EVERSOR

by kivati

Follows the life of an Eversor assassin, from his childhood to his final, tragic mission.

EVERSOR

A Warhammer 40,000 story

BOOK ONE

Metuo

1.

I remember the first time I met Master Haledon. The long walk from my bed took me along chilly, wide stone corridors that made me shiver. I clasped my elbows with my small hands and rubbed at my skinny biceps. Flambeaux flickered along the length of the passageways, and cast my own dark shadow across the red carpeted floor and cold, grainy-grey walls.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked a tall man wearing a dull brown simar who paced in front of me.

"To see the Master," the man replied.

I cannot recall much of my early life, before the Officio Assassinorum took me under its wing and turned me into a killer. People refer to the Eversor that they are the Officio Assassinorum's hammer. It is an apt metaphor; we are weapons of brutal and ruthless destruction.

The Eversor guild is a place I grew to both fear and love, who gave me a purpose in life (but took that option away from me to begin with) and turned me into the bio-chemical monster I am today.

We reached a spiral staircase that rose to the heavens. I had never walked this route before, and had simply been left to wander the lower echelons of the Eversor citadel with the other orphans. I knew where this would lead. Right to the heart of the citadel, to the master whom I'd heard whispered by the other apprentices who looked after us.

As I walked up the stairs with the tall figure pacing slowly in front of me, I stared out of the elongated windows, listening to the storm outside, and our faint footfalls on the steps. I could see the Vindicare Temple, with its many crenelated walls and minarets with golden domes. Lightning flashed and lit up bartizans spawning from the central spire. The cobalt sky sparkled with a thousand blinking stars above the Officio Assassinorum towers, and the broad mountain peaks on the horizon. My legs felt like lead weights, but I could tell we were high up in the Citadel.

I remained silent for the remainder of the journey. We eventually came to stop before two ancient oak doors flanked by burning braziers. The man who led me stopped, held out his hand and knocked calmly on the great door.

Each knock echoed along the broad corridor, and I waited anxiously for a response. For a moment I was certain that the simar wearing man could hear my heartbeat, and perhaps the Master himself could hear it too.

Then the doors opened.

"Come," said a voice. "Leave the boy with me, Merius."

Merius, the man who had taken me up here, bowed.

"Yes, Master Haledon." He straightened himself up, and gestured for me to enter the poorly lit room.

I of course hesitated. I could tell that the room was lined by tall, broad windows as I could see the glimmering stars. A figure sat bathed in the orange light provided by a solitary candle on his desk, hands arched so that his chin could rest comfortably on his knuckles.

"Come in, Child," said Master Haledon. His voice sounded like gravel.

I did as I was told unconsciously, as though the Master himself had taken control of my limbs and I was merely a puppet. I paced forwards, feeling my bare feet sink into the soft carpet that stretched over the stone floor.

"What is your name," asked Master Haledon as I neared, and stopped at the desk.

"I can't remember."

"That is no bad thing. You shall earn a name here, little one. You have been given a rare opportunity to help save Mankind, Child, how do you feel?"

"Confused," I answered honestly. "What is it you wish of me?"

"A great many things," replied Master Haledon. "A great many things," he repeated for effect.

I nodded, eyes adjusting to the darkness, and stared at Master Haledon. He was old, with pale corpse skin, and wore a white, stubbly goatee. Half his face beneath the shadow of his hood was alive with pulsating, coloured tubes and metal plates. He looked like a monster, was he going to turn me into one too?

2.

I can only begin to describe how painful the days and years were that followed. One day, not long after I had met Master Haledon, we were woken early by Brother Talos. Talos was older than all of us, and we were his responsibility. He came in, as he always did, hands clasped together as though in prayer, flowing mud coloured simar skimming the stone floor. There was something in his expression that worried me as he rang the morning bell. I rose from my bed, which was nothing more than a tatty blanket with a hard pillow and a straw mattress set into a simple iron cot, but served me well enough, and yawned.

"Up," he said in his strong, masculine voice.

I rubbed at my eyes, and found my feet. My friend Mathers gave me a nod, and whispered.

"What's this all about? Morning chores don't start for another watch."

"Morning chores are cancelled today," said Brother Talos.

"What are we doing instead?" I asked.

"Stop asking questions, novices, and follow me."

We were led out of the room, and through many sparsely decorated chambers and corridors I had never seen, until we stopped at a black door. There were armed soldiers; broad shouldered figures wearing black skin-hugging fatigues and grim expressions. They stared at us like deadly statues, and I imagined them monsters about to spring upon us. I clenched my hands, turning them to fists just in case, no matter how foolish that was.

The door clunked as Brother Talos slid aside the iron bolt, and opened the door. We were led into a dimly lit room, where flambeaux flickered wildly on the four walls, casting orange cones of light onto a series of robust, metal chairs. Each chair had a visor on a metal arm folded in the air.

There were men in the room, one by each chair. They were dressed in black hooded robes which masked their faces with shadows. I could see the occasional white of the eye as Brother Talos led us through. I was guided to a chair near the front, and stared at a man with arms crossed who began to address us as we settled into the cold, uncomfortable seats.

"Welcome to your indoctrination," he said coldly.

The silver bands locked over my wrists, and clamped my ankles to the chair. A few of my friends cried out in fear. Their calls were ignored, even though they thundered around the room. As I peered up, afraid, heart beating, I noticed one of the hooded men, broad of shoulder, thrust my head back against the metal rest, and slid the visor over my eyes. My world went dark for a few moments. My hearing became muffled, though I could still hear the man working on my bonds while I sat prisoner to the whim of strangers.

My sleeve was rolled up, and I could feel a firm index finger check for a dominant vein. There was a sharp sting, which I guessed was a needle, then my mind began to fog. The visor flashed to life, and sent me into convulsions as my eyes hurt, and I tried to get away. My hands and legs wriggled with what little room was left me in my cold bonds.

Then an image flashed before me, along with the gentle sounds of a voice.

'This is life,' it said. There was a picture of a green planet that looked like a glowing marble in the void of space. 'Death reigns here supreme,' the voice said again. A picture of a mutilated human corpse flashed briefly, and flickered to other dead animals and people.

I remember the first image that appeared from the white void of my visor clearly now, even after all these years. He was young, maybe a few years older than me, but still a child. His mouth was open, along with his dead eyes that had begun to rot, and had already been picked at by the birds. The flesh was decaying; the pallor of rotting milk.

Then the voice faded and was replaced by a screeching noise that attacked my ears like a virus attacks the body. I shivered, and clawed at the arm-rests of my chair with my hands, and dug my feet firmly onto the cold rest.

A series of images flashed before my eyes that made me scream. I was certain they could hear me, but I didn't care. This wasn't normal. The drugs began to calm me however, until I stopped screaming, and simply watched pictures and war-footage for the next few hours. This was the brutal truth of Indoctrination. What more was to come?

3.

These sessions lasted for many hours, and many months. They told us the drugs they pumped into our system was preparing our minds for the struggles ahead, while the images were also a part of the reality of life. All they seemed to do was cause chaos and confusion. At times I felt like I didn't know the difference between being awake, and asleep. The drugs distorted my mind so that even when I checked my open eyes, and found them wide, I could not tell if I was in some evil warped dream. My very thought processes changed ever slowly to what they wanted me to become. As I stared up at the ceiling from my bed, fatigued and pale, stomach rumbling, I wondered just what was happening to me. For the first time since the Officio Assassinorum had taken me in, supplied me with a warm and 'safe' place to live with friends, I felt completely lost.

"Are you awake, Stone?" I heard my friend, Mathers, whisper across from his bed. His voice disturbed a few sleepers, though many of the other twelve children in the room were wide awake too.

They had nicknamed me Stone (as I couldn't recall my own name) for my great ability at the game we played against the wall with what little we could find to entertain us. The trick was to toss a small stone at the wall, and make it land on a target on the floor marked out by a small square of white chalk. My shots were uncannily accurate, and I recall a few harsh words from my fellows, jealous of my skill that made me disliked by some.

Mathers pushed himself from his bed, and rested his head against an outstretched arm.

"I don't like it here," he whispered.

"Me neither," I replied.

He flicked over a modest piece of bread that landed on my chest.

"I stole it from the kitchen," he replied, a mischievous glint to his eyes.

I could see the beam of light that stretched towards us from high on the wall, through our single window. I took a bite of the bread and found it stale. I chomped on it till I managed to swallow some, and stared at the light with black-rimmed eyes.

"It is almost the first watch," Mathers said. I could detect the trace of fear in his voice.

First watch, I was sent to the library on the lowest level of our tower. Brother Talos wanted a series of books for us to read, and had given me a list on a single length of discoloured paper. I could read Gothic well, having been taught by Brother Talos. The whole group would sit and listen and write in our bedroom as Brother Talos sat behind the desk, marking the blackboard with our next task.

I had never been into the library proper, though I had crept across the long hall upon my explorations. The walls were covered by hanging portraits of long dead men, wearing silly, elegant clothes and ridiculous feathered hats. I guess it was the fashion in this part of the Segmentum Pacificus centuries ago.

My sandalled feet slapped the cold stone floor, and echoed eerily up to the library doors. An inscription lay above the oak doors, fixed to the wall on a polished, golden plaque and read, 'Cave ab homine unius libri' – Beware of anyone who has just one book.

I knocked on the door with three swift strikes using my knuckles, and waited for an answer.

As I waited, I studied the golden motes etched into the surface of the wood that glowed against the lantern I held in my hand.

The door opened and revealed a musty room that smelt of old books and unwashed bodies. The library was a section left to Master Gale, an old member of the Officio Assassinorum whom had retired from busy life transforming children into beasts, and instead, chose to supply those willing to learn with a collection of books that had taken centuries to amass.

"What have we here?" muttered a stooped man in a dark purple simar. His hood was down, and revealed a shiny bald head, with stringy white hair falling from the level of his ears to his skinny shoulders. He studied me with gray eyes. "Ah, a child with enough left in his head to acquire books. Tell me, Child, why do you bother? The Officio Assassinorum will warp your mind till the only thing you're concerned about is the death of the Emperor's enemies. What good will books do you when you are pumped with enough drugs to kill a bear?"

I couldn't answer, and shrugged.

"I was told to fetch some books from you," I said, and held out the list. "Can you help me find them?"

Master Gale snatched the paper from my hand.

"Hold up the light, boy," he demanded, squinting his eyes as he studied the paper. "Ah, good books here. Come in, come in." Master Gale stepped away from the door, turned his back at me and gestured the aisles and aisles of books that stood in shadowy lines across the length of the room.

"Principles of an Assassin, always good when that's the profession you are being prepared for. Litany of Faith, I'm sure you'll be needing this when you're clinging to your sanity." He chuckled an unnerving laugh that flashed across the room as though the walls themselves repeated his mirth. "Now, where by the Damned Warp, did I put them?" He wandered about the floor, and I tried to follow him. I seemed only to become a new problem for Master Gale, as he entered an aisle, me in trail, only to quickly turn and find a small barricade of innocent flesh preventing his escape.

"Stand over there, and stop following me about like some sheep, though a sheep you obviously are," said Master Gale.

I did as I was told, and assumed a statuesque position at the centre of the room, and watched him enter another five aisles before I heard a cry of pleasure, and Master Gale emerged with the four books.

He stopped before me with a smile, told me to blow out the candle and place it on the floor, and thrust the volumes into my arms. I began to feel the strain of the weight before I'd even moved.

"Get going," said Master Gale.

Once again, I did as I was told, and left the chamber quickly. I heard the door shut behind me, and looked up at the plaque on the wall again. It was weird, I thought, the message had changed. Now it read, 'Corpus Vile' - Worthless Body. Had I just misread the Gothic in the dark, or was my vulnerable mind playing tricks on me? I rushed off to deliver Brother Talos his books.

4.

There are a number of drugs that can be injected into the body with little pain. I could feel my stamina increase as time went by, not through simple exercise, which was part of my daily routine (I'd run seven miles a day circuits across the citadel) but through the drug called Spur, which was injected into my bloodstream via a long needle to my temple. The drug increases physical performance, though may cause injury, which I had seen on several occasions. To boost my strength outside of weights I was given Gamma Æ. For endurance, Satrophine and Rage, two cocktails that deposited blue and green toxins into my body.

I was a walking drug with irises wide like dark pools. Master Cobile, the instructor charged with our physical training, and Doctor Hexor, the resident dealer of poison, told us the dangers of these drugs the Eversor sought to use to improve combat effectiveness. For example, the drug Reflex increases reaction time, but also increases suggestion and vulnerability to psychic attack. The drug Psychon increases strength by adrenaline manipulation, though places the user in an uncontrollable rage. It was always give or take.

The drugs could be used in any order, though they suggested we only inject ourselves with five at a time. Out of thirty odd stimulants, we had a wide array of choice.

I was more curious than afraid when I was shown the effects of the drugs on a real field agent.

