‘What do you suggest?’ Skalagrim said. ‘Shall we climb down and lose ourselves in the maze below? Or perhaps you’d like to parley with the xenos?’ He pointed his axe at Fabius. ‘Deliver unto us your words of wisdom, Chief Apothecary.’
Before Fabius could reply, something heavy struck the docking tower. He staggered, his battleplate’s internal stabilisers keeping him on his feet. The wraithbone arches buckled and the tower’s long-dormant systems burst in a spray of sparks and eerie blue flame. Smoke boiled out of the damaged control nodes, washing through the chamber before being drawn out through the open berth.
His armour’s proximity sensors screamed as slim shapes darted through the fug. Where the Harlequins had come from, he couldn’t say. That they were here now was the important thing. And there was nowhere else to go.
‘He has run – oh, he has run – but he can run no further…’
Fabius turned. The smoke seemed to congeal about him, thickening and becoming almost opaque. The vox faltered and went dead, sealing him inside his armour. He could hear nothing save his own breath rasping in his lungs, and the thump of his pulse. Even the chirurgeon was silent, though he could feel it twitching and pulling against his spine. In the haze, vague shapes capered and spun about him, drawing closer with every gyration. Suddenly, the audio sensors of his helmet squealed, nearly deafening him.
‘The story never ends,’ a hatefully familiar voice said. ‘It only circles back around, from end to beginning, and starts again.’ A thin shape danced towards him, spinning a long staff as if to disperse the smoke. Fabius stiffened.
‘Veilwalker.’
‘Whether you wish it or not, the performance continues, O King of Feathers,’ Sylandri Veilwalker half-sang. ‘The story permutes and shifts about you, but you will never break free of it. Like the glistening coils of Shehem-shahai, they pull you deeper into destiny’s embrace, the harder you struggle. That is the story of you.’
The Shadowseer twirled towards him, moving with a curious, rolling gait. As the xenos twitched, mirror images sprang from it, like reflections in shattered glass. The images switched positions, as if the creature were dancing with itself. Beyond the images, he could see Arrian and the others fighting the Harlequins.
Khorag smashed a clown from its feet with a sweep of his arm, and Paz’uz leapt on it, eliciting a scream from the gaudy xenos. Arrian staggered as a Harlequin plunged a hand through his chest-plate, its phase-field allowing it to bypass ceramite as if it were thin air. The World Eater’s desperate slash sent the Harlequin tumbling back, out of reach, its fingers dripping red. The others were similarly engaged and unable to come to his aid. The Harlequins had isolated him with deft skill.
‘It has been over a century, Veilwalker. Find a new tale to tell. Or better yet… don’t.’ Fabius snatched his needler from its holster and fired, sending a dart towards each of the images. One by one, they flickered out of sight. Fabius grunted in annoyance as something hard crunched against one of his stab-lights, shattering it. He spun, firing again, but Veilwalker flipped away, laughing shrilly.
The smoke seemed to drag at his limbs. It was as if the Harlequins had suborned it somehow. His armour’s targeting system couldn’t get a lock on the slim figure capering about him. He was forced to rely on his own instincts. Unfortunately, those instincts were somewhat dull from disuse. It had been too long since he had taken the field in anything more than a detached capacity. The front line was foreign ground to him. He needed distance. A distraction. He bulled through the smoke, seeking allies.
As he burst through the roiling cloud, he spotted several of his Gland-hounds fighting back-to-back against the darting shapes. ‘Nialos, Hargan – form up,’ he snarled, as he lurched towards them. Two Gland-hounds broke away from the pack and hurried towards him, firing at the whirling shapes around them as they came.
A scrape of silk on wraithbone brought him around as Veilwalker darted towards him. Swiftly, he stepped behind one of the Gland-hounds. The staff spun in Veilwalker’s hands, and the weighted ferrule slammed down on Nialos’ skull. Reinforced bone buckled as if it were paper, and he toppled forward with a disgruntled sigh.
The Shadowseer was over the body a moment later, spinning towards Fabius in a blur of colour. Fabius interposed Torment, catching the xenos’ staff before it connected, but only just. The alien was incredibly fast – faster even than his enhanced reflexes could compensate for. Hargan roared and lunged, nearly tackling the eldar. Veilwalker leapt straight up and drove the end of its staff down like a spear.
