Vainglorious, p.18
Vainglorious, page 18
‘Stay close to the walls,’ I cautioned, as we reached the chamber itself, a lesson I’d learned well on the previous occasions I’d found myself somewhere like this. That way, if the worst happened, as I was morbidly certain it would before too much longer, at least we’d be able to get back to the tunnel mouth quickly. If we even made it that far; a thought I forced back down as soon as it formed. I’d learned a long time ago that the key to survival was simply to keep on surviving, and allowing yourself to doubt that you would could rapidly become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
‘Right you are, sir,’ Jurgen agreed, poking the muzzle of the melta round the corner, then turning to direct it in the other direction almost at once. He didn’t pull the trigger, or get abraded out of existence by a burst of gauss flayer fire, so I assumed it was safe and edged out onto the cavern floor myself, drawing my chainsword as I did so. I no longer needed my other hand for navigation, and right now the more weapons I had ready for use, the better I liked it.
The cavern seemed both familiar and eerie beyond imagining. Familiar because I’d been in places like this before, where arcane mechanisms hummed quietly, leaking their sinister eldritch glow, and eerie because humanity had no business being here. Nothing living did. Even the echoes seemed freighted by dread, wrapping around my senses like a muffling shroud. The air was chill, permeated by odours I couldn’t begin to identify, and I found myself keeping close to Jurgen, obscurely grateful for his own unique aroma, which at least partially displaced them from my nostrils. Cool as it was, the air also felt thick and hard to breathe. Distance seemed more difficult than usual to estimate, the strange geometries around us apparently distorting the very space through which we walked.[116]
Mindful of my earlier injunction we hugged the cavern wall, skirting the edge of the enclosed space, wary of venturing into the labyrinth of metal and refulgent liquid flowing through transparent conduits; normally I would have sought cover there, but in the strange, disorientating space I found myself, my normally reliable instinct for navigation in enclosed environments simply couldn’t be trusted. Or, to be a little more accurate, I was unwilling to trust to it, which pretty much amounted to the same thing.
‘What are these things for?’ Jurgen asked, his voice muted by the peculiar air around us, and I shrugged, as much at a loss as my aide seemed to be.
‘No idea,’ I said, slowing my pace a little to take a look at the one we were currently passing, ‘but I doubt if it’s anything good.’ It was big, perhaps the size of a Baneblade, but more than that I couldn’t tell you. Something about it seemed to repel my gaze, deflecting it to one side or the other, leaving me only with a vague impression of bulk and seething malevolence. As I drew abreast of the edge of it, though, I could see down the shadowed space between it and its neighbour, along a corridor of sorts lined with further engines of diabolical techno-sorcery. The dim, pervasive and sickly illumination made it hard to be sure, but I froze into instant immobility, my breath stilling in my throat.
‘What is it?’ Jurgen had come to a halt too, the instinctive rapport we’d honed over decades of campaigning together working as smoothly as ever, despite our unhallowed surroundings. He raised the melta, seeking a target.
‘Movement,’ I said, peering into the shadowed space between the machines, wondering for a moment if I dare believe I’d imagined it, before deciding that no, I most definitely had not; in a life like mine, assuming the worst at all times is the only safe option. Jurgen tightened his finger almost imperceptibly on the heavy weapon’s trigger, peering intently through the sight.
‘Got it. Just back there.’ He slowed his breathing, preparing to fire. ‘Shall I take the shot?’
‘Not yet,’ I cautioned, with what I still feel was commendable restraint under the circumstances. If the necrons were up and about, the last thing we needed to do was attract their attention. Not to mention the fact that there were probably cogboys poking around down here too, and potting a couple of those would reveal our presence in no uncertain terms, not to mention being hard to explain away to Tezler. ‘Do you have the amplivisor?’
