You think that life is so simple. I can see it in your eyes. Black and white, with a definite line between purity and heresy, chaos and Imperium, right and wrong. I think that I'm living proof that that's wrong. That there's no such thing as black or white. There's only grey.
My name is Arael Verekan. The 'Twilight Guardian'.
Let me shake your beliefs a little…
The bolt exploded against the doorframe, and the blast sent Tobias Arjak sprawling to the floor.
This was getting out of hand. Bolters?
He crawled towards the other entrance to the room, hoping that the cultists didn't come in before he made his escape good. A lasrifle wasn't much good against carapace armour.
He reached out a hand to open the door, and stopped as it opened of its own accord.
Standing in the doorway was one of the so-called Methalans, the elites of the cult. Both hands had been cut off at the wrists, and the ragged flesh was still visible around the massive chainblades that had been implanted in one socket and the grapple in the other. Tattoos and mutilations covered its form so that it was impossible to tell age or gender.
With a whimper, Tobias unloaded the lasrifle at the monster. It stood there, a wide, fanged grin on its face.
"You show spirit, loyalist," it said. The words were distorted, as though the speaker was not used to using them. With a slashing motion, the chain-hand smashed the lasrifle in two and the grapple snatched the Arbites officer from the ground. "You will make a worthy sacrifice."
The streets of the Hive city went by in a blur. Tobias only caught fleeting glimpses of all the landmarks that he'd grown up with as the Methalan dragged him along.
And then it stopped. Tobias caught a brief glimpse of what lay before them before he was thrown to the ground.
It was the amphitheatre. Sevren was a somewhat traditional Hive City, still keeping hold of its roots as a feudal world. Tall, imposing columns surrounded the shallow basin in the regular surface of the road. A small podium form where the ecclesiarchy often preached was given centre stage. Although a dome rose over it, it still felt like an open-air building. A place to meet and remember the joys of life.
And now a place of heresy and blasphemy. The Sons of Methalas had seen to that. More of the Methalans were scattered around the edges, while assorted less mutilated cultists wielding stubbers, lasrifles and one or two bolters moved with purpose.
Around twenty citizens lay chained to the podium, cuts and bruises a testament to the cultists' violent capture of them.
The podium held two figures. One Tobias recognised instantly; the leader of the cult. No-one knew his name; the Arbites had nicknamed him Vortex for his eyes. The pupils seemed to revolve, and if you stared at them for too long, you found yourself hypnotised. A massive, heavily muscled figure wielding a chainaxe in one skeletal bionic arm and a stub-pistol with a huge barrel in the other, he held the rest of the cult in awe.
Apart from his companion. He was a short figure with ugly, Chaotic tattoos all over the visible flesh, his eyes were completely blank. Evil seemed to radiate off him.
"Another for the sacrifice, master," Tobias' capturer growled.
Vortex turned and smiled, revealing pointed, uneven teeth. "Fine work. But we need more. MORE!" The chainaxe revved uncontrollably, and then fell still.
"As you wish, master." The brute left, and a stunted cultist with a shotgun moved forward, prodding Tobias into the amphitheatre main. He obeyed. There didn't seem any point in tempting fate.
A part of him screamed that it was his duty, as an Arbites of the Imperium, as a servant of the Emperor, to fight against this filth. To die, if necessary, to deny the heretics of their prize.
Another, stronger one repeated an old saying. Where there's life there's hope. He didn't know where it came from. It certainly wasn't said much.
His inner battle was interrupted by the unmistakeable squawk of a vox.
Vortex gestured to a mutant with a third arm in his chest, who flicked on a bulky vox-set. "Speak," the cult leader said.
"Master, we're being killed!" The voice was static-ridden; the vox was clearly an old one, worn from over-use. "I've lost five men – they just vanish, and a few minutes later we find them ripped open by something!"
Vortex mused this for a moment. "One moment." He turned to the vacant-eyed man. "Do you sense anything?"
The other shook his head. "Whatever is out there is not easily picked out. A soldier of the false Emperor who grasps tactics. A death-cultist who has only just got their equipment together. Something inconspicuous. Nothing powerful could escape my notice." The words were spoken with a horrible rasp.
"Stick together. Whatever it is, I want it alive," Vortex said into the vox.
There was only static.
"Confirm!" he barked.
Nothing.
"Ahhh…" the blank-eyed man said. "I feel the souls being released. They are being picked off one by one…"
Vortex spun, and Tobias caught a glimmer of fear in the leader's eyes. "That one!" Vortex snarled, pointing at Tobias. "He shows disrespect. Make him bow his head!"
The Arbites felt a flail slam against his back, agonising even through the flak armour. He hastily ducked down.
"I want everyone to return to the temple!" Vortex roared into the vox. "If someone wants to hunt us, they will have to come to us!"
