Inferno! Volume 5, page 10
‘Thief-scoundrel last to live. Impressive.’
Mallon dared to look up, meeting Volz’s red eye inches from his face. ‘You have the Mournclaw. That’s what you wanted, correct?’
Volz snickered. ‘For such-long, I have hunt-looked for the Mournclaw. Dig-find, we did, until we see-spy magic spell impenetrable. Know we need duardin-meat and duardin-blood to break it. Rusted Blades work-kill for Volz. Exactly as he plan-see it.’
Mallon saw it now. It had been a trap from the moment Durbrord had come bustling into the tavern. Who knew how long Volz had been planning this?
Mallon had never been a groveller, but he knew its worth in certain situations: the kind that ended in either death or survival. ‘Very clever, Volz. You outsmarted all of us. Now, I do believe we had a bargain. Seeing as I kept my end of it, I simply wish to leave and go home,’ Mallon said. Silently, he swore never to leave the Black Marsh Barony again. His dreams of far-flung Excelsis had died with the rest of the Blades.
The thief watched, rapt, as the warlock picked up the Mournclaw Mace. Green light emanated from the crystals at its centre, stuck between the blades. Something about the weapon seemed to leak vapour, as if it boiled in the cold of the hall. Though it looked heavy, Volz appeared to brandish it with no effort. The weapon seemed to fuel him in some way, and he stretched even taller. The skaven around the hall’s edge began to screech and holler in praise of their warlock. Several snapped their thick tails like whips.
‘Our deal, remember?’ Mallon shouted above the noise. He begun to shuffle backwards on his knees, when Volz’s claws alighted on his shoulder. Mallon flinched away in fear. The ratman sighed in his ear and Mallon froze. What felt like a day of waiting passed before he felt able to sit straight, and slowly look up at the warlock standing over him. Volz was grinning as usual, and though that smile was full of sharp and bloody fangs, Mallon saw a kind of respect there, if one could see such a thing in the eyes of a beast.
‘The thief. Last fool-meat alive. Better than all-lots of these,’ Volz hissed, as he ran his claws over Ulriker and Durbrord.
Mallon smiled back. He rested back on his heels, glancing at the shaking body of Durbrord. The duardin was staring at him, judging even in death.
Volz balanced the Mournclaw on his furry shoulder and took a deep breath, sounding disappointed. ‘Shame-shame the thief-meat was not born-lived a skaven. Would have done-proved Clans Skryre proud.’
Mallon took breath to speak. ‘I–’
He never finished his thought.
The charcoal-black blades of the Mournclaw sliced through the thick air without a sound, colliding with Mallon’s head before he could blink. His skull was pulverised in a flash of green lightning, leaving nothing but black blood, charred bone and the broken corpse of a thief behind.
As his clanrats squeaked in approval around him, Volz raised the bloody mace, feeling the Chaos magic burn his veins.
‘Shame-shame.’
THE LAST KNIGHT: PART ONE
Gavin G Smith
Gavin G Smith brings his flair for military strategy to Inferno! with this epic and unconventional story – the first half of the tale of the war for Leucosia.
On a storm-wracked and isolated knight world, Lacutus, scion of the embattled House Honaratus, seeks to reunite the scattered populations of a planet whose technology has reverted to an almost medieval state. But he soon uncovers a deadly threat which has remained hidden for generations… Retreating to Leucosia’s capital, Lacutus must rally the castle’s few defenders against a far superior army. Their only weapons are longbows, trebuchets… and one very ancient but formidable Imperial Knight. Will Lacutus prove himself worthy of piloting Wargod by exterminating the teeming hordes that infest Leucosia?
Lacutus’ dead eye hurt, and he’d been riding so long that he feared his inner thighs had turned to leather. He gently pulled the reins to bring Augustus to a halt on the crest of the ridge that looked down onto Innsport. Lacutus reached forward to scratch between Augustus’ ears. To his mind the tireless, intelligent destrier was the best horseflesh ever to come out of the flatlands east of Landfall. He turned his attention back to Innsport. He was half-surprised to see it was still there, though mostly rebuilt, like many of the towns and villages on Leucosia after the destruction wrought by the warp storms that had plagued the system. Lacutus tried to avoid looking at the part of the sky where he knew he would see the Siren’s Storm. It would look faint in the daylight, a scar on the bright cerulean blue, but he could still feel it, like a malevolent presence. Unconsciously he touched the patch over his left eye. The pain was a reminder of his shame.
