Void Stalker

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  ‘Perhaps,’ Mercutian allowed. His tone walked the border between thoughtful and doubting. ‘They would never be able to take a Corsair ship alone.’

  ‘Are you truly this naive?’ Cyrion grinned behind a faceplate that wept painted lightning. ‘Look how the Blood Reaver treats his Terminator elite. They’re his Chosen. I’m not suggesting the Atramentar mounted an assault on the Corsairs, fool. They betrayed us to them. They joined them.’

  Mercutian snorted. ‘Never.’

  ‘No? How many warriors have cast aside the bonds of the First Legions? How many find them irrelevant as the years become decades, and the decades twist into centuries? How many are legionaries only in name, after finding a more satisfying, more purposeful path instead of eternally whining over a final vengeance never taken? Every one of us has his own path to walk. Power is a greater temptation for some than ancient, lofty ideals. Some things matter more than old bonds.’

  ‘Not to me,’ Mercutian said at last.

  ‘Not to most of us. I am merely saying–’

  ‘I know what you are saying. I am saying I have no wish to speak of this.’

  ‘Very well. But there is a tale behind the Atramentar’s disappearance, brother. One we may never know.’

  ‘Someone knows.’

  ‘That they do. And I would enjoy excruciating the truth from them.’

  Mercutian didn’t reply, and Cyrion allowed the discussion to wane into an awkward lull. Uzas, standing a few metres away from them, was looking down at his red-painted gauntlets.

  ‘What’s wrong with you now?’ Cyrion asked.

  ‘My hands are red,’ said Uzas. ‘Sinners have red hands. The Primarch’s Law.’ Uzas lifted his head, turning his bruised and bloody face to Cyrion. ‘What did I do wrong? Why are my hands painted in sinners’ scarlet?’

  Mercutian and Cyrion shared a glance. Another moment of rare clarity from their degenerating brother caught them by surprise.

  ‘You killed many of the Covenant’s crew, brother,’ Mercutian told him. ‘Months ago. One of them was the father of the void-born girl.’

  ‘That wasn’t me,’ Uzas had bitten his tongue, and blood flowed over his lips, slowly raining down his white chin. ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘As you say, brother,’ Mercutian replied.

  ‘Where is Talos? Does Talos know I did not do this?’

  ‘Peace, Uzas,’ Cyrion rested a hand on the other warrior’s shoulder guard. ‘Peace. Do not let yourself grow aggravated.’

  ‘Where’s Talos?’ Uzas asked again, slurring now.

  ‘He will be here soon,’ said Mercutian. ‘The Flayer has summoned him.’

  Uzas half-lidded his black eyes, drooling saliva and blood in equal measure. ‘Who?’

  ‘Talos. You just… You just asked where he was.’

  Uzas stood slack-jawed. Blood bubbled at the corner of his thin lips. Even without Legion modification, even had he been left alone as a human boy and never swollen into this broken, avataric living weapon stitched back together after hundreds of battlefields, Uzas would have been a singularly unwholesome and unattractive creature. Everything in the years since only made him fouler to look upon.

  ‘Uzas?’ Mercutian pressed.

  ‘Hnnh?’

  ‘Nothing, brother.’ He shared another glance with Cyrion. ‘It is nothing.’

  The three warriors remained silent as the minutes passed on. Again and again, the northern doors opened on grinding tracks. More packs of crew members were arriving each minute, dragging and carrying their wounded.

  ‘It is surprising to see so many mortals flocking here,’ Mercutian mused.

  With medicae stations on many decks, the crew knew that the Primary Apothecarion was the Flayer’s haunt, and few would willingly put themselves beneath his cold gaze and the pressing cuts of his blades.

  ‘They know their own expendability,’ Cyrion nodded. ‘Only desperation drives them here.’

  Talos entered with the latest batch. The prophet ignored the humans around his boots, crossing straight to Variel. Septimus and Octavia trailed him in. The former immediately moved to one of the tables, working to assist the medicae attendant there.

  ‘Septimus,’ the surgeon grunted in greeting. ‘Start stitching the stomach wound.’

