Fame Cimex Chapter 18
Darkness sat upon the Hive city, swathing it in a midnight shawl that lay heavily in the alleys and slums of the poorest people. Tired day shift workers trudged home, hands calloused from hard labour and thinking only of snatching six meagre hours of sleep before returning to do it all over again. Meanwhile the denizens of the night emerged, the thieves, whores, peddlers and thugs, all emerging from the safety of the Underhive to seek their victims.
They were not the only predators abroad in the night, for high above their heads something truly inhuman was stalking the city. The Tyranid Lictor was carefully making its way from rooftop to rooftop, seeking fresh victims. The Lictor was being driven by a force it did not understand, the voice of the Hive Mind growing ever stronger as the Fleet closed in and ever more ardent in its demands that the Leader-Beast be caught. Unfortunately the animal had demonstrated unusual cunning, going to ground in its nest behind layers of protection even the Lictor could not penetrate. Yet the Lictor was not without cunning of its own, the Leader-Beast could not be reached so it must be drawn out, lured into the open where it could be targeted. The Tyranids had consumed this type of prey before and one of the characteristics displayed was that when the herd was afraid the Leader-Beasts had a habit of making appearances.
Towards that end the Lictor had spent the last few weeks stalking the streets of the city, hunting prey in small numbers or alone. The wastrels and the emancipated, packs of young bulls or mated pairs with young in their dens, all had fallen to its scythes. The Lictor had left the bodies where they would be found, driven by its instinct to make sure that the scenes displayed deliberate intention rather than random violence. The result of this was that the city was now wrapped in fear and terror, the prey huddling together in larger groups and spending as little time as possible out in the open. They had gathered in large flocks around the Leader-Beast's warren, camping outside and bleating loudly day and night. Yet despite all that the Leader-Beast was proving to be most wily, refusing to show itself even as the herds of prey beat upon the entrance to its den.
The Lictor had no concept of frustration or impatience and yet the Hive mind was growing ever more strident in its demands. Driven by its instincts the Lictor recognised that it needed to change tactics, it needed bigger prey. For this reasons it was headed across the city in a straight line, seeking a most enticing scent upon the breeze. Swiftly and completely unobserved the Lictor approached a squat prey warren, one with thick walls and lines of spikes around its base. It seemed oddly out of place but the scent was undeniable, it was filled with young, genetically viable material. The Tyranid creature had no concept of an orphanage or of Scholams, all it knew was that the prey valued their young and any attack here would draw out the Leader-Beast.
The Lictor effortlessly leapt the spiked rail and scaled the crumbling wall, its claws punching into the stonework to climb vertically like a spider. It reached the roof and scrambled over the slates silently, instinctively seeking a hidden entrance rather than attempting the frontal attack most Tyranid genus' would favour. The roof was punctured by hot ventilation shafts, most of them spewing out soot to deter insects but it soon found a cold and still vent and lowered itself inside head first. The tunnel was narrow but short and the Lictor emerged into a dark and dusty nest, long unused by any prey. The door presented a challenge for a minute, as the Lictor tried to grasp the concept of a handle but eventually trial and error let it slip silently out into the corridor beyond. It began prowling the warren, wary of being detected too soon and alarming the prey.
Suddenly it froze as it detected the vibration of footsteps, an opening in the wall creaking wide as an elderly female (well past breeding age) slipped out quietly, trying not to wake those slumbering within. The Lictor was as still as a statue as the female took a step back and then turned around, seeing the Tyranid filling the corridor before it. The female opened its mouth to raise a warning but the Lictor reacted faster, spitting a series of flesh barbs from its chest to impale the female in a dozen places. Quick as thought the muscle sinews spasmed and retracted, hurling the female forward into the Lictor's embrace where it silently broke the weak neck joint. The Lictor noiselessly lowered the corpse to the ground and moved on, standing just outside the door.
Its superior hearing could the breathing within, the sounds of a dozen immature pups sleeping inside. Instinct propelled it inside and it found the prey waiting in neat rows as they slept. Compassion, mercy and restraint were utterly incomprehensible to the Tyranid organism and it moved through the nest, leaving none alive. Then it went back out and found another nest, and another and another. The Lictor worked its way through the warren, slaying all it found, young and old, females and even one aged male, surely the old Alpha of this pride. The Lictor's movements were swift and certain, emptying the warren of life was the work of less than an hour and then it slipped out the way it had come in.
The Lictor immediately relocated, moving to another warren and positioning itself so it could observe proceedings. It waited perfectly still and unmoving as the horizon began to glimmer and the first light of dawn crept over the city. Life began to stir in the city and crowds of prey began their ritual behaviours but still the Lictor held its position and waited for the right moment.
