VIII
Dorlan moved ahead of everyone else, slow but focused on forward momentum. His flamethrower's muzzle hissed an eager blue flame. His mouth also released a steady exhalation. He was a mouth breather, always had been. Like the inclination to appreciate fine spirits, it was simply in his bloodline, an undeniable predisposition.
Dorlan, like his da before him, and his da before him, was burly and not mentally precise, as his ma liked to say. He was fine with that. Ma was fine with that, as was his da. He could carry a large weapon better than most, and one didn't need deep thoughts to know that it was only right to fight heretics and daemons.
Tersus, Nagay, and Murcheson were all quiet, so with the scramblers removing even the background hum all ships had, the Ira Populi seemed eerily, sepulcher silent, especially with the lights as dim as they were. The only sound he truly registered was the slow, dull click of the mag boots he wore as he moved step by purposeful step forward. It wasn't null grav in here, but it was definitely dialed down.
They passed a few people, he assumed crew members. He glanced back to Murcheson, who gave a short shake of his head. Not worth worrying about. They seemed caught up in their own issues.
One of them moved close to Dorlan, looking like he was importuning him for assistance of some sort, but he seemed harmless enough. With a strange flash of light, the stranger seemed to turn into a younger version of himself, but quickly he returned to normal. Dorlan blinked and shook his head. He glanced back again at Murcheson and the others, wondering if they'd seen the same thing he had.
As he turned, his eyes widened at the sight that greeted him. Forgetting it was useless without pressing the button on his earpiece, he cried out to the others to turn around. The sight brought on a paroxysm of fear that caused him to spew acidic liquid leftovers that spun slowly in the air in front of him.
Vwahl Kenek grinned a rictus grin. He was well and truly in the hands of the Changer of Ways now, and there was only the bliss that came from the agony of service.
His future had collapsed into the present.
Tersus knew things were bad when he saw the expression on Dorlan's face. No need for words to convey the pure terror there.
They were in some sort of mess hall, so Tersus immediately clomped to the nearest wall, throwing himself behind a metal table bolted to the ground. He raised up onto one knee, getting a quick view before sighting down the rifle's scope.
The people they'd come across, the people mindlessly wandering, had apparently turned into some sort of demonic creatures. He wouldn't have made the connection, but one of them still wore the half-exploded skin of the person he'd burst out from on its shoulders.
Its face, for want of a better word, kept changing with every beat of Tersus's heart. Something that resembled a spider, multi-eyed, hair; something that resembled an industrial waste recycler, all spinning metal parts; a glowing inverted triangle.
Tersus didn't waste any time trying to figure that out; a head shot was still a head shot. He aimed and hit one dead center, between the antlers it currently had. Blood and viscera exploded behind it, covering the wall. Its only response was to shrug so that the human remains still on it fell off, and it tilted its neck, aiming its sight line at Tersus.
"Dammit," he muttered, and tried for a body shot.
Dimly he was aware of Dorlan sweeping a group of them to his left, his screams heard like a faint echo down a long highway. The heat and stench of fyceline was unmistakable.
The creature Tersus had shot took a bullet in its midsection and flew backwards, chunks of meaty matter tumbling more slowly to the ground.
Tersus grinned, looking around for the next target.
Having grown used to the odd silence of things with the earpiece in, he didn't even notice the daemonspawn beside him until its thin, fluted, leathery claws clamped down on his head and twisted harder than seemed fair.
