THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY
Graham McNeill
The man was too weak to scream as Obax Zakayo picked him up by the ankle and tossed him into the wide fanged jaws of the furnace. None of the other slaves looked up at this fresh atrocity. None dared to. The wrath of Obax Zakayo was a capricious thing; unpredictable and random and no-one in this sweltering hell could be counted safe from his spite.
The murderous giant took a lumbering step through the orange-lit nightmare of the forge temple, bellowed commands laced with grating static booming from the vox-amp built into his burnished iron shoulder guard. Yellow and black chevrons edged the plates of his power armour and hissing pipes wheezed from every joint, leaking stinking black fluids and venting puffs of steam with every step. He carried a screaming axe, its edge toothed and brutal, and a crackling energy whip writhed on the end of a mechanised claw attached to his back.
Billowing clouds of steam and exhaust gasses filled the forge, shot through with streaks of bright flames. Fat orange sparks flew from vast grinding machines and rivers of lava-hot metal streamed from colossal cauldrons – each larger than a titan’s head – into grooved weapon moulds. Monstrous, debased creatures in vulcanised rubber masks with rounded glass eye sockets and ribbed piping running into tanks carried on their backs cracked barbed whips. They lurched with a twisted, mutated gait and gurgled monotone commands to the hundreds of slaves that filled the screaming forge.
That such malnourished, wretched specimens of humanity could still live and work in such a terrible place was testament to the indomitable spirit that had sustained them in the time since their capture. None amongst them knew how long it had been since they had been dragged in chains from the proud defence of an Imperial citadel to this nightmare world. A world where a black sun beat down from a sky that burned a retina-searing white and from which smoky black threads poured into a cyclopean city of such insane proportions that men had been driven mad just by gazing upon its impossible geometries for too long.
Some three thousand men had been brought to this world, called Medrengard by its inhabitants, though less than a quarter of that number still lived. Whipped, beaten and fed barely enough to survive, their incarceration was little more than a slowly enacted death sentence. The grinning face at the end of the forge’s nave roared and seethed, filling the air with a screeching howl of fury. Here, an incarcerated daemon’s immaterial energies drove the ceaseless hammering of giant pistons while its anger heated the furnaces with the power of a star. Golden wards carved into the floor bound the daemon to its fate, and its red eyes blazed above the forge, driving men to madness and murder.
But such was a small price, and gladly paid by the masters of the forge. A hundred slaves or more died every day, but the Iron Warriors cared not.
Where a hundred died, a thousand more would be brought to work until death claimed them as well.
A trio of tracked bulldozer engines hauled themselves into the forge, dragging rusted troughs behind them through the knee-deep ash. More of the rubber-masked mutants drove the dozers and, even before they stopped, slaves clustered around them, leaning over the edges of the troughs to scoop up handfuls of the thin, greyish gruel that slopped around their bases. Men who had once called each other brother and had fought the dark powers shoulder to shoulder, punched and kicked each other bloody as they fought for the meagre scraps their captors allowed them.
Sergeant Ellard carefully made his way through the press of bodies to where a slumped figure sat exhausted, his head drooping between his knees. Unkempt, filth-encrusted hair that had once been blonde, but was now dull and grey covered most of the figure’s ash-smeared face.
‘Sir,’ said Ellard, ‘some food.’
The figure looked up, red-rimmed and bloodshot eyes stared at the sergeant through the lank rats’ tails of his hair, but said nothing.
‘Sir, you have to eat,’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’ll get sick if you don’t eat.’
‘We’re already dying, Ellard, remember? The Adeptus Mechanicus made sure of that with their damned cancers, so what’s the point in postponing death?’
Ellard squatted on his haunches, still holding out his dripping hands, coolly regarding his commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Leonid.
‘Because we’re soldiers of the 383rd Jouran Dragoons,’ said Ellard. ‘We don’t give up until the last breath has been crushed from us.’
‘Just like Corde,’ said Leonid.
‘What?’
