Path of the Renegade

by Andy Chambers

  ‘What do you mean I’m no longer Kraillach! I’m me! You’re my chief executioner! Protect me, curse you!’

  Morr hesitated and for a moment Kraillach dared to hope that his chief executioner, the most loyal and trusted of all his minions, would have a change of heart. ‘I regret this has to be done, my archon, I regret all that has been done… I found out too late to prevent the outcome. If I had known my actions would bring this ending…’

  Taking full advantage of the momentary distraction Kraillach whipped out his blast pistol and fired. The shot caught the incubus high in the chest, punching a ragged hole in his armour and spinning him about with the impact. Morr crashed into a table and fell on it, splintering the ornately carved wood into flinders. The giant two-metre klaive spun from his grasp and clattered across the chamber floor with its power field spitting angrily

  ‘You’ve no idea what I’ve become!’ Kraillach spat, his voice altering with each word. Worms of warp-spawned energy were writhing in his gut, transforming his flesh into a suitable vessel to accommodate a presence from beyond the veil. It was too soon, too soon by far. It had hoped to grow much stronger before emerging, but with its Kraillach-vessel under threat it had to come forth and protect its investment. The psychic seed planted during Kraillach’s resurrection blossomed to began to bear horrid fruit. Pulsating energy flowed into his limbs and body, filling him with the fever-life of the possessed.

  ‘All my new converts gone, you piece of dung!’ roared the Daemon-Kraillach. ‘You’ll pay for that!’ The air was buzzing with a demented choir of lost souls; obscenities were beginning to crawl forth unbidden from the dark recesses of consciousness. Quicker than thought the Daemon-Kraillach reached out with newly-formed claws to grasp at Morr. A shiver of anticipation ran through its multi-dimensional sensory lattice at the prospect of tearing the incubus limb from limb and consuming his soul.

  ‘Thank you, my archon,’ Morr whispered, ‘for the gift of vindication.’

  Too late the Daemon-Kraillach saw the belt of linked plates grasped in the incubus’s first. The descending claws were met by a blaze of heat and a flash of light that violently threw them back. The warped entity staggered, struggling to control its new form in the blast of unexpected stimulus. Morr tossed away the smoking shield generator and painfully retrieved his fallen klaive, rising unsteadily to confront his daemonically-possessed master.

  ‘Forgive me, my archon,’ Morr intoned. The thing that Kraillach had become screamed with laughter as it swung its claws down in a killing arc.

  The two-metre blade in Morr’s hands swept up to sever the downrushing claws with a single, clean cut. The Daemon-Kraillach reeled back trumpeting in outrage, warp-spawned energy drooling from its wounds like white-hot liquid magma. Morr’s horizontal return stroke severed the creature’s horned head at the neck, the thrashing body falling at the edge of the sunken bath.

  The bloated, altered corpse visibly deflated as the stolen warp energies fled from it in tongues of aetheric fire. Soon only the wizened, headless and handless corpse of Kraillach was left behind. His blood swirled into the waters of the bath forming submerged cloudscapes of pink and red, as it had done a thousand times before.

  Polite applause echoed around the half-ruined chamber. A grey figure stood by the portal that a moment ago had been closed. Morr swayed and lowered his blade.

  ‘Heroically executed, if I may say so!’ exclaimed Motley. ‘Bravo!’

  The incubus inclined his head minutely, his contempt for the grey-clad interloper apparent in even that small gesture. Motley seemed hurt by this cold reception and became serious.

  ‘Now finish it properly,’ he said primly, ‘and burn the body.’

  In the catacombs beneath High Commorragh a triple-threaded voice spoke in its dripping cell. ‘The seed has been destroyed. The children of fury cleansed it from within before it could bear fruit. Its sire still remains, and his roots burrow deeper every day. The Realm Eternal crumbles but El’Uriaq’s other schemes carry forward unchecked.’

  ‘Oh, but his time will come, Angevere, his time will come,’ a crooked figure wheezed as it shuffled through the crone’s cell. ‘We must watch and wait as we prepare our plan. Our opportunity will arise and we must be ready for it when it does. The plan will work. It has to work.’

