Shas'o Page 9

  Reluctantly Chizoba stepped out onto the connecting gangway and slammed the hatch shut behind him, cutting himself off from the living. Alone in a swirling white void, he looked down and saw more whiteness rushing between the slats of the platform under his feet. The sense of unreality was oppressive. Though the Chain Engine was a goliath it sped through the maelstrom in almost total silence. Chizoba knew some kind of technomancy kept it floating above the track, but it didn’t feel right. The engines he’d ridden back home were rickety contraptions, wedded to their tracks like a cranky old couple, but this one felt like a ghost train.

  An infernal engine forged to ferry an army of the damned into the warp…

  He yanked down on the lever of the door ahead. It didn’t move.

  A silver-clad snare for the wicked and the unwary…

  Fear caressed his spine, feather-light and frigid. He imagined himself trapped between carriages, unable to go forwards or backwards as his blood froze and his flesh crystallised into a glass sculpture. Would his men laugh at his folly? He tugged again.

  The sentry standing outside the prisoner’s cell was obviously terrified. He was the youngest Shark Mordaine had seen, surely no more than sixteen. How long had he been alone in the holding carriage? Alone with the xenos behind that iron-shod door…

  ‘Has the prisoner caused any trouble?’ Mordaine asked him. The youth shook his head, unable to get a word out.

  Is it me he’s frightened of? Mordaine wondered. Or is it the grey giant standing beside me?

  ‘The xenos is secure,’ said the Space Marine. ‘Fortunately the Koroleva equipped their transport with admirable incarceration facilities. One might say they had foresight.’ There was a trace of humour in that deathly voice, but it only enhanced its inhumanity. In that moment Mordaine knew that he truly hated this ancient being.

  ‘Then you may leave us,’ he said curtly. He expected some argument, but the Calavera merely inclined his head and strode away. With a momentary howl of wind and a slam of metal he was gone from the carriage.

  He wants me to do this, Mordaine realised. That’s what he’s wanted all along. He glanced at the Iwujii youth, seeking a last moment of human camaraderie. ‘What’s your name, boy?’ he asked.

  ‘Mifune, sir.’ The guard wouldn’t meet his gaze.

  It is me he’s terrified of, he realised. Haniel Mordaine, the dread inquisitor! Absurdly the boy’s fear lent him courage.

  ‘See that I am not disturbed, Trooper Mifune.’

  Mordaine unlocked the cell door.

  With an angry screech the stubborn lever gave way and Chizoba staggered into the next carriage. As he hauled the hatch shut behind him he heard something clatter across the roof above, as if in sympathy. He held his breath, listening with his back against the door, straining against the muted wail of the wind.

  ‘I’ll not let the unquiet spirits of this engine unman me,’ Chizoba said, challenging the gloom. Maybe it was crazy, but sometimes a man needed to hear a human voice, even if it was only his own. ‘There’s nothing here that faith can’t rout. In fact there’s nothing here at all!’

  Ashamed of the dread that had almost overwhelmed him, he advanced into the narrow aisle ahead. It passed through a warren of sealed storage vaults that bore the silver crown icon of the Koroleva. The bluebloods had situated this cargo carriage further upfront than the barracks, valuing their chattel over their troops. They wouldn’t travel without an army of thugs to back them up, but they liked to keep them out of sight. Unfortunately this had obliged Chizoba’s brothers to occupy the tail end of the train. He didn’t know why that sat so badly with him, but…

  There was a metallic groan behind him. He spun round, drawing his pistol in the same moment. The hatch he’d come through had swung open and snow was billowing into the carriage in languid, spiralling flurries. Chizoba crouched, levelling his weapon at the door, watching it rock back and forth in the wind like a beckoning hand. He waited, his hackles rising at its incessant creaking.

  Nothing. It’s nothing.

  ‘Thierry, you’re raising ghosts from the shadows!’ he chastised himself. Once again the sound of his voice was like a flash of good sense in the darkness. Obviously he’d not shut the damned hatch properly.

