‘The auspex?’ he demanded.
‘Also functional. It’s not picking up any hostile returns.’
‘It must be a trap,’ Nuritona said. ‘Maintain overwatch.’ He switched channels.
‘Company Master,’ he said. ‘The heretics have retreated.’
Sharr stood perfectly still.
His body was recovering, coming down from its battle-ready state. Adrenaline and combat stimms still flooded his veins. His muscles burned with unused energy, his grip like a vice around the scarred haft of Reaper. He could still smell blood.
Around him the Centrum Dominus mirrored his stillness. Blood dripped slowly from every surface, spreading from the dismembered bodies that covered the broken floor. The cogitators, vox-banks, viewscreens and augur arrays were dead and smashed beyond repair. There was a clatter and crunch as a small part of the collapsed section of the floor fell into the room below, cracking off the pile of debris that was the Chaos champion’s tomb.
Soha was dead, his skull split open by a pair of lightning claws. Sharr had already recovered his precious volkite caliver. Red Tane was alive, but barely. His stomach had been torn and ruptured by a power sword during his duel along the upper vox-gantries. Niko was wounded in half a dozen places. Almost half of Chaplain Nikora’s bones were broken. Three of the four members of Fourth Squad who had come to their aid – Ekara, Haru and Tonga – were dead. Only Strike Veteran Dorthor and the last survivor of Fourth Squad, Kordi, were largely uninjured.
And the Pale Nomad. Te Kahurangi faced Sharr now, deliberately invading his line of sight. The Chief Librarian was still half stripped of his armour, his pale flesh streaked with blood. Little of it was his own. In one arm he held the boy he’d come to Zartak to retrieve, still unconscious and barely alive.
‘Reports from the junctions,’ Sharr said, his voice coming out flat and dead, betraying nothing of the ongoing urge to rend and tear that still shuddered through his body. He knew from experience that the Blindness would leave only reluctantly. ‘All squads are reporting enemy withdrawals.’
‘I can sense their retreat,’ Te Kahurangi confirmed. ‘Including the ones that escaped from here. They are headed for the shuttle bays, and we are not enough to stop them.’
‘I will order the fleet to pursue.’
‘They will likely outrun us. Besides, they are not what we are here for.’
‘So I have been told, many times,’ Sharr replied. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Slowly, his secondary heart decelerated to a complete stop. His body shuddered slightly as the last of the stimms flushed from his system. He felt a sudden tiredness, an ache that he thrust angrily aside.
‘Very well then,’ he said. ‘It is time.’ He opened the company-wide vox-channel, and patched through to the White Maw, still engaging the smaller heretic fleet in orbit above.
‘This is Reaper to all callsigns. The sub-surface is secure. The heretics have been purged. Begin the Red Tithe.’
+ + Gene scan complete + + +
+ + Access granted + + +
+ + Beginning mem-bank entry log + + +
+ + Date check, 3682875.M41 + + +
Day 93, Zartak local.
God-Emperor preserve me. The butchery in the lower refectorium is as nothing compared to what has occurred within the Centrum Dominus. The place is a ruin, populated only by slaughtered, eviscerated remains. Words fail me.
The auspex has just pinged for the first time since making planetfall. I am taking Sister Alesia and following its trail immediately. I pray that whatever still lives down here isn’t the same thing that unleashed this madness.
Signed,
Interrogator Augim Nzogwu.
+ + Mem-bank entry log ends + + +
+ + Thought for the Day: Thought begets heresy, heresy begets retribution + + +
Chapter XVIII
Rannik lived. She stood near the middle of the Centrum Dominus, close to the very spot where, barely two days earlier, she’d begged Warden Primary Sholtz to include her in the operation to secure Imperial Truth. The place was almost unrecognisable now – bloody, broken and littered with wreckage. The surviving Adeptus Astartes stalked through the twisted, dripping carnage, retrieving their fallen brothers and delivering killing blows to those traitors still showing signs of life.
Rannik didn’t move. She barely had the strength to stand. Her body was numb, and her thoughts sluggish. Her skull throbbed painfully. It felt as though fingers had been probing around inside her head, clawing at her brain.
