The Plagues of Orath Read online

‘Some of these artefacts got off world?’

  ‘The fool advertised what he had to offer, broadcasting what he had found to the entire subsector.’

  ‘And he was noticed.’

  ‘The people of Orath knew nothing about the ways of the universe. When the first traders arrived, the farmer greeted them with open arms, but they were just the beginning.’

  ‘The raiders?’

  ‘They descended like locusts, laying waste to the planet. Supply ships were destroyed, crops burned, the locals slaughtered.’

  ‘Xenos scum.’

  Vabion nodded. ‘The raiders set up a barricade so that no one else could plunder the loot. And so we were summoned.’

  Vabion paused for a moment, lost in his memories. His last drop. If he had known back then, would he have taken more care to remember each and every detail? The sound of the clamps being released in high orbit, the bone-shaking vibrations, the blistering heat of re-entry breaking through the heavy shielding, air so hot it singed your throat. Then would come the roar of the retro-thrusters, the realisation you were minutes from impact, seconds sometimes. The concussive jolt before hatches blew clear, the drop pod unfurling like a demented flower of death and destruction. The roar of battle greeting you like an old friend, beckoning you out into the carnage.

  Vabion gasped as he found himself back in the past, charging down the still-smouldering ramp, screaming at the raiders: ‘Courage and Honour!’

  But he never made it to the battlefield, instead he was flying, not by Thunderhawk or even jump pack, but by the force of his own will. He soared higher and higher over Orath, looking down at the gaps in the harvest, swathes of blackened sorghum, broken and rotting. He could still hear the battle far away, the screams of the raiders, the calls of his battle-brothers and behind it, just on the edges of his perception, a low, keening song – accompanied by a deep-rolling laugh.

  ‘Vabion?’

  Artorius’s voice was like a slap in the face, bringing him to his senses.

  ‘What was that?’

  The Librarian realised he was leaning heavily on the stone table.

  ‘A vision. More insistent than the first.’

  ‘The first? What else are you not telling me, Vabion?’

  It took all of the Librarian’s strength to stand. ‘It was an easy victory. The cowards turned and ran, abandoning their booty with little in the way of a fight. But I had to see it for myself.’

  ‘The farmer’s treasure trove?’

  Vabion nodded, his head still spinning from the fury of the vision. ‘I volunteered to descend into the subterranean chamber myself.’

  Now it was Artorius’s turn to lean in.

  ‘What did you find?’

  Ritan was still fuming as he stomped through the corridors of the keep. It was typical of Meleki, trying to get the upper hand, to make himself look good in Kerna’s eyes. He snorted humourlessly. What good would that do him? Kerna fancied himself as Artorius’s confidant, but he was the same as the rest of them. Older too. Past his prime. Probably why he was content to babysit this dismal listening post. Ritan would run through checks, performing training runs, but he didn’t have to enjoy it, or the company it forced him to keep.

  Let Meleki suck up to Kerna. Ritan would prepare for when the Fist of the Fallen returned to their natural environment; when they were knee-pad deep in xenos bodies. Angrily, he swiped his chainsword through empty air, imagining its teeth biting through tyranid hide or ork bulk. Soon, he prayed, make it soon.

  Ritan’s nose wrinkled, not through frustration for once but something suspicious. He sniffed deeply, his ire suddenly displaced by curiosity. There was something there. A sour odour – almost too faint even for Space Marine senses. Ritan inhaled, feeling his neuroglottis fire as the fort’s cool air washed over his tongue. Yes, he was right. A spore in the air; noisome. Toxic.

  Without another thought, he drew his bolt pistol with his right hand, the grip of his left tightening around the hilt of his chainsword. He was too far from the refectory, too deep within the main structure, to be troubled by what little food waste the fort produced. No, this was something else, something malevolent. Maybe he would see action on this loathsome ball after all.

  Six

  Dain charged up the steps to his hab, his lungs screaming for breath, and flung open the unlocked door. They never threw the bolt, even at night. Why would they? The settlement was safe. Everyone looked out for each other. They were a community.

