Lords Of Nocturne, page 79
‘Wait here. Watch if you so choose, but nothing more.’
Beyond the shadows the torture slab was lowering again.
Nihilan left the chamber, as Iagon eagerly looked on.
It was probing at his resilience, Nihilan knew this. To invite something in, as he had, was to become its host, but guests needed boundaries too. His was becoming restless. Nihilan needed a vessel for it, and soon.
He was walking the shadow-dark corridors of the Hell-stalker by instinct. Few ventured this deep, even fewer stayed for more than moments at a time. The things that lurked in the undercrofts, the catacombs of the ship, were always hungry but they feared Nihilan and so he was left alone. There was a curious solace to the act of touring these seldom-trodden passageways. It was an old affectation from when he’d been part of a different order that he still sometimes indulged. Ushorak had shown him truth. He’d opened Nihilan’s eyes to the lies of the False Emperor.
Not that he really cared about the Long War. In that at least, Tsu’gan had been right. His goals were much more realistic and infinitely more personal. Let the corpse rot upon his Golden Throne, what was that to Nihilan? In the Eye, he’d met and killed several petty warlords and chieftains who’d been slaves to that goal. They were blind fools who acted out of some misguided, millennia-old instinct. Now their warriors swelled his warband and gave him fealty.
A warrior who lives in the past shall die by the unforeseen hand of the future.
Ushorak had taught him that.
The terrible sanctity of the place Nihilan now walked and its fell denizens were precisely the reasons he had chosen for the Chaplain’s shrine to be here.
Nihilan uttered a word of power, one spoken to him and him alone during the ‘day of enlightenment’, and a fissure in the iron slab before him broke apart to reveal a small, dark chamber hidden within the bulkhead.
The scent of old death assailed him as he entered, head bowed, and the bulkhead closed behind him with a dull clang. Even the Glaive, Nihilan’s inner circle, were not permitted into this unholy sanctuary. He knelt before a pedestal upon which a gauntleted finger, desiccated, burned but somehow still bleeding, rested. Above it a torn and rotten banner seemed to float suspended in mid-air. It was not, of course, but the visual illusion created by the conditions of the shrine-room was very convincing. A Chaplain was depicted on it, crozius aloft, a battlefield behind him engulfed in holy fire. His black power armour was resplendent and carried the image of a white drake coiled in upon itself. Gore-slicked bone blades raked from the demagogue’s vambraces.
‘Ushorak…’ Nihilan intoned. The speaking of the dead Chaplain’s name was akin to an invocation. The hot air inside the chamber grew cold until hoarfrost limned the edges of the sorcerer’s armour. Some anima of the old, dead Chaplain still lingered.
Upon the ragged banner, the image shimmered. To Nihilan’s eye, the battlefield was moving again, its players animated as if part of some incredible theatre acted out for his edification. It was not merely limited to sight, either. Nihilan heard the crash of bolters, the war cries; he smelled fire and smoke, tasted blood on a breeze that did not really exist.
It was real, and it was all taking place within the torn banner. A light pitter-patter, pitter-patter arrested Nihilan’s attention until he realised it was blood, but blood that was dripping off the battlefield with every stroke of Ushorak’s mace. The visceral tapestry even appeared to exude smoke and the heat of incendiary fire. An explosion bloomed behind the Chaplain, slow to expand, with detail threaded as if it was being stitched in at an exponentially rapid rate.
Bowing his head in deference, Nihilan closed his eyes and allowed his other senses to dominate.
‘We are close, my lord,’ he whispered. ‘Our vengeance draws near and so too your glory. I await your–’
You made a pledge to me…
The disembodied voice of his dead master rang aloud in Nihilan’s mind, interrupting him.
That had never happened before. Ever.
Had all of his blessings and beseeching finally penetrated the veil? Was such a feat even possible? Nihilan dared to hope… ‘Master?’
You made a pledge to me…
‘Lord Ushorak, how is this–’
And I have maintained my part in the pact.
Nihilan scowled.
It was the other.
‘Why do you come upon me in this sacred place?’
