by Nick Kyme
Daceus kept his voice low. ‘It’s them.’
‘You asked why we weren’t swarming with necrons,’ said Sicarius. ‘They can’t swarm. They are dormant.’
‘The necrons are here?’ Vedaeh only sounded a little surprised.
‘They have always been here, Vedaeh,’ Sicarius replied. ‘And they need the same thing we do.’
‘The power source,’ said Daceus. ‘Guilliman’s blood… and we handed it to them when we slaughtered the greenskins.’
‘Not them, him,’ said Vedaeh. ‘The vizier. Nehebkau.’
Sicarius got to his feet. He turned to Vedaeh. ‘Fennion is staying. He can barely walk, let alone fight. His presence should be enough to keep you safe.’
‘I’m not worried about that. We can trust Scarfel and I have Reda and Gerrant.’
‘Regardless. Watch him. Watch them.’ He nodded to the crowds, who had begun to disperse. ‘Vandius is near death, and I cannot–’
She rested her hand on his arm. ‘I will keep vigil over them, Cato. You have to stop him.’
Sicarius held her gaze for a few moments, then he turned and headed for the ship. He had no doubt where Nehebkau was headed.
THIS FALSE FLESH
Nehebkau faced the mouth of the gorge.
Corpses littered the ground. A few of the orks had survived, but the vizier despatched any who stirred close by as he walked calmly through the carnage.
The device was ahead. He could detect it. It was crude but it would serve. He would make it serve. To wake them. To save them.
A wall of rubble from where one side of the gorge had collapsed impeded his path. From within his robes, he brandished a small amulet. A half-turn of the compass-like device and the rubble fragmented as the rigours of rapidly accelerated entropy transformed it into dust. Without the lych-spire to augment its power, this was about all he could accomplish. Nehebkau passed through the cloud, unblinking, not breathing. He did not even feel the abrasion of gritty particulate against his exposed skin. Like everything on Agun, his form was a simulacra, an idea of flesh. In truth, he longed for it, as so many of his kind did. Not so much that his mind had broken, like some of his less fortunate kin, but enough that wearing this false flesh was a form of torture for him. He bore it. It had been convenient in its way.
The homo sapiens had accepted him as a stranger from a far-off land, a native of their world. It had fit with the narrative Nehebkau had provided. Reduce any society to a more primitive state and they will more readily believe what is fed to them by a more advanced mind. First creating and then maintaining this illusion had required a combination of hyper-advanced chronomantic manipulation on a vast scale and subtle mental alteration. The natives had to believe their culture was a primitive one.
The orkoid had presented a problem. Native to the world, they, like the Imperial colonisers, had been reduced to a feral state but had mistaken the device for some monument to their deities. They had congregated around it to worship in great numbers, far greater than Nehebkau could overcome alone. He had no army as such, not one that would be effective against such feral brutes. Here, his plan had momentarily stalled. When reduced to their baser states, technologically speaking, the homo sapiens had a distinct disadvantage against the orks. As their numbers dwindled and the orks’ increased, the humans became prey and spent their military strength, such as it was, in a few short months. Extinction had been imminent, and Nehebkau had been considering how he might present himself as some form of prophet to the orks when a ship had fallen from the sky and everything had changed.
At first, he had observed the newcomers, as he had done in the beginning when the colonists had first arrived. They had brought ships in abundance, so many that they darkened the sun. The air grew clogged with their fumes, and as the humans disgorged they hurried back and forth like diligent ants. Larger vessels brought structures, walls and the shells of domiciles, prefabricated and then machined together. It was noisy and ugly. Towering drilling rigs were erected, along with processors and silos. The ships departed, leaving the colonists to their fate. They had weapons, soldiers, workers. A nascent society had begun to coalesce.
Its deterioration was slow. Machines they had relied upon ceased to function, their smaller parts rusted and beyond repair. Their signalling equipment broke down, strangely dysfunctional to the point where they simply stopped using it. No help would reach them. Metals started to corrode, weapons stopped working. It was around this time that the orkoid happened upon the settlement. Skirmishes at first, fended off with enough force. But the orks came back with greater numbers. Larger battles took place. By now several years had passed, and the humans had taken to quarrying stone and forging swords. They had horses already and bred more. A societal shift had begun, brought about by a sudden and inexplicable regression of materials and crucial scientific knowledge.