  Octavia watched him working, knowing better than to try and offer her help. The mortal crew flinched back from her at all times, no matter her intentions. The curse of the third eye, even when it was hidden beneath her grimy bandana. They all knew what she was, what she did for their lords and masters. None of them wanted to look her way, let alone touch her. So she followed Talos, hanging back what she judged a respectful distance.

  Talos walked to Variel, the damage to his armour showing starkly in the apothecarion’s harsher light.

  ‘Where is Xarl’s corpse?’ the Apothecary asked.

  Talos handed him the sealed cryo-canister. ‘That is all you need,’ he said.

  Variel took it, his fingers subtly twitching. He disliked others doing inexpert work when he could have performed it to perfection. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Talos looked over to Cyrion, Uzas and Mercutian, ready to join them.

  ‘No. We are long overdue a discussion, prophet.’

  ‘We have a world to bring to its knees,’ Talos reminded him.

  Variel’s eyes – ice-blue to the Nostraman’s inky black – still flitted around the chamber, drinking in the details. It was the one way Talos thought Variel still differed from the Nostraman-born Night Lords. Whether by genetic legacy or simple habit, a great many Eighth Legion warriors would stare in autistic silence, gazing at those they were speaking to. Variel’s attention was altogether more fractured.

  ‘We also have half of our warriors dead or dying,’ the Apothecary pointed out, ‘along with hundreds of mortal crew. There is gene-seed to harvest, and augmetic grafting to perform.’

  Talos fingered his temples. ‘Then do what needs to be done. I will take the others down to the surface.’

  Variel said nothing for a moment, absorbing the words. ‘Why?’ he said at last. Around him, men and women were still weeping, moaning, screaming. It put Talos in mind of the primarch’s Screaming Gallery, with all the shivering hands reaching out from the walls in fruitful torment. He felt like smiling, really smiling, without knowing why.

  ‘Why what?’ asked Talos.

  ‘Why attack Tsagualsa? Why attack it in the first place? Why rush down there to finish the deed now? You have been less than forthcoming with answers on the matter.’

  The blue veins beneath Talos’s cheeks twisted like lightning, following the contours of his scowl. ‘To let the hounds slip the leash and torture as they desire. To let the Eighth Legion be itself. And above all, for the symbolism. This was our world, and we left it barren of life. It should remain that way.’

  Variel breathed slowly, his eyes settling on Talos for a long, rare moment. ‘The populace of Tsagualsa, such as it is, are now cowering in their storm shelters, fearful of the nameless wrath that attacked their capital city. They know it will return, and yes – I suspect you are correct – once the Legion slips its leash and toys with the lives of those souls on the surface, every warrior will be energised by the infliction of fear and the wanton slaughter to inevitably follow. But that is not a good enough answer. You are dreaming without recalling what you see. You are acting on visions you scarcely remember, and barely understand.’

  Talos remembered the first moment of awakening once more, finding himself chained in the command throne, with the occulus showing Tsagualsa’s grey face from the silent safety of orbit.

  ‘Where are we?’ he’d said.

  First Claw had walked to his side, forming up in a line of snarling joints and impassive, skullish facemasks.

  ‘You don’t recall your orders to us?’ Xarl had asked.


  ‘Just tell me where we are,’ he’d demanded.

  ‘The Eastern Fringe,’ Xarl had answered. ‘Out of the Astronomican’s light, and in orbit around the world you repeatedly demanded we travel to.’

  Variel broke through the prophet’s reverie with a murmur of displeasure. ‘You have not been the same since we took the Echo of Damnation. Are you aware of this?’

  They could have been alone, discussing such things in the stillness of a meditation chamber rather than the abattoir of the Primary Apothecarion.

  ‘I do not know,’ Talos confessed. ‘My memory is a jagged thing of plateaux and shadows, ripe one moment, hollow the next. I am no longer sure I even see the future. What little I remember is tangled, like fate’s skeins matted together. It is no longer prophecy, at least not as I understand it.’

  If any of this surprised Variel, he didn’t let it show. ‘You told me months ago why you wished to travel here, brother. You told me you’d dreamed of human life on Tsagualsa’s face once more, and that you wished to see it with your own eyes.’