  CHAPTER 14

  DESIRES OF THE BLADE

  Xelian stalked through the bowels of the practice chambers below her fortress followed by a cautious trail of sycophants and supplicants. In recent weeks the Blades of Desire had become favourites in the Commorrite arena circuit. Every wych cult, Reaver pack and hellion gang in the city had been clamouring for a chance to fight for Xelian’s approval to enter her arena. Every day was marked with souls being quenched by the thousand for the vicarious pleasure of the kabals crammed onto her terraces. The roar of the crowd was an almost constant presence in the fortress now, echoing down from the arena above and giving the place an almost palpable pulse of excitement and energy.

  The fortress was buzzing with purpose, minions leapt at her command, but Xelian felt curiously disassociated from it all. Beneath the sure hand of El’Uriaq’s guidance, her kabal was flourishing. She suddenly had connections all over the city, a hidden network that greased palms and removed obstacles seemingly at will. Despite the great tyrant’s increasing suspicions everything had become so easy that it bothered her. She had started to feel unnecessary.

  At times she had begun to feel as if her minions were merely humouring her, exchanging little knowing looks behind her back. The thought of it drove her into a vindictive frenzy, and had sent her lashing out at them so often that they now stayed well clear of their archon except at the most pressing need. Xelian’s sense of isolation was increasing daily, in pace with the growing fear that hidden hands were slowly but surely wresting control of her own kabal away from her.

  Seemingly overnight her favourite, Aez’ashya, had been catapulted to stardom and attracted her own following, and a cult was forming around her. The succubus still professed undying loyalty to Xelian of course, but all the warning signs were there. The day was coming when Aez’ashya would have to take her Hydra cult and leave the fortress to carve out her own territory.

  Or not.

  If Xelian were removed Aez’ashya could fight her way to the top of the Blades of Desire easily enough. She might even make a direct challenge, although it would be a bold move on her part to test her skills against her archon. Some, like Kraillach, might spend their fortunes on tricks and artifices in place of martial ability but Xelian kept her own counsel. Her fighting capabilities were honed to perfection through endless practice both public and private. She had always kept her grip on the Blades of Desire through the strength of her own arm and welcomed open challenges over slinking conspiracies anytime.

  No, what troubled Xelian the most about the amorphous tentacles she could feel closing around her was that there was nothing to fasten on to and attack. At first she had begun to imagine that she was sensing Vect at work, subtly undermining her kabal from within. Lately she had come to believe otherwise. Something about the subtly dismissive manner of El’Uriaq in their last encounter had resonated with her, as if he had come to view her as an obstacle rather than an ally.

  ‘You are such a wild beast, Xelian,’ El’Uriaq had joked lightly in that oh-so warm and friendly way of his. ‘I swear that the bloodletting is all that truly interests you. There’s more to vengeance than simply throwing your enemy into the arena to become blade-fodder.’ At the time it had seemed like a fine jest, but looking back now there was an undertone that the joke was on her. She found she was clenching her fists at the thought and briefly wished she had claws so that she could flex them.

  Whether it was Vect or El’Uriaq, something was out there working against her. Something insidious, invisible and untouchable. The situation made her dangerously frustrated and spoiling for a fight. In an effort to work out some of her ire she had summoned her inner circle of wyches and succubi fo
r a practice bout in a newly built chamber of her own design. Some blade work might just give her the clarity she needed to dispel the clouds of paranoia and uncertainty that had begun to loom so large in her mind.

  She descended a broad ramp to evade her fluttering suitors, disappearing into a series of low-ceilinged, cavern-like chambers filled with workshops and noisy activity to escape their platitudes. Here slaves were feverishly preparing grav vehicles of various types for the coming day’s aerial bouts. Power units were being tuned, weapons loaded and bladevanes were being sharpened. The actinic glare of fusion torches lit the scene where the damage from previous skirmishes was being rapidly repaired. In another area piles of notched weapons and dented armour were being reconditioned for the use of fresh teams of doomed slaves.

