So taken was he by this display that he almost lost his head. An axe made from a rusted sawblade slashed down, nearly splitting his skull. He turned aside, and the jagged blade shaved whiskers from his beard. Cursing, he fired his needler. The mutie slumped with a rattling sigh as the neurotoxins went to work.

  Targeting runes settled over his eye, and he flicked the pistol around. This wasn’t his sort of fight, not at all. There was none of the give and take of a personal confrontation here, only the wild bloodletting of a scrum. The muties were everywhere, coming from every direction – no discipline, no fear.

  His picter recorded the struggle, for later study. Even as he fought, he could tell that his opponents weren’t just from one clan or tribe or whatever muties called themselves. There was a variety of crude tribal insignia on display. That was unusual. From what little he knew of muties they were highly territorial, and more likely to eat each other than ally.

  ‘Fall back to the next bulkhead,’ Goeth shouted. He half carried, half dragged a wounded ganger backwards, firing his pistol as he retreated. The Cawdor fell back, weapons blazing. Baertrum hesitated. Neither Bella­donna nor the Goliaths seemed inclined to retreat. But there were more muties filling the tunnel. So many he couldn’t tell where they were all coming from. Too many.

  Baertrum cursed and elbowed a mutie in the jaw. He hurried to Belladonna’s side. ‘We have to go. The Cawdor are retreating.’

  ‘Let them,’ she snarled. She reached for the pistol on her hip and tore it from its holster. There was a warning hum as the plasma coils lit up. Baertrum looked away as she fired the plasma pistol, incinerating a mutie from the chest up. ‘Belladonna Escher doesn’t run from a fight.’

  ‘I have every faith that this particular fight will follow us to a more defensible position. Now come on – that goes for you two idiots as well,’ he added, gesturing to Big Sledge and Horst. ‘Come on!’

  Belladonna growled, but let Baertrum pull her after the Cawdor. The Goliaths followed, their limbs streaked with blood – none of it theirs, as far as he could tell. But strong as they were, numbers would eventually tell, and they knew it. The Cawdor had fallen back to the entrance to a smaller transit-path. The path would have been used by repair servitors, once upon a time. Now it was full of nothing save cobwebs and shadows, but it was narrow enough that two men could defend it easily.

  Muties pelted after them, ululating with savage glee. When her plasma pistol had recharged, Belladonna paused and turned, firing into the crowd. Muties scattered in momentary panic as the burst of plasma lit up the gloom.

  Goeth waved them on, and it was with some relief that Baertrum darted into the dubious safety of the path. He squeezed inside, among the tangled network of pipes and gauges that occupied the walls. Belladonna was right behind him, and the Goliaths just after her.

  ‘Don’t like running from muties,’ Horst muttered, loudly.

  ‘We’re not running, we’re regrouping,’ Baertrum said. He glanced at Goeth. ‘On that subject, where exactly are we regrouping to?’

  Goeth pushed past them. ‘This way.’ He gestured and two of his gangers took up positions to either side of the entrance. Baertrum could hear the muties in the larger tunnel. They were banging on pipes and striking the shunt-line with the stocks of their guns. He could only assume it was a signal, of some sort. Calling for reinforcements, perhaps.

  He looked at Goeth. ‘Surely the muties will simply follow us.’

  ‘Yes. But there’s a maintenance chamber at the other end of this tunnel. We can hold out there, until they get bored or we kill enough of them to make them run.’

  ‘Or they starve us out,’ Big Sledge growled, as they followed Goeth and the rest of the Cawdor down the tunnel.

  ‘They don’t have that kind of patience,’ Belladonna said. She looked back. ‘They’re hungry. They’ll follow us, even if it means walking over the bodies of their own.’

  Baertrum shuddered. ‘Wonderful. I’m not regretting taking on this commission at all.’

  ‘I bet you wish you’d stayed in Hive City,’ Belladonna said.

  ‘At the moment? Yes, quite so.’ Baertrum checked his needler’s auto-loader. ‘I’ve never heard tell of muties being sighted this close to Down Town, however.’ He looked at her. ‘Those territorial markers we saw – they were fresh. And there are at least three different bands among our pursuers.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, it implies that there is something going on. Something unpleasant. Don’t you agree, Pastor Goeth?’