Hargan gave a strangled groan as the staff punched through his armour and crushed his spine. He flopped to the ground, his screams cut short as Veilwalker landed on his head. The Shadowseer vaulted off the dying Gland-hound and sprang towards Fabius. ‘Bow to fate, mon-keigh, lest its weight crush you where you stand.’
He backed away from the slim shape. The distorted vox crackled suddenly, erupting with the ecstatic death-cries of the Emperor’s Children and the shrieking moans of his Gland-hounds. A tactic that might have unnerved a lesser mind. ‘Better to be crushed by fate than to live in chains,’ he said, spitting the words at the alien. ‘You had my answer on Lugganath, witch. What makes you think this time would be any different?’
Warning runes flashed in his display, alerting him to his danger an instant before the enemy struck. Veilwalker had manoeuvred him into a trap. Fabius twisted aside, and a monomolecular blade pierced the flap of his coat, tearing away a silently screaming face. He brought Torment down. The colourful shape flipped out of reach, laughing. They were all laughing. Or worse, singing.
The vox rattled with shouted calls for aid, or warnings. The Harlequins had sliced the Emperor’s Children’s battle formation apart, like water sluicing through parched soil. Everywhere he looked, warriors fought alone or in small groups.
He caught a glimpse of Savona and Bellephus chopping themselves a path towards Skalagrim, who was wrestling with a spindly clown, its too-long fingers crackling with blinding energies. He heard Arrian calling out, but could not spot the World Eater’s ident-rune in the confusion.
His armour scanned and isolated the capering figures that now surrounded him, and began the slow trawl through his archive of aeldari mythology. Harlequins did not wage war so much as they performed it. Battle flowed according to a choreographed rhythm. If he could identify the story they were acting out, he stood a chance of escaping the otherwise lethal pull of the narrative – or of upending it entirely.
‘Patience,’ he murmured. Veilwalker phased in and out of sight, dancing through the shadows, drawing closer with impossible speed. The other Harlequins orbited around the Shadowseer, playing their assigned roles. He ignored the off-kilter singing, the playful lunges, and tried to concentrate on the big movements, and identify the main characters. Veilwalker was the instigator, but there would be others.
They whirled about him in a murderous cyclone, their blades marking his armour, his coat, drawing sparks and scraps alike. The chirurgeon responded to his need, and a flush of stimulants filled his bloodstream. He matched his opponents, move for move. There were dozens of Harlequins, but most of them seemed more inclined to prance and sing than attack. The world, his surroundings, narrowed to the performance.
‘The chorus, then – playing to the audience,’ he said to himself. The implications of that infuriated him. He was no play actor, strutting and fretting on a crumbling stage for the enjoyment of others. He readied his needler and targeting runes spun, trying to lock on to one of the slender shapes pirouetting about him.
Even as he fought, however, a portion of mind was analysing his enemies. They reminded him, in some ways, of his brothers. Or his brothers as they had been. Their movements had the same air of practised repetition – as if every fight had been fought a thousand times, and every move accounted for. The search for perfection had driven his brothers into the arms of anarchy. But these creatur
es had surrendered their will to a far crueller philosophy – that of narrative causality. Their stories, once begun, could not help but take their inevitable shape, again and again.
The question here was, was this a story where they won – or where they lost? He staggered as a burst of needle-fire drew oily sparks from his shield-plate. He twisted, pulling the trigger, replying in kind. He swung the needler, finger still on the trigger. He could see the weak points now, the centre of each part of the narrative – the god figures. Hurt them, disrupt the performance.
Choosing one at random, he lunged, Torment sweeping back for a clubbing blow. All of a sudden, the narrative contracted in an unforeseen fashion, and the Harlequins scattered in all directions. He felt something vibrate through the platform, and turned.
A gunship hovered before the open docking bay, assault cannons whirring, driving Veilwalker and the other Harlequins back. The vox crackled as a new voice intruded over the clamour of alien voices. ‘–o you live, Lieutenant Commander Fabius?’
