The Last Hunt

by Robbie MacNiven

  Ganzorig paused at the door to the smaller substation, one hand pressed against the bulky vox-array that had been grafted into his pale, balding skull. His worn expression grew even more distressed.

  ‘They’re requesting a direction transmission,’ he told Tugan. ‘Face to face.’

  ‘We delayed too long,’ Tugan said, his voice grim. ‘It never pays to keep them waiting. Put me on the plate.’

  ‘Right now?’ Ganzorig asked, hesitating. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tugan replied. ‘If we wait for the governor the situation will only worsen. I’ll offer them what assurances I can.’

  Ganzorig nodded and gestured to one of his adepts.

  ‘Activate the transmission plates.’

  Tugan paused to check his robes, adjusted the golden yat-horn pin that was his badge of office, and then stepped onto one of the substation’s six hololithic plates. He felt the surface underfoot vibrating up through his slipshoes, and the air filled with a low hum. The lumen strips overhead dimmed.

  ‘We’ve accepted their transmission request,’ Ganzorig said, hand pressed once more to his vox augmetics as he synthesised the information flow. ‘Codes verified, establishing connection. Stand by, chancellor.’

  The hololithic plate opposite his own came online. There was a crack of electrical charge, and the humming grew louder. The space above the plate before him flickered and shifted, pale luminescence filling the darkness. A white phantom materialised, a grainy image washed with pulses of static inference.

  It was the ghost of a giant, clad in ethereal battleplate and thick pelts. One great white pauldron was emblazoned with a jagged lightning bolt crest. It wore no helm, and the hololithic projection picked out sharp, proud features and a long, trailing moustache not dissimilar to the one affected by Tugan. Its high cheeks were disfigured by ritual scarring, three lines running down each, slicing towards a strong jaw. Even distorted and flickering, the giant’s eyes had a piercing, hawkish quality, almost cruel. It looked down on Tugan imperiously as the chancellor held out both arms, palms face up and open in the traditional Darkand style of greeting.

  ‘Hail and well met, Sky Warrior,’ he intoned, fixing his attention on the single eye of the twin-headed Imperial aquila embossed on its vast breastplate.

  The giant brought one clenched gauntlet – easily the size of Tugan’s head – up to its breastplate. There was a click as the vox-speakers built into the hololithic plate’s base came online.

  ‘Well met, Chancellor Shegai Tugan,’ said the giant. Its voice was deep but curiously melodic, lent poetic colour by the thickness of a flowing accent.

  Tugan did not question how the Sky Warrior knew his name.

  ‘I am Joghaten, Master of Blades, Khan-Commander of the White Scars,’ the giant continued. ‘I am accompanied to your system by the entirety of my brotherhood. We have come here with all haste.’

  ‘The tides of the empyrean have been kind, Great Hetman,’ Tugan said, using the honorific applied by the natives of Darkand to the Sky Warriors. ‘We did not expect your arrival for some time.’

  ‘Your assumption is wrong,’ Joghaten replied. ‘We are not early. We are late, and grievously so.’

  ‘I… do not understand,’ Tugan began, hesitating as he tried to process the giant’s words.

  ‘It is not necessary that you understand,’ Joghaten said. ‘An enemy is coming, a great and terrible xenos threat. My brotherhood’s Zadyin Arga has seen it many times in his entrails and spirit-walks. Your world already feels the tremors of their approach. You must move the nomad tribes inside the capital’s walls.’

  ‘I will inform Commander Harren of this,’ Tugan said, fear warring with protocol as the enormity of what Joghaten was saying hit home. ‘What manner of xenos? I-I will need authorisation–’

  ‘Why is Governor Harren not here to treat with me directly?’ Joghaten demanded. ‘Do the White Scars not warrant his attention?’

  ‘We… we did not expect you so soon, Great Hetman,’ Tugan said, forcing himself to turn back towards the giant. ‘Today is the Day of Descent. He has been called away to the ceremonial start of the Furnace Season. I will fetch him immediately.’

