Chapter 12
023.M42
Vespor, Huldah subsector, Syntyche sector
She fixed what she could. Still, Kel was not a Tech-Priest and hadn't trained on the Stormbird long enough to know its quirks and traits. She was unsure about the vessel's many sub-systems and routines, but certain that the Stormbird would never fly again after this mission. She did what she could to make the craft void worthy, waiting for the Inquisitor and Sister of Battle to return. Gripping a cumbersome las-welder in gloved hands, the pilot sealed one of the many rent, covering it with apoloxy foam. That finished, Kel counted the remaining tears and ruptures with a grimace. Only three hundred and forty-two left.
The plaza the Stormbird harboured in was quiet. With the ship's blazing lights the heavy brume covering the hive city did not seem nearly as ominous. The light also served to keep the spawn away. Under the harsh white illumination Kel stomped over the vessel's hull, comforted by the light. Having been on many other planets in the company of Rogue Traders and cursed Astartes, and knowing each planet hid its own horrors, none held the simple and terrifying danger Vespor did for Kelvenia. She had nonchalantly left to fix the Stormbird's hull, downplaying her fears to Dram. Maintaining her bravado in front of the ex-Guardsman was critical, who, unperturbed by the Warp devouring Vespor, was scanning for off-world communication signals. Now as she was outside and exposed, her bluster weakened. Dram was in the Stormbird, safe behind a meter-thick plate of armour while Kel was outside, without a weapon and only the lights
Excited shrieks sounded in front of her. A cold sweat broke across her brow as Kel moved for the las-welder very carefully, focusing her eyes into the night. The soupy clouds roiled across the plaza, upset by something moving within them. A low, resonating growl was punctuated by a high-pitched hoot, this time coming from behind her. Grabbing the heavy torch, Kel shone the powerful beam into the vapour. A feathery tail whip-snaked through the beam's light, then was gone in the thick fog.
A hoarse squawk echoed in the dark air. Three screeches returned the cry. Kel turned to her right, torch raised and body tensed. She saw nothing, but heard the dry hiss of scales across the stone. To her left another squawk followed by a rattling click. The sound made Kel think of a bird, a very large reptilian bird. Her mind flashed back to the monstrosity that had nearly ripped apart the Stormbird. The las-welder would not be able to stop that. Squawking came once more to her left, a clicking bark following the last note. The half-breed knew a call for support no matter the language, just as she knew with a sickening feeling that she was being hunted. Her hands were damp, and cold beads of perspiration rolled down her back.
Very carefully the pilot gathered up her toolkit, slung it over her shoulder, and slid down the Stormbird as discreetly as possible. She felt a hundred pair of inhuman eyes tracking her descent. Dropping to the ground on the vessel's far side, Kel's gear clanked as she raced for the Stormbird's ramp, legs pistoning as she ran for safety. Dry scales rustled across the plaza. Throwing the las-wielder over her shoulder, not sure she hit anything but praying she had, the half-breed stormed up the ramp and into the carrier bay. Slamming the mechanism shut, she cried out, "Something's out there, Dram!"
"What is it?" Dram's heavy boots thudded down the steps; he moved faster than Kel would have credited him. Dram pointed his hellpistol at the closed ramp. "What the hell followed you, Squints?"
"I don't know!" Kel was near hysterical as bestial sounds filtered through the metal hull. A heavy thud! – and a significant portion of the Stormbird's starboard buckled. The craft creaked as Warp spawn crept over it.
Kel pointed to Dram. "Go outside and see what it is. You have the weapon. You're a Guardsman."
Dram snorted. "Ex-Guardsman, and I'm not about to go outside." His eyes roved over the interior of the Stormbird and perceived probable entry points. "Don't think Guardsmen are stupid, Kel. Some of the best minds get stuck in the trenches while the idiots play commander."
"We have to leave," Kel's voice pitched higher as baying howls cut over her words. "Get out of here, fly around Pytren Hive. We'll die if we stay!"
Dram punched the half-breed in the shoulder. "We stay until the Inquisitor returns. That was her order. We'll follow the order no matter how mindless it was."
"They could be dead in there," Kel attempted. "They haven't called on the vox-comm. You resisted Kith's plan from the start – I remember you staring her down. You know if we stay we'll die. I can pilot the Stormbird away; we can make up a story-"
Dram rounded on Kel. "We wait, Squints. I've served under brain-dead officers before, but I'm not a coward and neither are you." She saw the red in the man's eyes, the silent challenge, and realised Dram was not as unshaken by Vespor's horrors as she thought. Kel backed down. She, fixed her eyes on the grated floor as the sounds outside grew in pitch and frenzy. Suddenly the Stormbird violently rocked to one side, tilting at a drunken angle. The two Throne agents crashed into the bay's harnesses, items clattering to the floor. Dram swore as he careened toward the far side of the hull, grabbing the webbing on a harness and held tight, arm muscles bunching. Kel slammed onto the deck and skidded across the metal until she thudded against a row of heavy storage crates. The sickening motions finally stopped, the vessel set back in place. A quiet more dreadful than before filled the space, pierced by a horrid shriek of metal tearing from metal.
"That'd be the gun turrets," Dram noted. "A lot of help they were." He fumbled for a stimm-cig, lit it, and inhaled deep. In a galaxy of uncertainties, the one assurance he held in his hands was the calming effects of nicotine. And by hell it calmed him.
Kel hobbled over, her right cheek swelling from where she had fallen. "I have to tell you Dram, I hate this place." She darted a nervous glance as claws ticked across the roof. "I'm in a hostile environment. I'm completely unprepared and surrounded by things who want to kick my ass. It's like being back in the schola!"
"How'd you manage to survive the schola?"
