Lords of Blood, page 109
From the bottom of the cage a sign hung on chains. It caught the wind, acting as a sail and making the gibbet dance.
The sign bore a single word in red.
Witch.
Someone like her was in the cage, someone who had died in fiery agony.
Esmera grabbed Chalayus’ wrist and dragged her away, seeking somewhere, anywhere, where they could hide.
CHAPTER SIX
FLARE
‘Flare event imminent,’ said Everian. ‘Stand by for data collection.’
‘Put it onto the hololith. I want to see it,’ said Ares. He’d returned to the Garde specifically for the flare, and he wanted to study it as closely as he could.
Thralls moved to do his bidding. A large-scale visual of Dulcis appeared, its small moon peeping out over the day-night terminator. The rift was a wall of ugly light beyond.
Everian consulted a bank of twitching dials.
‘Psychic resonance building. Event occurrence in six, five, four, three, two, one.’
Everian’s countdown was accurate to the microsecond. The rift flashed. Its patterns bunched close, producing a flickering of increasing frequency that expanded, then exploded, sending a curled blast of white fire racing towards the planet. Alarms wailed as it neared.
‘Impact in ten seconds,’ Everian said.
‘It is yet distant,’ said Bedevoir.
‘The speed of the explosion exceeds that of light. Not surprising, seeing as we are dealing with the warp. Natural law is weak here. Prepare in three, two, one.’
The flare seemed to be hundreds of millions of miles away, but a palpable blow struck the station. It did not perturb steel or flesh, but the souls of all within were jounced hard in their seating. Men shrieked as unexpected fears filled their minds. Shadows took on sinister forms and scurried across the deck. Most of the thralls kept their wits about them and worked feverishly at their posts to prevent damage to their machines.
It was the Space Marines who were worst affected.
Ares felt the hit like a sword to the heart. For a second, he could not breathe. He found himself looking at a different place entirely: a voidship, its fabric polluted by the warp, that shook to weapons fire given and received. The guns echoed the call of the Rage in his skull. War drums pounded in his mind, urging him to do violence.
He looked down at his hands. They were huge, and strong, and clad in gold.
The vision passed. He gave out a great gasp. Klaxons rang from every quarter of the psykanium. The warp flare seemed to be hitting the planet then, but in truth it had already passed by, speeding into space and dissipating into nauseating colours as its unnatural energy fell afoul of physics. Beyond Dulcis the void boiled with purple and blue, trapping it between the ghost of the warp flare’s past and the moment of its dissolution.
The pulse beat at the sky and beat at his soul.
Ares steadied himself. He breathed like a drowning man surfacing, terrified he would be sucked back under the water.
Jadriel was leaning against a railing for support, shaking his head as if he could not believe what he saw.
‘Brother,’ said Ares. ‘Are you well?’
The thralls continued to work under Everian’s direction.
‘Brother?’ asked Ares.
Ares reached out a hand. Jadriel couldn’t breathe. He was shuddering. Amazed, Ares realised he was weeping.
‘Brother!’
‘I saw him – I saw Sanguinius,’ said Jadriel. ‘I saw him die. What is happening?’
‘They are the visions that plague our kind,’ said Ares.
‘The visions that presage the Black Rage?’ Jadriel recovered a little. A moment later, he seemed normal. ‘Will it take us?’
Ares stared at him. He should not have seen the visions. The Primaris were supposed to be immune, but Jadriel had seen them, and now he stood there as if nothing had happened. ‘Maybe. But it should not take you at all.’
‘Perhaps it was the result of the psychic wave,’ said Jadriel.
‘Perhaps,’ said Ares, unconvinced.
The psykanium discharged. Its sounding pulse shook the station.
‘All systems are operational for now,’ Everian reported. ‘That pulse was powerful. I do not think the instruments will withstand another one of that magnitude.’ He checked his displays again. ‘The pulses are getting stronger.’
‘My lord, we have readings.’
A thrall handed Everian a freshly scribed parchment.