  ‘Deliver this message to him,’ Joghaten ordered. ‘We are running out of time. You must begin the relocation of the tribespeople to the capital immediately. The Shadow in the Warp will soon be upon us.’

  ‘The Shadow in the–?’ Tugan asked, trying to force his voice to stay level. He must not dishonour his post by panicking, even if it was in front of a Sky Warrior.

  ‘You will be fully briefed when we make planetfall,’ Joghaten responded. ‘Go and begin preparations, chancellor.’

  Tugan nodded hastily before crossing his arms and bowing his head in a reverent expression of traditional Darkand compliance.

  ‘As you will it, Great Hetman,’ he said. ‘I shall return as swiftly as possible.’

  ‘I pray you do, Chancellor Tugan,’ Joghaten said. For a moment the towering ghost form glared down at him, like a hawk eyeing its prey. Then the hololithic flickered, and was gone.

  Tugan turned to Ganzorig as the lumens came back on.

  ‘Issue a code aleph alert to all departments, recall the cabinet and get me the governor. I don’t care if it interrupts the ceremony.’

  ‘Understood,’ Ganzorig said, signalling to one of his vox operators. ‘Open a secure channel to Commander Harren immediately, maximum priority.’

  As the sound of fingers tapping at rune keys echoed through the substation, Ganzorig and Tugan both made for the doors. They never reached them. The hatchway slid open to admit half a dozen Pinnacle Guard in their ochre flak-plate. They were led by Nergüi.

  Guardmaster Nergüi, Captain of the Watch, was head of security for Heavenfall’s government district. Like Tugan he was a rare beast, a steppe tribesman inducted into the capital’s inner circle. When seeing the chancellor and the guardmaster together, many assumed the two sons of the steppes shared a sort of native ­rapport. Nothing could be further from the truth – the two came from rival tribes, the Tug-ai and the Shontaj. Competition was bred into their every encounter.

  Tugan paused as Nergüi and his security detail – fully armed and armoured – stepped into the substation.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Tugan demanded.

  ‘There has been a security breach,’ Nergüi said, stopping in front of Tugan, flanked by his men. They wore their helmets’ blast plates down, the fanged images of the steppe canids carved into the visors snarling silently at the chancellor. He noticed that the vox-adepts had also ceased transmitting, the rattle of fingers on rune pads suddenly silenced. They were all staring at him. The hairs on the nape of his neck bristled.

  ‘What manner of breach?’ he demanded. Ganzorig had started worrying at the collar of his robe, seemingly also unnerved by the sudden appearance of the Pinnacle Guard.

  ‘Tier one,’ Nergüi said, taking a step forwards and forcing Tugan back.

  ‘I must speak directly with Commander Harren,’ the chancellor said.

  ‘The commander is indisposed,’ said Nergüi. ‘He is being introduced to the Master of Ceremonies.’

  ‘The Sky Warriors are on their way,’ Tugan responded, forcing his voice to remain slow and level as he sought to regain control of the situation. ‘They’ll be here sooner than we anticipated.’

  He’d hoped mention of the Sky Warriors would give Nergüi pause. It did not. The man simply smiled, the expression disconcertingly dead.

  ‘It is as the High Enunciator foresaw,’ he said. ‘Our salvation is finally drawing close.’

  The guardmaster turned to his detail and gestured at Tugan.

  ‘Seize him.’

  Tugan went for his concealed Drexian autopistol, but he was too slow. The Pinnacle Guard were on him, pinning his arms at his sides, his ageing muscle no match for t
heir combined, armoured bulk.

  ‘The vox majoris too,’ Nergüi snarled. Ganzorig was making for one of the hub’s secondary exits, but the staff intercepted him. He didn’t resist.

  ‘Unhand me,’ Tugan snapped. His heart was pounding, and he strained against his captors. His anger was stoked. Chancellor, minister, councillor, it didn’t matter anymore. Tugan was a son of the steppes, proud and fierce. Whatever treachery was unfolding before him, whatever madness had gripped those around him, he would not surrender to it meekly. He spat at Nergüi.

  Nergüi punched him. The blow thumped into Tugan’s gut. He gasped with pain, but the Pinnacle Guard kept him standing.

