by C Z Dunn
As if caught in amber, the three figures in the hut listened as the echoes grew fainter as the patrol moved further away. When all sound had ceased carrying, Epimetheus lowered his hand.
‘Now we go,’ he said.
Their progress was methodical as they passed through the dark.
Weapons drawn, one of them would advance a couple of metres being careful not to trip over any rocks underfoot or unduly disturb the scree before halting and allowing the next in line to move up alongside them, followed by the next. The last to move up would be the first to move on and this pattern was repeated until they reached their destination.
The next bolthole Epimetheus had selected for them was only fifty metres from the miners’ hut, but at this rate of movement they would barely make it before the patrol doubled back on itself and came this way again. Better to get there slowly rather than give their presence away.
Shira shivered involuntarily. The modifications she had made to her flight suit had been necessary in the jungle, tolerable in the hive city but, deep below ground level, she regretted the moment she had gone at it with Tzula’s combat knife. At least the cold was keeping her alert. Or so she thought.
Creeping up on the spot where Epimetheus and Tzula already were, she continued forward several paces, eyes down so that her dark-adjusted vision could pick out any obstacles. Planting her front foot down, the toe cap of her boot became visible to her. Too late she realised that she had stepped into a beam of light. Snapping her head upwards she was dazzled by the light from a torch, the glare so intense that she could not make out who, or what, was carrying it. She would have bet a month’s booze rations it was a Traitor Marine.
+Stay perfectly still and whatever you do, do not discharge your weapon.+ Epimetheus’s voice invading her head caused Shira to stifle a gasp, instead coming out as a tiny squeak. +Control your breathing and even if he looks directly at you, do not move, do not turn away.+
Shira did not know what was frightening her the most: the no doubt heavily armed enemy moving towards her or Epimetheus speaking directly into her mind. The wielder of the light and the corrupted boltgun it was attached to revealed itself as another Plague Marine, the beam stabbing like a spear through the darkness and pinning Shira in place. As he moved closer, Shira had to fight for mastery of her gag reflex as the smell emanating from the follower of the Plague God became so thick on the air she could taste it. Flies buzzed around him like a pestilent cloud and as he drew alongside, oblivious to her presence, several of them landed on Shira and crawled over her flesh. The Plague Marine moved past her and Shira prepared herself for the inevitable shoot out when he spotted her two companions higher up the tunnel.
+Stay still. Don’t move until I say you can.+
Shira had no idea how long she stood immobile in that passage. The clank of armour soon diminished in the distance but it was unbearable minutes before Epimetheus spoke to her again. This time he used his voice.
‘All clear.’
Shira gave a long exhale, partly out of relief and partly out of holding her breath for so long. She turned to her companions who were cautiously picking their way over to her, dark shapes camouflaged against the gloom. Epimetheus lifted a hand up in front of him and Shira could see that it was shining with the faintest blue glow, delineating his features.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered. There was cold steam rising from the Space Marine’s chiselled cheeks and dark fluid trickled from one of his nostrils. ‘You have a–’ Shira said.
Epimetheus swept his hand up to his top lip, catching the drop of blood before it could hit the ground. ‘Thank you, Shira,’ he said before continuing down the tunnel and waiting for her and Tzula to follow him.
808960.M41 / The Underhive. Atika, Pythos
Tzula had lost all track of time during the days they’d spent below ground. Up in the hive it had been possible to distinguish between night and day cycles, sunlight bleeding in through cracks in the structure where it had been damaged during the initial assault. Now she couldn’t tell whether it was morning or night, afternoon or evening. She couldn’t even work out the date.
Food and water had been easier to find up there too. Abandoned hab blocks and communal eating areas had offered up supplies, most of it still edible, and Tzula and Shira had been able to refill their packs several times over. Water, while not in abundance in the deserted hive, was still available unlike down in the mines where they had to rely on coming across seams that had worked their way down from the surface. It didn’t inspire confidence in her that the water passed through ground that was no longer free of the taint of Chaos, but the alternative to drinking it was to die of dehydration. Each time she woke, she would find herself irrationally checking her arms and legs for scales and from time to time would run her fingers across her scalp checking for horns and protrusions before she realised she was doing it.
Fortunately for her and Shira, Epimetheus had no such base needs, other than a drink of water that by her, possibly flawed, estimation he took every four days or so. He was a Space Marine who, if he was to be believed (and Tzula had no reason not to believe him), had spent ten millennia standing sentinel over the final seal of a gateway into the warp. The thought of that made her astonished that he actually needed air to breathe, let alone an infrequent drink of water.
‘Something’s happening down there,’ the Grey Knight said. They were beyond the mines now and into a new section of tunnels that plague zombie slaves still worked on with crude tools, illuminated by the flickering light of braziers and firebaskets. High above the cavern floor, at the lip of a tunnel system that corkscrewed hundreds of metres down into the bedrock, the three of them could hear the echo of a thousand and more pickaxes tapping away, widening the tunnel that was already large enough to move a small Titan through. The slaves worked unstintingly. Tzula had been up there for hours and in that time not a single one had missed a stroke, carving out rock at a pace to rival industrial-scale mining drills.
