Vainglorious, p.26
Vainglorious, page 26
‘Exactly,’ Aznibal said, and raised an arm in an expansive gesture which took in a vast echoing chamber, in which decorative gilding was rendered necrotic by the all-pervasive sickly green glow. Several large statues of my host were scattered around the place; a few of the plinths were vacant, the scoring of their upper surfaces strongly hinting that they’d previously held effigies of the previous suzerain. And, to my complete lack of surprise, he ascended a couple of steps onto a dais before seating himself on a throne carved from the ubiquitous black stone. ‘Behold the power of Aznibal!’
‘Very nice,’ I said, glancing around at our wider surroundings through a series of arches in the enclosing walls. There were certainly more of the humaniform warriors about than I remembered, their gauss flayers glowing sinisterly, striking highlights from their metal torsos as they patrolled the wide boulevards between the ever-whining machines. I looked towards the side passage Jurgen and I had first stumbled in here through, and saw two or three squads[152] of the things lurking in that corner of the cavern, although I had no doubt that there were probably more. Our tactical assessment had been right, then: attempting to force a breach by that route would have been fatally futile. Glancing back at the tunnel through which we’d just entered, I saw a similar number guarding that one too, and I fought down a shudder of apprehension. It looked like there was no way out the way we’d come, either. Then I shrugged. ‘But I suppose when you’ve seen one…’
As I’d expected, this stung our host’s pride, and he leaned a little in my direction, apparently affronted.
‘There is nothing to equal it in this portion of the galaxy, apart from the chambers of the phaeron himself!’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said, trying to sound as though I wanted to conciliate him, rather than keep his attention on me and away from what was about to happen. ‘To be honest, the last time I was somewhere like this I didn’t have much time for sightseeing.’
‘Of course not,’ Aznibal said. ‘The guardians would have reacted to your presence.’
‘They most certainly did,’ I said, ‘but they were rather more concerned with some orks that had got there first. Which was lucky for me. My comrades and I were able to flee the planet before they had time to deal with us.’ Which was almost true, other than the bit where we’d blown the whole tomb to perdition and buried it under megatons of rock as a parting gift. Mentioning that would have been a bit tactless, however, not to mention planting doubts about my ultimate intentions.
‘Unexpectedly wise of you,’ Aznibal said, then seemed to consider for a moment. ‘This world remains in necrontyr hands?’
‘For all I know,’ I said. ‘No one seemed all that keen to go back and check.’ If anyone had, they were Inquisition agents, probably reporting to Amberley, and she’d never mentioned any follow-up expeditions to me.[153]
Aznibal leaned forward a little more, with what, in a human, I’d have interpreted as eagerness. ‘Where is this world?’ he asked.
I shrugged, playing for time. The last thing I wanted to do was point him at any potential allies.[154]
‘I don’t know your name for it,’ I said. ‘If you show me a star chart, I can point it out.’
‘By all means,’ Aznibal said, making the same peculiar gesture he’d employed before to invoke the image of his battle station. A star field suddenly appeared between us. I frowned, pretending to be trying to orientate myself.
‘Let’s see,’ I said, waving a finger vaguely over the Damocles Gulf. ‘If we’re here…’
To my immense relief I was suddenly interrupted by an explosion, which shook the ground beneath my boot soles, and left my ears ringing with the violence of its detonation.
‘Treachery!’ Aznibal expostulated, leaping to his feet and swinging the sinisterly glowing staff at my head. I ducked by reflex, drawing my chainsword and blocking the downward motion instinctively. Sparks flew as the whirling adamantium teeth met aeons-old metal, cleaving deep, and the shaft buckled.
The familiar crack of ionising air told me that Jurgen had his lasgun out, firing short, precise bursts; for a moment I feared for my own safety before, in the act of pivoting out of the way of Aznibal’s initial strike, I realised he was shooting at another set of targets entirely. The warriors which had been guarding the entrance had turned away from it, and were bearing down on us, the close-combat blades attached to their gauss flayers flickering ominously as their keen edges caught the ambient light. One went down, a hole blown through its chest, but kept twitching, the living metal beginning to knit back together even as I watched. Quite why they didn’t simply shoot us, I have no idea; perhaps they were afraid of hitting their boss by mistake.[155] Whatever the reason, though, they’d be on us in moments.