‘Never mind,’ said Leonid, holding out his hands and allowing Ellard to pour what passed for nourishment into his hands. He looked at the grey liquid, oily patches of Emperor only knew what floating like a frothy scum on its surface. He raised his hands to his mouth and drank the foul broth, feeling the gristly lumps of meat catch in his throat. He didn’t know what meat it was and didn’t want to think too hard about the strongest possibility of its identity.
He felt his stomach cramp and fought the familiar urge to vomit its contents onto the ground. The carcinogens he and his regiment had been infected with were making their presence felt and Leonid closed his eyes as a jagged spike of pain ripped through his gut.
But Ellard was right, they were soldiers of Jouran and the Emperor, and they did not give up, no matter that they were all dead men who refused to lie down. He forced down the last mouthful of the gruel and watched as the Iron Warrior bastard, Obax Zakayo, marched down the length of the forge, the loathsome claw on his back cracking the energy-wreathed whip into the huddled masses of slaves.
‘On your feet, scum!’ he bellowed. ‘There’s work to be done. I’ll grind your bones to powder and feed you to the daemon of the forge! Up! Up!’
How could it have come to this? Though it seemed he had spent a lifetime toiling in this nightmare existence, he knew it could not have been long. A few scant months since the citadel of Hydra Cordatus had fallen to the Iron Warriors and they had been dragged off in chains to the echoing prison hulks in orbit.
His last sight of the citadel had been of its walls being cast down, its once-proud buildings in flames and the desecrated corpses of Captain Eshara’s Imperial Fists scattered before the Valedictor Gate like offal. Herded like animals onto the darkened prison barges of the traitors, they had been kept chained and beaten until arriving at this terrifying place.
Leonid knew that the galaxy was a big place, with many strange and incredible sights, but this was something else entirely. Hoary old veterans told tales of worlds located in a horrifying place known as the Eye of Terror, where mighty daemons and the followers of the Ruinous Powers ruled supreme. They spoke of insane worlds where gods whose name could never be spoken held sway over all before them and who shaped their worlds to their lunatic whims. Like others, he had laughed at these tales, though there had always been an edge of fear to the laughter. What if they were true?
Now he knew they were.
The shadow of Obax Zakayo swallowed him, the monster in dark iron armour thrown into silhouette by the fires of the furnace.
‘You. Slave. Stand up,’ ordered the Iron Warrior.
Leonid rose to his feet. To disobey Obax Zakayo was to die and, as wretched as their lot was, he was damned if he’d die at this bastard’s hands.
The Iron Warrior leaned down, the hot breath from his helmet’s rebreather making Leonid gag and the yellow light from his visor bathing him in a sickly glow.
‘Slaves bring you food. You are their leader?’
‘I was,’ nodded Leonid. ‘Not now.’
Obax Zakayo laughed, the noise a harsh grating that scraped along Leonid’s nerves like a rust
y blade. He plucked at a tattered epaulette on Leonid’s shoulder, wiping away a film of grease and ash to reveal the faded gold shoulder boards of a lieutenant colonel.
‘You let yourself be captured,’ said Obax Zakayo. ‘The gods of battle will mock you for all eternity, slave.’
‘Better that than be damned for all eternity,’ snapped Leonid.
‘Damned?’ chuckled Obax Zakayo, as though hearing the word for the first time. ‘Perhaps, but I am immortal. Powerful. What are you?’
Leonid said nothing, feeling his hatred swell, but keeping a tight grip on its power. Hot pain suffused his limbs and though he was weary beyond measure, he stood firm in the face of the taunting Iron Warrior.
From the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of furtive movement and heard a muffled cry over the heavy hammering of the forge and the roar of the imprisoned daemon. Obax Zakayo caught the motion and turned in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of a swinging iron bar before it hammered into his helmet.
Leonid ducked back as the traitor dropped to one knee.
A group of scrawny slaves clambered across the engine block of the lead trough-hauler, dragging the masked creatures from within and bludgeoning them with jagged lumps of hardened ore. The daemon forge howled in glee at the slaughter, its wailings rising to a screaming gale.