"I ran away." Frank honesty gazed from brown eyes at Dram. Kel's bravado had fled, her fear and hysteria bubbling just under her flesh, eyes darting too fast, long-limbed arms twitching. Dram knew the signs of someone ready to run without thinking things through. He had seen enough of that in his time with the Dreadhaven 17th. Without thinking, Dram handed Kel a serrated combat knife from his belt, its monomolecular edge a burnished steel-blue. He had spent hours sharpening it before aboard the Iridescent Blade.
"You'll get through this, Squints. We'll get through it. Just don't panic and stay next to me."
The only similarity the treasure house held to the rest of Vespor was the fog. Inside the building it lay thick on the floor, pooled in corners, clawed up walls and seeped through niches. Progress was slow for the trio who had battled their way up from the governor's palace. Margorach refused to listen to Gren when he insisted they rest, and still refused to heed them. Weak mon-keigh, they knew not what each precious moment wasted meant. Their exhaustion would be the death of them all, Margorach wanted to say. Even he was tired yet he pushed himself beyond his limit. Now as they stood before the governor's treasure house, he looked at the two humans with disdain. How could such a race consider themselves masters of the galaxy?
"We move as Faolchú and do not halt." Those were Margorach's words before entering the relic house; he said no more once they crossed the threshold.
Inside the Eldar's concentration was strung taut. Vigilant, he paused before every branching corridor, refusing to let them advance until he ascertained their safety. The Death Jester kept the knowledge that Shadowseer Carrenad's spells were unravelling at an alarming rate and the source of most of his concern. It would not be much longer until they were easy prey for spawn swimming in the mist. His armour's runes burnt his flesh as their safeguard faded. Each motion took great effort, every step a fight against the Warp's psychic undertow and relic pushing against him. Pride kept Margorach from showing the strain.
Sabine pressed her back to the relic house's wall, watching the Inquisitor and Eldar flash hand-signals to the other, covering each other as they advanced down the hallway. Broken glass littered the floor and crunched under every step. They were a well-oiled machine working in tandem, hauling along a third wheel. Not for the first time did she feel out of place, her years spent in retirement too full of frivolities and not enough physical exertion.
"Governor Atomy's hobby is extensive," Gren whispered as they passed a vault of antiquated weapons. Vapour curled around a glass case holding gunpowder firearms.
"My husband's pastime is killing Vespor," Sabine snapped back. Wiping sweat from her neck, she glanced down to reaffirm she walked on a solid floor. The mist gave the appearance they passed through an endless sea of clouds, the effect unsettling. Sabine rarely visited the treasure house even in better times, content to leave Atomy the space he desired, yet the once familiar route now felt different. She opened her mouth to speak when the Eldar shouted, "Watch out!"
Margorach's warning came too late as a sudden wave of white vapour crashed over them. Cool tendrils brushed Sabine's face, tugged her hair, pulled at her ragged skirts. The noblewoman found herself alone when the wave passed and her instincts hammered at her. Sabine's laspistol snapped up, aiming into the murk while she scanned her surroundings. She found no sign of the Inquisitor or his Eldar ally, only the mist.
Sabine called in a loud whisper, "Inquisitor? Alien?" Her heart thumped painfully against her ribcage. Once she would have prayed to a God-Emperor that protected all his citizens and their families. Now she only dealt in the tangible, what her senses told her. She whirled to her left when she heard a whisper. "Inquisitor Gren? Eldar, show your face."
Her finger millimetres from the trigger, Sabine kept the wall to her left and advanced. She passed tapestries where images moved slowly toward her with arms raised. Sabine feigned indifference when the lips of a painting moved as though about to impart some terrible secret. When rock grated against rock, she convinced herself the marble busts were not turning to look at her. There came the sound of feet. Her heart soared as she made out a dim outline in the mist moving closer. The light from the ceiling lumens played over the figure and Sabine's hope fled. A memory wearing a dead companion's flesh stood before her.
Sabine's gut clenched. She hoarsely whispered, "Ivan."
"You let him burn me." Patches of blackened skin flaked off a scalp of mottled scarlet and burst veins. Encased in armour so badly damaged – Ivan had worn grey carapace the last time Sabine saw him – the exterior's markings were melted beyond recognition. The grotesque memory snarled, "You and Stym let him burn me, you bitch. You let him burn me!"
Sabine raised her hands. "Ivan, I couldn't stop him! Saeger couldn't be stopped! Stym and I tried to-"
"We were friends! Atomy and you stabbed us all in the back! You let us die on the platform, and those that survived, Saeger finished. We weren't corrupted!" Each word dripped hatred and rage. The wraith howled, "We weren't tainted! We served the Imperium as faithfully as the next man!"
"Forgive us! We didn't mean-"
The phantom barrelled forward as fire raced up its body. The scent of charred flesh and burnt blood filled the air. Sabine shrieked and fired her laspistol. The bolts passed through the wraith with no effect, impacting into the far wall. Scrambling backward, all self-control lost, Sabine froze as something rushed past her, scintillating crystals confusing her vision.
The Death Jester stood between her and the spectre, scythe cutting the fiend's blackened skin. Gren grabbed Sabine's arm, pulling the woman up. Margorach fired his shuriken cannon and virulent acid encased the burning wraith. What would have put down a mortal foe did little to the thing that was never mortal from the start. Shrugging off the Harlequin's attack, the wraith's form began twisting and changing. Bones snapped, remoulded, as flesh tore to accommodate its new frame. Sulphur replaced the stench of burnt flesh.
