[Horus Heresy 13] - Nemesis

by James Swallow - (ebook by Undead)

  “This is a killer,” Erebus explained. “A weapon, after a fashion.”

  Tobeld belatedly understood that they had been waiting for him. “I… am only a servant…” he gasped. He was losing sensation in his limbs and his vision was starting to fog from the tightness of Korda’s hold.

  “Lie,” said the Word Bearer, the accusation clicking off his tongue.

  Panic broke through what barriers of resolve still remained in Tobeld’s mind, and he felt them crumble. He felt himself lose all sense of rationality and give in to the terror with animal reaction. His training, the control that had been bred into him from his childhood in the schola, disintegrated under no more than a look from Erebus’ cold, cold gaze.

  Tobeld flexed his wrist and the vial came into his hand. He twisted wildly in Korda’s grasp, catching the Astartes fractionally off-guard, stabbing downwards with the glassy cylinder. Motion-sensing switches in the crystalline matrix of the vial obeyed and opened a tiny mouth at the blunt end, allowing a ring of monomol needles to emerge. Little thicker than human hairs, the fine rods could penetrate even the hardy epidermis of an Adeptus Astartes. Tobeld tried to kill Devram Korda, swinging at the bare skin of his scarred face, missing, swinging again. He did this mindlessly, in the manner of a mechanism running too fast, unguided.

  Korda used the flat of his free hand to swat the assassin, doing it with such force that he broke Tobeld’s jaw and caved in much of the side of his skull. Tobeld’s right eye was immediately crushed, and the shock resonated through him. After a moment he realised he was on the ground, blood flowing freely from his shattered mouth and nose into a growing puddle.

  “Erebus was right, sir,” Korda said, the voice woolly and distant.

  Tobeld’s hand reached out in a claw, scraping at the black sand and smooth rock. Through the eye that still worked, he could see the vial, the contents unspent, lying where it had fallen from his fingers. He reached for it, inching closer.

  “He was.” Tobeld heard Sedirae echo his battle-brother with a sigh. “Seems to be making a habit of it.”

  The assassin looked up, the pain caused by the simple action almost insurmountable, and saw shapes swimming in mist and blood. Cold eyes upon him, judging him unworthy.

  “Put an end to this,” said Erebus.

  Korda hesitated. “Lord?”

  “As our cousin says, brother-sergeant,” Sedirae replied. “It’s becoming tiresome.”

  One of the shapes grew larger, coming closer, and Tobeld saw a steel-plated hand reach for the vial, gather it up. “What does this do, I wonder?”

  Then the vial glittered in the light as the Astartes brought the assassin’s weapon down and injected the contents of the tube into the bruised bare flesh of Tobeld’s arm.

  Sedirae watched the helot perish with the slow, indolent air of one who had seen many manners of death. He watched out of interest to see if this ending would show him something different from all the other kills he had witnessed— and it did, to some small degree.

  Korda placed a hand over the man’s mouth to muffle his screams as the helot’s body twitched and drew into itself. On the Caslon Moon during the Great Crusade, the captain of the 13th had drowned a mutant in a freezing lake, holding the freak-thing down beneath the surface of the murky waters until it had perished. He was reminded of that kill now, watching the helot go to his end from the poison. The hooded servile was drowning dry, if such a thing were possible. Where he could see bare skin, Sedirae saw the pallid and rad-burned meat of the man first turn corpse-grey, then lose all definition and become papery, pulling tight over bones and muscle bunches that atrophied as the moments passed. Even the blood that had spilled onto the dark earth became cloudy and then evaporated, leaving cracked deposits bereft of any moisture. Korda eventually took his hand away and shook it, sending a rain of powder from his fingertips off on the winds.

  “A painful death,” remarked the sergeant, examining his fingers. “See here?” He showed off a tiny scratch on the ceramite of the knuckle joint. “He bit me in his last agonies, not that it mattered.”

  Sedirae threw a look at the command tent. No one had emerged to see what was going on outside. He doubted Horus and the rest of his Mournival were even aware of the killing taking place. They had so much to occupy them, after all. So many plans and great schemes to helm…

  “I’ll inform the Warmaster,” he heard himself say.

  Erebus took a step closer. “Do you think that is necessary?”