  ‘We can discuss it later, once we’ve beaten them back,’ Goeth said. He flashed a lumen at a rusted service hatch. ‘There – the maintenance chamber. Inside, quickly.’ Big Sledge and Horst moved forwards, and between them the two Goliaths managed to wrench the portal open. A cloud of rust spores filled the air. When it cleared, Baertrum spied the inside of the chamber.

  It was larger than he’d thought. An enormous bubble of ferrocrete, blown into the substance of the underhive. Banks of powerless augurs and cogitator-stations lined the walls. Equipment hung rusting in the racks, and emptied drums of fuel lay overturned on the cracked floor. Baertrum looked around with little interest. He’d seen such places before, though those had been functional. When the guilders found one, they were quick to get it up and running again.

  The Cawdor spread out, looting with quiet efficiency. Baertrum watched them.

  ‘Surely there’s nothing to salvage here. It looks to have been picked clean.’

  Goeth smiled. ‘What others discard, the faithful make use of. We can always find something to salvage, and make new again.’ He picked up a spanner and tossed it to one of the gangers. ‘Waste not, want not. Such is the wisdom of the Emperor. From the scraps of men, He made angels. From the waste of worlds, He forged an empire. By His example are we led.’

  ‘And was it His example that led you to serve Nemo?’

  Goeth’s smile faded. ‘No. It was my own sin that led me down that path. But in every fall, there is the chance to rise. From my weakness may yet come strength.’

  ‘A supreme rationalisation, my friend.’

  ‘We are not friends, adjurator. You are not of the faith, though you have benefited from it, as all those who dwell in the upper reaches of the hive have done. And you would do well not to trust Nemo or his creatures.’

  ‘Including you?’

  ‘Especially me.’

  Baertrum snorted as the Cawdor walked back to the hatch. The two gangers he’d left in the tunnel had arrived. Baertrum could hear the clanging of pipes echoing from the other side of the walls. His passive augurs swept across the chamber, analysing and calculating hundreds of factors.

  ‘The walls are hollow,’ Belladonna said, startling him. Baertrum turned.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The chamber walls. There are passages and tunnels behind them. The muties are swarming through these shafts. More than we thought.’

  Baertrum felt a chill. ‘This position is not as defensible as Goeth hoped, is it?’

  ‘Oh, he knows.’ Belladonna smiled. ‘He’s expecting an attack. When they do, we’ll kill them. Eventually, we’ll kill the leader, and they’ll flee.’

  ‘You sound very confident in that.’

  ‘I’ve done this before. So has Goeth, probably. Why do you think Nemo sent him?’

  Baertrum didn’t bother to reply. His augurs were flashing. Targeting runes flickered over his eyes, spinning across the walls and floor. Racks rattled suddenly.

  ‘They’re coming,’ a Cawdor bawled. Autoguns spat fire down the tunnel. Bullets plucked at the sides of the hatch and one of the gangers went down, clutching his shoulder. Goeth stepped up to replace him, firing steadily.

  Baertrum drew his needler, trying to get a target lock. A panel fell from the wall, revealing the mouth of a tunnel. Muties emerged wielding crude spears and mattocks. A Cawdor turned, and was cut down even as he shouted a warning. Big Sledge gave a howl of pleasure and lunged, crushing a mutie’s skull with his spud-jacker.

  More panels fell away from the walls, or were dislodged from the floor as muties swarmed the chamber. The needler hummed in Baertrum’s grip as he swept it out. Muties fell, convulsing, but more pressed forwards. The chamber was in chaos. Guns roared, splitting the gloom. Racks of machinery toppled with thunderous crashes.

  Baertrum lost sight of Belladonna and the others in the confusion. His vision was filled with flickering targets. Muties came at him from all sides. A bulky mutant with bony encrustations covering part of his face caught him by the coat and slammed him back into a wall. Baertrum cursed, shoved the barrel of his needler into the filthy mass of rags over the mutie’s chest and fired. The mutant twitched and howled, chemical froth bubbling from his lips as the toxins flooded his system. He slumped, nearly dragging Baertrum from his feet.

  A second mutie, this one covered in fungal boils, nearly took off Baertrum’s head with an axe made from a sawblade. He ducked and slipped on a scum of blood. His needler clattered from his grip, and the mutie’s knee caught him in the chin. Dazed, Baertrum fell back against the wall. The mutie raised her axe, her splintered fangs bared in a grin. Then, her eyes crossed as a bulge of light erupted between them.