A shadow fell across her, obscuring the light filtering in through the open blast doors. A shiver ran through her exhausted body. The two Space Marines, the grey one with the crested helm and the psyker with the staff, stood before her.
‘We require all of the remaining prisoners,’ said the grey one. He was splattered in slowly congealing viscera, yet his voice remained as level and devoid of fatigue as when he’d first addressed Rannik. ‘We will begin to remove them via your Precinct Fortress’ shuttle bays within the hour. It may take up to two days, local time, to evacuate them all.’
‘You can’t,’ Rannik said, but her denial was without conviction.
‘By the edicts of the Forgotten One, we can. We have already Tithed this world once. And we shall do it again. It is the work of the Void Father. Do not attempt to impede us.’
The psyker, his pale flesh streaked red, reached out towards Rannik’s brow, but the arbitrator flinched back. The Space Marine dropped his hand.
‘We are the protectors of humanity,’ he said instead, fixing Rannik with his black stare. ‘And its judges. When the shadows strike, we strike back. From the Outer Dark we come, and into its depths we shall return. The black sea beyond the stars calls to us.’
‘Do you have no home?’ Rannik asked. ‘No world you call your own? Only emptiness?’
‘We did once,’ the psyker replied. ‘But it is far from here, and we have not been welcome for a very long time. I believe we never will be, though many of my brothers would disagree. We cannot go back, but nor can we go on without the materials necessary to fulfil our ancient vows. Weapons and armour, fuel and food, the Grey Tithe. And flesh, the Red. We need hands for our ships, and we need suitable aspirants who can compete for the honour of becoming void brothers. That is why we are here. We have come to exercise the right given to us on the first Day of Exile, and take a Red Tithe from Zartak.’
‘All of us?’ Rannik asked.
‘Few enough have survived as it is,’ the grey one said. ‘We came here for a Tithing, and instead fought to the death. What remains of the prison population will have to be enough.’
‘Will you take me as well?’
‘You are a member of the Adeptus Terra, an active servant of the Void Father,’ Te Kahurangi said. ‘The edicts granted to us do not permit such a thing. The scum in your cells, however, have forfeited their rights. Aboard our Nomad Predation Fleet they may at least earn redemption and final peace, beneath the lash.’
‘You may do as you wish,’ the grey giant went on. ‘You and your brother. The mortis-cry of your astropaths should draw a response soon, and assistance will arrive.’
‘My brother?’ Rannik said, not understanding.
‘There is one other survivor like you, an arbitrator. He is in the main chapel. He did not respond to us when we freed him. He seems damaged.’
‘You should go to him,’ Te Kahurangi said. ‘We will not require your assistance any longer.’
Rannik opened her mouth, but realised she had nothing to say. After a moment both giants turned in unison and walked away. Their fallen brothers recovered, the Space Marines were leaving the chamber. Rannik saw one of them carrying a sedated prison boy. She looked away, a familiar sense of nausea curdling in her stomach.
She didn’t know how long she remained in the Centrum after the giants left. At some point
she found that she’d ascended two levels to the empty Precinct Fortress’ primary chapel. The halls and corridors were quiet. The faint sound of sobbing echoed from within the chapel’s half-dome. Beyond the threshold all was dark. Rannik unlocked her stab lumen and stepped inside.
Even after all that she’d experienced, the stench still hit her hard. Her boots squelched through something wet and yielding. She didn’t look down, but kept the focused beam of light dancing across the far walls. The once-holy air of the chapel was now cold and full of death-stink. The sobbing grew louder.
Her light picked out the source of the noise. A figure was hunched before the broken remains of what had once been the chapel’s altar, at the far end of the semicircular room. Rannik approached, ignoring what she knew she was treading on, ignoring the tears running down her cheeks. The figure looked up as Rannik drew closer, squinting and grimacing in the beam of light.
It was the warden primary. His ageing, grizzled face was pale and lined with horror. He whimpered as Rannik stopped, and clasped his arms round the sub-warden’s legs, like a child.
