Diem Infamia Chapter 13
The dark was hot and close, a cloying sensation that crept over the skin and left trails of damp moisture behind. The air was heavy and wet, low in oxygen and laced with dank spores. Condensation ran down pipes and hatches to puddle upon the deck, the perfect breeding ground for toxic moulds. Strange noises and random booms echoed through deserted tunnels and narrow crawl spaces. To walk here was to feel like an animal in a swamp, the constant itch of having hostile eyes fixed on one's back ever present. Many would have thought it a vista of hell, but Kasarox thought it was quaint, he had seen hell with his own eyes.
The Unhallowed was making his way through the bowels of the Cruenta Caede, in the very lowest bilges of the ship where few ever went. Starships were vast constructions, immense cities thrown into the void and like all cities they had their own hierarchy. The Word Bearers typically kept to higher decks, the command centres, barracks, launch bays, war machine forges, fanes and torture chambers of the Legion. The chanting Legionnaires daily offering up sacrifices to the Pantheon, seeking to attract divine favour as they contemplated the motions of a broken universe.
While the lords sat on high, ruling like hive spire nobles, lesser beings lived out their lives beneath their feet. The lower decks were the domains of the servants of the Legion, Demagogues and mortal champions blessed by the Pantheon to varying extents. They lived in an ever shifting balance of power and prestige, all vying for favour and glory in a tangled web of deceit, treachery and murder. Constant challenges for dominance were a way of life for them, the hot rush of combat and the spray of lifeblood from a torn throat a pleasing offering to Khorne. Further down from them were the machine decks, gun batteries, holds and the arcane mechanisms that supported the ship. Here tens of thousands of Helots laboured under the whips of overseers, while black-clad adepts of the Dark Mechanicus conducted their mysterious business.
Yet Kasarox was deeper than all of them, in the bowels of the vessel where the Word Bearers had not walked in centuries. This was the abode of the lost and the damned, those who fell through the cracks and were forgotten by their betters. The signs of Chaos were few and far between this deep in the ship, these wretches could not expect the eye of the Gods to fall upon them and those so blessed avoided this place at all costs. It was a home for wastrels, cripples, madmen and fools and also of those who would prey upon them. Yet Kasarox had learned much in recent years and in a profane tome he had discovered secret lore almost forgotten among the Crooked Path. He ducked under a dripping pipe and peered ahead but behind him he heard a voice saying, "We shouldn't be down here."
The Unhallowed glanced back to where Raruma was picking his way forward, trying not to touch anything. The Mocker looked surprisingly ordinary today, his plates barely showing any spikes, his shadowy wings absent and his hands lacking claws. Raruma resembled an ordinary Word Bearer and Kasarox had never seen him looking so mundane. The Unhallowed was confused and inquired, "Is there something wrong?"
Raruma shook his head and replied, "My Neverborn retreats within me, it senses something it doesn't like and it refuses to come out."
Kasarox was surprised and wondered, "Are… are you saying you're afraid?"
Raruma stiffened at that and growled, "The Book of Lorgar teaches that fear is blasphemy, I am not afraid. However, the Neverborn are creatures of pure emotion and right now mine is pissing itself."
"Good," Kasarox stated, "That means we're on the right track."
The Unhallowed led the way into the narrow darkness, following a route only he knew, but Raruma continued to grumble, "What exactly are we looking for?"
Kasarox replied distractedly, "Allies, powerful ones who can tip the balance against Abulaz."
Raruma muttered, "No allies worth having would grub about down here, this is a waste of time."
Kasarox retorted, "You volunteered to come, you didn't have to."
Raruma replied, "What and let you get killed? Not after all the work I've put into you. Where you go I go."
"Don't I know it," Kasarox sighed, "People are starting to think we are attached at the hip."
Raruma started at that and exclaimed, "Was that a joke? Thousands of years of slaughter and finally you make a joke!"
