Hand of abaddon, p.9
Hand Of Abaddon, page 9
‘Silence…’ he hissed through a barricade of teeth.
A hard grip on his forearm brought him around. It was Kurgos, the groaning body of Baruss still strapped to his back. The chirurgeon was too malformed to crouch, but his back had shaped him into a permanent stoop, a hunched and tumour-ridden monstrosity. Like the others, he was dressed in red and black, the mark of the Tyrant’s claw emblazoned on his armour. Besides Rathek, he was Herek’s most trusted ally. A brother, for brotherhood still existed for the damned.
‘A little farther, Graeyl,’ he said, his voice a cancerous rasp, the uncle encouraging his ward. ‘And then I can administer the serum.’
Letting out a gasped exhalation, Herek nodded.
The serum would take the edge off, give him some peace. Quiet the voices, though he knew he needed them if he was to follow the path before him. First, though, they needed to survive.
How quickly one retrenches their immediate goals in the face of annihilation.
He gestured to Rathek, a quick flurry of battle sign. No more hiding.
Rathek drew both his blades with a scrape of metal against scabbard. A keen-edged spatha and a hand-and-a-half sword.
They will come as soon as you show yourself, signed Herek.
Rathek nodded, understanding his role.
I can send one of the serfs… Herek added, having no desire to put his brother in harm’s way without good reason or gain. It was the pirate’s calculus, the careful balancing of effort versus reward, and it had served them well over the decades.
Rathek made a snorting gesture and ventured out into the square.
He ran headlong on an oblique route, the stalkers descending at once on bent-back, mechanised legs, believing their trap sprung. Volkites and fusion weapons flashed, deflagrating metal carts or the corpses left to rot on the street. Steel turned to rust, skin to bone… both to ash.
No beam struck Rathek as he jinked and turned and leapt, sword flashing…
One of the stalkers fell, oil and fluid spewing as gorily as blood. It twitched in its end-state, bladed limbs whipping then falling still, its cyclopean eye flaring brightly, as red as a dying sun, until fading into black.
They were spindly, but strong. Very strong, not nearly as brittle as their narrow frames and long, multi-jointed limbs suggested. Hargul and Unrith had learned that to their cost, along with a score of cultists.
Like black arachnids they scuttled after Rathek now, transonic blades humming. Six he had teased out of ambuscade, targeting reticules painting the gloomy market in skeins of red. Kurgos killed a second, emerging with Herek and the others. He put a bolt-round straight through its main vertebrae, shattering it with the explosion impact. A third turned to Herek, blurting out a warning code for its cohort. Herek swung Harrower and beheaded it. Grimy matter fountained from the ragged neck wound.
Three against three, at least in that split second. Herek had reinforcements coming, the rest of his eight-strong company – only three of whom were Astartes, and one of those languished in his death throes on Kurgos’ back.
Gethir burst into the square, chainaxe swinging, a curse on his lips. It died when Gethir did, cored through the chest by a conflagrating beam as the second group of stalkers entered the fray. They had been waiting for the enemy’s true strength to reveal itself, and now that Herek realised the real trap he swore under his breath.
‘Should we withdraw?’ asked Kurgos between bursts of fire, calmly shredding up what was left of the market stalls and clipping one of the stalkers, blasting off a trailing leg.
Herek checked a signal emitter mag-locked to his thigh. It blinked dully, repeating every three seconds. ‘We hold here or we die here,’ he said to Kurgos, and rallied his warriors.
The last of the Astartes, Clortho, joined them, his plate and mail armour chipped and scorched from numerous glancing impacts. A deep rent in his right shoulder guard was evidence of a more tangible blow and he held his right arm to his chest, taking shots with the plasma pistol in his left.
All the Red Corsairs regrouped to their captain. Despite Harrower’s impatient hunger, Herek stowed his massive war axe and pulled his bolt pistol.
Better to keep the cyborgs at arm’s length.