‘We have a huge return. It’s a grade three witch sign, possibly grade four.’
‘In the city?’ asked Ares.
‘Further out, in the marsh. One of the processing rigs at the edge of the sea.’
‘Do you have more specific locational data?’
‘I can’t find it. This equipment is temperamental. But the size of the return suggests numerous psychic individuals.’
‘How many? Why are they gathering there?’
‘I have no idea, my lord,’ said Everian. ‘But if I might put forward a hypothesis…’ He frowned at the parchment. ‘Something is calling to them. There is a drop-off of witch sign elsewhere on Dulcis. There is definitely a concentration at this location.’
The hololith zoomed in to a section of the planet. Everian pointed at an industrial facility on the boundary between the sea and the marsh.
‘Here.’
Ares approached the display and examined it from several angles.
‘This does not bode well,’ he said. ‘An occurrence like this cannot be down to coincidence.’
‘Warp breach,’ said Jadriel. ‘Daemons. It’s the simplest conclusion.’
‘That is possible,’ said Everian. ‘Let us say that the psykers are growing in number here because of Dulcis’ proximity to the Great Rift. We are far enough away that immediate danger might be avoided, but near enough that subtler perils are likely. If these waves of psychic power are somehow affecting the planet’s population, causing these emergences of psykers, then we can expect to see more, and that will provide opportunity for warp entities to gain ingress to the material realm. Even if this is not the case, then the chances of a powerful rogue psyker emerging grow with every pulse. We should consider Exterminatus to prevent this world becoming yet another beachhead for daemonic forces.’
‘No,’ said Ares. ‘Not yet. We do not know if the pulses will continue.’
‘We do not,’ admitted Everian. ‘In support of your argument, it is possible they will cease. The workings of the warp are never predictable.’
‘We should inform Lord Dante. Can our astropaths get a message out?’
‘We can try,’ said Everian. ‘The risks to them are high. This is another occasion where a battle-brother of the Librarius would have been useful.’
‘I know,’ said Ares. ‘I would not ask if Baal did not need to be made aware of this. In the meantime, load cyclonic torpedoes and target weaknesses in the planetary crust.’
‘As you say,’ said Everian with a bow.
Everian and his thralls went back to their tasks.
‘Are you well now, my brother?’ Ares asked Jadriel.
Jadriel nodded. ‘I am. I feel perfectly normal.’
‘Go to Lamorak. Have him check you over. Find out if we alone were affected.’
‘Yes, brother-captain,’ said Jadriel.
‘And Jadriel?’
‘Yes?’ said the lieutenant.
‘Be discreet.’
The people were drawn out to see the flare. Esmera didn’t know why, she just felt herself drifting out of the converted oil tanks that housed their accommodation and up onto the flat roof. She was hardly aware she was going. There were others there, and on the roofs of other buildings. Mainrig’s uneven landscape dropped away in steps. Everything there was made from something else. Homes were shipping containers and old tanks, or lean-to shacks roofed with tarpaulin. The cranes that dragged the marsh eels up to the butchery plazas had been repaired with all manner of oddments. Part of the rig on the seaward side was shored up by a scuttled hulk, half-sunk into the waves. Everything was worn and old, broken and reused so many times the original functions of most of it were forgotten. Upon this shaky foundation the industry of an entire planet was based. But she didn’t see any of that. She looked up into the cosmos, and saw a far more beautiful world.
For once the sky was clear, only patches of cloud to break up the expanse of stars. The Great Rift was a river of light, huge as half the sky, full of spinning vortices and ribbon-like currents. The priests in Tywell warned the people not to look up into the night for fear of damnation, but if there were priests on Mainrig, they were silent. She had no idea how many people lived here, but it seemed a large proportion were up on the roofs, watching the sky.
She wondered if they had the same dreams as her. Since arriving a few nights before, she dreamed of a world of beautiful light inhabited by loving beings. They reached out for her with gentle limbs, and though they were xenos, and she had been taught since birth to loathe all things that did not wear a human shape, she did not fear or hate them, but delighted in their presence.
