War Without End Read online

  ‘I will not. Tell him yourself.’

  ‘I am occupied, Aximand. Lupercal will understand.’

  ‘Isn’t that a little presumptuous, even for you?’

  ‘Our lord is party to everything that goes on aboard this ship, Little Horus. He will understand.’ Maloghurst took up a message tube and slipped the bolt shell into the tightly rolled parchment secreted within. He twisted on the end cap, activated the gene-seal, and held it out to Aximand. ‘Give these orders to Sergeant Gryben of the 43rd.’

  ‘I’m not your errand boy.’

  ‘You will do as I order, captain,’ Maloghurst said. ‘It is not a request. Tell him to open it carefully, to tip out the chain within and wear it around his neck.’

  ‘I did not see anything,’ said Aximand.

  ‘That is the point. And he will not be able to see it either. You should urge him not to lose it…’

  Aximand held out his hand and took the message. ‘What did you put in here?’ he rolled the tube over. There were no marks upon it.

  ‘A guarantee of sorts. Do not concern yourself with it. Deliver it, and do it now. Tell no one.’

  ‘What are you up to, Mal?’ Aximand muttered. His curiosity was piqued.

  ‘You will see. Or maybe you will not. It is of no consequence. All that matters is that I will succeed.’

  Maloghurst stepped out of his circle. The ceaseless growl of the Vengeful Spirit rumbled in his ears, and the whispers began anew.

  Down in the lower decks, the whispers were not whispers at all, anymore. There were many wicked voices on the air, their words disconcertingly clear. The one that Maloghurst strained to hear was not among them. Knowing where your enemy is was far better than not knowing. Every voice gave him pause.

  A handful of thralls and serf menials went about their business. They looked at him sidelong, wondering why a legionary would be about in such a place so often. It was becoming easier to tell the faithful from potential traitors, for they wore their marks of devotion to the old gods, and there were more than a few whose manner betrayed their fear at the whispers. The truly faithful were perturbed, but also delighted. Only the servitors seemed unaffected, stomping about on careless feet much as they always had done.

  Little matter if they were true to the Warmaster’s cause or not. As long as they worked. Menials were materiel. No one cared for the opinions of a round of ammunition.

  Maloghurst turned onto an access way that was only lightly used. A number of the lumens set in the ceiling had blown out, others flickered at a frequency that bothered the eye. Here, the voices blended seamlessly with the rumbles and clatters of a living starship. The Vengeful Spirit had found its voice.

  A hatch hissed upwards in front of him. Colder air awaited. A sequence of seven small shuttle docks chained together by short lengths of corridor lay ahead. The rear walls of the hangars could be retracted, opening up the way to large loading doors that sealed supply routes heading deeper into the Vengeful Spirit. All were closed. There were galleries around the bays, maintenance runnels for the cranes that ran around the rooms on rails. Otherwise the hangars were featureless and utilitarian.

  Maloghurst passed through four bays on the way to his destination. Each was deserted, all but one empty of craft. The long launch tubes on two showed signs of damage. Sheets of plastek, tattered from heavy use and marred with dust, wafted in ventilation breezes.

  The door to the fifth bay opened, revealing chanting and rough music. The hangar wall was down and the bay was full of Davinites. Nearly their full complement, Maloghurst thought. Good. The coarse hair that furred their bodies was thick with symbols painted in blood. They stopped mid-motion, freezing whatever dance they had been performing into an eerie tableau vivant. All eyes turned to the Space Marine.

  Rakshel came to him. Maloghurst’s enhanced olfactory sense detected the sweet chemical signifiers of narcotics in his breath and sweat.

  ‘You came, noble warrior.’

  ‘Why would I not?’

  Rakshel shrugged. ‘You are wearing your armour.’

  ‘I always wear it. I cannot move well without it.’

  ‘No matter,’ said Rakshel. ‘We shall remove it.’

  A rough octed had been set against one wall. Beaten brass, platinum etched with writhing, patterned green copper and dull iron made up the arrows of its wheel. Stout chains and manacles hung from it.

  ‘Chaining me is not necessary,’ said Maloghurst.

  ‘Oh, but it is necessary,’ Rakshel replied.

  ‘I will not allow you to chain me.’

  ‘Your kind know no fear. Why are you frightened? Either you are chained, or you leave.’

