Lords and Tyrants

by Warhammer 40K

  ‘It is for thermal harvesting purposes. I grow weary of this discussion. Where is my tribute?’ The question was delivered sharply. Her optic lenses clicked in irritation. He had her. Anger was one of the few emotions left to her.

  Bile smiled and pressed his advantage. ‘Still, it was beautiful, in its way.’

  ‘Beauty is irrelevant. Irrelevancies are purged from the dataflow. Mars – Tharsis – was – is – irrelevant to current operating parameters. Quir is my home, now.’ There was a certain finality to that statement. An irrevocable implication. Nonetheless, he continued.

  ‘Irrelevance is a matter of perception, I suppose. What is a person but the sum of their experiences, good and bad? All things contribute to the whole, even the most insignificant of occurrences. Weigh them, pare them away, and soon you will be left with nothing.’

  ‘Not nothing. Something better.’

  Bile shrugged. ‘There are too many fools in Eyespace who seek to divest themselves of past failures. They yearn to rewrite history, as if by doing so they might erase the sins of history. What is done is done. One must build on a foundation of regrets, mistakes and frustrations if one is to ascend properly. One must always look forward, not backward.’

  ‘Nothing of value can be built on weakness.’

  ‘Weakness is the soil in which the seeds of future strength are sown.’ He gestured to himself. ‘Weakness of flesh, of body and mind, compels me to heights undreamt of by my former peers. I have remade demigods in my image, and drawn from the wellspring of life itself. If I were certain in my strength, pure of function, I would not have achieved half of those deeds which see my signature writ in the blood and marrow of innumerable peoples.’

  Spohr studied him. ‘By my estimates, your biological functions will cease in–’

  Bile gestured sharply. ‘Spare me, I beg you. I have my own hourglass, and enough sand to fill it.’

  ‘Elevated pulse. You are frightened. Have you forgotten my tribute, Fabius? Is that why we are discussing irrelevant things?’

  ‘Annoyed, not frightened,’ he corrected, ignoring her question. ‘Death comes for all things, in one way or another. Ships rust, planetary cores collapse, suns go cold and even demigods die. My only fear is that I will pass on unfulfilled, and my work uncompleted.’ He looked at her. ‘Hence, I come to you. I am in need of some equipment.’

  Spohr waited, in silence. Bile gestured airily. ‘Specialised equipment. I have designs. I lack the ability to make those designs a reality.’

  ‘Admittance of weakness. Unexpected.’

  ‘There inevitably comes a point when aid is required, regardless of one’s wishes,’ Bile said, leaning on Torment. ‘I am no enginseer. Machinery is as alien to me as the inner workings of the limbic system are to you.’

  ‘I am well aware of the purpose of that biological network.’

  ‘Of course, forgive me.’ Bile smiled thinly. ‘I should have guessed that one who has shed so much of it would understand its intricacies.’

  For a moment, the only sound was the whirr-click of Spohr’s internal augurs. Then, ‘Condescension. You are being tedious, Fabius.’

  He laughed. ‘Yes. Again, my apologies. One does grow used to being the most adept mind in the room.’ He bowed, slightly. ‘But your cognitive processes were legend among the servants of the Omnissiah, even before it all went wrong.’

  She looked at him. ‘It did not go wrong. The plan was flawed from conception.’

  ‘Then why follow it – follow us – into damnation? Why abandon Tharsis for this smog-laced hell, at the behest of the Warmaster?’

  Spohr was silent. He could hear the machinery within her chugging along, like a cogitator long past its prime. Calculating.

  ‘The reason is irrelevant,’ she said. ‘It was done. That is all that matters.’

  Bile looked away. ‘As you say. Only one question remains – will you do as I ask?’

  ‘Others have enquired much the same, of late,’ Spohr said. The wind whipped at her robes, momentarily revealing the anarchic configuration beneath. Neither legs nor serpentine coils, but some juddering mixture of both. ‘They say to me – do this thing, and we shall repay you tenfold. Do this thing, and our lord will be grateful.’

  Bile frowned, suddenly wary. ‘And what thing was this, that they wished of you, dear lady?’ he asked, carefully.