Yet Kasarox wasn't listening anymore, he stopped suddenly and held up his normal hand hissing, "Silence." Before him the path broke out of the confining walls and fell away on all sides. A black rift had been dug into the material of the Cruenta Caede, a yawning pit that dropped away into nothingness. The remains of their path jutted out over that pit like a balcony, hanging over the drop below. The walls were covered in snapped structural beams and severed power conduits, still sparking erratically in places, and deep claw marks were upon everything, evidence that this had been the work of something monstrous. Odd stalactites hung from the roof and shadows danced around them, making them look like they were moving as a strange metallic rustling noise echoed everywhere.
Kasarox's lips drew back over his teeth as he whispered, "This is it."
Raruma sounded less jubilant as he hissed, "My Neverborn has gone silent, we shouldn't have come here."
Yet before the Unhallowed could reply a crackling voice echoed forth, ringing in the shadows. It sounded like the burr of whetstone on metal, mixed with a deep inhuman timbre that echoed in dimensions beyond those mankind understood and it uttered, "Who dares intrude into our abode?"
Raruma shrank back Kasarox's eyes scoured the walls looking for the speaker, but he saw nothing as he replied, "One who desires to bargain."
Cawing laughter rang out, echoing back and forth and the metallic rustling billowed everywhere as the voice called out, "Do you know what we did to the last morsels who wandered into our den?"
Kasarox replied confidently, "I know you killed them, slowly and painfully. And yet I chose to come anyway."
The voice cackled, "That makes you either a brave soul or a fool. I wonder which one it shall prove to be."
Kasarox declared, "I don't deal with those I cannot see, reveal yourself!"
"As you wish," the voice replied, "But be careful what you wish for."
Suddenly the shadows shifted as the walls shook and the stalactites began to rock, no, they weren't swaying they were moving on their own. Large metallic wings unfolded from around hardened bodies, spreading wide to reveal icons of Chaos in fiery lines. Long sinuous necks uncoiled, lowering sharp angular heads with fanged maws and glowing eyes that gleamed with deadly intent. Clawed feet dug deep into the roof, spearing power conduits and sucking energy from the ship itself as ripples of energy ran over them, making them look like they were on fire. They were twisted hybrids of flesh, metal and Daemonic power, but flashes of fuselage remained, declarations that long ago they had been fighter planes of the Legion, now corrupted and mutated by Chaos.
"Helldrakes," Raruma gasped in shock, "You brought us among a murder of Helldrakes!"
Kasarox watched as the Daemon engines leered at them, hunger evident in their eyes, but the largest of them all stretched its neck and declared in a voice like a thousand blades scraping over each other, "You wanted to see us, so here we are. Are you not impressed?"
"It can talk!" Raruma exclaimed, "Since when can one of them talk?!"
Kasarox ignored his shock and uttered, "Very impressive, you are all I expected and more. What shall I call you?"
The Helldrake cackled in amusement, "Names have power and I go by many of them. I am the scent of entropy over the land and the bloody wind that blows from a battlefield. I am the ash in the air from a burning city and the radioactive fallout that brings cancerous death. I am a scream in the night and the breath of the predator upon your neck. I am the sound of widows wailing. I am Atrocity."
"Atrocity," Kasarox replied, "I have come to bargain."
Atrocity laughed at that and called, "Where are your manners? First, tell me your names."
"I am…" Raruma replied but he was cut off by a raised hand. Kasarox had read of this unique entity in forgotten tomes, a lord among it's kind and Alpha predator among the murder and he knew it to be fickle and callow, easily bored and prone to dismembering interlopers on a whim. To gain its favour he had to intrigue it, draw out its curiosity and engage its interest. Kasarox replied smoothly, "We are the risen and the fallen, both servant and the master. We are the captors and prisoners of the Red Angel and the heralds of the Sixth host. We are beggars on our knees and yet we stride among the stars with fleets at our command. We are slaves to the Word, yet also authors of ruin. We are the Unhallowed and the Mocker."
