by Henry Zou
The Plague Marine pressed the bolter barrel into the hollow of Baalbek’s throat. ‘You had something,’ he said slowly. ‘I saw.’
‘You saw what you saw,’ Baalbek replied unflinchingly.
Behind his goggles, the Plague Marine slitted his eyes. He thumbed the well-worn nub of his bolter’s safety.
‘Shoot me,’ Baalbek dared. ‘Execute an unarmed Blood Gorgon without evidence or explanation. Do it and see what riot ensues.’
‘Maybe I should. Your mob is nothing more than genetic waste,’ the Plague Marine hissed.
But Baalbek knew their jailer wouldn’t shoot; such an act would have consequences. Although they were captives, their state of confinement was made under a pretence of eventual allegiance to the Nurgle Legions. Muhr had declared that once his rule was cemented and his dissidents disposed of, the warband would be accepted within the Plague Marine fold. Bond-Brother Baalbek would prefer death than the corpulent existence of a Plague Marine, but for now, that pretence worked in the Blood Gorgon’s favour.
‘I’ll remember you,’ the Plague Marine said silkily. ‘I have a good mind for faces. You are dead. Nurgle whispers me this.’
The bond-brothers waited until their captor’s footsteps drifted off down the corridor. ‘Betcher’s gland,’ Hybarus nodded knowingly. He wormed a finger into his mouth and twisted out a loose incisor.
Swallowing the last remnants of bone, Baalbek ran his tongue along the roof of his mouth. Using the poison glands made his mouth furry and thick with mucus, as if he had eaten something highly acidic. Surgically implanted into their salivary glands, the Betcher could release a limited amount of corrosive and highly toxic venom each day. It was a practice rooted in the traditions of pre-Heresy, when the primarchs’ Legions had not only been warriors but crusaders. The Adeptus Astartes were preachers of the God-Emperor and their words burned with righteousness. Symbolically, they had spat on the heretical texts of old, wiping them blank through the teachings of the Imperium.
The bone tablet had corroded into a fine grit that left Baalbek swallowing saliva gingerly.
Bouncing his tooth off the cell wall, Hybarus stood up as if possessed by a great revelation. ‘Our distraction,’ he said, crossing over and patting the round gas pipe that provided thermal heat for the cell.
‘It will be difficult, those gas mains are reinforced,’ Baalbek replied. The volatile gas mains and petrochemical pipes that carried the ship’s interior energy systems were sheathed in rubberised skin almost a quarter-metre thick and laced with steel thread.
‘It will take some time, but it can be done,’ Hybarus concluded. He laid a hand on the pipe’s python-like body, testing the smooth, solid surface. Without warning he spat on it, ejecting another broken tooth.
As Baalbek watched, the streak of clear saliva started to hiss, the chemical reaction beginning to froth the rubber sheathing. It would take some time, but it could be done.
Chapter Eighteen
Time could not be marked with any regularity in the dungeons. Each day cycle blurred with end-night as the Plague Marines attempted to distort their captives’ senses through temporal isolation.
Captain Hazareth no longer knew how long they had been confined. Locked up and separated, he knew very little and as a commander of men, that bothered him. He knew not of the disposition of his men, their general morale or even their exact locations. But he knew they would follow him when the time came, and that was all he needed to be sure of, at least for now.
Hazareth slid the genekey out from beneath the nail of his index finger. The splinter was small and his fingers thick and flesh-bound. It took some time to coax and dig the micro-worm out but with practice, Hazareth could now do it with some ease.
He closed his eyes as he fidgeted with the genekey and resumed his count. There was no chron in his cell and Hazareth had taken to marking the passing of time by the beat of his primary heart. Forty-eight beats was one minute, 2,880 was one hour. Over thirty-four thousand for one ship cycle. Only five ship cycles until the plan was under way.
‘You are distressed?’ asked Blood-Sergeant Volsinii.
Hazareth opened his eyes. Volsinii was his blood bond; a warrior of four centuries. Grey-skinned and contemplative, there was little that escaped the gaze of his jet-black pupils.