  Spohr laughed. An artificial, staccato sound, the approximation of humour by one who had forgotten what it means. ‘They wish me to cage you, Fabius. To seal you in iron, until such time as they require your services. You are a tool which has exceeded its function, and that cannot be borne.’

  ‘The same might be said of you.’ An unexpected – and unwelcome – development. This was no longer the old, familiar game. He had many enemies. He wondered which of them were responsible for this, out of those who considered him to be too useful to dispose of. Lorgar’s sons had tried more than once to bind him, as if he were one of their wretched daemons. Even his own Legion had sought to enslave him, in a way.

  ‘No,’ Spohr said. ‘I perform my function. I mine ore. I smelt metal. I construct engines of war. As has always been my task.’

  ‘But no longer in the service of the Red Planet. No longer for the glory of Tharsis Tholus, with its great dome of ochre and crimson.’ He glanced around. Was this nothing more than a distraction? He ground his teeth, frustrated. He was close to a breakthrough. He needed the equipment Spohr could provide. He had no time for this.

  ‘Irrelevant. I perform my function. I do not exceed it. All is in balance.’ She turned, power cables rustling like agitated serpents. ‘You are not. You exceed your parameters. You distort your purpose. You must be stripped from the mechanism, so that it runs smoothly.’

  ‘So it has been said.’ Bile stepped back. His augurs were being jammed. Hololithic overlays showed only static. It might simply be atmospheric interference, but he doubted it. This was a trap. And he had walked right into it, blindly. He bared rotten teeth in a grimace. It wasn’t the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. It was becoming clear to him that someone wanted to stop him. To stop his work, to prevent him from achieving his destiny. This was simply the latest in a string of attempts.

  ‘That has always been the difference between us, my lady,’ he said. ‘I have chosen my function, and it is to ensure my obsolescence, while you – and those you speak of – seek only to preserve your antiquated purpose in the crumbling husk of the universal machine.’ He shook his head. ‘Strip me out? There is no need. I have removed myself.’

  ‘And yet your function impedes the whole.’ The accusation was delivered with mild force. Her mind was elsewhere again, racing along strands of caged lightning. He was unimportant, in the greater scheme of things. An item to be crossed off a list of duties. He admired her efficiency. ‘You must cease.’

  ‘On whose authority?’ Bile looked around. ‘I see no familiar faces here, save your own. My enemies leave the burden to you. Why is that, I wonder?’

  Spohr gestured.

  There was a blurt of static, as if in response. The proximity augurs of Bile’s armour spat a warning and he turned, eyes narrowing in consternation. A telltale flicker alerted him a half-second before the blow landed. Combat stimulants automatically flooded his system. He ducked aside, avoiding a blow that would have flattened him, if not snapped his spine. His hand dropped to the Xyclos need­ler holstered on his hip. He drew it smoothly and fired. Even the smallest scratch from one of the needler’s thin darts could induce madness or death.

  Providing that the target was organic, of course.

  This one, unfortunately, was not.

  Colours ran like condensation, revealing the hulking form of what had once been a Kastelan robot. The machine was almost three times his size. Its oil-black carapace was draped in a shroud of writhing fleshweave, which had camouflaged the machine. Bil
e frowned, annoyed at himself. Spohr had reverse-engineered his gift, making it over into something more useful.

  ‘Ingenious,’ he muttered, lowering his needler. It would do him no good against a foe such as this. Between the omnipresent din and the fleshweave, he’d been blind to its presence.

  Nerve-like tendril webs had spread and become bloated, bursting through the armour plating like roots through stone. Steaming runes marked its chassis, and clusters of tiny, inhuman faces sprouted like barnacles from the seals of its joints. The ancient war machine panted like a hungry beast as it paced towards him, powerful claws flexing. Its dome-like cranium was twisted, the metal reshaped into an approximation of a bestial leer. The steaming barrel of the combustor weapon mounted on its carapace swung towards him, the air wavering from the heat.

  He stepped back, and the weapon tracked him. He glanced towards her. ‘They have offered you nothing for your efforts, my lady.’