"My name is Eversor Adept Tyse," said a tall man my class was introduced to on a particularly stormy evening. I remember the night well as it was to be my first glimpse of what I was to become. A first glimpse for us all. We stood in a small huddle along a cold, dimly lit corridor (as, it seems, was always the case in the Temple.) Brother Talos, now in his early thirties, stood behind us, his face a mask of grimness.

Tyse was tall and thin, but broad of shoulder. He wore a metal plate over his head which also covered half of his pale face so that he looked like a servitor, and stared at us with one red eye.

"This way," he said, his voice a rough wind on the air.

He led us along a corridor that happened to be a bridge that spawned from the central Eversor Temple spire to a small minaret on the western side of our temple. The bridge had windows on the flanks so that we could see outside.

The night sky was a mixture of colour; of swirling deep purples, dark blues and depth-less blacks. The stars sparkled like faraway jewels set into an extraordinary canvas by the Emperor himself. And the clouds loomed across the rest, a heavy black squall line I almost mistook for the void of space itself. Lightning flashed atop the conical mountain peaks, and thunder boomed, rumbling our chests with vibration.

I could see the spires of our brother guilds nestled into the valley. The Vindicare Citadel was taller than ours and looked as straight as the rifle they were so famed to use. It rose from a solid base that was alive with twinkling lights. I could see another tower, whether it was the Culexus or Callidus Temples, I did not know. Their great walls rose like dark silhouettes lit briefly by the clash of lightning.

Adept Tyse led us through a door that slid open and we came to a circular room where energy thrummed like a purring cat. Dim strips of lights on the ceiling illuminated the chamber. There were more armed men here, dressed in robes, pale hands on the grips of their lasguns.

"Come to show them the museum," chuckled the Tower Warden. It wasn't a question, really, more a depressing observation. The Warden looked sickly yellow as he slumped on a desk in front of another sealed door. He was fat, with bulging, lumpy skin that hung from his face and exposed forearms. His hair was wispy bits of gray fluff that seemed to fall off even as he spoke. The Warden coughed violently, but didn't bother to cover his mouth. I felt some of his spittle strike my face, and I wiped it off calmly with the back of my sleeve.

"Come in, little assassins," he said to us. He stared at me in particular and laughed.

I moved with speed, leapt onto the desk and grabbed his balding head with both my hands. The Warden screamed as I crashed the man's temple against the metal table. I did it twice more before Adept Tyse and Brother Talos pulled me from the Warden. He was still alive, but his eyes were shut and bleeding, while his pale forehead was now a colourful red.

If I had done such an action before my training, my Indoctrination, I would have screamed, and shivered at my rage, and violence. I felt no shame, and stared up at the eyes of Tyse. The adept smiled at me, and patted my shoulder.

"I think we shall leave you now, Warden," said Tyse. "Come," he said to us. "It is time to see what I must show you."

I looked at my bloodied hands, and at the mumbling man I had attacked for merely insulting me with a laugh. Then I turned, and paced away with my fellow assassins, towards an open door that spoke of darkness.

5.

We descended a long spiral staircase, steps sounding a staccato up the winding, narrow passage. We were swallowed by darkness and echoing noise. I entered this inky blackness anxious but not afraid. My eyes adjusted to darkness pretty quickly thanks to a recent implant that improved sight in the gloom. The room we entered was lit by small lanterns, though it was dim as dawn light. I felt a weakness overwhelm me, not unusual considering the hours I had spent in a test tube developing the organs needed to cope with the combat drugs. I shook the wearisome feeling, and studied the room.

Along the circular chamber walls were sealed freezer doors (in appearance but not content). Bold white numbers had been painted onto the doors, each numeral below a head-sized, sealed hole.

"This is the Hold room," said Tyse, gesturing the chamber with his arms outstretched. He dramatically did a full circle, arms still out, and came to stop exactly where he'd begun the spin. "Please, take a look around, and remember, this could be you in time. This should, I hope, teach you to be careful when using them." I chuckle at his words now. Surely it was safer not to use such a thing in the first place?

I did as was told, and moved off with Mathers and the youngest of our group, Boil, to the nearest door. I could sense the Adepts eyes on me. Little did I realise then that the brutal way I dealt with the Warden was to garner me more interest than the rest of the group.

I had to tiptoe to reach the bolt. I slid it across then took the sealed hole handle, and moved it aside. My breath instantly washed over the thick screen, turning my view to mist. I wiped it with my hand, and noticed the figure of an Eversor in the corner. He still wore his body armour, the complex black suit that hugged his muscled frame almost hid him completely, but quick movements of the head, much like the chickens they kept in the Citadel Gardens, betrayed his presence.

"What can you see?" whispered Mathers.

I didn't answer him for I was spellbound, my eyes transfixed on this nameless, anonymous killer who I was following in the footsteps. The Eversor darted forward and I lost him for a moment. The window steamed with ghostly mist again.

"Let me see," said Mathers.

I ignored him and extended a hand to wipe the window. As soon as I removed it, moisture glistening across my palm, I thought the mist had stayed, but only for a heartbeat. I noticed it was the Eversor's white mask up against the window. The figure shuffled so that one dark eye encompassed the centre of the screen. He stared directly at me. An excited shiver ran down my spine. You might guess one would be afraid of such a sight, but fear had all but been programmed from my consciousness.

Then the Eversor screamed an inhuman cry I thought only possible could ejaculate from the very Eye of Terror itself. The eardrum shattering scream set the other drug-crazed Eversor's off too, and in moments I felt as though I'd been caged with banshees.

These Eversor's were still mad, blood raged and vicious. The stimulants from recent missions coursing through their veins had warped their minds to such a state they needed to be locked up, until needed again.

"Listen to their cries, apprentices," said Tyse, a look of devilish glee upon his face. His thin, pale lips twisted into a smile, "Listen to the Cries of the Eversors."

6.

It is very hard to describe the sensation of being submerged in the tube. The first time I had seen them, I assumed I'd be unconscious throughout the whole affair of growing new organs, and strengthening current ones. That, wholly unsurprising, was far from the truth.

Imagine a dream disturbed by constant fits of wakefulness. I dreamt much during the months I spent in the tubes, floating like a weightless object in a pale, emerald world. I dreamt of a time I couldn't remember, and can't to this day honestly say it was a part of my past.

There were blue skies unperturbed by cloud or even the presence of the sun. Just a sea-blue sky that blurred into a ragged horizon that encompassed snow-caked mountains. I would run through grass fields, alive to the sensation of the blades as they stroked my bare arms and cheeks - then woke - bubbles streaming from my oxygen mask, to find I was in the tubes, staring out at Adepts keeping a close eye on us all, only to be swept back into the dream once more.

For a time I would get lost in these dreams, and all of reality would become blurred. I could not tell which was real. The life spent in the fields playing childish games with a young girl with shining blond hair, or the life in the guild of the Eversors.

When I woke from a three-week stint in the tubes, I found I lay upon a cold silver bed, blurred sight staring up at a white light. I heard the ruffling of a simar, and gentle steps on the ground.

"You're awake," said a voice. My sight focused on the figure. Brother Talos stood above me like an angel without wings, brilliant bright light his halo. "Congratulations, apprentice, you now have an extra kidney, and an improved liver. How do you feel?" It was odd he would ask me how I felt. One of the principles of an Eversor assassin forbade such a concept as 'feelings'. I did feel, as I still do now, but the urge to contemplate how I was faded to the depths of my mind, reserved I guess, only for me.

I tried to sit up, but found I was still breathing through an oxygen mask. The tubing wriggled like a snake as I shifted my view to the apparatus at the side of my bed. Blinking green lights greeted me on the machine display that monitored my health.

An Adept moved forward, needle in his hand. The man was pale like most in the Citadel, and looked at me blankly, firmly flicking the point of the needle with an index finger. A line of liquid sprayed from the top, and disappeared from my vision. I saw his shadow fall upon my bare chest as he blocked the overhead light with his figure, then the sharp prick of the needle. My head swam briefly as he passed a dark crimson liquid into my bloodstream.

"It has been a complete success," I heard the Adept state matter-of-factly to Talos. "The grafting of the new kidney to his left one has caused no problems I can detect."

Talos nodded as he passed his eyes from the Adept to me. Before I passed out, I remember Talos saying, "Good, he'll need it." The voice sounded like a gentle echo, and my world went black.

7.

The period of isolation is called Baptism. It is a test to see if an apprentice is ready for the next stage of his life and advance to the rank of Journeyman in the guild. Upon successful completion I would earn a name, given to me by the Grand Master Haledon himself.

For this task, we were not supplied with the armament that a true Eversor would wield in the field. There was no Executioner gun (though we had fired them in training, and stripped and assembled them a thousand times), there was no Neuro-Gauntlet (which we had only seen on display in Master Cobile's gym.) Instead, we had to fashion our own items from materials provided by the environment, and use our wits to survive two months alone in a prepared, grim forest just for us, and what they put in there to test our strengths and weaknesses.

I remember the night I was called for the Baptism quite clearly. I was woken by Brother Talos during the night. After having eaten a chemical breakfast that would supply my body with adequate nutritions for a week, I was quietly shepherded towards Master Cobile's training ground. I could not, at the time, come up with an adequate explanation as to why my fellow apprentices weren't also woken, and escorted hurriedly along the corridors to see the Master.

Master Cobile stood at the centre of his training ground, hands clasped behind his back, pale broad chest exposed to reveal panther-like, corded muscles. At his feet was a satchel with a long shoulder strap that coiled on the floor like a sleeping snake.

"You have been chosen for the Baptism, Apprentice, it is a great honour to be picked first."

I bowed as Master Cobile had taught me years ago when I had first met him. Respect was his due, and he had struck children for anything he considered a slight. I raised my head, and stared into his cold, blue eyes. There was a strength - a confidence - in that stare I hoped I would one day possess.

"My gratitude, Master," I said.

"You have heard of the Baptism before?" he asked me.

"Yes," I answered quickly.

"Here," said Master Cobile, thrusting a small leather sabretache into my hands.

Then I was sent on my way. I didn't know at the time that I would be one of only four from twenty to survive that year. It may sound like a waste, considering the time and effort put into each of us, but the laws of nature; the strongest survive and the weak die, seemed to apply for the trial.

Brother Talos and Adept Tyse led me through a maze of cold tunnels, flambeaux flickering on the never-ending walls, embers scattering to the stone floor like orange tear drops. I didn't ask where we were going, and even if I did I expected no answer from the men who towered before, and behind me. They walked at a brisk pace, footsteps echoing through the gloomy halls, and I was forced to keep up with them (though it was an easy task.)

We finally stopped at a thick iron gateway several hours later. I could tell we were somewhere south of the Citadel, judging from the route we took from Master Cobile's training room. The gates were black, and shone with the light from a nearby torch that hovered over an armed Adept sitting at a desk, black lasgun nozzle pointing my way. I felt an urge to launch myself at the guard and disarm the unknown figure whose face was hidden by shadows cast from the simar's wide hood.

I felt pressure on my shoulder, and saw that it was the long fingered hand of Talos. He led me towards the door as Adept Tyse spoke to the guard.

"This is the entrance to the Arena," Talos said. "Beyond these doors lies a forest, a habitat penned in by tall walls. There are creatures out there that you must slay, or avoid, for several weeks. If you survive long enough, you will know when it is time to leave. Master Cobile, Adept Tyse and myself will come and collect you." He sounded deadly serious, and I could not wait to get a chance to prove myself. Then he said something wholly out of the tradition of the Eversors.

"Stay safe," he said, "Do not let the madness take you. Good luck, young apprentice."

I nodded, and looked into his eyes. There was sympathy there, yet at the time I did not know what that was.

I heard a ringing sound, and the guard moved to the a tall lever on the right-hand wall. He gripped the solid shaft with both his hands, and pulled it down. He stepped back, and stared at the gate. We all did the same. Nothing happened.

"It always does this, just give it a moment," said the guard.

We waited. Then the sound of an ancient mechanism rumbled through the walls, beginning as a slow thump, until, picking up speed, a crescendo of noise assailed our ears. The gates vibrated with a faint hum, then began to open outwards. I felt a cold breeze caress my face, and whipped my dark green robes about my figure, and pushed on through the gates.

8.

It was night outside the Citadel. I heard the gates close behind me with a single, solid clunk, and cast my eyes across the forest. A huge mixture of black-trunk trees stood before me. Some were tall with massive shield-shaped, dark leaves blowing in the mild breeze, others were squat and gnarled beasts twelve foot wide. Already, my plimsolls were touching grass that rolled up to the gates like a natural carpet, a forest of blades that quivered in the night. Huge walls rose into the sky, until they melted with the darkness. This was my new home.

Pale moonlight bathed the scene silver and speared down through breaks in the canopy like spot lights, onto the trunks of trees, or a brook, or a forested slope whose bush blew gently in the wind. I heard the ominous call of an owl, the gentle whisper of a stream, and saw a branch shiver in the distance. Other than that, it was deadly quiet.