Lacutus knew that to have withstood the storms, Innsport must have a network of shelters dug into the steep hill that rose up from the waterside on which the town was built. The settlement overlooked a natural harbour guarded by stark grey cliffs on either side. The worked-stone waterside was home to a small fleet of fishing boats. The most singular thing about the harbour, however, was the crashed, semi-submerged, derelict spacecraft blocking well over half of the entrance to the bay.
Lacutus pulled the telescope out of his saddlebag and held it up to his remaining good eye. He was no judge of such things, but if he had to guess, he suspected that the spacecraft was of human design and had crash-landed there more than half a century ago. Perhaps the craft had been spat out of the warp by the intermittent storms that had cut Leucosia off from the rest of the Imperium, their patron forge world, Metalica, and seemingly the light of the Emperor Himself. In part he was pleased that the rumours of the crashed ship were true and that the wreckage seemed reasonably intact. It would provide Lydia with an opportunity to scavenge the ship for tech that could be used to get Wargod, the Honaratus family’s sole remaining Knight Errant, up and running. On the other hand, the presence of the spacecraft made him feel very uneasy indeed. The bounties of the warp storms were seldom a blessing. Augustus, perhaps picking up on his rider’s unease, snorted, his ears going up. Lacutus patted the destrier’s flanks, though he had little in the way of comforting words for the animal.
Lacutus turned the telescope on the village itself. There were only a few people wandering the dry mud streets, mainly women and children. All of them shuffled around, busy at some task or another, even the youngest. That said, they all seemed hale and whole of limb from what Lacutus could see of them. No obvious aberrations. Lacutus rubbed his dead eye. It had been the lashing tendril of a warp-spawned horror that had taken it from him. He could still feel the sting of it, even now, more than three years later. Worse than the pain of his dead eye was the sting of shame he felt every time he thought of that fight. He had been less than useless in the final battle with the warp spawn. The battle that had so badly damaged Wargod and almost killed his father. He collapsed the telescope and put it back into his saddlebag. Then he loaded both bows on his double crossbow with two of the special bolts that Lydia had made him.
‘Come on, boy,’ he said to Augustus, urging the destrier forward with a gentle tap of his heels.
The people he saw in the narrow, hard-packed dirt streets, between the strangely uniform wattle-and-daub hovels, barely cast an eye his way as Lacutus rode into Innsport. He tried to get a look at their faces but with little success. The place stank of fish, but that was to be expected.
He made his way towards a two-storey longhall in the centre of town. He reckoned he would find someone of authority there, if they weren’t out fishing.
‘You!’ he said to what he assumed was a hunched old woman, though it was difficult to tell as she was so heavily wrapped in skirts, shawl and headscarf, despite the heat of the day. The old woman stopped and angled her head towards Lacutus, though not enough for him to see her face. ‘Who’s in charge here?’
She just pointed at the longhall.
‘Go and fetch them for me,’ he told her, his voice all but a hoarse rasp, his throat dry from the road.
She said nothing. Instead she shuffled towards the longhall.
Lacutus felt eyes on him. He glanced around. Nearby, people had stopped what they were doing and were watching him, but when he tried to meet their eyes, they looked down again. He was sure it was something other than the simple deference the peasantry owed to someone of his station.
After what felt like a long time, a strange figure emerged from the longhall. He wore a very fine, ornate robe and leaned on a gnarled but well-polished hardwood staff. The man was tall, thin, with a sallow complexion, sunken cheeks and a somewhat bulbous head. There wasn’t quite enough there to suggest he was a warp-spawned mutant of some kind, but it was enough to make Lacutus wary. His hand moved closer to the hilt of his somewhat temperamental power sword, Woundthirst.