‘Of course I do,’ Jurgen said, sounding slightly affronted at having the request phrased as a question rather than an order. In truth I’d been in no doubt at all that he would have – my aide liked to be prepared for any eventuality, and his response would probably have been exactly the same if I’d asked for a frag grenade or an autographed icon of the Emperor. He lowered the heavy weapon to fumble in one of his extensive collection of webbing pouches, before holding out the device for me to take. ‘Sorry about the jam, but it’s not very sticky.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ I assured him, wiping the ’visor carefully on my sash, before raising it gingerly to my eyes. The image seemed a little blurrier that usual, which I ascribed to the peculiar lighting conditions rather than the residue of Jurgen’s mispacked sandwiches, and I froze into immobility again, steadying the image as much as I could. ‘Frak, it’s gone again.’
‘I’d give it a moment,’ my aide advised, bringing the melta back up.
I started to nod, in reflexive agreement, before checking the gesture as the magnified image swayed alarmingly. ‘Seems best,’ I said, as it steadied, then exhaled in relief. ‘It’s not necrons. Just cogboy looters with a death wish.’
A small group of robed figures had trotted into view, surrounding a servitor like the one which had passed us in the gallery. The swirl of figures around it obscured any sight I might have had of what was in the barrow it was pushing, but I hardly needed to see what I already knew: necron artefacts, without a doubt. And if the larcenous tech-priests kept on helping themselves, it would only be a matter of time before they broke or activated something vital, reviving the dormant occupants of the tomb. It could only be by the grace of the Emperor that they hadn’t done so already – something I could be certain of now, as the scavengers in front of me weren’t dead yet.
Not that that happy state of affairs was likely to continue for much longer. I needed to get out of there before the metal killers woke, call in Morie and Norgard, and find an astropath who could get a message to Amberley at once. Our chances of saving Eucopia were negligible now, but if we were going to do it at all we’d need the Inquisition behind us, that was for sure.
I was on the verge of lowering the amplivisor, and instructing Jurgen to pull back the way we’d come, when I caught sight of another flicker of movement in the distance. Humaniform, gleaming metal reflecting the sickly corpse-light which saturated this profane place, walking unhurriedly towards the little knot of tech-priests.
Jurgen tensed beside me, sighting the melta on the new and terrifying target.
‘Necron!’ he breathed.
TWENTY
‘Wait,’ I said, raising my hand to forestall him from firing, and flinching from the sudden gust of halitosis as he let go the breath he’d been holding while remaining on aim. Something about the tableau in the distance wasn’t quite right. For one thing, the gleaming metal figure wasn’t carrying a weapon, the first time I’d ever seen one of the hideous abominations unarmed, and for another its gait was less smooth and fluid than the ones I remembered so vividly from the caverns of Interitus Prime and Simia Orichalcae. Even more oddly, the little knot of tech-priests weren’t scattering in panic, even though they’d clearly seen its approach. I focused the image in the amplivisor as best I could, then exhaled myself, draining the tension which had gripped me at the first sight of the thing. ‘It’s just Tezler.’ Now I came to look more closely, their mechanical body was more bulky than the xenos monstrosities it so closely resembled, and the sculpted metal face nothing like the death mask of the necron warriors.
‘Tezler?’ Jurgen echoed, his perpetual tone of bafflement even more pronounced than usual. ‘What in the warp are they doing down here?’ which was only the first and most insistent of the questions now flooding my own synapses.
‘That’s what we need to find out,’ I said, as the metal magos began conversing with their subordinates. Whatever they were discussing seemed short and to the point, as the little group began moving away again almost at once, Tezler remaining with them. At least now the reason for the strange sense of disquiet I’d felt at our first meeting was obvious – their metal body was uncannily reminiscent of the undying warriors I’d encountered before, although whether that was coincidence or deliberate homage I still had no idea. More likely the former, I suspected, as the body they’d adopted had a recognisably human face, but the resemblance was still profoundly disturbing, particularly illuminated as it was by the sickly green glow I associated with necron techno-sorcery. ‘Come on.’ I gestured to my aide to follow me. ‘We need to see where they’re going.’