I turned to look at the Citadel, but the building stretched so tall, and broad I could not see all of one side. Lights shone in the darkness as far as my eyes could see. 'Civilisation' glimmering amidst the darkness, and above that, the void of Space, majestic and beautiful, stars like winking eyes glittering in the darkness.

I stooped to one knee, and unstrapped the sabretache. The leather felt like soft skin, and I parted the sides and looked within the bag. I dipped a hand inside, and withdrew a single needle device. I had used this only twice during two lesson with Adept Tyse. Now I had to administer it exactly how I was taught. The device is shaped like a gun, with a hole to accept the needle cylinder. A simple correct insertion into my veins – particularly the eyeballs I'm told, would deal the load into my bloodstream. Doped like a criminal in the Hive cities, encouraged and allowed to get away with murder.

Along with it was a small collection of stimulants provided in ready-made cylinders, some basic tools so I could shape a knife, and a single rolled sheet of cloth that would serve as bedding. If I wanted to make a fire, I would have to use the nature around to start one. I didn't want to do that now. Instead, I closed the bag, and slung it over my right shoulder, then proceeded into the forest for a reconnaissance.

I moved towards the stream in the hope that if a predator was about, I would meet it soon, and judge its abilities. Brother Talos had taught me about how the great wild predators attacked often by the shimmering waters of the land.

I drifted like a shooting shadow across the grass, and hit the tree line in heartbeats. Darkness ruled upon the ground, though not supreme. Areas were lit a glowing, silver sheen where the moon's light broke a section of the canopy.

The stream ran down a slope, into a shallow pool in which I could see the very bed beneath. It was the colour of sandy mist, pushed along by the weak current.

I dipped my bare hand into the cold current and raised it, splattering the water with droplets. Ripples quaked across the surface as I tasted the water. The water was fine, exactly the same as the water supplied inside the Eversor Temple. I looked up, listened to the hollow toot of an owl and proceeded across the sedge along the right bank. I entered deeper into the forest without incident, until darkness engulfed the Citadel from view, and I was completely alone, save what lay out in the woods.

9.

I gripped the struggling rabbit in my hands and broke its neck with a single snap. The animal stopped thrashing and drooped like a ragdoll from the crook of my arm. There was a slight breeze that whispered to my ears, and I looked up at the red tainted moon through the fluttering leaves.

I did not start a fire as it could beckon the things I knew were out there, neither did I sleep for the first seven days. As a phantom of the night, I crept around mostly in the shadows. Lots of the forest remained in pitch where the canopy above and the densely packed trunks blocked out any chance for sunlight to penetrate. Would it matter? If there were wild animals here, like the ones I had seen and heard kept in the crenelated outhouses that ran to the east of the Citadel, then they could most likely see in the dark, having adapted through the years of the species' existence.

When it was time to take a rest, I stopped and sat, mostly, back against the dense trees with huge arm-like, gnarled and knobbly roots flanking my sides. In the darkness, I stared out along the gaps, and above, paranoid and alert, imagining the stars to be thousands of sets of eyes. And when it came to hunt for food, I performed adequately.

I had found a solid branch and fashioned a long stake with it using the small knife, making the point sharp as a blade. With the stake in my hand I hunted the rabbit, chasing the gray furry animal through the darkness. I remember its shining, amber eyes as it darted through the thickets. My cast had missed, but diverted it back to me.

I pulled the stake from the ground, rabbit dangling in my other hand and ate it raw. I chomped through its furry body, tearing at it with the small, blunt knife and then my teeth. The quiet of before was replaced by the sound of flesh as I tore it into strips.

A loud, rough howl pierced the night, joined by another. My eyes picked out silhouettes ahead. Two sleek, muscled shapes glided towards me like wild beasts, rustling the thickets they broke through. They stared at me with glowing white eyes that looked like twin moons in the depths of the forest.

I stuffed the rabbit into my sabretache and rushed them. I showed a flinch with my right shoulder at one, and swept left as the open jaws snapped at thin air where I had been moments before. I could almost feel its shadow as it passed me. The thing snarled, spilling long lines of spittle, dangling and flying, out of its mouth. Its teeth were like the edge of a serrated sword, while its talons slid open with otherwise unnerving silence. If I hadn't been trained to fight, I would of died there, in the depths of night beneath an ironic crimson moon.

Instead, I drove the stake into the creature's flank. It pierced the flesh, crushed through the durable ribs, and sank into its lung with one sickening thrust. I listened to it scream with a dark relish. The shattering call caused nearby black birds to scatter towards the heavens, shivering perches, raining leaves onto the forest floor.

The beast coughed blood, which splattered over my arm, chest and face. I remember it was warm liquid, and smeared the creature's lifeblood over my cheek with one hand as I withdrew the stake with the other.

The remaining beast growled at me, standing before there at the height of my shoulders despite all four paws on the ground, then launched itself from its back legs, battle roar thundering from its maw.

I stepped to the right, quick as a flash. The training program called Dodge had taught me to move quickly, but I felt a sharp talon cut my arm. It was a graze, but drew a single line of blood from my naked arm (the simar I wore was folded and in the bag, to be used when I needed material).

I couldn't reach my drugs, despite wanting too. The cut was more than a wound, it was a realisation, a reminder against complacency, 'the undoing of many grand schemes', as Brother Talos always said.

Gore dripped from the end of my stake, which I pointed towards the leaping foe, and thrust again. The strike was so precise, I landed the stake squarely in the side of its head. The blow didn't kill it immediately, but knocked the creature to the ground. It howled and squirmed, thrashing its muscled legs and claws against the thickets.

I went in for the kill. As I stood above the wounded beast, I noticed I'd left a deep gorge in the head, which bled. The creature couldn't see me, blinded by my vicious strike, but lashed out regardless. I ducked its flailing limbs, and remember grinning as I drove my weapon through its skull.

"Estral, I don't think we should be doing this," said a girl with blond hair.

Estral. A name so familiar, was it mine? The girl addressed this Estral-the same girl from my previous dreams- fear on her high-pitched voice. I stared at her through Estra's eyes – or mine.

"No, we have come too far to just quit now," I said.

The scene I relate to you now as I slept for the first time during the Baptism still visits me as I rest today. Before us, as we crouched atop a hill, tall grass tickling our flesh, was a flight of ships cutting blue lines through space. Their exhausts burned the night sky as they descended to the flat land below. The crafts were shaped like boxes, with stubby, upward-curving wings and snouts for cockpits. I could see pilots illuminated pale greens by the cockpit lights.

"They'll see us!" the girl said, as she tugged my arm with both her hands.

"No, Amiee, they won't," I said with determination and confidence.

"Please, I don't want to see them. They scare me."

"My father told me to face my fears," I said and edged across the grass rise to get a closer look.

I heard Amiee's feet pattering the crushed grass left in my wake.

"I know what you're doing, Estral. You don't need to prove anything to the others. Certainly not Rastro."

For some reason the name brings up a loathing I cannot place. He was a stocky boy with cheeks as red as his curly locks. Rastro was in charge of the local farm communities child-thugs and would terrorize Estra almost constantly. But Estra -I beg your pardon and for the moment, I- would not be a lamb in a bully's world.

Then the war started with the neighbours across the Great Ocean. It was some chaos related event that finished two hundred years gone. A long period, and considering the age I was during my first recollections of these events at the time of the Baptism, impossible. I didn't know this, of course, at the time.

"I'm proving nothing to anyone, other than myself," I said.

She followed me down the hill as we approached the electric fences that stood twice the size of a man. A watchtower light scanned across our path. I grabbed Amiee and dived deep into the grass. The beam passed over us like the stern gaze of an abusive father. I could feel Amiee's heart beat as she clung to me and heard the soft shuffles of the grass around us. The light appeared to hover at our location, but in reality passed by in a moment to scan the slopes of the fells. I grabbed Amiee's hand softly, then squeezed it.

"Lets get closer. I saw a gap in the fence this morning but didn't get the chance to investigate."

She didn't seem convinced by my words, but didn't break from my grasp. I rose from the flattened grass and moved north-east, keeping to the thickets at the base of a great fell, Amiee in tow and just as curious despite her voiced concerns.

Chatter murmured with the wind and we froze. Through the thickets the wall was no further than five metres. I could see no one marching the land outside and guessed the men in conversation were behind the barrier. We waited, to be certain, staring intensely at our surroundings; the wall and golden flickering watchtowers in the distance, the humps of fells that rolled off behind us and to our flanks, the stars glimmering in the ebony void, and the falling craft who swept down like clumsy birds.

Then I moved towards the break in the fence, Amiee right behind me. They were nothing more than broken holes one could fit a head through. I crouched and took a look through the gap.

A great craft opened its hatch, hissing free as the door clamoured on the ground with a thud. Soldiers marched out, stamping the hull with boots so that metallic rings echoed. They were Imperial Guardsmen, come to change my world forever.

10.

I watched them talk around the fire, perched upon a thick and sturdy branch away from the flickering flames and orange, dancing light. The kindling crackled and popped, casting showers of amber sparks from the fire onto the bare, hard-mud ground.

"Now just listen to me, lads, we'll be alright if we stick together," said one. He was broad of shoulder, bare muscled arms exposed through the grubby white vest that clung to his form like cling film. The man rubbed at his bald head, and studied the thickets, hands clasped around the handle and grip of a lasgun.

"Right ya are, Joss," said a smaller man. He was thin and pale, half covered by firelight, the rest submerged in shadows. An autopistol lay in his lap as he sat cross-legged on the ground, holding both his arms out to the flames.

"We 'ain't gotta listen to you," said another. He was a man of average build, the most notable feature was the burn that scarred half his face. "All we got to do is find a way over the wall."

"Have you seen how tall they are? They're impossible to climb," said a fourth man. This man wore shaggy furs as clothes, and a bushy black beard that fell to his chest.

"We can't climb," said the one called Joss. "We just gotta kill whatever is out here, then they said we will be free."

"Ha," said the man with the scar. "You trust these murderers?"

"No," said Joss, "but what can we do?"

They were criminals from the local Hives, sentenced to death and brought here for the Afficio Assassinorum's pleasure. Lured with the hope of release, their lives would be short.

As I washed the sweat and dirt from my body in the brook after a hard days work on a burrow to call my home, I noticed the column of smoke rising to the dusky sky. I picked up my stake, slung the sabretache over my left shoulder and moved to investigate. That was when I saw them, and climbed the tree as silent as a monkey.

"I just want to get out, get home to my wife and daughters," said the bearded, shaggy-clothed man.

"You keep saying that, Jules," said the man with the scar.

The fifth member of the group rocked where he sat, rusty autopistol in his hand, and took to his feet.

"Did you hear that?" he said fearfully.

"Sit down, Rake," said Joss. "Calm yourselves, boys. It's been a long time since we seen this sort of freedom." The man stood up and took a deep breath of the fresh air, and smiled.

These were, in my mind, undoubtedly the next part of my trial. Five grown men, armed with one lasgun, one battered autogun with a bent barrel, and three rusty autopistols against one young man (I was roughly fifteen at the time) with a stake and a bag full of stimulants.

I listened to their conversation as I slipped my hand into the sabretache at my side. My hand felt the cold, solid form of my stimulant dispenser. I moved it aside and located my drugs; I would need them to defeat so many fully developed, armed men. I found one to my liking, having a certain familiarity with the stimulant. I read the label Spur and carefully slid it into the injector. The satisfying click meant it was ready to be dispensed into my bloodstream whenever I was prepared.

I had no knowledge of what crimes these men had committed. In my mind, they were murderers or worse that the Imperium had deemed too dangerous for society. Killing these men would be a good deed, one my peers would congratulate me for. Now, when I think of this time, I flinch, and feel the peculiar emotion called guilt. My memory has not failed me, and I can recall each and every word and detail about these men. One, the man with the beard, talked of his family. He had three girls, each would, at that time, be fully grown women, perhaps with families of their own. He was very much looking forward to seeing them, and his wife, oh, how he spoke about his wife. He loved her very much. A pity then, that I killed him as easily as a hunter would slay his quarry.

"Did you hear that, something rustled the bushes," said the man called Rake.

"Nothing but tha' wind, you mad fool," said Scar.

I placed the injector to my neck and squeezed the trigger. A soft hiss of pressure whispered with the blowing wind, and I felt the effects almost immediately. I swiftly descended down the thick trunk, pulse racing to a diabolical beat.

I grabbed a rock from my bag and hurled it with force from the darkness. It whizzed through the air and struck the fire with a crash, scattering kindling, embers and flame, loosing thick clouds of black smoke across the forest. The criminals jumped, and screamed. One, the young man who appeared to be Joss' lackey, patted down his dirty trousers which smoked from numerous burns.

I rushed to the left, and went for Joss first. Lasguns were more reliable than the other weapons, and Joss appeared to be the leader, the most confident member of the group. If I killed him, claimed his gun, I would strike terror into the hearts of my enemies.