  Maloghurst made a noise deep in his chest. ‘Very well.’

  Rakshel gestured to his fellows. They came forward with disarming tools, and clumsily stripped Maloghurst of his battleplate. The legionary drew in a ragged, hissing gasp as his respirator was removed. His breathing became laboured without it.

  The Davinites supported his enormous bulk and guided him to the octed.

  Maloghurst. Come to me.

  All in the room heard the words. The Davinites looked up at their speaking.

  ‘We must work quickly,’ said Rakshel. ‘The Neverborn is here!’

  The manacles were snapped shut hurriedly. When the Davinites were satisfied that Maloghurst was restrained, they stepped back and leered at him. Maloghurst tugged at the links uneasily.

  Warning klaxons blared. The rotating light above the left-hand loading door spun round and the door opened, its hazard striped plasteel giving way to darkness beyond.

  The born-again shaman Tsepha stepped through, the body of the boy he wore gleaming with white lime. The bloody marks of the cuts and his inhuman eyes showed through, bright crimson. He wore only a loincloth. In his hand, he bore a glassy black blade that weeped tendrils of black smoke.

  ‘You have come. You are a fool,’ gloated Tsepha. ‘Twisted, the Sons of Horus name you. Twisted by their measure, but not by mine. A race of giants, bred for war. You are no subtle blade.’

  The boy stepped in front of Maloghurst. With a quick slash, he opened a cut across the Space Marine’s scarred torso. Maloghurst bit back a shout. The wound burned like the cold of the void.

  ‘Horus has become a god. Every eye of the empyrean is turned upon his progress. The blood of one so valued by the Warmaster is a worthy sacrifice.’

  ‘He will kill you all!’ snarled Maloghurst. He tugged at his chains with sudden, impotent anger.

  From behind Tsepha, Rakshel smiled.

  ‘He will not. You are a pawn, you said. We all are. For the pawn, all power demands payment. Erebus knew this. But you would not listen. Now you will pay for your petty spells and your Luperci. Your time has come. Horus requires a steady hand to guide him. We will provide it.’

  With a bloody grin, Tsepha began a low, guttural chant. The temperature plummeted. Behind him the Davinites began their vile dance again. A slow drumbeat set their rhythm, growing faster by steady increments.

  Tsepha passed the knife before Maloghurst, jabbing downwards with it in time to his chant. Maloghurst arched his back and roared with pain at each insult. A network of cold spread across his skin, deep into his bones, a disgusting squirming accompanying it.

  ‘MALOGHURST! I COME!’ shouted the voice. And it was insubstantial no longer. This voice troubled the air, not only the soul.

  A dark shape appeared at Tsepha’s shoulder.

  ‘Take this worthy sacrifice, oh Qwiltzuk-Ikar! Part the veil of the world and step through. Assume the form and flesh of Maloghurst the Twisted!’

  The dark shape solidified, becoming a column of writhing smoke, then a vortex of shining black liquid. Suggestions of limbs appeared within, only to be snatched away by the endless rotation. Long pseudopods reached for Maloghurst’s face.

 
The chained legionary began to laugh. Rakshel was amazed. Tsepha faltered.

  ‘My turn now,’ said Maloghurst. ‘I thank you for the daemon’s name.’ He began to chant, under his breath at first, then louder and louder. A fresh incantation that blended with the Davinites’ pounding drums and Tsepha’s own summoning, threatening to undo it from within. The language was hard and old.

  ‘He knows the speech of the Neverborn!’ hissed Tsepha. The boy fought back, shouting louder, before gritting his teeth. Blood ran from his eyes.

  ‘Qwiltzuk-Ikar! Qwiltzuk-Ikar! Qwiltzuk-Ikar!’ shouted Maloghurst. Ancient words raced from him, driving back the questing feelers of the manifesting daemon.

  Qwiltzuk-Ikar turned its attention upon Tsepha. The shaman waved his knife about threateningly, howling and barking words that should issue from no human throat.

  ‘Gag him!’ screamed Rakshel, pointing at Maloghurst.

  The Davinites rushed forward. Two clamped their hands about Maloghurst’s head, but he bucked and shook them off ferociously. A third carried a spiked muzzle.