There was whoosh of air as Atrocity let go of its perch, dropping into the gulf below. Seconds passed then the Helldrake rose high on wings of fire, scorching contrails billowing from its extremities as it soared nearer. Kasarox felt hot exhaust blowing over his face as the Daemon engine grasped a spar sticking out of the walls, like a bird settling upon a branch. Atrocity folded its wings around its body and bowed its neck until it was only a few feet away from them. Kasarox could see the icons branded into the brass of its surface and the fires in its eyes, which hid a cool intellect, the last remnants of the pilot who had once flown this craft and now existed as a fetal ball at its heart. A Daemon engine with a mind, such a rare occurrence, so valuable and yet so perilous.
Atrocity peered at them and crooned, "What brings you to us?"
Kasarox boldly declared, "The balance of power shifts, my time of ascension is coming. I seek your allegiance to my cause."
Atrocity snorted in disappointment, "Oh... plots and intrigues in the dark, a servant planning to usurp his master. How clichéd, how repetitive, I expected better."
Raruma retorted, briskly "You haven't heard what we are offering."
Atrocity sniffed, "I doubt it is worth listening to, but go on."
Kasarox replied, "I can offer you riches beyond compare and great slaughter."
A cackling noise billowed forth, as the murder of Helldrakes let loose their scorn and Atrocity jeered, "We do not need you for that, we fly where we will and take what we want. Blood in the air or the cold of space makes no difference to us. If we want spoils we take them, if we want to kill, we kill. You offer nothing we do not already have."
Kasarox was incensed by the rejection and spat, "You go where Abulaz wills! You are carried in his ships, he determines your fate but I will give you freedom!"
Atrocity sneered, "We remain here because it suits us. We have had ample chances to leave and find somewhere to create more of our kind and we shall do so… when it suits us."
Kasarox saw an opening in those words and mused, "What if... I could offer you a better home? Somewhere more to your tastes, than this pit."
Sudden silence reigned as the Helldrakes went quiet and Atrocity drew nearer hissing, "Tell me more."
Kasarox licked his lips and said, "Our fleet moves to attack a great Imperial Naval base, a bastion of the False Emperor. It is a wonder, one hundred and seventeen moons orbiting a gas giant and thousands of space stations. It sits in the last stable warp route in the southern galaxy, a current to carry your murder deep into the Imperium, even unto Terra itself. It is the perfect nest, a place for you to fly unencumbered and bound to no one. You can nest in the wreckage of the bases and make more of your kind, a breeding ground for Helldrakes to spawn in their millions. You could be master of a murder unlike any other, large enough to blacken the skies of Terra."
Atrocity sounded distant as it thought, "Such a nest would set me above all others, I would be supreme and unchallenged. The Gods themselves would notice me."
Kasarox heard the avarice in its voice and pressed, "The favour of the Pantheon would follow you could name your reward. Anything you desire, even transcendence to the Warp."
"To become a Daemon Prince," Atrocity mused, "No more heavy metal holding me down, no more hybrid carcass binding my wings. I could fly free in the depths of the Warp, beautiful and uninhibited. It is a worthy price, but what do you want?"
Kasarox replied, "To spread your wings in the coldness of space and fight my enemies."
Atrocity laughed, "We would have done that anyway, you waste words."
Kasarox wasn't done however and said, "When Abulaz falls many will resist my rise to power, I want your Helldrakes to fight for me and ensure my rivals fall."
Atrocity hissed eagerly, "It is agreed and so the bargain is struck. My brethren and I shall fight for you, Unhallowed."
Suddenly it opened its wings wide and leapt into the air, flying over their heads to rejoin its kin. The Helldrakes dropped from the roof and flew with it, roaring into the depths of the pit with billowing cackles of laughter echoing over the roar of their afterburners. Kasarox felt the heat of their backwash flow over him, scorching his face and he grinned. All the pieces were in place, his forces now held supremacy over Abulaz's followers. All that remained was to ensure the downfall of the Imperial Navy and then soon after the Dark Apostle himself.