‘I am impatient,’ Hazareth replied. It had already been two cycles since he had received word, whispered through venting grates from cell-block 22D – Baalbek and Hybarus’s cell – that they would provide a diversion. Details were not shared for fear of discovery, only that he would know the diversion when he saw it. Hazareth only had to rely on the word and competence of his men. As their captain, Hazareth knew he owed them that, but it did not placate him. He could not see them, nor could he aid them.
Hazareth, Horned Horror of Medina, sat and waited.
‘Do you think the genekey will work?’ Volsinii whispered, drumming his fingers on his thighs.
Hazareth slipped the flesh-worm out again. It thrashed its tail like a furious eyelash. ‘It is fused with the genetic structures of Gammadin and Sabtah. Of course it will,’ Hazareth replied, in low, hushed tones. Volsinii was the only one who knew of his genekey, he was the only one Hazareth trusted with such information.
The gas main was porous with holes along its inside edge. Tiny craters pockmarked a rubbery mass of melted sheathing.
‘Is it clear?’ Hybarus asked.
Baalbek, crouched near the sliding cage door, pressed his face to the bars and scanned the corridor. He signalled the affirmative.
Working quickly, Hybarus collected the venom from his Betcher‘s gland beneath his lip. There was not much left. Over the past thirty-six hours, he and Baalbek had been steadily corroding the gas main. Their venom ducts were raw.
A thin trickle of acidic venom hit the pipe with a hiss.
‘They’re coming!’ Baalbek hissed urgently. He lumbered over to the steel bench and sat down, waving Hybarus back to his own.
A pair of Plague Marines swept past. One of them turned to stare directly at Baalbek but they did not stop.
They waited awhile, sitting in dehydrated silence. Slowly, Baalbek got off his bench and crossed to the gas main. Their corrosive fluids had chewed through the sheathing and revealed the chrome metal beneath like bare bone. They were almost through.
Desperate, Baalbek scooped some water from a watering dish their captors had left them. It tasted of bleach and ammonia, but it wet his parched mouth. Rinsing his mouth, Baalbek spat venom, aiming for the exposed metal piping. The venom settled into a pocket crater of melted rubber, sizzling with caustic froth.
With a gaseous pop, the metal disintegrated. It was only a pinprick hole but it would be enough. Baalbek stabbed his finger into the thick piping in an attempt to crack the corroding metal. There was a metallic click. Eagerly, Baalbek prodded the pipe harder. Thermogas shot up from the breach.
‘We’re through!’ Baalbek roared as he threw himself flat.
Then the world seemed to explode in brilliant, blinding whiteness.
The explosion expelled a bow-wave of pressure through the dungeon. Funnels of chemical smoke ripped through the air, rippling and superheated. The eruption shook the squalid cells, loosening brickwork and hatchways with over-pressure.
A squad of Plague Marines clattered down the stairs from the upper levels, issuing commands through vox-grilles. Hazareth was on his feet as soon as the Plague Marines stormed by. He was digging at the gene-worm. Wrenching it out between thumb and forefinger, Hazareth placed the genekey against the cell’s gene scanner.
Despite the rusting condition of the hatchway, the gene scanner across the bolt had been meticulously cleaned and oiled. The cogitator scanned the vein structure, layout, and blood flow with an infrared sweep. A layer of light swept up the scanner, passing over the genekey and magnifying its helix structure.
Ther
e was a compliant clunk as the hatchway’s iron bolt retracted.
Out in the corridor itself, a dense cloud of smoke reduced visibility to a pall of featureless grey. Shielding his eyes against the sting, Hazareth sprinted up the nauseating course of stairs. Volsinii followed him, scanning the corridor for signs of their guards. In the confusion, Blood Gorgons began to bray and roar, making as much noise as possible. They pounded on their cell walls as Hazareth made his way towards the guard rooms.
There was a single Plague Marine patrolling the metal stairs that led up to the central control unit. He was crouched low against the smoke, scanning the corridors in both directions as he stalked with his boltgun.
He approached the blast door of the dungeon warily. It was ajar. The forty-centimetre-thick vault door had been opened, its wheel-lock handle had been unwound, unclamping it from its seal. The Plague Marine opened his vox-link to enquire.
