Path of the Incubus

by Andy Chambers

  Arhra was known as the Father of Scorpions, and his disagreements with the other Phoenix Lords were said to be deep and vitriolic. The Phoenix Lords preached discipline and caution, a slow rebuilding around the preserved kernel of the eldar of the craftworlds. They foresaw that the heightened passions of war could destroy what was left of the eldar in the centuries that followed. Motley knew that Aspect Warriors learned to adopt a persona, a ‘war aspect’ that could insulate their souls from the carnage and prevent them developing a taste for it. As with so many other things, the craftworld eldar saw the allure of bloodletting and senseless violence as a gateway for Chaos to enter their hearts and complete their ruination. What Arhra believed was a secret known only to his followers, the incubi.

  ‘Morr, would you tell me more about Arhra?’ Motley ventured finally. ‘As we’re going to his shrine I feel I should know more about him. I’ve heard what the craftworlds have to say, but I suspect their version may be a little biased.’

  Morr snorted. ‘I’m sure they portray him only as a fallen paragon, another one of their lessons about the dangers of Chaos. Very well, I will tell you of Arhra as it is told to postulants at the shrine. You may judge the truth for yourself.’

  The causeway was slick with slime, its tilted slabs occasionally disappearing entirely into pools of flatulent mud. The lower-lying mists were thicker here. They hung across the path in moist tendrils, and made the trees appear to be flat, two-dimensional images like scenery on a stage. Morr’s voice was the only disturbance in the silent marsh as he paced along telling the story of Arhra.

  ‘After the great cataclysm of the Fall the eldar peoples were left scattered and leaderless. Debauchery and hedonism had eroded any form of discipline they had and left little knowledge of how to defend themselves. The eldar survivors were preyed upon by the slave races and driven from one place to another as they wavered on the verge of extinction. Finally a group of heroes arose who could stand against the enemies of the people. These were the Phoenix Lords the craftworlders speak of, some called them heroes that because they believed them to be reborn of the essence of their dead gods. Asurmen was the first but others quickly followed, including Arhra himself.

  ‘The heroes fought on behalf of the people, and they taught others to fight to protect themselves. Each hero gained a following of devotees committed to their particular style of combat: Asurmen’s warriors were fleet of foot and deadly in their aim, Baharroth’s hawks took wing and fought from above, Maugan Ra’s killers reaped souls from afar, while Arhra’s followers learned to fight with the true gift of fury.

  ‘Arhra taught his followers how to direct their fury with discipline, how to harness the power of their rage and strike out with it. Soon none could stand before them. The other heroes quarrelled with Arhra’s methods. They wished the people to learn to lay down and take up the role of warrior at need as if donning a mantle, they wished to abandon the peoples of Commorragh and fight only for the craftworlds. Arhra saw that the long fight against Chaos would require true devotion from all of the peoples, not weak compromise for the benefit of a few. He refused to accept the heroes’ ideals and went his own way.

  ‘Followers flocked to Arhra’s shrines and he tested them for their worth. The weak and corrupt he slew, he taught discipline and martial skill only to those possessed of sufficient fury to stand against him. Where Chaos threatened Arhra always stood against it. It is told that in his final battle Arhra stood alone and without respite through days and nights when the other heroes failed to come to his aid. At last Arhra was pierced through the heart by the dark light of Chaos. What returned to the shrine showed Arhra’s face yet burned with an unholy fire that drove Arhra’s students into terror and madness.

  ‘When all seemed lost the students heard their master’s voice from amid the flames. It bid them to marshal their fury and stand against him, that now was the ultimate test of their discipline. Such was their devotion that they obeyed despite their terror. They slew Arhra’s corrupted mortal form and partook of his untouched spirit, taking it into themselves so that the way of Arhra should endure for ever more.’

  Morr fell into silence and Motley wondered where the truth lay between the legends told in the craftworlds and those of the shrine of Arhra. Both seemed to agree he had fought against Chaos and fallen to it, but the stories diverged in regards to the outcome thereafter.