I moved swiftly as the criminals stared about them, panic-stricken, nozzles scanning the inky blackness of the coming night, and shadows of the forest. The thick ash clouds clung across the scene like fog. Rake coughed roughly.

"Easy boys," said Joss, "eyes open."

"Yes boss," said the lackey.

Then I struck, leaping from the thickets like a wild animal. I speared Joss' jugular with the point of my stake, removing the weapon in an instant. A jet of blood burst from his wound, and I lashed out with a crouching sweep to knock the big man to the ground. He collapsed with a heavy thud, gurgling blood and unintelligible curses as he held his bleeding neck. I scooped up the lasgun from the dirt and darted back into the dark thickets as Joss thrashed his legs. I watched him stop kicking and die, the jet of blood slowly diminishing as a pool of red formed around his prone figure.

A hail of bullets whipped the thickets, thumping tree trunks, shattering leaves. The light of the nozzle flames flashed in the darkness at random. They were panicked now, firing hopelessly into the dark.

"Wait!" shouted Scar, "Save your bullets, we ain't got no more clips."

The shooting died and a tense quiet enveloped the scene. They looked at Joss, and grouped together. I noticed only Scar and the bearded man didn't shake. The other two looked like stalks blowing in the wind, their pistol aims unsteady.

I felt Spur racing through my system. My heart beat, my muscles were as tense as a springing Liger. There was no doubt in my mind these men were walking corpses.

11.

I swept silently into the darkness of the bush, keeping solid trunks between me and my foes. Thickets were my borders to pin and trap them. Now all I had to do was separate the group. Divide and conquer, as Master Cobile would say.

My feet seemed to glide across the ground as I moved to the group's right. I fired a shot that illuminated the dark, launching my shadow across the broad trunks about my crouching figure. The shot, luminous blue in colour, streaked across the smouldering ground and knocked Scar off his feet. I didn't stay long to check if he was dead, instead, I ran again, rustling the foliage with the aid of the wind.

"Caskell!" shouted Jules. He went to aid his friend while the other two watched the moving forest through water-blurred eyes.

"Damn it!" shouted Jules. "Come out and fight like a man!" The challenge echoed, reverberating in the otherwise silent night. I settled back into the dark to let the terror of their situation sink in, and watched as Jules helped Caskell -the man with the scar- to his feet. I looked up at the full moon; it was as red as the blood spilt on the ground.

I heard the rustle of leaves in the darkness to my right and peered through the thickets; past the thorny branches where two figures stood panting. Clouds of vapour escaped their nostrils and mouths, and drifted into the beams of moonlight that filtered through the canopy and bathed them silver.

My breath was steady as I skimmed the bush and closed with one. It was Jules. He saw me coming too late. I emerged before him, eyes wide open and full of blood-lust, mouth twisted into a snarl as I struck him in the face with the lasgun butt. I felt the force of the blow vibrate through my forearms, and heard the crack of Jules' skull. He collapsed at the feet of the wounded Caskell. Caskell's face twisted with anger, and he raised the autogun at me, but I darted left, then dived right and rolled between two thick tree trunks. I heard the man squeeze off a round, nozzle flaring like a miniature sun, metal slugs thudding into one of the trunks, and scaled the other tree without his knowledge, digging my fingertips and toes into the rivulets that ran up the gnarled trunk.

"What's going on?" shouted Rake from where the fire had been. Smouldering piles of kindling still burned by his feet, flickering over the dead body of Joss whose leg had begun to twitch.

"Jules is dead," shouted Caskill.

"What the krak is it?" asked the other member whose name I never knew.

"I don'-"

I dropped from the branch above Caskill, finishing his sentence, and drove the stake through the top of his bald head. The wood sank deep into his brain with the force. Caskill looked shocked, became rigged as his eyes rolled, then spluttered blood from his nose and mouth as he too fell to the ground.

There was silence again.

"Caskell?" whimpered Rake.

There was no response. The two who remained alive were visibly terrified now. I smelt urine on the wind. The other man, not Rake, had pissed himself, and ran off screaming into the forest.

Rake jumped and fired his pistol close range into the ground. I heard the click-click of an empty clip. The man threw away the weapon and fell to his knees, clasping his hands together as if in prayer.

"Please," he said, "Don't kill me..."

I emerged like a stalking shadow from the undergrowth, lasgun in hand.

"I dispense the Emperor's Will," I said.

"Please... spare me."

I pulled the trigger. Gore splashed out from the back of his ruined head, and the body slumped to the ground. I stood there a moment, breathing, feeling the stimulant receding, leaving me nauseas. Smoke danced from the nozzle of the lasgun in my hand as I stared at the visible corpses. These were the first men I had killed, and were not to be my last.

On this day I felt more an Eversor than I had ever felt before.

12.

I tried to keep an accurate account of the passage of time by marking a piece of bark which I tore from a gnarled tree. On my thirty-first day in the wilderness, I decided to scale the wall. It was an ambitious choice but there was little for me to do. I had already hunted down a regular food source from the stream; the fish ranged from small ones that were sleek and silver scaled, to large ones bigger than my arm with fins like red fans. I ate eggs found in nests throughout the spider webbed canopy and killed what animals I could. Fruit was sparse, but there were some if one looked hard. The Ponch is a small green, juicy ball found on the Lyptus plant, and I filled my bag with as many as I could allow.

Climbing is an essential technique to any assassin, regardless of which Temple he trains within. Master Cobile drilled us almost daily into perfecting the art. Most walls, particularly stone ones, had small areas the hands and feet could find and use; little imperfections perfect for a trained killer. Strength and stamina are vital to a climber (especially without apparatus) and I had those qualities in abundance.

The wall that surrounding the forest was so tall, when I stared at it I looked straight up to the cloudy, blue sky. The fortification disappeared up there somewhere. The once monochromatic surface was now littered with pockmarks, weathered by storms since they were built millennia ago. Sections of the wall were stained with mildew. For the task I chose Spur once again. I needed strength and energy to commit to a successful climb.

I reached up and slid my fingers into separate holes, feeling the cold surface on my tips. Then I climbed like a spider, hands scanning the surface like antennas, searching for the next grip. My hands and legs did not feel strained until several hours into the climb. When I looked down, the forest below me appeared as a model, some map laid upon a giant table.

This was the furthest I had ever climbed at the time (I was to scale much greater fortresses in the future.) The training walls in the temple rose to a mile high, but now it looked more like two or three. I could see the streams glimmering like mirrors whenever the sun stroked the water, meandering through the trees like snakes, disappearing beneath the thick canopy then emerging from the foliage once more.

I eventually arrived at the apex as the sun set. Deep violets rimmed up close to the moon, which looked like a silver coin stuck in the sky. I struggled for breath and took the air deep into my lungs to slow my racing heart. My arms and legs screamed and throbbed with pain and exhaustion.

I sat on the wide top, chilly winds buffering against my glistening skin. All I could hear was the whip of the wind. I wiped sweat which christened my brow with a forearm and studied the land. I could see the mountain ranges in the distance, circling us like a natural barrier. The Citadel stood tall and proud, much higher than this wall. It was the size of a mountain. I could see flambeaux flickering on the bartizans lower than the wall. The Vindicare Temple stabbed at the night sky in the distance, lights twinkling like stars from a thousand windows along its length.

I peered over the opposite edge from the my Citadel and saw nothing but dense forest spanning towards the mountain slopes. I watched, breath relaxing, heart slowing to a calm beat. Then my head felt like it exploded and I clawed at my stubbly hair.

My sight was replaced by a memory; supposedly mine. We (the girl and I) were still crouched by the guard outpost, and I leant back from the hole and offered Amiee a look. She hesitated but shuffled her knees across the grass, and peered through. I crouched down and studied the chaotic scene through a smaller hole in the makeshift fence.

Hoarse shouts of men filled the outpost. NCOs cried out orders until they were red in the face, and stomped in front of lines of men wearing grey fatigues and carrying lasguns.

"What are they here for?" she asked.

"I don't know," I replied, "Something to do with the war I guess."

Then I felt a hand grab my shoulder and turn me around. I looked up at a group of four soldiers, each wearing grey fatigues carrying lasguns.

"Well-well," said a broad shouldered man with a greying goatee and a sergeant by his chevrons. "We got ourselves some spies, lads." A round of laughter echoed from the other men on patrol. One flicked his torch at the bottom of the lasgun barrel and pointed it at my face. The light bore into my eyes and stung me. I raised my arms to block the light as Amiee rose turned and screamed.

"What shall we do, Sarge?" asked one with pock-marked skin, the holes the size of golf balls.

"Spies are shot, aren't they, men," the sergeant said.

"Yes, Sarge." Came the reply, chorused.

"We're not spies!" I said, quickly.

The sergeant laughed, stroked his goatee with his free hand and leaned down towards me.

"And we're supposed to believe you. What do you think spies would say. Yes, you caught me red handed, 'sarr."

The man grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and dragged me right up to his face. I felt his breath on my cheeks and the stern look in his eyes.

"Maybe we ought to hang them instead. Got the rope?"

They laughed again. I noticed a ship pass overhead, its blue and white exhaust fumes burning lines across the swirling purple sky. The noise drowned out their laughter as it roared towards the void.

I was thrown aside and landed in a thorny bush that cut my face and arms. Blood began to run down my face and my struggles only made it worse. I became tangled, thrashing at the plant vines until they coiled, as though in defence, around my legs and forearms. Sharp points dug into my body, but I did not scream.

Amiee came to my aid as the soldiers moved on, casting us looks of merriment as they went. Why did they laugh at our torment? We were only children.

"Best get home, kids," I heard the sergeant mutter as he walked off, "before the exodus starts."

At that time I did not know what the word even meant.

13.

When my vision returned, I found I still stood upon the wall, muscles tensed. The transition from dream to reality hit me hard, and I recall feeling a touch of fear for the first time in many years. I fell to the ground, my torn simar shivering about me with the cold, driving wind that swept over the wall like an invisible wave.

When I finally found the will and strength to stand, I descended the wall, dawn light brightening the view. The sky slowly emerged as a gorgeous blue sheet, like a painted ceiling within a giant hall. Puffy white clouds drifted across the surface like other-worldly swimmers cutting through a vast ocean. I stopped and studied them. One, a dense body with wispy tendrils emerging from the top, looked like an Adept; the tendrils shivering tubes cresting a bald head. The clouds all took on the appearance of faces that quickly turned into a horror show of twisted expressions; gaping holes for eyes and screaming mouths. The shadow that draped over my mind stretched to the very corners of my brain, preventing reason and replacing it with animal instinct. Was this the madness Brother Talos had spoken of?

I arrived on the ground as the daylight faded and listened to the chirping of birds from the quivering canopies, and the splash of water as an animal entered a stream.

Then I saw it. I didn't know who it was at the time, but I saw a figure studying me from the darkness. At first I believed it to be nothing but a shadow my mind turned to a stalking predator, but as I moved through the foliage, back towards my burrow, I noticed it followed me.

The stalker was good, almost as good as me, but the gentle crack of a twig and the slight shake of the thickets betrayed its presence.

I arrived home and the stalker had still not attacked. What test was this? What had the masters of the Guild devised next? The truth, I would find, was appalling.

I stopped and studied my home. The hole entrance was wide enough for me to crawl into and was currently covered by a dark green bush I had pulled from the ground in an attempt to cover my home whilst I was away. I rolled it aside, leaves rustling, and slid into the den.

Sometimes, as I lay awake, back upon a bed of grass, I can still smell it, the heady mixture of earthen scents, and feel the grainy hard mud and protruding roots as I brushed the walls.

I peered out to the forest, one hand wrapped firmly around my recently acquired lasgun. I listened to the wind meander through the trunks. Leaves began to flutter to the ground like butterflies.

I emerged from the hole. Whatever was out there could use the wind to mask its movements. I did not want it to gain another advantage. The wind felt cool against my skin, and I studied the thickets and trees with quick eyes.

There was the glint of silver as moonlight bathed a weapon between the thickets to my right. I heard the faint ring of a blade leaving a scabbard. Then my stalker attacked with a scream that rang with rage.

I didn't have time to inject myself with combat stimulants, the figure was upon me. I rolled, barely missing the arching sword, then lashed out at a shin with the heel of my bare foot. I felt the impact vibrate through my muscles and quickly rose to my feet as the figure fell back.

He was about my size, a little broader, a little chubbier perhaps. I could see no face, only mad eyes raging from beneath a black mask. He did not stay on his back for long, and jumped to his feet.

The sword came into view once more, no longer in his grasp, but on the ground. I had lost my lasgun in the roll to avoid the sword. We both dived for the blade. I lashed out with a solid punch that broke the figure's nose. I heard a scream of pain, then felt a sharp blow as the figure returned a rib-cracking jab. The wind escaped from my lungs, but I held onto his other hand. For a moment we rolled, kicking and punching. One moment I was on top, raining blows into the stalker's skull, the next, on my back, defending from his own storm of thrusting fists.