  Or rather they had been until today.

  ‘Alice!’ he gasped, running from room to room. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Dain?’

  The voice came from upstairs.

  ‘Thank the Throne, are you all right? Something’s happened, something bad.’

  He raced upstairs, following his wife’s voice.

  ‘Dain, I don’t feel too good.’

  Oh Throne, no, Dain thought, as he heard a fusillade of coughs burst from their bedroom. Please Emperor, not Alice.

  He charged into the room. Alice was on the bed, retching into a bucket she’d brought up from the yard.

  ‘Hey, easy now,’ Dain said, trying to keep the panic from his voice as he rushed around the bed, his eyes flicking down to Alice’s swollen belly. ‘That’s it. Remember what Ma Serlon used to say? Better out than in.’

  Used to. The thought of Ma made his voice catch.

  Alice looked up to him with watery eyes. She was deathly pale, a cluster of sores gathered around her usually full lips.

  ‘Dain, what’s wrong with me?’

  ‘Now, let’s not panic…’

  ‘Dain, the baby!’

  ‘The baby will be fine. There’s… a bug going round, that’s all. It’ll be fine.’

  ‘This is no bug. Look at me!’

  Then she swore, but Alice never swore. He was the one who cursed. She would scold him, saying that he wouldn’t be able to use that kind of language when their boy was born. He’d laugh and promise he’d change before that happened.

  ‘You need to call Doctor Ligart,’ she pleaded with him, grabbing the front of his shirt.

  ‘No, Ligart can’t help.’

  ‘What do you mean? Of course he can.’

  ‘We’ll go somewhere else.’

  ‘No, I want Ligart, do you hear?’ Alice insisted, her weak voice becoming hysterical. ‘Get me Ligart, Dain. Get me Ligart!’

  ‘He’s dead, all right?’ Dain grabbed his wife’s shoulders. Her nightdress was soaked with sweat. ‘He can’t help anyone, do you understand?’

  ‘Dead?’ Alice sobbed, raising a hand to her mouth. The lesions had taken hold there too.

  ‘We’ll try the next town. Take next door’s skimmer.’ They wouldn’t need it anymore if they were like the rest. ‘Come on.’

  ‘No,’ Alice moaned, heaving again. ‘I can’t. I-I feel too sick.’

  ‘You have to, Alice, do you hear me? For the baby. You have to let me get you away from here.’

  Nodding, she tried to stand, but immediately collapsed back in a faint. Dain leapt forward to catch her, sweeping her into his arms. She began hacking again, but threw a shaking arm around his shoulders.

  ‘That’s it, honey. I’m just going to take you downstairs.’

  Alice was barely conscious by the time Dain struggled out of the hab, her head lolling against him.

  ‘That’s it, honey,’ Dain encouraged as he carried her over to his next door neighbour’s Land Crawler. Melkins never usually minded if he borrowed it – and this was an emergency. If he knew his old friend, the ignition key would be in the cubbyhole beneath the controls. He lowered Alice into the passenger seat and slid the door shut.

  ‘Just relax,’ he called as he sprinted around to the driver’s seat, ‘I’ll get you to someone who can help.’

  Yeah, but who? he as
ked himself as he searched for the key, finding it exactly where he’d expected. Good old Melkins. He slammed it into place and thumbed the ignition, looking back towards the centre of the village. The spires of Fort Kerberos rose in the distance.

  ‘The Angels of Death,’ he whispered beneath his breath, immediately regretting his use of the Space Marine’s nickname. ‘They’ll be able to help, Alice. They know stuff, more than Ligart ever did. We’ll go there, ask for sanctuary. They’ll know what to do. Just hang in there. This won’t take long, I promise.’

  He thought Alice said something, so he leant in, trying to ignore how bad his wife smelt. Like a corpse.

  ‘What’s that?’

  But Alice wasn’t talking; she was singing, a shapeless tune that Dain had never heard before, but that had to be better, right?

  ‘That’s it. Keep singing. You’ll be all right. Both of you.’