  Xelian had been secretly rather flattered by the notoriety she’d gained of late, even while she outwardly claimed it as her natural birthright. Some of the long-standing, infamous groupings of Commorragh had sent representatives to test the mettle of Xelian’s patronage. From the Cult of Strife had come virtually legions of wyches eager to test the dire arts they learned among the Bone Middens on the outskirts of Aelindrach. The Crimson Ascension had dispatched a squadron of blood-red riders from their eternal battles among the upper spires of High Commorragh, and the hellions of the Savage Caress had followed them to carry their eternal enmity into a new realm.

  Xelian left the workshops to see the fruits of their labour in action. From a windswept ledge on the inner edge of the arena she watched red-painted Reavers duelling with fang-winged hellions over the fathoms-deep gulf. The angry swarm snarled back and forth in constant motion, the incredible agility of the hellions countered by the weight and acceleration of the jetbikes. The skills being displayed were nothing less than breathtaking, the expert riders flipping and whirling their machines through the air with reckless agility. These were legendary contenders from gangs that had torn themselves apart and been reborn, phoenix-like, from the ashes a thousand times over. When the time came for war their loyalty would be invaluable.

  She allowed her gaze to wander upwards to take in the jagged bulk of Vect’s ziggurat where it hung, dark and ominously silent, above her fortress. It had arrived unheralded within hours of the first news of Kraillach’s assassination. Xelian had been summoned to stand before the titanic projected face of the tyrant and be questioned like some errant slave, an experience that still made Xelian grind her teeth with fury.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve heard about the passing of our mutual friend Archon Kraillach, Xelian,’ Vect had boomed down at her. ‘Given that you had a recent and well-publicised disagreement with him it seems pertinent to discover your thoughts on the affair.’

  ‘I had no part in it, supreme overlord,’ Xelian had replied, truthfully for once. ‘I heard that Kraillach fell to enemies within his own kabal, therefore he was weak and couldn’t keep his own retinue under control.’

  Dark eyes wider than windows regarded Xelian with ageless wisdom and bottomless malice. ‘Weak? Perhaps he was,’ the tyrant’s voice rumbled, ‘but old Kraillach was also terribly, terribly cautious. Losing one of his pedigree is a rarity, he wasn’t like you youngsters that rely on luck and a quick blade to stay on top. I must say I’m even slightly moved at his loss.’ The cliff-like visage broke into a terrible smile at that thought. ‘But only slightly,’ the tyrant amended.

  ‘Why concern yourself at all, great tyrant?’ Xelian had shouted back, refusing to be daunted by Vect’s tricks. ‘Your laws have been kept. Kraillach failed to protect himself and his position so he paid the price. I had no hand in it but I applaud those that did the deed and I would give them a place in my own kabal without hesitation. They would find neither softness nor weakness in the Blades of Desire.’

  ‘A fine speech, Xelian, I am warmed by your appreciation of the correctness of my laws and their manifest benefits. I think I shall keep a presence here for a time where I can fully appreciate that loyalty and strength through closer examination. Excitement does seem to attend your works here, I trust that you won’t disappoint.’

  With that the face of tyrant had winked out and had not returned. The ziggurat had remained hanging like a brooding sentinel over the games and bloodletting ever since, always silently observing. It galled her a little that the tyrant’s scrutiny was probably at the root of some of her current notoriety but she had determined to brazen it out. Xelian’s schemes were not going to be easy to uncover, and she had taken the ominous presence of the ziggurat as a sign of how little Vect knew, rather than how much.

  Xelian returned inside and wove her way deeper into the bowels of the practice levels. She called her newest training area the crown of thorns. It was dominated by an interwoven ring made up of forty-metre-long spines tapering to razor-sharp points. Fighting inside or atop the ring took extraordinary nerves and footwork, with any slip in the mass of sharp points and honed edges liable to cost an inept fighter dearly. It was an energising experience in its own right that could be further heightened with gravity inversions and pressure waves. Xelian had hopes to perfect a larger version of it for use in the arena one day, although it was too deadly to be practical for most slave species. Still, their hopeless attempts to keep their footing on the sharp spines might well have some comedy value, particularly in combination with a pursuit by suitably agile predators of some sort, ur-ghuls or loxatl perhaps…

  She surveyed the dozen assembled wyches with a critical eye. They were exclusively female fighters in half-armour or less, although none had quite gone the whole way to being entirely skyclad. All of them were possessed of the subtle grace only an eldar female trained rigorously from birth could aspire to, they could run on spear points or dance on a blade’s edge – a matter that was about to be put to the test. These were her chosen, her hekatrix, the keenest blades at her command. Aez’ashya would have been among them once, the apple of Xelian’s eye before Yllithian’s scheming had ruined her.