Moving away from the comforting solidity of the cavern wall, and its reassurance that at least we weren’t about to be ambushed from behind,[117] was something of an effort of will, I don’t mind admitting. As we started across the open space between it and the nearest bank of mechanica, I found myself darting glances in every direction, expecting to see movement at any moment, but we made it to the fresh cover of the labyrinth of arcane devices without any sign of hostile activity at all. Something my rational mind had been assuring me was the most likely outcome since my first sight of the scavenging tech-priests, of course, but under the circumstances I preferred to listen to my paranoia.
We made what haste we could to where I’d last seen Tezler and the tech-priests,[118] keeping to the shadows in the avenues between the towering machines; though given the diffuse nature of the ghastly radiance illuminating the place, those were few and far between. For the most part we simply skulked as close to the humming monstrosities as we dared, ignoring the way the sound set our teeth on edge, and their baleful, skin-crawling aura, as best we could. Our cautious progress took several minutes to cover the hundred metres or so, and I began to worry that the party of cogboys we stalked would be out of sight by the time we reached their previous position, but as it turned out I needn’t have worried. Peering round the corner of some cyclopean pump, through which the foul, glowing liquid circulated lazily, adding grace notes of sloshing and gurgling to the migraine-inducing hum pervading the place, I caught sight of our quarry almost at once.
‘Throne be praised,’ I murmured, and Jurgen nodded, pious as always – he’d probably have made the sign of the aquila if he’d had his hands free.
‘That light looks a lot healthier,’ he agreed. Tezler and their chums were making for a gap in the wall a good deal larger than the one we’d entered by, and through which the reassuring yellow glow of Imperial luminators was seeping. Raising the amplivisor again, I could see that the wall must have been breached from the other side, though a lot more neatly than the tunnel we’d entered by had apparently been. The edges had been carefully squared off, partially obliterating an inscription, which terminated abruptly in a bisected sigil.
‘Looks like they got in first the same way we did,’ I said, ‘then made this hole to get the loot out more easily.’
Jurgen nodded. ‘Makes sense,’ he said. ‘Wonder what they’re doing with it?’
‘Nothing good,’ I said, with complete certainty. Mucking about with necron techno-sorceries was about as sensible as joining a Chaos cult in the hope of having a friendly chat with a daemon over tea and florn cakes. I began moving again, keeping to whatever scraps of cover I could find, although I needn’t really have bothered; none of the cogboys so much as glanced back in our direction, intent on whatever conversation they were having among themselves. A lack of caution in these surroundings which struck me as verging on the suicidal. ‘And there’s only one way to find out.’ See for ourselves, and hope to the Throne we’d be able to get out in one piece to tell the tale.
Despite my skin-crawling eagerness to be out of this hellish environment as quickly as possible, we slowed our pace as we approached the breach in the wall, keeping an eye out for whatever cover we could find. The welcoming light of normality was growing brighter by the minute, Tezler and their companions silhouetted against it, and obscuring our view of whatever lay beyond; but there was no guarantee that whoever or whatever might be waiting at the other end of the tunnel they were now traversing wouldn’t be waiting to greet them, and notice a flicker of movement in the necrotic glow of the tomb beyond. There were certainly people there, of that I had no doubt; the babble of overlapping voices and the reverberations of heavy machinery were beginning to force their way through the muffling effects of the dead air surrounding us, and to be audible at this distance there must have been plenty of both.
‘Sounds like it connects with where the other tunnel was going,’ Jurgen muttered, and I nodded agreement, having come to the same conclusion myself. In so far as I felt able to trust my usual knack for remaining orientated in underground environments in this bewildering necropolis, I was reasonably certain that we were moving more or less parallel to the gallery we’d been following before our unexpected detour through the tomb. Certainly, the sounds and lights we’d noticed then were strikingly similar to the ones we could now discern.