  Sedirae glanced at the Chaplain. The Word Bearer had a way of drawing attention directly when he wished it, almost as if he could drag a gaze towards him like a black sun would pull in light and matter in order to consume it; and by turns he could do the opposite, making himself a ghost in a room full of people, allowing sight to slide off him as if he were not there. In his more honest moments, Luc Sedirae would admit that the presence of Erebus left him unsettled. The captain of the 13th could not quite shake the disquiet that clouded his thoughts every time the Word Bearer chose to speak. Not for the first time, despite all the fealty he had sworn to the Luna Wolves—now the Sons of Horus in name and banner—Sedirae asked himself why the Warmaster needed Erebus so close in order to prosecute his just and right insurrection against the Emperor. It was one of many doubts that he carried, these days. The burden of them seemed to grow ever greater with each passing month that the Warmaster’s forces dallied out here in the deeps, while the prize of Terra herself remained out of reach.

  He gave a low snort and gestured at the corpse. “Someone just tried to kill him. Yes, cousin, I think Horus Lupercal might consider that of interest.”

  “Tell me you are not so naive as to imagine that this pitiful attempt was the first such act against the Warmaster?”

  Sedirae narrowed his eyes at Erebus’ light, almost dismissive tone. “The first to come so close, I would warrant.”

  “A few steps more and he would have been inside the tent,” muttered Korda.

  “Distance is relative,” Erebus replied. “Lethality is the key factor.”

  Korda stood up. “I wonder who sent him.”

  “The Warmaster’s father,” said Erebus immediately. “Or, if not by the Emperor’s direct decree, then by that of his lackeys.”

  “You seem very certain,” Sedirae noted. “But Horus has made many enemies.”

  The Word Bearer gave a slight smile and shook his head. “None of concern on this day.” He took a breath. “We three ended this threat before it became an issue. It need not become one after the fact.” Erebus nodded towards the tent. “The Warmaster has a galaxy to conquer. He has more than enough to absorb his attention as it is. Would you wish to distract your primarch with this triviality, Sedirae?” He prodded the corpse with the tip of his boot.

  “I believe the Warmaster should make that choice for himself.” Irritation flared in Sedirae’s manner and his lip curled. “Perhaps—” He caught himself and fell silent, arresting the train of thought even as it formed.

  “Perhaps?” echoed Erebus, immediately seizing on the word as if he knew what would have followed it. “Speak your mind, captain. We are all kinsmen here. All brothers of the lodge.”

  He deliberated for a long moment on the words pushing at his lips, and then finally gave them leave. “Perhaps, Word Bearer, if matters such as these were not kept from Horus, then he might wish to move along a swifter path. Perhaps, if he were not kept ignorant of the threats to our campaign, he might—”

  “Push on to the Segmentum Solar, and to Earth?” Erebus seemed to close the distance between them without actually moving. “That is the root of it, am I right? You feel that the measured pace of our advance is too slow. You wish to lay siege to the Imperial Palace tomorrow.”

  “My captain is not alone in that regard,” said Korda, with feeling.

  “A month would be enough,” retorted Sedirae, showing teeth. “It could be done. We all know it.”

  Erebus’ smile lengthened. “I am sure that from where t
he warriors of the 13th Company stand, it doubtless seems that simple. But let me assure you, it is not. There’s still so much to be done, Luc Sedirae. So many pieces to be placed, so many factors not yet ready.”

  The captain gave an angry snort. “What are you saying? That we must wait for the stars to be right?”

  The smile faded and the Word Bearer became grim. “Exactly that, cousin. Exactly that.”

  The sudden coldness in Erebus’ words gave Sedirae a moment’s pause. “Clearly I lack your insight, then,” he grated. “As I fail to see the merit in this leisurely strategy.”

  “As long as we follow the Warmaster, all will be as it should,” Erebus told him. “Victory will come soon enough.” He paused over the corpse, which had begun to disintegrate into dust, pulled away by the winds. “Perhaps even sooner than any of us might expect.”

  “What do you mean?” said Korda.

  “A truism of warfare.” Erebus did not look up from his examination of the dead assassin. “If a tactic can be used against us, then it can be used by us.”