They seemed so far away, yet closer than her own heartbeat. They floated in a radiant ocean so much purer than the filthy seas washing the rig. She wished to go there, to where they were. Soon, they seemed to say to her, she could.
More psykers gathered at Mainrig. It seemed laughable that any of them could suffer the same fate as the unfortunate strung up in the square she had seen when she arrived. There was strength in numbers, and they were a multitude. She felt them all around her.
The pulse began, a wash of power in the sky that energised her mind. The others experienced it. She sensed their response, a mix of joy and fear, but mostly joy.
The sky shone with uncountable colours. She drew strength from them, feeling herself swell inside, and her ability grow. She felt unstoppable, as if she could change the minds of every person on the planet with the slightest of efforts. All her life she had been afraid and alone, but not in that moment. She was powerful, beyond the feeble beings that made up her race. She was above them, at one with something greater.
The promise of greater power, of the knowledge of all things, was tantalisingly out of reach, so she reached further for it. Clouds of sparkling lights surrounded her, and she found her wonder growing.
She was on the roof and she was somewhere else. She saw the rift from the other side, a place where a standing wave of energy as high as the galaxy curled endlessly over itself, filling space with dangerous beauty. Its energies remade and destroyed things beyond her comprehension, but as they did she felt a universe of emotions wash through her.
She laughed in delight.
Around the edges of this maelstrom, the kindly ones waited. Huge, placid creatures whose multiple eyes glimmered with gentle intelligence. They raised their tentacles in greeting, and she drifted towards them. There were others there, people from the roof, the gifted, like her, persecuted and hunted all their lives, but now free and at home.
Welcome, the luminescent beings said without saying. Welcome.
One of the biggest reached out to her. A flat pad tipped its tentacle. It laid it across her chest, and she thrilled at its touch.
Ours, it seemed to say.
A sharp pain made her gasp. The tentacle withdrew. A glowing barb was lodged in her… in her body, in her ghost? She didn’t know what she was. A thread of light led from the barb to the tentacle.
Ours. A tiny set of mandibles moved under multiple eyes. Ours.
It faded away into nothing.
‘Essie! Essie!’
Chalayus had her by the shoulders and was shaking her awake. Esmera thrashed and shouted, scrabbling at her stinging chest.
‘Essie! Essie! What is it?’
She came around slowly. She was in her cot in the crowded dormitory she and Chalayus had pleaded and bribed and pushed their way into.
‘Go to sleep, for the love of the Emperor!’ someone said.
Eel-oil lamps were lit. Voices murmured in the dark, foetid room. People roused by Esmera’s waking cursed and got up to toilet. Mothers tried to lull their children back to sleep.
Esmera heard shouting from other rooms, other buildings, disturbing the peace of the night.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Chalayus, a vestige of the person she’d once been showing itself through her stool-wick fugue. ‘You are sweating. You’re hot! Are you sick?’
Esmera probed at her chest. Something felt lodged deep in her mind, a splinter of something else’s being. She felt hot and cold at the same time. Her eyes hurt, and so did her head, with the worst headache she’d ever had.
She looked out through the window. Just as in her dream, the sky was clear of clouds. The Great Rift roiled in the night. Looking at it made her feel sick, not like in her dream at all. She tasted bitterness in her mouth and was forced to swallow down her rising supper.
‘Nothing,’ Esmera said. ‘I’m fine. Go back to sleep.’
‘Really?’ asked Chalayus.
‘Really. Tomorrow we’ll find some work. Everything’s going to be fine.’
She didn’t believe what she said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WARP GATE
Ares led the group himself. Bedevoir, his squad, Jadriel and Lamorak accompanied him. The arrival of thirteen members of the Adeptus Astartes on Mainrig caused the population to stop whatever they were doing.