To remind you of our bargain and your part in it.
His skin was crawling as if thousands of tiny hands were pressing on the inside trying to get out.
‘Desist!’ He snapped, resisting the urge to use his warp-craft and inadvertently empower the other further. It was straining, Nihilan could feel it. Like a foetus grown too large for the womb, it wanted release. The pressure in the sorcerer’s gut was incredible.
‘Desist…’
The pain subsided and Nihilan could breathe again.
We creatures of the void are older than time. Our memories are long and we are patient. I am particularly patient but my sanguinity has reached its end, mortal.
‘You will have your vessel. Everything is in–’
Did I not massage the skeins of fate to your desire and gift you with prescience for your war? I pressed weapons into your hands and manipulated allies towards your cause. All of this I did because we had an agreement forged in souls and blood. It is burned upon your heart, mortal…
Reflexively, Nihilan clutched his chest.
…Even now I see the mark I made there. It is long and dark, jagged and black. It is eternal, Nihilan.
His voice returned as the pain in his chest dissipated.
‘As I was saying, everything is prepared. You will have what you want.’ Aeons were like moments to the thing crawling around inside him. A few more hours hardly mattered. It was merely playing with him, asserting its mastery. Who was Nihilan to defy it?
Images flared hot and agonising in his mind. The pain was excruciating, as if the grainy scenes had been inserted into his consciousness by a burning needle. He beheld fleets of ships, the Hell-stalker amongst them along with several renegade frigates and the strange vessels of the xenos with whom he was forced to join swords. There was a giant asteroid too, following an inexorable trajectory towards Nocturne, the huge swathes of magnetic radiation throwing off its core masking the approach of his armada very well. Like a doomsday clock counting backwards from the final minute to the moment of its inception, the last image was of a blocky forge vessel.
Cause and effect, a string of events had been set in motion and the moment of their fruition was almost at hand.
Every action has consequence.
How true those words were and would prove to be.
The other had influenced these events, it had bent fate and defied destiny to bring about this confluence. Nihilan had much to be grateful for, but he also loathed his benefactor for he knew it would exact a telling price for its boons.
He was about to try and placate it further when he realised the other was gone.
‘What dark dreams must you entertain in your hellish slumber,’ he muttered as a sudden sense of relief swept over him. He realised there were potent entities beyond the veil that would regard him and his petty concerns as the merest speck on the galactic canvas. Always pressing, ever pushing against reality; mankind would be driven to madness should it ever become aware of such fell intelligences.
Nihilan left the shrine, resealing it behind him, and then reactivated his armour’s vox-feed. It was less than a few seconds before Ekrine contacted him.
‘We have broken warp and our armada is in readiness, my lord.’ His warrior’s voice was sepulchral and reptilian. ‘The xenos are also aboard.’
Nihilan was walking swiftly, only peripherally aware of the slitted eyes in the Hell-stalker’s undercroft that followed him. Since transition into realspace their hunger had lessened. ‘I’m on my way. Hold our ships in formation.’
CHAPTER FOUR
I
NEEDS
The hangar was crude and ugly. It drew a sneer of barely veiled contempt from Archon An’scur. Like so many of the things he’d endured to maintain his millennia-long existence, he found the alliance with the mon’keigh distasteful but necessary.
If they ever found about it, they would hunt him down for this. His eldritch cousins in High Commorragh would see him flayed and eviscerated, and that would be but the appetiser to a much longer banquet of suffering. For what the sorcerer was promising, it was worth the risk. He had not lived as long as he had without knowing which bargains to take and which to refuse. This particular gambit was on the threshold between. Besides, An’scur had felt a creeping ennui of late. It manifested as a shadow on the edge of his vision, a sliver of darker black against the benighted corners of empty corridors… haunting him. He needed to escape the frontier lands. Too long had he been confined to the sub-realm of the Volgorrah Reef.
Eternity was a long time, he’d decided. It wore upon him, draining the very sustenance from his body so that replenishment was needed frequently. The shadow knew, and it hungered for the day when restoration would no longer be possible for the archon. It waited, for death eternal was a patient mistress.