  It was almost a perfect ambush. The trees had begun to cluster more closely around the causeway as they got closer to the shrine, and they became bigger, and more gnarled with great exposed root systems that arched completely over the path itself in some places. The assailants had chosen a spot that was not so obvious as a passage beneath roots or through a particularly dense section. When Morr and Motley came to the natural amphitheatre created by four especially large trees they had already passed through a dozen similar sites already, and many better ones for assailants to lurk in waiting so they thought nothing of it. The spot was unremarkable rather than the perfect spot for an ambush, and because of that it came that much closer to succeeding.

  Motley stepped lightly along the causeway behind Morr with weapons out, projecting more confidence than he felt. He was straining every sense, probing the dark, misty hollows and tree boles around them. The great black mass of the shrine of Arhra had vanished behind the trees but he could still feel its presence, weighty and ominous, ahead of them. Suddenly as Motley looked forward on the causeway he caught sight of a darker shape in the mist. A flicker of movement and it was gone, but that was more than sufficient for Motley to cast caution to the winds and shout a warning.

  ‘Look out, Morr!’ Motley screamed. As the words left his lips a rustling and cracking of branches sounded all around. Four incubi sprang into view, surrounding them, two dropping from the overarching canopy like ugly spiders just as two burst out from behind concealing barriers of roots with flashing sweeps of their klaives. The black and green warriors were upon them in an instant, their double-handed klaives raised to hack and slay. Three closed in on Morr while the remaining one came for Motley with an easy slowness that betrayed his contempt for his allotted task.

  As quick as thought the bloodstone tusks affixed to Morr’s helm flashed with baleful energy. Spears of ruddy light transfixed one of the advancing incubi and sent them reeling back in the grip of a palsied shiver. Morr lunged forward to strike his incapacitated attacker, but his other two opponents quickly rushed forward and drove him onto the defensive. Klaives streaked through the air back and forth, block and counter, too fast for the eye to follow as Morr tried to hold his ground in the clash.

  The fourth incubus hefted his klaive to cut down Motley with a single stroke from neck to crotch. The long-barrelled pistol in Motley’s hand spat twice, striking sparks from the incubus’s warsuit but not materially impeding his progress. The klaive swept downward in an unstoppable killing blow and Motley seemed to explode into blinding shards of light. The incubus’s strike fell on empty air as Motley whirled away from beneath it, entirely hidden for a second by the activation of his Domino field. The incubus twisted his downward cut into a disembowelling swing, the two-metre blade sweeping after the frenetically dancing blur of colours.

  Motley leapt upwards and flipped himself backwards over the klaive as it rushed by beneath him. He got an inverted glance at Morr as he did so. Morr was lunging for one of his attackers again, but he had to turn and defend himself as the other immediately came at his back. The two incubi were circling to keep the towering incubus flanked while the third recovered from Morr’s opening blast of neural energy. The incubi would overwhelm Morr in seconds once all three came against him at once. Their three klaives to his one would beat down his guard, tear through his armour and spray his lifeblood across the causeway.

  Motley planted one foot on the flat of the blurring klaive and used it to boost off for a kick into his assailant’s face. His soft shoe did no damage at all to the incubus’s rigid war helm
, but the buffet was enough to disorient the warrior for a split second while Motley leapt completely over him. The harlequin landed behind the incubus’s back and spun to tap him lightly on the shoulder. The incubus roared in frustration and twisted to bring his klaive whistling around. As the incubus turned his arm was raised shoulder-high to drag the klaive in its glittering arc. Motley punched into the incubus’s armpit with deadly precision, striking for the chink where the armour plates separated for an instant.

  The incubus staggered at the seemingly weak blow and the klaive fell from his hands. The warrior reeled for a second more before collapsing back with blood leaking from every joint and seal in his armour. He was a victim of the harlequin’s kiss – a simple, deadly weapon unobtrusively strapped to Motley’s forearm. The tubular device contained a hundred metres of monomolecular wire tightly wound like a spring. By punching forward the monomolecular filaments were sent looping outward and then instantly withdrawn. If the tip of the wire pierced a target’s flesh the unfurling wires would turn their innards into the consistency of soup in a split second.

