Blackstone Fortress

by Darius Hinks

  It jolted in his hand, glimmering with power.

  The trail had died with Bullosus, but Grekh had no doubts about where to head next. He turned to the blazing sphere – the vision that had haunted his dreams since he first reached the Blackstone. He fastened the scythe to his belt and rushed back through the madness.

  He had only been running for a few minutes when he saw the rest of the explorers, hunkered low in a jumble of fallen walls, locked in a desperate firefight with what looked to be human soldiers.

  Grekh paused, confused.

  Then he ducked, readied his rifle and stalked through the dust clouds, keeping half an eye on the battle up ahead and half an eye on the tectonic collisions taking place overhead. He clambered up a slope and peered through the spiralling fumes, trying to see who had survived to reach the vault. Draik was there, covered in wounds but alive. There was something else, though – he looked changed. The arrogance was gone. At this distance, Grekh could not be sure, but he sensed that there was more to it than that. It looked like the Blackstone had finally reached Captain Draik.

  The rest of the group were there too, but Grekh was only interested in Draik. The more he tasted the Blackstone’s sentience, the more he knew that Draik was the key. Draik was not here to achieve whatever selfish goal he had set himself; he was here to do the Blackstone’s will.

  Draik and the others were looking around the rubble desperately as they fired at the soldiers. They can’t get in, thought Grekh. They’re trapped. It was only then that he understood why the Blackstone had led him to Bullosus. He looked at the scythe tucked into his belt and nodded. At every turn of the journey, the Blackstone had been ahead of him.

  He leant on the top of the slope, took careful aim and fired, picking off several of the soldiers, then leapt from his perch and raced towards Draik.

  28

  ‘They’ll die soon enough,’ gurgled Fluxus. The daemon had merged with one of the larger pools, a bank of gurgling meat draped around the mounds of eggs, covering the birthing liquid like a shawl, its face elongated and distorted. It was becoming one with the garden, mingling with the spore stacks and the streaming sores.

  ‘You said that before,’ muttered Glutt, scuttling back and forth, shaking his head frantically. ‘And now here they are – at the gates of the cancrum.’

  ‘But what can they do?’ Fluxus sounded utterly unconcerned. ‘There is so much of our warp fire sewn into the cancrum. No human weapon could break through. They’ll be trapped there until your Guardsmen finish them off. How many of them are there?’

  Glutt crouched over the pool and unfolded one of his chitinous limbs, slicing open a bloated egg. He could use the eggs at will now, like gelatinous scrying stones. Spores spiralled up before him and he wafted them into the shape he required – the scene outside the cancrum.

  ‘Six.’

  ‘And how are they faring?’

  ‘They’re trapped,’ admitted Glutt. ‘They’ve got no way in. They’re firing at the Guardsmen.’ He felt a flush of relief. ‘But the Guardsmen will not be stopped.’

  ‘Of course they won’t. I’ve no idea how humans got so deep into Old Unfathomable. Perhaps she’s so focused on us she overlooked them. But they won’t last long against an enemy they can’t kill. And there’s no way they can break through this shell.’

  ‘I should go out, to be sure.’

  ‘No!’ The daemon looked up from the eggs, abandoning its work to give him a warning glare. ‘In here, we’re safe, but beyond the cancrum Old Unfathomable would crush us. We must stay here until the virus is complete.’ The daemon smiled. ‘Then, it won’t matter. She can do whatever she likes to us once the virus has spread and your commander is presiding over a cataclysm.’

  ‘But when will it be done?’ demanded Glutt, staring at the eggs.

  ‘Soon,’ murmured the daemon, using its long nails to split egg after egg, carefully examining the twitching contents, before stirring them together. ‘Each mutation brings us closer, but I’m seeking a combination so potent it will escape the confines of this alien tomb and survive even in the void, passing from ship to ship, infesting every corner of the sector.’

  Glutt looked back at the spore-cloud he had woven in the air. The explorers were pinned down by las-fire but one of them, a priest, was trying to approach the wall of the cancrum. He tried unsuccessfully to break through until the heat drove him back. Glutt nodded, satisfied, and crouched back down over the pool, joining the daemon in its painstaking work.

