Blackstone Fortress

by Darius Hinks

  The light grew brighter and the monster’s expression changed from glee to fear. Its face began to run and slide, like a painting, washed away by rain. The iron-hard grip around Draik’s arms loosened and the monster fell back, dropping the worm into the mud. With a desperate effort, Draik shoved himself up, breaking the surface with a choking gasp.

  His oxygen-starved brain struggled to comprehend what he saw.

  The monster was staggering away from him, claws raised, its carapace dissolving in a beam of blue-white fire.

  Corval stumbled into view. Draik was seeing him from behind, but he could tell that he had removed his helmet and dropped his weapons. His robes were torn and ragged and he had raised his arms, as though in prayer. Livid, dazzling light was blazing from his forehead, ripping into the monster, tearing it apart, molecule by molecule.

  No, thought Draik, horrified, realising that Corval must have opened his third eye – the one thing he told Draik he must never do. It will destroy him. Draik tried to rise, to go to him, but he was too weak. His lungs were full of liquid. He fell back, spluttering and gasping.

  Corval kept walking, more determined with each step. More lines of fire sprayed from his head, crowning him with a blinding halo. While the first beam tore the monster apart, the others sliced into the undead Guardsmen, transforming them into firebrands, engulfing them in colourless flame.

  There were hundreds of the Guardsmen and, as they ignited, they raised their arms, mirroring Corval’s agony. It looked like a holy vision – a host of damned souls, sundered and cleansed by heavenly fire. With a jolt, Draik realised that it looked like a specific holy scene – the one painted on Taddeus’ walls and books.

  There was thunderclap as the monster and every one of the Guardsmen detonated. Burnt meat and shattered chitin whistled through the air. The light vanished and Corval crumpled into the mud.

  Draik crawled towards him, hauling himself over mounds of blackened fungus. As he hauled himself up a sodden ridge he saw the pale, mountainous shape he had glimpsed earlier. It was pierced by spars of black ore. Skewered by the Blackstone.

  The tearing sound grew louder.

  Draik howled.

  As he cried out, the Blackstone wrenched its limbs free, ripping it apart, creating another volcanic bang, filling the air with spores and blubber. The garden began to collapse, toppling and tearing, revealing the cold, colourless walls of the Blackstone.

  Draik stumbled over to Corval as the garden fell apart around him.

  The Navigator was clearly dead, lying in a hideously unnatural position, half of his cranium replaced by a blackened mess. Draik took Corval’s cold, lifeless hand, whispering something no one else would hear.

  ‘And not to yield.’

  30

  ‘The flames will hear no plea ‘til the faithless soul burns free, ’til the truth is burned in thee, ’til the blind have learned to see.’

  Draik heard the words but ignored them. He could think of nothing but Corval – Numa, his friend – dying so far from home, sacrificing himself to save the man who had ruined his life.

  ‘We have to go,’ said someone else, and a hand gripped his shoulder.

  He dragged his gaze from the dead Navigator and looked up into the concerned eyes of Isola.

  ‘The vault is collapsing,’ she said.

  She was not shouting. The tearing sound had finally ceased. He could still hear its echo, roaring in his ears, but the noise was gone. He looked around the garden and saw that it was a garden no longer. In just a few short seconds the Blackstone had reclaimed its heart, burying the marshes beneath tons of leaden, night-black ore. The violence was not over, though. The walls were rotating and twisting, dismantling the vault, carving it into something new. If he stayed by Corval’s corpse for much longer, he would be crushed.

  He nodded and took Isola’s hand, letting her help him to his feet.

  The rest of the group had also gathered around the corpse. Taddeus and Vorne were staring at it in awe, hands clasped together, repeating their prayer over and over: ‘The flames will hear no plea ’til the faithless soul burns free, ’til the truth is burned in thee, ’til the blind have learned to see.’

  Audus was stood a few feet back from them. There was no rapture in her eyes. She was not even looking at the corpse. She just looked dazed and exhausted. Grekh was at her side, staring at the tectonic collisions taking place all around them.

  ‘We have to go,’ said Isola, gripping his arm harder.