  Motley wasted no time in mourning his opponent’s messy demise. He snapped his attention back to where Morr was fighting for his life against the other three attackers. Morr had succeeded in driving one of his foes into the marsh at the edge of the causeway. He was keeping the other at bay with vicious swipes of his klaive in between hammering blows down on the one he had trapped, but his third opponent had recovered and was re-entering the fray. As Morr turned to hurl one last, desperate blow against his foe in the marsh the others seized their chance and leapt forward with klaives swinging for Morr’s back. Motley was already moving, his pistol levelling for a shot into the swirling melee that could not possibly change the outcome.

  Too late Morr’s attackers realised they had been duped. The towering incubus altered his klaive’s direction at the last moment and he swung with it, spinning aside with the momentum to bring the deadly blade looping around into the two behind him. The blow was wild and poorly-aimed, either one of the incubi would have dodged or parried it alone. But the two close together, one with reflexes still slowed by neural bombardment, interfered with one another’s defences fatally. The hooked tip of Morr’s klaive crunched home and wrenched free in a bloody spray. One of the incubi fell back with a partially severed arm flopping grotesquely.

  Motley bounded across the intervening space, the pistol in his hands pumping shots into the injured incubus almost as an afterthought. He hoped that Morr would understand what he was attempting to do and not accidentally eviscerate him with a wild swing. The towering incubus appeared completely focused on his duel and the glittering arcs of swinging klaives bisected the air without cease. Motley angled off the causeway and into the marsh, his light steps leaving no imprint in the quagmire as he ran.

  The incubus that Morr had driven back was struggling his way out of the morass when he saw Motley closing in on him as a scintillating blur of colour. His klaive came up defensively and Motley slid in beneath it, creating a small tidal wave of muck as the harlequin skidded inside the incubus’s guard. Motley struck faster than a snake, punching his harlequin’s kiss up where the incubus’s helm met his cuirass – precisely at the point where the weaker neck seal could not resist the deadly, unfurling wire. The incubus’s head left his body in a spectacular gout of crimson, the gore-slicked, hair-fine medusa’s nest of coiling wire visible for a fraction of a second before it retracted inside the harlequin’s kiss.

  Motley turned to see Morr hacking at the two remaining incubi with a lethal onslaught of blows. The injured one was struggling to wield his klaive one-handed as Morr relentlessly drove him into his compatriot in an effort to entangle them both. Recognising the danger the surviving incubus ruthlessly cut down his companion without a second’s thought. Motley tensed to leap to Morr’s aid but then stopped himself. Morr would never accept his help in a one-on-one fight without resentment. Instead Motley forced himself to stand quietly to watch the dazzling storm of blades, allowing himself to enjoy its lethal precision for a moment.

  Back and forth the blades swung, tireless as metronomes. Morr’s greater size and reach was slowly wearing his opponent down, but Morr, too, was tiring. The frenetic energy Morr had used in defending himself against multiple opponents was taking its toll. His klaive was moving a fraction slower, his parries were a modicum less sure. His opponent sensed the change and settled into a punishing rhythm intended to leach away the last of Morr’s endurance. Whenever Morr tried to give ground to buy himself respite his opponent followed up relentlessly. Morr circled to avoid being driven off the causeway and countered with a murderous assault of his own, flinging back his smaller foe with a flurry of blows that used the last dregs of his strength.

  Only at the last moment did Motley realise what Morr was trying to do. Intent on Morr, the other incubus had his back to Motley and Morr’s assault was pushing him virtually into the harlequin’s arms. Morr’s blank-faced helm glowered straight at Motley for a moment and then he understood. Motley exploded into action, leaping forward to punch his harlequin’s kiss down into the nape of the incubus’s neck. The last assailant jerked once spasmodically and collapsed like a puppet with its string cut. An eerie silence descended over the bloodstained scene.

  ‘Sorry,’ Motley panted. ‘Didn’t realise you’d want me interfering in your little duel at the end there.’

