by C Z Dunn
‘Prepare the ritual. I will inform Lord Abaddon of our success and apprise him of our next objective,’ said Corpulax.
At a signal from the sorcerer, a prisoner was brought before Corpulax and thrust unceremoniously to his knees. Whereas the sacrificial Catachans had been prime specimens, this one – a young captain of the 183rd – was bedraggled, his face and limbs had bloated to unnatural proportions and had a jaundiced tone to them. Pus wept from his tear ducts and nostrils, mingling with the viscous sweat that coated his flesh.
‘Please…’ he rasped through lungs full of noxious fluid.
Corpulax leant forward and gently placed the forefinger of his skeletal hand to the Catachan’s mouth. The captain’s lips and tongue desiccated the instant they were touched, the dead flesh dropping to the floor and forming an ash-like mound at the Plague Marine’s feet.
‘Hush,’ Corpulax said to the man who was tentatively touching his lower jaw, not sure of what had just happened. ‘We need your silence for this.’
Almost on cue, the cabal struck up their chant again, this time more rhythmically, in a harder, more guttural language than the one used to break the seal. The kneeling Catachan’s flesh started to writhe as if things were moving around it sub-dermally, like rats or mice had got beneath the skin and were scurrying about inside him.
When it looked like the flesh was about to tear, the chanting stopped and Corpulax uttered a single word that turned the Catachan inside out.
Lungs and other internal organs burst forth from a mouth that was stretched impossibly wide followed by muscle, sinew and other, less identifiable parts of the human anatomy. As the pile of innards spilled onto the rock floor they took on new form, twisting and manipulating, tearing and reshaping. Thigh bone flattened and expanded until it resembled a spiked pauldron; deltoids separated to create the likeness of a power claw; wrist tendons rotated around each other to form a topknot.
When the simulacrum of Abaddon was complete, it spoke to Corpulax through a mouth made of repurposed appendix. ‘Is the seal broken, Plague Lord, or is this yet another one of your requests for me to send you more warlocks you can burn out?’ The rendering of Abaddon’s body had been appropriated from somebody else’s, but the voice was most definitely his own.
‘It is broken, my master.’ Although he was not actually in the presence of the Warmaster, Corpulax still took to one knee out of deference. ‘And I have yet more good news. Our agents believe they have located the final seal.’
‘If your information is accurate, the Black Legion themselves will be at your disposal to ensure it is broken.’
‘It is not as simple as that, lord. There are… complications.’
The flesh-Abaddon scowled, cheeks of calf muscle tensing. ‘Several thousand of the galaxy’s finest warriors should be enough to resolve any complication. My warriors have spent weeks scouring the surface of this planet for the likely locations of the seals. I shall give them the purpose they were bred for.’
‘My lord, the final seal is located directly below the delver-stronghold at Olympax.’
‘Where the savages have established their new base? We would have eliminated them already if we hadn’t been scouring the jungle for weeks. Olympax will burn, I will have their commander’s head upon a stake and the final seal will be opened. Then my hunt can begin in earnest and you can turn your attention to opening the Emerald Cave.’
‘With all due respect, Lord Abaddon,’ Corpulax lied, ‘the Olympax stronghold and the surrounding mountains are the most defensible location on the planet. The slopes approaching it are sheer and slow going. Even an airborne assault would be catastrophic as the bulk of their anti-aircraft weapons and flyers survived the initial assault.’
‘And an orbital strike is out of the question as that risks destroying the seal before it can be opened.’ Abaddon snorted. ‘Is that why you contacted me, Plague Lord? To tell me that our only option is a risky suicide mission that may result in failure because an Imperial Guard regiment had the blind fortune to base themselves right on top of our objective?’
‘There is another option. One that is less direct but offers us our greatest chance of success.’
‘Subterfuge? I thought that was the preserve of our Tzeentchian brethren?’
‘I am nothing if not pragmatic, lord. I believe I can get a cell into the Olympax stronghold and break the seal from within without interference from Imperial forces. It may take us longer to achieve but with the final seal broken, the cache will open and our allies will make short work of the cowering Catachans.’