  The crown of thorns floated before them, a hundred metres across and filling the practice space virtually wall-to-wall as it slowly contra-rotated in a mesmerising lattice of sharp edges and needle-points. The pulse of it seemed to fill the air, relentless and implacable as the beat of a giant’s heart. They mounted light grav platforms to elevate themselves to its upper surface before stepping off onto a shifting toroidal landscape of dully-gleaming blades. She gazed around at her hekatrix and raised her voice above the low whisper of the thorn-blades cutting through the air.

  ‘To first blood.’ Xelian found she savoured the word so unexpectedly that it made her hesitate for a moment before she recovered her poise.

  ‘Begin.’

  The wyches whirled into action, sprinting across the surface of the crown in a blur of flashing limbs. The unspoken rules of engagement were that everyone fought for themselves, but that meant temporary alliances of weaker fighters as they attempted to overwhelm the strongest. Xelian quickly had three of her wyches pressing at her defences. She ran along the blade she stood upon with quick, sure strides and sprang to another sliding past five metres away, daring her assailants to emulate her feat.

  The first wych to try to follow her met her knives and slid into the maze of edged metal below, ending her short, painful journey impaled on an upward-tilting point. The other two thought better of making the jump and ran back to find a surer way around.

  Xelian had problems of her own. She was caught blind-side by another opponent, a wych named Lorys recently risen from the Cult of Strife. Lorys’s determined attack drove Xelian step-by-step to the very tip of the thorn she stood upon. There she turned at bay, her knives weaving a bright web that struck sparks from Lorys’s thrusts.

  The crown lurched slightly beneath Xelian’s feet as its rotation began to speed up. Just as it did so one of Lorys’s whistling blows slipped under her guard and creased her ribs, slicing though skin and muscle with surgical precision. The kiss of cold steel thrilled through Xelian’s nerves and finally dispelled her fugue of do
ubts and concerns. She was totally in the moment at last, the dance of blades becoming her entire world. Lorys relaxed fractionally at the sight of blood, thinking her archon would stand down as the rules of the bout dictated.

  ‘More!’ Xelian shouted, whirling her knives furiously onto the attack.

  Xelian’s ferocious counter-assault caught Lorys off guard, driving her back down the gleaming thorn. She was soon bleeding freely from a score of nicks to her arms and legs as she fought desperately to keep her archon in check. The bloodshed seemed to drive Xelian into even more of a frenzy, raining her attacks down with no thought to her own defence. Lorys was soon reeling beneath the rain of blows, barely able stave off an inevitable deathblow.

  The two wyches Xelian had evaded earlier suddenly rejoined the fray, leaping from blade to blade to attack Xelian’s flanks. She turned on them with a scream of pure hatred, the glittering fangs of her knives carving into them with predatory swiftness.

  ‘You are such a wild beast, Xelian.’

  Xelian tore open a face and sent one of her chosen companions screaming into the soughing blades. A stroke like white lightning came from her flank and sheared through her upper arm, the red lips of the wound parting obscenely as the bicep flopped loose. She laughed in wild ecstasy and pivoted to impale her other attacker on twin fangs, driving them deep into her body before ripping upwards with horrible strength. Bloody viscera slithered down her arms and painted them a fetching crimson.

  ‘I swear that the bloodletting is all that truly interests you.’

  A knife was sunk into her back, a penetrating shard of bright pain probing up under ribs and lungs for the heart. She allowed the weight of the eviscerated corpse on her own knives to carry her forwards, half-turning to smash Lorys’s face with her elbow. They were falling, falling into the moving skein of bright edges.