We rolled away from the sword, then back again, until I could see its silver glint from the corner of my eye. I was on top and felt my opponent weaken. His punches and kicks became messy. I delivered a stinging head-butt that crunched the stalker's face into the ground.

He stopped kicking and punching and moaned weakly. I rose from his prone body, scooped the blade into my right hand, and thrust in through rib and into lung. There was a pained scream. The stalker grasped at the sword blade to hoist it free, but I kept it firmly in place, and twisted it maliciously. The stalker cut his own hands on the blade, then his struggles lessened.

I let go of the handle, and studied the downed figure. Stooping, I removed the mask. The face still haunts me today.

"Stone... is t-that you?"

"Mathers," I whispered, falling to my knees.

"It's dark, Stone," said Mathers, feebly. "I can't see you."

He coughed up blood, and I held his bleeding hands.

"I'm sorry, Mathers," I said, but he was already dead.

A snarling beast woke me, growling from the entrance of my hole, nozzle submerged, hovering but a foot above my feet. Snapping jaws and dripping saliva was my wakeup call.

"Out," I heard a voice say. There was something distantly familiar about it. "Did you not hear me? Out now or I'll let slack the binds of the Wolfgar."

The Wolfgar was a grey, shaggy furred animal, and clawed at the entrance to my home with its heavy, wide paws. Then it was tugged away to reveal daylight, which did not sting my eyes. They could adjust in an instant after the improvements in the tank.

I slowly emerged from the hole. Master Cobile, Brother Talos and Adept Tyse stood there. Two other men wearing black simars carried the dead body of Mathers upon a white canvassed stretcher.

"You have passed the Baptism. You may return to the keep in preparation for the ceremony." He spun on his heels and stomped off, motioning the corpse-bearers to follow behind. Tyse offered me a smile, looking ghostly pale in daylight, before turning his back and following Master Cobile.

I stared up at Brother Talos. He offered out his hand. I did not take it, ignoring the gesture, and rose from the hole.

"Why did you not leave when you had the chance?" he asked.

"What do you mean," I replied.

"I saw you on the wall. You could have escaped, could have lived another life."

"War is all there is, Brother," I replied, aware now that I was of equal rank to him. "This is my life."

Brother Talos nodded.

"You do not think there are other lives to have?"

"What is this about?" I said sternly. Brother Talos clasped his hands together.

"Come, I will show you to your new quarters."

I chose not to follow up on his bizarre questions, and instead, nodded then followed Brother Talos back towards the Citadel.

14.

Brother Talos stepped aside from a single oak door and gestured towards the black iron handle. My hand clasped the cold metal and I opened the door. It squeaked at the hinges. The room was small, like a penal cell, with a single bed with a white pillow and black blanket, a single desk with a stool, a candle sat upon the surface and a desk of drawers by the bed. There was a window at head height which revealed the blue sky.

"At least you won't have to contend with any more snoring. I will wake you early. Get some rest, you have a lot to do."

I nodded and entered my new room.

Upon further investigation, I recovered a single spare simar folded neatly, and a candle with a white dish mount from the drawers. I had no real idea of what was to occur during the ceremony. We had not been taught anything on this prior to being unleashed with combat stimulants into a dangerous habitat.

I sat back on the bed and considered the friend I had lost. It was a bizarre, brief feeling, trying to sort out emotion from the Officio Assassinorums programming. I did feel something, a hole widening for emotion to drain into and vanish. I knew I should have felt something for the friend I had lost. We had been friends for years. Mathers was responsible for the extra food we, as a group, used to consume. I guess it was a form of rebelling, that act of stuffing small lumps of bread or cheese, or the rare protein meals such as ham, into foil wraps under our pillow. We were always told what to do, that discipline was key to life. We had lived together like brothers and now that bond was broken. By my own bloodied hands. That sensation in itself did not trouble me. I was on the way up in the Guild, a proper Eversor in training. Within a few years, I would forgot all I ever knew of Mathers for a long time.

I removed my grubby simar then left the room. I followed a broad passage that gently sloped towards a stone arch that led into the baths. They were black iron bowls with squat legs shaped as eagle claws. They lined a stone floor by a broad wall which dripped with moisture.

One figure was already in a bath and I watched steam rise from the water and his body in tongues of white mist.

Another was already set up (Brother Talos, no doubt) and I quickly dis-robed and gingerly tested the water with my hand. It was warm, not boiling. Satisfied, I sank into the water with a splash and let the liquid refresh me.

I waited outside the doors, Brother Talos at my left, Adept Tyse my right. They stood completely immobile, silent as statues. I thought of what lay behind the giant oak barriers that veiled the future. Was there some horrible truth they weren't telling me? Perhaps I had failed? Maybe killing Mathers was a mistake – seen as some act against the Temple itself. For a brief moment, the distant – but oddly familiar sense of fear gripped me. Then the doors opened inwards and I was to find out.

The first thing to strike me was the smell. It drifted out from the doors in clouds of grey, wispy smoke, and smelt exotic, warm, relaxing and sensuous. The scent of the finest sandalwood, saffron, aloeswood, musk seed, cassia, cloves, benzoin, and rose petals.

The lights were dim, burning in iron mounts on the eight columns that circled the room, and upon braziers on the stone floor. They cast flickering light and tall shadows across the walls and floor.

There were several robed figures standing, each face covered by the hood of his dark robe.

"Enter," said the deep voice of the central figure. He stood upon a dais of white marble and carried a human skull-headed staff, butt on the floor. As I did as I was bade, I took note of the figures standing at the walls; dark silhouettes holding thin incense candles. Orange cherries burnt in the inky shadows.

Then I noticed the light above, and the tiered stone seats that revealed the room below (where I now stood) to an audience of silent, simar wearing brothers. I was guided before the speaker, who revealed his face. It was Grand Master Haledon. A stern look spread across his pale face, while the tubes over his left temple pulsated like flinching limbs.

"Today is a good day," began Haledon in ancient Gothic. I understood him as perfectly as though he spoke the modern dialect. "A young apprentice becomes a journeyman." A series of words began to chant from the incense bearers mouths, creating a whirring baritone that filled the chamber.

Master Haledon looked me directly in the eyes, mouthing the words in time and perfect rhythm with the acolytes spread out around the thick stone pillars. I looked up at the face, then at the four figures, two on either side of the Grand Master's outstretched arms. They lowered their hoods. One was Master Coblie, one Master Gale, dressed in deep red simars. The other two were Master Jazedon and Master Corikk, two masters I will tell you of in time. They each stood chanting at a higher pace than the outer ring of brothers.

I felt a pinch and turned to my left. Brother Talos held a needle in his steady hand. My head began to swim, and Talos and Tyse took hold of my shivering form. Their grips kept me upright, and I was held as though a length of wood in a vice. My head began to cloud as I witnessed the birth of the Eversor Temple. It was an incredible experience, a rush like none other I have felt since.

The history opened up like pages of a book, misty with time. I watched as an unnamed figure stalked the enemy of the Emperor, body sheathed in dark dull armour. He moved with skill up a steep mountain that stretched towards the very heavens. Wind and rain struck his passing figure as he clung to that surface, sword strapped to his back with a dark scabbard.

I did not know how I knew this was the start, but I felt correct in my judgement. The assassin reached the top, his hands bloodied from the terrible, jutting rock that ran the length of the mountain like the barbarous spines of a rose bush. Upon the plateau were an assortment of heretics garbed in gore covered robes. There were screaming babies tied to stakes and slabs of rock at their feet. The sky was the colour of crimson, along with dark purple clouds that rolled like wheels across the heavens. Yellow lightning flashed in zigzagging lines across the red, slashing chasms in the clouds. The assassin attacked with a fury and scream. How could I hear him and see so clearly? All this was just a vision brought on by the drugs.

When I looked around, I felt the iron grips of Tyse and Talos, but could not see them. Beads of sweat began to cake my forehead, and rivulets formed and flowed down my cheeks.

Then, just as the death took place in the vision, my mind began to clear, and I could see the statuesque figures of the Masters before me. They had stopped chanting. The cackle of the flambeaux was the only noise other than my own ragged breaths.

I heard the patter of footsteps. A broad figure carried a bundle hidden by a black cloak. He passed this heavy object into the hands of Mater Haledon, who then stepped closer to me. He took a corner of the cloth, and revealed the Neuro-Gauntlet. Orange light bathed the dark surface of the powerful weapon. I could see the bone gilding that ran across the weapon, and a sharp talon fingertip.

"You, Apprentice of Talos, Apprentice of the Eversor Temple, are bound now by its rules. There is only one road left you now, that of life and death of an Eversor." More chanting began to slowly pick up in the room - the word adeptio repeated again and again. "Hold out your hands and accept the Emperor's gift, the Eversor's gift."

I did as I was told. The weight of the package surprised me, but I kept a hold of it, drawing it close to my chest.

"From this dayeth forth, you shall be known as Metuo." It means fear, dread and fright. Apt names for what I was to become. "Metuo of the Eversors."

15.

I sat upon my bed with the bundle in my lap and slowly peeled back the brown cloth. The single candle lit the room poorly, but my eyes were keen as anything naturally brought up in the dark. The weapon was a weighty piece of kit, but I liked the feel of it, and the look. The Neuro-Gauntlet is a cruel piece of engineering designed along the lines of snake fangs to ensure the maximum effective delivery of the toxins and acids contained in the vials connected to the weapon. It consists of an exo-skeleton hyper-alloy glove, with neuro-toxin injectors fitted into the fingers. The lethal toxins mean that enemies die in an excruciatingly painful and violent manner. I can only imagine what my victims in the future went through when I sank the 'fangs' into their bodies.

I had now finished the first ceremony and did not know, with much certainty, what lay ahead. I did not know that the next ceremony would be bloody – that it was the real ceremony. Only when I had achieved the status for that would I truly be considered – by my peers – an Eversor ready for the field.

The drug they had pumped into my bloodstream during the first ceremony was an ancient cocktail containing the genetic print of the original Eversor. I still do not know his name, or where he came from, or what happened, though I could hazard a guess and say he was an orphan, taken by the Emperor's men and turned into a killer. I imagine him to have been successful, and that he took many lives before his own inevitable death took place.

I carefully handled the device, turning it over in my hands to explore it in its entirety. It was incomplete as I had not been provided any vials of the lethal toxins, though I was to receive that training soon.

Then I was attacked by my dark past, once again.

The thunder woke me, but as I stirred from my bed, stretching sleep away like some majestic cat, I noticed it was bright outside. I rolled from the mattress, landing on the soft tartan rug that spread out from beneath to the very corners of the room.

When I reached the window, I saw no clouds in the sky, nor in the distance by the mountainous peaks. The thunder screams came from shells as the projectiles whizzed across the blue ocean above. Thin, wispy lines of black trailed these devices, and I watched them strike our city with menacing rumbles and explosions. Orange mushroom clouds rose to the heavens, forming giant twirling columns above the thatched roof homes that spread before my window.

I heard a bang at my door and my father rushed into the room. He was a tall and well-built man, with fair shoulder-length hair matched by a short bristling beard. His face was grim, and he snatched me by the arm.

"Come quickly, we are leaving," he said. His voice wasn't calm, even though he tried to be.

"What is happening, father?"

"The rebels are attacking us," said my father, as he pulled me out of the room and into the corridor. "The Guard are evacuating us." I heard the rumble of a dozen explosions outside, along with the staccato of gunfire.

We reached our broad, spacious living room where my mother and two older sisters - I remember nothing of them before this 'dream' - waited by the dining table. Pans still steamed and boiled in the kitchen where my mother and sisters had been preparing breakfast.

There were five other men in the room, armed with lasguns, wearing flak armour plates over grey fatigues and dark green bowl-shaped helmets. They were soldiers of the Emperor.

"Quickly now!" shouted one. He was a rough looking man with fresh stubble coating his cheeks and chin like grey grass.

"Where will you take us?" asked my father.

"No time for that now, we must get you to the evac point before a world of thuck lands on our heads."

"You're not fighting for our homes?" my father asked. The soldiers cast each other uneasy glances.

"No," said the stubbly man. "Hatchook is not vital, you should consider yourselves lucky the general even suggested moving you people out."

They burst forwards, grabbing my mother and sisters, then we all moved as one group out through our small hallway, past familiar family items such as bowls and urns passed down through the millennia. My heart beat like a drum and I thought it would burst free of my chest.

As we moved, I brushed against my father's waist, parting his loose shirt and felt the holster of his laspistol. He was armed and prepared to use it, which did not lessen my anxiety.

As soon as we were outside we were herded along with hundreds of other civilians towards the southern fields. I noticed the craft coming into land vertically, exhausts whirring with golden light – like small suns – until they hit the ground.

Fire seemed to spread much to the north, east and west of the city. I watched the tongues of flame set other dwellings afire. Screaming and sobbing assaulted my ears as the scared, upset citizens of my home city were shepherded to safety by equally scary armed men.

