Hand Of Abaddon, page 33
‘I insist,’ said Herek. Both Red Corsairs drew their weapons as they approached the faint shadows surrounding the foot of the plinth. ‘I bear an important burden, one that must be remade in your forge. I suspect you will know its name…’
The sledgehammer slammed down upon the anvil’s face, the resulting blow echoing like an earthquake and halting the Red Corsairs where they stood.
‘What is the price?’ thundered the warsmith, his pitiless eyes upon them now.
They looked at each other, uncertain as to his meaning.
‘Name it, and we shall pay it gladly,’ declared Herek.
A low chuckle like the breaking of swords suggested this was not the right answer.
Behind the warsmith, upon a shelf of rock in the smoky rafters of the temple, something moved, something large… and not alone. They emerged from darkest shadows, armoured in iron and snorting soot and fumes. One was made of flesh, with almost saurian features; another of metal with a fire-blackened funnel for its mouth.
Clambering apelike from their perch, the two monstrous beasts landed with a heavy metallic thud. Herek and Rathek each took a few backwards steps as they stared up at the terrifying creations. Smoke funnels billowed from the monsters’ hunched backs, arraying them in a dark miasma. And when they opened their maws, as if to speak, they instead emitted a rumbling, volcanic roar.
They smelled of oil and violence, of wet iron and death.
Maulerfiends. They dwarfed the renegades; there would be no fight against them that did not end in Herek and Rathek’s death.
‘What is the price?’ the warsmith asked again as if he sensed their futility.
Herek was reminded of the old warrior’s words.
The first is hate.
‘What price?’ he demanded. ‘It has been paid.’
‘I assume you slew the Errant to reach these halls, but there is a further price that must be paid.’
They both made for the anvil but the Maulerfiends interceded, barring their path forward.
‘One may enter, and only after the price is paid,’ the warsmith reminded them.
They came forward again, a few more steps. The Maulerfiends shambled closer in turn, a fiery glow lighting their weapons.
The warsmith bellowed, ‘One may enter!’
Herek felt Rathek’s hand on his shoulder.
At this, the warsmith grinned, revealing soot-black gums and greying, mismatched teeth. ‘Yes,’ he rumbled, ‘this is the price.’
Herek shrugged off Rathek’s hand. He wanted to fight, to kill the warsmith’s guard beasts and then force him to do their bidding. He wanted to rip the ugly bastard limb from limb and tear down his temple, to see it sundered into ruins. He wanted to–
Rathek gripped his shoulder again and Herek’s fire dwindled.
‘There must be another way,’ he said softly and turned to his friend. The last of a dying breed.
Rathek gave a slight shake of his head.
Herek looked to his missing hand, at the severed wiring that stuck out like cauterised nerves, at the ragged stump of his wrist. Then he looked to the lithe sword master. Herek knew he couldn’t beat him. Even with two hands, the outcome of any duel would be far from certain.
Rathek laid down his blades. The second is devotion, he signed. Then he fell to his knees and bowed his head.
Herek stared at him, despair and anger contorting his features. The imminent grief felt overwhelming. He crouched down to his brother’s level and then gently raised Rathek’s chin, an ocean of meaning conveyed as they looked each other in the eye.
‘The second is devotion…’ Herek repeated, and took up one of Rathek’s swords before running him through. He pushed the blade all the way to the hilt, until it punched out of his brother’s back, and then embraced him tightly, holding on as Rathek trembled in his death throes and was finally still.
Herek arose. Rathek lolled, falling to the side with a soft clatter. Herek had his brother’s blood on his armour as he looked up to the warsmith.
‘The price is paid,’ intoned the warsmith as Herek began to ascend the stairs to the anvil. ‘Only fire remains.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
rally the ships
an unexpected arrival
a weapon of ancient malice
Every ship in the flotilla moved into defensive postures and prepared to fire. The Wyrmslayer Queen had to limp into formation, still badly damaged after her first encounter with the star fortress. Though they had received no word from the Astartes since the aborted assault attempt, the Honour of Iax took its place at the fore of a ragged spear tip.
