‘Lock the Hydras,’ Rannik told Jaken. ‘But don’t fire unless they fire first, or I give the order. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The scream of distant engines rose to a painful pitch. Rannik clamped the magnoculars, and tried to ignore the churning in her stomach. As it drew closer she realised just how monstrously large the descending gunship was. Armour-plated and heavily armed, whatever it was, Jaken was right – it hadn’t come from the Imperial Truth.
There was a rattle as the autocannon emplacements on the outer bastions tracked the flier, its landing prongs extended beneath it. Rannik backed up against the keep’s blast doors to make room as it lowered itself onto the parade square, the down-draught of its shrieking engines battering at her. The arbitrators on the surrounding walls stood ready, shotguns and autorifles raised. Rannik pulled on her helmet, her mouth set in a grim downward turn.
There was a thump as the gunship landed, settling with leaden grace. The engine noise cut back to an idling whine, and then clattered out altogether. The sudden silence seemed to press in on Rannik. Her skin crawled. The heavy front hatch of the gunship directly faced her, as did its black-tinted cockpit and the gaping maw of the cannon that ran along its upper spine.
The arbitrators waited. Eventually there came the thud of disengaging mag locks and a hydraulic whirr as the front hatch began to lower. Bursts of pressurised steam obscured Rannik’s view of whatever lurked within. She realised, abruptly, that she was probably about to die.
The thump of heavy footfalls echoed out across the square. A shadow materialised from within the gunship’s depths. Rannik froze, terror stopping her hand on the butt of her autopistol. It was the same creature that had been on the Imperial Truth, a giant in vast plates of armour. It strode towards Rannik like a colossus, steam wreathing it, its glaring, soulless black lenses pinning her against the keep’s rockcrete.
And yet, something was different. This time the warrior-titan was not armoured in darkest blue, but in grey. Gone were the leering skulls and crimson wing sigils, replaced by a coiling, white oceanic predator. In its monstrous fists it carried a huge chainaxe, its rotor silent and inactive.
It halted at the foot of the ramp. More hulking warriors emerged behind it, spreading out in a semicircle on either side. They were similarly bedecked in grey-and-black battleplate, parts of it inscribed with strange, swirling patterns. A few bore red diagonal lines down the visors of their helmets. Scrimshawed bone tokens and old, jagged-looking predator teeth clattered from leather bands bound around their vambraces and gorgets. Most carried huge boltguns, though one bore a ragged strip of cloth aloft on a pole, all of it faded to obscurity bar a central white crest that mirrored the one on each of the warriors’ right pauldron.
None of the arbitrators moved. Rannik stared. She knew one wrong twitch would see her smeared against the wall of the keep by a storm of mass-reactive bolts.
The first giant to emerge from the gunship, the one with the chainaxe, stepped forwards.
‘Hail, Imperial citizen.’ The voice was a dry, deep rasp, crackling up from the helmet’s vox-grille as though from a great depth. Rannik took a moment to realise the giant was speaking in High Gothic. She cast about for a response, striving to recall her progenium days in Abbot Tarwell’s bitterly cold lingua-chamber.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, knowing she was horribly mangling the translation from Low to High.
‘We are the Carcharodon Astra, servants of the Void Father and the Imperium. We come to your world seeking a Red Tithe, as is our right, granted by the Forgotten One on the Day of Exile.’
Rannik picked up only one prominent part of the giant’s words. They served the Imperium. The revelation didn’t do much to ease her fear. Nothing lately had been as it seemed.
‘We detected your distress signal,’ the giant continued when Rannik didn’t respond. ‘A warband of vile traitors and heretics have beset your world and already murdered many of your brethren. We will assist you with their destruction before we claim our Tithe.’
‘You are here to help us?’ Rannik asked haltingly. The giant paused before replying, as though considering her words.
‘Yes,’ he said eventually. ‘We require full access to this facility, for use as a staging ground.’
‘There are more of you?’
‘Is the perimeter secure?’ the giant asked, ignoring the question.