The Abaddon-thing nodded in approval. ‘I hope you are right, Plague Lord, because if you aren’t and our mission on Pythos fails I will hunt you until the ends of eternity and personally flay your soul.’ His final utterance complete, Abaddon remotely broke the spell and the simulacrum collapsed into a wet heap of offal.
Corpulax turned to the throng of cultists and sorcerers who had stood witness to his communion and addressed one in particular.
‘Have your cell ready to move out within the hour,’ Corpulax said. He reached down to his hip with his gauntleted hand and removed a vial of dark liquid from a pouch at his belt. He offered it to the robed cultist who accepted it with a feminine hand. ‘You know what this is and you know when to use it. Do not fail me like your master did.’
The robed figure pulled back her hood to reveal the blonde stubble of freshly shaved hair. ‘Our success is assured,’ she said, carefully placing the vial into the leather satchel hanging over her shoulder.
913959.M41 / Hangar Level, Imperial Command Centre. Olympax Mountains, Pythos
It was the sound of the sputtering Valkyrie engine in the distance that drew Major Eckhardt Thorne’s attention from the other flyers undergoing repairs in the hangar. Field engineers put down their spanners and blowtorches and turned their heads toward the vast opening in the mountainside that allowed the Imperial aircraft easy access.
A trail of thick black smoke denoted the crazed route through the sky the Valkyrie had taken as the pilot struggled to keep it in the air with only one working engine. The craft jinked uneasily as it approached the Imperial base.
‘Who’s piloting that thing?’ Thorne asked a bearded officer who had stopped whatever it was he had been doing to watch the stricken flyer. Many of the other Catachans in the hangar also sported substantial facial hair, the niceties of personal grooming set aside while at war.
‘I don’t know, sir.’ The officer replied. ‘All of our birds are accounted for.’
Thorne stroked his own thick stubble and furrowed his brow. ‘The most recent contact we had from the colonel had them several hours flying away from Olympax. Even with a light load, an advance scout wouldn’t have made it back this quickly.’ For the past few weeks Strike and the bulk of the Olympax contingent had been defending Khan’s Hold from an enemy assault and, though the counter-attack had been a success, the colonel had stayed on there for some time afterwards, wary of a second attack wave and to mop up small guerrilla bands of cultists in the surrounding jungle.
‘It could be an enemy trick. Shall we shoot it down?’ the officer suggested.
Thorne thought for a moment. The noise of the malfunctioning engine was louder now and the Valkyrie would be attempting its landing within seconds. If this was some underhand ploy by the invaders, he did not have long to make the call.
‘Stand down,’ Thorne said at the last possible moment. ‘Those markings on its hull are Devil’s Brigade who were based at Hesodikas. We lost contact with them weeks ago. But, just in case…’ He drew his laspistol and checked how much charge was left in its cell.
The screaming of the Valkyrie became a high-pitched whine as the pilot struggled to find the altitude to get his craft through the hangar opening. Buffeted by crosswinds it tossed from side to side, coming close to smashing against the mountainside more than once.
‘He’s not going to make it… He’s not going to make it…’ the officer beside Thorne muttered.
All around the hangar, money started changing hands as the Catachans began to wager on the success or failure of the Valkyrie’s landing.
With metres to spare, the pilot caught an updraught and the Valkyrie popped up into the view of those assembled in the hangar. The dark humour gave way to panic as it became apparent to everyone that the flyer wasn’t going to come to a fiery end on the slopes of Mount Olympax but was instead going to crash, possibly quite spectacularly, right among them.
The sound of scraping metal rang out around the chamber as the pilot barely made it over the lip of the hangar entrance and sheared off the undercarriage. Sparks trailing in its wake, the Valkyrie skidded along the hangar floor forcing Catachans to dive out of its way. The further into the hangar it slid, the more its momentum was arrested and, after bouncing off two berthed flyers, causing only minor damage, it came to a halt scant metres from the back wall.
Nothing happened for what seemed like an age until, just as prone Catachans started raising themselves from the floor now that the threat of explosion had passed, the rear hatch of the Valkyrie opened with a hydraulic hiss. Obscured by the smoke still pluming from the ravaged engine, several figures descended the ramp.