Hazareth got to him first. Appearing out of the smoke, sudden and murderous, Hazareth rammed the Plague Marine against the wall. Steely fingers clamped over the Plague Marine’s neck seal, between the underside of his helmet and the protective parapet of his chest plate’s gorget. With desperate savagery, Hazareth dashed his enemy’s head against the rockcrete. Intense pressure split the ceramite casing, stress fractures spider-webbing the armour immediately. Hazareth tensed. The helmet gave way under the pincer, crunching wetly. Yet even headless, the Plague Marine stumbled, muscles twitching. He brought up his boltgun as if to shoot, stumbled again, lashed out with a desperate fist and then toppled.
‘Leave that,’ Volsinii urged. ‘Follow me and stay close behind.’
They forged their way up the final flight of steps towards the control room. No alarm had been raised yet. Through the glass viewing blister, they could see the control room was empty. The Plague Marines had responded to the diversion as they’d hoped, leaving their posts to deal with the threat of a mass-scale riot.
Hazareth pushed open the ironclad door and stormed inside reaching for the intricate gilded console. He could hear the distant, muffled shouts and hammering in the dungeon cells. He pulled the accordion-lever to unlock the entire cell-block.
Nothing. Not even a click.
‘I had no choice,’ Volsinii said knowingly from behind Hazareth. ‘I had no choice, Captain Hazareth.’
Desperately, Hazareth pulled again but the lever had no resistance, as if connected to nothing. It came away loosely in his hand.
‘He apologises profusely, but if he truly meant it, why do it at all?’ chortled a low voice.
Opsarus. Hazareth saw him ascend the stairs. His footfalls were death knells upon the metal steps. The deathmask seemed to smile at him with a tranquil serenity. In his left gauntlet, he grasped an autocannon as a man might hold a rifle.
‘Why would he warn us of your escape if he is sorry? He’s not sorry,’ said Opsarus.
Hazareth hammered his claw across the console. Volsinii would not look at him. Staggering back, Hazareth slumped down. Trust was not a concept between the minions of Chaos, but Volsinii had been his blood bond, an extension of himself. It was the foundation of unity between an otherwise dissident Chapter of raiders. Hazareth bayed like a wounded bull, shaking his head unsteadily.
‘Perhaps the blood bond is a mere placebo. You give it more meaning than it truly holds,’ Opsarus laughed. It sounded forced, garbled and sudden behind his reinforced helmet.
Hazareth attacked without warning, spearing through the air at Opsarus. His claw bounced off the unyielding plasteel of Crusade-era armour.
Opsarus did not even move. There was a low whir as the autocannon rose into place, traversing like a linear siege battery. Hulking down behind the thick walls of his plating, Opsarus braced himself. He fired.
The blast in the confined space of the console blister was like a firestorm. A wash of flame engulfed the room. Tearing through the foundations of the room, the shell blew out the ceiling, disintegrated the cell-block console and atomised the glass viewing bubble. The expanding pressure pulled Captain Hazareth apart, and what remained was swept away by the whirling flame.
Volsinii, too, was caught in the backblast. His reward, although Opsarus had not intended it, was a death that would not be remembered. Behind the external bulwark of his suit, Opsarus breathed cooled, internal air as ambient temperatures lingered at the high six hundreds.
The room was now a blackened hole in the high, vertical bulkhead. Scraps of fire still flickering against his external layers, Opsarus made his way down the stairs.
Barsabbas crossed the room, emptying two bolt clips within the span of ten seconds. His sole focus was to destroy everything in the room that stood between himself and Sargaul. Everything.
The dark eldar warriors, however, did not give ground. They were different from the raiders: they were incubi, proper soldiers with good firing discipline and martial bearing. They wore heavier form-fitting armour that hugged their slender frames like the black-blue of an angry hornet, and formed a solid protective block around the prize slaves.
Barsabbas had not been hurt in a long time, but his attackers hurt him now. They punished him with electrified halberds, pivoting and striking with precise, practiced strokes. Static shocks wracked his body, threatening to seize his hearts. Warning sigils and power overload warnings flashed across his visor in urgent amber. His blood began to boil. His muscles spasmed.