Helvintr looked as if she drew scant comfort from the strike cruiser’s presence. Ordinarily, Rostov could have read her thoughts, but the affliction was weakening him and any further usage of his psychic abilities could prove perilous. He could tell she was worried. Rather than fret, as some lesser commanders might, she had embraced a sort of fatalism. To die fighting was a noble endeavour, though it was death all the same.
Tense moments abounded with nothing else to do but wait and think. This was the true enemy, of course. The waiting during the quiet before. Rostov’s mind drifted first to the efficacy of the ship, a subject many would be considering, including Helvintr, he was sure. They had few weapons currently operational, though any that could be fired had been primed and readied. In the depths below, sweating work gangs stood poised for orders. The enginseers and their acolytes had managed to scrounge up enough power for minimally effective front shielding. Helvintr had said it should be good against one salvo. After that…
Rostov had begun to wonder if stand and fight was the best option. In truth, it was the only option. Even he, with his obsessive conspiracy theories, could not have predicted the Hand would have an activated Blackstone Fortress at their disposal. They were practically myth. That one had been crashed into Cadia, effectively nullifying its remaining resistance, only added to their status.
Troops had been scrambled of course, Rostov sending Nirdrangar and his men to the launch bays with every other able-bodied fighter on the Queen. They would flood the void with assault boats and fighters, try to get as many on board the Blackstone Fortress as possible with the Astartes leading the charge. They had no knowledge of what defenders there would be, or how many, on the fortress. Rostov had to assume their numbers would be considerable. It was a desperate gamble then, with a low chance of success – but then he had always played against the odds.
His body was a ruin now, he had accepted that. Perhaps, if he lived, he might be afforded an exo-frame to hold up his weary skeleton. He wouldn’t be the first of his order to wear such a device. His duty to the Throne could continue. Or, if the corruption worsened further, he might be euthanised by the Inquisition. He had a decent relationship with Greyfax, but he doubted she would balk at such a necessary evil. She might even consider it mercy. She might even be right.
The cocktail of pain suppressors and analgesics the medicae had administered, together with a bevy of native Fenrisian remedies, at least kept him on his feet. He felt numbed, but alert enough to see this through to whatever end. And he had already determined he would follow after Nirdrangar in the second wave. Assuming there was a second wave.
Look at us now, Jeren, he thought, evoking memories of his old master. What a desperate and eclectic band we are. But then had the dying Imperium ever truly been anything other than humans scraping together whatever resistance they could to fight and live another day, another hour?
The Silent had not left his side, or rather she kept him in her sight at all times. Her aura churned his insides, even when ‘limited’, but it soothed his other agonies. A double-edged sword in many respects, and Rostov chuckled at the irony of it.
If she felt anything about their entering into battle alongside the 84th Mordian, and very likely the soldier whom she had bonded with whilst a part of Battle Group Praxis, she gave no outward sign. Had her mood changed, Rostov doubted he would have discerned it. The Silent Sisterhood were an inscrutable breed and Syreniel was no exception to that. He thought he felt an edge though, something that hadn’t been there before.
It was the helmsman who brought him back, wrenched him from thought.
‘Entering visual range now,’ he said from his station, a heavy bandage wrapped around one eye. Few had survived the attack against the bridge unscathed.
‘All stations, make ready,’ Helvintr declared, standing on the command dais like a captain at the wheel as if awaiting the coming storm. ‘It dies, or we do.’
She made a mark of warding, something from the old country, and so did most of the rest of the crew. Rostov settled for an aquila.
But it was not the Blackstone Fortress that eventually emerged out of the void. The ships were bulky and heavily armoured, three of them in tight formation. Stout vessels, foragers’ ships and pioneers. Angular markings on the flanks of the ships looked like runework.
Confusion then relief washed over the crew.
‘I know those ships,’ said Rostov, earning a querying look from Helvintr. ‘They belong to the Kin.’