  29

  ‘Wait!’ cried Isola. ‘What’s that?’

  Draik peered through the dust. A familiar shape bounded past the Guardsmen, dodging shots and landslides, racing towards the sphere.

  ‘Grekh!’ cried Draik. ‘Give him covering fire!’

  They rose from their barricade, launching another barrage of shots, filling the air with las-beams and flame.

  Grekh moved with incredible speed, hurdled the ledge and crashed down beside Draik, breathing heavily but otherwise looking exactly as he did when they had first met in the Skeins.

  Corval stepped between them, his pistol pointed at Grekh. The Navigator had been trembling and convulsing since Draik helped him from the fissure. His hand was shaking so badly it looked like he might shoot the kroot even if he didn’t intend to.

  ‘Wait,’ said Draik placing his hand over the barrel of Corval’s pistol. He stared at the Navigator. ‘We have both been wrong about many things. Maybe we were wrong about this too?’

  Corval shook his head but lowered the pistol.

  ‘They’re charging!’ cried Vorne, unleashing another wall of flame.

  Isola and Audus rushed to her side, adding their shots to hers, but Draik and Corval continued looking at Grekh.

  ‘How did you find us?’ asked Draik, shouting to be heard over the deafening sphere.

  ‘The Blackstone. It led me to you,’ said Grekh.

  Draik shook his head. He was no longer prepared to dismiss the creature’s outlandish claims – they no longer even seemed outlandish – but he could not understand how Grekh had navigated such complex, ever-changing routes and arrived here, just as the rest of them had.

  ‘Did you see visions, like the priests?’

  Grekh clicked and whistled, looking around, clearly made uncomfortable by the question. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am not like you, or the priests. I see a different truth. I gain insights.’ He grabbed one of the insect cages strung across his chest, whispering an oath. ‘But I cannot…’ He seemed pained even saying this much. ‘We do not share our secrets.’

  Shots landed on the ruins behind them, filling the air with more dust and shards.

  When the air cleared, Draik studied Grekh. The creature was wearing that same calm expression he had been intrigued by before. Draik finally recognised what it was: nobility. Not the contrived, conspicuous nobility of his father, and all those powdered aristocrats on Terra, but a quiet, unspoken nobility of spirit.

  ‘I understand,’ he replied, ashamed to think how badly he had misjudged the creature. He had already thought about Grekh’s strange behaviour – his seemingly barbaric need to consume and taste – and begun to form an idea of the creature’s methods. But he would let Grekh keep his secrets. ‘When we met, I swore to let you help me,’ he said. ‘I would be honoured to continue our partnership.’

  The fighting was growing fiercer and Corval had to turn away to join the others, firing into the wall of Guardsmen.

  Grekh ignored the las-fire, still staring at Draik. ‘I….’ He hesitated, shaking his head, causing his crest of quills to rattle around his long, hawk-like head. ‘The Blackstone brought us together.’

  Draik turned and looked up at the sphere. ‘Have your “insights” told you how we can enter?’

  Grekh nodded, holding up the scythe he took from Bullosus. ‘This comes from the same minds as the Blackstone
. It can form and reform anything.’ He looked up at the sphere. ‘Even this.’

  ‘There’s a way in?’ bellowed Taddeus, wading towards them, sweat pouring from his face and his cheeks blazing red. He looked from Draik to Grekh, frowning. ‘What did the alien say?’

  Draik looked at Grekh. ‘What do we do?’

  Grekh was still looking at the sphere. ‘There are gaps. If I reach one I can cut.’

  Taddeus stared at the scythe, noticing it for the first time. He flicked frantically through the pages of his journal, then held it open towards them. Among the columns of tightly packed script and scenes of fiery revelation, there was a drawing of a scythe, very similar to the one Grekh was holding.

  ‘I have seen this!’ cried Taddeus, as if he were addressing a congregation. ‘Twelve years ago! I drew this picture twelve years ago from a dream! The God-Emperor is with us, friends! He was with me then and He is with me now!’