  Maloghurst paused in his incantation, his jaw worked and he spat full into the cultist’s face. The Davinite shrieked and fell back, hands clapped to his eyes. Vinegary smoke streamed from his burning face as he fell to the floor. Another approached, but Maloghurst stopped him with a glare.

  ‘No!’ screamed Rakshel.

  The last syllables of Maloghurst’s incantation slipped free of his twisted mouth.

  Tsepha fell backwards as if struck. He cowered on the deck before the column of oil.

  ‘Take him,’ ordered Maloghurst.

  ‘Yes,’ said the daemon.

  The liquid flew at Tsepha, forcing its way into his eyes, mouth, ears and nose. The possessed boy convulsed so hard that his head struck the deck and left a bloody print upon it.

  Then the stolen body exploded. Wet meat, steaming in the chill of the docking bay, slapped into the walls.

  Something took his place. Neverborn.

  Qwiltzuk-Ikar unfolded itself, a gangling monstrosity twice the height of a Space Marine. Multiple arms unfolded. Fingers tipped with blade claws flexed. It shook itself free of blood like a dog coming out of a river.

  ‘Free. I am free,’ it hissed. ‘And you are not my master.’

  ‘What have you done?’ screamed Rakshel. ‘It is without control!’

  ‘I did not intend it to be controlled,’ said Maloghurst. He yanked hard on his restraints, parting the links of the chains with contemptuous ease. He stepped free from the octed. The daemon growled, lunging forwards with half a dozen arms. Maloghurst spoke the creature’s name, spat five syllables that pained him to speak, and held up his hands.

  Qwilltzuk-Ikar stopped dead, roaring furiously.

  The Davinites gibbered with terror, scrabbling at doors that would not open.

  Rakshel backed away. Still holding out one hand to restrain the daemon, Maloghurst caught the ambassador about the neck and hauled him off his feet.

  ‘You were a fool to underestimate me, Davinite,’ he growled. ‘Squad Gryben! Reveal yourselves.’

  All around the gallery, reality warped. Fifteen Sons of Horus stood with their bolters trained upon the daemon and the panicking cultists.

  ‘How could you think this ridiculous scheme would work, Rakshel?’ said Maloghurst. ‘Summoning a daemon to trouble me day and night, then intending to have it claim me on the pretext of your aid? How could a degenerate mortal like you outwit a Son of Horus? Your scheme depends upon fear, Rakshel.’ Maloghurst pulled the ambassador in closer. ‘And we know no fear.’

  Rakshel drew in a rattling breath, unable to respond.

  ‘A cripple I might be among my kind, but I exceed you in every regard,’ said Maloghurst.

  Qwiltzuk-Ikar screamed, chattering dire threats in every language ever spoken. Maloghurst clawed his right hand and squeezed the air, and the daemon squealed in agony. He returned his attention to Rakshel.

  ‘I deny your request for an audience with the Warmaster one final time. With your death.’

  Slowly, Maloghurst squeezed Rakshel’s throat shut. The Davinite thrashed madly at the arm holding him, windmilling legs kicking pathetically at his tormentor’s side. Maloghurst grimaced with pleasure as Rakshel’s last breath turned into a death rattle.

  ‘Gryben, open fire!’ he shouted.

  All sound was obliterated beneath the thunder of fifteen bolters firing simultaneously.

  Davinites exploded. Their limbs slithered across the frost-coated metal. Gore splashed, drenching Maloghurst and Rakshel. The daemon screeched, furious to be denied its part in the slaughter.

  Gryben’s squad turned their weapons upon Qwiltzuk-Ikar. It writhed as round after round disappeared into it. Explosions sent bursts of black ichor slashing out to mix with the red. It whipped back and forth. Its limbs were parted from its body, landing on the floor where they sublimated into noisome vapour.

  The barrage was too much, and it fell. Qwiltzuk-Ikar’s warp-formed body snapped and writhed upon deck plating slick with frozen blood. Half of Gryben’s squad had descended from the maintenance gallery and were advancing upon it, pumping it full of mass-reactive rounds, pausing only to change their empty magazines.

  It attempted to get up, the unnatural vitality of the warp pulling its broken body back together, but its reforming limbs were shot out from under it again and again. It collapsed and did not rise.

  Maloghurst threw down Rakshel’s corpse. ‘Enough!’ he shouted.