The further the humans regressed, the stronger the orks became. The balance tipped.
All of this Nehebkau observed as he manipulated time itself. The world had already been a long-forgotten backwater. It was harsh and unforgiving, a wild place that would give way to the rise of his people. Except they would not rise. Could not. Something had gone wrong. Nehebkau had realised it the instant of waking. They had slept too long. Only a jolt of considerable raw power could end the aeons-sleep.
And so Nehebkau’s path had led him to this moment.
None of what came before mattered now. He had reached the device, an atomic fusion core. A swarm of lesser constructs, canoptek scarabs, had already colonised it at Nehebkau’s unspoken imperative, stripping back the outer casing and spinning glistening mono-filament wires that would carry the energy reserve and redistribute it to the revivification node buried half a mile beneath the surface.
A jolt of considerable raw power.
Scurrying down the flanks of the device, the scarabs reached the earth and began to burrow, dragging the wires with them like arachnids pulling on gossamer threads.
A sound rippled the air, far off but closing. They were coming. Nehebkau looked off into the distance at the fallen lych-spire and lamented its destruction. The chronomantic effects would slowly unravel. It would not matter. It was too late to prevent what came next. He had worked too hard to see it fail. His was a lesser dynasty, but he would see it rise again. The sleepers would wake.
THE SLEEPER WAKES
The gunship’s airframe creaked ominously against the wind as it whistled through bent sheaths of ablative armour and dozens of fissures in the hull. They were running on fumes too, and a starved rattle emanated from the barren fuel tanks.
Up front, in the cockpit, Haephestus tried to keep them airborne. Sicarius sat with Daceus and Vorolanus in the forward hold, heads bowed, making their silent oaths. The ship’s missiles were spent and the ammunition for the heavy bolters was long gone. No grenades remained either. Sicarius had his Tempest Blade and they each carried a gladius and combat knife. It felt woefully inadequate for what they might face below.
‘Brothers…’ Sicarius’ voice stirred the others from their silent meditations.
Daceus and Vorolanus looked up.
‘He is injured,’ said Sicarius, ‘and he’s alone.’
‘For now,’ said Daceus.
‘For now. Without the vizier, whatever sleeps beneath the earth cannot be woken. We kill him and it’s over, but it must be done quickly. I believe in the martial supremacy of our Chapter but we will not prevail against an army.’
‘And how do we kill him, captain?’ asked Vorolanus. He’d had a dark expression on his face ever since the battle at the gorge and Fennion’s injury. Sicarius knew that look. He felt responsible. ‘The necrons have a tendency not to stay dead.’
‘I think he’s more vulnerable than he wants us to believe. He needs that power core but it’s about more than waking the tomb.’
‘He can’t self-repair,’ said Daceus.
Sicarius nodded. ‘One blow will end it, but we’ll need to get in close.’
/> Haephestus’ voice interrupted, emanating from up front. ‘Approaching the gorge,’ he said, loud enough to be heard over the protesting engines. The door was open and they could see the rugged highlands through the prow’s cracked armourglass.
Sicarius made his way to the cockpit, steadying himself with the overhead handrails. The gorge was as they had left it. Ork dead lay strewn all about, a few still clawing through the blood and debris, tenaciously refusing to expire. The gunship banked gently as the power eased off and they dipped.
‘Take us in,’ said Sicarius, staring at the rough flanks of the canyon as they flew past. Dust and grit whirled in the gunship’s wake, tiny vortices spilling outwards as if clearing a path. It led all the way to the power core.
It had been altered from when they had first seen it. Parts of the casing had been stripped away as if corroded by acid, and from these points taut threads of crystalline wire had been fed into the earth. A host of diminutive beetle-like creatures scurried over the surface of the power core, repairing, rerouting and carrying the crystalline thread.
‘It’s already begun,’ said Sicarius. ‘Haephestus, get us down now.’