  ‘As you offer me nothing. Where is my tribute, Fabius? You come empty-handed to my world, and try to bargain with me? Insult. Condescension. Arrogance.’ The power cables about her golden skull sparked with sudden life, and the lenses of her eyes flashed. ‘They are right. You must be chained. This is my world, and I will not be insulted.’

  Bile twisted aside as the Kastelan’s claw sprang towards him. It clanked shut, shearing off a piece of his coat. Bile swung Torment towards the back of its knee, hoping to slow it down. The sceptre screamed in frustration as it struck the unfeeling metal. There were no nerves to enflame. The robot’s arm swept backwards, nearly taking Bile’s head off.

  A glancing blow caught the machine on one of the root-like tendril webs. It retreated with a growl of static. Bile smiled. It did have nerves of a sort, after all. That was promising. He backed away, drawing it after him. The combuster mounted on its shoulder spat molten death, and he ducked away. The heat of it blackened the skin of his cheek, but there was no pain. Not yet. Later, if he survived.

  A half-step took him inside its reach, and he slammed Torment against the largest fibrous bundle of quasi-flesh. The Kastelan reacted with alacrity, emitting a screech of binary. It swung wildly and its combustor vomited heat. The stimulants in Bile’s system carried him swiftly around the frenzied machine. He leapt for its back, hooking his fingers into a buckled plate. He nearly lost his grip as the robot turned, still shrieking an inarticulate stream of zeroes and ones, but managed to haul himself up. His power armour’s ancient servos groaned from the strain as he perched on the war machine’s shoulder and smashed the combuster from its housing.

  The robot groped blindly for him, its claws snapping at his legs. He rose to a crouch and lifted Torment over his head, the skull-top facing down. He drove it downwards with piston-like force, crumpling the black metal and releasing a storm of sparks. The Kastelan staggered and its shrieks sputtered into silence. A second blow sent it to one knee. A third obliterated the bestial leer. Smoke spewed upwards, enveloping Bile as the robot toppled forwards. He slid off the robot’s chassis a moment before impact, and crouched on one knee, hearts thundering.

  Beneath the balm of stimulants, he could feel his overtaxed systems attempting to compensate for his efforts. He coughed, and blood speckled his chin. Spohr’s cybernetic guards paced towards him out of the smoke, radium carbines at the ready. Balancing himself with Torment, he drew his needler.

  ‘For shame, my lady.’ He tracked the stalking shapes as targeting overlays filled his vision. They would be more vulnerable to his concoctions than the robot, but not by much. ‘What offence have I given, that warrants such treatment? Will you turn a friend over to his enemies without a second thought?’

  ‘You have no friends. You demand, without giving.’ Spohr raised her claw. ‘You bring no tribute. Therefore, I will make one of you.’

  ‘No tribute? I never said that.’ He laughed. ‘Indeed, had you given me the chance, I would have offered it up to you.’

  Spohr studied him for a moment. Calculating. He felt a tremor in the air, and her warriors lowered their weapons. They sank to their haunches, weapons braced across their knees, and fixed him with a communal watchfulness.

  ‘What can you offer me that is more precious than the satisfaction of your imprisonment?’ she asked.

  A hidden slot opened on his gauntlet, revealing an innocuous data-spike. He extracted it and extended it to her. ‘Judge for yourself.’

  Spohr took the spike and examined it. ‘Explain.’

  ‘It is a data-spike. Rather self-explanatory, don’t you agree?’

  ‘I have data-spikes.’

  Bile peered at her. ‘Humour?’

  ‘An observation. What is on it?’

  Bile’s thin features split in a wide smile. ‘Why, a memory, my lady.’

  Spohr hesitated. ‘A memory?’

  ‘A single moment in time, dredged from the consciousness of an unfortunate archmagos and preserved in electronic amber.’

  ‘What time? What memory?’

  Bile gestured. ‘See for yourself.’

  Still, the hesitation. She was wary. Ready for treachery, though he had never dealt any less than fairly with her. Spohr had not become queen by being trusting of strange men bearing gifts. She inserted the data-spike into a port on her cuirass. The lenses of her eyes clicked. A soft hum filled the air as it shimmered and turned red. Hololithic images hazed into being, springing from in-built emitters.