An’scur did not form attachments to those beneath him. Helspereth had been most literally beneath him, and he had bonded with her despite his better judgement. She had been a singular creature when it came to the reaping of souls. Of all the dark eldar at the Port of Anguish, she knew how to extract every iota of pain and suffering from her victims. They’d bathed in it, An’scur and his favourite wych.
Now she was dead, killed by a primitive’s hand. And though it went against his nature, he wanted vengeance for her death. An’scur would derive much pleasure from exacting agony upon the one who took her, the one in the black.
She had been beautiful and terrible at once, the perfect female specimen. Her lovemaking was torture and ecstasy in unison – many of the nobles she’d bedded hadn’t survived the experience. Her loss had left an ache inside An’scur, which surprised him. It had not come straight away; it was only later in solitude that he began to feel her absence. Perhaps that was why he’d dispatched Malnakor; the little bastard had coveted Helspereth’s pearly skin and supple frame. He had also attempted to kill An’scur on more than one occasion. Retaliation against the upstart dracon was inevitable, albeit conducted via conspiracy and treachery so as to bypass the burden of proof and the tedium of recrimination.
An’scur’s distracted musings ended when the sorcerer entered the hangar. He strode through a dank corridor of pitted columns and ugly ships, passed by grotesque and toadying serfs and menials unfit to even lick at a lowly dracon’s boot heel. He was flanked by a cadre of armoured warriors, red and black like the rest. These three praetorians joined the sorcerer upon his late arrival and were just as imperious as their master.
An’scur fought his arrogance down and surreptitiously checked the device on his wrist. The Eternal Ecstasy was still docked with the renegades’ flagship. Against his better reasoning, he had come aboard with only two servants. One was a simple sybarite who kept his eyes low and carried the archon’s weapons. An’scur was paranoid enough to keep various murder-devices concealed about his person that only he knew about, lest the retainer turn on him or they become separated. The other servant was a haemonculus: a desiccated, patchwork creature with a bent back and a stitched-on face, who was an artist in torture and resurrection. As his former haemonculus Kravex’s successor, Lyythe was not to be wholly trusted but had honoured the pacts of her old master.
An’scur would have preferred different company and more of it, but his bodyguards were back on his own ship to deter any potential mutiny in his absence. The incubi had a remarkable ability to dissuade certain loyally ambiguous subjects from doing anything rash. A pity Malnakor had not learned that lesson.
The plunder in slaves and materiel that the sorcerer offered was enticing, status-altering even. It would enhance An’scur’s fortunes greatly and cement his grip on the frontier territory of Volgorrah. With a little barter and a lot of murder, it might even buy him passage into High Commorragh. For that reason alone he had acquiesced to the sorcerer’s summons in person. But he refused to cower before this overlord, no matter how much martial strength he had amassed.
He bowed, maintaining a benign expression even though he was scowling inside at being forced to show deference to a being that was barely centuries old and from a backward culture of hairless apes.
As the sorcerer approached, An’scur noticed something different about him. All of the enhanced giants had an aura of the warp about them, but this sorcerer was like a burgeoning chalice. At once, the archon suspected a hidden power behind the renegade’s throne.
‘Your gathered armada is not entirely unimpressive,’ said An’scur. The archon was lithe, even in his segmented armour, but tall. He met the sorcerer eye-to-eye.
‘I suppose that is as close to a compliment as you’ll give. Let us make this quick.’
An’scur smiled, but it was closer to a sneer. ‘I am in agreement with that at least. Your feral language offends my superior tongue.’
The archon was amused when the silent praetorians bristled at his last remark. He knew he was putting himself in genuine jeopardy when he made it but could not resist. Apes dictating to an older, nobler race – it bordered on the ridiculous, but needs must, he supposed.
‘Keep wagging it in that manner, xenos, and I’ll see it cut out.’ The sorcerer’s eyes roamed to the craven figure of the haemonculus. ‘Is this it?’ he asked.