  ‘I failed,’ said Draik. ‘We found the vault and…’ He shook his head, not exactly sure what he had found. Whatever it was, it was quickly vanishing.

  ‘Failed?’ Grekh shook his head.

  Draik massaged his temples, frowning. ‘Then tell me,’ he said, looking at Grekh. ‘What have we achieved?’

  ‘The Blackstone brought us here for this,’ said Grekh, pointing his rifle at the sundering walls. ‘We were never here for the reasons we thought. Whatever was happening here, the Blackstone needed to stop it. But it could not. Do you see? It needed us to do this – to break through where it could not. To let it back in.’

  Draik shook his head, but the kroot was only saying things he already felt in his soul. He had been so wrong. This was all fated. No, not even fated – engineered by the fortress. It had summoned them to perform this act of surgery, to rid it of this vile cancer.

  They all staggered backwards as the ground shifted into a new angle, hurling them down a slope.

  They landed in a jumble of struggling limbs in a narrow gulley and Grekh began running, waving for them to follow. They came to a fork and Grekh turned down a path without hesitation.

  ‘Wait!’ cried Draik.

  In the other direction, the death throes of the vault were still visible, a titanic struggle of crashing peaks. A chasm had opened and Corval’s corpse was still visible as it slid into the hole, flames rippling from its ruined skull. They were about to move on when the furthest wall in the vault opened, swinging out like gates, revealing another soaring edifice in the shadows beyond.

  There, in the deepest chamber of the Blackstone, sculpted from the darkness, Draik saw the symbol of House Draik, a proud serpent, glowering down at him.

  Draik ignored Grekh and raced towards the statue, but before he had taken even a few steps the Blackstone rethought itself, slamming down another featureless edifice, then more, until the vision vanished and even the path vanished, forcing Draik back towards the others and leaving him facing a sheer, impenetrable wall.

  He pounded it with his fists, desperate and confused. What was the Blackstone trying to tell him? What did it know of House Draik?

  Then the floor shifted and reformed. Angular shapes jolted beneath their feet, folding and snapping. Crystalline spurs clicked together, forming long, sharpened limbs.

  ‘Drones!’ cried Isola, grabbing Draik and hauling him after Grekh.

  Grekh rushed through a small antechamber and out onto the diamond-shaped platform they crossed when they first landed. The Vanguard was there, its landing lights still glimmering and movement visible on the bridge.

  Drones flooded from every corner of the hall, filling the air with the sound of their scraping, knife-blade limbs.

  ‘Ready the engines!’ cried Draik, recovering his composure and rushing towards the ship.

  The landing ramp clattered down as the drones scuttled across the platform. Draik waved everyone on board then turned to look back. Beyond the swarms of drones, he could see the way back to the vault, the way back to the vision he had seen – the symbol of his own house, stranded in the heart of this ancient, alien structure.

  ‘Captain!’ cried Isola, a few feet above him on the ramp.

  The first of the drones had almost reached him. He stalled them with a few shots then ran into the ship. ‘Go!’ he cried as the ramp slammed shut behind him.

 
The deck crew stared in shock as he ran onto the bridge, drenched in blood and trailing the remains of his uniform. He dashed to a seat, strapped himself in and nodded to Audus, who had already grabbed the flight controls.

  The chamber filled with noise and light as the Vanguard leapt from the platform, banking hard as it screamed out into the stars.

  After

  Corval looked down at the mob, stern and proud, his star-helm gleaming in the shifting light.

  ‘Numa,’ said Draik, raising his cup to the pict capture, downing his drink. He grimaced. ‘How can Gatto serve this bilge water?’

  Isola was beside him at the bar, looking up at the menacing slab of Blackstone, studying the portraits plastered across its base. ‘Numa?’ She sipped her drink with a grimace identical to Draik’s. ‘You mean Corval?’

  Draik nodded, then shrugged, raising his cup again. ‘Let’s drink to all of them.’

  The Helmsman had become even more riotous since their last visit. The bloodbirds were whirling through the flickering light, fluttering around the sweating crowds and clicking their lenses. The roar of drunken voices reverberated off the ramshackle walls, mingling with snatches of song and furious, drink-fuelled arguments. Draik didn’t hear any of it. It was nearly a week since Corval’s death and it still dominated his thoughts. He had lost friends before, close ones, but never twice. He felt like his past had died.

