When he next became aware of his body, it was not in a sudden jerk back to consciousness. Slowly, more and more parts of his body began responding. An ungodly ache radiated from his chest, spreading blinding pain throughout his body. Every breath felt like a lung-full of fire. Breathing shallowly seemed to help, but only a little. For an indeterminate amount of time, Sael struggled with his own body, until at last other sensations broke through the omnipresent pain. A chill seeped through him, delivered by slime-coated metal. Fighting his way into a sitting position, the Kriegsman finally opened his eyes. Once more, he found himself in the cages where the Haemonculus kept her prisoners. In the dimness, he couldn't tell whether it was the same cell as before. After a moment of contemplation, he realized it didn't matter.
There were stories, of course. There were always stories. Never be captured by the Dark Eldar. He could do little now but pray whatever death they had in store for him would be quick. Jasun Talk's face flashed in his mind, the blinded Cadian serving as a tangible reminder that it would not be so. Fire continued to smolder within him, blazing with each breath. At this moment, there was nothing he wanted more than to be back with his legion. Anything other than here.
For hours upon hours, Sael languished in his damp, dark cell, unable to keep track of anything beyond his own body. If any prisons other than his own were occupied, there were no signs. A few times, he tried to go through normal combat drills, only for the fire to tear him down once more. Curling into a ball in the corner, the Kriegsman slept. He did not dream, but it kept that terrible flame dormant. That was all he asked.
~ ~ ~
Pain roused Sael from his uneasy sleep. Jagged spikes lanced down through his arm, and his eyes flew open. Glancing around, his body seized up in panic. Again, that horrific, sideways mouth loomed over him. It curled into a smile, and a tongue darted out to catch streamers of drool. "Awake again are we, Tin Man?" He tried to move his head, only to find cold metal restraining it. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Haemonculus reaching for something. Gut-twisting pain tore through his other arm as the Eldar drove some sort of spike into his flesh. Twice more she repeated the procedure, humming to herself over Sael's stoically-contained screams.
Her deft, thin-fingered hand grabbed a knife from the nearby table, and she began to slash through Sael's tendons. His eyes rolled back, and he couldn't suppress and pained groan. He prayed to the Emperor, hoping that something would kill him. The longer he denied her sawing open his body, the quieter he became. His final prayers were little more than tattered whispers across his dry lips. Doubt crushed the familiar catechisms before they left his mouth. The Eldar seemed amused by his sudden silence and laughed to herself.
"Having the best of times, are we? Yes." She grabbed one of his arms, then pulled hard. With a hard tug, the spike impaling his arm ripped clean through, stuck fast to the slab. Even with a free limb, the Krieger had no will to fight back. Why bother? No one ever escapes from the Dark Eldar.
As if sensing the Kriegsman's desensitization, the Haemonculus suddenly dropped his arm, hurrying off to an unseen corner of her "Garden". The twisted figures of her statuary glared at him. Those eyes left within the bunch seemed to glow with hatred. Immobile in their prisons, they could do nothing butch watch as soul after soul passed through the place he had now, much as they had then. Only they had no more opportunity to die. A sharp, whistling chorus broke through the room. Sael's eyes widened as he realized that it came from the petrified not-corpses strewn about the room. Their screams had been silenced, turned into a perverted song for the Haemonculus. A chorus of the Damned, souls forsaken by the Emperor. Much as he now was.
When the Dark Eldar returned, several huge vials clinked about in her hand. Without any ceremony, she stabbed them into the Krieger's body. The fluids drained into his body and he could almost feel them working their xenos taint on him. He groaned again. Ignoring this, the Haemonculus tore up his other limbs and hauled the now-crippled Guardsman off the slab. "Walk, Sael'thas! Move at my command!" She gave him a hearty push, and he staggered forwards. Pain burst from the tattered remnants of the tendons and ligaments in his legs. She refused to stop, continuing to force him forwards. Shuffling at her command, he followed the orders without question, and without reserve. At least when he did as she asked, she kept the knife from his skin.