The guardsmen were not all alike. Some seemed just as scared as we were, others tried to comfort us as we continued towards the transports. Some took delight in our panic, and I noticed one man, scarred with burns across his cheeks, laugh at us, pointing.

"Look at 'em run," he said aloud, "the cowards. Don't worry, I'll steal everything you own!"

The crowd swept along like a fast river, and we each held hands tightly, fearful of becoming separated. I kept my eyes open for Amiee, but could not see her. Was she safe? I hoped so. Then the inevitable happened. One of my sisters, I don't know which - I cannot even recall their names - screamed out. I remember seeing her, eyes wide and fearful, dragged back, right hand stretching for my father's. My father could not turn and force his way through the multitude of bodies.

"Daughter!" he shouted. I watched her disappear.

By the time we reached the transports, total panic had set in. The soldiers could not contain us, and fired a volley of blue above our heads. Arbites were here, riot shields and batons ready to use on us.

They forced us back with their shields. My father dragged me closer to him.

"Order, order I say. We must have order!" I heard someone shouting through a vox, his tinny voice picked up on a multitude of speakers temporally fixed to black posts across the field.

I watched as they rushed civilians onto ramps, and into the dark holds of the ships. Dozens took off at a time, streaking exhaust fumes splitting the heavens as they rose.

"You, forward!" shouted an Arbite officer. The man wore a white, transverse crested helm, the red hair blowing in the breeze. He pointed to my father and the shield barrier fell back to allow our side through. About fifty of us managed to squeeze past before the Arbitres closed ranks.

We paced forwards, then began to slow as we reached the rear of a carrier, its shining metal ramp embedded in the emerald ground.

"Incoming!" I heard someone shout.

Then the world exploded as a deadly barrage rained down upon us, bursting ships open in bright flashes. I was hurled from my feet and my world darkened as I slipped unconscious to the earth.

16.

Rap-rap-rap, went my fist on the door. I knocked quietly, fearful of waking anyone else along the corridor. My ears picked up a shuffling sound from behind the wooden barrier, then the door moved backwards.

"What is it, Brother?" asked Talos. He was wearing nothing but a white loin cloth, the rest of his pale, thin body revealed in flickering amber light. Shadows were cast across his features, shading the angular shape of his head and rimming his eyes with darkness.

"I am sorry to disturb you at such an hour," I said.

There was a framed picture of a farm that hung above the bed; a personal item that was dear to Brother Talos, but forbidden by Eversor decree. I said nothing, it was not my place to, being new, and assumed he was allowed to have it.

"Nonsense, I was up reading anyhow," said Talos. The dancing candle flame by his bedside revealed an open tome.

"I must talk with you, Brother," I said, quickly.
"About what?"

I peered uneasily along the corridor, first left, then right. All I heard was Brother Talos' breaths.

"Come inside," said Brother Talos. He gestured to me with a wave of his arm. I hesitated, but moved inside. Brother Talos closed the door and studied me with a raised eyebrow. "Now, young Metuo, what is on your mind?"

I did not know where to begin and silence ensued for a moment, before Brother Talos placed his hand on my shoulder and drew up his stool.

"Sit, Brother, perhaps that will aid your thoughts?"

I nodded and sat. Brother Talos sat opposite me, on the side of his bed and continued to study me with a bemused expression.

"I do not know much of my past," I said. Brother Talos nodded his understanding. "But lately I have been dreaming, both asleep and awake about my past."

"Asleep and awake? What do you mean?"

I closed my eyes and tried to find the words.

"I mean I receive visions when I am awake and when I sleep."

"Are these visions more fluent than dreams?" asked Talos.

"Yes," I said, certain they were more than just jumbled dreams.

"They follow a pattern, a chronological telling of your past?"

I sucked in breath, turned and watched the candle flicker.

"Yes. I am young. I feel these things as though they were yesterday."

Brother Talos nodded then stood. He walked slowly to the chest by his bed and drew a drawer out silently. He took a clean simar and slid into it quickly.

"Come," he said, "there is something I must show you, something you must know about yourself."

"What is it?" I asked.

"I cannot show you here, but follow me."

I did as I was told. Perhaps Talos knew about my past, had something hidden away about me that could reveal more about these disturbing visions?

We moved into the corridor and out towards the Journeyman Quarters exit. The large double doors were always closed at night. Brother Talos slid the bolt with the skill of an assassin, and pushed on through into the wide circular staircase.

Flambeaux light danced across the broad steps and monochromatic walls. Our own shadows lengthened to thin slits and struck the wall, following us up like stalkers. When we came to windows, I stared out at a violet and pitch sky glimmering with a thousand stars.

"Where are we going?" I asked. My voice carried loudly, and echoed up and down the stairwell. Brother Talos stopped dead and placed his finger to his lips.

"Be silent, Brother. I am taking you to the Spire." We kept our steps quiet and I had a strange suspicion that what Brother Talos wanted to show me, others did not want me to know, why else hide it in the Spire?

I had only heard of it through whispers, but the Spire was the resting ground of the long dead Eversor greats; a cemetery of history locked in a room with a glass dome. This was a place where those that did not die in the field were placed to rest.

Each and every time Brother Talos heard footsteps or chatter, we would slide into the shadows and wait until Talos was certain we had gone unnoticed. We ducked behind a deep, purple fluttering curtain by a thick column and stared out at a number of Adepts marching across a polished wooden floor, their footsteps squeaking on the surface. They had finished prayers to the Emperor and were no doubt moving off to sleep.

Brother Talos moved with such skill I forgot the man had been more than just a text-book teacher, and rushed silently from the pillar to a set of double doors by a tall burning torch. The flambeaux lit up the ancient, warped wooden doors, and the brass gilding.

We had travelled for many hours. The further we ascended the Citadel, the more I thought about what lay ahead. Would I find out something that would ruin my position as an Eversor? I dearly hoped not. It was all I had in life.

Brother Talos worked on the lock and smiled with satisfaction as he opened the door.

"Still got it," I heard him whisper.

The open doors revealed a breezy walkway that stretched from the main Spire out north-east, towards a glass-domed tower. The crenelated work of the bridge was adorned with gargoyles. Some were winged creatures who clawed at the stone with taloned hands and feet, and stretched their dagger-sharp wings.

The stone was damp with the moisture from a recent rain. I could see the black squall line sweeping westwards towards the distant mountains, and could still feel the driving wind that forced the black clouds away.

The entrance archway to the Spire was a work of art. Figures wearing skeletal masks in various positions worked their way up the length of the great black door. I thought one turned its head, but it was nothing more than stone and shadows that created the illusion.

"I do not think anyone has been here for a fair few years," said Talos as he turned an ancient key in the lock. Brother Talos pushed the door inwards, and motioned for me to enter. I did so, stepping past him as Talos shut the door with a gentle thud. The Spire was a wide circular room washed with silver moonlight that filtered in through the mildew covered dome.

The outer ring of the room was made of stone tiles that led towards an overgrown lawn. The tall forest of grass and plants appeared to be taking over, the age-old nature beating the architecture of man. Huge stone tombs scattered the room without an ordered pattern. I heard the click and soft roar of a torch being lit, and Brother Talos placed his hand on my shoulder.

"Follow me," he said.

I followed Brother Talos' soft tread across the grass, feeling the crunching blades beneath my sandalled feet.

It was not long before we stopped at a tall statue of an Eversor, the stone marked by age, split and cracked across the muscled chest and legs. The figure held a raised sword in triumph, and bore a severed head in its other hand, taloned fingers wrapped around a length of hair. The statue stood upon a pedestal submerged in an emerald forest.

Brother Talos passed me the torch, stooped to a knee, and pushed back the blades of grass that covered the inscription.

"Here, Metuo, is your past," said Talos, as he held the grass aside for me to look upon the italic inscription across the stone.

It read Metuo. Metuo of the Eversors.

"What is this?" I asked.

"This man is your father," said Talos. "This man is you."

I looked up at the face hidden by the skeletal mask and at the cold, lifeless eyes.

"I do not understand," I said.

Brother Talos placed a compassionate hand on my shoulder.

"You were not born like the majority of men in this world, Metuo. You were an experiment, born in a tube, growth accelerated through manipulation."

"You lie," I said.

"Do I?" said Brother Talos. "I never lie, Metuo. This is the truth for I was there in your conception."

"My conception," I returned.

"The genetic material was taken from this man," said Talos, gesturing the statue, "the greatest Eversor of his age and used only recently to produce you."

"But I have memories," I said.

"They are not yours, Metuo, but his," replied Talos. "These memories you speak of are his."

"But I remember being brought here on a rickety cart, I can recall the first sight of the Citadel quite clearly!"

"Again, Metuo, you have never left the walls of the Citadel. I wish I could show you more proof, but what I would present you is no longer in my possession, or in reach. My access to areas of the Temple is no longer as broad and extensive as it once was. Long before you were born, I was a Master of this Guild, but my methods were considered too unorthodox for my position. Duty demanded my removal from the Council of Masters, and so I fell, ever more, into obscurity. I do not know why they assigned me as your teacher, Metuo. But I do know this. The Officio Assassinorium is a place that is delicately balanced between good and evil. You tread upon a precipice, young Metuo, no longer the master of your will. Remember what I have taught you and perhaps that might save you from the madness."

"I do not believe you," I said, though I did not believe my own words.

The voice became distorted, and Major Beautrum picked up the Dictaphone. He blew centuries of dust from its chrome surface, and peered at the black stone that lay on the ground in the grasp of the skeleton. The stone looked unremarkable, but he could feel its power. A blue glowing mote pierced the gloom of the cave like ethereal light. Then the voice spoke again.

I threw the torch to the ground, scattering amber embers across the grass and statue.

"Why did you tell me this?" I shouted, my locked up emotions finding an outlet the programming had yet to remove completely.

"Good, Metuo, you are angry. You still feel like a human, though the best efforts have been made to ensure this does not happen. Hold it in your heart for as long as you can, Metuo, for the route you follow will be a descent into madness."

He left me there, alone, kneeling before the statue. The flames of the torch began to burn the grass, and a thick cloud of smoke rose to the dome ceiling. The flickering inferno bathed the statue orange. I looked up at the face of Metuo, the face of my father, the face of myself.

17.

"Would you like me to say how I think the fire started?" said Grand Master Haledon. He was furious, but kept his anger in check, revealed only through his stern, burning stare. Spittle crusted his chapped lips, and he ran a hand across them. He stood from his desk, cold blue eyes unwavering as he glared at me.

"The torch you carried and threw into the grass," said Haledon. He knew. Spies were rife in the Citadel. Despite Brother Talos' best efforts, and my own, someone had seen us enter the Spire.

"It is my fault, Brother Talos did not start the flames," I said.

"I know you are the cause of it, Brother Metuo, but the fire is not my concern. It caused no lasting damage. What does concern me is what you were doing there. I do not hold you accountable. Brother Talos is to blame and will be punished severely for this rebellious act. The Spire is not a place for journeymen." Lightning flashed outside the silver gilded windows. I heard rain patter like drumming fingers against the glass.

"Brother Talos told me of my past," I said. I did not want him punished for helping with the visions that plagued me. "Is there reason to punish him?"

"Your past does not matter, only the future. Soon your training will continue. Three days time the Adepts will insert a sentinel array into your skull. You must concentrate on today, Metuo. Your past is inconsequential. There is nothing for you there. Now go, and send Brother Talos in."

I bowed and turned, sensing the Grand Master's eyes still on me. I moved swiftly across the floor and out into the corridor, where Brother Talos sat straight-backed upon the pew that lined the left wall. His hood was down, revealing his bald head. He looked up and nodded.

"The Grand Master wishes to see you now," I told him.

"Does he indeed," replied Talos. He stood up, flattened some deep creases that marked the front of his simar, and headed towards the door. I watched him close the doors to Haledon's room with an echoing thud.

Later, I would find out that Brother Talos had been lashed, his back torn open by the barbed eight-thronged whip I would sometimes see hanging from Haledon's waist. Brother Talos did not return to his quarters for the next four months, and was locked in solitary during that period after recovering from the wounds in the infirmary.

The sentinel array is a pack no bigger than a thumbnail that is inserted into the cranium via a torturous operation performed by wicked adepts. It contains motion trackers and target acquisition systems, allowing the Eversor Assassin to sense enemy troop movements from all sides. A very handy tool indeed.

"Lie still," I heard the Adept tell me, as I lay upon the cot, head resting on a white pillow. Powerful white light shone at my eyes, and turned my vision into one marked by coloured blobs. I felt the cold metal of my bounds upon my wrists and ankles, then felt one slowly slide over my brow.

The Adept turned away from me, and I discerned six other pairs of feet moving about the room. I could hear soft breaths and smell the sweat on the Adepts bodies.

"This will hurt," said one. He spoke from out of my field of vision, but I knew he was close. The whir of a drill rang loudly in the room, then I felt it enter my skull. I grimaced, clenched my teeth, and felt them shiver with vibration from the drill. My blood began to coat the white cloaks of the Adepts. A hand carrying a bloodied cloth used to stem the flow passed over my head, and dripped a single crimson bead onto my cheek.