  ‘Why are we back here?’ asked Isola, leaning towards him as the drinkers next to her starting shoving each other, sending cups clattering across the bar.

  ‘I’m not going,’ said Draik, lighting his lho-stick and taking a drag, his eye reflecting the light.

  Isola frowned. ‘You’re not going where?’

  ‘Back to the Curensis Cluster. To the Tann-Karr. I’m going to stay here and see this thing through.’

  She shook her head. ‘His lordship was clear. The trade routes are set. If we don’t meet with the House Draik agents on Mysia Four, you’ll be in breach of your contract.’

  ‘Contract!’ laughed Draik, dragging on his lho-stick. ‘What kind of family is held together by contracts?’

  ‘Don’t play games with him. You know he could cancel your stipend.’

  Draik shrugged. ‘I have my Warrant of Trade. I have investments in my own name. Besides, whatever else it is, the Blackstone is a treasure trove. I won’t starve.’

  ‘He could disinherit you – strike your name from the family rolls.’

  Draik nodded, calmly sipping his drink. ‘He could.’

  Isola shook her head. ‘Everything you’ve worked for, all those battles and sacrifices, all so that you could reclaim your place in the family. If you disobey your father so blatantly, it will have been for nothing.’

  Draik leant close, as though sharing a secret. ‘It always was for nothing though, wasn’t it?’

  Isola flushed, struggling to maintain her usual, icy demeanour.

  Draik laughed and leant back, waving his lho-stick in a dismissive gesture. ‘Don’t worry, you haven’t revealed anything you shouldn’t. I learned it from another source. I know my father was never going to let me set foot back on Terra.’ He could not entirely suppress the bitterness in his voice. ‘I’ve been racing around like a fool, trying to impress someone who despaired of me long ago.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, captain. Your father was not–’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t care anymore. What is there back there for me? Let my sister take the wretched crown. She’s far more suitable. Power plays and politics. What good does any of it do?’ He waved at the crush of figures barging past them – a bewildering mix of explorers, frontiersmen and dead-eyed killers. ‘This is the crucible, Isola, out here. I see it now. This is where mankind will be forged, or die in the attempt. Not in some gilded stateroom full of pompous, gout-ridden worthies.’

  Isola had regained her reserved demeanour. ‘What did you see in there? When you looked back into the vault – you saw something. What was it?’

  ‘I saw a vision, Isola. Laugh if you like, but I know what I saw. And I know, now, that the Blackstone brought me here. I didn’t believe it before, but now I know it’s true. The kroot was right. I thought he was a fool, but he was right. The Blackstone was part of my life long before I even heard of it. I may have no future on Terra but I do have one here. I’m going back in.’

  She licked her lips, looking uncomfortable, but not quite as shocked as he had expected. Perhaps he was easier to read than he liked to think. He wondered what she was thinking. What would she do?

  He picked up his drink and left the bar, waving for her to follow.

  They pushed through the crowds and he led her towards a gloomy, lamp-lit alcove.

  They were almost there when she grabbed him by the arm. ‘But look at the state you’re in, captain.’ She nodded to his impressive collection of wounds. ‘You need to rest – to recover.’

  He raised an amused eyebrow. ‘Rest?’

  ‘And who would go with you,’ she said, sounding exasperated, ‘if you went back?’

  Draik smiled and nodded at the alcove. A circle of familiar faces was waiting for them, hunched over the table, lit by a rusty, sparking glowglobe: Audus, Grekh, Taddeus and Vorne.

  Isola halted, shocked, looking at each of them in turn. ‘Why? Why would you go back in?’ She sat down and looked at the two priests. They both looked horrified by their surroundings, sitting rigidly in their seats and clutching their weapons as though they would rather torch the place than stay for another minute. ‘You never found your relic. Why go back? After everything we saw?’