Back to back, the renegades blazed at every silhouette as the stalkers came for them in a tide, scurrying over rooftops and spilling from alleyways like metal marionettes. Black as an oil slick, with a shimmering, beetle-like carapace, they drooled acid and carried vibrating blades and fusion cannons. The latter flashed like hellfire, immolating what little cover the renegades had found. The last of the cultists died in seconds to the stalkers, several fleeing in abject terror from the cybernetic monstrosities only to be scythed down or disintegrated. Those that stood their ground did so isolated and without the iron discipline of the Astartes, and were slaughtered all the same.
In the market square, amongst the corpses of the massacred citizens, a pall of darkness had fallen. It blanketed the sky, the smoke from numerous fires causing the blackout.
Turning his helm plate to heatsight, Herek’s visual world turned sharp and visceral, the stalkers rendered as edged outlines, teeming into the square like ants attacking a rival nest. As they closed, surrounding the tiny knot of renegades on all sides, the stalkers paused, then fell back into a perimeter. With a raised hand, Herek signalled the ceasefire.
‘Conserve your rounds,’ he growled over the vox.
His ammo counter blinked amber.
Clortho had a spare powercell and slammed it home. His last. The sidearm looked close to an overheat anyway. Rathek had not even touched his pistol, his two blades slick with greasy oil and ichor. Kurgos had stowed his bolter and instead had drawn a chainbladed knife. A surgeon’s brutal tool, it was used for cutting through an injured warrior’s armour.
‘At least our end will be bloody,’ remarked the chirurgeon, unconcerned as he set his blade’s teeth churning.
‘I for one have no intention of dying here, but then all dead men would say the same,’ uttered Herek.
A veritable army of ocular lenses and sensors analysed them from the shadows, blades and cannons humming. An eerie silence drifted over the scene, broken only by the crackle of flames. An awning collapsed, crashing noisily to the ground in a scorched heap. No one moved.
What are they waiting for? signed Rathek, ever eager for the killing. He was known as ‘the Culler’ for good reason, though his humours had levelled out of late, ever since Herek’s old sword had been destroyed. Herek would have wanted that frenzied berserker by his side right now. Instead, he held up a hand to his brother.
Hold, it said.
‘They are waiting to see if this is a trap…’ muttered Clortho, earning a slow nod from Herek as the captain eyed their foes.
‘Wouldn’t you, Clortho, if your prey willingly stepped into a killing field?’
Kurgos shifted his bulk ever so slightly, the mildest cant of his head, the gentle turn of his shoulder.
You let us be herded, he signed, using an argot known only to his kin amongst the Red Corsairs.
‘Stand ready,’ Herek replied, shooting a glance at the signal emitter: still blinking. ‘This will get bad before it’s over.’
Amongst the cybernetic host – almost forty in number now as their other clades returned from their kill-missions, amassing for the decapitation strike – a hooded princeps straightened and blurted a binharic attack command.
‘Here they come!’ shouted Clortho.
He fired, one last shot before the pistol burned out and he threw it down, a second later unhooking a flanged mace from his belt.
The stalkers ran the gauntlet, fifty feet or more between them and the renegades, opting for sabres over any volkites or fusion arms. They scurried at first, coming in low and fast, before breaking into long and loping strides. Herek sprayed one of the stalkers against the side of a metal cart before his pistol clunked empty. Harrower swept from his back to replace it, her blade singing.
Kurgos shrugged Baruss off his shoulder, the helmless renegade white as ash, dead eyes staring. He gave his fallen brother a last look of regret before pulling a second knife, its edge savagely serrated.
A soundless roar came from Rathek, who kicked over a cart to stand atop its ruin and point his longer sword at the princeps.
Clortho arched his head to the stygian heavens, bellowing, ‘Gods… bear witness!’
And then the stalkers were amongst them.
The air turned thick with actinic heat as a blur of transonic blades whipped at Herek. Harrower proved equal to the task, parrying but more often lashing out, hacking at metal limbs and necks. Machine parts flew in silver rain, oil splashing like blood. Herek’s face was lathered with it, a greasy, snarling mask.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Kurgos raise one of the stalkers on his surgeon’s blades. A sword pierced his side, right through his armour, but beyond a muffled grunt the chirurgeon gave no sign he had been stabbed.
