Legends of the Smoke Jaguars Chapter 247
The windswept moor was a lonely place, a bleak vastness of coarse heather and shallow-rooted bushes. Rain fell in lazy droplets, a constant drizzle that promised to continue for days without respite. The kind of rain that soaks through jackets and hoods, creeping down the back of the neck in a disgusting trickle, to puddle in boots and make one squelch with every step. A cold world, a miserable world, without anything to recommend it, but not one without its oddities.
The lonely monument stood in the middle of nowhere. No man could say where it was from, or who carved it, it had been here long before the first human set foot on this planet, and would be here long after the Imperium had exhausted it. An upright pillar of bone, worn smooth by the rain of millennia, but curved slightly over. From a distance one might take it for the rib of some ancient predator, a giant saurian that once roams burning plains. Left exposed by the vagaries of soil erosion. A fanciful notion but one utterly wrong.
One random day the monument awoke. Beads of light emerged within its structure, running uphill as opposed to the waters that trickled down its surface. A drop at first, then a stream, then a torrent of light making the mottled bone shine. Suddenly a golden portal erupted within the arc of the monument, leading to realms unguessable. Vendrick stepped out of that light, his armour steaming as heated Diceramite made raindrops hiss. He was worn and scarred, his plate scorched in new ways since he escaped the battle. Many monstrous things he had faced and many more he had evaded in those tangled depths, galling as that was, but he had survived and so too had his unwilling guide.
"I told you I'd find us an exit," Athra gulped from the cage of Vendrick's fist.
"We shall see," Vendrick said as he sank into mud deep as his ankle.
"It's cold, it's ugly, it's polluted, definitely a Mon-Keigh planet!"
"First we shall determine if this is indeed an Imperial world."
"Then you'll let me go... won't you?" Athra whined.
Vendrick didn't answer, scanning the terrain with his Censoria. A bleak and cold world, with no signs of life, yet he detected scattered vox-waves reflecting off the troposphere. His vox unit couldn't pick up the weak signals, so he wasn't close to civilisation and yet petrochemical exhaust hung in the air, distinctive of Promethium fuel being burned. Either he was close enough to industrial centres to pick up the waste fumes, or the planet was polluted enough to taint the entire atmosphere. Either way it was a definite sign of human activity.
Vendrick reached up with his free hand and removed his helm. Cold air hit his nose; rain soaked his brow instantly, but still it was glorious. After Emperor knew how long he was back in decent company, among humans instead of Xenos and ghosts and monsters. Even though the mud sucked at his boots he walked up to the top of a low hillock. He would have taken all the bad weather in the universe rather than endure the twisted madness of the Xenos again. It had been worth it though, the canister at his belt was intact, the sample Lazar wanted had been preserved. So long as he held that the mission had not failed. That left only one loose end to tie up.
Vendrick drew to a halt and set Arthra's feet on the mud, "How long were we gone?"
"Wrong sort of question," Athra deflected.
"In what sector are we?"
"I don't know!"
"A Segmentum at least," Vendrick insisted.
"You really don't get how the Webway works," Athra scoffed.
Vendrick turned to look out from his elevated position. He may have expected to see farmer herders watching over flocks of cattle, or harvesting machines devouring the vegetation, but there was nothing. Only endless stretches of barren nothingness. The clouds were low and oppressive, drizzling constantly, no way to obtain a star-fix, let alone calculate which part of the galaxy he was in. Still it was an Imperial world, that meant there must be a Lord Governor and in turn an Astropath. That was all he needed to make contact with the Ordo Astartes, they would come to find him no matter where he resided.
Finally Vendrick allowed, "It seems you have led me adequately."
"So, our deal is done?" Athra guessed as his toes rested lightly on the mud without sinking.
"I have no further use for you," Vendrick agreed.
"I don't like the way you phrased that," Athra gulped.
"You shouldn't," Vendrick growled.
"You wouldn't kill me, not after all we've been through together."