‘I’m Elderman Fisher,’ the figure said. ‘Welcome to Innsport.’
‘Well met,’ Lacutus replied, though it wasn’t a sentiment he was particularly feeling. ‘I am Sir Lacutus Honaratus of Landfall. I am re-establishing contact with all our outlying settlements now that the storms have passed.’
If the elderman was in any way intimidated by the tall, heavily built, armoured figure then he gave no indication of it.
‘I see, a relative of our good and noble Lord Governor Ignatius Honaratus, perhaps!’
Lacutus frowned.
‘Ignatius was my grandfather, he has been gone these thirty years. I never met him. I am the son of Lord Governor Forganus Honaratus the Third.’
A flicker of annoyance crossed the elderman’s face. As this happened Lacutus felt a spasm of pain in his ruined eye.
‘Do you not bow to the knight of an Imperial House in Innsport?’ Lacutus asked, leaning forward. It wasn’t something that particularly bothered him but he was wondering if the lack of respect for his rank was indicative of something else.
‘Get off your horse.’
Lacutus straightened up.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Your pardons, my lord, I’m out of practice. Get off your horse!’
Too slow, Lacutus reached for the hilt of Woundthirst, but it was as though some invisible force was pummelling him, crushing his will, squeezing. Resistance was agony, but he fought as hard as he could until he half-dismounted, half-fell from Augustus’ back.
The elderman’s eyes were a solid mass of black. There was nothing human about them now.
‘Now you kneel!’ the elderman cried, pointing his staff at Lacutus.
The knight cried out, curling up in a ball in the dirt. Not even the warp spawn’s lash had hurt like this. He heard Augustus’ screaming neigh, and was thrown into shadow as the destrier reared. He heard the sound of a shod hoof meeting a skull. Suddenly Lacutus was pain-free and able to move.
The elderman was staggering backwards, a bloody dent in his bulbous skull. Lacutus wrenched Woundthirst from the sheath strapped to Augustus’ saddle. Mercifully the power sword hummed into life when he activated it. Lacutus sliced downwards, a hurried two-handed blow. The blade clove Fisher from shoulder to near-waist. Purple ichor from inhuman internal organs splattered the knight. Lacutus pushed the elderman off his blade with his boot. Somehow the creature was still alive. Lacutus raised Woundthirst high, again, to deliver the killing blow just as the creatures exploded out of two nearby hovels. They were purple-skinned, with armoured carapaces and long, sharp, pointed tongues lolling out of their mouths. They charged on all six clawed limbs towards Lacutus. He had a moment to make a choice. He could kill the elderman and die himself, or escape and warn his father of the xenos threat here.
He vaulted onto Augustus’ back. The horse needed little urging and immediately burst into a gallop. Lacutus sheathed the sword with some difficulty. Then he swung around in the saddle until he was facing backwards. The creatures were gaining on him through the dust that Augustus was kicking up. Lacutus unclipped the double crossbow and brought it to his shoulder. He squeezed the tickler once, shifted aim, and then again. If he hadn’t practised this trick so many times Lacutus was sure that he would have missed, but his aim was true, despite firing from the back of a galloping horse. The bolts slammed into the vile xenos and, moments later, exploded, sending one of them tumbling sideways through the air, the other careening through the wall of a hovel. He suspected it wouldn’t be enough to kill the powerful creatures but he prayed it would slow them down enough so that he could escape. He spun round in the saddle again, and gave thanks to the Emperor for Augustus.
Lacutus had ridden day and night across the eastern plains. He had pushed Augustus as hard as he dared, but despite the destrier’s remarkable endurance, the mighty horse had started to flag. Lacutus was all but asleep in the saddle as they reached the foothills of the Grey Sentinels. Beyond the foothills lay the snow-capped, forest-clad majesty of the mountains.
Landfall Castle was nestled amongst the foothills. The castle sprawled across several hilltops. Built from the colony ship dispatched from Terra during the Dark Age of Technology, the castle had been strong enough to act as a shelter since the appearance of the Cicatrix Maledictum, when the tendrils of the Siren’s Storm had reached for them. The city of Landfall had not done as well against the depredations of the warp, however. There was little left of the city other than blackened rubble. The survivors had moved into the castle, living in its tangle of corridors and multiple courtyards.
