by Henry Zou
Sabtah punched the metal casing of the trembling vox. He replayed the message, dissecting every word.
Captain Hazareth’s face was dark and serious. ‘I see why the witch has been so reluctant to deploy on Hauts Bassiq. He has some stake there.’
Sabtah ran a hand through his beard, his eyes closed. He breathed deeply before opening them again. ‘Transmit a message back to Bassiq and all units. Tell them to withdraw immediately with all squads. We need more answers.’
Hazareth began to key the sequence from receiving to transmit. He looked up from his work, the sharp quills on his scalp bristling with anger. ‘Give me the honour of removing Muhr from our Chapter,’ Hazareth growled.
‘No.’ Sabtah shook his head. ‘If we kill Muhr now, there will be intra-Chapter war. I can’t allow that to occur under my wardship.’
‘Then we will watch him,’ Hazareth countered immediately. ‘Let me activate Squad Murgash. They are old and will not fail you.’
‘Make sure they do not. I always knew those witches were of coward’s blood. They are not bonded,’ Sabtah said. ‘That makes strangers out of them. I’d sooner put my life in the hands of the devious sons of Alpharius than call a witch my brother.’
Sabtah locked the doors to his citadel. He shut the double gates of his interior courtyard and posted a double sentry of black turbans outside them. The blast shutters to his central tower and barracks were thrust into emergency lockdown. Finally, the interior wheel locks were turned, sealing the entrance to Sabtah’s bed chambers behind eighty centimetres of psy-dampening plasteel.
Only then did Sabtah listen to the captured transmission.
The transmission from the atmospheric vox-caster was soft and cut with static. Words were clipped, stilted and stuttering, but the gravity of their accusations and the stern deliverance of Bond-Brother Barsabbas was not lost over distance.
‘The soldiery of Nurgle has taken Hauts Bassiq, and Muhr has sold us to them. Muhr has sold Bassiq to them. He has betrayed us.’
Sabtah reclined in his throne, resting his back against the solid interior of his power armour and bracing his chin between the fork of his fingers. He thought deeply of Bond-Brother Barsabbas’s accusations. It did not surprise him that Hauts Bassiq was the target of foreign conquest. It was a mineral-lush planet and had once been an Imperial mining colony. So close to the Eye, it could serve as a strategic staging post for the first major leg of any campaign, if one were so inclined. The Blood Gorgons had always preferred the freedom of nomadic flight and had never seen the utility of devoting so much infrastructure to the extraction of earthbound resources. But it made sense to Sabtah.
Despite the blunt clarity of Bond-Brother Barsabbas’s intelligence, Sabtah could not act hastily. Any provocation of Muhr and his small yet influential faction could spark the tinders of a second Chapter war. The memories of the first fratricidal conflict had faded but never dimmed for Sabtah. He had executed eight of his own brethren in that dark period and still bore the millennia-old scars across his abdomen. He had no wish to fight through another.
Muhr was a cunning creature, and if Sabtah were to confront him, he would need to pick his time judiciously.
Sabtah’s ruminations were interrupted. The abrasive howl of a breach siren and the rhythmic pounding of tripwire alarms jolted him. He leapt from his oaken throne and crouched low without thinking. Simultaneously, the phos-lanterns winked out with a crackling hiss of electricity.
The room was dark, but he could still hear the crashing pounding of his alarms. Slipping his war-helm over his face, Sabtah loaded his bolter’s underslung flamer with a gilded canister from his oiled leather belt. The world lit up a lambent green behind his visor, his flamer held out before him, like looking through the vision-slit of a tank turret. Beyond his field of vision, pitch-black shadows leaned out across the room like lunging spectres.
Sabtah erased the transmission from the atmospheric caster with a squeal of the turn dial. He slapped a side-mounted magazine into his bolter, made sure the transmission had been cleared, and rose from his seat.
Raising the muzzle of his underslung flamer, Sabtah released the blast seal to his bed chambers. The lighting in the wide, steel corridor outside had been cut. Emergency glo-strips flickered weakly along the mesh decking.