"What's your plan?" The Inquisitor's wraithbone runes pulsed against the neverborn's aura. Margorach watched the daemon advance; he knew its presence was due to his foolishness and rashness. Unshielded by wraithbone runes, Sabine's fears had been easy for any spawn to latch on to. It had followed them into the treasure house, waiting for an opportune moment to strike. Margorach cursed at his stupidity.
"Sport and merriment join hand in hand, Inquisitor Gren. I will keep the enemy here. Find the governor and bind the relic if you want to end this madness."
As the Inquisitor and woman ran further into the treasure house, Margorach felt the daemon's corruption psyche against his chest as a physical weight. He brandished his heavy weapon at the daemon as frost patterned the floor.
The fiend laughed. "Margorach of the Harlequins, you look unwell! You thought me bested in the Webway on your way to Vespor, how jesting!" Its sickle-shaped talons, sharper than anything in the Materium, caught the lumens light.
There was no hesitation as Margorach struck with the strength of Vaul. Sliding under the daemon's grasp with his scythe a blur of metal, the blade gouged across the daemon's flank. Margorach circled and rushed the neverborn, blurred movement replacing conscious thought. He danced, each movement precise, each cut sure.
Shrieking, the daemon threw itself at the Harlequin and snagged Margorach's cloak. Tossed through the air, the Death Jester leapt mid-flight, flip-belt adjusting his fall. His feet contacted with the ceiling and Margorach pushed off. He battered his left shoulder against the daemon's face. What might have been bone crunched in the grim silence of their battle.
It was a losing battle; the daemon's anima lashed Margorach's psyche, leeching power from him. Infused by the Warp, the daemon's speed and strength began to surpass the Harlequin's. His soul a timpani stretched further and further, Margorach battled for the time Gren needed to lock away the relic. Margorach's scythe cut the daemon's torso as mirthful laughter sounded in his mind. Too slow; a talon splintered Margorach's helmet. Stumbling back as the rotting stink filled his nostrils, Margorach's vision swam as he threw away his ruined helm. The runes burned his body as the Eldar's mind darkened.
Letting emotions overtake him as none of the Rillietann ever would, Margorach wildly attacked. In the raging whirlwind of wild blows, defence and counterattack, Margorach found calm. The scythe swung, parried, and embedded itself into the hollow neverborn. He depressed the trigger and Margorach the Death Jester prayed to Cegorach for victory against arduous Fate and fortune.
Gren did not think of Margorach's chances. He focused on the mission and Vespor's survival. Sabine stumbled alongside him through the fog. She tugged his arm to guide him along but her steps were uncertain.
"We are lost," Gren's voice shook with frustration. "We're lost in this damned maze!"
"Stym! Where are you?" As if waiting for Sabine's question, the mist rolled back to reveal Subsector Governor Atomy.
Eldritch power lashed Atomy's body, emanating from a simple piece of metal twinned round bloodless fingers. It was draining his form to a dry husk while hues without name haloed the governor. It was the unchecked essence of the relic striving to break through the Materium's veil. Sitting innocuously on the desk was the lockbox, the only thing capable of sealing the artefact's powers. Gren recalled the knowledge Shadowseer Carrenad imparted to him about the Vaenosis. The governor seemed to sense the Inquisitor's intent, for his eyes locked on the man. Something less than human but far more powerful calculated the intruders marching into its abode.
"Don't touch the relic," Gren whispered when Sabine moved toward her husband. "It is… sentient."
"Why?" Sabine hissed back.
"Are you a latent psyker?" Sabine shook her head. "Then don't touch it unless you want to become the same as Atomy."
"Not for you." Atomy's voice was a low, rasping trill. "Keep away. We keep it safe for one worthy. You are not they." The man's head jerked back painfully and Sabine saw the stark terror in Atomy's eyes; a man caught in a fight for his body, a man who abhorred violence on any level.
"He's in there! Atomy's there!"
"It's a ruse! Atomy's dead!"
A being coalesced from the mist, hunched and shivering as its tongue lolled from the vertical mouth bisecting its face, tasting the air. Needlepoint teeth pushed up from snapping, pus-filled gums. Twin tails whipped out along its back as its pincers snapped the air before it. It was a canine straining at the leash, quivering to be set free. Atomy's voice croaked, "End them."
The daemon sprang into the air, landing in front of Sabine. Claws sliced past, and Sabine felt blood trickle down her face, yet she remained frozen in place. The daemon's lips peeled back and she looked at the monster's fangs. Light flashed. A bright pulse jarred her muddled thoughts, and a deafening crack resounded in her ears. Ozone burned. Sabine was pushed aside by Inquisitor Gren, who fired his hellgun once more.
"Get to Atomy!" he shouted, breath pluming in the chilling cold. "Don't touch the relic!" The rest of the Inquisitor's warning was lost as the daemon's tails lashed out, bringing the Inquisitor to the ground. Gren fired a shaky volley at the relic's guardian, praying it hit. The daemon's barbed tails whipped down, cracking through Gren's armour. A copper tang overlaid the sulphur stench. Wraithbone runes flared as the protective wards were undone. Choking back a scream, Gren thumbed the hellgun's highest setting, and took aim even though he knew at such close range he could be incinerated too. Backpack thrumming, a red glow encasing the hellgun's reinforced barrel, Gren fired point-blank as the neverborn pounced.
Sabine ran to her husband's side, cursing Inquisitor Gren, cursing Saeger, cursing her very existence. Sabine reached out, grabbed on to Stym's forearms, yelled and pleaded at her husband. Sabine cried, "We saved Vespor once! Don't let Ivan's and the others sacrifice be for nothing!"