She noticed the activity that Epimetheus had referred to. A small band of figures had entered from a side chamber and were awaiting a squad of Plague Marines approaching from the opposite direction, a struggling human prisoner shackled between them. A horde of plague zombies staggered behind them, many gripping pickaxes and other tools. Fresh slaves to bolster the mining effort. A grim smile cracked Tzula’s features when she realised who was at the head of the first group.
‘Corpulax,’ she whispered venomously.
Shira gave Tzula a quizzical look.
‘He murdered my master and a very good friend,’ she said. ‘One of his agents was responsible for this too.’ She held up her replacement arm.
Shira nodded her understanding. ‘What are they doing?’ she asked.
The cries of the struggling prisoner grew louder, increasing to a volume that battled with the reverberation of tools around the vast underground cave. He pulled at his restraints but his protestations were ineffective. Pulled to the ground by his captors, his ruined face left a bloody smear across the rock floor as he was dragged the final distance to be brought before Corpulax. The smaller, robed individuals flanking him formed a circle around the prone, wailing man and struck up a chant. The sound was distant and faint but Shira clamped her hands over her ears to block out the blasphemous words. Bile rose in Tzula’s gorge but she did not turn away, despite knowing what was about to happen.
The incantation ceased and, with a tear of parting flesh and snapping bone, the captive unfurled and unfolded, reshaped like organic putty until he took on a new form. Shira turned her head away, looking towards Tzula with an uncomfortable look on her face.
‘What are they doing to him?’ Shira asked, swallowing dryly as she did so.
‘Communion,’ Epimetheus said. ‘It’s how the followers of the Plague God communicate over great distances. They create a flesh golem of who they want to speak to and converse with them directly without the need for an astropath or sorcerer to act as a medium.’
‘Who is Corpulax speaking to? Abaddon?’ asked Tzula.
‘I don’t know. Certainly Traitor Astartes of some ilk judging by the shape of the golem, but they are speaking too quietly for even my enhanced hearing to pick out their words above the noise of the tools.’
‘Can’t you use your psychic abilities to listen in?’ Shira suggested.
‘It’s not that simple. Those are sorcerers down there. Not powerful enough to register my presence but likely more than able to sense me if I start tapping into the warp.’
‘We have no way of hearing what they’re saying?’ Tzula asked.
‘Short of going down there and standing right next to them? No.’
Tzula was caught off-guard by Epimetheus’s response. It was the first time she had heard him exhibit sarcasm and she didn’t need his ability to read minds to know that he was frustrated. ‘So we just have to sit here and watch? Spend Emperor knows how many more weeks, lurking in the shadows,’ she said with equal irritation.
Epimetheus rounded on her, his previously infinite amount of patience finally having found their limit but aborted his retort. He stared over Tzula’s shoulder.
‘Where did Shira go?’
Shira crouched at the mouth of the side-tunnel waiting for the procession of plague zombies heading down the tunnel to pass her by. Once the back markers were in line with her, she popped up out of the darkened nook and took her place among their ranks, mimicking their vacant look and shambling gait. Her ragged outfit was covered in dried-on vomit, filth and burn marks, she hadn’t bathed in well over a month and her breath stank like promethium from where ketosis had set in from burning her own body fat for energy. She fitted right in.
Forcing her way to the centre of the mass of slaves, she snatched a pickaxe out of the hands of one of the zombies. He stopped briefly, those behind him having to change course like a rock splitting a stream. He looked down blankly at his hands, then at his fellow thralls passing him by before continuing on as if nothing had happened.
When they got close enough to the mine face, the mass broke apart, heading for gaps in the throng already at work. Shira attached herself to a group making for an unworked section barely a few metres from Corpulax and the flesh golem. She hoped it would be close enough to hear over the din of excavation.
She was almost in position when one of the sorcerers, a scrawny thing with filed teeth and mottled, almost-orange skin, turned and looked her dead in the eye.
‘She’s going to give us away,’ Epimetheus whispered. He and Tzula had looked on, powerless to stop the hot-headed pilot, as she had pilfered the axe and blended in with the press of bodies. For a while it had looked like her gamble was going to pay off but now one of Corpulax’s spellweavers had taken a very unhealthy interest in her. ‘I’m going to have to ware her.’
She had never experienced it herself but Tzula knew of the process. It was a form of possession practised by the most powerful psykers whereby a vessel, usually willing, would play host to their psyche for a period of time. The psyker would have complete control over the vessel’s body and would be able to see, hear and feel everything he or she could. It was not a safe process. Tzula had heard tales of those being worn never being able to regain their own consciousness leading to madness and even death. Those who survived the process unscathed were still altered, like they were no longer a whole person.
‘But if you use your gifts, you’ll give us away,’ Tzula said.
‘And if I don’t, that sorcerer is going to realise Shira isn’t what she seems. Those plague zombies are under the sway of another’s will. Their souls have been discarded, hollowed out so that their actions can be dictated by a higher power. If I ware her, her signature in the warp won’t register as her own and there’s a chance that sorcerer will assume she’s part of the horde. There’s no guarantee it will work but if I do nothing, she’ll be dead or captured within seconds. Us not long after.’
