Something sharp and metallic glinted at the corner of his eye.
‘This may hurt,’ warned Papa Oskyr.
Saint Karesine’s schola progenium burned with bright, promethium-rich flames as Papa Oskyr strode down the steps of its grand portico with the spry vigour of a young man.
Not only was his physique restored, but his memory also.
His name was not Oskyr, it was Scaeva, and he was of the lineage of Primarch Fulgrim, Lord of the Emperor’s Children. Long ago, he had served as an Apothecary, and – in a sense – he still did, albeit for a pallid master who scoured the depths of sensations possible in post-human flesh.
Scaeva paused at the bottom of the steps and watched as a crowd of sump-dwellers gathered to watch the growing inferno.
Imperial citizens liked novelty, and even the most macabre sights would draw a crowd. But he couldn’t linger, not when there was work to be done.
Fighting alongside Hellbreed’s Hounds of Abaddon on their failed invasion had been a terrible misstep, and he’d lingered too long in search of interesting flesh for his master’s surgeries. He’d been cornered by a squad of loyalist Adeptus Astartes, trapped and wounded, before being hurled from the highest levels of the hive by a vengeful Imperial Fist.
He’d fallen over a kilometre, careening from stanchion to rooftop to pipe. Such a fall would have killed almost anyone else, but his master had elevated his flesh and bone beyond mortality, to something akin to godhood. A mere fall was not enough to end him.
How long had he lain in that pool?
Months, most likely, his life sustained only by his inhuman physiology entering a low-level dormancy and cannibalising its own mass to stay alive.
Judging by the state of his skeletal frame and memory loss when the progena had found him, it had been a close run thing. But he was alive, and he had to contact his fellow legionaries.
And secure fresh test subjects.
His master’s great work must continue.
Scaeva adjusted the tanks on his back and took a deep breath of the sump level’s distinctive atmosphere. This was air with character, air that had been around the hive’s lungs more than a few times to acquire a texture all of its own.
He’d missed such flavours.
Only the toxin-laden air of Chemos, rich with the aroma of dying souls, possessed the same tang.
Yes, decided Scaeva, this tasted of home.
The battle began with snow, heavy and rushing from a late winter sky. It drifted high in the ancient ash groves where the soulpods grew. It shoved past evergreens and into the sylvaneth forest. It pummelled the vast field beyond, where the armies of Chaos and the Wargrove of Winterleaf collided.
Night fell.
Snow deepened.
Young dryads, too small to join the Wargrove, huddled at the edge of the forest, their arms and branches twined together for warmth. The Song of War pounded through them, but the rumble of charging soldiers, the sharp clamour of claw on metal, the screams and dying sounds, had faded into the distance. They could see and hear practically nothing, and Kalyth was impatient.
She untangled herself from her sisters and, hands on her hips, marched to the edge of the tree line. The wind stung her cheeks. Snow bit her eyes.
They had been ordered to wait in the forest, to tend their wounded brothers and sisters when the battle ended. They were the last line of defence against the servants of Chaos, should the Wargrove fail. But it had been an hour now since sunset and they knew nothing of what was going on, out there in the dark.
Kalyth needed to do something.
Jaws clenched, she pulled herself into the low boughs of an evergreen. The tree was massive, large enough to hold a young dryad if she was careful. If she could climb high enough to see above the constant swirl of snow, maybe she could get a better sense of the battle. Bracing herself against the evergreen’s trunk, Kalyth stretched, pulling herself up.
Her foot slipped.
A broad, clawed hand steadied her from below. Kalyth looked down and saw Idrelle, her face pinched against the snow, her branches whipping in the wind.
She helped heft Kalyth up and onto the branch. ‘Can you see anything?’ she asked.
Kalyth ascended two more branches before inching gingerly forward. Even in the daylight, there hadn’t been much to see. The Wargrove’s front line had dissipated hours ago, spreading wide as the dryads and branchwraiths, noble spirits and outcasts drove the servants of the Dark Gods from the forest, away from the soulpod grove. Now, in the dark…
Kalyth shook her head. ‘I can’t see much at all.’