  Dawn brought with it the clouds, and under the mellow amber glow of the rising sun, the bright jewels of the Taebian Stars began to fade away as pure blue washed in to lighten the darkness of lost night. Pressed to one window of the coleopter’s cramped cabin, Yosef Sabrat took a moment to pull the collar of his greatcoat a little tighter around his neck. The long summer season of Iesta Veracrux was well and truly over, and the new autuwinter was on the horizon, coming in slow and careful. Up here, in the cold morning sky, he could feel it. In a matter of weeks, the rains would come in earnest; and not before time, either. This year’s crop would be one for the record books, so they were saying.

  The flyer bumped through a pocket of turbulent air and Yosef bounced in his seat; like most of the craft in service with the Sentine, it was an old thing but well cared for, one of many machines that could date back their lineage to the Second Establishment and the great colonial influx. The ducted rotor vanes behind the passenger compartment thrummed, the engine note changing as the pilot put it into a shallow port-side turn. Yosef let gravity turn his head and he looked past the two jagers who were the only other passengers, and out through the seamless bowl of glassaic at the empty observer’s station.

  Sparse pennants of thin white cloud drifted away to give him a better view. They were passing over the Breghoot Canyon, where the sheer rock face of red stone fell away into deeps that saw little daylight, even at high sun. The terraces of the vineyards there were just opening up for the day, fans of solar arrays on the tiled roofs turning and unfolding like black sails on some ocean schooner. Beyond, clinging to the vast kilometre-long trellises that extended out off the edges of the cliffs, waves of greenery resembled strange cataracts of emerald frozen in mid-fall. Had they been closer, Yosef imagined he would be able to see the shapes of harvestmen and their ceramic-clad gatherer automatons moving in among the frames, taking the bounty from the web of vines.

  The coleopter rumbled again as it forded an updraught and righted itself, giving a wide berth to the hab-towers reaching high from the cliff top and into the lightening sky. Acres of white stucco coated the flanks of the tall, skinny minarets, and across most of them the shutters were still closed over their windows, the new day yet to be greeted. Most of the capital’s populace were still slumbering at this dawn hour, and Yosef did in all honesty envy them to great degree. The hasty mug of recaf that had been his breakfast sat poorly in his stomach. He’d slept fitfully last night—something that seemed to be happening more often these days—and so when the vox had pulled him the rest of the way from his dreamless half-slumber, it had almost been a kindness. Almost.

  The engine note grew shrill as the flyer picked up speed, coming in swift and low now over the tops of the woodlands that bracketed the capital’s airdocks. Yosef watched the carpet of green and brown flash past beneath him, trying not to get lost in it.

  A word from the low, muttered conversation drifting between the jagers came to him without warning. He frowned and dismissed it, willing himself not to listen, concentrating on the engine sound instead; but he could not. The word, the name, whispered furtively for fear of invocation.

  Horus.

  Each time he heard it, it was as if it were some sort of curse. Those who uttered it would do so in fear, gripped by some strange belief that to speak the name would incur an instant punishment by unseen authority. Or perhaps it was not that; perhaps it was a sickening that the word brought with it, the sense that this combination of sounds would turn the stomach if said too loudly. The name troubled him. For too long it had been a watchword for nobility and heroism; but now the meaning was in flux, and it defied any attempt at categorisation in Yosef’s analytical, careful thoughts.

  He considered admonishing the men for a brief moment, then thought better of it. For all the bright sunshine that might fall upon Iesta Veracrux’s thriving society, there were shadows cast here and some of them ran far deeper than many would wish to know. Recently, those shadows ran longer and blacker than ever before, and men would know fear and doubt for that. It was to be expected.

  The coleopter rose up to clear the last barrier of high Ophelian pines and spun in towards the network of towers, landing pads and blockhouses that were the capital’s primary port.

  The Sentine had dispensation and so were not required to land at a prescribed platform like civilian traffic. Instead, the pilot moved smartly between a massive pair of half-inflated cargo ballutes to touch down on a patch of ferrocrete scarcely the width of the flyer. Yosef and the pair of jagers were barely off the drop-ramp before the downwash from the rotor became a brief hurricane and the coleopter spun away, back up into the blue. Yosef shielded his eyes from the dust and scattered leaves the departure kicked up, watching it go.