  ‘We are the security breach,’ Nergüi sneered, pressing his face against Tugan’s, filling the chancellor’s senses with the stench of rancid yat milk and the greasy reek of weapon oils. Tugan tried to headbutt him, but one of the guards snatched his grey topknot, pinning him back.

  Nergüi laughed, and there was nothing but hunger in his black eyes.

  ‘I have waited a long time to do this,’ the guardmaster said, drawing his kindjal: the long, razored knife all steppe tribesmen carried. ‘Tug-ai scum.’

  He thrust the blade into Tugan’s stomach. The chancellor grunted, more with shock than anything else. A part of his mind still refused to accept what was happening.

  Then the pain hit. His cry was muffled by a gloved hand as the Pinnacle Guards kept him pinned. Ganzorig’s yelp was also cut short as the vox-adepts struck his head against a transmitter node and began to violently kick him when he went down. They didn’t let up until the vox majoris stopped moving. It took a long time.

  Nergüi twisted his blade in Tugan’s stomach, slowly. The chancellor’s robes were red and dripping. Nergüi held Tugan’s gaze as he murdered him, a grin splitting his blunt, dark features. This was not a cold-blooded assassination, not some coolly executed coup. The features of the men and women Tugan and Ganzorig had worked with for years were twisted with a vicious, inhuman mix of raw hatred and vicious glee. There was deep, abiding hunger in their manic gaze. Tugan, breathless with agony and weak from blood loss, could do nothing to break free. The other ­Pinnacle Guards had drawn their own ceremonial kindjals and were stepping in close, joining Nergüi. Those holding on to the chancellor released him.

  Like many before him, Tugan had wondered what thoughts would occupy his mind at the point of death. He had always assumed it would be something relating to the beauty of the steppes, or memories of his family. It was not the steppes he thought of though, as the knives took him on the floor of the vox-hub substation. Nor was it the memory of uncles and sisters, mother and father and cousins. His only thoughts were of terror. Terror at having failed the white-plated giant. Terror at what was coming for his people, for his world, from the depths of the void.

  Terror at what was already here, lurking in Heavenfall’s heart.

  You think you know what haunts the recesses of a broken man’s mind? I tell you now, storm brethren, not all phantoms are conjured by the illusions of stress and sorrow. Some stand alongside us, wherever we are, wherever we go. Where past and future meet, here are the living, breathing ghosts of the present. Eternal possibility is theirs to command.

  – Targutai Yesugei, Chief Stormseer of the White Scars

  Chapter Two

  GHOSTS

  TIME TO FURNACE SEASON PEAK [TERRAN STANDARD]: 113 HOURS.

  TIME TO PREDICTED PRIMARY XENOS PLANETFALL [TERRAN STANDARD]: 68 HOURS.

  The Pride of Chogoris, the void,

  Darkand System

  The fleet of the Fourth Brotherhood of the White Scars made its way from warp exit on all ahead full, approaching the system’s central planet, Darkand, on a war footing. On board the strike cruiser Pride of Chogoris the phantom of Chancellor Tugan flickered and died. The lumens came back up, illuminating the pelt-draped cogitators, vox-pits and the trophy racks that decorated the walls of the primary bridge dome, along with the zart serfs at their monitoring stations. Khan-Commander Joghaten stepped off the hololithic plate, his expression dispassionate.

  ‘They will not be ready,’ he said. ‘They never are.’

  ‘Give them some credit,’ Tzu Shen said. ‘They cannot possibly comprehend the nature of the threat that approaches. The sheer scale of it.’

  Joghaten turned towards the blind voyagemaster seated on his throne mount at the heart of the bridge dome. There were few beings in the galaxy the Master of Blades would accept a rebuke from. Shen was one of them.

  ‘Mankind’s ignorance will ever be its undoing,’ Joghaten said, his voice grim.

  ‘Then we must save them from it,’ Qui’sin interjected.

  The Stormseer had watched the hololithic exchange between Joghaten and Chancellor Tugan without comment. Now he approached the khan of the Fourth Brotherhood and placed one gauntlet on his pauldron.