As was his practice, Sabtah hollered for his guard hounds. They were each three hundred kilos of vat-brewed muscle, a mutant species of the bearded crocodilian. Aggressive and unseeing, the guard hounds always answered his calls dutifully but now there was no sign of them.
Edging slowly down the corridor, Sabtah tried to remember the basic foot patterns of silent movement. It had been many thousands of years since he had practised the steps as a neophyte but the neural programming came back to him. Sinking his weight with each step, Sabtah crept softly, although he had not felt the need for stealth in many centuries. As a champion of the Chapter, he could usually afford the luxury of charging from the fore, gladius in one hand and combi-bolter in the other.
But there was an unsettling darkness and quiet that warranted a vigilant approach.
Sabtah swept quickly through the crumbling ruins of his tower’s lower levels. Over the years, the plunder and loot of his many campaigns had lain forgotten in his dominion. The hilts of swords and gilded treasures peered from between the cloth-like sheets of spider webs and dust. He swung his weapon at each corner, hunting furtively through the statues and stacked chests for a target.
Sabtah swept out into the interior courtyard. He could smell blood and entrails. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw his gutted sentries, quite dead and sprawled in his garden.
There was a soft ping from his MKII suit’s internal auspex.
Sabtah looked up reactively. He spied a large, imposing figure scaling a ceiling cable. It was already disappearing into the smoking, gaseous heights of the Cauldron Born’s upper ceiling shafts. Guide lights reflecting off the overhead network of pipes turned the deck’s upper reaches into an interior atmosphere of smoke clouds and electric stars. Squinting upwards, Sabtah fired a ranging shot with his bolter as the figure was winched up. He fired again, but the figure scrambled onto a nearby gas main and disappeared into a canopy of steam hoses and cables.
Sabtah scanned the courtyard. One of his bearded croc-hounds lay on its side. They had cut the reptile by its throat flaps. One of its clawed hind feet still twitched spasmodically.
His pet’s eyes had been cut out and its tongue severed from its gaping maw. The symbolism of the croc-hound’s death was not lost on Sabtah. He knew what it meant. The intruders had tried to breach his citadel again but failed, and this time had chosen to leave him a warning.
Sabtah realised Muhr and his patron knew. He did not have time on his side.
On the horizon of Bassiq, an undulating red plain broken only by occasional boab trees, two figures could be seen. They plodded, slowly and methodically, but forwards, always forwards. One was big and broad. Trailing behind, lashed by a chain, dragged almost on all fours, came a smaller figure bent double. A Blood Gorgon and his dark eldar.
They went north, following the multiple dawns and sunsets on the horizon, always northwards. For five full days Barsabbas walked, leading his captive.
The interior of the central plains was a vast, empty space of bushland and drying river beds where the pockets of wildlife slowly withered to meet the dune systems of the north, the largest longitudinal dune systems on the continent.
The earth had a higher ferric content here, coloured a deep red. Here and there, slivers of water boiled on silty tracts of old waterways. Dunaliella algae lent the lakes a pinkish hue. Barsabbas knew the plainsmen would eat the fish that were preserved in the salt on the river beds, but how he came to know, he could not remember.
Barsabbas and his captive did not talk. They simply plodded along as Sindul pointed the way.
The heat was shock
ing. Even sealed up in the climate vacuum of his armour, Barsabbas could feel the prickly heat. He made sure to stop and water his captive regularly. When Sindul collapsed from exhaustion, Barsabbas simply draped him across one arm. The dark eldar weighed little more than his bolter.
They did not stop walking, even during the short nights. Barsabbas needed no rest. Inquisitive predators stalked them, but none dared attack.
Soon the land became indistinct and the days merged into one. No matter where he looked, the land stretched outwards and onwards, disappearing eventually into a flat, featureless line. Even the low mountains and dunal corridors that bobbed on the horizon became a regular, rhythmic occurrence, a steady flatness interspersed by humps like the predictable graph of his suit’s heart monitor.
Occasionally, in the distance, Barsabbas would spot the silhouette of a lonely wanderer. He knew those to be the dead. No plainsmen would ever be so foolish as to brave the climate alone. Sometimes he encountered larger flocks, but a signal flare in the opposite direction would send the dead sprinting towards the brightness in the sky.