  ‘Fair fights are for fools and romances,’ Morr grated, his voice still taut with bloodlust.

  ‘But you said before… Well, never mind I suppose,’ Motley said. ‘I’m just glad there were only four of them.’

  ‘There was a fifth,’ Morr stated flatly. ‘I do not know why they did not engage us, it would have tipped the odds in their favour.’

  Motley recalled the flicker of movement he had seen before the trap was sprung. Morr was right, none of their four assailants had come from the same direction. Someone was still ahead of them on the causeway, between them and the shrine.

  ‘It would seem the odds were already in their favour, my old friend, but no match for us,’ Motley preened. ‘I’m happy I could be of assistance.’

  Morr grunted and hefted his klaive on to his shoulder. He started to walk away along the causeway and then paused for a moment in uncharacteristic indecision. The blank-faced helm half-turned towards Motley.

  ‘I was grateful for your help,’ Morr said slowly. ‘I have underestimated you in the past. I will not do so again.’

  Morr quickly turned and strode onward before Motley could respond. The harlequin trailed after the towering incubus wondering if he had been complimented or threatened, or both. He decided not to ask Morr exactly what he had seen along the causeway, it was unlikely the incubus’s visual acuity was better than Motley’s own. Aside from that Motley was unsure just how Morr would react if he knew that Motley had caught, just for an instant, the distinct impression of burning eyes set into a many-bladed helm before the mysterious figure vanished into the mist.

  In the lightless pits beneath Commorragh a curious procession was cautiously worming its way through the labyrinth of the Black Descent. A secret master masked in metal led two creatures made of metal. They glided easily through the air at the master’s heels like obedient hounds, small for their kind but still as sleek and deadly as hornets. Behind them a group of wracks struggled along bowed down by the weight of cables, tripods and fluid-filled alembics. The secret master leading them, a haemonculus known as Mexzchior, loved the engines like a father – and they were indeed his children, after a fashion.

  From his earliest days Mexzchior had developed a supreme fascination with metal in all its aspects, its purity and malleability. He had dedicated himself to finding ways of imbuing metal with life, transforming life into metal and, most of all, teaching metal how to scream.

  The two engines that accompanied him, entities Mexzchior designated as Vhi and Cho, were living beings with spirit, directio
n and purpose – of that he had no doubt. They represented the pinnacle of his art, part organic and part mechanical. Pain engines of their ilk had been built in many forms by many different haemonculi over the millennia, everything from the unlovely chainghouls of the Prophets of Flesh to the intricate masterworks of the legendary master haemonculus, Vlokarian. Despite this Mexzchior liked to believe that his creations were truly unique.

  It was true that there were many larger engines, the segmented carapaces of Vhi and Cho were narrower and shorter than most. They slipped silently through the air a scant half-metre above the ground with their scorpion-like tails curving up to just above head-height. Some had mocked his creations as being puny but Mexzchior had quickly silenced them when he demonstrated the speed and agility gained through their design. Very few of the critics had survived the demonstration.

  Mexzchior had configured Vhi closely after the classic Talos pain engine style. Its scorpion tail mounted a heat lance for a barb while its underbelly was a swinging mass of chain-flails, razor-edged pincers and surgical saws. Vhi could burn through bulkheads, burst in doors, crush, maim and disembowel with a fierce glee that was a pleasure to behold. Cho was more esoteric in her outfitting, closer to the Cronos parasite engine in function. Cho attacked its victim’s vitality in an altogether different fashion than Vhi. Its weapon were fluted, crystalline devices of sinister import, its armoured shell was covered in bristling antenna and twitching resonator-vanes.

  Mexzchior would have been hard put to choose one of his children over the other, but if the great tyrant were to descend from Corespur and demand that one of his engines be destroyed he would have to keep Cho. She had developed a distinctive personality in Mexzchior’s mind, subtle and almost playful in comparison to the brash, direct Vhi. Cho was a time-thief rather than a destroyer, a macabre hunter that could drain the very life-essence from its victims leaving them as nothing more than wizened husks.