‘Primary target destroyed,’ Morie said, his voice attenuated a little by my vox-bead’s tiny speaker, and whatever effect the tomb’s peculiar construction might be having. ‘Commencing withdrawal.’ The louder bark of bolters, and a couple of explosions slightly quieter than before, echoed through the eldritch cavern.
‘What have you done?’ Aznibal demanded, taking another swipe at me, which I evaded by stepping inside the swing, and slashing my blade across his upper thigh. A mortal opponent would have found the strike crippling, but again I was rewarded with nothing more than a shower of sparks, and a gash in the metal of his leg which began flowing together as soon as I’d inflicted it.
‘Acknowledged,’ Norgard said, her voice even fainter than Morie’s had been. Jurgen fired again, taking down another of the implacable metal warriors, even as his first victim rose to its feet and resumed its advance.
‘Done?’ I said, forcing a laugh, hoping to provoke Aznibal into something fatally reckless. ‘What I set out to do.’ I ducked another swipe which came uncomfortably close to taking my head off, sending it on its way with another parry from my chainsword which left the haft of his weapon looking even more chewed-up than ever. Sparks began spitting from it. ‘Remember you said you could spot a trap?’ I drew my laspistol and gave him five rounds rapid square to the face, more in the hope of distracting him than because I thought it would make any difference. ‘Really don’t think so, do you?’
If he said anything coherent in reply, I missed it, the sound emerging from his voice box battering my ears as a roar of sheer inchoate rage. Before he could take another swipe at me, though, the phalanx of warriors bearing down on us were torn apart by a storm of crackling energy, sparking from one to the other as though caught in a maelstrom of lightning. Fast-moving servitors on tracked chassis roared into the cavern from the tunnel mouth our would-be assailants had so recently turned their backs on, ravening energies pouring from the heavy weapons fused to their torsos.
‘I will take this world!’ Aznibal roared, the volume of his voice raised by some eldritch means to echo from the towering mechanica surrounding us. ‘Leaving nothing but blood and bone!’
‘You and what army?’ Jurgen taunted, emptying the clip of his lasgun into the towering necron’s back now the immediate threat was collapsing into a puddle of liquified metal and shorting circuitry.
‘My legions wait beyond the portal!’ Aznibal boasted. ‘In numbers greater than you can possibly imagine!’
‘Oh, the portal,’ I said, taking advantage of the distraction to open the distance between us again, with an opportunistic swipe at the arm holding the staff; which, I’m bound to say, was about as effective as the by now almost invisible cut I’d inflicted on his leg a few seconds before. ‘I think you’ll find that first explosion was the sound of it being destroyed.’
‘It was,’ Morie confirmed, materialising at my shoulder, and emptying the clip of his bolter into Aznibal’s chest. The hail of explosive projectiles seemed to have hurt the towering necron for the first time, ripping a ragged hole deep into his chest. From within it, some thick, viscid fluid began to ooze, glowing as unhealthily as everything else around here. ‘Reduced to rubble, and the connection to wherever it was going completely cut.’
The servitors were coming under return fire now, as other necron warriors emerged from the shadows to engage them, several falling victim to the gauss flayers and some kind of lightning gun; but reinforcements were already pouring into the tomb, Norgard at their head, wielding an axe so large that only someone as extensively augmented as she was could even have lifted the thing. In her other hand was a pistol of some kind, spitting remarkably destructive energies which felled every necron she hit. Equally deadly beams lanced from the weapons of the onrushing skitarii, and tech-priests in the raiment of common artisans chanted litanies of power, wreathing themselves in crackling shrouds of lightning which burst against the metallic bodies of their foes, leaving them blasted and even more lifeless than usual.