‘Yes. We’ve had contacts though.’
‘We shall begin our deployment. Praise the Void Father, citizen, for the Red Tithe has begun.’
Sharr had forgotten how pathetic humans were. The one before him was clearly stunned at the sight of two squads of Adeptus Astartes, her half-helm failing to hide her slack jaw. The Company Master blink-clicked his visor’s internal vox-uplink icon.
‘Brother Attika, bring Voidspear down,’ he said.
‘Affirmative, Company Master,’ the Thunderhawk pilot replied. ‘Our scanners are detecting contacts beyond the perimeter of the facility.’
‘I am aware,’ Sharr said. ‘Proceed regardless. We have no time to lose.’
The human was saying something, her High Gothic phrases largely incoherent. Sharr interrupted her.
‘This facility holds penal labourers?’
The human managed to nod. Sharr continued.
‘You will show them to me and my Chief Librarian, when he arrives.’
It had been almost half a decade since Sharr had last spoken to a human that wasn’t a Chapter-serf. The one before him looked no older than a child. From a glance he knew the rest of the garrison were older, but they hardly looked more competent. There was no chance they’d managed to resist the traitors on their own merit thus far. They’d simply been left alive, unknowingly at the mercy of the invaders.
That meant the traitors had wanted the Carcharodons to land here.
Voidspear touched down beside Razortooth, the twin Thunderhawk gunships filling the small parade ground. Te Kahurangi led Strike Leader Ari out to join First and Second Squads, assembled around Sharr. The terror emanating from the human before them became even more palpable at the sight of the blue-armoured Chief Librarian.
‘Well met, Sub-Warden Rannik,’ Te Kahurangi said. The human blanched.
‘You know my name?’
‘My brother knows many things,’ Sharr said, tiring of the young human’s stupidity. ‘It is best not to question them. Now, you will show us your detention centre. I must review your prisoners.’
The human Te Kahurangi had called Rannik hesitated, but not for long. She opened the central keep’s blast doors and led them down into its vaults. As they went Sharr ordered the rest of the assembled squads to join the garrison on the ramparts, while Voidspear and Razortooth took to the sky once more. If their dark brethren were planning to strike any time soon, they would not be caught unprepared.
A grav lift took them down to the prison vaults. They had been carved into the bedrock of Zartak itself – the corridors were of jagged, damp stone, and stalactites bristled from the low ceiling. The inmate cells had been burrowed from the rock and sealed off with heavy plasteel bars and grates.
Sharr and Te Kahurangi passed through the vault corridors, Rannik following like a child in the footsteps of adults. After a period of silence, Sharr spoke to his Chief Librarian.
‘Are they suitable?’
Te Kahurangi made a dry grunting noise, not looking at the Company Master.
‘They are terrified. A pall of fear has fallen across this world. The influence of the Dead Skin lies over everything.’
‘And when we have killed him and banished his darkness?’
‘It is hard to say. They are malnourished, overworked. Many already bear crippling injuries. Few are fit for the slave decks, let alone indoctrination.’
‘We will take what we can,’ Sharr said. ‘Sift this place for anything t
hat might benefit the Chapter.’
‘I am only here for the boy,’ Te Kahurangi said.
‘He is worth that much to you?’
‘You know as well as I how difficult it is to find new initiates for the Librarium. In the Outer Dark, beyond the usual means of recruitment, discovering a suitable young psyker is hard enough. Finding one who is largely untainted is nearly impossible. My brother Librarians have waited decades for this day to come. That is why I am here.’
‘And I will assist you,’ Sharr reassured him. ‘As far as my duties will permit.’
‘We shall see just how far that really is,’ Te Kahurangi said. Occasionally as they walked he would pause to peer into one of the cells. The inmates within would gasp or cry out at the sight of the towering warrior. They were universally a bedraggled set of creatures, their grey overalls stained by layers of sweat and dirt, their exposed flesh caked with grime. Sharr wondered whether he had looked in any way similar to them before his own induction. Wondered whether he had shared these very same cells. Such memories were long lost to him now.
