke Zeth’s reverie and he scowled.
‘You planning to run out on us, Vivo?’ Zeth’s tone dripped poison and the gangly youth blanched. He was the weakest link in Zeth’s pack, but all of them were wired. He sighed theatrically. ‘Listen up, it’s Nightfall! Needle’s where we gotta be. Just stick with the plan and I’ll get you all to the stars.’
Shaking his head, Zeth scanned the plaza. Things were pretty wild. There were hundreds clustered around the Needle now: razers and flesheaters and darkscars all standing shoulder to shoulder, their gang rivalries on hold for Nightfall. But Zeth could already taste the violence in the air. High above, the sky rumbled.
A VIOLENT JUDDER shook the craft and Haz’thur felt himself slipping. Only an act of brutal concentration saved him and he snarled inwardly. Covertly he eyed Zhara’shan, certain that the ancient had caught his error. Doubtless the talonmaster would seek to humiliate him after the harvest, but the fool would never get the chance. The mood of the warband was changing and relics like Zhara’shan were losing favour. Already the talon was drawn to Haz’thur and when the time came none would defy him. Bristling beneath Zhara’shan’s contempt, Haz’thur had long hungered to lash out, but the sorcerer had urged patience.
Thinking of the mystic, Haz’thur recalled the truths that had been revealed to him. He had seen the future! A future of slaughter unfettered by any justification save its own raw beauty, where his body would shape itself to the whims of the moment and the Long War would become the Eternal War! Seething with tension, Haz’thur endured the vigil.
LURKING AMONGST THE roiling clouds, the ship sensed the obscenity approaching. There was nothing its sensors could detect, nothing its tainted logic core could quantify, just an absolute certainty of wrongness. Bitterly it turned its attention to the stone-clad chamber that ached like a void in its guts.
Ensconced within his sanctum, levitating within a circle of arcane wards, Yehzod quietly decided the fate of the talonmaster and dismissed the ship’s hatred. Like Zhara’shan, the ship was another vexing element of this warband that needed addressing, but for now the impending anomaly consumed his attention. The Black Sun was returning to Sarastus and every detail had to be recorded, every nuance evaluated. Despite decades dedicated to the enigma, he had made little progress in fathoming its nature, but its promise captivated him. Satisfied that his wards were intact, the sorcerer reached into the void to bear witness to impossibility.
IT ARRIVED WITH a silent scream, the insane potential sound of space being defiled by otherness. Reality itself recoiled, waves of causality twisted into chaos by the intruder’s presence. Fighting back at some fundamental level, the materium coagulated around the rift, struggling to quarantine the infected space. Reality held and the invader was contained.
Contained, but not quite isolated. Trapped in a bubble of order it manifested as a vast black star radiating poisonous light. True Night fell on Sarastus.
THE DARKNESS WAS sudden and complete, yet Zeth could see right across the plaza. Every pale face and glinting blade and grey charm, all raked the eyes with unnatural sharpness. It was all stark high-contrast detail, bleached of colour and every hint of warmth. Ghost light…
A voice whimpered, another answered, superstitious dread spreading through the crowd like wildfire. They wanted to flee, but the Needle’s song held them. The monolith burned a bright white, like a negative image of its former self. It was alive with coruscating energy, arcs of black lightning crackling between its thorns. Suddenly its song flared into an awful, soul-scraping whine.
Something began to fracture inside the ghouls. With a lost wail someone raced forward, arms outstretched to embrace the metal siren. Immediately the boy was caught up in the crackling eddies swirling around the monolith and drawn up into the maelstrom. Spiralling up through the forest of thorns he was shredded and charred, rendered down into a ragged ruin before coming to rest impaled on the spines high above.
A second youth leapt into the whirlwind, then a third, a fourth. Soon dozens of supplicants had joined the lethal dance, gyrating about the Needle and screaming joyfully as it mangled them, body and soul.
On Zeth and his pack the tug was gentle, almost playful. He knew the Needle wanted him to win through, wanted him to make it to the stars. He didn’t really know why, and his instincts told him there would be a price to pay, but Zeth figured he’d deal with that later. After all, he was already in hell
, so what did he have to lose?