Through the murky storm, Stym Atomy's consciousness heard Sabine. It listened over the roaring voice of a behemoth who created and destroyed as any god pleased. In a place beyond Pytren Hive, Atomy fought. For once true moment in his life, Stym Atomy defied the greater powers of the cosmos and prevailed. He dropped the relic as the voice inside him screeched, "Not worthy for us! Not worthy!"
The artefact made a deep kneeling note when it impacted on the floor. Its form changed, transmuting and flowing across the marble and mist. Sabine scrambled after the relic. Without the relic, Atomy's body and mind were unprotected and weakened, Atomy could not defend himself as an inchoate being flowed into him from the mist. It overtook the man's body as his mind was still lucid, and forced his limbs to move. The man staggered out of his chair, throwing himself at Sabine.
Atomy crawled over Sabine, once-loving hands wrapping around her throat. "Kill me!" Atomy spat out, aware even if he could not control his actions. Blood mixed with sputum dribbled from his mouth. "Please," he gasped, "kill- me!"
Sabine's eyes watered, her vision dimming. Weeping, she levelled her laspistol at Atomy, fired a single lasbolt. Atomy juddered violently, skull collapsing in a sickening spray of blood and brains. From the bloody stump squirmed thick black maggots. Sabine rolled away, gasping for breath, her face spattered with blood and tears.
From the corner of her eyes, Sabine saw the relic move. Before she could move, to throw that hated object from the treasure house, Gren stood in her path. Bloodied, his skin gouged and stark white, Gren held the relic's case, and caught the source of Vespor's troubles. The whitish-green lockbox shut over the skittering, morphing relic. It was done so easily that Sabine laughed, a hoarse, ugly sound clashing against the woman's pained visage.
A scream heard only to those psy-touched reverberated across the planet. Bound again, the artefact no longer held a link to the Immaterium. Without its source, the aether-charged vapour fled, sinking into Pytren Hive, the Warp storm far above weakening.
"You look as though you have been to the gates and back." Margorach shambled down the hall toward Gren and Sabine, bruised and bloodied, but alive. "Did your Emperor bring you back to life?"
"A great amount of painkillers did," answered Gren, and grimaced, "and faith." Carefully holding the lockbox in one hand, he pressed the other to his abdomen. He on Terra certainly kept the daemon from striking anything vital, but an apothecary would be indispensable to mend his wound.
"Will you die before we return to the troupe?" Gren saw the scepticism on Margorach's face.
"I'll live. Praise your pantheon you survived, friend."
"What that a vortex grenade should become a deity. Cegorach would enjoy that, I'm certain." The sharp mirth left the Death Jester when he saw the governor's corpse. Margorach looked to Sabine. "I'm sorry."
"He did well at the end," Sabine answered. She spoke brightly, the forced cheer evident. "For the first time in his life, Stym did something truly courageous. He always wanted to do something brave like the heroes in the books. Stym was very fond of those tales."
Too many emotions swam in the air. Assailed by the woman's loss, Margorach slung his shuriken cannon over his good shoulder and extended his hand, palm up. Gren wordlessly passed the relic to the race charged with its protection, and Margorach held in his hands a treasure left from the War of the Gods. He pocketed the relic in his cloak, his fatigue and aches temporarily forgotten. He had done it. Now it was only a matter of returning to his troupe alive.
"My lady." Sabine looked up when Gren spoke. "Vespor will need your presence if the Lord Inquisitor of this sector is here." He held out his hand. With the grace only a noblewoman could manage, Lady Sabine D'Ebanne sat next to her husband's body, one hand resting protectively on his shoulder.
"I will stay. I thank you both on behalf of Vespor. The survivors will be able to mend the rest, under what I am sure will be the careful watch of Lord Saeger." She smiled and brushed a lock of white hair from her face. Gren saw the silver flash of a laspistol in her elegant hand. "If you see Selina… tell her to keep safe."
Inquisitor Gren knew the gleam in her eye; others in his service showed the same when the burden became too much. Gren bowed once, the gesture heavy. He had stolen Sabine's child when he had been Saeger's pawn, too young to comprehend his actions. Nothing remained for Sabine now. "Safe travels, my lady."
Margorach and Gren left the relic house, the Inquisitor rapidly thinking what his next step would be to procure Vespor's safety against Saeger's judgement. The forms of Warp beings seemed vague, cutting in and out of the waning mist, their once angular edges smeared and indistinct. A voracious spawn screeched, charging when it saw the two souls. With a casual flick of his weapon, Margorach killed it.
"The filth cannot hold their forms for much longer. We must return to the portal and the troupe."
Margorach's pace was quick, chromatic crystals ricocheting in his wake. The Eldar caught the sound of a single laspistol discharging behind them; Gren convinced himself it was nothing but the howling wind.
The unhallowed fires of the Immaterium did not touch them. Roaring downward, Warp flames smelted precious metals and liquefied mirrors under its touch. Marble turned to putty. Corpses vaporised from the heat before the flames touched flesh. Yet the inferno did not touch the Lord Inquisitor or his surviving coterie.
Saeger drove his will through the psy-active crystal of his sword. He reached out, his mind touching each particle of poisoned aether, each nucleus of energy burning in the Warp flames. Struggling against Ahriman's control over the inferno, Saeger's mind burned under the mental onslaught. He could not dispel the fire but could divert its course. Saeger commanded the magic-born blaze away with prodigious effort, the wave breaking over the Imperials in a surge of scarlet and crimson.
The blazing light that was the relic winked out of existence. Immediately the chaotic pull and ebb of the Immaterium died, the seas calmed, and Ahriman lost command of the inferno to the Lord Inquisitor. The mortal directed the Warp fire to the edge of the Hall of Mirrors, letting the flames gutter and die. The arch-sorcerer took a step back and attempted to rein in the dwindling psychically saturated air. The aether fluxed and shivered and what Ahriman gathered slithered from his fingers like fistfuls of sand.