I entered into the cold room, footsteps ringing upon the metal grating floor. I could see the bowels of the tower through the grates; hissing pipes pouring grey mist into the air, rising up into the room as choking clouds of vapour. Blue bulbs cast eerie cones of light onto the walls.

I read the details with my own vision, then the green laser grid display I could now access with a simple thought. It split the room into dark green objects; mesh patterns flashing out over walls, floors and ceilings.

Then I saw it – a red blip shimmering amidst the emerald world – stooped low, a long las in its hand. The target was a threat, information discerned by the computer device that streamed out details I had only just been taught how to read. The lasgun was an Aldus pattern weapon, produced by a Forgeworld a hundred-thousand light years away. I moved forward with the speed of the fastest wild cat.

The figure shuffled and poked his head out from behind the metal wall. He couldn't see me. I was already scaling the far wall, slithering between the coiled pipes that ran the length of the passageways.

A hiss of pressurised air filled the chamber, and a white cloud erupted by the man's shoulders. He backed slowly away, right into my blade. I held it across his throat, then the spotlights flashed on.

"Well done, Metuo," I heard Master Cobile announce from the viewing gallery above. "You found all twelve. Please release the Adept before you slit his throat." I took the knife away and relinquished the Adept, who collapsed at my feet gasping for breath.

18.

Brother Talos was weak when I next saw him. He was gaunt and frail from the regular beatings he took whilst in solitary, his eyes rimmed with black. One stormy evening, when the rain thundered against my window and the sky flashed with lightning, I was disturbed by Brother Talos. I did not even hear him enter my room.

"Metuo," he said. I did not know what to say, I stared at him, dumbfounded. I considered myself a master at stealthy activities. With the addition of the sentinel array, I should have seen him coming. "You look surprised to see me, boy," he said, as he dragged his tired feet over to my bed. He gathered his dirty, tattered simar with white vein covered hands and sat on the stool. I pushed myself from my bed and watched Talos cringe as he tried to find comfort on the wooden stool.

"You look well," said Talos. "I hear you've been 'chipped'." I did not know what he meant, and judging from Talos' bemused smile he guessed I didn't. "I'm referring to the sentinel array."

"Yes," I said.

"I had mine removed," said Talos. "A very long time ago."

"Why are you here, Brother?"

Brother Talos nodded, folded his arms and cast me a smile.

"I've come to tell you I've been banished."

"For what crime?" I asked, though I already knew.

The following day I was selected as one of the party to escort Brother Talos from the Citadel and to the curtain wall. I had never been involved in anything like this before but was instructed by Brother Neandle on what was expected of me. Brother Talos said nothing as I approached, nor I to him. My face was covered by a grim white mask. Talos was already flanked by tall figures dressed in black simars, the same white face-masks obscuring their identity. They carried tall ebony halberds as dark as the depths of space.

Then came the footsteps. Faint purposeful strides growing louder and louder as Grand Master Haledon entered from an adjoining passage. He wore no mask save his usual grim façade.

Grand Master Haledon and brother Talos locked eyes, then, in one swift movement, Haledon reached out and pulled Talos' simar from him. Brother Talos remained stoic.

"Strip him," said Haledon. I moved and Talos met my eyes. I was certain he knew it was me. I drew a curved, serrated blade and removed Brother Talos' loincloth with a single cut. He now stood naked. It did not have the effect Grand Master Haledon wished. Brother Talos' expression did not change. He felt no shame. Instead, as I recall this moment now I may even believe that somehow Talos had shamed all of us, Haledon most of all.

"Begone," spoke Haledon, his words booming loud.

I fell in line as Talos was thrust forward by the halberd-bearing men and followed the procession through the Citadel's interior, a heavy stomp ringing up and down the vast length of tunnels and passageways that were the veins of the structure.

We arrived to the great doors, which folded backwards. A gust of cold, fresh air swept into the broad arched hallway, and I could see Talos' hair rise.

The sky was cast in grey as a mass of clouds blocked out the sun. A light drizzle pattered the stone path that led towards the curtain wall gate. Small pools had formed where the stone had worn away and rippled with every droplet.

The wind whipped the spiky shrubs that flanked the ancient pathway, while tall trees shivered, raining moist broken leaves onto the procession. One wet leaf twirled like a dervish and stuck to Talos' cheek. He peeled it off and tossed it aside into a puddle.

The wind seemed to whisper – some ghostly foreign tongue – as it swept across our bodies.

Then we stopped at the curtain gate. It was tall and broad, made from ancient lichen covered oak. The flanking crenelated towers sported weathered bronze domes. Elongated windows glowed orange, and cast dancing shadows onto the tall trees.

The Gate Captain wore a water-proof jacket and carried a slick wet lasgun in his meaty hands.

"Open the gate," demanded Haledon. The Gate Captain did not hesitate, he slipped inside the arched entrance, and in moments the gates began to creak backwards.

The rocky valley path had turned to wet mud.

"We cast you whence you came," shouted Haledon, his voice like the coming storm boiling in the heavens. Talos was pushed out from the compound naked, bruised and dirty. He slipped on the wet earth outside but managed to stand composed. He turned around and smiled. He was smiling at me.

Major Beautrum shook the ancient device that had spoken to him. There was something wrong with it, something he had noticed during listening to the voice of the assassin. The machine wasn't on. It wasn't, in anyway, speaking to him. Major Beautrum turned his attention back to the corpse and stared at the stone ball the skeleton clasped in both hands. It was the size of an apple, he thought, but it was more than nourishment. It had spoken to him. As mad as that did sound, being a man whom had based his life around science and fact, but he had never been so sure of anything in his life. The rock had whispered to him. Now it had stopped.

He prized the brittle bone fingers away, disturbing centuries of dust and took the object into his own solid grasp. He lifted it to eye level and watched it begin to glow, like some magic crystal ball. A yellow light illuminated the cavern in unearthly splendour.

"Major. The enemy have been driven further north, to the mountains."

Major Beautrum quickly pocketed the ball into his stormcoat, and turned to meet his sergeant's eyes.

"Good good. There's no reason to stay here any longer. Time to harass the foe further."

"Who's that, sir?"

"Just bones," said Major Beautrum. "Dust and bones." He cast the skeletal figure one last look, then stomped out of the cave, back out into the bright sunshine.

BOOK TWO

Blood of the Innocent and the Guilty

1.

The pod shook as it broke into the planet's atmosphere, twirling like a bullet as it crashed through the clouds. I was crouched into a ball, the synskin suit tight about my muscled form. The impact jarred my head against the cold hull but I didn't feel the blow thanks to the stimulants. Drugs were pumped into my system much of the time, my veins conduits for a dozen toxins altering my physical and mental states. I can say with much certainty that my humanity had faded. Without the tuition and companionship of Brother Talos to remind me of the qualities I had once possessed, I became a machine, a weapon to be used by my masters.

My eyes were transfixed on the small monitor set into the front of the drop pod. The camera recorded the world as I descended, presenting panoramic views of oceans and mountains. Then the red light bathed the room crimson, alerting me the pod was about to strike land.

The impact was loud and hard and I could feel the vibration running through my body. The pod slid across the ground, metal ringing like a buckling ship. Then it stopped.

I unbuckled myself and retrieved my executioner pistol from the storage locker, along with my sword. It was a dark weapon, the blade as black as night, with a skull fashioned across the guard and hilt.

Then I moved to the exit hatch located above me, pushing it open to reveal a starry night sky. I had landed in the forest. The broken canopy where the pod pierced through still shook. A deep trail of churned earth and grass followed a line directly to the pod.

The data streaming across my right eye revealed I was close to my target. I had landed six miles north of the killing zone. This was to be the first of many missions.

I quickly melted into the shadows of the forest, towards my goal.

The large stone structure was made up of two parts. The main tower was squat, built from crumbling grey stones the size of my torso and flanked by weathered facade towers. It had large elongated windows that glowed amber in the darkness. I could see moths bouncing against the stained glass. The adjoining building was longer and broader, with only a ground floor and had a slate-tiled roof. The arched door was shut. The moonlight seemed to highlight all of this in ghostly splendour.

If I appreciated architecture, I would have noted the prime location. It sat on a plateau surrounded by forest. A perfect secluded spot for assassination. The men here had been causing trouble in the towns that lay outside the wood. Spreading the word that the Emperor was evil. What a lie these foul men were spreading! It was not to be tolerated.

I could see moving figures carrying candles along the length of the long tile-roofed building and rushed to the arched door. I tested the iron handle. The door wasn't locked. Eversor assassins can be as stealthy as any of the schools, but perhaps more savage too. I pushed the door open, revealing an arched narthex and a long hall. There were bookshelves running the length of the walls, while small round tables and pews with delicate finials of exotic flowers made up the furniture.

Four men looked up from their books and scrolls, reading with the light of dripping, flickering candles. One stood up and tried to talk.

"Who are y-."

I launched myself forward, slicing his head from his body with a single clean strike. The head rolled from his right shoulder, eyes wide with horror, mouth still moving as it fell to the ground. A jet of blood washed the wall and floor. The body remained upright for a moment, then the knees buckled and it fell. By this time I had already killed the other three with just my sword, knocking a candle onto the floor in the process. The candle flame licked away at the rug on the floor, but I stamped on it and left it smouldering but no longer aflame. If I were to get out of this place, I did not want to have to move through a fiery inferno

I moved towards a door flanked by chipped marble statues. They were busts of long dead women who seemed to stare at me with dead eyes.

I pushed the door open, which creaked as it folded backwards. Inside the circular room sat a black robed figure hunched over a book. Tall iron braziers heated the room and provided reading light.

"So, you have come at last," said the robed figure. "I wondered how long it would be till the Officio Assassinorum would take an interest in my work."

The figure dropped back his hood as he stood. The face was aged more than the last time I had seen it. The man was Brother Talos.

2.

What twist of fate had led to this unlikely reunion? An obscure planet light-years from the Citadel where last I'd seen him. Brother Talos looked gaunt but not frail. A jagged scar ran down over his right eye, the eye removed and replaced with a white glass ball. My sword dripped with the blood of his adepts, those innocent unarmed men who did not deserve the deaths I gave them. I cleaned the blade with a swift stroke, flicking the blood from the sword onto the black and white chequered floor.

I moved forward, synskin suit fresh with gore, catching a glimpse of myself in an oval mirror behind the right shoulder of the target. I moved like Death himself, skeletal mask betraying my inhumanity. I squeezed the trigger of my executioner pistol, but Talos reacted and dived away as the lethal neurotoxin-coated needles passed him, spiralling into the cushion of the target's chair.

"Be still so I can kill you," I said, my voice breaking the otherwise silent room.

I scanned the area, world shimmering emerald as I searched for a heat signature. The room was circular and wide, ancient wooden chests and bookshelves lining the walls. There was a white glow emanating from the windows as they were bathed in moonlight, casting eerie beams of white light onto the table.

"I recognise that voice," said Talos, his own deep tone echoing across the room. "How many years has it been, Metuo?"

For a moment I hesitated, but it was fleeting, like the life of a mayfly. From the tone of the voice I could detect his position. I crouched and leapt onto the table, perfect equilibrium as I settled, gun poised, left fist clenching my Neuro-gauntlet. Just as I figured, there was a stone stairwell leading down.

"Yes, Metuo," the voice of Talos went on, "come, come and deal death."

Without the sentinel array my vision would be pitch black, but it glowed and shimmered green. Each edge of the steps highlighted white as I moved down into the bowels of the structure, shadow descending like a scout rooting out the enemy.

"Look at yourself, Metuo, what you have become," Talos' voice echoed, "do you look ever upon the sight of yourself in the mirror?" I stepped into a broad room which flickered to life with white light. I found a room whose walls were made from mirrors. Brother Talos stood at the centre, arms outstretched as though waiting for an embrace. The embrace of death.

"See yourself for what you are, Metuo, what the Emperor and Imperium of man has done to you and all of humanity. They forget themselves. Evil is not necessary to destroy evil."

I moved forward, Neuro-gauntlet unclenched, the tips of the needles extending very slightly. I caught Brother Talos in the stomach. A moment later, the Neuro-gaunlet needles flashed out like snake fangs, crushing through his flesh and delivering a payload of death.

Brother Talos looked at me, eyes wide, blood trickling from his mouth, then he clenched my body to his, hands on my shoulders like vices.

"Don't let them do this to you, don't let them do this to man," he said. He shook in my grasp and let go of my body. His head lulled back and he was dead. I let go of Brother Talos and let the corpse drop to the floor with a thud. A pool of blood widened on the stone floor. I turned to leave, but for a moment, again as brief and fleeting as a candle's life, I, Metuo of the Eversors, stared at myself in the mirrors. I had killed the only father figure of my real life in but a few moments of a reunion. When I think back on this day I can but wonder if he had set the mirrors up for me, that he had known all along that this day would come. Maybe that was why he smiled at me when Grand Master Haledon banished Talos from the Shrine. His words at the time of death did not jog much of an emotion at all. In a heartbeat I was off, the bodies of the innocent behind me.