  ‘You a man or a boy?’ he chanted. ‘Predator or prey?’ It was the first mantra of the Childe Wars and it spurred him into action. Holstering his pistol he marched back to the door and reached for the handle. ‘Blade or blood?’

  The wind lashed out and snatched away his hand. He stared at the gushing stump, frozen by superstitious terror. Then the wind surged into the carriage and he saw it was a predator.

  As the Calavera had promised, the prisoner was secure. The tau sat rigidly on the floor, its back a few centimetres from the windowless outer wall of the padded cell. A bulky robe obscured the alien’s form, but Mordaine could tell that its legs were knotted into a lotus position that would have defied human physiognomy. The alien’s hands – only three fingers and a thumb to each – were clasped in its lap, bound by heavy manacles. A chain tethered these to a ring in the wall, restricting the captive’s freedom to half a metre. It was a crudely effective device, yet Mordaine was not reassured. This was one of the most dangerous aliens known to the Imperium.

  And I’m the one who’ll bring him before the Emperor’s justice, he thought. Surely it will be enough to exonerate me. If this is really him…

  Mordaine lingered in the doorway, studying the xenos. It was quite unlike the ethereal his mentor had captured all those years ago. While that being had possessed an empyrean grace, this one was muscular and broad shouldered, with a warrior’s bearing. However, the most striking differences were in the face. Whereas the ethereal’s had been long and delicate, this creature’s was square-jawed and severe, with cobalt skin tones that darkened to charcoal at its vertical nostril slit. A stylised white circle inscribed the right side of its face, framing its eye with geometric precision. He couldn’t begin to guess at the alien’s age, but he sensed it was in the prime of its life.

  Can this really be the Scourge of Damocles? Surely he would be older…

  Then the prisoner opened its eyes and Mordaine was no longer so certain.

  ‘You may enter,’ it said.

  Crouched between carriages, Ujurakh wrenched on the lever controlling the last of the couplings securing the barracks car. With a hiss of servos the massive pin retracted, cutting the rear carriage loose from the train. Crowing with satisfaction, the Sourblood sat back on his haunches and watched as the snowstorm swallowed the receding box. The amputated car’s forward momentum might carry it along the track for hours, perhaps even days before friction sapped its impetus. It was a waste of good meat, but it was necessary. Ujurakh wondered whether the stranded flat-faces inside would devour each other before the end came.

  ‘You are the inquisitor,’ said the xenos, playing the opening Escher had always favoured, making a statement out of a question and claiming the initiative.

  Beginning the game without hesitation.

  ‘I would stand to face you,’ the prisoner continued, ‘but it is impractical.’ It lifted its manacles pointedly as Mordaine closed the cell door. ‘You understand these hold me only because I tolerate it.’

  The xenos spoke Gothic with patient, almost pained precision, as if constraining its thoughts to accommodate an inferior shape, but the authority in its voice was undeniable. It was an alloy of contradictions, alight with passion, yet aloof with calculation: the voice of a master player.

  ‘I don’t have time for games,’ Mordaine said brusquely, trying to regain ground. ‘You will answer my questions or you will suffer.’

  ‘I am a warrior. Suffering runs in my blood like fire. I welcome it.’ The prisoner was regarding him intently. Sizing up the mettle of its opponent. ‘Do you not share such a bond with pain, gue’la?’ Are you not a warrior?

 
‘So you believe that pain is a virtue, xenos?’

  ‘I believe the conquest of pain brings strength.’

  ‘And I believe I have walked into the wrong cell,’ Mordaine mocked. ‘I expected to meet a fire warrior, not an ethereal.’ It was a sly strike, but the prisoner didn’t rise to it so he pressed on. ‘I thought your craft was war, not philosophy.’

  ‘If you believe the disciplines are distinct then you are ignorant,’ the xenos said evenly. ‘Or incompetent.’

  I would certainly be a fool to think you a common warmonger, Mordaine conceded. To his disgust he was already tiring, as if the alien’s mere presence was draining him. I’m not ready for a drawn-out duel…

  ‘Come closer, inquisitor,’ the xenos said. ‘I offer you no imminent peril.’ The infernal thing is baiting me! ‘Let us talk as equals.’