But deep inside, she could feel the Song of War beginning to slow. Maybe the battle was finally dying?
A pair of warriors burst through the driving snow to the left of the evergreens, locked together and heaving, startling Kalyth so badly that she almost fell. Idrelle flattened herself against the tree’s trunk with a yelp.
The warriors tumbled closer, a tangle of thick limbs and armour and claws; struggling, grappling until one of them broke away. His mask was half-shattered and askew, the long mouthpiece bent nearly in half. Kalyth glimpsed blood beneath the broken patchwork of metal, a human face, shredded nose to jaw and panting. The cultist took a halting step towards his opponent, the wind snagging his ragged cloak away from his body as he raised a jagged axe. The cultist stumbled. Grunted. And then, as if surprised by the blood spreading from the hole in his belly, he collapsed into the snow.
For a moment, Kalyth thought the cultist’s opponent was one of their own enclave, perhaps one of their older sisters, but as the warrior rose and turned, Kalyth saw blue skin, a wide and dripping mouth, eyes flashing and wild. She had never seen an outcast so close before. He reared back, long claws splayed, and screeched. The sound shook the branch beneath her and she clung tight as the outcast pounced on the cultist’s body, yanking armour and flesh away in grisly chunks. He ripped meat from the cultist’s throat with his teeth, wrenched the axe from his dead hand and split his skull with it. He tore the cultist’s arm from its socket with one savage pull and flung it across the field.
The arm arced high into the air, buffeted by the wind. It tumbled end over end and landed with a soft thump at the edge of the tree line.
The outcast’s eyes shifted from the arm’s trajectory to the trees. His gaze slid over Idrelle and then, slowly, climbed the evergreen and landed on Kalyth.
Below her, Idrelle whispered, ‘No, no, no.’
The wind howled. Snow whipped between them. The outcast panted. Snorted. Stared.
Kalyth tried to tell herself the outcast wouldn’t hurt them. He fought alongside their Wargrove, after all, even though he called Drycha Hamadreth queen and not Alarielle. He was more like them than not, wasn’t he? Even with that scar puckering one side of his face like a long, sideways grin. Even though he trembled with bloodlust. Even though he was utterly, utterly mad.
Gristle dripping from his chin, the outcast cocked his head. His lips crawled away from his teeth. A smile? A snarl? He took one lurching step towards them. And then, with a roar, he turned and dashed away across the field.
As soon as it was clear the outcast wasn’t turning back, Idrelle whispered, ‘Cover your mouth.’ Her voice quavered.
Kalyth could see the outcast still, a dark, loping figure in the gusting snow. ‘Cover my mouth?’
‘You don’t want to catch the outcasts’ madness, do you?’ Idrelle gave the tree a shake. ‘Cover your mouth!’
‘He saved us,’ Kalyth murmured.
‘That doesn’t make him any less mad!’
‘Do you suppose he was a spite once? Or was it tainted soil that turned him? I heard there was a soulpod grove south of here that was cursed when–’
‘Kalyth!’
Kalyth finally looked down at her sister. Idrelle’s hand was plastered over her own mouth, her face bri
ght with fear. Sighing, Kalyth descended. ‘You worry too much,’ she said. ‘Outcasts aren’t creatures from some sapling bedtime story. Besides, how can madness be contagious? It isn’t wood blight.’
‘You don’t know that! Nobody knows how the madness spreads!’
‘Idrelle, he saved us. Did you see how he swung that axe?’
‘Kalyth, please.’ Idrelle was on the verge of tears.
Kalyth wanted to tell Idrelle she was being ridiculous. The stories they’d been told, about the outcasts’ contagious madness, were just that, stories. But Idrelle was trembling when Kalyth dropped to the ground beside her.
Guilt sank into her and Kalyth moved to wrap her arms around her, to apologise, when the Song of War shifted. Wavered. Stopped. The Spirit Song returned, flowing softly through the sylvaneth.
The battle was over.