He recognised that voice. Fabius turned towards the gunship as it docked in the berth. Though its heraldry was faded and warped, it was still recognisably that of the Third Legion. The disembarkation ramp thudded home as the entry ports cycled open with a hiss of escaping pressure. The ramp trembled beneath the tread of booted feet. Warriors in twisted battleplate thudded down into the chamber, weapons blazing, bellowing the battle-cry of their Legion – ‘Children of the Emperor! Death to his foes!’
The phalanx of amethyst battleplate spread out, pushing the Harlequins back through sheer momentum. The alien clowns leapt and danced among the firestorm, nimbly avoiding whistling bolter rounds with impossible grace. But no matter how adroit their movements, they could not pierce the curtain of explosive rounds, and were forced back.
Fabius saw Veilwalker race up the side of a wall, twisting in the air, staff sweeping out like a scythe to knock a Space Marine staggering. A moment later, the Shadowseer was gone, retreating with the rest of its troupe back through the chamber entrance. The alien voices that had been ricocheting across the vox faded, giving way before the voices of the newcomers.
Fabius turned, weapons still in hand. He found himself staring down the barrels of several bolters. ‘Is this a rescue, or an assassination?’
‘As distrustful as ever, Spider.’
A warrior pushed his way through the newcomers’ ranks. He was clad in magnificent Mark IV battleplate, decorated with complex heraldry and ornamentation. Every facet of the purple armour had been made over into a work of art – painted faces warred for space with deceptively delicate looking crystalline growths and carefully sculpted extrusions of ceramite. The helmet bore a crest of stiff white hair, and the golden visor was scooped to a sharp, baroque curve. Ancient oaths of moment, all either happily unfulfilled or proudly broken, fluttered about his armour.
Fabius straightened. ‘Flavius Alkenex.’ Flavius Alkenex, whom he’d fought beside at Byzas and Walpurgis. Prefect of the Phoenix Guard in the waning days of the Heresy. One of Fulgrim’s lackeys in the centuries after the flight from Terra. There was no telling who he served now, though it was certain that he was serving someone. Flavius had never been one to lead, when he could instead follow. Fabius lifted his needler, ignoring the bolters aimed in his direction. ‘My question stands.’
‘If it were the one, rather than the other, why not simply leave you to your fate?’ Alkenex shrugged. ‘Then, you always were sorely lacking in common sense.’ He tapped the pommel of the blade sheathed at his side. ‘And my rank is prefect, as I’m sure you recall.’
Fabius laughed. ‘And mine is lieutenant commander. But that was when there was a Legion, with a command structure. Now, we are just Fabius and Flavius. And if you do not answer my question, there will soon only be Fabius.’ The needler didn’t waver.
Alkenex laughed. ‘You are as stubborn as I recall, Spider.’
‘Do not call me that,’ Fabius snapped.
‘I’ll call you what I like, given that you are now my prisoner.’ Alkenex made a show of drawing his blade and laid it over his shoulder.
‘On whose authority?’
‘Does it matter? I outnumber you. That alone gives me all the authority I need.’
Fabius looked around. Only a few of the warriors who’d accompanied Savona were still standing, Bellephus among them. And as Alkenex had pointed out, they were badly outnumbered by the newcomers. Arrian and the other members of his Consortium were isolated, facing down a firing line. The only ones not being covered were the Twins and his surviving Gland-hounds, likely because Alkenex thought them to be nothing more than mortal chattel.
He caught Mayshana’s eye, and she dipped her chin. The Gland-hounds eyed Alkenex’s warriors hungrily and Fabius knew that if he gave the order, they would attack. And most likely die in the doing so. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have hesitated, but they had taken too many casualties on this expedition. Too much viable stock now lay ruined on wraithbone decks. Even so, he was loath to allow Alkenex to hold the upper hand. He stepped forward, needler still raised. Alkenex tilted his head, watching him as he advanced.
‘Ordinarily, in these situations, the prisoner lowers his weapon,’ he said.
‘I have never been ordinary.’ Fabius ignored the anticipatory twitches of the Emperor’s Children surrounding him. ‘Nor have I ever surrendered, especially to a jumped-up equerry such as yourself, Flavius.’
‘The alternative is death.’