Finally, as they left the interior behind them, Barsabbas heard the bray of war horns. He hoped the battle was nearby.
Chief Gumede sounded the war horn, rousing his small kinship from their high-noon rest. ‘Small’ was perhaps an inappropriate term, but Gumede had always considered his family a modestly-sized yet intimate gathering.
Already, the caravan trains were being warmed, the ancient gas engines grumbling as shamans began to rouse the old gears and goad the arthritic pistons to life. At least fifty of Gumede’s kin were rising from their makeshift beds under the shade of the wagons and carriages. Another thirty were spreading down to the creek to wash their faces and rinse the sand from their mouths. Outriders, having already mounted their giant bipedal birds, were racing impatiently as the kinship prepared to mount up and move.
Gumede blew his brass war horn again. Although the horn itself had once been the steam valve of a gas engine, it represented his seniority within the kinship. He was the patriarch and his family looked to him for guidance. He was young for such a role, but he was tall and well made and he had a presence that he carried easily with his height and stature.
Amongst the short, wiry plainsmen, Gumede was an imposing figure with a thick neck and a narrow, athletic waist. The kinship had never questioned his leadership, nor his father’s before him. Gumede came from a direct lineage of elders, and wisdom was considered his birthright.
Perhaps it would have been safer to flee southwards, away from the troubles. Already the skies to the north had darkened visibly and the horizon appeared as a sick rind of black that settled along the furthest ridges. It would have been safer to travel south, hugging the dust coast, but Gumede knew that it would not be right.
Other kinships were travelling north too. A war host was gathering to repel the spreading evil. They had all heard the echoes of drums and horns and read the plumes of smoke signals from nearby kinships. It was a muster call.
They did not know what evil it was. The simple-minded claimed them to be ghosts, but then again, all disturbances were blamed on restless spirits. Others, more astute, remembered the days of raiders who came from the skies. Gumede was not certain, but he felt compelled to act. It was clear the plainsmen were gathering on the Seamless Plains, the great dividing range that separated the interior from the Northern Reaches. Thousands had already gathered there, to confront the ‘evil’ with hatchets and shamanic superstition. Now his family would join them.
Gumede had barely saddled his talon squall before his riders came to fetch him.
‘Chief! Chief!’ they cried, sprinting across the hot sand on their lurching, thudding birds. His braves were in full war regalia. Their red shukas were decorated with squall feathers, braided hair and brooches. Some preferred breastplates of latticed bark while others preferred salvaged tin. They all balanced recurved bows across their saddles and brandished hatchets overhead. Many brandished las-weapons, traded from distant Ur.
‘The Godspawn has come! Quickly, see this!’ cried Tanbei, riding at the fore.
Gumede had heard that the Northern Kinships in desperation had summoned the ancestral Godspawn. But he had not believed it. He had not wanted to give himself false hope. But now he was overwhelmed.
‘Truly?’ asked Gumede, his heart suddenly racing.
But Tanbei had no reason to lie. His face was flushed from a mixture of excitement and awe. ‘He comes! He comes!’ he shouted.
The commotion stirred the kinship. Children emerged from their household carriages and wagons, throwing aside blankets and creeping out from hiding places. Women and men paused from their task of packing, craning their necks curiously.
‘Tanbei.’ Gumede’s quiet tone commanded silence. ‘The Godspawn, Tanbei? Where?’
The young rider reined his bird to a sharp halt, almost startling Gumede’s own mount from his hands. Tanbei turned in his saddle and jabbed his finger to the high dunes beyond. Sure enough, Gumede could see a figure cresting the dune spines. Even at a great distance, Gumede could tell that the figure was large, with a long stride that was as sure and as steady as a rising dust tide.
Gumede hurriedly tightened his saddle and vaulted atop his bird. ‘Prepare offerings!’ he shouted, his tone rising with excitement. ‘Gather the shamans! Spread the word to the tribe!’
Wheeling his bird around, Gumede led his flight of outriders to greet the Godspawn.