A flash of light heralded another teleportation; the shockwave brought with it a growing void. Ravenous waves of emptiness washed over the Hall of Mirrors. Deliverance from the Salva Nos had arrived. Rising from a crouch, the Culexus assassin surveyed the enemies, readying the animus speculum. Fixating on the greatest threat, the Culexus charged Ahriman.
Noph's panicked voice filtered over the vox-comm. "We must flee, Lord Ahriman! I cannot sense the Great Ocean!"
Across the shortening space, the Culexus devoured the chaotic aether. Ahriman gathered what remaining power he could to create a telekinetic cyclone. Hurling the tempest into the Hall of Mirrors and Culexus' path, Ahriman commanded the Rubricae. In unison, the nine ancient Rubricae withdrew from the ruined hall.
"Use what time you have!" commanded Ahriman. Then the grand sorcerer was gone and Noph stood alone as the cyclone howled overhead.
Not breaking stride, the Culexus dove through the psy-charged windstorm. The assassin burst through the other side, lacerated but whole, to find the Chaos Space Marine waiting. The Culexus' dead aura had protected it from the worst of the psychic attack. Noph's psychic senses were crippled, and he tasted blood as it dribbled from his nose and eyes. The Thousand Son was firing, ensorcelled bolt rounds cracking sharply over the keening wind. His aim was now as unskilled as a novice, the shots went wide with the Imperial agent – she, the warlock coolly noted – dodging effortlessly. Fluid ebony and ivory span past the corrupt Astartes' guard. The Culexus's right hand reached out to graze the Thousand Son's baroque helm. Noph died.
Careening through the Hall of Mirrors, snapping up glass and marble detritus, the cyclone tore forward in its uncontrolled path. Saeger threw himself to the ground as the storm broke over the remaining Celestine squads and Inquisitorial storm troopers. With unrelenting fury the tempest mashed those unable to find shelter into the floor and walls, pulverizing bone and stripping flesh from those caught too close to the whirlwind. With its fury spent the cyclone died away, leaving few survivors.
Saeger heaved himself upright, cumbersome in power armour heavily damaged by the cyclone. His armour's spirit registered a compromised power pack and ruptures to critical power cords. Unable to continue the chase, Saeger nodded to the Culexus. She perched atop the dead Chaos Space Marine's back and waited for orders. Under her nullification the sorcerers would be sheep before the wolf.
"By His light are the foes of the Imperium purged," Saeger rasped from a blistered throat. "He that is unjust and polluted, let him be so still unto the grave."
The Culexus darted under the triumphal arch and into Pytren Hive's corridors, led on by Ahriman's psychic spoor. And the sheep knew the wolf followed. As the Rubricae double-timed synchronically, Ahriman scoured the muddied aether to situate Neferuaat. He could not engage the Culexus, only run, and would not leave behind the one being critical to his plans. The foolish woman was in the governor's palace, hers the only soul Ahriman sensed, and the sorcerer questioned what stopped her from acquiring the relic. Pathoth was correct; her mortal frailties were her weakness. Ahriman's frustration to the advisor's words were only matched by his determination to survive Vespor.
Ahriman found Neferuaat in a ruined banquet hall. Flecks of unnameable colours hovered in the air, a dying aurora borealis. Seated in the middle of the devastation was the Dark Mother, clutching the mangled body of an urchin, muttering wildly to herself. She was half-aware of Ahriman's arrival, looking up at the approaching Rubric Marines with a smile on her corpse coloured lips.
"Please be quiet, the children are sleeping." Ahriman watched the Alpha-plus psyker lose herself in another reality. Bloodied tears tracked down her ashen face. Her psycurium veil was missing, and that alone unsettled Ahriman. "It was so loud in here before. Look at the mess my children made. I will have to tell Ranoehk to clean this up."
Ahriman did not have time to coddle Neferuaat or her delusions. Aetherically scanning her body, he came across a dark cancer rooted in Neferuaat's mind, caught off-guard by its being. Her malaise was not from her mêlée in the banquet hall, for the roots were twisted too deep, too rooted in the crevices of her mind, to be recent. This was an older sickness cunningly hidden. Ahriman deduced who cloaked Neferuaat's condition from him for so long.
Neferuaat pulled at the dead child's hand. "Rais, wake up. Klauss will want to see you."
"Enough of this." Batting away the corpse, Ahriman pulled the woman to her feet. "We are returning to the Warp vortex."
"After I secure the relic!" Neferuaat's her eyes widened as she saw the other children, calling "This is no time to sleep, little ones! We have to-"
"Enough!" thundered Ahriman. "Be silent and follow, Neferuaat."
She pointed at Ahriman, laughed, and said, "What are you doing here, Ranoehk? I thought you were aboard the Meskhenet."
"I am Ahriman, your cabal master," responded Ahriman steadily. "You are Neferuaat, and we are leaving Pytren Hive now."
"Are my children dead? Are they… dead?" Her crazed merriment disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Full clarity and the realisation of what surrounded her broke over the Dark Mother.
Backing away from Ahriman, Neferuaat ripped at her hair as a fit of madness seized her. Small tremors across the hive city built into a great quake, shaking in cadence with each piercing cry from the sorceress. Ahriman grasped Neferuaat and attempted to thread a measure of composure into her psyche. He was rebuffed, encountering only cold emptiness, a vacuum expanding to fill the chamber as the Culexus entered the hall.
"My children! I can't leave them behind!" screamed Neferuaat, wildly thrashing against Ahriman's grip. "They can't leave! They're trapped!"