In unison, the young dryads at the edge of the forest lifted their heads. They emerged together, filing across the stormy field towards the remains of the Wargrove, to tend their wounded brothers and sisters and, in the deep night, mourn their dead.
It wasn’t long before the young dryads separated to cover more ground. The field was almost as long as it was wide and between the distance and the snow, Kalyth soon lost sight of Idrelle and the others.
She was alone when she first saw one of her sisters, dead.
Her body lay like a fallen willow tree, torso curved and slumped, her branches spiralling away from her in the snow. Kalyth waded as quickly as she could through the deep drifts, calling out to her as she knelt, but as she rolled the older dryad onto her back, her head swivelled at an unnatural angle. Her broken neck was crooked so far to one side, Kalyth could see heartwood punching through her skin. Her lower jaw had been ripped away. Snow, black with blood and riddled with bark, slushed out.
Kalyth pulled her hands back as if she’d been burned. Grief soured her gut. She realised now, as she looked around her, just how dire the situation was. There, what she thought were uneven drifts were half-buried bodies. There, a broken branch resolved itself into an arm, frozen stiff and jutting skyward through the snow. That small rise was nothing but a smothered jumble of bodies, a dozen of them, broken, puzzled together and still. Dead faces emerged from the shadows, depressions became open mouths. Every icy glimmer was an open, sightless eye.
Kalyth wanted so badly to help. To do something. To be useful. But what could she do when so many were already dead?
Shivering, she pressed her hand reverently to her sister’s forehead and stood, marking the spot for the branchwyches to find so they could harvest her lamentiri and take her soul back to the sylvaneth grove.
Kalyth had taken no more than a few steps when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw breath rising in short, cloudy bursts from the side of a snow bank.
Kalyth ran towards it.
As she dug the snow away from the trapped and dying warrior, she realised it was the outcast.
His body was crumpled. A trio of spears pinned him to the earth. His right leg was severed, his hip a pulpy stump leaking blood, sluggish and dark, into the snow. His branches were torn away. His left foot was mangled. His right arm was crushed. His remaining eye swivelled towards her.
The outcast opened his ruined, bloody mouth and laughed.
Every story the branchwyches had told her, every warning that seemed so silly at the time, snapped through Kalyth. Don’t breathe their breath. Don’t look them in the eye. Never touch them. Nobody knows how the madness spreads. Cover your mouth. Don’t breathe. You’ll catch it.
You’ll catch it.
But this outcast had saved them, after all, whether or not that was his intention. Didn’t he deserve some sort of comfort? How could she leave him there? How could she not help him?
Kalyth hesitated and then touched an uncertain hand to the outcast’s heaving side. His head whipped back and he snapped his jaws, enraged, gurgling and growling.
Kalyth forced herself not to pull away. ‘I’m trying to help,’ she said and wished she could blame the way her hands trembled on the cold.
The outcast bit at her again, so hard this time that his bark cracked. The stump of his leg churned against the wet snow. Still pinned against her, he jerked, desperate and violent, and Kalyth realised, as his jaws snapped together again and again, faster, faster, that he would bite her hand off if he could.
Kill her, maybe, if he could.
Did he even understand she wasn’t the enemy? That she was sylvaneth? Or had the madness robbed him of that too?
‘I won’t hurt you,’ Kalyth said. Her eyes stung. Her throat tightened. ‘I’m sylvaneth. Like you.’ She wanted, so badly, for him to understand, to see some spark of recognition. Instead, the outcast keened, the sound needling through her ears and into her skull.
‘Oh, please, don’t do that.’ Kalyth pressed both palms to his chest. ‘I want to help. Please let me help.’ Kalyth was so close she could see the ridges in his bark, all the gashes and scars, every blow, every cut and scrape and wound. His face twisted. His body arched as far as the spears pinning him allowed and then, with a whimper, he slumped back towards the ground again. The outcast’s voice crumpled into silence. Kalyth felt a tremor race through him and his eyes widened. For a moment, his gaze was so clear, so intense, so frightened, that Kalyth could imagine the sylvaneth he had been before the madness took him.
Carefully, Kalyth stroked his shoulder.