  ‘We found it, child,’ said Taddeus. ‘The Eye of Hermius. And it was far grander and more powerful than I imagined. I had not grasped the scale of the Emperor’s vision.’ The priest waved her closer, breathless with excitement. ‘Everything I saw, everything I recorded, it all came to pass.’ He opened his journal, pointing to the image of a priest, light blazing from his head, scourging the damned. ‘Corval was the prophet. These images show it clearly – the moment of his ascension – his transition to sainthood. It all makes sense now. In that moment, the moment of his death, I saw everything.’

  He pointed at the picture again. Behind the saintly, light-radiating figure, there was an eclipse, another kind of halo, a black circle.

  ‘I thought this purely decorative, but Corval showed me the truth. We have found the Eye of Hermius. It’s the Blackstone. Do you see? The Blackstone! The kroot is right. The Blackstone brought us here. It tested us, seeing if we could cleanse it of that taint, and we proved ourselves worthy. Now we must return and return and return until we find the key to its secrets…’ he paused for breath, almost hyperventilating. ‘…because they are the secrets of the Emperor. The Blackstone was sent to us so that we can defeat the Ruinous Powers, to return His light to the Dark Imperium and to cleanse the Great Rift. Here, finally, is the proof that all those heretics are wrong to talk of Him as a corpse-god. The God-Emperor has sent us this weapon. And we must master it!’ He collapsed back in his seat, staring at Isola, awed by his own words. Vorne had her head bowed, praying furiously.

  Isola stared at him for a moment, incredulous. Then she nodded and looked at Grekh.

  Grekh looked almost as uncomfortable in the Helmsman as the priests. ‘I have to return. I have gained many insights.’ He looked at Draik. ‘The Blackstone brought us together. There is something greater than relics here. A greater purpose.’

  Isola looked at Audus. The pilot was leaning away from the light, her face hidden beneath a hood, but her large, powerful frame was unmistakable. Before Isola could ask her anything, the pilot held up a hand. ‘I’m still owed my ten per cent. I’m going nowhere without it.’

  Isola looked at Draik with a disbelieving expression. He smiled. He knew what Isola was thinking because he thought the same: Audus’ cynicism was an affectation. There was more to her
than she was prepared to reveal.

  ‘And what about you?’ said Audus, leaning into the light, staring at Isola.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I told them you work for my father,’ explained Draik. ‘I told them I was unsure what you would do if I stayed here – if I break my contract.’

  Isola sipped her drink and looked at him. Then she nodded at the crowds of mercenaries and adventurers that surrounded them. They all had the same desperate, rapacious look in their eyes.

  ‘You know what you’ve become, don’t you? One of them. A devotee. It’s insane. Every attempt we make is worse than the last. You nearly died last time. And the Ascuris Vault has been destroyed. It wasn’t the key to the transportation chambers. So where would we look? What would we look for? What hope would we have if we return?’

  Draik noticed that she had said ‘if we return’. He extinguished his lho-stick and took something from his pocket, spreading it on the table. It was a ragged piece of human skin, the one he had taken from the xenos by the aqueduct. There was something scribbled on it – spirals of text, all written in a cursive, alien script. He smiled, tapping the numbers and runes.

  ‘This time I have something, Isola, I know it.’

  About the Author

  Darius Hinks’ first novel, Warrior Priest, won the David Gemmell Morningstar Award for best newcomer. Since then he has ventured into the Warhammer 40,000 universe with the novels Mephiston: Blood of Sanguinius, Mephiston: Revenant Crusade and the Space Marine Battles novella Sanctus, and has carved a bloody swathe through the Warhammer world with Island of Blood, Sigvald, Razumov’s Tomb and the Orion trilogy.

  An extract from Dark Imperium: Plague War.

  Weak light bobbed through pitchy black, casting a pale round that grew and shrank upon polished blue marble quarried on a world long ago laid waste. The hum of a grav motor sawed at the quiet of the abandoned hall, though not loudly enough to banish the peace of ages that lay upon it. The lamp was dim as candlelight, and greatly obscured by the iron lantern framing it. The angles of the servo-skull that bore the lantern further cut the glow, but even in the feeble luminance the stone gleamed with flecks of gold. The floor awoke for brief moments at its caress, glinting with a nebula’s richness, before the servo-skull moved on and the paving’s glory was lost to the dark again.