‘So let’s see what that is,’ I agreed, flattening myself against the frictionless wall of the tomb, despite a reflexive shudder of revulsion at the contact, even through the weave of my greatcoat. Despite knowing full well that it was already off, I checked the safety of my trusty old laspistol, and tightened my finger incrementally on the trigger, taking up any slack that a moment’s inattention might have allowed to creep into my heightened sense of readiness; the activation rune of my chainsword was under the thumb of my other hand, the speed selector already flicked over to maximum.
I glanced across at Jurgen, who was mirroring my position on the other side of the passageway, the melta raised, ready to bring it to bear the instant we moved; catching my eye he nodded, almost imperceptibly, confirming his readiness.
‘On three,’ I said, mouthing the count almost silently. As I reached ‘one’ we moved together, pivoting round to cover the passageway, ready to fire at the first sign of any hostile activity. As it turned out, though, the tunnel was empty, and we both relaxed, glancing at one another. I suppose I should have felt a little foolish, but in all honesty all I really felt was a faint sense of relief – only a slight one, mind, as we still had a tomb full of dormant necrons at our backs, and Emperor alone knew what lying in wait at the end of the passageway.
So we advanced cautiously, the growing noise from up ahead masking the echoes of our boot soles on the floor, the increasing light levels allowing me to see more of our surroundings.
Within a handful of paces the sinister black stone of the necron tomb had given way to bedrock, and I felt a sudden rush of euphoria, as though a shroud around my soul had just been ripped away. I took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar odours of dry dust, dank air and Jurgen’s seldom-laundered socks, and grounded myself again.
If ever I’d needed my wits about me it was now, kilometres beneath the earth, a potential army of relentless metal killers at my back, and an indeterminate number of unknown enemies ahead. And in case you’re thinking I should still have been giving the majority of the tech-priests the benefit of the doubt, until I was sure how many of them were actually involved in the shadowy conspiracy Vorspung suspected, I suggest you avoid a couple of assassination attempts, find your hosts dabbling with the property of one of the most dangerous foes the Imperium has ever faced, and then tell me how trusting you feel.
The tunnel floor was smooth, carefully finished, but the walls were still rough, mottled with shadows from the light up ahead. Dug in haste, then, as I’d surmised the other one to have been, but intended to take a great deal more traffic. Too wide and high to be intended simply for barrow-pushing servitors, it implied that Tezler intended to move heavy machinery in – or out. You could just about have fitted a Salamander down here (although few drivers other than Jurgen would have been willing to try it), so a small utility truck would have had little difficulty. Clearly the campaign to loot the tomb was about to step up a gear; and if that happened, any dormant necrons it contained would be certain to rouse. In fact, after my experiences on Interitus and Simia Orichalcae, I found it astonishing that its guardians hadn’t already mobilised to repel the intruders, particularly given the amount of effort that had been spent on breaking into the place.
I suppose it was just possible that the sepulchre was empty, abandoned by its creators, but I didn’t really believe that for a moment; and even if it was, that still didn’t mean much. Both the tombs I’d entered before (much against my better judgement, I might add) had contained warp portals, and the denizens of the one on Simia Orichalcae had been revived by new arrivals from off-world.
‘Oh, frak,’ I breathed, as the implications of that particular memory began to sink in. Just because the other two had been directly connected to other necron outposts, that didn’t mean this one necessarily was, but it was definitely the way to bet. Even if this particular tomb could be successfully cleansed, which was a distinctly dodgy proposition to begin with, Eucopia would never be safe until the portal was found and successfully neutralised.[119]
Definitely a job for Morie and his Space Marines, if you asked me, the Adeptus Astartes being the only Imperial troops capable of taking on necrons and having a reasonable chance of walking away afterwards. Not to mention being the only ones available: there were Norgard’s skitarii too, of course, but she would be loath to commit them until we could be sure there was no risk of any more having their minds warped by setting foot in the place.