Rathek beheaded his aggressor before impaling another. He moved on to a third, shearing a sword hand off at the wrist, a thrust through the stalker’s ocular socket finishing it. Designating the blade-master a priority target, four of the cyborgs ganged up on him and Rathek fell back into a defensive posture before Herek lost sight of him altogether. He swung Harrower in a wide arc, more scythe than axe, reaping a heavy tally of claws, antennae and other components. She kept the stalkers at bay, but the tactic would only stall the inevitable…
They took Clortho first, burying the warlord under a pile of cybernetic bodies. He roared as he fell, mace swinging wildly even as they cut his ancient armour to ribbons. Then Kurgos shuddered, a blade transfixing him through the stomach. Blood welled up from under his helm, spewing out of his mouth grille. He snapped the sword with his gauntleted hand, losing a couple of fingers in the process, and managed to turn to Herek, who fought his own last stand.
‘I regret nothing…’ rasped the chirurgeon through foaming blood.
He would have fallen, half a transonic blade sticking from his gut, but from the rooftops came thunder as twenty or more boltguns opened up in unison. Weapons fire swept through the cybernetic horde, tearing them apart as their sensors failed to notice the blanking field coming from Herek’s signal emitter, a little piece of scrapcode buried in the three-second pulse. And that wasn’t all. It had been transmitting their loc-ref and distress code.
From aboard the Ruin at low anchor over Felsrath, the Red Corsairs reinforcements had come. These men were loyal to Herek, despite their many depravities. He had brought them glory and fortune in the eyes of the gods. At least until of late. Their loyalty held, driven by their greed and for some, their fraternal beliefs. They would follow him wherever the path led.
Realising their tactical error in having been drawn into their own killing field, the stalkers attempted to adjust, but the renegades were meticulous in the cyborgs’ destruction and it was over quickly.
Kurgos staggered, spitting up more blood, and Herek helped steady him.
‘Can you walk?’
Painfully, the chirurgeon nodded as Herek took in his wounds, the ragged shaft of metal protruding from his body.
‘I hope you can still stitch with fewer fingers…’
A strangled cough came from the chirurgeon, a failed attempt at mirth. He wrapped his good hand around the broken blade and wrenched it out. Little blood came with it, the fluid that ran through Kurgos being thicker than most. He also endured pain like no other man Herek knew. Spitting up a gobbet of black gore, he gave a gargled rasp and began hobbling over to Clortho. The warlord lay on his back, breathing but badly skewered, his old armour in pieces. He had lost his helmet in the scrum and a face riddled with scars stared wild-eyed at the chirurgeon.
‘I’ll return him to the ship,’ Kurgos said to Herek, visually assessing Clortho’s wounds.
‘See that he lives. I can ill afford any more losses, especially so far from our goal.’
‘Aye, he’ll live,’ Kurgos rasped, ‘and when your business here is concluded, I will treat you as well.’
‘Any ailment of mine can wait,’ said Herek, already walking away.
Through dissipating smoke, he found the princeps alive but dismembered. The other renegades had descended into the square and together with Rathek were dispatching any stalkers showing signs of anima. Their scraped blade thrusts provided a grim chorus as Herek knelt to regard his mutilated enemy. Its ocular lenses pulsed fever yellow, the rhythm not unlike a heartbeat.
‘Many good fighters died to your abominations,’ he told it. His hand, a bionic replacement for the flesh and blood one he had lost to an old enemy, clenched around its jaw. Herek tightened his grip a fraction, just enough so the metal squealed. ‘I hope you can still feel something, creature…’
The pulse increased in tempo.
Herek released the princeps’ chin, and stood up. As the adrenaline faded, the voices had begun to gnaw at his mind again. He took off his helm, its confines stifling. A well-defined, chiselled face appeared from underneath with little to suggest the inner corruption to his soul, barring two small horns that protruded from either side of his forehead, one of which had been shorn almost to the root. More harrowed than he had been, though, because of the susurration.
It had put him in a bad mood. He decided he would take it out on the princeps. Make it suffer, as much as one of its kind could experience suffering.
‘Bring this one with us. Let’s find out what it knows.’