  Talos moved aside as two members of Third Claw dragged a slain brother onto a table.

  ‘Soul Hunter,’ one of them greeted him. Talos gave him a withering look, and led Variel away from them both.

  ‘I recall no such dream,’ he told the Apothecary.

  ‘It was months ago. You have been slipping for a long time, but the rate of degeneration is accelerating. Focus on this fact, Talos: you wanted to sail back into these skies. Now we are here. Now those same humans you dreamed of crawl into the earth, weak and weaponless, wailing that we have returned. And even as you fulfil your desire, you are still hollow, still void of memory. You are breaking apart, Talos. Fracturing, if you will. Why are we here, brother? Focus. Think. Tell me. Why?’

  ‘I do not remember.’

  Variel’s reply was to strike him. The blow came from nowhere, the back of the Apothecary’s gauntlet smashing backhanded into the side of Talos’s face.

  ‘I did not ask you to remember. I asked you to use your gods-damned mind, Talos. Think. If you cannot recall, then work out the answer from what you know of yourself. You brought us here. Why? What benefit is there? How does it serve us?’

  The prophet spat acidic saliva onto the floor. When he turned back to Variel, a viperous smile played across his pale, bloody lips. He didn’t strike back. He did nothing but smile with bleeding gums.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said as the moment passed. ‘Your point is taken.’

  Variel nodded. ‘I had hoped it would be.’ He met the prophet’s dark eyes. ‘I apologise for striking you.’

  ‘I deserved it.’

  ‘You did. However, I still apologise.’

  ‘I said it is fine, brother. No apology is necessary.’

  Variel nodded again. ‘If that is the case, would you ask the others to cease aiming their weapons at me?’

  Talos looked around the chamber. Both members of Third Claw had their bolters raised. First Claw was a mirror of the image, their own guns lifted and aimed. Even several Night Lords on tables awaiting surgery were holding their pistols level and ready to fire.

  ‘Ivalastisha,’ said Talos. ‘Peace.’

  The warriors lowered their weapons at once, in slow unison.

  Variel gestured to one of the side chambers. ‘Come. There are tests on your blood that I must–’

  ‘The tests can wait, Variel.’

  Variel’s cold eyes flickered with something, some unknowable emotion never given the grace to flash in full across his features.

  ‘I believe you are dying.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I have saved you before. Let me analyse you now, and we will see if I can save you a second time.’

  ‘A trifle melodramatic,’ Talos replied, though his blood ran cold, feeling like a flush of nerve-killing combat narcotics.

  ‘Your body is rejecting the modifications wrought by the gene-seed. As you age, as you take wound after wound, your regenerative processes are breaking down. You can no longer heal the damage Curze’s blood is doing to your body. Some humans are simply unsuitable for gene-seed implantation. You are one of them.’

  Talos said nothing for a moment. Ruven’s dream-words replayed through his mind, in savage chorus with Variel’s. The prophet’s marble visage turned to the rest of the chamber.

  ‘This is conjecture,’ he said.

  ‘It is,’ Variel admitted. ‘I have had little experience in dealing with the physiology of first-generation Legiones Astartes. But I was able to sustain my Lord Blackheart’s life for centuries, through a mix of ingenuity, ancient science, and working with fools who practised powerful blood magic. I know my art, Talos. You are dying. Your body no longer functions as it should.’

  Talos followed him as he spoke. In the side chamber, the Apothecary gestured to an excruciation table replete with chains. The room’s ceiling was given over to a multi-limbed arachnid machine, with various scanners, cutters and probes at the end of each jointed iron limb.

  ‘There is no need to lie down at first. The more detailed tests will come after these preliminaries, but I wish only to draw blood from the veins in your throat for now. Then we will scan your skull. Only then will we proceed deeper.’

  Talos acquiesced in silence.

  Another one died beneath Septimus’s hands. He swore in Nostraman.

  The surgeon he was working with wiped bloody hands across his own face, as if it would clean away the stains already there rather than add to them.