When the Godspawn came to Gumede’s kinship, it was as if the war had been forgotten. All the people gathered in nervous clusters around the road train. They were keen to catch a glimpse but afraid of what they might see. They huddled closely, jostling to be in the middle.
He came to their camp, escorted by Gumede’s outriders.
The warrior was so big that a hush fell over the kinship as he approached. The people actually shivered. He resembled a mountain, his armour craggy and pitted, from the solid base of his boots to the sloping swell of his shoulders, all the way up to the branching antlers of his head. Although he was a Godspawn, his armour was not at all like the bright red of their shukas. It was the colour of ferric earth after hard rain – a muddy, burnt orange. Radiant with martial aggression, he appeared to them as an angry golem that had been birthed from a rock womb.
Almost as an afterthought, he dragged a blackened, stick-like captive on a leash. The beast was bound in layers of chain and could barely stand upright.
‘I am Barsabbas,’ he said. ‘The Blood Gorgons have answered your summons.’ His first words, loud and metallic, startled the children. But they didn’t cry. No one dared to disturb the resonance of his declaration.
Half a dozen shamans, all of them elders of venerable years, hesitantly came forwards. They sacrificed a caprid for him, draining its neck of blood. Another began to pray to him, falling to his knees and touching his forehead to the hot sand.
‘My kin are honoured to receive you, Koag Barsabbas,’ said Gumede. He rode until he was side on with Barsabbas, reining in his mount a respectful distance away. Tall as Gumede was, and mounted on his talon, Gumede was still barely on eye level with the visitor.
‘I’ve come to find your war. Where is it?’ asked the Blood Gorgon. His words were clipped and impatient.
‘Over there, beyond those mountains,’ Gumede replied. ‘You have come to lead our crusade to drive back the evil?’ he asked, his face openly honest with hope.
Barsabbas snorted. ‘I can lead a mount to a watering hole, but I cannot force it to drink. If you do not want to fight, then I cannot force you to fight well.’
‘We are willing,’ Gumede replied. ‘Many of the kinships of the south and central territories are gathering beyond the Seamless Plains. It is an army that will rid the land of the evil and dead. Can you lead us, great koag?’ Gumede asked.
‘I will,’ answered Barsabbas.
; At his words, the kinship erupted into jubilance. The tense mobs dispersed, as if their battle had already been won. Some sprinted down to the creeks to dance in the water or scaled the road train to scream relief to the skies. Those more daring encircled the Blood Gorgon, thrusting offerings towards him – bead quilts, necklaces, empty tins with exotic off-world labels. The shamans cavorted, clapping hand cymbals and tiny percussion drums. All the while, Barsabbas stood immobile amongst them, unable to comprehend their behaviour.
Barsabbas felt nothing towards these people. They were genestock, they were slavestock. In truth, he loathed them for their ignorance and their dependency. As the plainsmen groped his armour, tapping him for luck and trying to push votive offerings into his hands, Barsabbas curtailed his urge to strike out.
He knew they would all die. He held no illusions about the outcome of a battle between bow-armed plainsmen and Plague Marines of Nurgle. But he could not conceive of a better diversion to allow him to infiltrate into the northern territories. With the war host on the march, Barsabbas would be free to head north, ever deeper into the enemy territory.
They were all expendable if Barsabbas could find Sargaul. He would need them to take him into the deep north. Alone he might fail, but with a mighty war host as a diversion...
That night, Barsabbas dreamed of Sargaul. A Chaos Space Marine did not often dream. Rather, their catalepsean nodes placed them in a state whereby the resting portions of their brain relived memories throughout the day. Memories of drill, memories of field tactics, memories of war. Decades or centuries of memory that would otherwise be forgotten in the sieve of a human mind.
But that night, Barsabbas dreamed. He dreamed that he visited Sargaul. His blood bond was tinkering with the wreckage of a Rhino armoured carrier. The desert plains stretched out on every side and the tank was beached in the centre, its paint scorched to cracking by the sun.
Sargaul was muttering softly to himself as he worked on the broken tank. But as Barsabbas approached he saw that there was nothing to fix. The tank was an empty, burnt out shell.