Their destination confused him at first. A wide, open room with a circular path in the middle. Off to the side, the Cadian he'd met in his cell gurgled quietly. Jasun's head swiveled, listening to every sound they made. The Cadian's back legs had been broken and re-grown with a backwards join, forcing him to the ground. A hiss at Sael's ear announced the Haemonculus' presence.
"I have a game for the both of you. You will each race to the end of this track. The winner receives a special prize. Just be careful not to die on the way." Somewhere along the way, she'd replaced her vent-grille, and a few strands of drool oozed from between the slits. Wiping them away with a hand, she gestured to a start line. Jasun hobbled towards it without complaint. His lips had been sewn shut since Sael had seen him last, and all that remained of his hands were melted stubs of flesh. As Sael limped slowly to the track, the blinded Cadian growled deep in his throat.
Without warning, a spear stabbed towards the Krieger's chest. Dodging to the side, it punctured his shoulder before retracting into the black track. Staggering forward, the cripple started the race. The Cadian jumped forward, his backwards legs shoving him awkwardly forward. Within a few moments, Private Talk lurched into the lead. Pain sliced through Sael's legs and he toppled forward. As his arms shot out to arrest his fall, a yawning hole opened up in front of him. He flailed wildly as his front half collapsed into the yawning gap.
Wriggling backwards, he managed to get his torso and left arm out of the hole before it shut. The plates smashed into his right arm, sending bolts of white-hot pain straight into his brain. It throbbed with every beat of his heart, stabbing deep into him. For a moment, he curled up, slack-jawed, unable to voice his agony. The jagged edges of his arm spewed life-blood across the track. A soft hiss heralded something else emerging from the track, so he dropped to the ground and rolled out of the way. Another spear punctured the air where his skull had been only a moment before. Hauling himself back to his feet, the Kriegsman looked forward. Already the Cadian had reached the end of the track. His odd, backwards-facing legs bent carefully underneath him. He looked like a dog.
The edges of his vision turned grey. Crawling along with his knees and remaining hand, he watched the Haemonculus approach Jasun. She stabbed her freakish, bladed guantlet through the eager Cadian's chest. He convulsed silently and keeled over. Sael crawled off the edge, holding a hand to the bloody stump of his arm. For a moment, he felt hate. Hate not for the Haemonculus, but for the Cadian. He had won a release that the Krieger could only dream of.
"Well, well, Sael'thas. It looks like you lost to your friend over there. Tsk." The ever-present form of the Mandrake stepped out of the Haemonculus' shadow, and grabbed Sael. Lifting him off the ground with little to no trouble, she glanced back to her mistress. "Take him back to the Garden. I think that is enough for today. For him."
~ ~ ~
Snow whipped by the Inquisitor's helmet and ice crystals encrusted the edges of her visor. The metal and ceramite of her armour glittered in the sub-zero frost. Her Interrogator stood by her side, frowning at a pict-slate in his hands. According to the few records they'd found, Inquisitor Rylas' research base was located around here. To her right, a psyker clothed in an innumerable number or robes scowled out at the frozen waste. Normally, Friia hated taking her anywhere; only necessity dragged them out here. With the disappearance of his base, Friia felt certain that he had indeed joined the ranks of the filthy xenos. Miserable with cold, the Inquisitor trudged across the ice, snow crackling under her feet at every step.
Bright blue sunlight reflected from the ice, nearly blinding Friia and the small group of Kriegsman who followed her. The external temperature dropped lower as the hours passed; M77823's bright blue sun began setting across the horizon. Once darkness fell, there would be no chance to find whatever Rylas left behind. The next day, whatever evidence he overlooked would be buried beneath tonnes of snow and ice. Shaking her shoulders, Friia brushed frost from her pauldrons in irritation.