  He reached inside his coat for his warrant rod on its chain, and drew out the slim silver shaft to hang free and visible around his neck. He ran his thumb absently down the length of it, over the etching and the gold contact inlays that indicated his rank of reeve, and surveyed the area. Unlike the jagers, who only wore a brass badge on street duty or patrol, the reeve’s rod showed his status as an investigating officer.

  The men from the flyer had joined a group of other uniforms who were carefully plotting out a search pattern for the surrounding area. Behind them, Yosef saw an automated barrier mechanical ponderously drawing a thick cable lined with warning flags around the edge of the nearest staging area.

  A familiar face caught his eye. “Sir!” Skelta was tall and thin of aspect, with a bearing to him that some of the other members of the Sentine unkindly equated to a rodent. The jager came quickly over to his side, ducking slightly even though the coleopter was long gone. Skelta blinked, looking serious and pale. “Sir,” he repeated. The young man had ideas about being promoted beyond street duty to the Sentine’s next tier of investigatory operations, and so he was always attempting to present a sober and thoughtful aspect whenever he was in his superior’s company; but Yosef didn’t have the heart to tell the man he was just a little too dull-witted to make the grade. He wasn’t a bad sort, but sometimes he exhibited the kind of ignorance that made Sabrat’s palms itch.

  “Jager,” he said with a nod. “What do you have for me?”

  A shadow passed over Skelta’s face, something that went beyond his usual reticent manner, and Yosef caught it. The reeve had come here expecting to find a crime of usual note, but Skelta’s fractional expression gave him pause; and for the first time that morning, he wondered what he had walked into.

  “It’s, uh…” The jager trailed off and swallowed hard, his gaze losing focus for a moment as he thought about something else. “You should probably see for yourself, sir.”

  “All right. Show me.”

  Skelta led him through the ordered ranks of wooden cargo capsules, each one an octagonal block the size of a small groundcar. The smell of matured estufagemi wine was everywhere here, soaked into the massive crates, even bled into the
stone flags of the flight apron. The warm, comforting scent seemed cloying and overly strong today, however, almost as if it were struggling to mask the perfume of something far less pleasant.

  Close by, he heard the quick barks of dogs, and then a man’s angry shout followed by snarls and yelps. “Dockside strays,” offered the jager. “Attracted by the stink, sir. Been kicking them away since before sunup.” The thought seemed to disagree with the young man and he changed the subject. “We think we have an identity for the victim. Documents found near the scene, papers and the like. Name was Jaared Norte. A lighter drivesman.”

  “You think,” echoed Yosef. “You’re not sure?”

  Skelta held up the barrier line for the reeve to step under, and they walked on, into the crime scene proper. “Haven’t been able to make a positive match yet, sir,” he went on. “Clinicians are on the way to check for dentition and blood-trace.” The jager coughed, self-consciously. “He… doesn’t have a face, sir. And we found some loose teeth… But we’re not sure they were, uh, his.”

  Yosef took that in without comment. “Go on.”

  “Norte’s foreman has been interviewed. Apparently, Norte clocked off at the usual time last night, heading home to his wife and son. He never arrived.”

  “The wife report it, did she?”

  Skelta shook his head. “No, sir. They had some trouble, apparently. Their marriage contract was a few months from expiration, and it was causing friction. She probably thought he was out drinking up his pay.”

  “This from the foreman?”

  The jager nodded. “Sent a mobile to their house to confirm his take on things. Waiting on a word.”

  “Was Norte drank when he was killed?”

  This time, Skelta couldn’t stop himself from shuddering. “For his sake, I hope so. Would have been a blessing for the poor bastard.”

  Yosef sensed the fear in the other man’s words. Murder was not an uncommon crime on Iesta Veracrux; they were a relatively prosperous world that was built on the industry of wine, after all, and men who drank—or who coveted money—were often given to mistakes that led to bloodletting. The reeve had seen many deaths, some brutal, many of them sordid, each in their own way tragic; but all of them he had understood. Yosef knew crime for what it was—a weakness of self—and he knew the triggers that would bring that flaw to light, jealousy, madness, sorrow… But fear was the worst.