Gunshots filled the forge and a handful of slaves went down. Blood spurted, spilling into the hissing weapon moulds and filling the air with its stink. Mutants tried to reverse the remaining two trough-haulers, but the enraged slaves were upon them, tearing them apart with a fury borne from months and months of systematic abuse and torture.
Sergeant Ellard reacted first, running over to join the slaves clambering across the nearest trough-hauler.
‘Turn it around!’ he bellowed, pointing to the forge’s main doors, which were being dragged shut by gangs of twisted mutants. Leonid grinned ferally, realising that this was their chance, when a powerful spasm tore through his stomach and doubled him up in pain. He dropped to his knees and vomited the putrid gruel he had eaten, feeling his stomach contract as it tried to expel his stomach lining.
A fierce madness seized the slaves as they beat their tormenters to bloody ruin, tears of released horror streaking their filth-encrusted faces. Giant cauldrons of molten metal passed overhead as one of the Jouran slaves finally managed to take control of the lumbering vehicle. The trough-hauler lurched forwards, its tracks spinning clouds of choking ash into the air.
Leonid watched as the cheering slaves clambered aboard, whooping in savage joy as it headed towards the exit and the burning white sky beyond.
Then Obax Zakayo regained his feet and raised his arm, a mass of twisting pipes, hissing vents and gun barrels. Leonid tried to shout a warning, but the pain in his belly had stolen his voice. Foot-long tongues of flame blasted from Obax Zakayo’s arm, explosive bolts ripping across the side of the trough-hauler, spilling slaves and blood to the ground. Screams and cries of pain echoed through the forge as the Iron Warrior worked the killing fire of his weapon over the slaves.
‘No!’ cried Leonid. ‘Stop!’
Obax Zakayo laughed in the face of Leonid’s protestations, reaching down to haul the former lieutenant colonel to his feet to better witness the slaughter. Blood and viscera coated the sides of the trough hauler as it slewed over to the side of the forge, the top of its driver’s head blasted clear. Slaves scattered before the Iron Warrior’s lethal retaliation, abandoning the trough-hauler to find cover.
Leonid twisted in his captor’s grip, watching as the trough-hauler slammed into the stanchions supporting the greased rails carrying the vast cauldrons of molten metal. The vehicle wasn’t moving quickly, but its sheer mass was enough to rip the stanchion from its moorings and crumple it with its momentum. The cauldron currently traversing the forge swayed in slow motion, tipping slowly to one side before toppling from the rails and dropping to the floor.
A wave of fiery liquid spilled out, magma-hot ore turning flesh, bone and metal to stinking clouds of vapour in a heartbeat. Scores of slaves perished in seconds, the trough-hauler dissolving into hissing molten slag. Rivers of red-hot metal rolled onwards in a deadly tide, the intricately carved runes of embossed gold on the floor flashing to steam under the heat.
As the river of molten metal rolled onwards to the forge mouth, yet more of the runes were obliterated and the roaring of the bound daemon in the forge rose to fresh heights of relish as more and more of the wards imprisoning it were destroyed.
Suddenly realising what must happen, Obax Zakayo dropped Leonid and ran for the forge’s exit, leaving the gasping Jouran coughing and spluttering as the hissing metal began cooling and slowing its advance.
But by then the damage was done.
The last rune dissolved and the daemon broke free.
Imprisoned for millennia, the scion of the warp was in no mood to be merciful and lashed out in blind fury, a frothing miasma of black light with a swirling vortex of forms and geometries twisting through its nebulous matter. Those closest to the daemon drew breath to scream, but did not have time to do so the flesh sloughed from their bones.
Leonid rolled aside as a dark tendril slashed the ground, leaving a hissing residue in its wake. A whipping, octopoid form writhed in the dark light, feeding on the powerful energies of fear and hate swirling around the inside of the forge. Streamers of black, oily matter whiplashed around the forge, slicing men to bloody ribbons and lifting others high into the air.