3.

I will not dither about with every fact of my life, though it is there, recorded in my brain as though I were a library of information, a walking autobiography. The wealth of knowledge about what I did over the next twenty years of my life may have been shielded from me then, but after, as I become aware of my actions through this blessed object, it all came back to me as easily as slipping into a synskin suit.

I had been to a hundred worlds and killed two-hundred and fourteen men and creatures. You may be surprised that an Eversor Assassin can remember such details as the number of men he has killed. Even in a blood rage the tally increases subconsciously. I had fought Man's most hated foe, Chaos, numerous times, sinking my claws into flesh, my sword drinking blood of the traitor. I slew the Ork, that brutal, numerous race whose life is built for war.

What I will tell you about in detail are the Chambers. You may recall my previous account of introduction to an Eversor in the depths of its own madness. I have been locked up many times in the Chambers, namely upon a vessel as it drifted through the war torn universe, transporting me to my next target, confined to my own mad screams and padded walls.

I do not know how it happened, but the drugs that coursed through my system defeated my mental defences and I succumbed to the madness Brother Talos and the rest of the Masters used to warn me about.

It was slow, like a creeping sensation that begins with paranoia. Why would such a thing affect one who'd been prepared for this work? A creeping fear, of what I do not know. Perhaps it was the human part of me viewing myself, allowed a glimpse past the programming? That creeping feeling turned into absolute terror. My howls were horrifying, more animal than man, my anger heightened to the point I would attack the very walls of my cell, tearing the padding apart with my bare hands and teeth to reveal metal walls behind.

What came next was to be the turning point in my career, my life.

I heard a hard rap at the door. It slid open gently and light filtered into the otherwise dark room, framing a shadowy figure on the floor. He was armoured and wore a fluttering black robe. Men in black suits marched inwards, lights on their helmets scanning the very walls, gun nozzles training for targets.

"Eversor," said a voice. It was hard and echoed throughout the chamber. "Come out."

Then a torch framed me as I crawled across the rafters of the room like a spider, casting my giant shadow onto the wall. I froze, tilted my head as I stared at the newcomers and hissed like a snake.

"Ah, there you are," continued the tall, armoured man. He stopped mid sentence and turned to a figure dressed in a brown simar, face covered by the shadows of his hood. "Are you sure he's coherent?"

"Oh yes, Inquisitor," replied the crackling voice of the robed figure to whom I was in his care. "A little... edgy perhaps. He has spent the last twelve weeks in this room."

"I suppose that would drive anyone insane," replied the Inquisitor. He looked up at me with pale blue eyes. His face appeared as strong as his gaze, but his complexion was sickly pale. A metal bound book hung at his waist, draped over his thigh, which the Inquisitor tapped with his fingers as he paced closer towards me.

"My name is Inquisitor Torquemada Coteaz and I am in need of your skills, Eversor," he said to me. "It is a matter of grave importance."

4.

It is a matter of grave importance. The words still echo in my mind as I think about them today. You see, Major, everything seems to be of grave importance to someone, particularly to the Ordo Malleus. Anything that required the very combative arm of that organization - the Grey Knights - was a matter of extreme importance to the Imperium.

Before I departed, I watched them from the rafters in a dimly lit hanger, lined up like ceramic statues, magnificent in their armour, banners poking out from an ocean of grey, a forest of shining silver halberds pointing to the ceiling, listening to their leader speak.

I did not stay for long, I had important work to do.

The planet Axis is a water world, with very little land. What land there is is mostly mountainous. But there was something here they coveted, something whose power was only revealed once I came upon it.

I moved to my own pod, marching across grated platforms, the ships bowels were lit by burning amber furnaces. My steps echoed a staccato across the wide chasms of the ships interior, mingling with metallic bangs of the engines at work.

I came to the oval entrance of my ship. The vessel was prepared and ready for my use by the young men who stood to the side, faces covered by the shadows of their black hoods. They said nothing to me, but kept their heads bowed out of respect and fear.

I caught one glance up, to take in my shadow as I moved by the single pillar-mounted light. He would not dare raise his eyes further, and only when I entered the ship, back facing him did I guess he risked a look.

I sealed the circular pod door, which closed with a soft hiss, then assumed position in the pod, ready for launch. A moment later, with a clunking metal noise, and a scream of pressure that reverberated through the hull and into my body, my pod slid out into space.

I'm not sure how long the journey took through the majestic void of space, but I glided in serene silence, stars glimmering around me, a planet to the right, large and yellow, with dusty sediments forming a white ring around it.

I landed in a glaciated valley, U-shaped, with broad shoulders and rubble strewn across the bottom. Tall trees shivered in the cold wind upon the broad slopes. I looked up and could see a multitude of drop ships breaking atmosphere; trailing thick smoke and burning orange lines in the night sky.

A voice crackled in my ear, deep and assuring.

"Eversor, this is Coteaz. We will be engaging the enemy shortly. I suggest you find your target."

I didn't need prompting. I moved through the valley, then clambered up a steep rocky wall up onto the peninsula above. There, I could see the land stretch out to a shining sea and hear the gentle rhythm of the water as it washed in over a pebbled beach.

On the bluff, nestled upon the peninsular was a large structure surrounded by thick walls. Towers rose behind them, with golden gleaming roofs, amber lights glinting like stars upon the heights. At the centre stood a tower twice as wide as the others, thousands of glass windows reflecting the silver moonlight, or burning orange from the torches within. The ground before it was bare and grassy, spotted by the odd clump of giant, weathered rocks.

I moved towards it, feeling the drugs Stim, Gamma Æ, Rage and Satrophine coursing through my bloodstream, increasing my speed, strength and endurance. When one is under the influence of these drugs, there is a real danger - the longer they flow through your body - to cause lasting damage.

Count Earlin Faustave, despot of Axis, was my target. From the images I'd been given by the Inquisitor, the Count was a fat, overly pompous man with a fashion for flare. He liked his wealth and making a show of it. Reports suggested he was corrupted by the Warp, and his sorcery spread to corrupt those who had served the Imperium in the past. By all accounts, he was a dangerous man whose life would have to be cut short.

I scaled the outer wall, wind buffeting against my body, the smell of the sea thick on the air, and reached the parapet. I took a glance left and right, clinging onto the wall like a spider. Armoured guards moved slowly across the ramparts in pairs, their light-green armoured breastplates shimmering with the torchlight they held in one hand, while lasguns rested over shoulders. They wore full-face helms with gilded cheek-guards covering all but their solid, pale chins. Their eyes were hidden by bands of black.

A pair moved past me, boots thumping the stone rampart like loud heartbeats. It was ill-luck they stopped by me, peering out to the sea. I waited, calm and assured as the waves breaking upon the beach. One came close to the thick crenelated wall, and stuck his head out to survey the dark ground below. I shot up, sword in hand, skull-face rearing out like a daemon. I slashed through the neck of the peering guard and was met by a fountain of blood as the body stumbled and collapsed, the head drifting off outside the wall. The other guard lunged with his bayonet, straight silver flashing in the moonlight. I became aware of our elongated shadows as they were caught by the fallen torch, but turned the weapon aside with a slapping parry that sent the man off-balance. He stumbled forward and I caught him in the chest with the point of my blade. There was a gurgle as he struggled for a moment, but I withdrew the blade and sliced across his throat. A sound whistled quietly from the open wound, pouring blood over the stone as the man collapsed first to his knees, then onto his side.

I tossed the torches and bodies from the walls, and watched them hit the ground with sickening thuds before I moved away. I had a despot to kill.

5.

Major Beautrum watched as the division pushed through the passes below, footsteps echoing, tank engines roaring. He mused that it looked like a giant wiggling snake, marked by black lines as infantry gave way to a tank or two, before more men walked behind the metal beasts. From his vantage point on the cliff, shielded from the biting cold by a thick white coat, and protected by the driving wind inside the makeshift command hut, Beautrum sipped at the boiling tempor, feeling it refresh his limbs and ease his mind.

He'd become far too edgy since he came into possession of the rock. Was he dreaming the whole affair, driven mad by years of long service? He shook his head. No. Whatever that object was, he needed to learn more about it. Hadn't it just taken to addressing him directly?

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," he said, loudly, turning from the window to seat himself before his littered desk.

There were maps and papers all over the place, but he was too tired to sort it out now. All the past year had been was paperwork and war. He didn't recognise the grizzly image whenever he was before a mirror, his face weathered by age and stress.

A young man dressed in a grey uniform stepped into the room, a disc in his hand. He was young, but the jagged scar that ran the length of his brow, through his blinded right eye, suggested he'd seen much of war too.

"Well," said Beautrum.

The man threw up a sharp salute. Beautrum returned it nonchalantly.

"This is all we have, sir," he said, presenting the disc in a black-gloved palm.

"Ah, good, Lieutenant. Now, leave me to study this, will you, and if you find anything else about this damned planet, bring it to me."

"Yes, sir,"

The man saluted again, then left quickly, closing the door behind him.

Beautrum looked at the disc, placed his steaming mug onto the table and sat down. The sound of the wind whistled against the wooden panels and windows. It was damned bad weather, he thought, and he felt sympathy for the men marching out in it, but there was no time for delay.

The weather had progressively gotten worse over the several months of the war on Axis, why this information wasn't passed to him before, he didn't know, but attacking a place in winter seemed like madness. Why not spring?

He slid the disc into a small pda, and accessed it with a few button presses. The file opened up as green text on a black background, an ugly combination in Beautrum's books, but he didn't care. Maybe there was something in this file that could be of use.

I know your guilt... I feel it in the wind. I feel it as you breath now.

"What," Beautrum said, the hairs on his arms rising as he scanned the room. "What do you want from me?"

Keep listening.

It was that voice again, terrifyingly playful. It wasn't the same voice as the speaker of the story, but a different one, a girl's voice and one that had only recently began to be heard.

The distant mountains flashed with white light and boomed with the barking of artillery fire. I could see mushroom clouds developing across the horizon and a sky raked by laser beams and tracer fire. But then I was allowed such advantageous views from the side of the central building. Below, I could still see the sentries, but they seemed hurried, alerted by their missing comrades, no doubt. I would have to work fast.

The drugs were doing evil work, not taming my mind, but controlling it. I smashed through a window, executioner pistol flashing out into my hand. The hallway was lit by flambeaux, which cast orange light over the polished wooden floor. The walls were lined with square pillars that stretched to a gently arched ceiling decorated with square panels. Each panel had a line of gold around the edges, and inside, various colourful paintings of landscapes and animals. Sparkling chandeliers hung from the ceiling. At either end of the hall were large wooden doors framed by stone archways.

"Hey, hold there!" came a shout.

I saw them, four guards from my rear, weapons raised, boots stamping and squeaking on the floor. One crouched and fired, a blue beam enveloping from the nozzle. I leapt towards the safety of a pillar, and felt the vibration as a torrent of fire blasted the pillar.

As you could guess, this wasn't going well, thanks to the drugs that had made me careless before I'd even set foot into the citadel. I should have let the sentries outside be on their way, or checked the hallway more carefully... but in the grip of the stimulants that had coursed through my body for decades and decades, all thought of care vanished from my mind.

I took a glance and noticed one guard pushing forward. I squeezed the trigger of my pistol and opened the man's chest with accurate blasts that took him off his feet and sent him crashing onto the floor. Jets of blood shot out of his wounds as he fell, and I heard him gasp and judder before his thrashing ended.

More shots blasted out, the sound slicing through the still hallway. I rolled out, pistol raised, sword drawn in my gauntleted hand, and dashed for the opposite pillar, a light works display flashing behind me as the guards shot at my dark figure.

Then they stopped firing.

"Forward, careful now," I heard the sergeant say.

He was a tall figure with broad shoulders and wore no helmet. He had blond, long locks and a Chaos influenced tattoo marking his cheeks and forehead.

One glance told me where he was, the next blew a hole through his head. For a moment, as the figure stood stock still, I could see the moon framed by the dripping gory wound through the window behind. Then the body dropped to the floor.

His men fired again and again, but they hit nothing but walls and pillars. I danced through the gloom, moving from pillar to pillar, the remaining guards closing together at the centre of the hallway like scared sheep.

Then I struck, blowing the kneecaps off from one as I rushed from cover, then closed with the second in a heartbeat. My sword flashed, catching the light of the torches, and crashed through the last guard's throat. I held him steady for a moment, looking into his eyes as he stared panic-stricken at me, droplets of blood coughing out of his mouth. With a deft flick, I sliced free. He dropped to his knees, head flapping over his back, held by the length of skin I didn't slice through.

I drifted towards one of the doors, a grisly scene behind me. The Count was somewhere here, but now he knew I was too.