Master of sanctity, p.13
Master of Sanctity, page 13
He was about to pull the trigger when Harahel collapsed with a shriek.
The Librarian lay still, face down. The light flowed back from his body to the candles and the strange shadows faded back to normality. It was only now that Sapphon noticed the lead symbols of the floor had turned to indistinct blobs, sizzling, spitting and steaming as though on a hot plate.
Harahel pushed himself slowly to all fours and looked at them. Trickles of blood marked him from ears, nostrils and eyes, quickly drying and clotting on pallid skin. Sapphon looked into the Librarian’s eyes, dark brown with disappearing flecks of gold, and saw the warrior he knew looking back. Asmodai was not yet convinced, his pistol once again aimed at Harahel.
‘What are the three Abjurations of Assiah?’ demanded the Chaplain.
‘Despise the mutant, abhor the heretic, loathe the alien,’ Harahel replied, voice hoarse.
‘And name the six principal Lords of the Keys,’ Asmodai insisted, the muzzle of his pistol following Harahel’s head as the Librarian righted the chair and, with much wincing and grunting, forced himself upright.
‘Nessiad, Direstes, Thereoux, Mannael, Dubeus, and…’ The Librarian hesitated, a twitch in his eye. For a moment Sapphon thought he saw something else, a dimming of the gold, a momentary stain of blackness flowing along a dilated blood vessel. ‘And…’
Asmodai fired.
The bolt took off the side of Harahel’s skull, ripping through the intricate wiring of the psychic hood, spattering gore across the rune circle.
‘No!’ Sammael’s bellow rebounded around the chamber. ‘A lapse of memory, that was all.’
Sapphon intercepted the Grand Master of the Ravenwing as he lunged at Asmodai. Dragging Sammael away, the Chaplain saw Harahel’s corpse collapsing, his face, what remained of it, frozen in an expression of surprise.
‘He was gone,’ Asmodai said bluntly. He turned to Sammael and holstered his bolt pistol. ‘It was a mercy.’
‘You murdered him,’ snarled Sammael.
‘I think not,’ said Belial, who had watched in silence for the last few moments. He gestured towards the protective ring. The lead symbols had vaporised completely. ‘Something had come through.’
With an anguished moan, Sammael turned away, head in his hands. Asmodai watched him with impassive eyes.
‘You were right to act, brother,’ Sapphon said.
‘I know,’ Asmodai replied. He looked coldly at Sapphon, lips pursed for a moment in thought. ‘I am always right.’
‘Can we trust to the testimony?’ asked Belial, ever practical. ‘What hope can we wring from disaster?’
Sammael replied, voice breaking at the thought of the loss of a long-held companion.
‘I know many… He shared many visions on the Hunt. I can see the signs, speak of their truth.’ The Ravenwing commander composed himself and started to pace slowly about the ring, gaze down, not looking at the corpse in the middle of the chamber. ‘Ulthor is trapped on the edge of the Eye, caught between the immaterial and material. There are denizens of the abyssal ones living there, sustained by the warp breach. A daemon world.’
‘Nothing else?’ asked Belial. ‘Nothing of the Death Guard, perhaps?’
‘Ah yes, the Death Guard are there, the “little skins of metal”. At least, they have been there and might yet still be, or will be. The warp does not follow strict chronology. The birthing must be related to the gene-seed.’
‘It is there already? The gene-seed?’ Asmodai asked the question hastily, concerned and excited equally by the prospect.
‘It is connected, but when and how I would not venture to say.’
‘It follows that Anovel has been there, or is still there,’ the Chaplain continued, invigorated by the idea. ‘We cannot delay.’
‘What of Astelan?’ asked Sapphon. ‘We will need him to broach contact with the denizens of Ulthor.’
‘He is irrelevant,’ snapped Asmodai. ‘He has brought us this far but he will play us false and see us all doomed. We cannot expose ourselves to such risk.’
‘But why collaborate to this point?’ asked Sapphon.
‘Spite?’ suggested Belial. ‘He has lured us here, the finest of the Chapter. A single misplaced word could warn the Death Guard of our presence and intent.’