Cultists began to swarm into the amphitheatre. Weapons were readied and aimed out at the streets. With a grinding, an ancient mechanism closed up all but one of the entrances to the dome; a relic from a long-forgotten swarm of Ork attacks. Dimly, Tobias was amazed that only thirty or so me had brought Sevren to its knees.
And then there was absolute stillness.
A pin could have been heard dropping to the ground.
Then, with a metallic clatter, a small sphere fell through the entrance into the midst of the cultists.
In much the same way that in an earlier age, the growl of a big cat might cause people to hide, the sight of a small object in sinister circumstances was enough to cause any child of the forty-first millennium to run for cover.
With an ear-splitting shriek and a blinding flash of light, the concussion grenade went off. Those nearest to it fell to the ground, stunned. Those further away stumbled, blind and deafened.
As Tobias' vision slowly returned, he saw a dark, helmeted figure walk through the entrance. It raised its hands, and arcs of power lanced out into the dazed cultists nearest it. Screams of pain replaced groans as they were wreathed in the energies of the Warp.
The Methalans were the first to recover. Crude weapons raised, they charged their assailant.
Tobias missed what happened over the next thirty seconds; it happened too fast for his dazed senses to make sense of it. At the end of it, the figure stood in the midst of the bloody and torn corpses.
Other cultists began to wake up, and each was either cut down or neatly shot with laspistol blasts.
The amphitheatre was stained red with the blood of heretics.
In the midst of the chaos, Vortex and Blank-eyes had not moved; Vortex due to shocked amazement, Blank-eyes from what looked for all the world like fear.
And then, once again, there was stillness. The figure stood in a combat pose, strangely long fingers stretched out, red staining the jet-black armour. The last two survivors of the cult standing in the podium.
"Who are you?" breathed Vortex.
"Your death," came the reply. It was cold, monotonic from synthesisers in the helmet.
"Verekan," Blank-eyes said softly. "I wondered if you had survived."
The figure cocked its… her head, for Tobias realised that it was a she. "Myradial? Something of a comedown, a mere Daemonhost in a washed-up cult. Didn't Klorgrind protect you from this fate?"
Myradial shook his head contemptuously. "Klorgrind is nothing. He was weak, the fact that you defeated him showed me that. I serve Methalas now. The blood of this city could have brought him into existence!"
"It could have," 'Verekan' replied in a non-committal tone. "We shall never know, shall we? Both you and your cultist friend die here."
"I think not," Vortex said. He tossed the stub pistol aside, and charged, chainaxe screaming.
Verekan dodged the charge easily, fingers flicking out. Five long cuts tore themselves in Vortex's chest, and he stumbled before smashing aside another attack with the back of the axe.
More details came to Tobias. They weren't fingers, they were claws…
The chainaxe arced through the air again. This time, his opponent met the attack directly, one set of claws meeting the axe in a shower of sparks, the other plunging forwards.
They sank into the throat. Vortex froze, coughed, and then fell, blood spraying from his lips as he tried to breathe through a severed, choked windpipe.
"One down," Verekan said evenly. "Your turn, Myradial. What's it to be?"
Myradial stood there for a moment, and then rose into the air. The brown robes exploded into flame and fell away from his body, turned to ashes in an instant. Massive blades sprouted to replace hands, and the tattoos crackled with power.
"Blades?" asked Verekan.
"I've been experimenting," the Daemonhost replied, and charged.
Metal shrieked on metal as blade met claw. The combatants only met for an instant before spinning away and slashing again. They moved fast, so fast, that they were blurs to Tobias.
He rose to his feet, and realised that in the confusion, he had not been chained down like the other prisoners. He moved towards the burnt corpses of the cultists, whispering encouragement to the others, telling them that it was nearly over…
And it is. One way or the other…There! A bolter. He picked it up, surprised at the weight of the weapon, and checked the ammunition.
A change. He spun, and saw Verekan stumbling back, a gash in her side. Myradial reared up with a triumphant screech, ready to strike the deathblow.
Tobias fired. The bolter bucked in his hand, and only one shot spat from the barrel before the weapon tore itself from his hand.
The bolt exploded against Myradial's side. The Daemonhost was thrown against the wall, and the slash missed.
Tobias scrabbled for the weapon as the enraged creature spun to look at him.
It looked down, surprised, at the ten talons embedded in its flesh.
"Attention span was never one of your strong points," snarled Verekan.
Myradial opened his mouth to say something, and then screamed. He seemed to catch fire from the inside out, light streaming out from within. Sudden instinct made Tobias shield his eyes.
There was a flash of light, a final shriek that was almost tangible, and Myradial vanished.
Verekan abruptly sagged, as though immensely weary. She moved to the podium, and slashed through the chains. Whatever the claws were made of, they were sharp.
"There won't be any more of them," she said. The citizens slowly got to their feet, eyes not quite believing that the ordeal was over. Words of gratitude spilled out, but she waved them aside before moving through the crowd to the entrance.
Tobias was standing there.
"Thank you," he said.