Other Reclaimers were becoming visible now too, Tactical Marines taking down necrons with precisely aimed bursts of bolter fire, and plodding Terminators, their storm bolters roaring, ripping them to shreds before trampling their remains into the cavern floor. Not that we were getting things all our own way, of course; in one quick glance I saw a battle-brother vaporised by a clean hit from a gauss flayer, and an entire squad of skitarii consumed by a lightning storm, but the battle was undeniably turning our way.
‘Jurgen!’ I called, holstering my pistol again. ‘Krak grenade!’
‘Commissar.’ My aide glanced up from snapping a fresh power pack into his lasgun, and rummaged in one of his collection of pouches. Finding what I’d requested, which I hadn’t doubted for a moment, given his propensity for squirrelling away anything which might come in handy, he lobbed it across the intervening space, then resumed potting necrons with his usual phlegmatic deliberation. I caught the small armour-piercing charge in my free hand, almost fumbling it in my haste, and primed it.
Aznibal’s head turned, taking in the carnage being wreaked on his unliving retinue, then returned to meet my gaze. When he spoke again, his voice was even more sepulchral than ever, positively quivering with malice.
‘I will return, and scour you all from the face of the cosmos!’ he said.
‘No, you will die and be forgotten,’ I riposted, and thrust the grenade deep into the hole in his chest cavity, which was already beginning to fill with liquid metal. The small explosive charge disappeared even as I watched. As belated realisation dawned, Aznibal scrabbled helplessly at the fresh metal scab.
‘My vengeance shall be the terror of–’ he began, then the armour-piercing grenade detonated, turning his chest into a blizzard of shrapnel, which might have inconvenienced me considerably had Morie not seen the danger and darted forward, shielding Jurgen and I with the bulk of his ceramite armour. Bits of Aznibal clattered and pinged against the brother-sergeant’s chestplate, leaving a number of scores and pits in it, none of which appeared to have penetrated.
‘Liked the sound of his own voice, didn’t he?’ I said, as the eldritch glow in the ruined necron’s eyes faded, and Norgard pelted up to us, swiping Aznibal’s head from his shoulders with a single swing of her battleaxe. Which might strike you as a little theatrical, but believe me, with necrons there’s no such thing as overkill. ‘Praetor. Good of you to join us.’
‘My pleasure,’ Norgard assured us, before darting off to dismember a few more necrons before they all vanished into thin air and spoiled her fun. There were still more than enough around for my taste, though, and I began moving towards the tunnel mouth as quickly as I could without looking as though I was making a run for it.
‘I must confess I had my doubts about your stratagem,’ Morie said, falling into place at my shoulder, evidently intent on continuing the conversation. ‘But it was undeniably effective. The spider things carried us straight to the portal. We were able to place the charges as soon as we broke out of the crates, while the Terminators eliminated them.’
‘I noticed none of them examined their loads when Jurgen and I got carried inside here,’ I explained. ‘So the chances of discovery were remote.’
‘Especially after you manoeuvred Aznibal into taking the whole shipment to preserve his sense of superiority.’ Morie chuckled, which I have to say took me by surprise, particularly under the circumstances. ‘I see your years of playing the diplomat on the general staff haven’t been entirely wasted.’
‘Everything’s a weapon in the service of the Throne,’ I quoted,[156] popping off a couple of laspistol shots at a scuttling metallic beetle, which crunched most satisfyingly a moment later under Morie’s heavily armoured boot. ‘Even your enemy’s ego.’
‘That’s why Astartes aren’t allowed one,’ Morie said, showing another unexpected sign of a sense of humour. We gained the relative sanctuary of the tunnel, and I felt my spirits lifting as we left the unhallowed precincts of the tomb forever.
‘Now for the difficult part,’ I said. ‘Persuading Vorspung to destroy all that archeotech.’