  Baertrum jerked aside as the las-bolt hissed on past his ear, scorching the wall behind him. The mutie pitched forwards, a neat hole burned through her skull. He shoved the body aside and reclaimed his needler. As he did so, he spotted his saviour.

  Two newcomers had dealt themselves into the fray. The first was a tall, unnaturally thin shape clad in the remains of a spacer uniform. The stranger wore a respirator unit on his back, and a heavy hood of stitched canvas. He held a maw-pattern long-las in his hands, and as he walked, he swung it up and snapped off a shot at a charging mutie. The mutie fell, twitching, a scorch-mark over his heart.

  The second newcomer was clearly an abhuman. Clad in battle-worn flak armour and a padded undersuit, he was shorter and broader than a man. Muscles that could only have been forged on a high-gravity world flexed as he swung a crackling power ­hammer with one hand. The weapon caught a mutie in the small of the back, and nearly tore the cannibal in two. In his other hand, he held a boltgun, and he fired it as easily as he might have a pistol.

  Even if his augurs hadn’t identified them both, Baertrum would have recognised them. Of all the bounty hunters in Hive Primus, they were among the most distinctive.

  ‘Yar Umbra and Grendl Grendlsen,’ he murmured. ‘No guesses as to what brought you two out here.’ Forgan had mentioned that Umbra was on the hunt for Zoon – the Voidborn was a deadly marksman, and a calculating hunter. Grendlsen, in contrast, was a blunt object lacking in both subtlety and guile.

  ‘Is that you, Arturos?’ Grendlsen called out. ‘I thought I smelled your particular blend of pomade and uselessness.’ He smashed a mutie out of his path and stomped towards Baertrum. The squat’s eyes were hidden behind the mirrored visor of his helm, but Baertrum could feel the disdainful glare nonetheless.

  ‘Hello, Grendlsen. Still short-tempered, I see.’

  Grendlsen paused. ‘Was that a crack about my height?’

  ‘Why do you ask? Did it go over your head?’

  ‘Careful, laddie.’ Grendlsen gently poked Baertrum in the chest with the power hammer. ‘A more sensitive soul might take offence at such comments.’

  ‘Duly noted.’ Baertrum stepped back and looked around. The muties were fleeing. Bodies littered the chamber floor, not all of them the enemy. A good number of Goeth’s followers would never sing hosannas again, by the looks of it.

  Belladonna made her way towards Baertrum and Grendlsen, delicately picking her way over the dead. She was unhurt, as far as Baertrum could tell. Big Sledge and Horst were also in one piece.

  ‘Grendlsen,’ she said, looking down at the abhuman. She glanced at Yar Umbra, who saluted her silently. ‘And Yar, as well. This is a surprise.’

  Grendlsen slung his boltgun. ‘We were passing by. Saw you might need some help.’

  ‘Why?’

  Grendlsen shrugged. ‘Blame the Voidborn.’

  Yar Umbra urgently murmured something to Grendlsen in a soft, sibilant voice.

  Grendlsen sighed and waved him back. ‘He recognised you when we spotted you earlier. Figured you were on the same trail we are.’

  ‘Since when have you two been partners?’ Belladonna asked.

  ‘Might ask you the same question,’ Grendlsen said, gesturing to Baertrum.

  ‘Safety in numbers,’ Baertrum said. ‘Danger makes for strange bedfellows, and right now, we are all in grave danger. My augurs detect quite a few heat signatures heading this way. The muties are regrouping.’

  ‘We can head through these tunnels,’ Goeth said, pointing to one of the mutie passages. ‘They’ll take us back to the main route, if we’re lucky.’

  ‘What about the wounded?’ Baertrum asked. Several of the Cawdor looked in bad shape. They wouldn’t be doing any running.

  ‘They will stay here and cover our retreat. They will be named martyrs, and welcomed into the light of the Emperor.’

  Baertrum frowned. ‘More merciful to slit their throats before the muties capture them, I should think.’

  Goeth shook his head. ‘There is precious little mercy in this universe, adjurator. And none at all for us poor sinners.’ He set a hand on the shoulder of one of the injured men. ‘Go with the Emperor, brother.’