They had dissected the princeps, its remains now lying on a table in one of the Ruin’s chambers. Kurgos had brought it with him on a grav-sled at Herek’s request, the captain needing to work as he received treatment. Despite his own extensive injuries, the chirurgeon betrayed no sign of discomfort apart from his usual belaboured gait.
A grimace creased Herek’s face as the serum filled his veins but his mind stilled, if only for a short while.
‘Better…’ he said, voice breathy with pain.
‘It will serve for now,’ Kurgos replied, packing away his instruments, ‘but a more potent solution will be needed soon.’
‘Increase the dosage.’
‘It’s not a matter of how much, it will simply cease to function. When I made the serum for Rathek, I never envisaged it would be used to treat something this… esoteric. It shouldn’t work at all.’
‘I have the utmost confidence, Vassago.’
The chirurgeon gave an irritated grunt. ‘Where is he, anyway? I need to review his biologicals.’
‘Last I saw, he was headed for the oubliettes. I think he sleeps down there still. We are all indoctrinated in our ways.’
Another grunt, agreement this time. ‘Perhaps for the best…’
Herek had stripped down to half-armour, the upper sections lying in a corner of the room. The scars on his shoulders, arms and back were extensive, and a few fresh wounds would soon join them. Not all had been received in war. There were ritualistic marks too. He gave Kurgos a sharp look.
‘I speak no lies here, Graeyl. Be wise to the fact that Rathek is a beast still, albeit tamed or perhaps sleeping. I have yet to decide which.’ He turned to appraise the dissected remains.
Herek came to stand alongside him. ‘And what truths are revealed here, brother?’
The creature had been pulled apart, and there was evidence of biological matter amid the machine: blood, sinew, even entire organs. Herek suspected it would have screamed had it still possessed vocal cords when Kurgos had conducted his work. They had found other things too – mutation, marks of the diabolic. There was something festering and unnatural beneath all of that metal.
Reaching into his belt pouch, Kurgos produced a vial of fluid. He shook it, activating the chemicals within, then, applying a few drops to the exposed flesh, he sniffed at the reaction and scowled.
‘Sulphur and something else I can’t identify. Potent though.’ Gruesome as he was, Kurgos possessed attuned olfactory senses. ‘It was tainted by a magister’s touch. Something Neverborn clung to its flesh, twisted it.’ He gestured to the black lesions, the corrosion around the metal where it conjoined to mutated flesh. ‘A lesser entity, I have to assume, or it would have revealed itself when threatened.’
‘For what purpose?’
‘To see and hear for its master, so it could follow us, would be my guess.’
‘That’s… troubling.’
‘Agreed. It puts a cloud over our current endeavour.’ He turned a mildewed eye to the star chart laid out on the table near to where they were standing. The leather had curled at the edges and there were rough patches here and there, gnarled and callused, the odd wiry hair jutting out. The map had been inked in blood, the cartographer’s marks old, almost feverish – as if this path had only been seen in a dream or some other pseudo-somnambulant state.
‘I recognise none of these destinations,’ Kurgos admitted. ‘Nor the language in which they are written. Together with whatever remnants or marks of warp spawn remain on this creature, it suggests a certain kind of adversary.’
‘It’s daemon speak,’ said Herek, not knowing how he knew – no, that wasn’t entirely true; he knew, he just didn’t want to acknowledge it. He gritted his teeth, his fists suddenly clenched as if considering the map and their journey across its uncanny contours had triggered something.
‘I have more serum,’ offered Kurgos, seeing his distress.
Herek shook his head. ‘Three doses is enough. It’ll have to suffice.’ Besides, he thought, as he regarded the lunatic’s map, I might need the voices.
Between the voices and the soul mariner, the Ruin had maintained the right course.
‘As ship’s surgeon, I have to caution you, captain,’ said Kurgos. ‘Your condition is worsening.’
‘You already have. And it makes no difference. I feel it, Vassago… the pieces of it crawling beneath my skin. Embedded. Every scratch is a word or a phrase that finds its echo in my subconscious mind. The closer we get, the louder it becomes.’