  The din of bolter fire ceased. The reverberations took an age to die. There was not a living thing left in the room that was not a legionary. He limped over to the daemon, and pinned its neck in place with his foot. Eyes swam beneath the surface of night-black skin, opening at random across its long face. Shadowy tendrils waved out over every wound, seeking their fellows to grasp and pull, knitting the hurts together. They were growing feebler and feebler.

  ‘I do not account myself a great sorcerer, Neverborn. But I am fortunate to have a master who is willing to share a portion of his knowledge.’ Maloghurst held out his hand. A bolt pistol was pressed into it. ‘In several of the very diverse sources I have read, it is written that whenever a fiend is dispatched from the material realm, it spends one hundred years and a day in torment before it might come forth again.’

  Maloghurst racked a bolt into the pistol’s chamber. A cold amusement entered his eyes as he aimed the gun at the creature. Qwiltzuk-Ikar was diminishing, shrinking in size and potency, its body streaming away in smoke. It was once the size of a man, now only a child. Only the head remained undiminished, large and freakish upon the nub of its body.

  ‘We will bargain!’ hissed the fiend. ‘You shall have powers undreamed. You shall no longer be known as the Twisted, but the Mighty! I can heal you. I can make you whole.’

  ‘Don’t you see?’ said Maloghurst. ‘I value the sobriquet and the state of my body equally. Why would I wish to enslave you in exchange for more? You would be close to Horus, which was your aim. I am not like these simpletons, to believe the promises of daemonkind. Spend the next one hundred years and a day considering this – you wish to master us, but it is we who shall master you.’

  A round from Maloghurst’s gun pulped its head, and black ooze spread around it. The stench of mud dragged from noisome waters enveloped them all, and then it was gone.

  The Davinite corpses were stuck with combat blades, and turned over by careless, crushing boots.

  ‘They are all dead, my lord,’ said Gryben.

  Maloghurst nodded his approval. He haltingly retrieved his cane and then, better supported, headed swiftly for the loading gates. He chose the same one through which Tsepha had entered. It was fitting. There was power in even the smallest gesture.

  ‘Send this thing back to warp,’ he ordered.

  A legionary with a flamer ste
pped forward and the others fell back, carrying the pieces of Maloghurst’s stripped battleplate. The warrior waited for his fellows to leave, then filled the room with fire. He retreated out of the bay and Maloghurst thumbed the door shut.

  After letting it burn for a full minute, he opened the launch tube’s doors and vented the hangar into space.

  Maloghurst threw a cloth bundle upon the table. It came unwrapped, scattering a score of daggers across the surface. No two were alike: knapped stone, sharpened scrap and finely-forged antiques were all among their number. Each one glistened with forbidden power.

  ‘The blades of the traitors, sire.’

  ‘It is done?’

  ‘It is done.’

  Horus stared at them. Always awesome, the power that the Warmaster held surrounded him with an aura of godly might. He was made to be an exemplar of humanity, but he had transcended the state of man completely. He would exceed the ambitions of the Emperor a thousand times over. For one long moment, Maloghurst was gripped by the unshakeable certainty that should the two meet again, father and son, then the Emperor would bend his knee to Horus and beg for forgiveness.

  The sensation lasted as long as Maloghurst could endure to look upon the face of his primarch. Since Horus’s following of the Fulgurine Road, that was not long. For decades Maloghurst had been one of the few who could treat with Lupercal on something approaching equal terms. Those days were past.

  ‘What was its name?’ asked Horus.

  ‘The Davinite called it Qwiltzuk-Ikar. In all probability this was one of its nomina major, possibly a name of essence. Enough, once I had it, to bend it to my will. It was a petty thing, its plans to influence you far beyond its ability.’

  ‘Threats from the Neverborn must be dealt with as surely as those posed by mortals, insignificant or not.’ Horus picked up a short knife in his hand and turned it over. ‘You employed a ritual of concealment.’

  ‘Good against mortal and immortal alike, sire.’

  ‘You are a swift study.’

  ‘My ability is nothing compared to yours, sire.’

  ‘Of course not, Mal,’ said Horus. He smiled. ‘But it is sufficient. Have the name recorded. Let all who truck with the warp in our service know of it, and be forbidden from treating with Qwiltzuk-Ikar.’