‘Sir,’ Rannik croaked. ‘Sir… I have to report…’
Sholtz began to sob again, louder this time, hands gripping Rannik’s mag-belt.
‘The prisoners,’ Rannik began to say, then realised what the warden was doing. Wailing, he snatched Rannik’s autopistol from its lock.
‘No!’ shouted Rannik.
A single gunshot echoed back from the empty rafters of the chapel.
+ + Gene scan complete + + +
+ + Access granted + + +
+ + Beginning mem-bank entry log + + +
+ + Date check, 3682875.M41 + + +
Day 93, Zartak local.
The auspex has tracked its reading to the Precinct Fortress’ main chapel. It’s definitely a life signal, albeit faint. If there is indeed a survivor he may possess vital knowledge. We must find whoever did this, track them, and deliver the God-Emperor’s judgement. This must never be allowed to happen again.
Signed,
Interrogator Augim Nzogwu.
+ + Mem-bank entry log ends + + +
+ + Thought for the Day: Fear the judgement of the righteous + + +
Epilogue
The coral chamber was inimical to human life. The air was heavy with toxins and choke gas, and every surface, from the cold surgical slabs to the blades of the incisors and buzz saws, had been treated with ecologies of deadly bacteria. It was a place designed to kill, to test human endurance to its limits, and from it new life was born.
In the centre of the chamber, upon a slab illuminated by a heavy, wheeled multi-lumen and surrounded by dead-fleshed surgical servitors, Apothecary Tama worked. He did so in silence, observing the Void Vow he’d upheld for a century. The only noise came from the buzz of his blade, the crack of bones and the wet, precise slitting of flesh.
Te Kahurangi stood in the shadows near the door, his notched force staff in one hand, watching the Third Company’s Apothecary operate. Occasionally his black eyes would dart to the gently humming vitae-support systems the patient was hooked up to. The signs blipped slowly across the viewscreen, the subject hovering on the fine line between life and death. He was standing on the edge, staring into oblivion. And oblivion was beckoning.
Perhaps he was pushing the genhancement surgery too soon? But no, the Chief Librarian told himself. The subject had been almost dead. He had to undergo the first implantations, before he lost the tenuous grip he held on life. The other aspirants would have longer to go before they received the first of their ancient gene-seed – of the thousands of youths brought in by the Red Tithe, Te Kahurangi doubted three dozen would rise to become numbered Tenth Company initiates.
Another figure entered the chamber, deep in the armoured innards of the White Maw. It was Bail Sharr. The Company Master nodded a silent greeting to Te Kahurangi, and stopped alongside him to observe Tama. The Apothecary, his bared, tattooed forearms slick with blood, was seemingly oblivious to the two onlookers.
‘He still lives then,’ said Sharr.
‘For now. He is entering a critical phase.’
‘The Nomad Predation Fleet is hailing us,’ Sharr said, eyes not leaving the operation. ‘I will deliver my report in person to Lord Tyberos.’
‘I have assembled a separate data file for the Red Wake which I will provide you with before you leave,’ Te Kahurangi said. ‘It details all the assistance you gave me.’
The two Carcharodons were both still fully armoured, and spoke over their helmet’s sealed vox-link, so as not to disturb Tama’s work.
‘Was it worth it?’ Sharr asked, gesturing towards the surgical slab. ‘Was he worth it?’
‘The Tithe was a success,’ Te Kahurangi said. ‘The slaver shuttles have brought in over thirty thousand souls, enough to fill the holds of the Nomad Predation Fleet. Gunnery crew, enginarium labourers, Chapter-serfs, new overseers and bondsmen. Enough for the moment, anyway.’
‘It irks me that the traitorous filth escaped. We should have slaughtered them all.’
‘Kahu’s methods were flawed, but he had the right understanding – we were not there to fight. The Tithe was our objective, as was retrieving the boy. Both of those we achieved. The heretics will have left with few prisoners of their own, and their lords have been slain. Their daemon master is thwarted once more.’
‘At great cost,’ Sharr pointed out. ‘Only thirty-seven of my void brothers remain, and few of them uninjured.’