‘What is the average survival rate for these wretches?’ he asked Rannik, gesturing through the bars of one of the cell grates. The convicts inside moaned with fear.
‘From when they first arrive?’ Rannik replied in her pidgin High Gothic. ‘Nine to ten months, Terran standard.’
Even the slave berths of the Nomad Predation Fleet did not have such a high rate of attrition, Sharr thought. Still, it was better than nothing.
‘Do you know the boy’s location?’ he asked Te Kahurangi over the internal vox.
‘Approximately,’ the Chief Librarian said. ‘He has allowed me into his mind to an extent, though the strain is great. I have traced his warp presence to a sub-section of the primary prison mine. It is on the other side of the hemisphere. There are a number of access points on the jungle surface I could use.’
‘The traitors have allowed us to get this far,’ Sharr said. ‘This entire place reeks of a trap.’
‘Regardless, you are out of time, Company Master,’ Te Kahurangi said. ‘Kahu will brook no delay for the Tithing, and I must reach the boy. The Dead Skin draws nearer to him with each passing moment. I have been able to keep him moving thus far, but I can only do so much from a distance. I must go in person and retrieve him.’
‘Then do so,’ Sharr said. ‘Take Ari and his Tenth Company initiates aboard the Voidspear, and go with all haste. May the Void Father guide you.’ Te Kahurangi bowed his head.
‘What will you do in the meantime?’
‘We’re going to start,’ the Company Master said, ‘by purging the heretics. Once they have been uprooted we can collect the prison inmates and shuttle them into orbit.’
Te Kahurangi stopped, assessing the rugged cell corridor and the heavy prison doors. His helm swung to face Sharr, its intricately inscribed blue plates and black lenses inscrutable.
‘Do you remember this place, Company Master?’
Sharr paused for a moment, taking in Zartak’s gloomy tunnels, before replying.
‘No, Pale Nomad. It is nothing to me.’ Te Kahurangi shook his head.
‘You are lying, Bail Sharr.’
Vorfex crouched on the edge of the jungle treeline and bared his fangs. The air above the little precinct fort was vibrating with the shriek of engines and the passage of heavy gunships. The loyalists were deploying more of their forces to the surface – Vorfex estimated almost a full company’s strength.
His Raptor Claw had come down from the Imperial Truth on Cull’s orders, not long after Vorfex had jettisoned the unconscious Imperial in the salvation pod and just in time to avoid the ship’s destruction at the hands of the newly arrived loyalist fleet. Since then they’d been stalking the sub-precinct from the jungle edge, like half-glimpsed predators circling trapped preyflesh. They’d made their presence known with the occasional shot from across the clearing, teasing the Imperials with little doses of terror.
Vorfex had just started to contemplate a small murder-raid – contrary to orders – when the auspex had detected incoming fliers. Suddenly everything became interesting again. Cull had been right, damn him – there were Loyalist Adeptus Astartes arriving on Zartak. Vorfex hadn’t recognised their grey-and-black heraldry, though their predator crest had sent a thrill of excitement through the Night Lord’s genhanced veins.
The harvest had gone from a mission of murder and pillage to an opportunity for them to prove that the VIII Legion was still the deadliest band of hunter-killers in the galaxy. And that was the perfect setting for him to assume leadership of the warband.
The Loyalists had already announced their presence by boarding and destroying the Imperial Truth. It had happened while the shuttle carrying Vorfex’s Raptor Claw was still descending from orbit. He’d watched grainy images from the rear pict-caster as the prison ship buckled and split apart beneath the firepower of the newly arrived Imperial fleet. The Flayed Father would be incensed that the death-haunted ship had been wrecked, just when he was close to finishing its transformation into his own little pain-wracked warp nest. Vorfex didn’t care. He despised the trickery of the Dark Gods almost as much as he hated the weakling, lapdog Imperials. There was only one will in the galaxy he obeyed, and that was his own.