Through the swirling dust, a robed figure emerged. He limped, leaning on his staff, and stopped partway down the gorge with the power core in the distance behind him. A glint of light caught the edge of the staff, a spark that presaged a blaze.
Sicarius turned and yelled into the hold. ‘Brace!’
Haephestus hauled on the control stick but the ship was sluggish and nearly out of fuel. The glacis filled with light, as bright and hot as magnesium. A beam sheared through the cockpit, cutting through the metal hull. It separated the prow and most of the hold, slicing off a wing and sending both into a tumbling downward spiral.
Sicarius roared, grasping the overhead rail as his feet left the deck. Wind scythed through the remnants of the ship, cutting like ice shards and filling his ears with its howling. He gave a glance to his brothers as the hold spun away from him and was lost from view. Haephestus pulled at the control stick but any agency he once possessed had disappeared with the rear section of the ship.
They struck the ground hard, the prow taking most of the impact and crumpling as it ploughed into the earth. The armourglass shattered, rupturing explosively. Haephestus disappeared, crushed by the violently capitulating nose cone as it first flattened then caved and swallowed him behind a tide of twisted metal.
Pain bludgeoned Sicarius’ back as he hit the ceiling. The deck hit him like a clenched fist, smashing his body before he was yanked up again and slammed into the wall. He spun, trying to grab hold of something, trying to see. He needed an anchor. He saw light then felt shattered armourglass rip at his skin and cloak as he was thrown right out of the ship. For a few seconds he felt weightless, cool air whipping his face, and then he came down hard, his body caroming wildly like a ricochet before he slewed to a halt.
Hot agony seared every nerve and his mouth was filled with the taste of hot copper. He couldn’t rest. Not yet. He hurt, which meant he was still alive. Groggy, breathing hard, Sicarius lurched to his feet. He still had his sword, and thanked Guilliman for that as he drew it from the scabbard. There was blood on his face, and the pain knifing down his left side felt like burning promethium. He staggered, sighting the vizier just ahead. The ship was wrecked and Haephestus either trapped or dead, but he couldn’t do anything about that right now.
His vision clearing, he saw the hold lying in front of him and could only conclude that when the ship had been shorn in half it had spun, momentum flinging the disparate parts in opposite directions. The hold looked battered, dented but otherwise intact. The rear hatch flew out, kicked off its broken hinges. Daceus and Vorolanus stumbled out. Raggedly, they drew their swords as Nehebkau stepped before them. His bulk was imposing. Sicarius was running.
Nehebkau raised his staff.
Thunder pealed through the gorge, sound and pressure collapsing into each other, so loud and violent that Sicarius staggered. The air immediately thickened and felt heavy as a sense of extreme inertia imposed itself upon him. The drifting dust caught shafts of murky light, turning, colliding and whirling in concentric harmony, so slowly that Sicarius could perceive every grain. Sound deadened, so dense that every languid heartbeat tolled like an artillery shell.
The light around the staff faded, not the eye-searing white magnesium that had cleaved the ship in apart, but a cooling blue radiance that stilled the air. Daceus and Vorolanus laboured in its afterglow, moving only fractionally so that they appeared almost statuesque. Only their eyes gave away the lie, full of silent urging and desperation.
The stillness broke. The clamour of the gorge returned as sudden as a gunshot, but Daceus and Vorolanus were still ensnared and Sicarius realised they must have borne the brunt of whatever weapon had been used against them. He saw Nehebkau, just a few feet before him, and leapt, blade surging with the storm, sweeping out his arm for a killing stroke.
Nehebkau turned aside a moment before the blade would strike and Sicarius found his sword buried in the ground and not the vizier’s skull. He pulled it loose, whipping the blade around for another blow when something flickered in his peripheral vision and he heard a solitary click.
Darkness engulfed him, so suddenly he lost all sense of place and time. He drifted, like a ship without a sail on strange tides. For the briefest moment he was falling. Then he blinked and the earth beneath him grew solid again, but he was surrounded by a grey mist.