But his eyes were fixed on Sargaul and his finger glued to the trigger. The bolter bucked like a jackhammer, ripping out the entire clip in one continuous and sudden belch. But the incubi were too many, too hardened. A halberd bounced off Barsabbas’s thigh plate, shocking his femoral nerves. Grunting, the bond-brother fell to a knee as his leg cramped and spasmed violently. Another strike chopped into his boltgun, denting its brass finish and almost wrenching the weapon from his grip.
Vomiting into his helmet as his pain receptors fired, Barsabbas raised his head to see Sindul sprint through the door. The dark eldar raider had salvaged a splinter rifle and fired it on automatic, whistling splinter shots into the room.
It was not much, but it gave Barsabbas the brief opportunity he needed. Reeling, he withdrew from the maul of incubi, ejecting his spent clip and slamming home a fresh one. Vomit drooled from his muzzle grille. He cleared his head and unhinged a grenade cluster from his chain loops.
‘Down, Sindul, down!’
Tugging out the top pin, he allowed the grenades to cook off for a half count. The delay cost him a splinter shot to the neck seal. Hissing with agony, Barsabbas launched the grenade as a reflex action, skipping it across the rockcrete at an awkward angle. Turning his back to the grenade, he hunched down to make himself a small target.
There was a string of clapping eruptions. It felt like someone had pushed him from behind. He turned into the smoke and began firing. But there was little need. The half-dozen incubi had been crumpled, their bodies contorted on the ground, their limbs rearranged and pockmarked with shrapnel holes.
Above the muffled quiet of the aftershock, Barsabbas heard Sindul stir some distance away, coughing and spitting words in his harsh language. Parting the smoke with his hands, the bond-brother staggered towards his captive. Although he had taken multiple lacerations and some minor internal injuries, Barsabbas felt no pain. He could only concentrate on the pain that ached in his primary left lung – Sargaul’s pain. The cold often made it worse. It was a good pain, for without it, there would be no Sargaul.
‘Brother Sargaul,’ Barsabbas called out.
The solitary figure in the distance raised his head, as if startled from sleep. Even at a distance, Barsabbas could recognise the deep-set eyes, the heavy brow and the missing ear.
‘Sargaul,’ Barsabbas said, drawing closer. He peeled off his helmet, sucking in deep breaths of dirty, smoky air.
Sargaul looked at him vacantly, expressionless. Finally, he opened his mouth as if fi
nding the right words was an intense focus of will.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
Shafts of sunlight, paper-thin, glowed between the cracks of the boarded windows. They rendered the room in shades of brown, black and a hazy, egg-yolk yellow. The generator silos waited in the back, sleeping giants that had not stirred for centuries, their turbines suffocating under bales of dust. There, chained between two iron cylinders, sitting upon the tiled floor, was Bond-Brother Sargaul.
His armour had been shed in a dismembered heap nearby and a red shuka, salvaged and ill-fitting, was coiled around his waist. Track marks – bruised, ugly holes that scarred his neck, abdomen and wrists – contrasted with his white skin. Parts of him had been surgically tampered with, the sutured slits in his skin still clearly visible. The stitch marks were long and some were infected. Barsabbas could feel his own skin tingle in sympathetic horror.
‘Who are you?’ Sargaul repeated, words slurred by a swollen, irresponsive tongue.
‘It’s me, brother,’ Barsabbas answered tentatively. ‘Barsabbas.’
Sargaul’s eyes rolled lazily in his sockets, losing interest in his bond-brother. ‘I have to find their gene-seed,’ he muttered to himself.
Barsabbas shook his head in disbelief. Sargaul was a veteran Astartes. His mind had been clinically, surgically and chemically conditioned. His mind had been tested through constant, rigorous stress for years before his induction. In fact, most Astartes were, to a minor degree, psychically resistant. Surely, this would be a temporary, a fleeting illness, for nothing could break Sargaul’s mental wall for good.
‘Reverse it!’ Barsabbas shouted, grabbing Sindul by the arm and pulling him close. ‘Reverse it!’
‘I cannot!’ Sindul squealed. ‘His mind is ruined. There is nothing I can do.’
‘Look at me,’ Barsabbas commanded Sargaul, but his bond wasn’t listening. Fitful and barely lucid, Sargaul seemed oblivious to his environment. Physically his body was there, but his mind was broken.