A nimbus of light danced about her head even as the assassin advanced. Years of training gave way to primal fear as Neferuaat utilized her powers. Brute force replaced finesse as she attacked the menace. Embedded pillars rose up to be hurled, bars of iron snaked out to ensnare the Culexus, and debris was turned into deadly projectiles. The banquet hall began crumbling, dissolving, as Neferuaat sought to utterly destroy the threat. Ahriman lifted Neferuaat in one arm and, with a telepathic command, he and the Rubricae fled as the chamber collapsed upon itself.
Fog shrouded passages and stairs blurred past. The Dark Mother's eyes bled against the Culexus' hollow touch while she screamed for her children. Her cries ricocheted through Pytren Hive, creating tectonic quakes which tore the city's millennium-old foundations. One of the Rubric Marines – Salah Reu – stayed behind. Ahriman could not spare a breath as Reu's soul was smothered in freezing blackness. Ahriman attempted to reach out to the Enumerations to clarify his mind and recall the correct path returning them to the vortex. The Culexus' being made it impossible, and the sorcerer did not want to call it happenstance when his surviving coven stumbled into the corridor where the portal waited.
Sorcerer-adept Ibni stood before the kaleidoscopic gateway, struggled to hold it open against the colossal psychic forces ripping apart the hive. Neferuaat's fevered mind caught on an image riding the lingering Warp current, two women fleeing Pytren Hive. They were the cause of her children's deaths. Even as the Culexus tore around the corner, Neferuaat did not see the assassin. Neferuaat's emotions welled up, too much for her to comprehend, and she threw her psychic dissonance into the hive city. Neferuaat swore she could hear her children's voices. Raw aether dripped from her fingers, the flesh hot as the rest of her body was coated in hoarfrost. Rime traced across Ahriman's war plate, over the Rubricae. Ice coated the walls in thick plates, shattering instantly in the Culexus' wake.
"Hurry!" Ibni yelled. He threw a telekine bolt past Ahriman, watched it end where the Culexus' unbeing began. The Rubric Marines passed through the portal as Ibni dissolved the threads binding the Warp vortex. Ahriman threw himself and Neferuaat into the vortex, looking back to see the Culexus bring down the sorcerer-adept. Ahriman gave no thought to Ibni's death, focusing his thoughts on the Khermuti to anchor himself and Neferuaat. He and the Dark Mother had escaped and Ahriman could yet recoup his losses.
Left behind in the fragmenting hive city, the final spell cast by the Dark Mother circled the air and wound its way into the very essence of Pytren Hive, eager to hunt.
The spawn were screaming. What had been a protracted assault on the Stormbird and near breach was quickly turning into something else beyond the hull. The Warp beasts' hideous cries were abruptly silenced. Dram and Kel shared a look; after some consideration the pilot went to lower the ramp as the ex-Guardsman covered her. She wrinkled her nose at the prevalent stench hanging over the plaza, then forgot it as she looked at the massacre in open-mouthed shock.
"Don't move!" Dram ordered, reflexes lightning quick. Two figures stood at the edge of the Stormbird's lights, haggard and bloody, not all of it from the spawn. Training his barrel on the alien, Dram gestured to the human, "You come forward. If the xeno moves there's going to be a crater where he's standing."
Gren raised his arms, walking with a slight limp around dismembered limbs and over gore-streaked tiles. "The Emperor protects. We saw the lights and approached. My associate-"
"Name." The ramp shook as Dram walked down it, his gun never wavering from its aim on the alien's chest. A small quake rolled over the plaza. "Name and rank."
"Inquisitor Gren of the Ordo Xenos."
"Show me your rosette, then," Dram curtly ordered. Kel kept quiet and held her combat knife, unsure what to do if things turned violent. Another shiver, stronger now, rippled over the square.
Gren carefully reached for his rosette, producing the small gold pin. Dram took it, turning it over in one hand before returning it. "What's an Inquisitor doing here?"
"What's an Inquisitorial Stormbird doing here?" countered Gren. "I'm certain even a Guardsman notices the hive city shaking like a waking beast. This Stormbird wouldn't be here unless there was something or someone important."
Dram snapped, "Classified."
"My rosette and rank commands you to tell me," responded Gren. "Lower your weapon from my ally. The Eldar will match a show of force with his own, and even your pilot here isn't fast enough to stop him."
Dram lowered his hellpistol, glaring at the man's narrow face and odd tattoo. "Inquisitor Amara Kith is on Vespor. I have orders to wait for her return."
"Where is she now?" Gren's question came quicker than Dram would have thought.
Dram jerked his head toward the hive city. "In there."
"We can't leave anyway," Kel cut in. "I was fixing the Stormbird before you guys saved us, and I'll still have to patch her up after what happened."
Gren nodded. "Return to your repairs, pilot. My ally will protect you in the event the spawn return. Guardsman, keep a watch for Inquisitor Kith's return. Alert me when she appears." Dram's jaw set at Gren's orders. He marched to the far side of the Stormbird, unsettled by the growing tremors just as much by the new arrivals. He caught Kel's gaze as she passed, signalled that if anything should happen he would take care of it. The half-breed clambered up the Stormbird, tense and alert.
Margorach approached. "We cannot halt here. My troupe needs the relic."
"If I give the relic to you, then the Lord Inquisitor could purge this whole world. It would be a show of faith that I am entrusted with the relic, and can convince Saeger that Vespor can be saved with the threat sealed." Gren extended his hand. "Trust me, and when the time is right I will return it."
The Death Jester's attention was caught by the pilot moving across the Stormbird in an awkward lope. "And should I refuse, leaving you here without it?"