‘Face me!’ he bellowed, but his voice was flat and echoless. He dragged furrows in the mist with his armoured fingers that slowly filled again, like resin seeping back into a mould. This was not the gorge, but a sense of familiarity stole over him nonetheless.
He smelled refineries, oil, and felt the heat of smelting metals.
Something loomed in the fog. A hulking shape imposed itself upon his grey, featureless world. An axe blade carved the mist like jelly, revealing more grey behind it and the massive figure of an ork.
Sicarius parried the axe. A second, brutal blow sent him reeling and forced him onto the back foot. The ork attacked swiftly, savagely, and gave him no chance to gather his bearings. Half-blinded by the mist, mind reeling, Sicarius fought by instinct. He lashed out, severing the ork’s wrist. It squealed, before he impaled it on the Tempest Blade. Only then, as it bled onto the ground, its porcine eyes meeting his, did Sicarius truly see it.
‘Zanzag…’
The ork warlord had died at Black Reach years ago. It had died by his hand. He looked up and beheld a hive city, Ghospora, ablaze, smoke curling into the air as distant figures fought across every level.
A figure ran through the fog, glimpsed in his peripheral vision and Sicarius followed it, anticipating another attack. It wasn’t an enemy. It was an old comrade, Numitor. He turned to Sicarius, urging him onwards.
‘With me, brother-sergeant!’
The grey bled back over Ghospora Hive but revealed a different scene in its wake, a sprawling battlefield of gunships and troops hurtling through the air on spits of flame. Assault Marines fighting the T’au Empire. This was Damocles. Before Black Reach. But the vista felt wrong, hazy, like watching through the smeared glass at the bottom of a bottle. Sicarius tried to follow, triggering his own jump pack just as he had back then, but the grey swept back in like a tide and swallowed him.
Ice rimed his fingers and his own breath ghosted from his mouth in steamy plumes. Promethium gave the air an actinic scent, and as he breathed it in Sicarius felt a chill enter his body that had nothing to do with the cold. The grey became sleet, then snow, then an ice blizzard.
Sicarius staggered through it, shielding his face until he saw two emerald eyes piercing the storm ahead. Old wounds flared anew, forcing a grimace to his lips as he faced the creature that had once nearly killed him on Damnos.
The Undying.
The necron towered over Sicarius, a metallic overlord wielding a shimmering war scythe in its cold, skeletal hands.
The energy blade crackled as it vaporised the ice, the necron’s rictus grin promising death as it raised the weapon…
Sicarius brought up his sword to counter but the blades never met.
The Undying had gone, taken by the mist, and in its place a raging elemental storm. Damnos again, but later, over twenty years later. The unleashed fury of the C’tan shard roiled overhead, the sliver of a star god. Sicarius felt himself reach for the vortex grenade just as he had done before, mimicking the moment, hurling the device…
The grey mist swept in again, smothering the C’tan and hurling Sicarius through a river of broken history.
Holding aloft the banner at Ghospora Hive… Fighting side by side with Numitor… The cold ice of Damnos as he lay dying… Leading his warriors on Bael, their helmets marked with red… Alone and injured on a dying world as the tyranids closed in…
On and on it went like a fractured mirror, each shard a different piece of history, each piece fragmenting again into further shards. Dozens of kaleidoscopic moments, rising and collapsing in an endless procession of disjointed memories. Some of it he didn’t even recognise, and wondered if it was some genetic recollection reawakened from one of his forebears.
He felt himself slipping, as though sand was giving way beneath his feet, falling deeper and deeper. He tried to focus, to remember where and when he was. Agun. The Emperor’s Will. Gaius and Elianu, Pillium, the names of the dead went on. They could not die for nothing. He tightened his grip around the Tempest Blade’s haft, searching the darkness, ignoring the slivers of time, and found it. An emerald gaze that pierced the gloom, watching him from his chamber, from the lifter, through the mists of Agun. The two eyes became one blazing orb.
Nehebkau.
Sicarius lunged and as the sword pierced flesh, pierced metal, the darkness lifted.
Nehebkau was on fire, lit by the Tempest Blade’s disruption field. Like old parchment put to a flame, the skin and cloth and false trappings burned to nothing and revealed what was beneath.