  Uncertain whether accepting the challenge would register as strength or weakness, Mordaine stepped forward… then hesitated. Which is certainly weakness, damn it! Angry, he forced himself to move, stopping a few paces from the prisoner. He should have appeared masterful, but his tension diminished him while the alien’s tranquil repose elevated it. Wise to the power game, it didn’t even raise its eyes, staring instead through his midriff.

  ‘We are not equals,’ Mordaine said without conviction. ‘I am a servant of the God-Emperor of Mankind, cast in the mould of His… divine… aspect…’ His hands were trembling uncontrollably so he clasped them behind his back – tightly – as if he were hanging on to himself. ‘You are a xenos heretic, enslaved by the deliriums of a debased technology that will betray you. You are nothing.’

  ‘Then why are you afraid of me, gue’la?’

  The statement was so ripe with truth that it took Mordaine off-guard. As he floundered for a riposte he felt enervating tendrils unfurling inside his skull. The secret other buried inside him was stirring again.

  No, Mordaine railed at the indifferent abyss. Not here… not now.

  ‘I…’ he breathed as breath failed him. The cell walls unfurled and swam away, as if seeking a more captivating configuration. His legs felt like hot wires sheathed in wax. Any moment now that inconstant flesh would melt, leaving his bones unable to bear their burden alone. Now the xenos was looking up at him, its black eyes drinking in his weakness dispassionately.

  ‘I…’ Mordaine gasped as his legs buckled.

  The Sourblood tore another crimson strip from the carcass of the flat-face called Chee-zoba and crammed it into his beak, savouring the pungent flavour. After the poor fare this planet had served up, such flesh was intoxicating! Worlds shaped the taste of their meat and this creature had been spawned on a vibrant, full-blooded planet – one not unlike Ujurakh’s own home world. As he chewed on the meat it rendered up fleeting impressions of wet green heat and red fury. He hadn’t tasted the like for many seasons! There had been a time when he had always fed well, travelling from one battleground to another with his kindred, trading their might for pay and flesh, but then the Empty One had come with false bargains and forbidden meat…

  Warp-kissed flesh, tender, terrible and irresistible with promised displeasure!

  Ujurakh shuddered at the memory of fragrant coral flesh and delicate, deadly pincers. Possessed, the Empty One had called the twisted, drooling captive he’d offered the Shaper. The sacrifice had shrieked in ecstasy when Ujurakh carved it open, then moaned in dissonant harmony while he glutted himself on its willing meat, enslaved by a hunger beyond anything he’d known before. Its essence had flooded his palate with myriad rival passions as he fought to unwind its truths and thread them into his own weave, but it was like trying to catch the lightning with his talons or extinguish the sun with his breath!

  Too many possibilities entwined within infinite impossible tangles…

  The Empty One had waited until Ujurakh collapsed, overwhelmed by the cacophony of sensations. Then he had summoned the kroot’s kindred and denounced their Shaper as a Sourblood, a degenerate who would taint their bloodline to sate his base cravings. They had called for his life then, but the Empty One had bought it from them and taken Ujurakh as his slave, burying his voice deep inside the Shaper’s skull and binding him to an invisible purpose that had carried them across countless worlds. Now, for the first time in so very long, Ujurakh could taste the joys of his old life.

  Lost in his feasting, the Shaper didn’t see the skull-faced female enter the dark cargo carriage. It was only when her torch beam lashed him that he awoke to the threat, but by then she was already firing. He sprang backwards and the las-bolt intended for his head took him in the abdomen, scalding him to the bone. Screeching in agony he retreated, flitting frantically from side to side in the narrow aisle as she stalked after him with her pistol levelled. A bolt caught him in the right shoulder… another in the left leg… a third burned away the quills of his crest. He hurled himself at the gaping doorway behind, flailing out to catch the guardrail of the gangway beyond, but his scorched arm was without strength. He yelped as his grip failed and he toppled over into nothingness.

  Lieutenant Omazet approached the open hatch cautiously, keeping her pistol levelled, but the avian horror was gone.