ABANDONING THE CAGE of his flesh, the sorcerer cast his spirit into the plaza and hovered invisibly above the chaos. Observing the shrieking monolith, Yehzod was filled with pride, remembering the tiny daemonseed he had planted there so long ago. Nurtured by the noxious light of the Black Sun and feeding on the decay of the hive, it had germinated into a titan! Unfortunately, while it was a useful tool for the harvest, it had revealed little about the sun. He had deduced that the anomaly violated space at a metaphysical level, literally corroding the soul of a planet, but the mechanism completely eluded him.
He turned his attention to the test animals and assessed the carnage. Once again the pitiful creatures displayed remarkable fortitude. For every one that succumbed to the lure, three more resisted. Many had fallen to their knees, hands clasped over their ears to block out the song. Others stood rigid, eyes screwed shut, their lips mouthing prayers or obscenities, focusing on anything but the call. They confirmed his hypothesis that brutality bred resistance to the anomaly. Even so, too many were dying and Lord Vassaago would expect a live yield from this harvest. It would be imprudent to disappoint him quite yet…
Reluctantly Yehzod commanded the monolith to desist. As always, it resisted and he lashed it with his will, brutally driving it into submission. Its strength had grown exponentially since the last harvest. It was more hostile, more enigmatic, more a creature of the Black Sun…
GRADUALLY THE CACOPHONY died down and the Needle subsided into a dull, lifeless grey. The ghouls gawked at the slumbering monster, their faces bright with ghost light. At some point during the slaughter it had begun to rain and now the first rumbles of thunder rolled across the plaza. Still the monolith remained silent. Slowly, uncertainly, a murmur washed through the crowd, beginning as relief and daring for jubilation.
Zeth almost pitied them. They thought the test was over when it had only just begun. Ignoring the whoops and cheers he watched the seething sky.
A SONOROUS BELL reverberated through the assault bay and the hatch swung open. Instantly the chamber was transformed into a riot of wind and rain. It would have scattered ordinary men, but for the raptors it was bliss. Exploding from the rigour of the vigil they scuttled towards the hatch. Hunched beneath their baroque jump packs, clawed feet skittering along the decking, they moved in ragged, avian bursts, hungry for freedom.
Thrusting aside an insolent brother Zhara’shan claimed the spearhead. As talonmaster the first jump was his by right! Instinctively he rounded on Haz’thur, the flensing claws springing free from his gauntlets, but the abomination was hanging back in the shadows. Surprised, Zhara’shan growled low in his throat. His instincts had been honed through the pitiless millennia and he knew something was wrong here…
Abruptly he realised his brothers were watching him expectantly. Did they think he feared the jump? The thought seared him with horror, swiftly followed by an overpowering need to kill. Already he could see the bay transformed into a blood-drenched charnel house. Savagely fighting down the fury, he swung around and plunged into the tempest.
Haz’thur stalked forward, noting with satisfaction that the others were giving him precedence. Already they understood the new shape the talon was taking. Contemptuously he appraised the stunted, almost uniform extent of their mutations. Yes, a new shape was undeniably called for. Several in fact! With a guttural chuckle he leapt after the talonmaster.
FREEFALLING THROUGH THE maelstrom, Zhara’shan urged the wind to flay him of doubt. He thrust his arms wide, recklessly obstructing his streamlined form and inviting the full wrath of the wind. It answered with a vengeance, raking the gnarled flesh of his armour and making him howl with release. At one with the storm, he tasted the only peace he recognised.
As he fell, Haz’thur fixed his eyes on the dark speck of the talonmaster far below and grinned savagely. He had received the command during the vigil, the sorcerer’s words a silken whisper in his mind: the talonmaster was not to return from the harrowing.
Spying the tip of the monolith jabbing through the clouds, Zhara’shan reluctantly ignited his jetpack to veer away. The thing was a spawn of the Black Sun and not to be trusted. Much like the faceless bastard who had led them on this trail… With a clarity born of the storm, Zhara’shan suddenly knew he would kill the sorcerer. Lord Vassaago’s schemes be damned, once this harvest was done he would tear out the cancer devouring his warband. With a satisfied snarl the talonmaster flipped into a knifing dive, streaking towards the distant spires.
CAUTIOUSLY ZETH APPROACHED the silent monolith. The pack kept their distance, but Zeth told himself he had nothing to fear. Tentatively he reached out towards a long, dagger-like thorn, hesitating at the thought of the remnants sizzling in the branches above.
‘You want me for something…’ Something other than charred meat. ‘And I want…’ To break them all and unmake them all and bring them all down screaming and drowning in their own lies. The words erupted unbidden from somewhere dark and hungry deep within Zeth’s soul. They were shockingly alien, yet achingly familiar. True words.