The mistress of vox, a pale woman with a fierce aspect and a shaven scalp, turned to Helvintr. ‘They are hailing us, captain.’
Helvintr ran her tongue over her teeth, as if deciding whether she liked this development or not. ‘The Kin are mercenaries,’ she said apropos of nothing.
‘I believe this particular faction are miners,’ offered Rostov.
‘Then why are they here in the Stygius Gilt? I see nothing for them to mine.’
‘I cannot speak to that, captain, but they can be reasoned with.’
Helvintr nodded to the vox-mistress.
In front of the command dais and surrounded by the immense pit housing the crew, a projector node activated and a hololithic image flickered into being. Partially transparent and grainy grey, a doughty-looking warrior stood before them, her balled fists against her hips, her gaze unwavering as she regarded her counterpart aboard the Wyrmslayer Queen.
She wore bulky void armour and was as dour as Rostov remembered.
‘I am Kâhl Vutred of the Omrigar Kindred.’ Her voice through the vox-emitters was thick and deep, like slowly unearthed stone. Her eyes seemed to flash when they fell upon Rostov, who had shuffled into the projector’s visual range as he stood beside Helvintr.
‘Well met, honoured kâhl.’ He gave a slight nod of respect.
The avaricious grin that crept over her craggy features felt all too familiar to the inquisitor.
‘Imperial. I see your prize did not bring you much in the way of fortune.’
‘I believe fortune is made, not bought or bestowed.’
Vutred shrugged with only her facial muscles. ‘True as wrought, and yet here you are floating in the void on fumes.’
‘I cannot refute that.’
She laughed, the vox distorting and the image graining out for a few seconds at her sudden movement before settling again.
‘State your business,’ said Helvintr flatly, putting an end to any mirth.
Rostov flashed her a warning glance but the rogue trader’s pride had been pricked. No ship captain took that in their stride, and certainly not one born of Fenris. They might be three ships apiece but the Kin had thicker armour, stouter hulls and were far less battle-wearied. If it came down to a skirmish on account of wounded feelings, he did not like their chances, and he found himself holding his breath as Vutred replied.
‘Dispensing with the small talk, very well.’ Her tone felt suddenly dangerous. ‘Then let me put it to you in this way. I think I know what has laid you so low. I see it burn in your eyes, the desire for vengeance.’ She spoke to Helvintr, her gaze piercing even via the hololith. ‘I know because my hearth burns with it also. I have a grudge, and this is a most serious matter to we Kin.’
Helvintr went from indignant offence to curiosity at this turn.
‘Then what are you saying, an alliance?’
‘Aye, that and my Kindred’s assistance in repairing your ships. You will find no better fabricators and crafters in all of the outer dark.’
The smile crept back, betraying an undercurrent of greed, but it was colder than before, Rostov reflected. Loss had cooled it, shaped it differently. He realised how badly Vutred needed this.
‘You would do this?’ said Helvintr. ‘For nothing?’
‘Oh, no,’ Vutred slowly shook her head. ‘No, Imperial, we have yet to discuss the price.’
Both parties met on the embarkation deck of the Wyrmslayer Queen, much to Helvintr’s chagrin. The Fenrisian had no desire to allow strangers onto her ship, but she was in little position to argue. The Kin arrived aboard a stocky-looking cutter, all boxy edges and heavy armour. It put Rostov vaguely in mind of an angular wrecking ball, albeit with engines and a stubby prow.
She disembarked without her helm, the kâhl, accompanied by a retinue that included her so-called Einhyr and the druidic psyker that Rostov had encountered back at the mine-head where poor Yamir had met his end. Cloaked and hooded, the psyker priest was as enigmatic as at that first meeting. Like the inquisitor, he walked with a staff, but the Grimnyr’s was a focus for his warpcraft and not a crutch for a near cripple.