Vendrick's jaw tightened as he hissed, "You deceived us at every turn, lied, deceived and manipulated. You sacrificed Magos Tvos, not that I liked him but he was human and so deserved a better end than you dispensed. You have been poison from the start. I know you whispered sedition in the Smoke Jaguars' ears, and they will suffer the due punishment in time, but your sentence will not be stayed. You killed Dhulak, that adds to your ledger but nothing can change your most egregious crime: the crime of daring to exist, alien!"
Athra squirmed in the tight grip, knowing one twitch of Transhuman digits would end the Xenos' life but he dared to say, "You should rethink that."
"I see no urgent reason to," Vendrick refuted.
"I suspect this was once an Exodite world!"
"Irrelevant," Vendrick spat.
"But there's something important you don't know about Exodites, something that will change everything."
"I don't need your lessons of Xenos history."
"No, not that, something much more pressing," Athra pleaded.
"What would that be?!" Vendrick hissed.
Athra's eyes slid to the ground and he smirked, "This is not a hill you're standing on."
A deep and troubling rumble suddenly ran up Vendrick's thighs, caused by the ground shaking. The hillock convulsed, mud shaking as it slid off a scaly hide that bulged as a giant animal rose. An enormous Saurian creature, with a body the size of a Capitol Imperialis and a neck as long as a gantry crane. Once a war-beast of the Exodites, its breed enduring long after the Eldar colony was wiped out by imperial settlers. A tiny head at the other end slurped as it pulled out of the mud and legs thick as Dreadnought propelled it upwards. Eyes red and angry, outraged at its rainy-season hibernation being disturbed, offended by the heavy gnat squatting upon its back.
Vendrick staggered as his footing collapsed. Wet moss slid off the scaly hide, the shallow roots having no purchase and the surface beneath slick and without traction. Up the Saurian did surge and down Vendrick went, in a scrabble of heath and bracken. His canister, the mission, if it was cracked he would fail in his task, that could not be allowed. He let go of Athra as both hands went to the shell, wrapping it in a protective cocoon. That was all the Drukhari needed to backflip away, one foot hitting Vendrick in the cheek as he soared like a diver leaping from a springboard.
Vendrick hit the muddy ground as trunk-like legs stirred into motion. The Saurian was a herd beast of this world and its instinctive reaction to danger was to run. Pillars slammed down all around as Vendrick curled around his charge, sheltering the canister from harm. He was not sure if his plate could withstand such weight, but was certain the flask would not, so he pulled himself in tight, trusting that even if his body was broken the buffer would protect the all-important sample. Light and dark flashed in his eyes, then suddenly it ended. The Saurian charged off, leaving a trail of churned mud behind, and Vendrick prone in the filth.
He lifted his head and found he was alone. Athra J'rect was halfway back to the Webway portal already, bounding with the grace of his species, toes barely touching the sucking mud. Vendrick went for his pistol only to remember too late it was gone. His maul, no, it was shattered, he was unarmed. He had nothing to stop the filth from escaping, no way to gun the treacherous cur down. Athra J'rect was going to escape.
At the threshold Athra paused and spun about to cry, "Your insults shall not be forgotten Mon-Keigh! I shall claim my own Cabala and seek vengeance! We shall meet again and when we do it is I who shall be holding the leash!" Vendrick's reply was to scoop up a dripping clod of earth and hurl it with all his might at the distant Xenos. Either Athra was overconfident, or his reflexes were tired by days of exertion, but he failed to dodge. The wet splot hit him square in the face and he tumbled backwards into the Webway. Instantly the glowing circle slammed shut, cutting off any possible pursuit. Vendrick knew it was pointless trying, but he took satisfaction in the final insult. He was sure Athra would not forget that humiliation, let him remember it well.
With a grimace of disgust Vendrick picked himself out of the mud. His armour's heraldry was disgraced, its spirit surely offended. He was alone on an unknown world; his squad was dead and he was unarmed. None of that mattered though. He had his sample; he would find civilisation and contact the Imperium. The Ordo Astartes would come and find him. The mission remained the same as it ever had and he would not fail in its execution. So he set out for the horizon with a steady gait, relentless in his heart, ever relentless.