"Saeger will kill me and everyone who came into contact with us. You would have my blood on your hands. Will that stand up to the Rillietann code?" Gren braced as another quake rocked Pytren Hive's foundations. "Saeger would take great satisfaction in crucifying that half-breed pilot in particular. Would Sinead want that? Would your honour allow for it?" Margorach jerked back from the Inquisitor's words as though struck.
"Hey!" Kel called out. "I could use some help up here!"
The Harlequin took the lockbox from his cloak. Margorach passed it to Gren, stepping back with a warning. "Keep the relic safe. If you do not return it to us, the troupe will come for it, and we will not be kind in its taking. You will think Commorragh pleasant after we are done with you."
"Sometimes I wish you were more sanguine about my motives, Margorach."
"I hope your species were more pragmatic, mon-keigh. Your misaligned faith in others will be your downfall." Gren pretended not to hear the doom-laden portend. He trusted the damaged vessel could raise a signal to the Salva Nos.
Margorach sprung up the dropship's side, trying to ignore the pain in his left shoulder and muscles, his petulance less to do with Gren's plans than with being near the pilot. He approached the half-breed with slow, measured steps, focusing on the present to keep unwanted memories from flooding back. Kianemure's distant battle with human colonists had set his fate in motion, Maharra had brought him face to face with a half-breed's existence he could not disown. Margorach almost found himself hoping the fog had distorted the pilot's features, making him see what he wanted to. But up close, with the pilot handing a torch to the Harlequin, Margorach saw Sinead in those eyes.
"Hold this over the rent here. I have three hundred to patch up against this ticking time bomb of a world. You know," she drawled, oblivious to Margorach's unease, "this is the closest I've ever seen an Eldar. I've only seen an Eldar before when I worked with pirates, and he wouldn't talk to me. They were pretty quiet, just like you. And tall, just like you, too."
She chattered on, reknitting the metal while Margorach shone the light. He watched the half-breed work, despondent of what could have been had he stayed on Kianemure. "Did you know?" Kel shouted, hammering at a stubborn piece of metal. "I'm half-Eldar."
"I know," Margorach answered over the din. "You bear the most noble of aspects from your parents."
Kel, stunned by the Eldar's acknowledgement, dropped her toolkit. She recovered with a lop-sided smile and a forced laugh. "About time someone acknowledged it. I'm Kelvenia, but you can call me Kel." Sticking out her hand, the pilot was startled when the Harlequin actually shook it.
Margorach weighed his words, decided. "I am Taekaedr, once of Lugganath."
Animalistic roars, primordial screams. There came a shout, "He shields His brides!" followed by a flash of light. A sensation of falling, wind rushing past in an endless plummet, and then came the jarring impact. Rock scrapped Amara Kith's cheek, bringing her back to a pain-drenched world. Rolling on to her right side, the Inquisitor squinted against another burst of light illuminating the dark corridor and swirling mist. In that frozen moment Kith saw Ursula swinging her sword, the alien-forged blade slashing into the pus-weeping eye of a spawn. A horde crawled over the floor and walls on mutated limbs, intent on snuffing out their existence.
Kept back by the battle maiden's sheer willpower and adamant faith, the spawn attacked only when they saw an opening. And more strikes were slipping past Ursula's guard, her conversion shield crackling under the fiends punishing blows. The rosarius glowed a dull red, smoke rising from the ancient machine. In frustration one spawn roared, and spittle like acid flecked the floor and Ursula's armour, burning against the ceramite.
"He guides my hand!" Ursula parried a claw, dodging left as a snaking limb grabbed her leg. Bringing the sword down, the woman severed the unclean appendage from its owner. She cried, "Sanguinem meum triumpho!"
Amara Kith pulled herself forward with her remaining arm, broken ribs grating, blood coating her mouth. Close enough to inhale the burning stink of sulphur and feces, Kith pushed out with her silence. The horrors fled at its touch, retreating in to the palace's dark recesses, already regrouping, commanded by a greater will infused across the entire hive. A rattle came overhead. Disgorged from the concealed vents, a host of lesser daemons with hooked limbs and scaled bodies poured down on them. Ursula swept the sword around, hacking her enemies, stopping only when the last head rolled clean of its body. She sheathed the blade, wary of another attack but not ready to wait for it.
"On your feet, Inquisitor!" The Sororita hauled the Inquisitor upright, moving them toward a sweeping stairwell that disappeared into the gloom below. "On your feet!"
Pytren Hive trembled under their feet. Behind them came a rush of air and a blistering gale roared down from far above, drawing the fog with it. Tremors grew in intensity. A pillar cracked and toppled over the balustrade, taking the stairway with it. Their route cut off, Ursula unsteadily pulled Amara back up the corridor as the floor heaved.
"We shall find another path, milady. He on Terra will protect us."
Amara Kith struggled to pick up her feet, her body quickening as she used her nullility to keep the worst at bay. Blood seeped from her tourniquet while she was dragged down another corridor. Cold wind touched her lined face. The Inquisitor's mind set upon a plan, a suicidal one, but better than their. current situation.
"Out the window," Amara Kith indicated one of the many shattered windows. Ursula brought them over to gauge the drop, her heart plummeting at the distant vista below. Her armour's machine spirit was unable to calculate the distance to the lower tier in the dark and fading mist. She scanned the opposite building and found a ledge across the black gulf, twenty yards away and ten down. Tempestuous winds shrieked between Pytren Hive's crenelated walls, promising a crushing death to anyone attempting to jump to their salvation.
"I ask you to reconsider your course of action, Milady Kith." Broken glass dislodged from the window frames to fall as a seism rolled up from below.