  ‘It wasn’t made by your Emperor,’ said Grekh. ‘It is the–’

  ‘No time,’ interrupted Draik. ‘We have to move.’

  The Guardsmen had crested the wall. The fight had descended into a hand-to-hand frenzy. Audus was alternating between shooting her pistol and using it as a club. Corval was bludgeoning Guardsmen with his cane, trailing sparks of energy from its gemstone head. Vorne had unslung a chainsword from her back and turned the air crimson, cutting soldiers down with a torrent of howled prayers.

  Grekh nodded and bounded away from them, reaching out into the ball of light, sampling its ferocity, plunging and withdrawing his hand, trailing tendrils of energy.

  Dozens more Guardsmen poured over the breach.

  Vorne fell to her knees, slashing her chainsword from side to side as the others staggered back towards the light.

  ‘Grekh!’ howled Draik, drawing his rapier and leaping into the fray, triggering the blade’s powercell and decapitating a Guardsman.

  ‘Here!’ cried the kroot, rushing into the light, the scythe held over his head. ‘Now!’

  They turned and sprinted after him, plunging into the wall of light.

  Draik saw Grekh’s silhouette in the blaze, swinging the scythe, then he was gone, replaced by a vivid column of blackness.

  Draik had a moment of doubt, but it was too late to stop. The black rectangle rushed forwards, engulfing him.

  Then silence.

  Pure nothingness.

  Draik could neither see nor hear anything.

  Then, up ahead, he saw a shimmer of flame. It grew quickly larger and brighter, rushing towards him as the black rectangle had done. As the light enveloped Draik, he heard a loud tearing sound, as though the air itself were being ripped open. He stumbled forwards, feeling ground beneath his feet, then the world flooded back into view.

  But it was not the world he expected. For what seemed like days, all he had seen were harsh, geometric angles – grey-black polyhedrons, all wrought of the same cold, featureless ore. But now he found himself in an explosion of colour and growth. Towering clouds of flies crossed a mustard-yellow sky, drifting over hazy, stagnant pools and swarming through drooping, wet fronds. The plants were bulbous, pitted hulks. It was a landslide of polyps and tumour-sacks, all of them spewing spores and veined with lights. It was a carnival of grotesque shapes. An explosion of eye-watering colour, made all the more shocking by the monochromatic bleakness that had come before.

  He only had a moment to take all this in.

  The head-splitting tearing grew louder and a cold blast washed over the back of his neck.

  Dull black columns rushed overhead from behind him, smashing in through the opening Grekh had cut, tearing it wider and allowing the violence outside to finally break into the sphere.

  Draik and the others dropped to their knees, cradling their heads as arms of darkness roared past, smashing into the fungal garden. Spore sacs detonated, sponges ripped and tumours popped. The Blackstone was skewering the garden with a rain of black spears. The ripping sound grew louder and Draik clamped his hands over his ears, trying to block it out. The others were just as overcome, falling into the wet, pulpy moss. Red, viscous mud oozed up from the turf as Draik sank into it, howling incoherently.

  ‘Draik!’ cried someone nearby, barely audible over the din.

  It was Isola, dragging herself through the slop, her face twisted in pain. She was pointing to something up ahead.

  He turned to see a shape rushing towards him. It looked like an insect, but grotesquely enlarged to the height of a man. It was clad in a plated carapace and it was scuttling across the ground on six twitching legs. There was a human face sunk deep in its abdomen, pale and grinning, laughing hysterically.

  Draik stood, firing through the whirling clouds. The needles thudded into the creature’s shell but showed no sign of stopping it. There was a flash of light over to the creature’s left and it stumbled, thrown off track, its legs scrambling furiously beneath its armoured bulk.

  Grekh lurched into view gripping a smoking rifle.