Tzula felt the temperature drop beside her, Epimetheus’s breath condensing as he prepared to hijack Shira’s body.
To her credit, Shira did not panic as those yellowed eyes bored into her. The sorcerer sniffed, like a feral predator catching the scent of blood on the wind but did not break from his chanting, now a low murmur. The others of his ilk seemed oblivious to their comrade’s concerns, eyes fixed on the transmogrified flesh whose form they were striving to maintain.
Shira could never remember what happened next, a six-minute gap in her life that eluded recall for the rest of her life. She was always aware of the presence of that absence but like all holes, it was impossible to grasp.
As all control of herself was stolen from her, the last memory she formed before waking up back on the overlook, Tzula mopping her brow with the hem of a filthy vest, was of Epimetheus speaking softly into her mind.
+This will all be over soon.+
The Davinicus Lycae cultist standing to his left was starting to distract Corpulax. Although he was maintaining the chant needed to keep the doppelganger in the form of Huron Blackheart, the sorcerer had turned away to stare at the plague zombie miners. One in particular was the focus of his attention and Corpulax was about to pause the communion to deal with him when the errant cultist returned his focus back to his appointed task, the sceptical aspect to his expression melting away.
‘The Warmaster trusts me, Plague Lord. Why is it that you do not share his faith?’ Huron said through lips that were not his own.
Corpulax emitted a moist chuckle. ‘The only faith I have is in Great Nurgleth, not in a pirate who switches his loyalty based on which direction the most favourable wind is blowing.’
‘Right now, my loyalty lies with Abaddon. I have already proven my worth to him in this campaign and continue to do so.’
‘Ah, yes. Of course. The cabal you have hidden among the Imperial fleet, sustaining the conditions for our daemonic allies to move freely on the surface of Pythos. Tell me, Blackheart, how did you manage to pull that off right under the enemy’s nose?’
‘Like you said, Plague Lord, I am a pirate. Capturing ships is a speciality of mine and a supply vessel is hardly going to arouse suspicions as long as it keeps supplying the fleet and the Imperial Guard regiments.’
‘That many psykers on board is bound to draw attention. The entire Dark Angels Librarius is here on Pythos and a Grey Knights strike cruiser lingers in orbit.’
‘Abaddon has called upon the services of my cabal because he knows of its power. More than keeping conditions ripe for the Neverborn they are masking their own presence, nestling the ship in a fold in the warp. The Imperial fleet is so large that nobody will notice it missing as long as the flow of rations is maintained.’
Reluctantly, Corpulax showed how impressed he was.
‘All I require now is the taint you promised to deliver,’ Huron continued. ‘I have holds full of food that awaits poisoning.’
‘The first batch is almost complete and will be with you in weeks. Production has been quicker than anticipated and I’ve already switched some of the slaves over to the mining effort.’
‘The Emerald Cave is still not open?’
‘You keep your end of the bargain, Blackheart, and by the time the fleet is wiped out the Cave will be open and its prisoner freed.’
‘For your sake I hope that is true, Plague Lord.’
‘And for your sake, I hope Lord Abaddon grants you a swift death when he realises it is his mantle you covet.’
The simulacrum sneered. ‘All things in time, Plague Lord. All things in time.’
The chanting of the cultists wound down, causing the flesh golem to fall apart, splashing to the floor of the cavern in a wet, bloody mess. The Plague Marines who had escorted the prisoner to Corpulax headed back in the direction from which they came, leaving a trio behind to keep watch on the plague zombie slaves. The Plague Lord, flanked by the robed cultists, returned to the side chamber, lingering on the threshold as the sorcerers walked past him. When the last one reached the doorway, the ochr
e-skinned cultist who had almost undone Shira, Corpulax placed his skeletal hand on the man’s shoulder, turning him to dust which fell slowly to the floor of the subterranean cavern.
Just as Epimetheus had seen and heard everything Shira had, so too had Tzula. The inquisitor already knew that the Space Marine possessed a prodigious amount of psychic talent, but being able to simultaneously ware somebody and establish a telepathic link with a second person placed him right at the top end of the spectrum. And although she would rather have not heard most of what she had, she could not help but feel uplifted.
Dark Angels. Grey Knights. Here on Pythos. Part of what she felt was naked relief that a liberation army had arrived, but the other part was that Liall’s sacrifice hadn’t been for nothing. She had seen so many good people die futile deaths in her service to the Golden Throne, lives violently snuffed out without achieving any of their potential or leaving a lasting mark. Liall’s victory may have been small, pyrrhic and unsung, but if it led to the reconquest of the planet and the knife being kept out of the Archenemy’s clutches, ultimately it would have been worth it.
None of that would matter if they couldn’t get Shira out of there.
The three Plague Marines prowled the periphery of the enthralled workforce, bloated fingers poised over the triggers of their corrupted bolters. Unstintingly, the plague zombies chipped away at the rockface, pickaxes rising and falling in a tireless rhythm, never venturing away from the small area in which they operated. The only slaves who did move were those who cleared the rubble away, piling it high off to the sides so that it didn’t hinder the miners. And that gave Tzula an idea.