  ‘Next,’ the man said to the closest servitors. They dragged a writhing woman in a filthy crew uniform onto the table. She’d lost a leg to a bolter round, but the tourniquet at her thigh had spared her a cold, shivering death from blood loss. Septimus winced at the biological ruin left of her leg below the knee. Her eyes were wide, the pupils narrow. She hissed air in and out through clenched teeth.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked gently, in the same moment the medicae said ‘Name and role.’

  ‘Marlonah,’ she said to Septimus. ‘Starboard tertiary munitions deck. I’m a loader.’ She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment. ‘Don’t servitor me. Please.’

  ‘He won’t,’ Septimus told her.

  ‘Thank you. Are you Septimus?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Heard about you,’ she said, and lapsed back onto the table, covering her eyes against the bright glare of the lights above.

  The medicae wiped his face again, clearly weighing the effort and value of the diminishing cheap augmetic supplies he had at his disposal. Only officers could count on their chances of a bionic organ or limb, but she was hardly underdeck scum.

  ‘She can’t do her duty with one leg,’ Septimus said, sensing this game was already lost.

  ‘Another could perform a loader’s duties just as easily,’ the medicae replied. ‘Menials are hardly difficult to replace.’

  ‘Primaris,’ Marlonah said, the words hissed through the pain. Sweat bathed her in feverish droplets. ‘Primaris qualified. Not… not just a hauler. Cart driver, too. Cannon loader.’

  The surgeon tightened the tourniquet, eliciting a fresh grunt. ‘If I find out you’re lying to me,’ he told her, ‘I will inform the Legion.’

  ‘Not lying. Primaris qualified. I swear.’ Her voice was growing weaker now, and her eyes unfocused.

  ‘Record her for omega-grade augmentation after the crisis is over,’ the medicae said to his attendant servitor. ‘Stabilise her, and pitch the stump until then.’

  Marlonah was unconscious now. Septimus suspected that applying hot pitch to her raw stump to prevent any future bleeding would rouse her, though. He released a pent-up breath, cursing the Genesis Chapter for their fanatical assault. Throne in flames, they’d given the ship a beating.

  The medicae moved away, seeking another patient on another table, in this endless supply of them. As S
eptimus followed, his glance fell on Octavia across the room. She stood at the heart of carnage’s aftermath, her pale skin ungraced by the blood marking the dead and dying around her.

  He watched her retying her ponytail, seeing the hesitance in her fingers as she walked from table to table, careful not to touch anyone. She only paused by the unconscious ones, resting her fingers on their skin, saying a few words of comfort or checking their pulses.

  In the middle of this stinking den of dying heretics, Septimus smiled.

  Variel tapped the display monitor, overlaying the hololithic charts.

  ‘Do you see the correlation?’

  Talos stared at the distorted hololithic of conflicting charts and hundreds of rows of runic symbols signifying numbers.

  He had to shake his head. ‘No, I do not.’

  ‘It is difficult to believe you were once an Apothecary,’ Variel told him, in a rare moment of pique.

  Talos gestured to the overlaid readings. ‘I can see the flaws and failings in the body’s kinetics. I can see the impairment and the unwarranted spikes in cortical activity.’ How easy it was, to speak of his own degeneration so impartially. The idea almost made him bare his teeth in a smile that would have done Uzas proud. ‘I am not saying I cannot understand what I am seeing, Variel. I am saying I do not see what you find so unique in it.’

  Variel hesitated, trying a new tack. ‘Do you at least recognise the spikes in limbic activity, and see the other signs listed as potentially terminal?’

  ‘I recognise the possibility,’ Talos allowed. ‘It is hardly conclusive. This suggests I will be in pain for the rest of my life, not that my life will be cut short.’

  Variel’s exhalation trod perilously close to a sigh. ‘That will do. But look here.’

  Talos watched the looping results flicker and restart, again and again. The rune-numbers cycled, the charts flowed in some hololithic dance, devoid of all rhythm.

  ‘I see it,’ he said at last. ‘My progenoid glands are… I do not know how to describe it. They are too active. It seems they are still absorbing and processing genetic markers.’ He touched the side of his neck, recalling the removal of Xarl’s gene-seed only hours before.