Thorne raised his pistol in their direction. ‘Stop right there. Name and rank. Now.’
The smoke parted revealing five figures all dressed in identical fatigues and vests, blood red bandanas tied tightly around their scalps. A woman, the only one among the group, took a step forwards. Thorne lifted the pistol so that he was looking straight down the barrel at her head.
‘I said stop.’ Others in the hangar had drawn weapons and they too were trained on the newcomers. ‘Give me your name and rank now.’
‘Captain Troy. Devil’s Brigade,’ the woman said matter of factly. ‘We’re all that’s left of the garrison at Hesodikas.’
Thorne looked her up and down, pistol still aimed at her head. On the surface she looked like a Catachan but there was something about the woman that didn’t ring true. Her hair was too freshly shorn where it was visible at the base of her skull and her fingernails were clean. He’d also never heard of a Captain Troy, but in a regiment the size of the 183rd it was impossible to keep track of, or know the identity of, every soldier.
‘Devil’s Brigade you say?’ Thorne took a few steps closer to her, never lowering his weapon. ‘Hesodikas sounds tough if you were the only ones to walk away. Still, I bet it was nothing compared to the Battle of Caol Ila.’
The woman looked him squarely in the eyes. ‘I don’t know what you mean, major. Devil’s Brigade didn’t fight at Caol Ila. We were engaged deep behind enemy lines at Mortlach at the time.’
Thorne grinned and lowered his laspistol. The other weapons pointed at the Hesodikas did likewise. Captain Troy had not only passed his little test, she had passed it with distinction.
‘Can’t be too careful, captain.’ Thorne reholstered his weapon. ‘Hesodikas is gone you say?’
‘It fell days ago. Total annihilation,’ she said, fingers scratching underneath her bandana. ‘Those of us that were left stayed behind to harry the enemy but when our numbers got so few that we were ineffective, I decided it was time for us to get out. We’re more use here as part of the larger resistance effort.’
‘Glad to have you, captain. Mulgrew?’ he called to the bearded officer. ‘Take Captain Troy and her men to Major Rayston and have him redeploy them.’
The woman saluted lazily. Thorne returned it in kind. Mulgrew was about to lead the five reinforcements out of the hangar when Thorne spoke again.
‘And Mulgrew?’
‘Yes, sir. What it is it?’
‘Have that Valkyrie stripped down and used for spares when you get back,’ Thorne said, gesturing with his thumb to the wreck at the back of the hangar.
Mulgrew nodded and continued on his way, Troy and her men in tow.
In a secluded corner of the hangar, somebody else had stopped their repair work to view the spectacle of the crashing Valkyrie and the subsequent entrance of the new arrivals. However, unlike Thorne, they knew that Captain Troy and her men were not what they claimed to be.
Removing his welding mask, K’Cee jumped down from the hull of the Hellhammer and loped off to find Tzula.
‘Sounds like Hesodikas was a bit of bad business,’ Mulgrew said as he led Troy and her men through the narrow manmade caverns of Olympax.
Before the invasion of Pythos, Olympax had been one of the main delver-strongholds on the planet, its high, easily defended location making it a haven from the predation of the jungle’s inhabitants. Where once it had been home to the bulk of the world’s crystal production, now it played temporary home to the bulk of its defenders.
‘It was a bloodbath,’ the woman in the captain’s uniform replied. ‘Not a single soul got out of there alive.’
‘Except for you five of course, sir,’ Mulgrew added cheerfully.
‘No. Not even we survived. I mean, we did, obviously, but the former owners of these filthy rags are as dead as you.’ She drew the stolen blade from her thigh and jabbed it hard into Mulgrew’s throat before he could react. The Catachan sank to his knees, hands clamped around his neck vainly trying to stem the flow of arterial blood. ‘Nobody survived. Those I didn’t kill myself, I watched die. Like Troy here.’ She pulled at the chain around her neck to reveal a set of dog tags from beneath her vest. ‘It took him an age to die under the ministrations of the interrogator acolytes of the Davinicus Lycae, but before he breathed his last, he told us all that we needed to know to pass ourselves off as members of your regiment.’