  ‘Oh,’ Spohr said, softly.

  Bile rose to his feet, his coat rippling in the memory of a Martian wind. They stood in the shadow of Tharsis, lit by the setting sun. The air was the colour of rust, and filled with loose sand. Ancient structures dotted the slope of an immense volcano, and bipedal machines bounded across the plains below, their riders bearing the pale colours of Tharsis Tholus. The memory was strong. Bile could almost smell the acrid Martian air, almost feel the grit on his face. Fine work, even if he did say so himself. He looked at Spohr.

  ‘Mars. As it was before the Schism.’

  Spohr stood silent and unmoving. Basking in the glow of better days.

  Bile continued. ‘A weakness. A bit of grit, stuck in the cogs of calculation.’

  Spohr reached up, towards the red sun, as it slipped behind the dome of the volcano. ‘I forgot the way the light caught the thermal resonators,’ she said. ‘And the sound of the pyroclastic sifters, as the temperatures dropped…’ Her hand fell. She looked at him.

  ‘Irrelevant,’ Bile said again.

  ‘Humour,’ she said.

  He smiled. ‘An observation. Is it acceptable?’

  Spohr turned away. ‘Yes. I will consider your request.’ She paused. ‘And I will tell you the names of your enemies, if you wish. Your tribute is worth that much, at least.’

  Bile considered her offer, but only for a moment. He waved a hand. ‘No. Their identities are irrelevant.’

  His enemies were legion. The galaxy was in flames, and crowded with pyromaniacs, eager to claim possession of the ashes. Bile had no interest in the conflagration, its cause or its celebrants. Only in what came after. Let the galaxy burn. From its ashes would rise a new future.

  One created by him.

  LEFT FOR DEAD

  Steve Lyons

  The war on Parius Monumentus was over.

  Hive Opus had been pried from the claws of depravity, thank the Emperor! Blessed order was finally restored.

  The Astra Militarum could claim the victory. The local militia, chronically undermanned, had misjudged the spread of corruption; it had overtaken and overwhelmed them, forcing them to transmit an astropathic distress call.

  A Death Korps of Krieg regiment had arrived to take control, and for a full month, day and night, the sky had flashed and thundered to the relentless beat of their siege guns. The city’s walls had shuddered and inexorably crumbled. Its decadent captors had been put to flight – and then, most of
them, to the sword.

  The Korpsmen had departed, with other wars on other worlds to fight. Silence had settled in their wake – only long enough for the Emperor’s loyal subjects to breathe a collective prayer of relief. Then the real work had begun.

  The sky now resounded with the roars of construction vehicles. The shattered debris of habs and factorums groaned beneath the weight of caterpillar tracks. The gilt-edged finery of the city’s cathedrals, reduced to fragments, was shovelled away by claw blades. Exposed guts of great mining machines spat and hissed and touched off fires.

  Jarvan was a corporal in the Parius Interior Guard.

  He was new to the rank since his predecessor had been captured and butchered by the enemy, and was eager to prove himself. He had charge of a labour gang, one of thousands: just under a hundred weary and traumatised civilians charged with sifting through the wreckage, recovering what they could. Whip-wielding servitors stood over them, encouraging them in these duties.

  Thus it was that Corporal Jarvan encountered the stranger.

  His labour gang was dragging bodies from a fallen hab-block. They had found a number of survivors yesterday; not quite so many today. Tomorrow, they would be reassigned to a higher priority area. Power was yet to be restored to this hive sector. Freestanding lumen units coughed and sputtered out sprays of pale white light, between which lurked brooding shadows.

  Jarvan turned his head at just the moment to see a shape flitting through those shadows. One with no right to be there. He snapped up his rifle with its flashlight attachment, pinpointing the figure of a man.

  His skin was pale, as with any lower-level hive-dweller deprived of direct sunlight. He was young and wiry, with a military buzz cut. Jarvan’s eyes were immediately drawn to the lasgun in his hand, though the stranger wasn’t aiming it.

  ‘Drop the weapon! Drop it! Down on your knees. Lace your hands behind your head.’ The stranger complied with each instruction in turn.