  More columns ripped through the air, each bigger than the last. The canopy of leaves collapsed, dropping branches and pale, ugly cankers, filling the air with spores. The black beams were all targeted at one specific point. It was hard to see clearly through the miasma, but Draik could just make out a pallid heap of flesh, like a vast, labouring heart, trying to rise and reach out, spawning limbs and mouths. The black spars smashed into it. All of the fortress’ will was bent on its destruction. This was the cause of the violence. This was the malignant interloper the Blackstone was trying to repel. Draik felt sick as he tried to look at it. Even from here, half glimpsed through the spore-clouds, he knew what it was. Such an abomination could only have come from one place: the warp.

  The insect creature near Draik stopped laughing. It turned away from Draik and tried to rush back towards the struggling heap of flesh. Draik saw his chance. He ran through clouds of flies, drew his rapier and leapt at the malformed creature.

  The monster saw him coming and raised a barbed limb, blocking his thrust, but Draik had depressed the rapier’s powercell. Fire flashed down the blade and sheared through the limb. The face in its the abdomen tried to speak, but its tongue was so mangled and stretched that it thrashed, incoherently, across the ground. The monster lunged, punching a taloned limb at Draik’s chest.

  He parried, disengaged and struck again, his movements as fluid and controlled as they had been in the training halls of the Draik villa. Draik severed another limb, but as the monster staggered back, leaking black blood, it screeched a curse. Flame-bright pus spat from its eyes, blasting Draik from his feet and bathing his nerves in agony.

  He crashed onto his back, but as the pain threatened to send him into unconsciousness, the blast was interrupted.

  Corval strode forwards, his cane held before him, deflecting the monster’s blast and surrounding the Navigator in a wreath of hissing acid. The creature screamed and more pus jolted from its head, emerging vomit-like from its gaping mouth. The acid punched into Corval’s stomach and hurled him backwards. He ripped through the surface of a tree-sized puffball and vanished in a cloud of spores.

  Grekh fired again, spinning the monster around. Isola rose from the acid-green slop, firing into the monster’s face, causing it to stagger back. Vorne was trying to haul Taddeus from a seething pool and Audus had managed to stand, swaying like a drunk as she tried to reload her pistol.

  As Draik and the others battled with the insect creature, the Blackstone waged war on the leviathan in the distance. The limbs of rock outside had taken the hole Grekh cut and wrenched it into an opening like the gates of a city. It was now big enough to show the chamber outside the sphere. It was heaving and imploding, but the Guardsmen were still shambling over the crooked slopes, rushing into the garden with their guns raised.

  Shots whined through the air.

  ‘Hold them back!’ cried Draik, wav
ing everyone back towards the Guardsmen as he ran on towards the monster.

  They did as he ordered, halting the Guardsmen with a blinding salvo, shredding their rotten flesh.

  Draik reached the insect monster and leapt, swinging his rapier and plunging it into the creature’s face. The monster barely noticed, batting Draik aside and sending him flipping through the air. It loomed over him, swinging back one of its limbs like an axe, preparing to behead him. Then it staggered, hit by dozens of shots.

  Audus strode into view, covered in filth and spitting curses as she fired into the monster’s face. It reeled from the impacts, then steadied itself and clubbed her down, smashing her into a seething pool. Then it whirled around and gripped Draik with one of its claws, forcing him down into the scarlet mud.

  The monster pressed all of its weight down on him and Draik sank beneath the mire, thick, bloody liquid rushing over his face. He thrashed and spluttered, but the creature was incredibly heavy and its grip was unbreakable. Draik sank deeper, his lungs burning, liquid filling his mouth and nose. His struggles grew weaker and darkness spread from the corners of his eyes, leaving only a blurred image of the monster’s face, giggling as it held him under.

  Draik’s consciousness faded. Rather than a rush of memories or a final, death-throes revelation, his thoughts settled on the last mechanical functions of his body: his heart slowing and failing; his fingers stiffening, coldness radiating from his chest. He was vaguely aware that the hysterical creature was reaching forwards, clutching a pale grub. As it came closer he saw that it was a worm. The monster was holding it out towards his chest. The worm was straining and uncoiling, stretching for him.

  Then a flame erupted from the shadows, bathing everything in light. Was this the afterlife? Was this the God-Emperor, calling him to the Golden Throne?