He didn’t try to bite her.
He drew a breath instead, deep and ragged. He looked up at her and exhaled, his feverish breath washing over her, tasting like lost summers and blood and dying things.
He convulsed one last time.
Kalyth held him until his body grew cold in her arms. As the silence stretched around her, she thought she heard a whisper. It didn’t sound like the Spirit Song. It was infinitely softer. Infinitely more mournful and deep.
Kalyth looked up. The snow was still falling but, for a moment, it wasn’t white.
For a moment, it was crimson.
In the centre of the sylvaneth grove, where the evergreens gave way to ash trees, a thicket grew. The soulpods nestled there, spherical and shielded from the snow by a knot of low branches and thorns. They pulsed softly in the morning light. It wouldn’t be long before new dryads emerged from them.
Kalyth wondered if the snow would still be there when they did. Would there even be enough sylvaneth to tend them?
There were so few of them left.
It wasn’t until morning that the full impact of the battle became evident. The servants of Chaos had been driven back, but not before they devastated the Wargrove. They had lost nearly two-thirds of their army and the forest felt empty. There should have been branchwraiths with grave faces planning the next battle. There should have been dozens of dryads gathered beneath the evergreens, trading war stories, tending each other’s wounds, grumbling or laughing in the cold morning light. There should have been noble spirits quietly listening to the Spirit Song, drifting between the trees, murmuring about the ‘pettiness’ of dryads, about how emotional and unstable and loud they were.
Only the branchwyches’ numbers seemed untouched. They gathered in solemn circles, their broad backs hunched as they planted lamentiri after lamentiri, burying the souls they had harvested the night before in the cold soil.
The young dryads were silent, their heads bowed as they passed. Every one of those lamentiri was a sister or a brother, a friend, a face, a voice, a life. Even though the lamentiri would grow into new soulpods eventually, the memories and experiences that made each individual unique would never really return.
They had lost so many.
Kalyth felt physically sick with grief. It gnawed at her. It made her itch. She felt it like a living thing crawling through her in fits and spurts, as if the sorrow had grown legs and scuttled through her, racing through her and filli
ng all the empty pockets inside.
Idrelle had been casting worried glances at her all morning and, as they reached the forest’s edge with the other young dryads, she looped her arm through Kalyth’s and pressed close. The snowstorm had stopped before daybreak and the field stretched before them, a pale sky against pale ground, smooth and rolling and still.
Kalyth tried not to think about what lay under the blanket of snow as the other dryads set out across it.
‘You’ll be careful, won’t you?’ Idrelle’s voice was hushed, her body tense against Kalyth’s side.
Kalyth squeezed Idrelle’s hand, took a deep breath and tried to ignore the itching, the feeling of sickness. ‘The rotbringers won’t be that hard to find,’ she said. ‘Besides, scouting is a lot less dangerous than fighting. We’ll all be back before nightfall.’
‘But you’ll be careful?’
Kalyth forced a laugh she didn’t feel. ‘I’m not planning on attacking them single-handedly, if that’s what you’re asking.’
Idrelle shifted, darted a look back at the forest. ‘You shouldn’t even be doing this. You’re too young.’
‘And you’re not? Besides, who else is there?’ Kalyth tried not to sound bitter. Idrelle wrapped her arms around herself, long claws ticking against her bark. ‘It’s just that we lost so many.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t want to lose you, too.’
Idrelle always fretted, always worked herself into knots, even when there wasn’t immediate danger. Now that there was, Kalyth didn’t want to make it worse for her. Hands on her sister’s shoulders, Kalyth rested her forehead against Idrelle’s and met her gaze. ‘I’ll be careful. I promise.’
Idrelle nodded, her branches tickling Kalyth’s. When she finally pulled away, she trailed her finger over Kalyth’s cheek. ‘You look unwell,’ she said.
Kalyth felt unwell. She needed to put some distance between herself and the yawning emptiness of the forest. The memory of the field. The outcast dying in her arms. She could almost feel the heat of his last breath ghosting over her still.
‘I’m fine,’ Kalyth said.
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