Another gunship rose from within the sub-precinct’s outer walls and burned away to the north. The Claw leader opened a vox-channel to the Precinct Fortress.
‘My prince, this is Vorfex. They are still deploying at the point you predicted. Armour has started to arrive. I estimate a company-sized force, no more, no less.’
Cull’s voice crackled back over the link.
‘Understood. Watch then, brother. Only withdraw if threatened.’
‘The Claw is hungry, my prince,’ Vorfex said, testing Cull’s limits.
‘It matters nothing to me what your Claw desires, Vorfex. Soon we will all hunt. If you cannot hold position and keep your Claw in check, I will find a champion who can. Is that clear?’
‘Yes, my prince,’ Vorfex lied, battling to keep the resentment from his voice. He broke the link.
The Claws were returning to their new home. They came with the sub-surface loco carriages, packed with terrified meat. From all of the outlying sub-precincts and secondary mines, the Night Lords assembled, and brought their fresh prisoners. The new arrivals were unloaded en masse into the Burrow, to join the remaining Sink Shaft One inmates still competing for survival among the shadow-haunted tunnels and pits.
The Night Lords fleet had withdrawn from the dark side of Zartak to the cover of the asteroid belt. The warband was assembled beneath the surface in its entirety, the last remnants shuttled down just before the Loyalists arrived. Now they need only wait.
The Imperials holed up in the last defended sub-precinct had sealed off the subterranean routes linking their smaller mine works to the larger ones of the Burrow. Cull watched via the viewscreens as the separating blast doors ground slowly open. The first armoured figures emerged through them, bolters at the ready, moving with the lethal fluidity of born predators. The Night Lord grinned to himself. Soon they would discover who the real predators on Zartak were. He activated his vox and opened a channel to the whole warband.
‘This is the Prince of Thorns to all Claws,’ he said. ‘You may begin.’
+ + Gene scan complete + + +
+ + Access granted + + +
+ + Beginning mem-bank entry log + + +
+ + Date check, 3644875.M41 + + +
Day 79, warp time variance approximate.
We have reached the waypoint station at Gorgas, following the path of the rogue penal ship. Progress has been slow. The tides of the empyrean are against us and I fear we shall arrive on Zartak after whatever events currently unfolding there have ended. Quite what we will find, only the God-Emperor knows.
I have used the opportunity afforded by
the brief break back into real space to contact superiors and subordinates alike. Rochfort has finally been able to conclude matters on Kelistan. My Lord Rozenkranz is still urging haste. I informed him of the mystery of the missing colonists on Zartak, and forwarded him copies of the files I have thus far compiled from the Saint Angelica’s limited databanks. Hopefully his higher clearance levels and access to the Ordo Librarium on Mitquoll will give him a better chance of discovering the truth behind these strange events.
We are poised now to return to the warp. Before us lies the edge of Imperial voidspace, and beyond it, black, endless nothingness. I am starting to regret the glee with which I accepted this assignment.
Signed,
Interrogator Augim Nzogwu.
+ + Mem-bank entry log ends + + +
+ + Thought for the Day: A life led in fear is a blessed life indeed + + +
Chapter VII
It began with the Stalk. The Claws had come together in the network of mines spreading out from Sink Shaft One before shutting down all of their armour’s secondary systems. The bitter red glow of helm lenses faded, and the arco-lightning that snapped and crackled across the war-plate of the veterans shorted out. They melded with the stygian darkness, only the faintest whirring of dampened servos betraying the silence. Truly, they had become the night.
Vorfex and his Raptors had crouched amidst the dirt and the undergrowth of the surface for long enough. Damn Cull and his arrogant orders; the Raptors needed to kill. The meat they’d been fed on the bridge of the Imperial Truth had been a pathetic morsel, and the fact that Vorfex had been forced to save the life of one of the corpse worshippers still rankled. He would achieve nothing on the surface.
Carcharodons: Red Tithe Page 13