A shout broke her from the monotony of scanning the ice-planet's landscape. In the far distance, a hand waved back and forth quickly. It vanished beneath the for a moment before the owner hauled himself out of a hole in the landscape. Turning towards him, the Inquisitor lead her forces across the intervening metres. The Kriegsman who'd fallen into the ice had a skull-mask that looked a bit different from the rest of the silent, unnatural clones. Looking down behind him, Friia found that he hadn't fallen into a hole, but rather a long ditch.
"You. What's your name?" He Krieger saluted and gave the rank of Private. Whatever freaky number he'd given instead of a name passed right over Friia. She nodded and pretended to understand it. The Kriegsman, who after a bit of convincing produced the name Ignitus, pointed over to a lump in the trench. Dropping down into the construction, Friia looked at the sides. Though the weather on M77823 worked to obliterate it, she could see the care with which it was constructed. Crunching up to the lump, the Inquisitor kicked it with her foot. Force knocked the loose snow and ice from the black leather. Another Krieger. Not one of the ones sent down with her. They'd found it.
"Sweep the area. If there's anything to find here, I want it found, yesterday!"
~ ~ ~
Far above the planet's surface, an unnamed shuttle approached a dark spot in space. Mimic engines suggest a small Imperial frigate, while a sophisticated cloaking device rendered it nearly invisible. No matter the tricks they employed to keep others out, Rylas would never be fooled. His entire lift revolved around these xenos; nothing would keep him from finding The Dark City now. Not while he was this close. Circling around the ship he knew drifted scant kilometres away, the ex-Inquisitor wondered how he would negotiate with the Dark Eldar. So far, he had only offered them the souls of those soldiers already under his command. Imperials would no doubt have found the ruins of his base by now, if he knew his pursuer well enough. A thought struck him, then. With as much trouble as she'd put to remaining undetected (as poorly as she had done), Inquisitor Friia would not have told anyone of her suspicions.
Waiting for the hail, he put the last pieces of his plan into place. Hive Aarustrag would submit to Inquisitorial authority. Finding enough slaves to placate the xenos would be simple. Smiling to himself, Rylas continued his circling pattern. Minutes dragged by, but his dogged determination finally paid off. The cloak around the ship finally dropped, and their bay doors opened. Carefully guiding his small shuttle into the opening, he felt the end of his journey become a step closer.
Landing down in a section of unoccupied space, the ex-Inquisitor shut down the shuttle's systems and opened the docking ramp in the back. Stepping out of the small craft, he took a hard look at the inside of the Dark Eldar's ship. He did not know what metals the bay had been crafted from, and he could not tell by sight alone. The angles and construction were so unlike the Imperial standards that it shocked him into stillness at first. Shaking off the awe of his first time aboard a working Eldar ship, Rylas waited for the Shipmaster. In the corner of the bay, a tall, thin-looking Eldar watched him with undisguised hatred. Unperturbed by the show of distrust, he simply leaned against the side of the shuttle. Though he had made a deal with the Shipmaster for travel and protection, he needed to watch himself. No deals made with xenos of this type were safe.
Eventually, the Shipmaster himself emerged. The aging Eldar wore a wan smile more akin to a grimace than anything else. His dark hair was tightly bound in a severe, high ponytail. The unusual slant of his eyes captured the ex-Inquisitor's attention for longer than polite, so he ignored the rest of the xenos' features. When the Shipmaster spoke, his voice held authority unlike any Rylas heard before. It mesmerized him. What the xeno said took a bit longer to work through his mind, and he found himself a bit late to respond.
"Y-yes. Shipmaster Tyran. I have found a way to give The Scytherunner enough slaves to return to Comorragh. The nearby Hive World will bow to my commands. It will be easy enough to convince them to send a large group of civilians to an area of my choosing." He chose not to insult the Dark Eldar by explain the benefits of such a plan. Adrenalin flowed into Rylas' system. Here he was. So close to his final goal that it hurt.