Eventually a single female came up to the warren, carrying wicker pouches of food. It signalled its arrival to gain entry, but paused when no one came to meet it. The Lictor watched as the female hesitantly entered and waited with eerie calm, the delay was not long before a screech of alarm rose from the warren. The noise made the Lictor's senses quiver, then the female emerged from the interior and collapsed at the spiked rail, still screaming at the top of its lungs.
Soon a herd of prey had gathered, a few males daring to enter the warren themselves but all emerged again in panicked horror, many regurgitating on the ground. The crowd swiftly grew larger and larger until suddenly there was a blare of aerial alerts and a clumpy metal shape fell from the sky with bright dominance colours flashing from its wings. The prey scattered before the avian, which paused to disgorge guard-animal forms in thick carapaces and bearing short blunt weapons. The newcomers fanned out and claimed the ground, driving away the herd and marking out their territory before sweeping into the Warren in packs. Slowly the herd broke up and moved on, save for a few who lingered looking for scraps, but still the Lictor did not move. It sat utterly still and unmoving, waiting as the guard-animals swept the territory and completely missed its vantage high above. These animals were not the ones it wanted and its instincts told it to stay still for now.
It did not have to wait for long, soon there was a rumble and a blocky lump on tracks came into sight, pushing through the herds with loud wails to drive the prey aside. The Lictor had never seen such a thing but pre-programmed instincts told it that its true target had finally arrived. The thing screeched to a halt and out poured warrior-animals in carapaces, these were the ones it had been waiting for, the female guard of the Leader-Beast. The Female stomped right up to the guard-animals, who parted before them in deference to their dominant postures. One of them wore shiny materials on its carapace and was bleating at its pack in a high pitched tone, clearly the alpha female of this group.
Silently the Lictor stirred from its perch and slithered down to the ground, shifting its chameleonic skin as it did so to stay unobserved. The females had disappeared inside the warren so the Lictor approached from the side, the lesser guard-animals were circling the outside but it was a simple matter to slip by and not one of them saw it pass. It quickly scaled the warren once more and slipped back inside the same way it had previously, emerging into the same nest. Here it paused and felt the floor, sensing the vibrations of heavy feet passing close by. The females were sweeping the warren and its superior senses told it that there was a pair coming this way. Swiftly the Lictor took up position above the entrance and held still, waiting for the threat to close. There was the crump of feet outside and a pause, then the handle twitched and the door opened just as the Lictor acted.
Two enlarged scything talons stabbed down, smashing through the carapace of the first female and ripping out its back before it knew the Lictor was there. The second acted commendably fast, raising its weapon but the bulk of its packmate blocked its eyeline and it could not draw a target. The Lictor swung its claws across, using the dead female like a club to knock the second aside. The weight of it hurled the female into the wall and it staggered for a moment, that was all the Lictor needed to jump forward and engulf the head in its mouth tendrils and rip it clean off. There was no time to feast for the crump of heavy feet announced the coming of more females, closing in from all directions. The first to emerge was the Alpha female, bearing a long claw that spat energy all around.
The Lictor instantly leapt at it, closing with a speed that should have rendered the prey stunned and shocked. The Alpha however reacted with surprising speed, swinging its claw to tear a great chunk out of the Lictor's hide. The Lictor screeched but did not slow down, ducking back before the follow up blow, then pouncing forward with its claws extended. The next few seconds were a blur of hacking and slashing attacks, both creatures fighting with eye-watering speed and remarkable strength. Both clawed and hacked at each other with insane fury, but neither could land a killing blow.
The Alpha female barked mewling noises at the Lictor, but it only hissed in reply, whatever meanings implied being lost on both of them. Then the female made a single great swing with its claw, the Lictor contorted inhumanly to duck the blow and when it rose up its mouth was open to spit a spray of chemicals right into the Alpha's face.
The Alpha fell back screaming, its hands going to its face in agony as the chemicals burned away the skin. The Lictor could have taken the moment to kill the female, but instead it fell back, leaping away from the fight in one great bound. A salvo of blasts followed it from the rest of the pack but it dove back into the deserted nest and scrambled up the vent with skittering movements. As the mewls and bellows of the animals chased it the Lictor emerged onto the roof and scurried away, easily avoiding the sweeping search beams looking for it. There was no sense of triumph or loss in its mind, only the next action that the Hive Mind required.
The Alpha female had been marked now, and surely would return to the Leader-Beast. All the Lictor had to do was follow the pheromone trail and its target would have nowhere to hide.