Lacutus was too busy trying not to fall out of the saddle to pay any attention to the blackened, salted earth of the plague pit where they had burned the infected, the cultists and the diseased minions of Nurgle. The constant pain in his ruined eye was reminder enough.
He was barely aware of crossing the drawbridge, of the guards hailing him but letting him pass through the curtain wall’s gatehouse, of them doing the same as he passed through the inner wall’s gatehouse. He was only peripherally aware of the runner racing ahead, though he was so bone weary he couldn’t work out who the boy was going to fetch.
‘What you do to Augustus?’ The voice was an aggrieved low bass grumble. Ten feet of bestial-featured corded muscle towered over horse and rider. Lacutus tried to look up at the ogryn. He wore a thick leather apron, his exposed skin stained by soot from the forge. Then the ogryn lunged forward to catch Lacutus as he slid from the saddle.
Lacutus steadied himself against the ogryn’s bulk.
‘You ride Augustus too hard!’ the ogryn protested. He had one hand ready to catch Lacutus again. Augustus was nuzzling against the other. Despite the ogryn smith’s ferocious appearance, he had a way with animals, particularly horses, and particularly Augustus.
‘Look after Augustus, Kark,’ Lacutus managed, ‘I need to see my father.’
Lacutus vaguely remembered staggering past the near-empty Sanctuary, the resting place of his ruined birthright. He made his way towards the great hall in the central keep. He felt the eyes of the peasants on him as he passed. He waved away castle guards who approached as though to help. It was important that he did this himself.
The guards were at least good enough to push open the doors to the great hall. It was like walking into light. The stained-glass window, depicting the Emperor’s defeat of the arch-heretic, Horus, had been positioned to catch the light of the early-morning suns.
His father turned to face him.
‘Lord governor.’ In public the proper form had to be followed, despite exhaustion.
His father dropped the parchment he was examining and started towards his son, concern on his face.
‘Genestealers,’ Lacutus managed. The last thing he saw before he passed out was the look of abject horror on his father’s face.
‘You’ve been using yourself hard.’ His father’s voice sounded old and worn.
Lacutus opened his eye to look up at the lord governor’s gaunt, lined face. His father, a once strong-limbed, tall man, full of energy, was now diminished, bent and frail. He had not been the same since the last time he had piloted Wargod. The strain of the fight with the diseased warp spawn three years previous had almost killed him. The fight had robbed his father of his vitality and he had seemed to age overnight. Lacutus blamed himself.
‘Genestealers!’ Lacutus cried, grabbing his father’s robe. He was almost ashamed to notice that Fisher’s robe had been finer.
His father motioned for him to calm himself.
‘You said so before you collapsed,’ his father reassured him. ‘I’m going to ask you this once, my son. Are you sure?’
Lacutus understood the need for the question. All they knew of the terrible clawed changelings had come from stories told by the last representative of the Ecclesiarchy that Leucosia had seen, before they had been cut off from the Imperium. Again.
‘Yes,’ Lacutus told him. ‘I was chased by at least two of the genestealers. It was as Deacon Ullas said.’ He managed to sit up. His muscles ached but he felt well rested, though he was hungry again.
‘Light of the Emperor,’ his father sighed.
Lacutus was desperately trying to remember the stories the fat deacon, drunk on his father’s mead, had told them. He could not remember the exact details but he suspected that the presence of the six-armed genestealers meant that the xenos had been on Leucosia for generations, though he had no idea how many.
‘Father, you have to call the yeomanry.’
‘I have done so,’ his father told him.
Lacutus was gratified by this; his father had taken his word on faith. Calling the yeomanry this close to harvest wouldn’t have been a decision taken lightly.
‘You will march our forces to Innsport?’ Lacutus asked. Even as he said this he thought of the futility of steel against the ferocity of the purestrain genestealers – against the power of Elderman Fisher.
‘No, you will, my son,’ his father said, standing up and pacing the ancient plasteel floor.