An’scur nodded. ‘As requested, however irregular.’ His black, pupil-less eyes narrowed. ‘What exactly is it you want the creature for?’
The sorcerer’s gaze didn’t move as he appraised the xenos torturer. ‘You know all you need to.’ He looked back. ‘What of your scouts?’
‘Several days ahead of the fleet. My nightfiend assures me they will be positioned auspiciously by the time the main assault is launched.’
‘See that they are.’
An’scur wanted to strike him for his insolence but fashioned a thin smile instead. ‘But of course,’ he purred.
The sorcerer turned on his heel, and An’scur had to fight the urge to rip the sword from his retainer’s grasp and ram it, hilt-deep, into the sorcerer’s back.
‘Thark’n, Nor’hak… Bring it with us,’ the renegade said idly to his cohort.
Two of the giants came forwards, their eyes burning with anger and repressed violence. An’scur glared defiantly, willing the apes to act on their obvious desire.
‘She is to be returned to me, sorcerer,’ he called. ‘Without blemish, as we agreed.’
The sorcerer’s voice was becoming increasingly distant, his mood dismissive. ‘You’re being well compensated for the loan of this wretch. Be thankful I do not alter our arrangement. Now,’ he added, ‘get off my ship.’
An’scur clenched his fists as the haemonculus was led away. It was a risk, the creature had value, but the dividends would be worth it in slave-stock alone. He bowed and backed away.
‘Lyythe has the arcana she requires?’ he asked of his retainer in a whisper, never deigning to make eye contact.
The sybarite nodded. ‘Yes, my lord. We can extract her via the Ecstasy easily enough.’
‘Good,’ he hissed, not bothering to tell his retainer that no such rescue would be taking place. He gave one final glance to the disgusting hangar. To think such a brute race held dominance over the galaxy. It made An’scur want to kill them all and bathe in their inferior blood.
‘We are treating with swine,’ he said, as they entered the Eternal Ecstasy’s docking portal.
Needs must.
Ekrine led them down to the gun decks in the direction of the Hell-stalker’s prow. The air was thick with the stench of blood and oil. Sulphurous soot clung to vast arching stanchions ribbing the corridors. Creatures, blind and decrepit, snuffled in the darkness. It was hot in the gun decks and the chug-clank of munitions being slowly prepared kept up a steady, mind-numbing refrain. Slave masters, hulking and gene-bulked brutes, worked the ratings harder and with greater cruelty as their overlords passed them. The screams of these unfortunate swine rang out in a pitiable chorus as their overseers beat them, while the dead or broken were shovelled into the furnaces as blood-fuel.
It was a hell-realm, this blackened forge in the bowels of the Hell-stalker. It was a place for the forgotten and the insignificant, human meat for the vast mill that could never have enough grist. Flesh and bone kept it turning, blood on blood and the constant sacrifice of innocent souls.
The quartet of Dragon Warriors ignored it.
The haemonculus had since departed, escorted by a cadre of armed serfs to a holding cell; Nihilan was alone with his inner circle. Only Ramlek, who was busy brutalising their prisoner, was absent.
‘The xenos is arrogant,’ said Nor’hak, radiating iron-hard coldness. He had a fat-bladed paring knife in his hands and was sharpening it against the plates of his armour. Unless he had a weapon in his hands to field strip, modify or fire his fingers twitched incessantly. Ramlek had once plunged a bayonet into either hand in an effort to still them when the affectation had begun to grate, but it failed. Nor’hak had later stabbed him in the shoulderblade with one of his longer blades in retaliation and it was considered evens.
Thark’n merely nodded, his gorget creaking at the strain put on it by his muscular neck. He spoke seldom. His tongue was a nest of barbs that hooked into the roof of his mouth, and to use it was excruciatingly painful. A more useful boon from the Eye was his behemoth-like frame. Even for a Chaos Space Marine, Thark’n was big. It made toting heavy arms easy. He’d hung the belt feed for his reaper over his neck like a chain. Bandoleers of grenades tunked loudly against his armour in the quiet passageway.