‘Brother Sammael, you must see that we cannot blindly attack,’ Sapphon said, turning to the Master of the Ravenwing,
‘I must concur with Asmodai and Belial.’ Finally Sammael looked at Harahel’s corpse. ‘We have already sacrificed one brother to caution and circumspect. Further delay risks further danger. Better to strike fast and hard, as the Ravenwing and Deathwing have acted in concert for thousands of years. The Ravenwing will be the eye and the Deathwing the fist. Ulthor occupies a real space overlap. There is no need to translate from the warp and so we can arrive in orbit directly. The Ravenwing will recon in force and bring down the Deathwing against the concentration of the foe, else withdraw without overreaching our resources.’
‘The Ravenwing will find the traitors and the Deathwing will crush them.’ Belial pounded fist into palm to illustrate the sentiment.
‘We are in accord,’ said Asmodai.
‘We are not!’ said Sapphon, but his protests went unheeded.
Three hours later the two strike cruisers translated into the empyrean, destined for the warp-bordered world.
Into the Eye
From the Implacable Justice and Penitent Warrior Ulthor looked like many other worlds; a globe of swirling grey and green against a backdrop of stars. Looks were deceptive. As the Thunderhawks, heat-shielded Land Speeders, Nephilim fighters and Dark Talon interceptors of the Ravenwing dropped into what should have been the planet’s upper atmosphere, everything started to change.
It began with altitude warnings blaring across the flotilla of incoming craft, warning of imminent impact. Pilots wrestled with their controls as hurricane strength gusts lifted and spun their craft where no air pressure should have existed. Instrumentation went haywire, crippled by the unreality of the daemon world’s half-immaterial nature, unable to gauge massively contradictory measurements. Arcs of dark green lightning crackled across the hulls of gunships and earthed along the fuselages of the descending aircraft.
At least the Space Marines aboard hoped that they were still descending, because it rapidly became impossible to tell. A thick murk of fog enveloped everything. Between the total lack of visibility and nonsensical instrumentation readings it seemed likely they would crash at any moment.
Like the other Black Knights, Annael had been virtually thrown from the saddle of his steed when the Thunderhawk carrying them had almost flipped over. Also like the others he was now dismounted, gripping a handrail and staring out through the armourglass of a viewport, trying to make sense of the miasma that churned past. So thick was the smog it felt that the Thunderhawk was stationary while eddies of dank mist curled past them, while logically Annael knew that they must be dropping down towards the surface of Ulthor at an incredible rate.
Moisture started building up on the outside pane of the viewing slit and he heard the pilot complaining over the vox of a mucus-like slick covering the canopy of the flight deck. Tybalain moved towards the cockpit, bent forward as though striding uphill, though Annael’s senses told him the gunship was straight and level, as best he could judge.
‘I would suggest we forget the whole endeavour as a bad idea, but I do not think we can return to the strike cruiser even if we desired,’ said Sabrael. He tried to make his comments appear in jest but Annael detected the tenseness in his companion’s voice that betrayed an uncharacteristic apprehension.
‘A little late for regrets now, brother,’ said Annael. The Thunderhawk lurched to the left. With a screech of metal the hand grip Annael was holding came away from the bulkhead, crumpling in his tightening grasp. He looked at it dumbly for a moment and then realised he had been holding on so tight he had pulled the five-centimetre-thick rail free from its bonding. He dropped the twisted piece of metal and forced a laugh. ‘Let us agree not to tell the armourium how that occurred.’
The gunship was juddering now.
‘In any other situation I would take that as a sign of a thickening atmosphere,’ Annael said, hoping to dispel his unease with pointless chatter. It was a sign of poor discipline, but right at that moment that was the least of his many concerns. ‘But here I think all wagers are void.’
His remark was greeted with silence, adding to the tension. Alone with just his thoughts for company, he started to mentally recite the Catechisms of Resolve to occupy himself.
‘Look, the fog is thinning,’ exclaimed Nerean, his helmeted face pressed up close to one of the larger windows. ‘I think I can see movement. A Nephilim, maybe.’