"Our way back won't be the same as the one we took. The hive might fall on us." Sweat rolled down her brow as Kith struggled to hold her silence, the loss of her arm less concerning than her ability gnawing inside her body. No rejuvenate remained to combat the accelerated deterioration, the last vial used long before. The Inquisitor pulled an item from her belt, passing it to Ursula. "My gravity arrestor. It will help you for the… leaps of faith required."
If there was sarcasm in Kith's words, she hid it well. Ursula clipped the antiquated machine to her ammo belt. She trusted the Inquisitor in all things, but even this plan felt ill-conceived. A part of her wanted to shout they should keep fighting through the hive as penance for her inability to slay the Dark Mother. Yet the God-Emperor abhorred waste. Their deaths would not keep the witch from committing further atrocities. Ursula ripped her white tabard into strips, tying the dirty cloths around her and Kith's torso, securing them for the mad parcourse down. The battle maiden hauled them both up on the windowsill. Setting her eyes on the distant butting ledge, Ursula whispered to the saints that it would hold their weight. She glanced over her shoulder at the sounds of growls and crazed hoots coming up the corridor.
"Go," Kith ordered. Her heart beat tightly.
A banshee wail rolled toward them. Crazed shadows crept ahead of their monstrous owners, hinting at the nightmares. The void inside Amara Kith vanished and horrendous, painful awareness came flooding back as the daemons rounded the far corner.
"Go!" the Inquisitor shouted.
Ursula jumped. They soared across the gulf between decaying edifices, the gravity arrestor decelerating their sudden drop. Ursula's feet connecting with the ledge; the Sister of Battle sprang away from the crumbling stone. Pain ripped up her injured leg, but she endured as the saints themselves endured. A hissing roar rose behind them, and had she turned, Ursula would have seen lesser daemons and spawn spilling from the window in pursuit.
A wall rose up to Ursula's right. She pushed off it, soaring into the darkness and letting her faith light her path. The God-Emperor would protect them in this insidious landscape. Walls came to life, sprouting mutated limbs reaching out to the battle maiden and Inquisitor. Talons raked against Ursula's armour, ripped Kith's black tabard. Twisting away from the iron arms of a statue come to life, Ursula reflexively raised her arm. Her dented vambrace saved Kith from a skull-crushing blow. They dropped further away from the governor's palace, past hab-tiers filled with destroyed manses and smouldering merchant guilds. Ursula held on to the Inquisitor as they leapt by gothic arches, across ruined courtyards, and over shattered walkways. Pytren Hive's lattice of roadways spread out Ursula, a writhing labyrinth pulsating with unholy energy. Ursula forced her damaged body to move, smashing tiles and fingers alike that sprouted from the ferrocrete. Behind Ursula and Kith came the sound of bricks crunching and glass shattering.
In mid-leap, her stomach rising in her throat at the drop, Ursula twisted and caught sight of their pursuer. A heaving mass of twisted stone melded to flesh and bones, infused with eldritch Warp magic, raked across the hive's outer walls, punching through barriers too high to go over. It screamed from mouths as black as the abyss when it sighted its fleeing prey, and careened toward them.
"Emperor's arse!" Ursula screamed. Having sprung off a pock-marked wall, the Sister of Battle and Kith dropped past another tier. The daemonic form followed, demolishing everything in its wake. The rising wall of hellish sound grew, drowning out Ursula's frantic heartbeat. She risked a glance at Amara Kith, could not see if she was cognisant or not of their plight. Dropping onto the roof of a hab-unit, Ursula and Kith raced across the flat surface. Ferrocrete blasted up behind them as the building began collapsing under their hunter. Reaching the edge, Ursula lunged, sending her and Kith sailing off the edge. Plunging down past corroded metal and melting glass, a light winked in the mid-distance.
"Terra help us," whispered Ursula. The gravity arrestor caught their weight and she guided them to the top of another hab-unit. The familiar sight of the plaza could be seen through the fading mist, and Ursula shouted her adulation to the God-Emperor. Static broke in her ear as her vox-link crackled to life.
"Sister Ursula? We- can't-" Dram's voice cut in and out, the Stormbird's signal patchy. Another voice overrode the ex-Guardsman's.
"Hurry to- Stormbird! -can't hold-"
"Hold on, Milady Kith!" Ursula's breath caught in her throat when an abyssal scream heralded the daemonic hunter.
No time left, Ursula jumped without looking where they landed. She focused on the growing image of the Stormbird as the distance shortened. Landing on the expansive square, the Sister of Battle misjudged her step and fell, dropping the Inquisitor. Amara Kith was jolted into full consciousness as red-hot agony seared over her wound.
Ursula drew the sword as the mass crashed down behind them, ready to die fighting when an explosion of chromatic crystal and jarring patterns flew by. Before Ursula could assess it as friend or foe, it was already engaging the spawn. Ursula grabbed the Inquisitor, half-dragging her through the last traces of the fog. Her targeting reticule sighted Dram at the ramp, someone else standing beside him. She saw the Inquisitorial rosette, and did not ask questions as she hauled Amara Kith into the Stormbird. The ramp closed.
An ominous cry rolled over the plaza. Delirious with pain, Amara Kith felt hands pass her along. Someone strapped her to a chair as metal creaked. She felt the world madly rock, the rising howl of engines competing against the monster chasing them. Her eyes snapped open as a syringe jabbed into the ruin of her left arm.
She saw Gren. His face was blackened and scorched, tonsured hair a mess, and dry blood on his armour, but it was undeniably him. The Stormbird rattled and shuddered as she reached out to take Gren's hand in hers. The engines cries changed pitch as the craft accelerated. There was a sense of weightlessness, then they were airborne, speeding back to the Iridescent Blade.
Amara Kith whispered, and though her words were lost to the screaming engines, Gren read her lips. "You're the only family I can trust."