Stunned, Zeth staggered back, the thorn snapping free in his grasp. He stared at it in confusion. When had he actually touched the thing? He’d reached out, but then he’d hesitated…
The thought was sliced apart by an ululating cry. Rippling down from the clouds, it was a bestial sound that froze the ghouls as surely as the Needle’s lure. Zeth recognised it in a heartbeat.
A tall darkscar, his face a patchwork of ritual wounds, seized the moment, ‘Hear the Midnight Fathers and open your hearts to True Night!’ His voice was deep and rich, belying his youth. ‘We have endured the Sacrament of Divine Shredding and now the Lords are come amongst us!’
Zeth could see he had them. In a crazy way he was even right. That cry from above had sealed the deal. All his visions had been real. The Lords were here!
‘The things you’ve seen up here in the Spires, they’re nothing! Up there…’ The darkscar jabbed at the sky, ‘Up there it’s all pain and death! The only thing you’ve got to ask is this: am I a hunter… or am I just meat?’
And then something streaked out of the sky and the preacher was gone.
SOARING BACK INTO the clouds, his prey hooked delicately between the shoulder blades, Haz’thur whooped with delight. He lived for these moments of elegant slaughter, his perfect offerings to the chaos swirling at the heart of everything. But this time the true joy lay in cheating the talonmaster of the first kill!
Twisting into the wind he saw Zhara’shan watching him. They regarded each other from a hovering standstill as the others circled them. This affront had crossed the line between insolence and open challenge. A reckoning was inevitable. All that remained was a question of when. Haz’thur waited, ropes of drool dripping from his maw in anticipation of the clash. His claws flashing free, Zhara’shan ignited his thrusters… and dived towards the plaza.
Haz’thur laughed, knowing it wasn’t fear that had driven away his rival. Despite his long millennia in the darkness, the talonmaster was still driven by duty. In his heart, the ancient monster was still a Space Marine.
ZETH CAUGHT THE momentary blur of shadows as a second ghoul was snatched from the bewildered crowd. It happened in an eye-blink, the work of a master. The third was slower and Zeth spied something manlike and impossibly huge.
Night Lord. The name slipped into his mind, redolent with promise. He didn’t know if it was another gift from the Needle or a revelation from something deeper, but his heart sang to it. Recognising their game, recognising them, Zeth sank into a crouch beside the monolith and watched. The strikes weren’t random. They were only taking the real crazies: berserk razers, fanatical darkscars, gibbering flesheaters… and anyone that ran for the gate. Culling the weak.
Glancing at his pack, Zeth winced. They were bunched together, just staring at the clouds! He needed to get them into cover, but he wasn’t going to risk shouting for the sky-struck fools. This wasn’t the time to get noticed, or
distracted. Unwillingly, his eyes were drawn back to the Night Lords’ game. It was beautiful…
AS HE HOOKED another kill onto his shoulder spikes, Zhara’shan considered Haz’thur’s challenge. It had been inevitable, yet it had surprised him. Had his talon forgotten that the mission always came first? Had they fallen so far? The Night Lords had entered the Long War bound by an oath to tear down the lie that was the Imperium, but watching his rapacious, shrieking brethren he wondered what bound them now.
Troubled, Zhara’shan’s preternatural gaze wandered back to the youth he had spied hiding beside the monolith. It was a scrawny thing, its face bone white against lank black hair, but its stillness had caught his eye. Twice already he had spared it, convinced it wasn’t hiding out of cowardice. No, there was no fear there, yet it was free of the rage or faith that so often blinded the fearless… A brother whipped past him, hissing reproachfully. The talon was growing weary of the shadow play and their insolence incensed him. If Haz’thur took the lead now would they follow him? Surely their loyalty, no, their fear of the talonmaster hadn’t waned so far? Bitterly he added Haz’thur’s name to the personal harvest he would reap after this mission. Howling a command, he dropped from the cloud cover.
THE CROWD FELL silent as they spied the jagged black shapes emerging from the clouds. Spiralling above the plaza in swift arcs, their paths interweaving with arrogant precision, the flyers were inscribing something across the sky. Zeth watched it form and fade, over and again. It was just a phantom incarnated in the contrails of their jets, but the eightfold star was still potent. Zeth recoiled, torn between loathing and longing, struggling to ground himself. Time was running out and his pack was frozen in the killing ground…
