One of the creatures, a goatish thing wearing a peaked officer’s cap, barked what might have been an order. The pack shuffled forward warily, closing ranks about Oleander. It was no honour guard, but it would do. Oleander allowed the mutants to escort him deeper into the city. While he knew the way perfectly well, he saw no reason to antagonise them.
Their ranks swelled and thinned at seemingly random intervals as the journey progressed. Knots of muttering brutes vanished into the shadows, only to be replaced by others. Oleander studied the crude heraldry of the newcomers with some interest. When he’d last been here, they had barely known what clothes were. Now they had devised primitive insignia of rank, and split into distinct groups – or perhaps tribes. Perhaps the changeovers were due to territorial differences.
Whatever their loyalties, they were afraid of him. Oleander relished the thought. It was good to be feared. There was nothing quite like it. The beasts who surrounded him now were more human-looking. They were clad in purple-stained rags and armour marked with what might have been an unsophisticated rendition of the old winged claw insignia of the Emperor’s Children. It amused him. They likely had more in common with the men they aped than they could conceive. Both were far removed from their creator’s intended ideal.
His amusement faded as the palace at last came into sight. Its delicate tiers stretched gracefully up towards the blistered sky. Chunks had been gouged out of its curved walls, to allow for the addition of multiple power sources, rad-vents and gun emplacements. It was akin to a beautiful flower, encrusted with a bristling techno-organic fungus. Rubble had been cleared from the broad avenue leading up to the main entrance. A crude shanty town, built from debris, had sprung up around the outer walls of the ancient structure.
More than once, he saw what could only be barbaric shrines, and statues decorated with articulated bones and offerings of stitched skin and gory meat. Mutants chanted softly to these statues, and he heard the words ‘Pater Mutatis’ and ‘Benefactor’ most often. The Father of Mutants. He wondered whether the object of such veneration was pleased by the acknowledgement, or annoyed by its crudity.
Unseen horns blew a warning, or perhaps a greeting, as Oleander and his escort moved along the avenue. The wind had picked up, carrying with it the ever-present screams of the ancient dead, as well as the barks and howls of the shanty town’s debased population. Dust roiled through the air, momentarily obscuring the ruins around him. Oleander briefly considered putting his helmet back on, but discarded the idea after a moment. It was hard to sing, inside the helmet. ‘Song of my soul, my voice is dead, die thou, unsung, as tears unshed...’
Abruptly, the cacophony rising from the shanty town died away. The only sounds left were the phantom screams and Oleander’s singing. But these too faded as the sound of heavy boots crunching stone and bone rose up. Oleander could barely make out the approaching figure through the dust and the wind. He reached for his bolt pistol.
‘No need for that, I assure you.’ The vox-link crackled with atmospheric distortion, but the voice was recognisable for all that. Oleander relaxed slightly, though not completely. The dust began to clear. A large shape stepped forward.
The warrior’s power armour had been painted white and blue once, but now it was mostly scraped grey or stained brown with blood and other substances. Black mould crept across the battle-scarred ceramite plates, like oil across snow. A sextet of cracked skulls hung from the chest-plate, wreathed in chains. More chains crisscrossed the Space Marine’s torso and arms, as if to keep something contained. Like Oleander, he also wore the accoutrements of an Apothecary, though his had seen far more use, under heavier fire. A curved falax blade was sheathed on either hip.
‘Waiting for me?’ Oleander said. He kept his hand on the grip of his bolt pistol.
‘I heard the beasts howling,’ the other said. He reached up and unlatched his helmet. Seals hissed and recycled air spurted as he pulled it off, revealing a familiar, scarred face. He’d been handsome, once, before the fighting pits. Now he resembled a statue that had been used for target practice. ‘And here you are. Still singing that same dreadful dirge.’
‘No mask, no mask,’ Oleander said, finishing the song.
‘Learn a new tune,’ the other said.
‘You were never a music lover were you, Arrian?’ Arrian Zorzi had once served at Angron’s pleasure, on the killing fields of the Great Crusade. Now he obeyed a new master. Oleander thought Arrian had traded up, if anything.
Angron had been a puling psychopath even before he’d taken his first steps towards daemonhood. Worse even than glorious Fulgrim, whose light was as that of the sun. A master you chose was better than one chosen for you. At least that way, you had no one to blame but yourself.
‘Exile agrees with you, brother.’ Arrian’s voice was soft. Softer than it ought to have been. As if it came from the mouth of some inbred outer-rim aristocrat, rather than a savage draped in skulls and chains. A considered affectation. Another way of chaining the beast inside.
‘I left of my own volition.’
‘And now you’re back.’
‘Is that going to be a problem?’ He would only have time for one shot, if that. Arrian was fiendishly quick, when he put his mind to it. Another memento of years spent wading in someone else’s blood, for the entertainment of a screaming crowd.
‘No.’ Arrian’s fingers tapped against the hilt of one of his swords. ‘I bear you no particular malice today.’ He reached up to stroke one of the skulls. The cortical implants dangling from it rattled softly.
‘And them?’ Oleander said, indicating the skulls. The skulls had belonged to the warriors of Arrian’s former squad. All dead now, and by Arrian’s hand. When a warhound decided to find a new master, bloodshed was inevitable.
‘My brothers are dead, Oleander. And as such only concerned with the business of the dead. What about you?’
‘I want to see him.’
Arrian glanced over his shoulder. He looked down at his skulls, and tapped one. ‘You’re right, brothers. He’s watching,’ he said, to the skull.
‘Is he, then?’ Oleander said. He turned, scanning the desolation. When he turned back, Arrian was leaning against the archway. He hadn’t even heard the World Eater move.
‘He’s always watching, you know that. From inside as well as out,’ Arrian said. ‘Enter, and be welcome once more to the Grand Apothecarion, Oleander Koh. The Chief Apothecary is expecting you.’
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