Skeletal husks dropped to the floor, bled dry of their souls and Leonid scrambled onto a growling piece of machinery to escape the creeping tide of cooling – though still fearsomely hot – molten metal. Throughout the forge, slaves scrambled for high ground, fighting like animals to secure their safety. Men hurled one another into the fires in desperate attempts to prolong their own lives.
The darkness flailed like madness given form, expanding and solidifying tentacles of dark matter smashing through the walls and roof of the forge as easily as a man might destroy a doll’s house. With a tortured shriek of shearing metal, the latticed girders of the roof and far wall buckled and tumbled to the floor. Leonid covered his head with his arms as smaller fragments and sheets of corrugated iron crashed down around him, praying to the God-Emperor that he might survive this carnage.
Long seconds passed before he realised that he was still alive and the screaming daemon was silent. He risked a glance through his fingers, seeing the burning white sky through the giant tear the vengeful daemon had ripped through the walls of the forge. Of the daemon itself, there was no sign, save a spot of darkness flaring into the sky.
Leonid grimaced in pain. Staring too long at that impossible sky was like staring directly into the sun, and he wrenched his gaze from its hateful brightness.
Little remained of the trough-haulers save hissing piles of molten metal. Here and there flames licked across the bones and charred limbs of slaves and mutants protruding from the hissing ore. The dull throbbing of the forge faded as the daemon-powered engines slowly ground to a halt, the hammers and pistons starved and useless.
As Leonid took stock of the devastation the escaped daemon had wreaked, he was relieved to see Sergeant Ellard pull himself from behind the ruins of a giant milling machine.
Scores had died in the abortive – and unplanned – escape attempt, and those who had survived were too stupefied to take advantage of the momentary lack of overseers.
Leonid knew he had seconds at best to capitalise on the situation when the forge doors crashed open and a dozen Iron Warriors were thrown into stark relief by the bone-white sky.
Whatever chance they might once have had vanished like ash on the wind.
Leonid kept his eyes glued to the bleak, grey rockcrete platform, whorls of dust and ash describing wind-blown spirals before him. He tried to shut out the hateful screams of the sleepers as the burning sky blazed white above t
hem, beating down with fierce brightness, the dark hole of the sun rippling like a baleful eye. Fellow slaves and Jourans were pressed tightly around him, the stench of unwashed bodies, blood and fear mingling to create a heady cocktail of aromas.
The former lieutenant colonel shivered as daemonic scents gusted through them, expelled like corpse-breath from the newly formed tunnel mouths.
He risked a glance into its haunted blackness, feeling a splintering pain in his head as his limited senses tried to comprehend the shifting images of multiple realities intersecting with the sound of clashing blades and bells.
He felt every molecule in his body vibrate as the resonant frequencies of this dimensional abscess widened, rippling waves of sickness and filth spreading from this wound in space-time.
He could feel a terrible imminence, like the tension in the fabric of the sky before a storm. Something was coming. Something so dark and ancient that his mind could not even begin to comprehend the scope of its evil.
Then Obax Zakayo moved between him and the tunnel and its spell was broken.
‘You sense it’s coming intersection don’t you, slave? The Omphalos Daemonium.’
Leonid did not answer, his guts clamping in pain at the sound of such damned syllables given voice and wishing again that he had died on the journey to this cursed place.
The failed escape attempt in the forge had been paid for in the blood of his former soldiers. Obax Zakayo strode through the cowering survivors of the daemon’s escape, clubbing slaves to death with each sweep of his fist. Slaves were dragged from their hiding places and hurled onto spinning lathes, pressed into crushers or lowered into steaming vats of ore. Limbs were ground to gory stumps and bones crushed to powder within the jellied ruin of their flesh. No pain went unexplored and no form of suffering was omitted from the Iron Warriors’ retribution. Within minutes, hundreds were dead, slaughtered to sate the traitors’ lust for pain and humiliation.
Obax Zakayo had lifted Leonid from the ground and held him before his battered visor.
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