Fabius laughed. ‘I have died before.’ He let the barrel of the needler drift, his targeting array locking onto the space between Alkenex’s chest-plate and helmet. ‘These needles can pierce all but the thickest ceramite. And the concoction within them would break down your body, cell by cell, until there is nothing left of you but a bad smell. I do not fear death, Flavius. Do you?’
Alkenex tapped his shoulder-plate with his sword. ‘No. But neither am I in any hurry to die. I could just have them shoot you…’
‘You said it yourself – if you were here to kill me, you would have left me to the Harlequins. Which means you need me alive.’
‘True. But alive doesn’t mean in one piece.’ Alkenex stabbed his sword into the wraithbone with an emphatic thunk. ‘Perhaps we should retreat, eh? Leave you to escape on your own. I suspect that you’ll manage it, in time.’ He pointed upwards. ‘If the Harlequins let you, that is.’
Fabius glanced up and saw the pale ovals of Harlequin masks peering at him from the shadows of the chamber’s upper reaches. A whisper of sound slithered across the vox, something between a laugh and an eager whine. Abruptly, he lowered his needler. ‘Fine. I… surrender.’
‘Louder, Spider. So that the audience can hear.’ Alkenex lifted his sword and tapped it against Fabius’ shoulder. ‘I want there to be no mistake.’
Fabius brushed the sword away. ‘I surrender,’ he said, holstering his weapon. ‘Though, I would ask to whom I am surrendering – who sent you here, Flavius? On whose behalf are you here, spouting threats?’
‘Why, the only authority that matters – the Lord Commander Primus himself.’ Alkenex sheathed his sword with a flourish, and turned away.
‘Lord Commander–?’ Fabius began.
‘Yes. Lord Commander Eidolon wishes the pleasure of your company, Fabius.’
Chapter seven
Old Songs
The Vesalius slid through Eyespace, accompanied by another ship – the battle-barge, Wage of Sin. The stocky vessel was larger than the Vesalius, and more than capable of obliterating the frigate, should it come to it. Which it wouldn’t. Alkenex had brought more than enough warriors aboard the Vesalius to ensure that everything went smoothly.
The eldar had retreated into the webway at almost the same instant as Alkenex’s gunship had entered the Vesalius’ fighter bay. Even so, Fabius had ordered that the ship’s weapons batteries be turned on the craftworld, just in c
ase the Harlequins had not yet abandoned it. Regrettably, Alkenex had chosen that moment to assert his authority. They had left the craftworld where it floated, and departed the webway with all due haste. They had, at least, destroyed the dimensional gate, at Fabius’ insistence.
Now, warriors of the Third prowled every deck of the Vesalius. Fabius had identified members of at least four different Millennials, as well as renegades of a more recent vintage. With the disastrous end of the Legion Wars, the Emperor’s Children had been forced to replenish their depleted ranks with whatever warm bodies were to hand. The lilting accents of Chemos mingled with the rough, gutter-twang of Nostromo and even a few Terran dialects he had not heard since before Fulgrim had picked up the Laer Blade.
Fabius paced along the corridor leading to his laboratorium, resisting the urge to grind his teeth in frustration. There were intruders stationed at every bulkhead and transit elevator. His own followers were confined to the lower decks, save for a few exceptions. He himself had been barred from the command deck, for no reason more complicated than spite.
Then, Alkenex had always been a spiteful fool. Even as an aspirant, he had shown little but disdain for the Apothecary overseeing his elevation to something greater than human. The arrogance of Old Europa ran strong in Alkenex. It was no surprise that Eidolon had sent him, in retrospect. Alkenex was no decadent fool, easily distracted by hedonistic pursuits. He could be relied on to do as he’d been ordered.
The question was – why send him at all? What was the purpose of this assault on his sovereignty? Fabius shook his head as theories sprouted like weeds in the cracks of his certainty. He’d never counted Eidolon among his enemies – the self-proclaimed Lord Commander Primus had kept his distance since well before the destruction of Canticle City. He’d always assumed some vague remnant of gratitude would protect him from Eidolon’s attentions. He now saw how foolish that assumption had been. ‘The better angels of our nature are long since drowned,’ he muttered.
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