  The Land Crawler lurched forward.

  ‘I promise you, baby. It’ll be fine.’

  The more Ritan followed the trail, the stronger the spores became. He marched through areas of the fort he had never been, nondescript corridors, dust-filled storerooms. The place was a veritable labyrinth, although why it needed to house so many rooms when only a handful of Space Marines were posted here at one time, Ritan could not imagine.

  The air was thick with contaminants now, leading him on through a large dim chamber, a large stone relief covering the far wall. The Imperial aquila. You could tell this place was built by Ultramarines. Ostentatious idiots.

  He stormed into another corridor only to find that the trail had gone cold. Ritan took another breath. The air was clear.

  Ritan turned, cautiously walking back into the aquila chamber, his eyes narrowing. While the other rooms he’d explored were full of equipment, this space was empty. He glanced down at the flagstones, noticing another difference. Every other floor in the keep was laid in simple lines, each sand-coloured tile staggered against the next. It was a pattern duplicated on floors throughout the Imperium, from high cathedrals to lowly garden paths. Not so here. This chamber boasted a distinctive motif.

  A large circular stone sat at the centre of the room, curved slabs spreading out to form a round shape, ringed by a darker stone rim. It looked like a giant wheel set into the floor.

  Ritan stooped, placing his chainsword on the floor and removing a glove. He ran a finger on the grooves between the rings nearest the edge of the design. The inner stones were held in place with rough grout, but the crack between the sand-coloured slabs and the darker fringe were free of the mortar. Those stones felt like they were packed close together, held by nothing but the pressure of the stones on either side.

  The Doom Eagle sat back on his haunches, pulling his glove back on, and inhaled once more. The toxins in the air were more intense than ever. He reached up, toggling a control on the edge of his ocular implant. The lenses whirled and clicked and the implant cycled through all available filters. Electromagnetics, heat, energy signatures, infrared.

  ‘There you are.’

  He could see them now, illuminated by the filter, spiralling like glowing dustmotes in the air. He swept the room, lingering on the large image of the aquila. There were more of the spores, not floating in front of the carved sigil but smeared across its surface in five livid groups – each roughly the shape of a human hand.

  Ritan stood, retrieving his chainsword, and walked across the circular tiles towards the aquila. It was huge, stretching the length of the wall, the full span of a Space Marine’s arms. He examined the stains, each increasing in intensity as they ran across the eagle’s body; on the tip of the left wing, the left foot, the right beak, right shoulder and finally, the third from last feather on the right wing.

  ‘A pattern, but for what purpose?’

  Without pausing Ritan reached up, pressing his gloved fingers against the first rapidly fading patch.

  The stone wing gave way beneath his fingertips. The movement was almost imperceptible, but it was there, accompanied by a faint but discernible click. He moved across the relief pressing each spot in turn. Again the mechanical clicks repeated themselves. By the time Ritan depressed the bird’s shoulder, he could feel vibrations shifting beneath his feet, a series of deep resounding thuds as if ancient machinery was falling into place.

  Turning to face the circular motif on the floor, Ritan all but slammed his palm on the final feather and was rewarded by the sound of gears grinding heavily against each other.

  If Ritan was surprised when the centre of the tiled wheel started to fall away, he didn’t show it. His face might as well have been carved from the same stone as the aquila. The central rings of the design dropped down, tile edges squealing uncomfortably against each other before the entire thing rolled to the side, hidden beneath the rest of the floor.

  Almost immediately, lume-globes flamed into life within the entrance that had opened, revealing a large spiral staircase that dropped down into shadows far below. The steps were thick and wide, designed for broad feet, each worn in the centre by centuries of heavy boots tramping up and down.

  ‘Leading where?’

  Curiously, Ritan took the first step, noticing how well his own boot matched the indentation. A Space Marine then? One of their own.

  ‘And for what purpose?’ Ritan growled as he made a decision. Other men would have gone back to report what he had found – other men like Kerna. But what would Artorius command? That they explore, ascertain what lay hidden at the bottom of the mysterious stairwell. Why wait? It would be better to discover for himself, and then report back to the sergeant, armed with facts and not mysteries.