For his part, Rostov had Nirdrangar and a handful of his storm troopers, both groups of warriors, human and Kin alike, exchanging respectful nods of fellowship at their shared battle experience. Helvintr had brought a small cohort of huscarls wearing Fenrisian garb. Last, and remaining at the back of the gathering, was Syreniel, who watched the affair with silent intensity, as was her way.
After a few tepid pleasantries had been observed and introductions made, led in most part by Rostov, Vutred cast a furtive eye around the parts of the ship she could see.
‘You did fight it then,’ she said, not needing an answer. ‘And it made you suffer.’
Helvintr looked perturbed, not at the Kin but at the parlous state of her ship. She held her temper though.
‘It appears we have all suffered,’ offered Rostov diplomatically.
Vutred grew dour. ‘Aye, much loss there has been all round. A heavy cost to tally and not much to gain, by the ancestors.’ She sounded bitter, rueful.
‘Shall we?’ said Helvintr somewhat icily, indicating a passageway off the embarkation deck. She wanted this over with, the interlopers off her ship, and made no attempt to hide it.
Vutred inclined her head to the rogue trader, the mood as tense as a public execution.
‘Lead on.’
The escorts waited in mildly charged silence in the anterooms immediately outside Helvintr’s quarters. They had not been tidied since Rostov’s most recent visit, the reek of stale mjod fragrancing the air.
‘These are your chambers? Is there nowhere more suitable?’ asked Vutred, her tone doubtful.
‘Say what you have to say here, and if it piques my interest, we’ll talk further,’ said Helvintr. ‘And cast no further aspersions on my ship,’ she spat acidly. ‘I am the bloody captain here and a scion of an Imperial dynastic house. I have need of your help but I won’t suffer insult into the bargain.’
A flicker of something hard passed over Vutred’s eyes, but then it softened to contrition. The kâhl affected a small bow, though her gaze never left the rogue trader.
‘I see I have offended you, and meant nothing of the sort.’ She gave a show of her palms. ‘Your ship, your rules, captain. I should not judge, for neither of us are at our best here. I can help you though, I think. We Kin, we know much and our technologies are advanced. I can have welders and makers aboard your ship, under whatever supervision would give you the appropriate level of reassurance. That is what I offer, and here is what I want.’ She leaned over to Helvintr but took in Rostov too, acknowledging him as the broker. ‘I know what you fought. I can find it again for you. I have the means. I want to kill it and then I want to strip it to its bones. Exclusive salvage rights to the star fortress. Every scrap, every inch. For the Kin.’
She hawked and spat in her hand, and held it out for Helvintr to shake.
‘You are a trader, yes? This is my trade to you.’
Helvintr met her gimlet eye, held it for a second as if measuring her, and gripped Vutred’s hand firmly.
‘On my oath as shipmistress of the Wyrmslayer Queen and a Fenrisian, I agree to this accord. Now,’ she said, reaching for a fresh bottle, still clasping the kâhl’s hand, ‘let us drink to seal our pact.’
A feral grin curled Vutred’s lips. She was apparently warming to the captain. ‘Your ship, your rules…’
After the libations in the captain’s quarters, Vutred had returned with her entourage to her ship, leaving Rostov to retreat to the Queen’s chapel. Mercifully, he had not partaken of the mjod and even the kâhl, as robust as she evidently was, wobbled a little on her way out after her accord with Helvintr had been sealed. Their manner to each other had improved proportionally with how much they had drunk, with Rostov looking on in awe and horror.
The quietude of the chapel was a balm to his thoughts and his injuries. Syreniel, who had been given a wide berth by the rest of the retinues in the antechambers, had left him alone to his prayers. He suspected she needed to attend to her own.
He did not know how long the repairs would take, but he had decided to cleanse his soul before his very possible death in the battle that would follow when they found the fortress again. On his knees, he bowed low before a small marble statue of the Emperor as the hunter. Armed with spear and axe, His broad shoulders draped in a furred cloak, this was the Allfather as the warriors of Fenris knew Him. It mattered not, for the Emperor had many guises, each as valid as the other to His servants.