  The wounded Cawdor nodded. ‘I shall see you in the golden palaces of His worship, Pastor.’ He limped to the hatch and readied his autogun. The other wounded began taking up similar positions. They would be overwhelmed in moments. Not so much a rear-guard as a speed-bump. He turned to Belladonna.

  ‘We must go. Now.’

  ‘I’m still haggling with Grendlsen,’ she said.

  ‘Haggling?’

  Belladonna gestured for him to be silent. Baertrum looked around nervously. He could hear the clang of weapon-stocks on pipes, and knew now that it was a signal for reinforcements. The muties were determined to take them.

  ‘What are you proposing?’ Grendlsen said, as he cleaned blood and brains off the head of his power hammer. ‘Even split?’

  ‘Underhive rules,’ Belladonna said. ‘Whoever’s standing at the end gets a share.’

  The abhuman sniffed and rubbed his bulbous nose. ‘Sounds fair.’

  Baertrum turned. ‘A share of what?’

  ‘The bounty on Zoon,’ Belladonna said.

  ‘Now wait a moment, I didn’t agree to that,’ Baertrum said. Grendlsen looked at him.

  ‘And who are you, that I should care, Arturos?’

  ‘I’m the one in charge of this little expedition.’ Baertrum stuck out his chest and tugged on his beard. Grendlsen leaned over and spat.

  ‘Are you now?’

  ‘I am.’

  Grendlsen looked past him, at Belladonna. ‘Is he?’

  ‘No.’

  Baertrum turned, eyes narrowed. Belladonna smiled. ‘I work for Nemo. So do they.’ She gestured to the Cawdor.

  Goeth nodded. ‘I did say,’ he added, apologetically.

  Baertrum looked around, seeking support. Big Sledge just shrugged and Horst looked away.

  Exasperated, Baertrum threw up his hands. ‘Fine. Fine. We’ll be a proper band of venators, won’t we? Can we please just go? None of us will be claiming anything if the muties roast us over a slow fire!’

  Grendlsen smiled and stepped aside. ‘After you. By all means, lead the way.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ZOON

  ‘Red Shaft,’ Clovik said. ‘We’re here, brother.’ His voice, hoarse from promethium fumes, echoed through the control-compartment of the ore-hauler. The compartment was a rough ovoid, broken up by cogitator banks and display monitors. It revolved around a bulky command-dais, which jutted from the centre of the compartment like the spoke of a wheel. A handful of control-cradles spread out around the dais. Loops of knotted wiring coiled on the deck, or hung from the top of the compartment.

  The signs of a fire marked the curved walls, and loose shell casings rattled across the deck. There were bloodstains as well, old and brown and crusted.

  Atop the command-dais, Desolation Zoon stirred. He leaned back on his control-throne, trying to ease the persistent ache in his bones. He was a narrow scrap of a man, built spare and scraped thin by a life of tumultuous hardship. The red robes of his calling were threadbare and ragged now, and his bandaged hands alternated between disturbing numbness and throbbing agony. It was not a new sensation for him.

  Everything hurt, these days, to a greater or lesser degree. He was old – older than he had ever imagined being. Older than he had ever prayed to be. Age was not a gift, nor the wisdom that came with it. Rather, it was a burden.

  He cradled his head. The iron mask he wore as a sign of his faith grew heavier by the day. It was wrought to resemble the blessed countenance of the Emperor of Mankind, all glory to His name, all thanks be to His mercy. Fuming censer-nodes in the shape of a laurel encircled the top, filling his immediate vicinity with a joyous haze.

  Zoon raised his head and closed his eyes, hoping the rumbling, rhythmic pulse of the stub-cannons would soothe his aches and pains, as they had so often in the past. But it was not to be. He had not earned respite. Not yet. Soon, perhaps. But not yet. He knew that, deep in his heart of hearts. But he yearned for it regardless. He wished, more than anything, to sleep. But Desolation Zoon did not sleep.

  In fact, he could not sleep. Contrary to popular wisdom, sleep was for the innocent, not the righteous. And Zoon had not been innocent for many years.

  After a few moments, his eyes fluttered open, raw and stinging from the grit that issued from the air-cyclers. The compartment wasn’t large. It was barely spacious enough to accommodate the crew of six that was necessary to keep the vehicle running. Despite the purification filters, it stank of stale sweat, spilled fuel and blood.

 

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