Annael passed the empty bike clamps and benches arranged along the Thunderhawk’s main bay to stand next to Nerean, mag-grips in his boots pulling his feet down onto the decking. Nerean swayed aside to let Annael see. There was a dark shape, he was sure, though how far away was impossible to judge. It was moving parallel to the Thunderhawk, wisps of cloud trailing from what must have been wingtips.
‘Coming closer,’ said Annael as the object started to resolve through the fog. He activated his vox to warn Brother Naethel, who was piloting their gunship. ‘Possible collision, starboard side.’
‘Affirma–’
Naethel’s reply was cut short as a monstrous maw loomed out of the fog, lined with teeth as tall as men. The beast it belonged to was easily as large as the Thunderhawk, kept aloft on ragged wings, dark leathery skin pocked with sores and lesions. The creature slammed into the gunship, forcing Annael to take a step to avoid falling, the others grabbing hold of whatever they could to steady themselves.
‘Where is it? Where did it go?’ Tybalain demanded over the vox. Annael staggered back to the porthole and looked out but could see nothing.
‘No sound,’ said Sabrael. ‘Not a screech or roar or anything.’
‘Keep watch.’ Tybalain clambered back down alongside the stowed bikes, looking out of the viewing slots to either side. ‘Find it.’
‘It disappeared,’ said Annael. ‘I am sure that it just disappeared.’
The fog was thinning rapidly. The streak of drop pods could be seen, alongside the resolving forms of other descending craft. Suddenly the cloud vanished altogether, revealing a landscape that looked like a diseased carcass: white, with thick hair-like structures forming patches of darkness, the whole vista bloated and torn with red valleys that looked like wounds. The pallid ground was rushing up to meet them and Naethel cursed over the vox as he pulled the Thunderhawk out of its steep dive.
Annael was sure he should have felt more G-force from the manoeuvre but instead he was getting moments of heaviness interspersed with periods of weightlessness.
‘Nothing here is real,’ he muttered.
‘What was that?’ demanded Tybalain.
‘Nothing here is real,’ Annael said, loudly and slowly. ‘It is a warp dream.’
‘A warp dream given form,’ the Huntmaster growled back. ‘Do not think for a moment that we can just wake up from this. We will be landing soon. Mount up!’
Landing on that fleshy surface seemed ridiculous but Annael did as he was commanded and sat astride the saddle of Black Shadow. Instantly he felt reassured; the solidity, the touch of the bike through his armour’s tactile relays gave him a sense of purpose and reality.
From where he was sat Annael could see nothing of the ground, but the continuous bank of cloud above was visible through one of the ports. The whole sky was a sickly yellow and brown, churning with its own energy. Black patches with grotesque faces rippled across the bulging mass, extruding down after the descending drop craft with fanged maws and glaring red eyes, turning like sentient whirlwinds.
‘There’s some kind of city, the Grand Master is commanding that we rendezvous on the outskirts,’ reported Naethel.
‘City?’ said Tybalain. ‘Rendezvous where, brother? Coordinates? Distance? Bearing?’
‘No geo-tracking devices functional, brother-sergeant. The Grand Master simply said to make all speed to the city. I can see a smudge of darkness to starboard, but there is a mass of storm clouds above. Black storm clouds, thick with activity.’
‘Better to make groundfall outside of that,’ said Tybalain. ‘Set us down a kilometre from the storm’s edge, as best as you can judge.’
‘Affirmative. Making touchdown in approximately ninety seconds.’
Annael thumbed Black Shadow’s engine into life, feeling the mechanical steed shudder with power as he tested the throttle. The growl and smoke of the other bikes filled the interior of the Thunderhawk. The gunship banked heavily to starboard for a few seconds, affording a view of the ground. This close it looked even more like pallid flesh, though more ridged and humped than Annael had realised at higher altitude. There were undulations like folds of skin, smooth-edged crevasses and puckered orifices from which issued forth the noxious clouds that filled the sky.