She rotated the Catachan fang in her hand so that the blade pointed towards the ground and stabbed down hard, driving it through Mulgrew’s temple. Then she withdrew it with a wet pop and, removing the red bandana from her head, wiped the knife clean before scabbarding it.
Throwing the bloodied rag to the ground next to the corpse of the Catachan officer, Tryphena Brandd led her infiltration team deeper into the stronghold.
913959.M41 / East Entrance, Imperial Command Centre. Olympax Mountains, Pythos
‘Be ready to head out again at first light,’ Tzula Digriiz ordered as she swung her legs from the saddle and dismounted the arbosaur. ‘Just because the enemy have left us alone until now, doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way forever.’
She received nods from the half a dozen Catachans who’d accompanied her on patrol as they stretched and twisted, trying to work out the knots of hours in the saddle. Though not a Catachan herself, Tzula had proven a capable tutor when it came to taming and riding the beasts, and those under her command had grudgingly accepted her once she had proven her worth.
Handing the reins of her mount to one of the Catachans who would lead the beast away to the pens, she removed her bandana and wiped sweat from her forehead. With her bodyglove ruined in the battle for Atika, she had taken to dressing in a similar fashion to the death worlders, and her fatigues and green vest matched those of the 183rd perfectly. What she didn’t copy, for fear of causing offence, was the red bandanas they wore, instead choosing a black square of cloth that she wore wrapped like a headband. Regardless, she’d still look like a Catachan to the enemy rather than a servant of the Ordos which is precisely the way she wanted it if they were, as she suspected, hunting for the knife.
She was about to remove the rest of her outfit and hit the makeshift showers just inside the cave mouth of the east entrance when K’Cee emerged from out of the base. He looked excited or agitated, and bounded over to Tzula before grabbing her arm and tugging on it.
‘What is it, K’Cee? Have you finished working on Strike’s tank and want to show me?’ She gripped the bottom of her vest in preparation to pull it off over her head. ‘Give me a while to shower and I’ll be right with you.’
K’Cee shook his head vigorously, his ample cheeks flapping as he did so. He tugged on Tzula’s arm again.
She stopped trying to undress and began to take him seriously. ‘I don’t understand.’
> The jokaero released his tight grip on her arm and placed one hand on each of his ears. He pulled them so that they stuck out and blew hard with his mouth closed to inflate his cheeks. With his impersonation finished, he jabbed out a finger and pointed upwards into the base.
Suddenly understanding, Tzula drew her plasma pistol. ‘Show me. Now,’ she said, following the diminutive xenos back into the caves of Olympax.
Chapter Five
913959.M41 / The Tunnel System, Imperial Command Centre. Olympax Mountains, Pythos
Tzula didn’t need to know the route Brandd was taking as the trail of bodies left at her passing told her which direction to head. A map of mortality pointing ever deeper into Olympax.
Just as Strike had found his way through the warren of tunnels to the peak of the delver-stronghold, Brandd was heading in the opposite direction. In pursuit of what goal, Tzula could only speculate but she had a pretty good idea what it was the traitor sought: the seals. One had been opened for certain but how many others still remained closed? How many seals were there to begin with? Tzula came to the sudden realisation that for all her Inquisitorial training, for all her years of experience in service to the Ordo and as a thief before that, she was utterly helpless in all this. A mere bystander to the events that were unfolding around her on Pythos. That would all change if Liall had succeeded in getting his second message out. Liall. Another mark on Brandd’s tally sheet as far as Tzula was concerned.
‘More bodies, sir,’ one of the Catachans said, illuminating the roughly hewn steps with the lume strip taped to the side of his lasrifle. Once K’Cee had shown Tzula where Brandd had crash-landed in the Valkyrie and, between her and Thorne, managed to piece things together, the major had assigned her a squad to pursue the traitor.
Tzula counted three corpses in all, each one lying face down with multiple stab wounds to their backs and shoulders. Their weapons were still slung over their shoulders and no scorch marks blackened the coarse stone walls. With vox-communication impossible in the confines of the base’s tunnels, Thorne had been unable to broadcast a warning that there were traitors in their midst.