THIRTY
Which actually turned out to be surprisingly easy. Unlike Tezler and the other necron dupes, Vorspung seemed to regard everything in the tomb as blasphemy incarnate, and began urging its destruction almost as soon as I’d broached the subject.[157] The upshot of which was that by the time Amberley arrived in-system aboard the Externus Exterminatus[158] all the machinery had been reduced to its component parts by judiciously placed melta bombs, and the roof brought down to bury the remains by equally carefully deployed mining charges. I had been a little apprehensive about her reaction to the news that I’d dragged her halfway across the Gulf to inspect a filled-in hole, but fortunately she took it in good part.
‘You did the right thing,’ she confirmed, over a light supper in her private quarters, the curve of Eucopia visible in the viewport behind her. ‘You can’t be too careful with those things.’
I nodded. ‘Especially the clever ones, it seems.’ Now I’d had time to reflect on it, I’d found the implications of my encounter with Aznibal profoundly disturbing. Up until then I’d always considered the necrons to be nothing more than murderous automata, blindly following instructions given aeons before by some long-extinct creators. ‘Is it true they were once living creatures?’
Amberley placed her empty goblet beside her plate, and regarded me thoughtfully. ‘Some of my colleagues have long thought so,’ she said. ‘I preferred to keep an open mind. But in the light of your experience… I’d be inclined to agree with them.’
‘And Tezler wanted the same,’ I said, suppressing a shudder. ‘Eternal undeath. I almost think they deserve it.’
Amberley nodded, soberly. ‘And speaking of Tezler…’
‘Have you got them to talk yet?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes.’ She reached for the decanter, refilled her goblet, and leaned over the table to top mine up as well. For a moment I caught a faint whiff of hegantha blossom, a perfume she’d always favoured. ‘Or, to be more precise, Vorspung did.’
‘Vorspung?’ I made no attempt to hide my surprise. ‘That man has hidden depths.’ And was no doubt about to find himself inducted into the same loose network of her agents and informants as Jurgen and I because of it. If he hadn’t been already.
‘He has indeed,’ Amberley said. ‘Once we knew Tezler and their confederates had suborned the skitarii who attacked you by modifying their neuroware, Vorspung was able to reverse engineer the technique by examining the cortexes of the bodies recovered from the proving grounds.’ She shrugged, as though discussing something a lot less terrifying than hijacking someone’s entire being. ‘Sauce for the grox, and all that. With their brains hacked, the conspirators you’d already rounded up were falling over themselves to betray the rest of their network.’ She arched an eyebrow at me. ‘Including, you’ll be pleased to know, the ones who tried to kill you on Coronus by hacking your transport ship.’
‘So what happens to them now?’ I asked, more in the interests of politeness than because I actually cared.
Amberley smiled, without any trace of good humour. ‘They wanted new bodies, and they’re getting them. Norgard lost a lot of her forces, as well as a large contingent of combat servitors. Replacing them’s the least we could do.’
‘Sounds fair,’ I agreed. ‘Particularly now she’s having to mount a permanent guard on the lower levels of the mine. Just to be on the safe side.’
‘A wise precaution.’ Amberley rose from the table, and stretched. ‘I gather output’s more or less back to what it should be.’
‘It is.’ I nodded, rising too. ‘And so’s production by the manufactories. The weapons are flowing again.’
‘Zyvan will be pleased to hear that. And the admiral too, I suppose.’ She glanced at me, a hint of mischief in her eyes. ‘I’m sure the Navy won’t begrudge you the loan of a plasma torpedo.’
‘Just the warhead of one,’ I said. The scent of hegantha was back in my nostrils, and her head was resting against my shoulder. ‘With any luck it made a real mess of Aznibal’s battle station when it went off.’
‘Yes, well. That.’ She raised her head, nailing me with her eyes. ‘Where a threat that potent’s concerned, we can’t rely on luck. We need to find it.’
‘I suppose so,’ I agreed, a quiver of apprehension beginning to manifest in the pit of my stomach. ‘Good luck with that.’
‘When I say we, I mean we. You, me and Morie. I’ve had him seconded to the Deathwatch.’ Her voice remained light and conversational, although I knew beyond doubt that this was an order, with all the authority of her office behind it. ‘I’m afraid the schola on Perlia is going to have to manage without a commissarial cadet programme for a little while longer.’