‘We all know about great cost,’ Te Kahurangi said, and for the briefest moment Sharr thought he caught a hint of sorrow in the ancient Librarian’s rasping voice.
‘That is true. I will report that cost to Lord Tyberos. And pray for his survival.’ He nodded at the surgical slab before turning to leave.
Te Kahurangi remained, watching Tama’s silent work. Watching as the Apothecary sewed and stitched and grafted in the first of the gene-seed implants that would eventually transform Mika Doren Skell into a void brother of the Carcharodon Astra.
She lived.
She could hear voices.
The voices were growing louder.
There was light.
She cringed and whimpered, and realised how dry her throat was.
She tried to move, but could not.
Hands grasped her, rolled her over, right over onto the rotting corpses she’d lain down amongst to die.
‘Hold her up, Sister,’ said a gruff voice. ‘She’s still alive.’
‘Barely,’ said a second voice, this one female.
‘Give me your lumen,’ said the first.
The light intensified. She moaned and blinked, her body limp. She was dimly aware of a face, its features lost in the blinding light.
‘My name is Interrogator Augim Nzogwu,’ said the gruff voice. ‘Adept of Lord Inquisitor Rozenkranz of the Ordo Hereticus, Segmentum Pacificus Divisio. Can you identify yourself, arbitrator?’
She dredged up memories, thoughts she felt as though she hadn’t needed for years, ideas that weren’t her own. A name. An identity. The thing she had been before all this. She found the words and forced them out past parched lips.
‘Rannik.’
‘What did she say?’ asked the female voice.
‘I don’t know,’ said the first. There was a scuffle of boots, a creak of leather. The light flicked off, and darkness embraced her once more.
‘Bring her.’
+ + Sub-file retrieval complete + + +
+ + Opening Inquisitorial Directive 0r54436, Segmentum Pacificus Divisio + + +
+ + Date check, 2986876.M41 + + +
By the authority of the God-Emperor’s Most Holy Inquisition, note is hereby passed to the Imperial Commanders of the Ethika subsector that the Inquisitorial quarantine protocol which has been in effect across the Zartak system for the past year, Terr
an standard, is hereby lifted, effective immediately.
Repopulation of the penal mines of Zartak is once again fully authorised.
+ + Directive ends + + +
+ + Thought for the Day: Darkness is to be destroyed or embraced, never feared + + +
About the Author
Robbie MacNiven is a highland-born History graduate from the University of Edinburgh. He has written the Warhammer 40,000 novel Legacy of Russ as well as the short stories ‘Redblade’, ‘A Song for the Lost’ and ‘Blood and Iron’ for Black Library. His hobbies include re-enacting, football and obsessing over Warhammer 40,000.
An extract from The Reaping Time.
The guildmasters were terrified. Their postures were stiff, their eyes darting, sweat slicking their pale, wrinkled flesh. One old man, stooped beneath the weight of his own sagging fat, was twitching uncontrollably. The motion juddered grotesquely through his heavy jowls, growing more pronounced the more he tried to hide it. Another balding, rheumy-eyed figure’s skeletal hands were clenching and unclenching on the grip of his silver pick-cane. A third was clutching her ermine ruff so hard her scrawny, velvet-draped limbs were shaking.
The entire assembly, packed onto the walkway of an observation gantry, cringed at the presence of the giants towering over them.
They were monsters, primordial terrors clad from head to foot in battleplate the colour of ash. They reeked of weapons unguents and a cloying, alien scent that turned the humans’ stomachs. None had moved since stepping onto the gantry. Their motionless state spoke of a razor-edged, predatory patience.
Eventually, one of the ashen giants spoke.
‘These are all of them? All the young?’
None of the guildmasters answered. For a moment, nothing happened. There was a click. Then, abruptly, one of the giants lunged.
For something so large, it moved with terrifying speed. Its bone staff shattered the skull of the fat, twitching guilder. Those around recoiled from the splattering of brains and blood. Without hesitation, the other giants lashed out.
Carcharodons: Red Tithe Page 28