  ‘If the steppe tribes can be corralled in the designated safe zones, we may be able to contain this threat. We believe there are no more than fifty thousand tribespeople out on the plains during this phase of the planetary season.’

  ‘You think they’ll allow themselves to be moved?’ Joghaten asked, pulling away from the psyker’s touch. ‘Would we? Would the tribes of Chogoris cease their wandering at another’s command, even ones such as ourselves?’

  ‘I do not know. We have no recourse other than to try and move them to the capital. We are running out of time.’

  ‘What have you seen?’ Joghaten demanded.

  Qui’sin shook his head, steppe tokens rattling, his youthful features pensive.

  ‘Hunger. The slaughter of cattle. A desperate hunt beneath dying skies. Worse. The Shadow in the Warp clouds everything.’

  Joghaten did not respond. He paced over the patterned yurut rugs that decorated the bridge dome’s decking plates, stepping up to the primary operations hololithic chart. Qui’sin followed while the khan-commander activated the display with a flick of his vambrace’s encryption key. A sea-green reflection of the Darkand System swam into view above the chart’s glassy surface, washed with pulses of static. The display’s light threw the skull trophies surrounding the display into grim contrast.

  ‘There is still no word from the Imperium?’ Joghaten asked, while the chart updated with the latest augur readouts. Shen, bonded to the display via the cords trailing from his bald scalp to the data ports of his throne mount, shook his head, making the hardwired links rattle.

  ‘Fresh information is still sporadic, thanks to the dark influence of the Cicatrix Maledictorum. It appears fleet command for the subsector is still prioritising the defence of the Tarneth System. The local battlegroup remains anchored above the hive worlds of Verrun and Cana’s Rest. There is a squadron of light cruisers refitting at Port Garro, but even if they were redeployed to Darkand they’d likely take many weeks to arrive, even assuming a positive warp time variant approximation.’

  ‘Too slow,’ Joghaten growled, eyes fixed on the chart as more icons winked into existence across it. ‘How many billions have died down the centuries because the Imperium of Man is so damnably slow?’

  ‘The Imperial Navy is still uncertain about the fallout from Baal,’ Shen said. ‘Hive Fleet Leviathan’s fate remains… unclear. Until they know more, they will not move from their anchorages.’

  ‘Then we act alone,’ Qui’sin said. His psyber-hawk, Kemich, had swooped down from where she had been observing proceedings from one of the bridge yurut’s communication gantries. Now she settled on his shoulder, taking in the bridge with a twitch of aquiline disdain. ‘The Imperium will not divert resources to preserve an agri backwater like Darkand, not with the recent chaos. Yat wool, ux horn and gax meat exports aren’t worth the lives of warriors in times such as these.’

  ‘Backwater,’ Joghaten repeated with a snarl. ‘A backwater the White Scars have been honour-bound to protect for two thousand years.’
/>   ‘Our bonds make little difference to subsector command,’ the Stormseer pointed out.

  ‘Wind and fire take them,’ Joghaten cursed, slapping the palm of his gauntlet against the hololithic chart’s surface, disturbing the display. ‘It matters not. We fight alone.’

  ‘And we will die alone,’ Qui’sin added. ‘We are not enough to resist what is coming. Even without my visions the entrails have made that much clear.’

  ‘You would have us bring dishonour to the Chapter?’ Joghaten demanded. ‘You would have us abandon this fight? Abandon an honour world to annihilation?’

  ‘I would have us resume our hunt,’ Qui’sin said. ‘Not sacrifice our lives for the sake of tradition. The Khagan still calls to me. For all the importance of the honour world, we are needed elsewhere if we are to find him in time.’

  ‘I know of what you speak,’ Joghaten said, facing Qui’sin squarely. ‘You are wise beyond your years, young Zadyin Arga, but you are not as subtle as your more seasoned brethren. ­Others already hunt for the honoured primarch. I will not abandon human lives for the sake of old legends, no matter how dear. I will not abandon Darkand. We are sworn to protect its people. To the death, Qui’sin. The Khagan would understand that.’