  So was the barracks carriage.

  Hissing through her teeth, she stared at the void where sixty men had been. We have been betrayed, she thought bitterly. I don’t know how or by whom, but I don’t doubt it for a moment.

  Biting down her rage, she approached the shredded wreck that had been Thierry Chizoba. The beast had dragged him to the centre of the carriage so it could feast away from the cold, leaving the hatch open for a quick flight if it was disturbed.

  But its unholy appetite was its undoing, she realised as she knelt beside the sergeant. His face was contorted in a rictus of agony, eyes wide and staring with shock. His right hand was missing, along with most of his chest.

  ‘We were already so few,’ Omazet murmured as she closed Chizoba’s eyes and traced the sacred aquila across his forehead. Now we are nothing at all.

  But it wasn’t true. There were at least a dozen troopers further along the train, along with Old Man Pava and the boy Mifune. And of course there was still Armande, if he could be roused from his madness. They weren’t many, but they were still Sharks and together they would take vengeance. Determined, Omazet rose and hurried towards the next carriage. As she reached for the handle the hatch swung open and a vast shape was silhouetted against the snowstorm.

  ‘Captain Calavera,’ she said as the Space Marine entered the carriage, hunching to pass through the doorway. She backed away instinctively, not lowering her gun, though it was a stunted weapon against the armoured giant.

  Why do I feel I might need it? Omazet wondered uneasily as the newcomer rose to fill the narrow space. And why is his arrival so timely?

  ‘We have been betrayed,’ she told him. ‘We must reverse this engine without delay. If we are swift we may yet deliver my ­brothers from the winter’s embrace.’

  The Space Marine regarded her silently. His crystal eye was very bright in the gloom, yet it cast no light of its own. Omazet saw that it was a many-faceted orb, inset like a jewel in the dark recess of his visor. Beside his dread aspect, her own contrivance of tattoos and lenses seemed like cheap chicanery. How she envied him that face! Such a visage would make her one with Mother Kalfu herself…

  Mesmerised, she stood rigid as the Calavera took a step towards her.

  Mordaine’s world melted back into focus, as sticky and seeping as the pool of blood congealing around his head. A drum was pounding between his ears, beating furiously against the wet gash in his forehead as if trying to hammer a way out.

  I must have fallen on my face, he thought blurrily. It’s a miracle I didn’t break my nose. He hauled himself to his knees, groaning with the strain.

  ‘I feared you dead, gue’la,’ a voice said beside him. He turned and saw the xenos prisoner watching him. Angel’
s Tears, he’d fallen right by the creature!

  Unable to suppress a moan of revulsion, Mordaine crawled away, feeling foolish – impossibly, unforgivably foolish – and collapsed with his back against the cell door, breathing hard. He reached for his holster, already knowing the weapon would be gone and – no, it was still there!

  Why? Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing, grasping for answers. The xenos could have reached out and throttled me while I was senseless. Why am I still alive?

  Growling low in her throat, Omazet tore her gaze from the Cala­vera’s siren eye. The giant halted and she heard something that might have been a sigh. The sound was like a sirocco fluting through a time-riven ruin. In that breath she knew he had come to her as Grandfather Death.

  ‘Why?’ she asked. She doubted her candour would surprise him, but it might earn her a measure of respect. ‘Why turn on us?’

  He stood motionless, contemplating her request.

  ‘We are both warriors,’ she urged. ‘If I am to die here then grant me the dignity of truth. Why?’

  ‘Because you would interfere, lieutenant.’

  ‘In what?’

  ‘In a matter that has been engineered with absolute rigour,’ he said, betraying a hint of pride. ‘Your company has served its purpose.’ He made to advance.

  ‘Wait!’ she said quickly, hunting for something, anything to delay him. ‘Do you truly see through that orb?’

  ‘Not through it,’ he said softly. ‘The Aphelion is not a lens.’

  ‘But you see with it?’

  ‘More than you can possibly conceive.’ Suddenly the pride was gone, leaving only an ineffable weariness. ‘I have no surcease of sight, Adeola Omazet.’