Verekan looked at him. The helmet was angled towards the centre, with small carvings that produced the effect of a skull. Red light glowed gently in the narrow eyeslits. He remembered seeing a parade of Space Marines in his youth, and was reminded of one of the black-armoured figures in the lead. "Good shot," she said. The synthesiser made the words monotonic, but he sensed that they would be little different without it.
"You're injured," he said, gesturing at the gash. "Come to the Arbites headquarters, we can sort it out easily. The least we can do, after what you did here."
"No. You don't want to know me, Arbites. Some things are better left alone. I'll manage alone. I always have."
"You wouldn't have if I hadn't shot that thing just now."
The eyes bored into him. "Sometimes we win, sometimes we don't. Fate cast you in that role, and I am grateful for it. Now stand aside."
"At least let me help you to wherever you're going," said Tobias.
"I. Don't. Need. Help," Verekan ground out. She stumbled slightly.
"Sure you don't," said Tobias in mild amusement.
She gave up. "Third level. You leave when I say so. Don't say I didn't warn you."
They moved off. Behind them, other Arbites ex-prisoners helped their fellow citizens out of the amphitheatre. All would be held at the Arbites headquarters until the Inquisition arrived.
"What's your name?" asked Tobias after a while.
"Another detail that you don't want to know," came the monotonic reply.
He smiled. "You clearly know nothing about Sevrenians. Curiosity is our strongest attribute."
She didn't respond.
"Well, let's see… I know that one of your names is Verekan. Have I heard of any Verekans who can dispatch an entire cult with such flair?"
He thought hard. Verekan. The name was familiar, now he thought about it.
"I am the Twilight Guardian," Verekan said, breaking his train of thought. "That is all you need know."
"Why Twilight?" The title somehow disturbed him.
"I walk the path between light and dark, and belong in neither."
With that simple description, her name blazed itself in white fire across Tobias' eyes. "Arael Verekan?"
She tensed, dropping slightly into a combat pose. It was all the reply he needed.
"You're the most wanted heretic in the sector," Tobias breathed.
"Not through choice. Now do you see why I said you didn't want to know?"
Tobias looked around hoping that there would be someone else, that he wouldn't be alone with her. There was no one. They had reached the third level, a place declared off-limits when the Sons of Methalas had started growing.
He slowly reached for the bolter that he still held.
Arael blurred, and he felt the terrible claws at his throat. "Injured I may be. Unobservant I am not," she snarled. "Drop it."
He obeyed.
"Inside."
He moved towards the indicated doorway, the constant pricking of the claws on the back of his neck taking away all hope of resistance. "You were keen for me to be gone a moment ago," he commented.
"A moment ago you had not uncovered my secrets." Arael sighed. "There are two paths from here. I kill you now… or I explain why you shouldn't reveal me."
He sat down on a chair. The habitation was distinctly bare, with equipment lying on every available surface. "Does the explanation involve pain?" he asked warily.
She chuckled, and raised a hand to the helmet – a hand, he noticed, that looked perfectly normal, with no sign of the claws. A glove, maybe?
"Of course not. Not all heretics are sadistic barbarians." The helmet came off. The face underneath was a young one, but hard. It was the face of someone who has seen too much. A bionic plate of bare metal dominated the left side, while a bionic eye nestled in the socket on that side. "You have a choice." The voice was tired, but lively in a sharp contrast to the monotonic synthesiser. "You can choose death, which I will administer quickly and painlessly. Or you can hear my long, sad tale and risk the wrath of the Inquisition, who will not be so kind when it comes to your fate. Of that I can assure you."
"Your story? What is there to know? We were briefed about you a while ago. Extremely dangerous daemon worshipper."
This time she threw her head back and laughed properly. "Is that what they say? The nerve of the great and mighty Inquisition never fails to amaze me. I don't worship daemons… they're scum to be eradicated. I don't see why they continue the charade, given that over the last five years I've eliminated more cults than their best. But no… they live in a world of black and white."
Tobias hadn't lied about curiosity being the bane of Sevrenians. "So… if that's wrong…"
She looked him in the eye while picking up a medikit to tend to the gash. "Unfair choice, given your tendencies. I'll take that as a choice of damnation over death…"
He shook his head. "I am the Emperor's loyal servant. Nothing you say can change that."
"That's not the damnation." She paused. "I was born on Necromunda thirty-five years ago. Tough place. Aside from planets like Catachan and Cadia, where they live and breathe military training, life on Necromunda is one of the best ways to learn how to survive the galaxy's mean streets. I joined the Arbites when I was eighteen. Thought that it was a good way to get ahead of the game. The Necromundan Enforcers are busy all day long with the gang wars, but cults are surprisingly rare. Which was why the Devoted came as a shock to all…"
Welcome to my little side-project from Empires Collide
and my various other big stories. Something that I've been working on for a little while, but only just
got that chance to put together properly… so whaddaya think?