  If this was a threat to the bastion, then Artorius would want to know. He would demand to know.

  No hesitation. No fear. Only duty.

  Clutching his weapons tightly, Ritan began his descent.

  ‘What now?’ Dain cursed as he was forced to slow the Land Crawler. He hadn’t thought anything of the flies at first. A couple of the fat insects had splattered against the windscreen, usual for this time of year, but then he’d realised the air was teeming with the things.

  The nearer he got to the centre of town, the worse the swarm became. The skimmer was plastered by their bodies now, sickly green fluid splashed all over the screen, so thick he could barely see. How could it have got this bad? He’d only been here half an hour ago. Dain flicked the wipers, but it only made things worse, smearing the gore back and forth.

  Beside him, Alice started to hack again, a deep rattling cough sending her body into convulsions.

  ‘Easy, now,’ Dain said, desperately trying to remain calm. He reached across and placed a hand on her arm, withdrawing it quickly when he felt the soft edges of the weeping blisters. ‘We’ll get through this soon. The Space Marines will help us.’

  They have to, he thought, wiping his hand on his trouser leg and coughing himself. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, noticing the red welts rising up beneath the skin. He couldn’t get sick as well. He just couldn’t.

  The Land Crawler stuttered, the engine stalling, pitching Dain forward in his seat.

  ‘I don’t believe it. The bloody things must have got into the intake.’

  A bloat fly murmured past his head.

  ‘They’re in here too.’ Dain swatted at the insect as the skimmer stalled. ‘I’ll have to check the engine.’

  He reached for the door handle, but stopped when Alice doubled over, retching heavily. It was then he realised that the flies seemed to be flitting around her head.

  ‘Baby?’ he asked, as his wife offered him scared eyes. Her body heaved and Dain shifted back in his seat, expected to be covered in the contents of her stomach – but Alice wasn’t sick. Instead, his wife spewed a swarm of angry flies right into his face. Dain screamed, trying to protect himself from the bugs with one hand, scrabbling with the door control with the other
.

  The door swung up and he fell back, his head smacking against the road. The insects were all over him, streaming out of the Land Crawler, stinging his eyes, pushing their way into his mouth, their drone-like thunder in his ears.

  Calling for Alice, he tried to get back into the cab, but was pushed back by the sheer number of the flies. They covered him from head to foot, nipping at exposed skin, feeding on the sores that were erupting along his flesh. He bit down, feeling their hairy bodies pop between his teeth. They were scrabbling across his tongue, forcing themselves down his throat, clambering into his ear canals, his nose.

  Dain managed to take three or four steps before collapsing to the floor, no longer able to breathe. Not that such an inconvenience would be a problem for long. Soon he would rise again, they all would. Ithell. Ligart. Ma and Pa Serlon – even his darling Alice. They would no longer need to draw breath, wouldn’t even remember who they were. One urge would consume them. One need. To serve He who had blessed them. All other thoughts forgotten.

  But, lying there, in the dirt, Dain could still remember his unborn child – and cursed the Emperor for letting this happen to them.

  Seven

  The staircase seemed never-ending, guiding Ritan deeper and deeper beneath the fortress. The air was stale, but still full of the spores that danced in front of him, the trail fresher than ever.

  When he finally reached the bottom, the Doom Eagle found himself standing in a long, sloping corridor that curved around ahead. The lume-globes had gone, replaced by sodium torches that threw flickering shadows against the cambered ceiling.

  Ritan ran his fingers against the walls. Their construction had changed too. This wasn’t rockcrete, but a material Ritan had never seen before, almost like bone or ivory.

  ‘What is this place?’ Ritan hissed, his words echoing along the strange corridor.

  Almost in response, another voice drifted back towards him. A sob. Someone was down here with him.

  ‘Identify yourself,’ he called out, his challenge reverberating along the walls. There was no response, save for more wails, not far away.