‘What is that?’ asked Nerean, pointing ahead to a dark stain spreading across the bare ground. From the gunship it looked like columns of ants trekking out of their colony, but as the Thunderhawk closed the distance the insect-like creatures resolved into more humanoid forms, stocky and hunched, swathed in leper rags. The back of each splayed out into a hideous basket shape woven of bones and sinew, in which had been piled jagged pieces of rock the colour of raw meat. Their stumbling steps left faint imprints in the surface as they marched in files out of a maw-like opening beneath a bone-crested ridge.
‘Where is the light coming from?’ asked Sabrael. The Space Marine shifted in his saddle to look out of the windows on the other side of the gunship. ‘I see no sun.’
Annael saw that this was true; no brighter patch in the clouds that might betray the presence of the star Ulthor had been orbiting.
‘Do not expect the natural laws to apply here, brothers,’ warned Calatus. ‘I would say trust only your eyes and ears but I fear that even they may be misdirected in this cursed place.’
‘Be sure of your target when you fire,’ added Tybalain. ‘Check armour transponders.’
They did as they were commanded, sending out bursts of data to each other to synchronise the friend-or-foe scanners built into their auto-senses. Four blips appeared on the tactical display of Black Shadow, Tybalain and Calatus in front of Annael, Nerean and Sabrael bringing up the rear.
The Thunderhawk shook violently and for an instant was plunged into darkness, every slit and window utterly black. The moment passed and putrid yellow light seeped in once more.
‘What was that?’ snapped Tybalain.
‘Something out of the storm, brother-sergeant,’ replied Naethel. ‘I have located a level landing zone. Touching down in thirty seconds, combat deployment.’
The roar of the plasma jets became a whine as the pilot throttled back. More light filled the interior as the assault ramp beneath the cockpit opened, revealing pale soft ground speeding past a few dozen metres below.
‘Braking for drop! Five… four… three…’
The Black Knights released the brakes on their machines while the clamps that held them in place on the deck snapped back into the bulkheads. As Naethel’s count reached zero he hit the gunship’s retro-thrusters, bleeding off their momentum in seconds. Inertia threw the squadron forwards along the deployment rails, gunning their engines as first Tybalain and then the others, one after the other, were flung forward onto the ramp.
The Thunderhawk had halted about two metres up and Annael felt as though he and Black Shadow were gently gliding through the air as Space Marine and steed left the end of the ramp at speed. The bike hit the ground harder than Annael expected, jarring his arms as his suit locked to compensate for the impact. Annael had imagined the surface of Ulthor to be soft like the flesh whose colour it shared, but the landing and squeal of tyres betrayed an unyielding, gritty substance.
‘Over to the right,’ said Tybalain. Annael looked up and saw the black roiling mass of the unnatural storm, tendril-like clouds flailing down towards the ground, swatting at drop pods and gunships, while Nephilim and Black Talons slalomed between descending columns of immaterial energy.
Beneath the tumult sprawled a dark conurbation that, on first look, resembled some immense carcass riddled with worm holes and gashes. It erupted from the flesh-coloured ground, a bizarre conglomeration of ribbed structures layered with tattered skin and gristle melded with huge brick-walled edifices with narrow windows. At the centre a termite mound-like structure rose up into the storm, its summit lost from view, immense flanks riddled with countless garrets and turrets. Frond-lined avenues radiated out from huge rusting gates, descending into the city, each teeming with movement that could not yet be identified.
Towering chimneys of brick belched forth what at first appeared to be smoke but upon closer inspection was revealed to be endless swarms of flies. Looking up again, Annael realised that the storm and its appendages were flies also, countless billions of fat black, bristled bodies and veiny wings. Closing the distance to the city brought a steady monotonous drone; an irritation that would have been deafening without the dampening effects of the auto-senses in Annael’s armour.
Some distance to the right, perhaps half a kilometre away – Annael was starting to regain some sense of perspective now that they were on the surface – more of the stunted labourers shuffled and stumbled across bare rock, some carrying rusted saws, drills and axes; others had chains hooked into spinal growths on which were dragged sleds piled high with mouldering wood and timber thick with sprouting fungi. They paid no heed to the black vehicles sweeping past overhead and converging on the city all around them, staring ahead with wide, black eyes in flat noseless faces. Some had thick, matted hair and beards, others were devoid of all hair, their skin grey and blotched with pustules and boils.