Ares waved his men down the Thunderhawk’s front ramp. Mainrig’s structure was poorly maintained, and the whole landing tower shook with the power of its atmospheric jets. He advised Delgor against putting down, so the Techmarine kept the ship in a hover until the party had disembarked.
From the landing tower Ares could see all of Mainrig’s squalid corners displayed like a hololithic model. It was more a city in the sea than an industrial facility, a slum that stank of dead animal and fish oil. Hundreds of dirty faces stared in amazement up at the landing tower.
Ares upped the volume of his voxmitter to maximum. ‘In the Emperor’s name, I command that you clear the area or face lethal force.’
‘They’re not going to listen,’ said Bedevoir. ‘Look at them, they’re terrified.’
‘I’ll get them to move,’ said Jadriel.
‘Take the squad down,’ said Ares. ‘Lamorak, stay here on lookout and direct us. This place is a rat’s nest.’
‘Yes, brother-captain.’
‘Jadriel, Bedevoir, on me. Follow.’
Bolt pistol ready, Ares descended to the main deck. People had enough of staring when confronted by the Space Marines close to. The spell broke, and they quickly removed themselves.
Ares experienced a moment of indecision. The rig was a deathtrap of blind alleys and sudden pitfalls.
‘Jadriel, take half of Squad Bedevoir and try an alternate route. Speed is of the essence. Bedevoir, with me.’ Everian had found a better locus lock, and the psykanium’s trace pinged in his helm. He pointed through the crowded hovels. ‘The marker is west of the rig, in that cluster of rotten tanks that have been converted into dwellings. I don’t expect much resistance, but be on your guard. This one’s got a far higher reading than anything else we’ve experienced yet on Dulcis.’
There were others there, many of them, but the most powerful had to be dealt with first.
‘Yes, captain,’ said Jadriel. The lieutenant plotted his own route and forwarded it to Ares’ cogitator.
‘We’ll try this way,’ he said.
‘This place stinks,’ said Bedevoir. ‘This is one of the ugliest places I’ve ever been.’
‘It’s not their fault, Bedevoir,’ said Ares.
‘It is their fault,’ said the sergeant.
They ran as quickly as they could. But though power armour boosted their speed and allowed them to leap the clutter of the rig, the route was far from clear, and they were forced to a crawl in many places. The only cartolith Ares had was based on the STC template for that model of rig, but it was over a thousand years old, and Mainrig had been given many non-standard modifications to suit it to its purpose. Ares’ auto-senses did their best to sound out a way through the maze of huts and industrial units, but more than once he found himself coming up against a dead end of plasteel or an open pit that appeared without warning at their feet.
‘Double back. Try this way,’ he ordered, data-casting an updated route to his men.
Jadriel’s data marker moved more quickly.
‘I have the target location in sight,’ the lieutenant voxed.
‘We’re lost,’ said Bedevoir.
‘Move into position. Observe and await engagement until we are with you.’
‘Yes, captain.’
Jadriel’s feed cut.
‘Come on,’ said Ares, ‘let’s get out of this labyrinth.’
Jadriel’s group reached the tanks. Auspex scans gave an accurate representation of the layout. The psykanium marker blinked in the second cylinder, up on the fourth of five retrofitted floors.
He brought up his bolt rifle and advanced at a crouch, his gyro stabilisers giving him an unshakable aim. He ducked through a rough door cut into the side, and went into the first cylinder.
Jadriel could barely credit the number of people crammed into the tank. Each floor was thirty yards across, large areas given to open dormitories crowded with dirty bunks and the battered possessions of the destitute. Other parts were divided up with scavenged materials: cut-up plastek crates, planks from broken wooden boxes, sheets of cloth and metal. The smell of eel oil inside was intense.
It was impossible to approach the target silently. The Space Marines provoked reactions from surprise to terror. Some people froze in their tracks and had to be physically shoved aside; nearly all of them made noise, screams or shouts of excitement, calling their friends to come and see. Within seconds of the Red Wings’ arrival the place was in uproar.
